A state Senate panel today voted to name a stretch of Orange County highway after the  American commanding general in Iraq, David Petraeus, but not before a debate about whether anything should be named after someone still alive and a charge that even questioning the honor was a “slap in the face’’ to a [...]

  Where in the world is Gov.  Paterson?

Today is the fourth day in a row with the Legislature in town that the governor hasn’t been  here. Last week he was in New York City all three days the Legislature was at the Capitol, and todays he’s in the Finger Lakes and Batavia with Sen. Charles [...]

Remarkably enough, an “integrity’’ award was presented this week in Albany.

And yes, that is the same place where the former governor hired a prostitute and the FBI is investigating the Senate majority leader and the former comptroller was using a state worker as a chauffeur for his wife and two Assembly [...]

 Although so far Gov. David Paterson has been lukewarm in pushing for changes to cut local property taxes recommended by a task force last month, the head of that commission said today he’s not disappointed.

“I think he has approached this in a very shrewd manner,’’ said the chairman, former Lt. Gov. Stan Lundine of Jamestown.

The [...]

  The free ride is over, at least temporarily, for a controversial employee of the state Power Authority who has strong ties to former Govs.  George Pataki and Eliot Spitzer.

The authority today put Daniel Wiese, 55, of  Garrison, Putnam County, on unpaid administrative leave. He had been collecting his $181,701 salary as head of security [...]

 Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno was having a fine time today calling for more accountability and transparency in government until he was asked to provide some information about himself.

During a press conference about a Senate plan to force government to be more open, Bruno was asked to provide itineraries of trips he took on state [...]

The state’s highest court Tuesday sent back to A lower court a case involving whether Monroe County has to recognize a marriage between two women. The Court of Appeals refused to hear the case of Patricia Martinez, an employee of Monroe Community College, who sued the county after it refused to grant benefits [...]

The state Agriculture Commissioner made it official today: a $40 million state food lab earlier promised to Geneva is going to the Albany region instead.
“By rebuilding the laboratory here in the Capital District, we will be able to provide our existing and talented staff with a state-of-the-art facility that will enable us to better fulfill [...]

   Crackdowns on immigration and bureaucratic red tape is threatening this year’s harvest of apples and other crops on New York farms, agricultural officials said today.

Failure of the federal Labor Department to grant permits for workers from Jamaica and Mexico to enter the state and stepped-up raids by Immigration and Naturalization agents “is having a [...]

A mere 10 brand-name drugs accounted for more than $1 billion in spending on prescriptions filled for upstate residents last year – nearly 20 percent of the total spent on prescriptions,  according to a report issued today by Excellus BlueCross BlueShield, the region’s largest health insurer.

The drugs and the conditions they treat are:

Lipitor, cholesterol, $241.5 [...]