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WASHINGTON — New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo urged the White House Wednesday to give "immediate attention'' to safety issues involving the increased use of freight trains to transport crude oil. He made his comments just hours before the latest derailment in Lynchburg, Va. Cuomo later said the accident and other recent derailments are "a startling pattern that underscores the need for action." "In addition to steps that states like New York are taking, the federal government must overhaul the safety regulations, starting with taking DOT-111 trains off the rails now," he said in a statement. "These trains travel through populated...

Heroin peddled by Mexican drug cartels have flooded the Northeast – and unlike its predecessors from the 1980s, the drug is stronger, cheaper and purer. New York City has become the hub for the criminal enterprise and lawmakers in the state are putting forward a package of legislation that seeks to fight the resurgence of heroin. The bills, expected to become public on Monday, would toughen penalties for dealers, impose more funding for overdose-reversal drugs and increase insurance coverage for treatment. The proposed laws follow a series of forums that Senate Democrats held around the state on the sudden spread...

Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who will be arriving in New York this afternoon for a trip trying to lure businesses to the Lone Star State, offered a Texas-sized take-down of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s record on job creation this morning and challenged him to a debate. “I’d be more than happy to sit down and have a thoughtful conversation, a debate with Gov. Cuomo over the issues that face us as a state and talk about the economic policies and compare New York to Texas,” said Mr. Perry, speaking on New York Post columnist Fred Dicker’s Live from the State Capitol...

<p>ALBANY — A “mass exodus” is expected from the Cuomo administration after November’s election, according to several sources.</p> <p>“They all want out,” one source said of top Cuomo staffers. A former staffer said the rush has been spurred by the work environment.</p>

Cardinal Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York. Credit: Jeffrey Bruno/CNA. New York City, N.Y., Apr 21, 2014 / 05:02 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Lay Catholics on the East Coast have teamed up with a prominent cardinal to create ads for secular radio proclaiming the Church’s message to an audience who may not otherwise hear it. “This is an incredible opportunity to have listeners on a secular news radio media hear a message that gives very tangible examples of the good in the Catholic Church – what it has been doing, what it is doing, and what it will continue to do,”...

Governor Cuomo has signed off on the National Popular Vote Compact, giving New York's 29 electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote. SILive: Count New York in. The Empire State has joined the National Popular Vote compact with legislation signed Tuesday by Gov. Andrew Cuomo. States that have signed on to the interstate agreement will award electoral votes for president to the candidate who receives the majority of the national popular vote. "With the passage of this legislation, New York is taking a bold step to fundamentally increase the strength and fairness of our nation's presidential elections,"...

An NYPD cop is stuck in India after being arrested for accidentally bringing three bullets into the country, officials said Friday. Officer Manny Encarnacion was taken into custody on March 10 after security at New Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport found the bullets in his checked baggage, police sources said. “I’m troubled by it,” Mayor de Blasio said Friday of the arrest. “We want to make sure we're providing support for him — and make sure he’s not being treated unfairly.” In December, the controversial arrest and strip search of New Delhi’s then-deputy consul-general Devyani Khobragade in Manhattan for allegedly...

ALBANY, New York — The cathedral filled with applause as New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan placed the bishop's miter on the head of the Rev. Monsignor Edward Scharfenberger, ordained Thursday as the 10th bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Albany.Hundreds of white-robed priests and 34 bishops from across New York and New England participated in the Ordination Mass at the red-stone neo-Gothic Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception near Albany's capitol complex.Scharfenberger, 65, of New York City, was appointed by Pope Francis to succeed Bishop Howard Hubbard, who was the longest-tenured bishop of a single diocese in the nation when...

When Andrew Cuomo was running for governor in 2010, he claimed time and again that he wanted to represent and fight for all the people of New York – all, that is, except Catholics.Since taking office in 2011, Cuomo, who was baptized a Catholic, graduated from Archbishop Molloy H.S. in Queens County and Fordham University, has been hell-bent on offending Catholics and dismissing their beliefs in the public square.Cuomo’s first assault was on Catholic teaching that marriage is between a man and a woman. He was embarrassed that his state had been “surpassed by many other countries which have legalized...

I, Ronn Torossian, am a born & bred New Yorker, who raises a family here, owns a business – and loves all this city has to offer. Yet, I would be among the first to advise people not to live or move to New York if they don’t have to. If they have ambition or drive, New York isn’t the place to be. From the non-stop energy to the culture, indeed, this city deserves its title as capital of the world. Yet, from a business perspective, there are so many obstacles for living – and dying – in New York...

Liz Phillips, Brooklyn principal: I have never seen a worse ELA exam. Other principals agree. See below comment from Liz Phillips, principal of PS 321 in Brooklyn, who was scathing about the 2012 exam as well, but says this one was as bad or worse. One would think with all the controversy and parents opting out, NYSED and Pearson would be careful to construct a better set of exams. But perhaps they are simply incapable of doing so. PS 321 PARENTS--Our 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders have just completed three days of the New York State English Language Arts Exam....

(Photo courtesy of Carl R. Gottstein Jr.) By: Raquel Okyay4/6/2014 03:20 PMRESIZE: AAA Print More than a year after the New York governor’s landmark gun control law was enacted, thousands of New Yorkers poured into the state house in Albany to protest his governance and leadership.“There is nothing about the SAFE Act that makes us safer,” said Robert P. “Rob” Astorino (R-Mount Pleasant), executive of Westchester County and candidate for governor 2014. Astorino, who spoke to the crowd state police estimate at 3500, said the people were energized and enthusiastic about the Second Amendment. “It’s an issue that deals with...

By April 15th, any New Yorker that owns an “assault weapon” is to have registered their gun, per the requirements of the New York SAFE act passed last year. But it’s looking more and more like a tiny percentage of New Yorkers are actually doing it. While the state of New York has not released actual firearms registration numbers, the rumors of registrations in the 3,000-5,000 range mean that 99% of those affected gun owners are refusing to comply with the law.

New York City’s longest-serving congressman won’t pay his rent. State taxpayers were stiffed out of at least $87,000 when Rep. Charles Rangel stopped paying for the district office he rents in Harlem’s Adam Clayton Powell Jr. State Office Building, records ­obtained by The Post show. His staffers’ excuse? They lost the lease, according to state Office of General Services correspondence. “I finally heard back from Congressman Rangel’s office and it seems we haven’t gotten the signed lease back because they lost it!” OGS real-estate specialist Sydney Allen wrote in a July 30, 2013, e-mail to a colleague that was ­obtained...

A black Bronx man feels he’s being forced out of his luxury high-rise in predominantly white Riverdale after waking Friday to find racially charged graffiti scrawled on his truck for the second time, he told the Daily News. Menuhin Hart, 54, said he discovered the hateful message: “U Shood Move” spray-painted on his 2011 Dodge Ram pickup truck as he left to run errands with his Army vet brother. In 2013, his truck was keyed on every panel, and the words “black n-----” were clearly scratched into the paint, he said. …

A majority of the cigarettes for sale in New York are illegally smuggled into the state, according to a report out Wednesday from the conservative research group the Tax Foundation. According to the report, 56.9% of the cigarettes sold in New York—the highest importer of smuggled cigarettes—originated from out of state. Since 2006, cigarette smuggling in the state has risen sharply, by 59%, in tandem with a massive hike in cigarette taxes of 190%. New York state now has the highest cigarette taxes in the country, at $4.35 a pack. Residents of NYC must also pay an extra $1.50 per...

Above: Protesters demanding passage of a financial aid bill for illegal aliens students in New York State.- by Brian Hayes | Top Right NewsLegislators stunned the pundits this evening by defeating a $200 million taxpayer giveaway to illegal aliens students in New York's Senate, which had the strong support of Governor Andrew Cuomo. The 'DREAM Act' was defeated by a 30-29 vote in the state Senate just minutes ago in Albany.

If you’ve never been to the annual New York City St. Patrick’s Day Parade, better put it on your calendar for next year. That is, if there is a next year. Time could be running out on the world’s biggest celebration of all things Irish. Why? Because the parade’s organizers have for two decades steadfastly refused to allow gay and lesbian organizations to march under banners trumpeting their sexual orientation. The city’s self-appointed guardians of human rights long ago declared this policy exclusionary and intolerant. But, unlike in previous decades, the effort to paint the parade and its organizers...

It’s been a rough week in terms of eaters finding disgusting things in their food. There was Jon Hughes of North Wales, who found a dead shrew inside his bag of potato chips , and Robin Sandusky of New York who found a lizard’s head and arm inside her salad . Making this a trifecta is Natalie Estrella, who found a large, disgusting bug in her soup from a New York restaurant, as WPIX 11 News reports. After finding the bug (and taking a picture), she alerted her waiter. The waiter took the soup away and disposed of the bug,...

"Mali national arraigned in 2000 killing of American diplomat in Niger"