Midday Magazine on WAMC

The League of Women Voters of New York State and the New York Public Interest Research Group are  out with an analysis of spending trends in the most recent campaign cycle - Capital Region Bureau Chief Dave Lucas reports.

The report found that fundraising for state legislative races dropped nearly 10 percent during the past two election cycles as money shifted to independent expenditures and spending on Senate races fell.

James Halpern went to Newtown, Connecticut the day after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings. He went for one week, as a volunteer with the Mid-Hudson Valley Chapter of the American Red Cross, to provide counseling to immediate family members of the victims, as well as to community members. The Red Cross counseling is short-term, and those who needed more assistance were referred to community resources.

A strange and disturbing anomaly: How such self-anointed and selfishly directed, sectarian extortionists, like Grover Norquist and Ralph Reed can assert that they are appropriate spokespersons for the aspirations of any legitimate group of American citizens?  Any proud and proven representative of today’s news media, who still retains a shred of professional self-respect, should reject this notion.  The profit-pointed interest of these adventurers’ involvements should serve to stress their up-to-no-good intentions, to the most disinterested observers of Public Interest activity.

Last night at the Egg I heard Bill McKibben talk about climate change. I was very proud of Joe and Alan and WAMC for organizing it and proud of the WAMC audience for coming out in droves to hear him. The message he brings is not a happy one but it is a message we have to hear and understand; more, it’s a message we have to act on.

Virtual Schools primarily teach students in online classrooms. And while many traditional schools use online teaching materials to broaden instruction, a virtual school usually operates for students unable to attend a regular school.

Terry Gipson will be sworn in Saturday as the New York State Senator for the 41st District. The Democrat’s win was not decided until about one month after the November election. Longtime Republican State Senator Stephen Saland, of Poughkeepsie, conceded the race December 13th, after a final count of absentee ballots and affidavits. The race was three-way, with Conservative Neil DiCarlo  on the ballot, saying there needed to be a conservative choice in light of Saland’s  vote in 2011 for the legalization of same-sex marriage in New York.  WAMC’s Hudson Valley Bureau Chief Allison Dunne sat down with state senator-elect Terry Gipson in his home base of Dutchess County’s Rhinebeck, to see what he has in mind for his first term in Albany.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo will deliver his third annual State of the State address Wednesday in the Empire State Plaza Convention Center.

A tip for first-time attendees: Don’t check your coat. The governor likes to keep things cold. 

Cuomo has declined to keep up the tradition of official pre-speech leaks. But he has dropped hints about the topics he'll be discussing, including responses to the two highest-profile tragedies of recent months: Superstorm Sandy and the Sandy Hook massacre.

Two of the year’s very best films-- and these are must-see items-- are arriving in movie theaters at the tail-end of 2012. They are Quentin Tarantino’s DJANGO UNCHAINED and Kathryn Bigelow’s ZERO DARK THIRTY, and they are as different as TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD and a Hope-and-Crosby road picture. But DJANGO UNCHAINED and ZERO DARK THIRTY are not the only must-see films released during the year. Some also are big-budget items that feature A-list directors and major stars. Others are more modest independent titles or foreign films.

Each January, New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli invites the media to his office for an informal breakfast discussion about current challenges facing state and local governments and his priorities for the New Year...

WAMC's Capital Region Bureau Chief Dave Lucas attended this morning's event, and filed this report.
 

Vermont has received conditional federal approval for its plan to create a consumer-friendly health insurance exchange.

Vermont is among a number of  states that have received word from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that they are compliant with regulations, and have appropriately outlined timelines that will allow them to have a health exchange running by October 1.