Sales tax revenue for local governments in New York dropped 5.2% last month compared to the same period last year, continuing a trend of plummeting revenue during the coronavirus pandemic.

The drop is the eighth straight month sales tax collections for local governments have seen a year-over-year decline.

The Associated Press declared a winner on Thursday in the 125th Assembly District race.

Democrat Anna Kelles will represent this district after maintaining her lead over Republican challenger Matthew McIntyre.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Friday announced an emergency summit with northeast governors would be held this weekend to discuss aligning coronavirus policy.

The summit could potentially lead to new restrictions as the pandemic continues to spread.

A cashless tolling system for the New York State Thruway will begin on Saturday morning, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in an interview with Spectrum News.

Workers will put the finishing touches on the new system Friday night, with drivers noticing the change the next day.

When Republican Dave Catalfamo conceded to Democratic Assemblywoman Carrie Woerner on Friday, he included this message: The mechanics of conducting an election are not perfect, but the vote was not rigged.

"Our democracy is our most precious gift as Americans, and our continued shared faith in that system is essential to our future," Catalfamo said in a statement. "While our voting system is imperfect, it is not rigged. This election result is fair, I accept it without reservation and I strongly urge all my supporters to do the same."

The state association that represents local prosecutors is seeking more money to support prosecuting repeat offenders, more aid for online training, and funding for processing evidence through cloud computing.

Those are among the priorities in the coming state budget year for the District Attorneys Association of New York ahead of what's expected to be a difficult season for negotiations surrounding the spending plan.

New York generated nearly $3.7 billion from gambling last year, more revenue than any other state. But what's the human cost of this money?

Comptroller Tom DiNapoli in a report released Thursday called for improving efforts to combat problem gambling in New York, pointing to the relatively low amounts of money contributed to treatment programs.

Starting on Friday, restaurants, bars, and gyms across the state will have to close every night at 10 p.m., due to the sharp rise in COVID-19 cases.

Melissa Fleischut, president and CEO of the New York State Restaurant Association, says these businesses are concerned with what this means moving forward.

For years, simply being gay was a legitimate reason to be dishonorably discharged from the military. Unfortunately, if a veteran is discharged dishonorably, he or she can be refused dozens of state benefits. But that excuse ended in New York yesterday when Governor Cuomo signed into law the Restoration of Honor Act, which went into effect today.

Assemblymember Didi Barrett, chair of the Assembly Committee on Veterans Affairs, spoke with Capital Tonight host Susan Arbetter about three of the bills (below) that she sponsored, as the first woman to chair this committee.

Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik is turning her considerable fundraising efforts toward the coming runoff for the two U.S. Senate seats in Georgia as the outcome could determine who controls the chamber next year.

"The consequences would be disastrous," Stefanik said in a fundraising appeal. "If we lose the Senate and Joe Biden is sworn in as our nation’s 46th president, there will be NO WAY to stop the Democrats’ most extreme agenda items.

With your kids learning remotely, COVID-19 hospitalization numbers back up, and the chaos around the presidential election, you might not remember that we had a census count just three weeks ago.

On Capital Tonight, Susan Lerner, executive director of Common Cause explained how the census count is used to determine how many members of Congress the state will have, and how district lines will be drawn.

Joanna Jansen is quick and efficient when packing her car, loading it up with tightly packed coolers of food to be delivered around Schenectady.

Jansen is helping fulfill a need -- hunger in upstate New York. Jansen works with the Catholic Charities' Meals on Wheels program. On any given route, she's delivering up to 20 meals to people.

Democratic Rep. Max Rose has conceded the 11th congressional district race to Republican Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis, his campaign on Thursday announced.

Malliotakis's victory means a Republican will once again represent a New York City-based House district after Rose in 2018 ousted Republican Dan Donovan.

The New York State Education Conference Board in a paper released Thursday urged state officials to not reduce aid to schools amid a budget season that could prove to be one of the toughest facing the state in a generation.

“In these unprecedented times, schools need more support, not less,” said the group's chairman John Yagelski. “Over the past months schools have supported families, teachers, staff and communities in astounding ways, and now is the time for our state policy makers to support them back.”

Contracts for services like gyms and fitness clubs that can be difficult to cancel could be a little easier under a measure approved this week by Governor Andrew Cuomo.

The law, backed by Senator Brad Hoylman and Assemblyman Jeff Dinowitz, requires businesses to make automatic renewal or continuous service offers to clearly provide the terms of agreement to consumers. The businesses would be prevent from charging consumers without their consent.

Robert Viteri, or Bobby as he is better known, has been living in a nursing home facility for the past four years.

Viteri was diagnosed with a rare neurological degenerative disorder that makes it difficult for him to eat, speak, or move on his own.

Republican Rep. Tom Reed is temperamentally the opposite of President Donald Trump. Where Trump is brash and vocal, Reed is low key. Where Trump embraces political trench fighting, Reed has emphasized commonality.

The Washington under Joe Biden may be more to Reed's personality and his approach to governing. The new Congress will be far more narrowly divided: Democrats are expected to hold a thin majority in the House of Representatives; the Senate could be split 50-50.

In the New York State Legislature, the 40-member Senate Democratic conference needs a net gain of two seats to enjoy a super majority, which would give it the ability to override a possible gubernatorial veto.

Because of the so-called "blue shift," a phenomenon in which more Democrats voted by absentee this year than Republicans, Democrats are feeling quite confident they will win those two seats, and possibly more. One reason? Republicans around the country had discouraged early and absentee voting, while Democrats supported it.

Bars, restaurants and gyms will be required to close in New York by 10 p.m. starting on Friday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Wednesday announced.

Gatherings at private homes, meanwhile, will also be limited to no more than 10 people, Cuomo said, in an effort to control the coronavirus pandemic.

Litigants with deep pockets sometimes play poker with lawsuits. They will file suit against people they want to intimidate or silence hoping that the plaintiffs are scared enough to simply stop criticizing them. The suits aren’t intended to succeed on their merits, only to stifle another party’s first amendment rights.

Governor Cuomo on Tuesday signed a bill into law that could significantly hamper frivolous lawsuits brought by powerful people and corporations that have been used in this way to stifle free speech. The legislation, sponsored by Assemblywoman Helene Weinstein and Senator Brad Hoylman, is known as “SLAPP,” which stands for “Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation.”

Chancellor Jim Malatras announced on Wednesday that SUNY will be forming a Veteran and Military Action Council that will work to increase college access for all current and prospective military-connected students.

The council will work to close the current gap in tuition assistance for all those serving in Active Duty, Reserve, and in the National Guard. This means that military-connected students would be paying about $250 per credit.

Joe Biden was able to surpass 270 electoral votes with a coalition of young voters, older voters and suburbanites, especially women, in the 2020 election.

That's according to Bruce Gyory, a political science adjunct professor and a former advisor to New York governors.

Dozens of groups in a letter to top state elected officials this week urged them to take up a clean fuel standard for the transportation sector.

The push was initially made at the start of the year. But as the response to the COVID-19 pandemic took center stage this year, advocates are now looking to next year and the coming state budget talks in 2021.

Coronavirus cases are increasing in nursing homes across the country coinciding with a national surge in the pandemic, a report from a health care group released on Tuesday found.

The report from the American Health Care Association and National Center for Assisted Living found the largest increase in nursing home coronavirus cases has been centered in midwest states since mid-September.

The rate of positive COVID-19 cases in New York did not slow down during election week, and now health care workers are voicing concern over this continued increase in hospitalizations.

Lona DeNisco, a registered nurse and member of the New York State Nurses Association, says nurses want reassurance that the problems they encountered in March will not happen again if the rate of these cases continues to climb.

Simply stated, the stock transfer tax is a sales tax on stock purchases. It’s one of a slew of tax increases that labor unions, advocacy groups, and educators are pushing for as New York state faces an unwieldy budget deficit.

Capital Tonight host Susan Arbetter discussed the pros and cons of the tax with UUP president, Dr. Fred Kowal.

For Union-Endicott School Superintendent Nicole Wolfe, the challenge of testing teachers and students has always been about planning and communication.

Broome County has been under a yellow zone designation due to rising COVID-19 cases and for Wolfe, that has meant COVID-19 tests for at least 400 people a week.

Nearly every region of New York is seeing increasing positive cases of COVID-19, while hospitalizations due to the virus have steadily increased in New York over the last week, according to numbers released on Tuesday by Governor Andrew Cuomo's office.

The statewide positivity rate, based on tens of thousands of test results in the last day, stood over 3%, while hospitalizations have reached 1,548 patients. Thirty-two people were confirmed to have died of COVID-19 in the last day.

New York is part of a coalition of 20 states plus the District of Columbia backing the Affordable Care Act as the health care law once again faces a challenge in the U.S. Supreme Court.

A signature law for President Obama approved in 2009, the measure has withstood challenges before, but a key piece of the law requiring Americans to purchase health insurance was removed by Congress and President Donald Trump in 2017.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo has long history with President-elect Joe Biden. Both men come from wings of the Democratic Party that emphasize a form of political moderation, compromise and deal making.

But Cuomo's support for Biden also comes with some wants and needs for New York when the new administration takes over in 2021.

The news that Pfizer, Inc. has made significant headway on a potential vaccine for COVID-19 has led New York officials to call for it to be distributed as widely as possible.

Governor Andrew Cuomo in recent weeks has raised concerns with the Trump administration's plan to distribute the vaccine through commercial pharmacies, arguing the move would hurt urban centers that do not have a CVS or a Walgreens nearby.

The New York State United Teachers on Monday unveiled a website meant to help people track COVID-19 health and safety concerns in schools.

The website, NYSUTCovidTracker.org, allows users to search by school district using a map of the state that highlights confirmed coronavirus cases.

Democratic Representative Tom Suozzi in an email to supporters on Monday said he was confident he would pull ahead of his Republican challenger George Santos after being down 4,000 votes after Election Day.

"We will win," Suozzi wrote in the email, expecting the final outcome to be clear within two weeks.

Tucked away behind a 16-foot-tall fence and security gate, a somewhat innocuous gray building houses one of the state’s ten regulated organizations allowed to sell medical marijuana.

Vireo Health’s cultivation and processing facility was one of the first in New York when the state launched its medical marijuana program in 2016.

Assembly Minority Leader Will Barclay tested positive for COVID-19 on Monday.

In a statement, Barclay wrote:

It could be a tough couple of budget years for state lawmakers and Gov. Andrew Cuomo. The coronavirus pandemic has wreaked havoc on the state's financial situation and the aftershocks could take years to get over.

President-elect Joe Biden has signaled he is willing to support a multi-year stimulus plan for cash-strapped states and cities, effectively pumping money into these governments to help pay for schools, police departments, and social services. But there are uncertainties, including over which party will ultimately control the U.S. Senate.

Syracuse Mayor Ben Walsh called the "yellow" zone designation for his city a "wake up call" for residents amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, he said on Monday in a Capital Tonight interview.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo earlier in the day announced Erie, Monroe, and Onondaga counties would be placed under the designation, which places limits on gatherings in public places and requires schools test students for COVID-19.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced new micro-cluster zones in upstate New York Monday, including parts of Erie, Monroe, and Onondaga counties designated as “yellow zones.”

“This is going to be the constant for the foreseeable future. Every few days we will say this place became a micro-cluster. This place is a no longer a micro-cluster,” Cuomo said.

A New York State Supreme Court on Staten Island Monday upheld the state's restrictions on indoor dining capacity amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The decision by Judge Thomas Aliotta backs the state's capacity limits afte several restaurants had filed suit to challenge the regulations. At the same time, New York is limiting indoor dining in parts of Erie, Monroe and Onondaga counties as part of an effort to lower the COVID postive rate in those areas.

Absentee ballots in New York would be counted as they arrive to elections officials under a bill being proposed by Democratic Senator David Carlucci.

The measure comes as more than one million absentee ballots have already been returned to elections officials this year amid a wave of ballots. New York officials made it easier to apply for and receive an absentee ballot, creating essentially an end to excuses to get one, due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

President Donald Trump was running a "reality show" that has run its course, Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Monday told Howard Stern in a wide-ranging interview that touched on the pandemic and his family.

"With Trump, I had an enemy every day," Cuomo said. "He was anti-New York, by the way. He was mad at New York. He hated us."

As Pfizer, Inc. on Monday announced it was close to developing an effective COVID-19 vaccine, Gov. Andrew Cuomo in an interview with Good Morning America raised renewed concerns surrounding the Trump administration's distribution plan.

Cuomo has previously knocked the plan, which relies on private-sector pharmacy chains like CVS to distribute a vaccine.

President-elect Joe Biden's transition team pledged to aid state and local governments whose finances have been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic as the new administration and its priorities begin to take shape.

Biden on Saturday claimed victory in the election hours after major media outlets projected he had secured 270 electoral votes; President Donald Trump has vowed to fight the outcome in court.

SPECTRUM NEWS VIDEO: Spectrum News is continuing to follow news that the AP is projecting Joe Biden to be the next president of the United States.

This is historic for many reasons, one being that Kamala Harris is projected to be the first woman of color to serve as Vice President. Our Nick Reisman sat down with Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart Cousins to discuss this groundbreaking moment.

What does smoking peyote in a Native American sacrament have to do with a Roman Catholic adoption agency in Philadelphia?

Quite a lot, according to Albany Law Professor Vin Bonventre.

Voters in New Jersey, Arizona, South Dakota, and Montana all passed legislation on Tuesday legalizing recreational marijuana.

This means that recreational use is now legal in 15 states, including most of the states that border New York.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo is running out of ways to say he won't be joining a Joe Biden administration.

Cuomo called into NY1 on Friday to talk about the latest on the coronavirus pandemic as the presidential election remains too close to call.

The investigation of President Donald Trump's business interests by New York officials won't end if he loses re-election, Attorney General Letitia James said in an interview on Friday.

"Regardless of whether or not an individual sits in a particular office is really irrelevant to our investigation," James told Spectrum News. "Our investigation will continue, because no one is above the law."

The polls showing a potential landslide for Democrat Joe Biden against incumbent President Donald Trump so far haven't been borne out in reality.

Some, including New York Conservative Party Chairman Gerry Kassar think the president's performance came in part from a form of COVID fatigue after months of restrictions, lockdowns and limits on large gatherings.

Democrats are far outpacing Republicans in absentee ballots statewide in New York, an indication final vote totals in several races could tighten in coming days as the ballots are counted.

As of midday on Friday, there were more than 1.4 million absentee ballots sent to Democratic voters and 383,559 ballots sent to Republicans. Among those who are not enrolled in a party, there were 462,441 ballots, according to numbers provided by the state Board of Elections.

SUNY students will not be returning to school after Thanksgiving break, and Governor Andrew Cuomo is now asking private colleges to consider doing the same.

SUNY students will be tested before they go home for Thanksgiving and continue to learn remotely after that. New York’s statewide positive COVID-19 infection rate increased to 1.9%. Cuomo says upstate New York is doing worse than downstate.

A very different kind of campaign fundraising can begin after Election Day.

Campaigns on Thursday began asking supporters to help sustain their bids for office days after voting ended in hopes of gaining office through the absentee ballot count.

Claims made without evidence that the presidential election is marred by fraud were blasted on Thursday by New York Attorney General Letitia James.

President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden remain neck and neck in a handful of key swing states were a clear winner is yet to emerge.

New York's minor parties this year faced the challenge of reaching a higher threshold to maintain its ballot status and, potentially, its existence as an ongoing party.

At stake: Reaching at least 130,000 votes or 2% of all votes cast on a party's presidential ticket. Failure to do so would mean removal from the ballot in the next cycle, a potentially expensive petitioning process to get back on and notifying voters enrolled in the party their affiliation has been changed to no party.

According to former federal prosecutor Michael Koenig, a partner in the firm Hinckley Allen, several of the lawsuits that the Trump campaign has brought in swing states are premature.

“We need to count the votes. There are smart voices on both sides of the aisle who are saying the same thing right now. Count the votes,” said Koenig.

Democrats underperformed at every level of government all around the country, while Republicans exceeded expectations.

According to Grant Reeher, a political science professor at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, it’s an indication that voters didn’t receive a clear message from the party.

New York's tax revenue is expected to have lost more than $4 billion compared to the previous fiscal year as the coronavirus pandemic continues to wreak havoc on the state's finances.

Revenue is expected to decline by 5.6%, according to a report released on Thursday by Comptroller Tom DiNapoli's office. The state is seeking billions of dollars in aid from the federal government while a stimulus measure has stalled in Congress since the spring.

New York has seen a 192-patient rise in COVID-19 hospitalizations in the last week, according to numbers released by Gov. Andrew Cuomo's office on Thursday.

There are now 1,277 people hospitalized in New York in 46 counties. In the last day, hospitalizations have increased by a net of 24 patients. Newly admitted patients stood at 164 people. Twenty four people were confirmed to have died of COVID-19 in the last day.

Interim State Education Commissioner Betty A. Rosa announced Thursday that all New York State Regents exams set to be administered in January 2021 are canceled.

At this time, no decisions have been made regarding Regents tests set for June and August, as well as any other state assessment programs.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo never expected a blowout for Joe Biden.

"This is a divided nation," Cuomo said on Thursday on WAMC, his first comments since Election Day. "We always knew it was going to be a close election."

Gov. Andrew Cuomo expects a potential Biden administration will push for a new coronavirus aid package to support state and local governments that have been ravaged by the COVID-19 pandemic.

But the details of the measure — including how much New York receives to cover billions of dollars in lost revenue — will likely be up to a negotiation between the possible new president and Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

More than a dozen women in congressional races around the country backed by Rep. Elise Stefanik's political action committee won their races, her campaign said Thursday morning.

The E-PAC contributions are part of a larger push by Stefanik to elect more GOP women to the House of Representatives.

The state Board of Elections will not starting counting the over 1 million absentee ballots returned so far, until at the earliest Friday.

All 213 Legislative seats were up for reelection this year, but results for some of these races is still in limbo.

Ballot counting is underway across key battleground states and giving Joe Biden an edge, but President Trump's campaign is expected to challenge many of these votes in court.

The claim last night that President Trump asserts, without evidence, there's fraud going on that could deprive him of a second term.

Both Democratic Party Chairman Jay Jacobs and Republican Party Chairman Nick Langworthy joined Capital Tonight host Susan Arbetter on Wednesday with their thoughts on election night.

With two Congressional seats in upstate New York and one on Staten Island leaning toward Republican victories (with the caveat that absentee ballots still need to be counted), Jacobs acknowledged that it wasn’t a great night for Democrats, and he credited the president.

Ten years ago, a narrow race between Democrat Craig Johnson and Republican Jack Martins wasn't decided in the GOP's favor until December.

In 2014, Democrat Cecilia Tkaczyk narrowly squeaked out a victory over Republican George Amedore in a race that was not decided until well into the legislative session.

Nick Langworthy was perhaps the happiest New York Republican chairman on the day after Election Day in at least a decade.

And Langworthy has a lot to be happy about. The enrollment numbers are indeed gloomy for Republicans statewide. But the down ballot results, if they hold, are good for a party that many expected to lose big with President Donald Trump at the top of the ticket.

The dust is yet to settle in the vote count nationally and in New York. Absentee ballots, of which there were more than 2 million sent to voters in New York alone, won't be opened until later this week.

So that makes it difficult, amid an election conducted during a pandemic, to get a good sense of what happened last night as many results remain inconclusive. Still, there are emerging developments in New York that will have some consequences going forward.

The Working Families Party and the Conservative Party say they have achieved enough votes on their presidential ticket to retain ballot status into the new election cycle.

The development is a victory for both parties -- which have sought to tug the Democrats and Republicans to the left and right respectively -- amid a new and more difficult threshold for votes.

All 213 Legislative seats were up for re-election this year and while it is too close to call still for a few of the major races, it is looking to be a disappointing election for Senate Democrats.

Democrats needed two more seats to gain a supermajority but they could end up losing between 4-5 Senate seats, possibly more, according to the State Board of elections website.

The fate of New York's budget, its school spending, and even whether it increases taxes on the rich, for once, doesn't hinge on what happens within the state's borders.

It depends on what happens in Maine. Or Colorado. Or Florida. Or Pennsylvania.

Here's a data point to keep in mind if you want to go to bed early Tuesday night, but don't want to miss any key results: More than 2.5 million absentee ballots have been sent to New York voters. And as of Friday, more than 1.2 million have been returned.

Some of these voters may have cast their ballots in person either on Election Day or during early voting. Some may have decided to null their absentee vote and vote in person.

Robocalls to voters have warned them against going to the polls today, some darkly hinting that it is unsafe to do so.

The reports of the calls have become so concerning that New York Attorney General Letitia James on Tuesday afternoon said she had opened an investigation into the calls. Voters who have received the calls should contact her office, she said. The state attorney general's office has issued subpoenas to investigate their source.

Let's jump ahead a year. Where does the Working Families Party plan to make a difference in 2021?

The party on Tuesday morning in a memorandum by State Director Sochie Nnaemeka signals it plans to take an active role in municipal races and in state legislative policy.

It’s cliche at this point to say this is an Election Day like no other, given the coronavirus pandemic and the general sense of urgency for those on both sides of a bitterly divided nation.

But in New York, this is a very unusual day, too: more than 2.5 million New Yorkers have already cast their ballots in the first year early voting has been held in a presidential election year. There are millions of absentee ballots that have been sent to voters. The outcome of many races potentially won’t be certain for days or even weeks after today.

Cities around the country are already starting to prepare for potential protests as soon as the polls close on Tuesday night.

In Los Angeles, Rodeo Drive will be on lockdown for two days starting on election night, and in New York City, businesses are boarding up their storefronts once again.

It's the year 2002: A Republican has been re-elected governor for the third time in a row. A year earlier, a Republican replaced a Republican New York City mayor. The GOP is in firm control of the New York Senate. Sure, Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer dethroned Al D'Amato and Attorney General Eliot Spitzer is an up and comer, but 2006 feels like a long way off for Democrats.

That was, in some respects, the high water mark for Republicans in New York as a statewide force. Since then, there's been a stagnation in enrollment and statewide victories. These are demographic problems that for the moment seem impossible for the party in New York to overcome.

A poll released last week by The Education Trust–New York reveals significant concerns among parents from low-income backgrounds and parents of color about the quality of remote learning, even as their children are more likely to be learning remotely.

According to Ian Rosenblum, executive director of The Education Trust-New York, the disparities between education in low and high wealth communities has been exacerbated by remote learning. One reason why? Higher-income parents are more likely to be supplementing their child’s education with tutoring, or with “learning pods” outside public school options.

Upstate New York is in for a long post-pandemic recovery process, according to Unshackle Upstate, a non-partisan education and advocacy coalition made up of business and trade organizations. One of the strategies Unshackle is promoting is the creation of an upstate caucus.

“Several years ago there was a group of lawmakers from Long Island known as the Long Island Nine. They protected Long Island’s interests,” Unshackle chairman Brian Sampson told Capital Tonight. “I would like to see something similar for upstate New York.”

Voters in New York should be prepared for the results of elections not being definitive until days, or perhaps even weeks, after Tuesday, the good-government group Common Cause on Monday said.

On traditional election nights, the votes cast that day can provide an idea of not just who is "ahead" in the counting, but often close to a reasonably definitive result of the final outcome once all votes cast are counted.

Capital Tonight asked several scholars about post-election scenarios that scare the hell out of them.

Four academics responded to our request. Here’s what they told us, starting with an important reminder, and a post-election timeline:

Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Monday once again assailed the federal government's planned distribution of a potential COVID-19 vaccination after officials signaled they would seek personal identification numbers of patients.

Cuomo in a conference call said he was concerned the seeking of personal identification numbers could lead federal agencies to track undocumented immigrants.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo in a robocall released on Monday urged Long Islanders to re-elect Sen. Jim Gaughran, a Democrat who won a key district two years ago.

"Jim Gaughran is a great leader for Long Island," Cuomo says in the call. "I've worked with him personally; he's doing a great job."

There are now more New York voters who decided to not enroll in a party than there are registered Republicans in the state, newly released numbers from the state Board of Elections show.

The numbers, released Monday, show there are 2,744,859 active Republicans in New York compared to 2,750,309 active voters who did not enroll in party. Democrats now have more than six million registered voters in the state.

More than 2.5 million New Yorkers have cast their ballots early this year after nine days of early voting, according to preliminary numbers from the state Board of Elections.

The final day of early voting was on Sunday, the first year it was offered in a presidential election. There were 7.8 million votes cast in the 2016 presidential election.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Saturday outlined a new travel rule for those coming into New York amid rising coronavirus cases across the country.

Gone is a travel quarantine advisory for individual states that required travelers entering New York to isolate themselves for 14 days.

Beyond the sound bites alleging “Balter’s healthcare plan is extreme” and “Katko voted to end the ACA”, the two candidates in the neck-and-neck race for the 24th Congressional District have different perspectives on two tenets of healthcare: prescription drug pricing and pre-existing conditions.

Both say they want to lower the cost of prescription drugs; both say they want to cover pre-existing conditions, but each sees a different path to getting there.

The grim news was laid out in a report released Friday afternoon by Gov. Andrew Cuomo's budget office: The pandemic has cost New York $63 billion in revenue through 2024 and the state will need federal assistance.

The mid-year state budget report estimated the state's main general fund saw a $14.9 billion decline and a 15.3% loss in tax receipts since the original budget estimate was released in February.

Democratic Paul Tonko is seeking his seventh term this year, running on a decade of accomplishments in Washington ranging from new safety legislation for limousines and measures designed to boost the horse racing industry.

"We've done limousine reform as a measure and was able to secure bipartisan, bicameral support," Tonko said. "The same is true for our Horse Racing Integrity Act."

Two years ago, Democratic Congressman Antonio Delgado won a battleground race, unseating Republican John Faso. Since then, Delgado says he's focused on issues like farms in the 19th House district.

"Being able to deliver and help our family farmers with legislation that became law in a pretty divisive time, for me, was very impactful," Delgado said.

The federal government's plan for the distribution of a potential coronavirus vaccine is "deeply flawed" Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Friday said.

President Donald Trump administration plans to distribute private-sector pharmacies like CVS and Walgreens, a plan that was detailed by the White House in a conference call with the nation's governors. Cuomo has pushed the White House to release more information on its vaccine distribution plan once one is available.

U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand later today will endorse the re-election of Democratic state Sen. Jim Gaughran to a Long Island district.

Gaughran is running for a second term in a district he helped to flip in 2018, giving his party a comfortable majority in the chamber.

A new seat belt law is set to take effect in New York on Sunday, requiring passengers in the back of livery and for-hire vehicles to buckle up.

The seat belt law comes after a decade of rear seat fatalities in New York. Over the last 10 years, 296 unbuckled rear seat passengers over the age of 16 were killed in New York state while 25,527 were injured, according to AAA.

The independent expenditure committee backed by the New York League of Conservation Voters this election cycle has been supporting two incumbent Democrats and two challengers in battleground races in the state.

The group is releasing digital ads and sending mail to tout the support -- or in the case of incumbent Republicans their opposition -- to a measure designed to shift the state to renewable energy in the coming decades in order to combat climate change.

Democrats in the State Senate currently hold the largest majority in over a century, with 40 out of 63 members.

In 2018, Democrats took control of the Senate for the first time in more than 100 years.