News

New York Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver has issued an apology for his handling of a sexual harassment case that spanned years involving at least four women staffers before it was detected.

Silver specifically apologized for the $103,000 secret settlement he crafted last summer to end the first accusations against Assemblyman Vito Lopez and for failing to stop subsequent incidents claimed by more women staffers.

New York residents are voting on their school districts' proposed budgets for next year.

Authorities say the average proposed tax levy increase is 2.8 percent, with school spending rising about the same amount, driven by increases in contributions to employee retirement systems.

This is the second year school districts are working under New York's tax cap law, which generally limits tax levy increases to 2 percent or the rate of inflation, whichever is less. Budget proposals that exceed the cap need a 60 percent supermajority of votes to pass.

A federal court judge has scheduled a hearing on June 4 on a challenge by the owner of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant.

Vermont’s Governor signed a bill Monday that will allow Vermont physicians to prescribe lethal doses of medication to terminally ill patients that request it.

Monday’s ceremony marked the installation of the Born Learning Trail, a series of signs along a pathway through a playground at Springside Park in Pittsfield, aimed young children and their families to encourage outdoor activity and reading.

The Born Learning Trail comes from efforts by Pittsfield Promise, a city-wide coalition that is working through a variety of projects with a goal of boosting  reading proficiency levels among Pittsfield third-graders to 90 percent by 2020.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo held a cabinet meeting this afternoon at the state capitol.   Issues discussed included jobs, education reform, drunk driving laws, pistol permits, and perhaps inevitably on the same day Brooklyn Assemblyman Vito Lopez resigned his seat, ethics. Cuomo says corruption is rampant throughout government and society, and telegraphed the idea people are accustomed to it.

The Southern Berkshire Regional School District, which operates in the Berkshire County towns of Sheffield, Alford, Egremont, Monterey, and New Marlborough, recently chose its next superintendent. WAMC’s Berkshire Bureau Chief Lucas Willard spoke with David Hastings, who is currently employed as the district’s Curriculum and Professional Development Coordinator, about his transition into his new role as superintendent that will happen this summer.

On this edition of Vox Pop, it’s Medical Monday. Joining us to discuss dermatology is Dr. Jerome Hill of Capital District Dermatology Associates in Glenmont, New York. WAMC's Alan Chartock hosts.
 

This weekend, an openly gay man was shot to death after a confrontation in Greenwich Village Friday in what police commissioner Ray Kelly is calling a hate crime. According to New York state Senator Brad Hoylman of Manhattan, whose district includes Greenwich Village, the incident was at least the fifth instance of anti-gay violence in Manhattan this month.