Governor Andrew Cuomo has acknowledged the various paths New York's state budget can take are not pretty if no federal aid comes through from Washington.

New York is seeking billions of dollars in aid from federal officials to offset the revenue that vanished amid the shutdown due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the U.S. Supreme Court drew, predictably, sharply contrasting responses from New York Republicans and Democrats.

Barrett was picked by President Donald Trump to replace the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, setting off what Republicans plan to be a speedy confirmation process in the U.S. Senate.

New York State launched a COVID-19 Report Card for every school district in New York, but there is still confusion surrounding this website.

The goal of this report card website is to keep parents and teachers updated on the number of positive coronavirus cases in their districts.

Wildfires in the west have been increasingly massive, engulfing homes and forests, leading to an orange glow in major cities and spreading a thin haze across the continent to the northeast.

But can something like that happen in New York, in the state's vast Adirondack wilderness region? The good news is: It's highly unlikely, according to Capt. John Streiff, a captain with the Department of Environmental Conservation's forest rangers.

Officials at the State University of New York on Friday released a set of uniform guidelines meant to police students who hold gatherings on and off campus, fail to self-isolate or wear a mask.

Potentially at risk for repeat violators: a permanent dismissal for the student from a school. The new guidelines take effect next Thursday.

Republicans in the state Assembly on Friday urged the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to update reporting guidelines for nursing home residents who have died of COVID-related deaths during the pandemic.

Assembly Minority Leader Will Barclay and Assemblyman Kevin Byrne in a letter to the CDC called for the update guidance as New York's nursing home fatality count remains at issue. Officially, New York's death toll of nursing home residents stands at about 6,300 people, though that number likely much higher.

New York found 908 new COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours out of 94,818 test results, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Friday.

The infection rate stands at 0.95% in New York, a positive rate that has been hovering around that mark for the last several months. Hospitalizations, however, have climbed to 511 in the state.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, there were almost 92,000 homeless New Yorkers.

However, now due to a rise in unemployment, opioid use, domestic abuse, and more over the past few months, experts believe that number has grown.

The nation's once-a-decade head count cannot end early, a federal judge in California ruled late Thursday, reversing a Trump administration directive that would have halted the survey in a matter of days.

The district court ruling is a victory, for now, for advocates who had been alarmed by the decision to end the Census this month, months ahead of schedule.

A divided nation will continue to struggle in beating back the coronavirus pandemic, Governor Andrew Cuomo said Thursday in remarks to the Human Rights Campaign.

Cuomo addressed the group, a leading LGBTQ rights organization, in a video address as social distancing protocols remain in place.

Talk to business owners about their concerns and the first thing they'll tell you is the need for certainty. But the pandemic, says Peter Elitzer, has changed that.

"It's impossible to think of everything that might come up because in my wildest dreams I never would have imagined anything like the COVID-19 experience happening," he said.

Cash-strapped local governments would be "reckless" to borrow in the long term without a financial control board in place, Governor Andrew Cuomo on Thursday warned.

State and local governments are facing an unprecedented financial crisis due to the economic recession due to the COVID-19 pandemic. So far, efforts to secure federal aid to recoup lost tax revenue this year have stalled.

Rochester has been in the news a lot lately, starting with the delayed details about the homicide of Daniel Prude, and then, following the release of the video of Prude’s death, for the protests which followed. This weekend, Rochester was again in the news, this time for a mass shooting that left 14 people injured and two bystanders dead.

Violence and unrest are symptoms of the city’s greater systemic problems: Problems detailed in a report that came out in August, published by ACT Rochester and the Community Foundation, called "Hard Facts," which looked at race and inequality in the nine-county Rochester region.

New York will undergo its own review of any potential coronavirus vaccination before it is distributed widely, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Thursday, indicating he plans to have the state government take a front-seat role for the endgame of stamping out COVID-19.

Cuomo, at a news conference in New York City, said he did not trust the federal government's own review of the safety of the vaccination, given President Donald Trump's own efforts to have an announcement prior to Election Day this year.

Not wearing a mask when unable to socially distance yourself is "just dumb," Governor Andrew Cuomo on Thursday said as the state's coronavirus infection rate over the last day peaked above 1 percent.

"It's just dumb not to wear a mask," Cuomo said. "It's dumb."

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitemer on Thursday called on Congress to launch an oversight investigation of President Donald Trump's handling of the pandemic and whether he sought to politicize the crisis.

The governors, both Democrats, pointed to varying guidances at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that could have been influenced by political appointees during the outbreak.

The exact number of nursing home residents who died from COVID-19 in New York is still unknown. And despite consistent pressure from lawmakers, that question still has not ben answered.

Republican Sens. James Tedisco and Senator Sue Serino wrote a letter to four Democratic Senators who have been working to secure answers from the Department of Health.

This is a year for books by New York governors. Former Gov. George Pataki's new book details the response to the Sept. 11 attacks. Next month, incumbent Andrew Cuomo will publish a book on the early days of the coronavirus pandemic.

And David Paterson this week published his own account of being a governor in a time of multiple crises and struggles.

The political action committee of a leading Rochester business group on Thursday is set to endorse two Democrats running for the state Senate in the city.

Both candidates, Samra Brouk and Jeremy Cooney, are running to replacing retiring Republican lawmakers Rich Funke and Joe Robach.

U.S. Senator Kristen Gillibrand, along with Representative Katie Porter from California, announced that they are proposing a new bill that would require high-ranking federal officials and their families to report when they apply for federal aid.

It’s called the STOCK Act 2.0.

It's that time of the year again. The annual flu shot in previous years may have been at the back of your mind. Public health officials like Mary Brummagyn hope New Yorkers get it done as soon as possible this year.

"Let's get it right now, OK? That's important," she said. "Let's get it early. Let's get our immunity going."

Don’t get too excited, but Spectrum News has learned that December’s internet sales tax disbursement will not be subject to a 20 percent withholding from the state.

According to the Division of the Budget, "The internet sales tax is revenue, not spending, and is distributed as aid to localities based on where online purchases are made. The pandemic has hurt household and municipal finances and it is too soon to say how much revenue will ultimately be collected and distributed."

A New York judge on Wednesday ruled President Donald Trump's son Eric can be deposed by Attorney General Letitia James's office as part of the ongoing investigation into the Trump Organization.

The deposition must be conducted by October 7, James's office said, less than a month before Election Day in the United States.

So, what's the plan? That's increasingly the question around Albany and those in state government circles when it comes to New York's yawning billion-dollar budget gap created by the economic crisis induced by the COVID-19 pandemic.

For the moment, the plan from Gov. Andrew Cuomo remains this: Get the federal government to provide tens of billions of dollars in relief to avoid spending reductions to virtually every part of the budget.

There are 17 abortion cases that a newly muscular conservative Supreme Court could decide to hear, according to Robin Chappelle Golston, chair of Planned Parenthood, Empire State Votes PAC.

"We really don’t know which one they’re going to move forward with and actually put on the docket," Golston said. "That’s currently where we are."

Republicans in the state Senate and those running to serve in the chamber on Wednesday released a package of proposals to boost women in business in New York.

The proposals come amid National Small Business Week and during a rocky time for smaller employers amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic which has devastated small businesses.

Statewide, New York's unemployment picture is this: Declining from Depression-era unemployment earlier this year due to the pandemic-induced shutdown, the state's unemployment rate fell from 15.9 percent in July to 12.4 percent in August.

But across the state, the joblessness picture is less clear. It's not a tale of two states; it's a tale of four or five states.

Similar to the rest of the state, COVID-19 swept through the New York’s prison and jail system, but to what extent is still unclear.

During a legislative hearing, both lawmakers and family members of incarcerated individuals shared their frustration with the lack of communication from the Department of Corrections.

Thanks to the vagaries of hyper-partisan politics, the odds of Washington passing a pre-election stimulus bill dropped significantly with the passing of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg. Which raises questions about the budget strategy Governor Andrew Cuomo appears to be employing.

“Waiting for Washington to act is just not a strategy,” the Fiscal Policy Institute’s Ron Deutsch told NPR last week. “And it’s certainly not a viable strategy at this point because we have no idea if and when they are going to act.”

Metro-North needs federal aid to continue providing commuter rail service to suburban riders, county executives from both parties wrote in a letter to federal leaders Tuesday.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority overall is facing a severe financial strain due to the coronavirus pandemic and the sharply declined ridership.

James Firman is 69 and lives with his wife and 26-year-old son, who has been good about staying home and not going to bars or parties.

"He's using safe behaviors," Firman said. "But if he were going out to bars or parties, he would represent a lethal threat to me and my wife. So you have to be careful and worry about everybody in your household."

Billionaire cosmetics executive Ronald Lauder has funded an independent expenditure committee that over the last day spent more than $1 million in TV ads against Democrats running in key state Senate races.

Lauder, the chairman emeritus of Estee Lauder, contributed $1.7 million to the group Safe Together New York, a filing at the state Board of Elections shows. The committee has since spent a combined $1 million on TV ads against incumbent Sens. Monica Martinez, Jim Gaughran, Kevin Thomas and Andrew Gounardes. An ad funded by the group is also airing to oppose Democrat John Mannion, who is seeking an open Senate seat in central New York as well as Democrat Jim Barber.

New York officials on Tuesday announced five states had been added to the state's quarantine travel advisory while also reaching the milestone of 10 million tests conducted for the coronavirus.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo's office announced Arizona, Minnesota, Nevada, Rhode Island, and Wyoming have reached the threshold for being added to the state's travel advisory, which requires people who have entered New York from those states to quarantine themselves for two weeks upon arriving in New York.

Students around New York are continuing to learn remotely this year.

But how do schools gauge the amount of information students are absorbing from home?

Attorney General Letitia James on Monday signaled she was ready to take the federal government to court if designating New York City an "anarchist jurisdiction" would lead to cuts in federal funding.

James in a statement called the designation and an attempt to distract voters from the ongoing crisis of the coronavirus pandemic.

Governor Andrew Cuomo is being urged by environmental groups to sign a measure meant to reduce road salt usage in the Adirondack Park.

The legislation would create the task force and pilot program for reducing road salt usage within the park from October 2021 to 2024. The program would test measures that have been shown to reduce road salt usage and cost for winter road maintenance.

The Lawsuit Reform Alliance and coalition of advocacy groups in the insurance and building trades industry are calling for limits on jury awards in New York amid a $45 million award that could hurt cash-strapped local governments.

The group filed an amicus brief in the case for personal injury awards to be limited to a predictable and historical range. And the group decried the practice of "anchoring" in these cases, which can lead to higher awards from juries who receive a preliminary amount that can be incrementlly added to.

President Donald Trump launched a successful takeover of the Republican Party in 2016, beating establishment candidates to win the nomination and ultimately the Presidency.

Now, a group of Republicans -- Never Trump Republicans -- are trying to wrest the party away from him and his brand of politics. The Lincoln Project is part of that effort. I spoke with Susan Del Percio, a longtime Republican consultant in New York, about why she joined the group and how they plan to succeed this November.

School districts getting their state aid this month was good financial news, Moody's found in a report released Monday.

This may sound like a man-bites-dog headline in any other context. But in the context of the coronavirus pandemic, it's an ongoing concern for school districts amid the threat of a 20% cut in state funding due to the evaporated revenue as a result of the crisis.

The New York court system closed down during the height of the coronavirus padnemic earlier this year and has since slowly began to bring personnel and members of the public back to some physical locations.

But returning to a pre-pandemic version of the state's courts will take a long time, Chief Judge Janet DiFiore said on Monday in a videotaped message.

More Jewish people live in New York State than anywhere else in the world with the exception of Israel. But a new survey from the Claims Conference indicates that 19 percent of millennials and Generation-Z'ers in the state believe that Jews caused the Holocaust.

The Encyclopedia Britannica defines the Holocaust as “the systematic state-sponsored killing of six million Jewish men, women, and children and millions of others by Nazi Germany and its collaborators during World War II.”

Government workers and New York National Guard units could be used to help administer elections in some areas of the state, Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Monday said.

But local elections officials at the same time need to tell state officials what resources are needed.

The United States on Monday passed a grim milestone in the coronavirus pandemic: 200,000 people dead of COVID-19 since the pandemic began in the country earlier this year.

But the rate of the infection has slowed in New York, once an epicenter of the outbreak. And on Monday, as the country surpassed the 200,000 death mark, only one person in the last 24 hours was reported to have died of COVID-19, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in a conference call.

ALBANY, N.Y. – President Donald Trump labeling New York City an "anarchist jurisdiction" that could imperil federal funding is a campaign tactic that won't be upheld under a court challenge, Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Monday said.

The Trump administration has labeled New York City and several other American cities where there has been protest and unrest over policing anarchist jurisdictions and threatened to remove funding for the local governments.

A settlement reached by state officials and the League of Women Voters last week will expand options for absentee voting if there are technical issues with the ballot.

The agreement, reached by state elections officials, the state attorney general's office and the good-government organization, comes as a wave of absentee votes are expected to be cast in the general election due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

State lawmakers are pushing a bill that is meant to increase penalties in drive-by shooting cases, a measure spurred by the murder of an 11-year-old boy in the Capital Region earlier this month.

As proposed by Republican Sen. Daphne Jordan and Democratic Assemblyman Angelo Santabarbara, the bill would change the state's criminal law to create the crime of a "drive by shooting" as defined by a person causing the death of another person by discharging a firearm from a motor vehicle.

Lieutenant Governor Kathy Hochul endorsed Nancy Goroff for Congress in New York’s 1st district on Friday.

Goroff is challenging incumbent Republican Representative Lee Zeldin, who has won three times in this district.

The COVID-19 pandemic has made the future of jobs and businesses uncertain, even for veterans.

But there are resources available.

As Capital Tonight reported earlier this week, a private charity funded in part by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan is offering grants to county boards of election to help pay for expenses related to the November 3 general election.

The grant application was passed on to county boards by the State Board of Elections in a September 4 email.

Unemployed New Yorkers will be eligible to receive an additional $300 in unemployment benefits for another three weeks, the Department of Labor announced.

The state was approved on Friday, by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, to keep these additional payments flowing for another three weeks, bringing the total to six weeks of additional aid.

New York's plastic bag ban is back.

The Department of Environmental Protection filed a letter with the state Supreme Court that will require stores across the state to stop handing out plastic bags beginning October 19.

The weather is already starting to get colder, which means less people want to eat outside.

This is starting to concern local restaurant owners who rely on outdoor seating.

What is the current state of affordable housing in Upstate New York now that CARES Act rental assistance has come to an end, but the COVID-19 recession has not?

Capital Tonight host Susan Arbetter discussed the situation with Jolie Milstein, the president and CEO of the New York State Association for Affordable Housing. According to Milstein, the CARES Act funding helped, but no additional funding has come from Washington since, which means the future is uncertain for millions of families.

On Wednesday, the state’s largest teachers’ union filed a lawsuit against Governor Andrew Cuomo and the state Division of the Budget.

New York State United Teachers (NYSUT) argues that the state has been withholding money from school districts – which it has. A total of about $100 million so far.

The exact number of nursing home residents in New York who died from COVID-19 during the pandemic is still unknown.

If you ask the state, their official number puts the death toll at a little over 6,600 nursing home residents.

Assemblyman Tom Abinanti (D-Greenburgh) has introduced two bills that address early retirement for state and local government employees. It had been a back burner issue for a while, but in August, it moved to the front of the stove when it became clear that Democrats and Republicans in Washington weren’t able to cook up an agreement on stimulus funding.

Anecdotally, it’s also become a frequent topic of conversation among older teachers heading back into the classroom this month, some of whom are fearful of contracting COVID-19.

BUFFALO, N.Y. – The current ban on non-essential travel between the United States and Canada is set to expire Monday but it appears the restrictions will be extended.

This week, CBC News reported the border will remain closed for at least another month while Reuters and other outlets said the ban will likely be in place through the end of November. It will come as no surprise to federal leaders from Western New York who indicated they have been pushing for an ease on restrictions but Canadian officials have not been receptive.

BUFFALO, N.Y. –The Department of Health and Human Services top spokesperson Michael Caputo announced Wednesday he will take a temporary medical leave of absence from his position.

He said he will be pursuing necessary screenings for a "lymphatic issue" discovered last week. He did not say if there was concern about cancer although lymphoma is one of the most common forms.

A coalition of 23 New York police unions announced that they are “uniting against Senate Democrats” and jointly endorsing six State Senate candidates in key battleground districts.

These unions, which represent more than 200,000 law enforcement officers, say they want to vote out Senate Democrats that voted for “anti-police measures,” such as the controversial bail reform measure passed in 2019 and the repeal of 50A, which seals police disciplinary records.

The New York State United Teachers Union, NYSUT, formally filed a lawsuit on Wednesday, against the state for impending 20 percent funding cuts to school aid.

The Cuomo administration right now is “withholding” funds from schools and other services while it waits for federal aid to arrive. According to the Division of Budget, the state is facing a revenue loss of $14.5 billion for just one year as a “result of the COVID-19 pandemic.”

ALBANY, N.Y. – State tax receipts for New York are now $3.2 billion lower than 2019 according to the latest cash report released by the NYS Comptroller's office.

For August alone, the receipts are nearly $220 million less than the same month a year ago. The state did pull in roughly $310 million more than the latest projections from the state division of budget but, already facing a multi-billion dollar deficit, Comptroller Tom DiNapoli, D-NY, warned it’s not enough.

The number of suspected drug overdoses since mid-March increased by 18 percent nationally, according to the Association of Medical Colleges.

But data on the exact number of drug overdoses on a statewide level here in New York is lacking.

The New York State Department of Health reduced the waiting period for nursing home visitations Tuesday, but some lawmakers, and family members, say more needs to be done.

State lawmakers are pushing for a bill that would designate an essential person for a nursing home resident. Republican Assemblywoman Melissa Miller says the person would be treated similar to staff, allowed to enter facilities that are closed to visitors.

ONONDAGA COUNTY, N.Y. — As Capital Tonight reported on Monday, county boards of election in New York and in other states are applying for private grant funding to pay for elections this year. The funding comes from the Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL) which received money from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan.

Earlier this year the New York State Board of Elections announced that counties in the state would need $50 million more to fund the 2020 general election. The reason? Counties now need to remain in compliance with new COVID-19 guidelines for poll workers; they need to print and post many more absentee ballots than they ever have before; and they need to inform voters of their new voting choices.

The waiting period for visiting a nursing home has been eased by state health officials on Tuesday amid a push from families members who want better access to their loved ones.

The Department of Health announced the waiting period for a facility to be open to visitors would be reduced from 28 days to 14 days. The new guideline will take effect on Thursday. About 500 nursing homes out of 613 facilities will be eligible for visitation once the change is made.

The bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus on Tuesday released a framework for a pandemic stimulus package that would include $500 billion in funding for state and local governments across the country.

Negotiations in Washington over the final stimulus measure have stalled since June amid disagreements over the scope of the package and whether state governments should receive aid to make up for revenues lost during the crisis.

Officials at the State University of New York and the United University Professions have reached an agreement to test on-campus staffers for the coronavirus, the union on Tuesday announced.

The deal, laid out in a memorandum of understanding, runs through Dec. 31 and takes effect immediately for union members working on campus at all state operated colleges, universities and hospitals.

Voter fraud is an umbrella term that can mean a lot of different things. A few examples include: illegal registering and voting by individuals who aren’t citizens; changing the actual vote count at a polling location; and stealing ballot boxes.

All of this has indeed happened in the past.

New York's low coronavirus infection rate is threatened by college students who do not follow safety guidelines like mask wearing and social distancing and the coming school year poses questions as well, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Tuesday.

"I want to see the state's jobs come back and the economy come back," Cuomo said in an interivew on Long Island News Radio, "but then we have a couple of questions out there. What's going to happen when you bring kids back to school?"

A federal appeals court on Monday sided with President Donald Trump's administration in an immigration case in a ruling that terminates temporary protected status for immigrants from at least four countries.

The ruling will end the status for immigrants from El Salvador, Sudan, Nicaragua, and Haiti while also opening the door for ending temporary protected status in Honduras and Nepal, which is being reviewed in a separate case.

U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand on Tuesday is set to endorse a pair of Democratic women running for Republican-held state Senate districts this fall.

Gillibrand will endorse Democrat Michelle Hinchey, who is running for the seat being vacated by GOP Sen. George Amedore. She faces Richard Amedure in the general election. The district runs from the Mohawk Valley, around the Capital District, to the Hudson Valley.

Anti-trust laws were created to encourage companies to compete and keep one single company from gaining complete control or monopolizing the market.

New York’s anti-trust laws were first enacted in the 1890s. Because of this, Deputy Senate Majority Leader Mike Gianaris is proposing a new Anti-Trust Act, calling the old laws broken.

The QAnon conspiracy theory, roughly speaking, is both discredited and outlandish at the outset. The crib notes version is this: President Donald Trump is being opposed by a cabal of Satan-worshipping pedohpiles who are running an extensive child trafficking ring across the globe.

The theory, on the fringes of social media, has expanded its scope to include prominent Democrats, Hollywood celebrities and other prominent people of being in on the cabal. It is, to put it mildly, very false.

After a huge infusion of cash from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla, the Center for Tech and Civic Life is providing grants to county boards of election across the country to help facilitate November’s elections.

According to its website, the non-profit, non-partisan “CTCL is a team of civic technologists, trainers, researchers, election administration and data experts working to foster a more informed and engaged democracy, and helping to modernize U.S. elections.”

Presidents would have less power in resisting subpoenas in New York based on a bill proposed Monday by state lawmakers.

The measure, backed by Sen. Mike Gianaris and Assemblyman Nick Perry, comes as President Donald Trump continues to fight a subpoena from New York City prosecutors to obtain his tax returns.

A lot has been written (and rightly so) about teacher layoffs in districts like Schenectady and Albany – the result of the state withholding school aid due to revenue shortfalls.

But what of the immediate consequences of withholding 20 percent of state aid for some rural school districts that have little or no fund balance?

Nursing home residents would have a designated "essential person" who would be able to visit the resident amid strict guidelines surrounding who can enter the facilities.

The measure is backed by Assemblywoman Melissa Miller and comes amid growing concerns over the visitation rules for nursing homes in New York.

How badly are kids falling behind in school? It's a question that's been made more difficult to answer by the coronavirus pandemic and the cancellation of the usual assessments that provide some sort of metric for schools.

The Rockefeller Institute of Government on Monday released an analysis that assessed the challenges of determining how students are faring in school as education remains a mix of in-classroom learning and virtual lessons for kids who are at home.

Democrats in the state Senate announced Monday plans to hold a second public hearing on housing discrimination on Long Island later this week.

Lawmakers initially held a hearing earlier this year on the issue, spurred by a Newsday investigation that found realtors routinely discriminated against prospective homebuyers of color.

Business leaders who represent New York City and suburban counties on Monday released a letter to President Donald Trump urging him to support federal aid for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority amid a revenue crisis created by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The letter, backed by the Westchester Business Council, the Long Island Association and the Partnership for New York City comes as a federal stimulus package under negotiation in Congress since June has continued to stall.

Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik's political action committee has sought to help GOP women running across the country.

Over the weekend, her PAC sent a fundraising email in support of someone closer to home: Republican former Rep. Claudia Tenney.

Advocates and former inmates on Sunday commemorated the anniversary of the final day of the Attica prison uprising with a push for an end to solitary confinement and the closure of correctional facilities around the state.

The protests, held in New York City and in Albany, come as criminal justice advocates have also called for the release of inmates during the coronavirus pandemic amid concerns the virus can easily spread in congregate settings like prisons.

CDC studies looking at the mental of health of first responders showed that at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, around 50 percent of health care workers struggled with depression.

Yet, data after the September 11, 2001 terror attacks on the World Trade Center showed that at times it can take months or even years for the full effects of a tragedy to take its toll on the mental health of first responders.

At first glance things look like business as usual at the Ellms Family Farm.

But with Labor Day over workers are getting ready for a fall agritourism season that always bring a lot of people out to the farm in Ballston Spa.

The deadline to complete the census is quicky approaching and as we've mentioned, New York's count is lagging behind where it was ten years ago. That's also true for communities of color which are seeing low response rates. The census is crucial because it helps determine how much money the state receives from the federal government and how representation in Congress is apportioned.

Debora Brown-Johnson, the president of the Albany NAACP, is working to make sure communities of color are counted in the Census as it is scheduled to end early this year.

It's been 19 years since the Sept. 11 attacks in New York City, Washington, D.C. and Pennsylvania. A generation has grown up since then, and the 18-year-old voters participating in this year's election do not know life in a pre-9/11 world.

The New York State Museum in Albany is home to a Sept. 11 exhibit, featuring objects from Ground Zero near the site of the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan.

The New York Conservative Party's Twitter account was suspended and then lifted on Thursday, a development that sparked an outcry from Republican lawmakers in the state Senate and Assembly.

It's not clear why the Twitter account for the party was frozen; Twitter generally suspends accounts when terms of service are violated.

A bill reconstituting a task force that examines the health effects of workers who participated in rescue and response operations at the World Trade Center site after the September 11 attacks was signed into law Friday by Governor Andrew Cuomo.

The measure, approved on the 19th anniversary of the terror attacks, extends the life of the task through June 2025.

A three-judge panel on Thursday found the effort to exclude undocumented immigrants from an apportionment base following the U.S. Census was illegal -- scoring a victory for New York Attorney General Letitia James.

The political fight over the Census this year has become a pitched one, as groups seek to stop an early end to the count this month and Democrats have filed legal challenges to efforts they worry will undercount people of color in key states.

About 40 percent of adults have struggled with their mental health during the pandemic, a number that rose to half of health care workers also reported troubles amid the crisis, according to the Office of Mental Health this week in testimony to state lawmakers.

With businesses closed for in person visits around the state, telehealth claims through OMH increased by 55 percent from March to April.

Delaying an increase in the minimum wage upstate, halting an expansion of farmworker labor benefits and reducing sales and income taxes are among the proposals from the pro-business Unshackle Upstate in a report meant to boost growth in the region's economy.

The report comes as upstate New York, like the rest of the country, is struggling amid the recession created by the coronavirus pandemic.

New York's state university system will hire for a new position within the administration that will report back on student concerns such as unsafe living conditions in quarantine dorms, parties, and other stories surfacing around college campuses right now, SUNY Chancellor Jim Malatras said Thursday.

In an exclusive interview with Capital Tonight, Malatras said this student advocate will report directly to him

Payments under the Lost Wages Assistance program, providing $300 a week in supplemental benefits to people who have lost their jobs due to the pandemic, are set to begin next week, state officials on Thursday said.

About 2 million New York residents are pre-qualified for the program and will start to receive the money next week, the Department of Labor said.

President Donald Trump is doing little to help New York because he wants to see the "demise of the cities" across the country, Governor Andrew Cuomo on Thursday said.

New York faces a multi-billion dollar budget gap over several fiscal years due to the economic downturn amid the coronavirus pandemic.

New York state over the last six months has had 9 million coronavirus tests performed, and in the last 34 days, its daily infection rate has remained below 1 percent, Governor Andrew Cuomo said Thursday.

New York received the results of 76,000 tests in the last day, finding an infection rate of 0.98 percent, or 767 new cases.