Dave Lucas

Several inmates in a New York jail have filed a $500 million lawsuit because they're not allowed to use dental floss. More from WAMC's Dave Lucas

In a federal lawsuit first reported by The Journal News, the Westchester County inmates claim they're losing teeth and suffering pain.

They claim that the jail acknowledges the need for floss and that other jails permit flossing.

The lawsuit names the county and its corrections commissioner, among others.

A congressional subcommittee says New York's residential centers for the developmentally disabled cost Medicaid about $1.9 million a year for each patient and is calling for an end to federal overpayments it says total $15 billion since 1990. More from WAMC's Dave Lucas.

New York officials dispute that total, but say the decades-old reimbursement rates should change and have been the subject to talks for months.

New York Attorney General Eric  Schneiderman has announced he has shutdown two websites as part of a “work at home” scam involving a mystery shopper program... more from WAMC's Dave Lucas

The AG says the lured consumers into becoming mystery shoppers to gather information anonymously about the customer service of a particular store, but instead of getting paid, they were duped into paying the scammers thousands of dollars.

At a time when Metro-North commuters are facing a possible 32 per cent fare hike, a report by the MTA's Inspector General has found Metro-North and the Long Island RailRoad are wasting hundreds of thousands of dollars each year because workers in the field are illegally idling their vehicles - WAMC's Dave Lucas reports

In New York State the maximum vehicle idling time is 5 minutes.

An audit found vehicles idled for a combined 20,000 hours each month, wasting over $800,000 a year.

In his ongoing effort to reduce a projected multimillion-dollar budget deficit for 2013, Dutchess County Executive MarcMolinaro is capping the amount of sales tax revenue distributed to its municipalities at $25 million. Hudson Valley Bureau Chief Dave Lucas reports

Dutchess county was projected to share $29.5 million this year. But the County Executive intends to drive down the overall cost of government.

That initiative powers Marc Molinaro's 2013 budget proposal, aimed at starting a multi-year transformation of Dutchess County Government.  

New census figures show that nearly 21 percent of New York City residents lived in poverty last year. More from WAMC's Dave Lucas

The national average is 15.9 percent. The new data shows the one percent increase in the poverty rate comes even as the city has gained back all of the jobs it lost in the recession.

A spokeswoman for Mayor Michael Bloomberg told The New York Times that the numbers "reflect a national challenge."Samantha Levine said, "The U.S. economy has shifted and too many people are getting left behind without the skills they need to compete and succeed."

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is looking at using Atlantic City International Airport to help expand capacity for the region's air traffic. WAMC's Dave Lucas reports.

The Port Authority operates the New York area's three major airports — Newark, JFK and LaGuardia — in addition to Teterboro Airport in northern New Jersey and Stewart Airport in Newburgh, N.Y.

New York's three major airports annually handle more than 100 million passengers. Delays at any of the three often have a ripple effect on air travel throughout the United States.

Suny officials were at the Capitol in Albany today to lay out their 5-year 2020 plan to build and develop a $165 million Emerging Technologies and Entrepreneurship Complex:  a 225-thousand square foot "emerging technology" Research and Development center - to be built on the west side of the UAlbany campus. Hudson Valley Bureau Chief Dave Lucas reports.

Governor Andrew Cuomo is has announced the selection of a review team to assist in selecting the final bridge design for the Tappan Zee ... Hudson Valley Bureau Chief Dave Lucas reports.

 

 

Two of the nation's most influential science journalists are making a special appearance this week in the mid-Hudson area, where they will engage in dialog and debate – Hudson Valley Bureau Chief Dave Lucas reports.

Andrew Revkin, author of The New York Times “Dot Earth” blog -and- John Horgan - who  writes the “Cross-check” blog for Scientific American, are meeting Thursday night at the Beacon Institute, where they will discuss the future of technology.