If you're wondering why New York's legislators keep getting arrested, New York Public Interest Research Group has an answer in a report that documents more than 100,000 violations of the state's campaign finance laws over the past two years. Like c ...
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On Tuesday, voters in the five school districts along the Mohawk River in Montgomery County and three around the Great Sacandaga Lake in Fulton County will head to the polls for that yearly exercise of approving a budget and picking school board memb ...
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It may not be unethical for judges to put vanity plates on their cars signifying their position, but it sure looks bad. And as the most prominent representatives of our system of justice, judges should know that appearances matter. The 2,265 judges ...
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Gov. Andrew Cuomo made a risky bet last week when he announced that efforts were under way to bring three casinos to upstate New York should a measure asking voters to allow non-Indian casinos in the state gain approval. State lawmakers are trying ...
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Gov. Andrew Cuomo has proposed a reform agenda to clean up the political corruption oozing from the pores of the state Capitol. With no particular urgency, the Legislature has responded with measures that can be trumpeted as designed to clean up Alba ...
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To put it plainly, the free ride for consumers who have been dodging sales taxes by buying over the Internet may be about to reach an overdue end. The Marketplace Fairness Act would have online retailers collect an estimated $22 billion to $24 bill ...
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The recent news of two massive housing projects should be embraced by Amsterdam for a variety of reasons. The owners of the River Ridge Assisted Living Center on the South Side recently announced plans to build a $25 million facility that will have ...
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Western New York has seen plenty of casino drama during the past decade, as the Cayuga Indian Nation of New York and the Seneca-Cayuga Tribe of Oklahoma have discussed -- and at times even struck tentative deals with state leaders -- opening Las Vega ...
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Now that the downtown Amsterdam hotel known as America's Best Value Inn has been auctioned off, its future is going to be important as officials continue to rebuild the city's downtown and the nearby waterfront. Last week, the hotel was auctioned o ...
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Really, now, how could the Obama administration seem to favor allowing a pipeline carrying oil from the tar sands of western Canada all the way to Texas without assessing how that would contribute to climate change? What qualifies as one of the mos ...
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This is how entrenched and notorious the culture of "pay to play" has become in New York politics. Preet Bharara, the latest in crusading U.S. attorneys, recounted a meeting he had with George Venizelos, the FBI's top official in the region, to dis ...
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The May 6 edition of Sports Illustrated should make the Boy Scouts of America board meeting a little easier. NBA center Jason Collins' declaration of his sexual orientation, and what will be his fleeting status as the only openly gay male athlete i ...
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William McDermott. Cheryl Goss. Paul Damphier. Jonathan DeJesus. People in the Amsterdam area and beyond will likely remember those names for a long time. All four were murdered in two horrific double homicides that took place within a few months of ...
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"Who wouldn't use torture on this punk to save more lives?" So tweeted state Sen. Greg Ball, R-Carmel, after Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was apprehended. Fortunately for us, the answer to Ball's question is, "The U.S. governm ...
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We are among those baffled by the suggestion from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security that imposing a fee for crossing the land borders into the U.S., from Canada and Mexico, is a subject worth studying. We support the stance of Rep. Bill Owen ...
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The horror continues to mount in Syria, where scores of bodies, most of them civilians, were recently discovered in a Damascus suburb. The victims are believed to have died in a weeklong offensive by forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad, who see ...
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Washington might have a gun control bill now were it not for President Barack Obama's overreach. The Great Divider has again lived up to the moniker by refusing to embrace a compromise position and refusing to embrace compromise in general. After a ...
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The latest corruption outbreak has spawned no fewer than four competing proposals to clean up Albany. Public financing of campaigns is at the center of three of them, and Gov. Andrew Cuomo says he's in favor. It is a concept whose time has come. When ...
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As New York continues to fight its way through economic turmoil, one proposal could help the state battle back. Lawmakers in Albany are considering a plan to legalize mixed martial arts fighting. New York is one of only two states -- Connecticut be ...
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Syracuse Mayor Stephanie Miner made serious waves earlier this year when she publicly challenged Gov. Andrew Cuomo's efforts to help financially distressed municipalities throughout the state. Miner was disappointed with the governor's budget propo ...
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At long last, work is expected to begin this year on a $16.5 million pedestrian bridge that will connect Amsterdam's north and south shores. The city has been waiting for quite some time for this to happen, as the span -- now called the Mohawk Valley ...
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As the Boy Scouts of America prepares for the 60th anniversary of the Pinewood Derby a month from today, a well-timed move is afoot in the California Legislature to strip tax-exempt status from Scouting and other nonprofit youth organizations that bl ...
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As a country, we have not yet accepted that in the understandable fear and anger after 9/11, suspected terrorists were tortured. An independent review released last week can be an important step to reach that truth -- and to make sure it never hap ...
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Change is hard. Learning can be hard. Changing learning, well, it's a bear. This partly explains the growing hysteria over a new battery of standardized tests being given to grades 3-8 which started last week in New York schools. The state has de ...
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Residents of the Greater Amsterdam and Broadalbin-Perth school districts ought to be pretty pleased with the budgets adopted by their respective school boards this week. It makes us wonder why school officials haven't been able to present spending ...
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