New York's sharp uptick in COVID-19 cases appears to be slowing in the last week, Gov. Kathy Hochul on Friday said, after weeks of the rapid spread of the omicron variant.

Confirmed cases in the last 24 hours still remain high in the state at 49,027, but it's a steep decline from seven days ago when New York was recording nearly 90,000 new cases.

Last week, an Albany judge formally dropped the forcible touching charge against former Gov. Andrew Cuomo. On Thursday, one of his attorneys, Rita Glavin, once again held a news conference presenting new material she said undermined some of the allegations against him that led to his resignation in August.

But Glavin in her news conference went further, saying the press didn't do enough to carefully vet and weigh the allegations against Cuomo due to the sensitivities surrounding sexual harassment and assault.

Gov. Kathy Hochul has approved a new law that is meant to lower sky-high statutory judgment interest rates in consumer debt cases from 9% to 2% — a measure meant to aid low-income New Yorkers and those who have struggled financially due to the pandemic.

The interest rate in these cases has not been changed in 40 years and addresses the increasing number of unpaid judgment amounts. The pandemic in the last two years has led to record levels of unemployment, meanwhile, New York's jobs recovery has lagged other parts of the country.

A coalition of progressive organizations and good-government watchdogs is urging state lawmakers to consider more oversight for economic development programs as well as make changes so they are more accountable to taxpayers.

The proposals come as the state Senate is set to hold a public hearing later on Friday on the state's business subsidies and incentives in order to better determine their effectiveness.

The changing COVID-19 landscape can be confusing as you try to keep yourself and your loved ones healthy and safe. Denis Nash, distinguished professor of epidemiology at the CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy, says the tools that we have of vaccines, masks, social distancing and testing are key to help “flatten the curve” and lessen the impact on a stressed health care system.

The omicron variant has been much more transmissible than other COVID variants. While vaccines can’t provide full protection if you get infected, they can provide protection against severe cases that may force you into the hospital. Nash tells Capital Tonight that people who are not vaccinated are “at much higher risk of hospitalized with this variant. No question about it.” According to Nash, early evidence from South Africa has shown that two doses of the Pfizer vaccine prevent hospitalization from the omicron variant by 70% with boosters helping raise that number.

Facing a wall of Republican opposition, both New York senators have joined with many of their colleagues in eying a rule change that would allow them to pass voting rights legislation without any GOP support: modifying the filibuster.

The filibuster is an arcane Senate rule allowing the minority party to require 60 votes for most legislation to pass.

BUFFALO, N.Y. — In 2002, the Seneca Nation and New York State signed a compact in which the Senecas agreed to share a percentage of slot machine revenue quarterly in exchange for regional gaming exclusivity.

However, the nation last paid the state in March 2017, arguing the agreement did not explicitly designate payments for the final seven years. After years of litigation, the stalemate is over.

Gov. Kathy Hochul on Thursday picked up a notable endorsement in the race for New York governor from her hometown of Buffalo, while one of her Democratic primary opponents, U.S. Rep. Tom Suozzi, blasted her use of state aircraft to attend political functions.

On the Republican side, former Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino blasted the state's vaccine mandate for health care workers.

This week, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced that hospitals in the Finger Lakes, Central New York and Mohawk Valley would have to halt elective procedures because regionally, the hospitals have exceeded 90% of their capacity.

Yet, as the Empire Center’s Bill Hammond pointed out in a recent column, upstate’s COVID-19 hospitalizations have been lower compared to those in New York City, where elective surgeries have not been halted.

The Civil Service Employees Association on Thursday endorsed two of New York's longest-serving Democratic officials: Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Comptroller Tom DiNapoli.

CSEA is the state's largest public workers union, representing 300,000 state and local employees in New York.

Businesses in New York on Thursday urged Gov. Kathy Hochul to expand the kinds of beverage containers that are covered by the state's bottle deposit law as well as increase the amount received on redemption.

The push comes as Hochul next week is set to unveil her first budget plan, which is due to pass in the Legislature by the end of March.

New York's prison population between 2008 and 2021 declined by half, but the number of incarcerated people 50 years old and older has increased, a report released Thursday by state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli found.

The number of people age 50 and older during that 13-year timeframe increased slightly from 7,511 people to 7,586 people, the report found. But as a percentage of the state's decreasing prison population, the number of older people who are incarcerated has doubled during that time.

Eleven county governments in the state's Finger Lakes region on Wednesday urged New York officials to reconsider the booster shot mandate for health care workers amid a staffing shortage in parts of the state.

The county governments proposed to health officials and Gov. Kathy Hochul in a letter to allow for a test out option for fully vaccinated workers, pointing to a "tenuous situation" for hospitals and health care networks.

Property tax increases at the school district level will be capped at a 2% increase this year as inflation has increased over the last year, Comptroller Tom DiNapoli announced Wednesday.

The move will affect 676 school districts and 10 cities with fiscal years that began July 1 -- including Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse and Yonkers.

The COVID-19 pandemic has shown just how important having health insurance can be for those who need medical treatment and preventative care. Now, policy experts are weighing a range of proposals that are meant to finish an expansion of the number of insured people in the state.

The proposals unveiled at a virtual news conference by the Citizens Budget Commission and the Community Service Society also come as Gov. Kathy Hochul next week is expected to unveil her first budget proposal.

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Recently, Niagara County saw its total of new COVID-19 cases jump from 900 one week to 2,900 the next.

County Health Commissioner Dan Stapleton said conducting contact tracing and investigations no longer makes sense.

This week, Republican lawmakers were joined by law enforcement leaders in Albany to criticize recent changes to the state’s criminal justice laws. State Assembly Minority Leader Will Barclay told Capital Tonight he blames the “anti-police narrative” for contributing to New York’s rising crime rate.

According to FBI data, there has been an uptick in violent crime across the country.

New York’s 60-plus population is growing faster than all but four other states. According to the New York State Office of the Aging, by 2030, the over-60 population will grow to 25% of the state’s total population.

At the same time the state’s population is aging, there is a staffing crisis in home care for people who want to age in their homes rather than move into nursing facilities.

An attorney for former Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Wednesday sent an evidence preservation request to the state's main ethics board, a move that is a potential precursor to filing a lawsuit to challenge the watchdog's effort to have him return millions of dollars from a book contract.

The evidence preservation memorandum from Cuomo attorney Jim McGuire is the latest step in the controversy surrounding the former governor's memoir about the pandemic, "American Crisis."

The New York State Department of Motor Vehicles will expand its availability of road tests for those who are seeking commercial driver licenses in order to address a shortage of truck and bus drivers.

Motor vehicle officials are scheduled to hold a public hearing on Jan. 26 to discuss how to create more capacity for state-run sites and road tests by allowing qualified third parties to offer them.

Judge Shirley Troutman was confirmed on Wednesday by the state Senate to New York's top court, drawing bipartisan praise in the process.

Troutman is Gov. Kathy Hochul's first nominee to the state Court of Appeals since she took office on Aug. 24. Troutman, who replaces Judge Eugene Fahey, is the second Black woman to serve on the court.

The Trucking Association of New York expects a significant number of its members will have opted not to get vaccinated for COVID-19 as new cross-border rules requiring those vaccines go into effect Saturday.

"We've been working with our national counterpart to not necessarily stop the mandate, but at least delay it to give some more time and unfortunately that does not appear it's going to happen," Kendra Hems, Trucking Association of NY president, said.

More than 480,000 acres in offshore New York and New Jersey will be auctioned for offshore wind development, the Biden administration announced Wednesday.

The auction, to be held Feb. 23, was announced by Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy.

Advocates on Tuesday began another push to approve a measure creating a regulatory system for public banks in New York state in order to bring more financial institutions to underserved communities.

The measure would end the requirement in state law that public banks must apply for commercial charters, and allow local governments to establish public banks that provide government deposits to be used for affordable housing, financial services and green jobs investment.

New York state officials on Tuesday evening once again began accepting applications for the Emergency Rental Assistance Program, but at the same time called for additional federal aid to continue to meet the outstanding need.

Applications are once again being taken, meanwhile, as the state's ban on evictions for tenants who have faced a pandemic-related financial hardship is set to expire on Saturday.

Republican state lawmakers on Monday called for a rollback of the state's laws that ended cash bail requirements for many criminal charges as the contentious debate over criminal justice and public safety enters yet another election year.

Democrats, however, have charged the effort amounts fear mongering to a pandemic-weary public as violent crime has spiked during the public health crisis not just in New York state, but around the country.

The co-chair of a legislative task force that could end up drawing new congressional maps in New York told Capital Tonight that he hasn’t discussed redistricting with the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC).

Senate Deputy Majority Leader Mike Gianaris, who co-chairs LATFOR, the New York State Legislative Task Force on Reapportionment and Redistricting, said that he’s had no conversations about redistricting with U.S. Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, who heads up DCCC and is responsible for electing Democrats to Congress.

New York’s colleges and universities have been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic and are struggling.

In her State of the State address last week, Gov. Kathy Hochul outlined a number of proposals aimed at “revitalizing” the SUNY and CUNY systems. The proposals include an expansion of child care services, tuition assistance and efforts to bolster the reputation of the schools in the state’s system.

A coalition of organizations that includes the politically powerful 1199, along with Democratic state lawmakers, urged Gov. Kathy Hochul on Tuesday to back a pay raise for home care workers as the state budget season begins to take shape.

The effort comes as Hochul last week in her address to state lawmakers called for a pay raise for the state's health care workers with the goal of boosting employees in the sector by 20% in the next five years.

A panel at the state Department of Health on Tuesday formally adopted the mandate for health care workers to receive booster shots of the COVID-19 vaccine.

The move comes after Gov. Kathy Hochul last week backed the new requirement and months after state officials required all health care workers to be vaccinated as well.

New York state is seeking federal aid to support landlords and tenants as a ban on evictions for those suffering pandemic-related financial hardships is set to expire at the end of the week, Gov. Kathy Hochul on Tuesday said.

Talks between the Hochul administration and state lawmakers over the future of the moratorium are being held, but the governor at a news conference indicated the ban may ultimately lapse.

U.S. Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney has tested positive for COVID-19, the congressman announced in a statement Tuesday.

“This morning, I tested positive for COVID-19. While I am experiencing minor cold-like symptoms, I’m grateful to be fully vaccinated and boosted, which is protecting me from more severe illness," Maloney said in a statement.

After nearly a month of rising COVID-19 case numbers in New York, Gov. Kathy Hochul implied Tuesday that the tide might be turning.

The state reported 48,686 new cases in the last 24 hours, which is still high, but is down from a string of days in the last two weeks or so due in large part to the fast-spreading omicron variant.

Visitors to the New York State Museum, State Library and State Archives will be required to show either proof of a COVID-19 vaccination or having tested negative within the last 48 hours, State Education Department officials on Monday announced.

The restrictions for visiting those institutions, housed at the Cultural Education Center in Albany, will take effect on Wednesday. It will apply to visitors age 5 and older.

Good-government organizations in New York are backing legislation that would require government bodies to record their meetings on video and post the recordings online.

The bill, backed by Assemblywoman Amy Paulin and state Sen. Anna Kaplan, is generating interest as more public meetings shift back to live stream events amid the spread of the contagious omicron variant of COVID-19.

A bill meant to ban major multinational corporations from making political donations and spending money on campaigns was approved Monday in the state Senate.

The measure, modeled after similar bills in Seattle and St. Petersburg, Fla., is taking aim at the proliferation of corporate spending on campaigns in the wake of the Citizens United decision in 2010. The Supreme Court ruling would coincide with the era of so-called "super PAC" spending in campaigns.

A Republican congressman is crying “hypocrisy,” as it looks increasingly likely New York’s Democratic-controlled Legislature could step in to draw the state’s congressional map, opening the door to potential partisan gerrymandering in the nation’s second-largest blue state.

A Democratic congresswoman, in response, says members of her party cannot afford to “roll over.”

BUFFALO, N.Y. — According to geolocation data, New Yorkers checked their sports betting apps more than 17 million times in the first 36 hours they were live, including 8 million in the five boroughs of New York City.

PlayNY lead writer Mike Mazzeo said those are massive numbers.

Obtaining medication-assisted treatment for a substance abuse disorder is no longer a matter of equity.

Gov. Kathy Hochul, in December, signed a bill into law sponsored by state Sen. Pete Harckham, chair of the Committee on Alcoholism and Substance Abuse, and Assemblymember Linda Rosenthal that ensures people who have substance abuse disorders can immediately access medicine that will manage their withdrawal symptoms, regardless of the kind of insurance they carry.

A coalition of 17 groups including the New York Housing Conference is urging the Hochul administration to develop a new five-year housing capital plan for the state. The coalition wants the administration to invest $6 billion over five years in new affordable and supportive housing units as well as in anti-homelessness programs.

That ask will grow to $13.5 billion over five years if President Biden’s “Build Back Better Act” does not get enacted into law.

New York lawmakers in both parties moved on Monday to reject proposed redistricting maps drawn by what has been billed as an independent commission, created as a "reform" to a process that had been previously in the hands of the Legislature.

The likely result: Lawmakers could soon be able to drawn their own legislative districts and those of their colleagues in the House of Representatives. Adjacent to it all, the state Senate moved bills meant to expand access to voting and ballots.

A surge in COVID-19 cases this month has led U.S. Rep. Tom Suozzi to scrub a fundraiser originally scheduled for Tuesday to March 1, his campaign announced.

The fundraiser, where host-level tickets go for $22,600, is planned for the Sheraton Hotel in New York City. The rescheduling of the event comes just days before campaign finance filings are due to state officials.

U.S. Rep. John Katko tested positive for the coronavirus on Sunday, the Republican congressman announced on Twitter Monday morning.

"I am fully vaccinated and boosted, and am thankfully experiencing only mild symptoms," Katko wrote.

A coalition of environmental groups this legislative session is once again making a push for a measure aimed at making it easier to buy an electric vehicle in New York state.

Long at issue in the state has been the direct sales cap on vehicle purchases in New York. Companies like Tesla manufacture electric vehicles and sell them directly to consumers.

The Democratic-controlled state Senate later today is expected to take up a package of election and voting law changes that include provisions to expand voting on college campuses and continue pandemic-era election changes.

The measures represent the latest effort by Democratic lawmakers in New York to tackle the issue of election and voter access as the issue has become an increasingly heated one in states across the nation.

Rich Azzopardi, a longtime spokesman and advisor to former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, has started a public relations firm which formally launches Monday.

Azzopardi has formed Bulldog Strategies, a firm that will handle communications, crisis commnuications and policy advancement.

Lottery sales agents in New York are seeking an increase in commission from the state of 1% this year, a push that's backed by a coalition of business groups who argue the move would aid convenience stores, grocery stores, bodegas, newsstands, taverns, restaurants, liquor stores and service stations that are also lottery retailers.

If approved, the commission increase from 6% to 7% would be the first since the lottery's inception in 1967.

He was seen for only for a second, but former Gov. Andrew Cuomo appeared in an Albany city courtroom via livestream on Friday to have the forcible touching case filed against him dismissed. His attorney Rita Glavin later praised the result.

Cuomo was arraigned on a charge stemming from an allegation he groped a former aide at the Executive Mansion. Moments later, the case was formally tossed out by Judge Holly Trexler.

BUFFALO, N.Y. — Over the past two years, academic medical centers like the Jacobs School in Buffalo have helped lead research on COVID-19 that have helped develop things like vaccines, treatment and testing and shaped public policy.

However, U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand believes those institutions can be better prepared, funded and coordinated in the future.

While Senate Minority Leader Robert Ortt doesn’t agree with Gov. Kathy Hochul or her fellow Democrats on many issues, he told Capital Tonight that he was pleased to hear her discuss a few proposals in her State of the State address that he and his conference could get behind.

“The middle-class tax cut…is something the Republican conference has championed for many years. So that was something that was good to hear her mention,” Ortt said. “She also acknowledged the exodus of people. She didn’t lay out a specific plan, but she said we have to recognize this. That was important.”

Once again, the issue of housing is front and center in Albany as the legislative session kicks off.

Notably, one of the major programs created to assist tenants and landlords struggling with COVID-19, ERAP, or the Emergency Rental Assistance Program, was given new life on Thursday.

More than half of the thousands of people hospitalized in New York with COVID-19 were admitted because of the virus, Gov. Kathy Hochul's office on Friday said.

New York for the first time released more specific data on COVID hospitalizations, drawing a distinction between people who entered the hospital because of being ill from the virus and those who later tested positive but are being hospitalized for other reasons.

A forcible touching charge against former Gov. Andrew Cuomo was dismissed Friday afternoon by an Albany City Court judge after Albany County District Attorney David Soares said he could not successfully prosecute the case.

A criminal complaint filed in the fall accused him of reaching under the blouse of a woman on Dec. 7, 2020, while at the Executive Mansion in Albany.

BUFFALO, N.Y. — Bard Prison Initiative Senior Government Affairs Officer Dyjuan Tatro is a success story of the program for which he now advocates. The Albany native went to prison for 12 years when he was 20.

"Over the past four or five years, because I got an education in prison, I have been able to achieve really life-changing things in terms of the types of opportunities that are usually afforded formerly incarcerated people and that's because I had access to a higher education while I was in prison," he said.

As school districts across the state struggle with a bus driver shortage, Gov. Kathy Hochul this week called for a provision to lift the earning cap for retired education workers.

The move could help address an acute shortage of bus drivers and other school personnel as district officials have struggled to return to in-classroom instruction since the fall.

The association that represents state supreme court justices in New York on Thursday called for court proceedings to once again go virtual amid a sharp rise in COVID-19 cases this month.

Courts in New York have moved to conduct more work in person while operating with social distancing and other pandemic safety guidelines in place.

Growing up in Western New York, Gov. Kathy Hochul was all too familiar with pollution and its aftermath. Now as governor, Hochul says the effects of climate change need to be dealt with by New York.

Hochul on Wednesday outlined her plans to expand New York's efforts in tackling climate change — a push that comes as federal efforts have stalled.

In September, House Republican leader Congressman Kevin McCarthy said, "There should only be two questions about this,” in reference to the Jan. 6 insurrection. “Why were we so ill-prepared that day and what are we doing to correct it?"

According to PolitiFact, for Democrats, the questions raised by the specter of the five-hour televised assault on the nation’s capital go much deeper than that. Democrats, PolitiFact said, have focused on the vulnerabilities of the electoral system.

Stating that in this political climate, “corporations have to question whether any spending on political causes is in shareholders’ interests,” Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli called on eight companies in which the state’s Common Retirement Fund is invested to make comprehensive disclosures.

“You know what? After what we’ve gone through, maybe corporations should consider not making any of these donations at all,” DiNapoli told Capital Tonight in reference to the Jan. 6 insurrection.

Two state lawmakers on Thursday introduced legislation meant to limit outdoor lighting at night in order to better protect migrating birds.

The measure backed by Manhattan Sen. Brad Hoylman and Albany Assemblywoman Pat Fahy would require most non-essential outdoor lighting be turned off by 11 p.m., be motion activated or covered by an external shield.

Mobile sports betting can begin in New York on Saturday at 9 a.m., the commission that oversees and regulates gambling announced on Wednesday.

The commission has licensed four mobile sports companies to operate in the state: Caesars Sportsbook, DraftKings, FanDuel and Rush Street Interactive.

Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo's court date on a charge of forcible touching is still on for Friday as Albany County District Attorney David Soares is moving to have the case dropped.

Office of Court Administration spokesman Lucian Chalfen on Thursday confirmed the legal team for Cuomo and the district attorney's office will still have to appear for the court date. Cuomo is expected to be arraigned before the charge is expected to be formally dismissed.

The Democratic governors of states that border New York endorsed Gov. Kathy Hochul's bid for a full term on Thursday as she faces a potential primary challenge later this year.

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont and Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf, in a joint endorsement, backed Hochul's election, pointing to her first few months in office as a sign of success for her new administration.

The number of New York residents without health care insurance has declined in the last decade, with nearly all having some sort of coverage. But now a consortium of insurers is calling for coverage for a segment of the population yet to be reached: undocumented immigrants living in New York.

The New York State Conference of Blue Cross and Blue Shield Plans on Wednesday backed the effort to extend coverage to undocumented people living in New York, saying the move would make a significant step toward universal health care in the state.

Staffing shortages a law enforcement labor union blames on a lack of competitive pay and retirement benefits has created a mental health crisis for its members to deal with, the PBA of New York State on Wednesday said.

The union's president urged Gov. Kathy Hochul and state lawmakers to address the problem amid ongoing concerns over compensation. The union represents three law enforcement agencies in the state: New York State Park Police, New York State University Police and Encon Officers and Forest Rangers from the State Department of Environmental Conservation.

Rep. Paul Tonko was in the House chamber when the violent mob took aim at the U.S. Capitol last Jan. 6

He remembers the Capitol Police telling him and fellow lawmakers to grab a gas mask, before helping them evacuate.

ALBANY, N.Y. — Gov. Kathy Hochul had originally set the target date for a deal between New York State, Erie County and the Buffalo Bills on a new football stadium for Jan. 1.

Leading up to the State of State speech, analyst Jack O'Donnell said there was chatter an announcement could be imminent.

As she unveiled her agenda for 2022, Gov. Kathy Hochul acknowledged New Yorkers are increasingly concerned about crime and public safety.

And while she waded into what has become an increasingly contentious issue between lawmakers, law enforcement and reform advocates, the governor sought to walk a tight rope: Picking issues where there can be broad agreement for majority Democrats who control the state Legislature, while staying away from more controversial topics like changes to the state's bail laws.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s tenure in Albany was marked by spates of productivity and chronic tension with the New York state Legislature.

According to many lawmakers, the former governor frequently used heavy-handed tactics to get his way in negotiations, including threats and bullying.

For a decade, Andrew Cuomo was able to flex his political muscle as governor over the New York state Legislature on many occasions, amassing a large degree of power while in an inherently powerful office.

Cuomo resigned in August after that same Legislature had recently voted to scale back his broad pandemic powers and were on track to impeach and potentially remove him over multiple sexual harassment allegations and other controversies.

Gov. Kathy Hochul outlined several measures to allow for expanded development of affordable housing, pledging overall to add or preserve 100,000 affordable housing units over five years, including 10,000 units with supportive services.

“Every New Yorker deserves access to affordable housing, whether they’re at risk of homelessness or struggle to pay the rent each month,” Hochul said in her address.

Republicans in the New York state Senate on Wednesday unveiled their own priorities for the new year, hours before Gov. Kathy Hochul delivered her first State of the State address in Albany.

The agenda for the Republicans in the Senate is focused heavily on public safety, as well as boosting the state's economic picture amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Gov. Kathy Hochul’s State of the State plan includes several consequential transit plans for New York City, though they are limited to reviews and studies of ideas that advocates and planning groups have been kicking around for decades, in some cases.

The most exciting thing in the plan to transit lovers will undoubtedly be the nod to the fabled Interborough Express: a plan to create an outer-borough subway line on existing freight tracks that could connect Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx.

Kathy Hochul has been the governor of New York for just over four months, and Wednesday she laid out her agenda for New York as the state Legislature reconvened for a new session.

The State of the State, much like the president's State of the Union, is meant to give a broad-brush view of the governor's agenda for the new year.

Gov. Kathy Hochul in her State of the State address called for permanently legalizing the sale of alcohol to-go orders from New York bars and restaurants, a move that was put in place at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic by an executive order by former Gov. Andrew Cuomo when those businesses were shuttered.

Hochul said passing alcohol-to-go would help many small businesses across the state pay their rents or mortgages as they continue to recover from the financial impacts of the pandemic.

Gov. Kathy Hochul delivered her first State of the State address to lawmakers and New Yorkers on Wednesday. Here are some of the ways her agenda can most directly impact residents.

Expanded voting laws

Gov. Kathy Hochul unveiled her first formal agenda for the new year on Wednesday by calling for measures to address acute worker shortages in schools and health care systems after the COVID-19 pandemic decimated workforces across the economy.

Hochul's State of the State address, delivered Wednesday in Albany to a socially distanced group of only dozens of people in the Assembly chamber, comes as the state continues to grapple with the fallout from the pandemic and a rise in cases amid the spread of the omicron variant.

New restrictions will be put in place in the state Capitol building on Wednesday as Gov. Kathy Hochul gives her State of the State address, with visitors being required to show either proof of being fully vaccinated or test negative for COVID-19.

The new requirements are being added as a rally is being planned for outside the building later in the morning to protest vaccine and indoor mask mandates in the state.

Democratic Rep. Tom Suozzi in a video statement to be released later on Wednesday morning outlined the daunting challenges facing New York, calling the state of the state "dismal" and that residents "deserve better."

Suozzi, who is challenging Gov. Kathy Hochul for the Democratic nomination for governor this year, faulted her plans to combat the sharp rise in COVID cases while promising to deal with crime and lower taxes.

State lawmakers and Gov. Kathy Hochul in the next six months will be deciding how to spend billions of dollars, impacting schools and health care along the way for more than 19 million New Yorkers.

The legislative session is set to begin in Albany as Gov. Kathy Hochul delivers her first State of the State address, outlining an agenda for yet another year of the uncertainty brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic and as a statewide election looms.

BUFFALO, N.Y. — Whether it be New York City, Buffalo or Rochester, current Long Island Congressman and candidate for governor Tom Suozzi points to numbers over the last two years he says illustrate a troubling trend: There are upticks in homicides and other violent crime all over the state.

"I think we've got a really serious problem in our state," Suozzi said. "I don't think it's been talked about enough and I'm going to be talking about it a lot more throughout this campaign."

When she was sworn in to office on Aug. 24, Kathy Hochul pledged to take a different track as governor from her predecessor, the scandal-tainted Andrew Cuomo.

Now, as she gives her first address to state lawmakers outlining her own agenda and plans for New York, the new governor's speech will be the first time in a decade someone other than Cuomo will be steering the state in a new year.

Ten college and university campuses in New York will host COVID testing sites starting this week, Gov. Kathy Hochul on Monday announced as the omicron variant continues to surge across the country.

The testing sites will be opened at:

A former prosecutor told Capital Tonight it’s not clear why Albany County District Attorney David Soares isn’t prosecuting former Gov. Andrew Cuomo under the state’s sex crimes statute.

Former executive chamber aide Brittany Commisso accused Cuomo of groping her breast and buttocks in December 2020. In a statement released earlier Tuesday, DA Soares said that, while he found Commisso “credible," that the burden of proof was too high for him to bring charges.

After weeks of hearings and negotiations, members of New York state's Independent Redistricting Commission failed to reach a consensus on a single proposal to send to the Legislature.

Jack Martins, a Republican appointee who serves as the commission’s vice chair, told Capital Tonight that after weeks of hearings and negotiations, Democratic commissioners walked away at the 11th hour without an explanation.

New York state’s blueprint for reaching its statutory climate goals is robust, but not complete.

One example: On Monday, Capital Tonight spoke with Cornell University professor and Climate Action Council member Dr. Robert Howarth about how the state will need to help retrofit millions of homes that currently use natural gas for heating. According to Howarth, it will be an enormous and expensive undertaking. While the recently released draft scoping document discusses the idea of a carbon pricing, no definitive position was taken.

Former Buffalo candidate for mayor India Walton is joining the progressive Working Families Party as a senior advisor, the organization on Monday announced.

Walton, who defeated incumbent Mayor Byron Brown in a June Democratic primary and lost the general election amid a write-in bid by Brown, will oversee special projects.

Thousands of people in New York state prisons have received false positive drug test results, leading to punishments for many of them, including solitary confinement, longer sentences, delayed parole hearings and family visitation privleges revoked, according to the results of an investigation made public Monday by state Inspector General Lucy Lang.

At issue are drug testing policies that were put in place in 2019, using tests that ultimately were found to be unreliable and produced "rampant" false positives, the inspector general said.

Gov. Kathy Hochul's office has started to release publicly more detailed versions of her schedules, providing a window into her day-to-day events since taking office last August.

Hochul's office posted three months' worth of schedules online, sending a link to Spectrum News 1 in response to a Freedom of Information Law request that had sought detailed schedules of her events, meetings and phone calls from her first month in office.

New York state on Monday made another attempt to overturn the $10,000 cap on state and local tax deductions amid broader efforts in Congress to raise the ceiling and undo part of a 2017 tax law.

The push backed by Gov. Kathy Hochul and Attorney General Letitia James was also supported by Connecticut, Maryland and New Jersey, similarly high-tax states where more taxpayers are likely to be affected by the $10,000 limit.

The administration of Gov. Kathy Hochul on Monday continued to take shape as she appointed new advisors for housing, public safety and economic development, her office announced.

Tania Dissanayake, a former director of the New York City mayor's office of legislative affairs, will become the deputy secretary for housing. Marcos Gonzalez Soler, who most recently was a director at the Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice, will become public safety secretary.

BUFFALO, N.Y. — Last year, the New York State Nursing Association won a major victory when the state Legislature passed safe staffing legislation for hospitals and nursing homes.

However, NYSNA delegate Lona DeNisco said at Erie County Medical Center, where she works as a registered nurse, staffing is as short as she's ever seen it.

For the first time ever, New York has opted to use a commission to draw new congressional and state legislative maps — a task that, in the past, had been left to the state Legislature (or, in some cases, the courts).

But after 16 meetings and almost 3,000 public comments, the Democrats and Republicans on the Independent Redistricting Commission have not been able to come to an agreement on a single set of maps.

New York’s 22-member Climate Action Council has released its long-awaited blueprint for how the state can achieve the requirements of the 2019 Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, or CLCPA.

The CLCPA mandates that New York reduce greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) statewide by 40% by 2030. By the same year, the law mandates that 70% of all electricity generated in New York be renewable.

The Manhattan district attorney's office has closed an investigation into former Gov. Andrew Cuomo's handling of nursing homes during the COVID-19 pandemic, his attorney Elkan Abramowitz on Monday said.

The development comes after Cuomo, who resigned last August, has faced multiple investigations over his administration's policies toward nursing homes and long-term care facilities. At issue was a policy that required nursing homes to not turn away COVID-19 positive patients, and how the administration was reporting nursing home deaths due to COVID-19.