Times Herald-Record
Machado gains little in White House visit
WASHINGTON – Venezuelan opposition leader Marina Corina Machado got her courtesy luncheon with President Donald Trump on Jan. 15 but gained little else politically after the White House secured a $500 million deal for Venezuelan oil through ongoing...
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‘On the path’ to universal child care in New York
It was a rainy, dreary morning outside DAY ONE Early Learning Center in the City of Poughkeepsie on Jan. 14, but one classroom, filled with nine children bursting with energy, couldn’t have been brighter. Ashleigh Shubert, lead teacher in the...
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Local ICE detention center possible
About 600 people gathered at the monthly Village of Chester board meeting on Jan. 12 to protest the possible creation of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facility in Chester, where the Department of Homeland Security is proposing...
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Sticking it to the emerald ash borer
An Upstate New York propagation project in Ithaca may offer a way to protect native ash trees from an invasive species that has been decimating woodlands across North America. The ash saplings, planted at Cornell Botanic Gardens as part of the Nature...
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DeStefano lays out his mayoral agenda
Middletown Mayor Joe DeStefano plans to build on the progress his office has made since 2010, improving infrastructure, stabilizing taxes and replacing the century-old water and sewer mains across the city as we move further into the new...
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Where NY Capitol rioters ended up
Five years ago, they were all involved in the U.S. Capitol riot in support of President Donald Trump and wound up serving or facing prison time for serious criminal charges. A Proud Boys member from Rochester, serving 10 years after being convicted...
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U.S. changes guidance for 4 childhood vaccines
WASHINGTON – The United States on Jan. 5 dropped its recommendation that all children be vaccinated against influenza and three other diseases, a move that advances one of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s long-term goals. The decision to...
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Trump: Case against Maduro ‘infallible’
Deposed Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro was transported by helicopter on Jan. 5 to a federal courthouse in Manhattan for an arraignment on federal narco-terrorism charges. Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, were facing a four-count indictment linking...
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Dipping into state funding
Middletown YMCA has received a $1,060,000 grant for Camp Robbins pool reconstruction and facility overhaul. The funds were allocated to the YMCA’s Splash Forward initiative under the $63 million second round of the New York Statewide Investment in...
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AI to review Medicare claims in pilot program
A new Medicare program that uses artificial intelligence to review medical claims is set to launch in six states. Critics worry it will lead to patients being denied necessary care and more red tape for providers. The controversial new six-year pilot...
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NY primaries could move to Super Tuesday
New York voters would play a stronger role in choosing presidential nominees under a new bill that would move the state’s primaries to March to join a slew of others states that vote on Super Tuesday. The proposal to be taken up by state lawmakers...
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Big events on calendar for 2026
As a new year dawns, many Americans are reflecting on 2025, a year marked by historic events including the inauguration of a president, the appointment of the first American pope, and major pop culture moments like the release of “Wicked: For Good” and...
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Trump faces major challenges in 2026
WASHINGTON – Happy new year? President Donald Trump faces daunting challenges in 2026 once the holiday celebrations are done, including a familiar impasse over government spending, rising health care costs for millions of Americans, and midterm...
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Over 1M students homeless in U.S.
WASHINGTON – After T’Roya Jackson discovered the paint in her apartment gave her daughter lead poisoning, she and her children moved out. They couch-surfed for a while before moving into a homeless shelter over the summer. The hair stylist began...
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Regenerative farming making a comeback
At Troon Vineyard, in southern Oregon’s Applegate Valley, Garett Long has turned composting into an art form, using it to support soil microbes and eliminate the need for petroleum-based fertilizers. h When Andrea Malmberg and her husband, Tony, bought...
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‘FORMIDABLE CHALLENGE’
LONDON – The West’s push to build a homegrown magnets supply chain to reduce its reliance on China – led by massive U.S. backing for Nevada-based MP Materials – is running into a critical problem: the scarcity of so-called heavy rare earth...
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RING IN 2026 AT A LOCAL EVENT
Looking to spend the last night of 2025 out and about? The mid-Hudson Valley has a little something for everyone to celebrate the new year. We’ve gathered some of the numerous New Year’s Eve events across Dutchess, Orange and Ulster counties to help...
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2026 may bring more tough money decisions
Americans weary of high – and rising – prices may get some relief in 2026. Or not. Many analysts believe the economy is finding its footing after several jolts from tariffs, the long tail of the pandemic supply snarls, and more. But some think we’re...
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A joyful sight
Looking to get into the holiday spirit with some festive light displays? There are over a dozen across New York state you can take a drive or walk through this winter, with some even extending beyond New Year's Day. Here's a look at 18 light shows from...
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Reenactor marks 50 years crossing the Delaware
Ronald Rinaldi has crossed the Delaware on Christmas for five decades. The 64-year-old Branchburg, N.J., native has been reenacting the historic 1776 event, a pivotal moment in the Revolutionary War, often portraying Major General Nathanael Greene of...
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Crash-prone Monroe road frustrates residents
A New York State Police trooper was injured in a vehicle collision near 277 Seven Springs Mountain Road in the town of Monroe on Dec. 15, but residents say this is just the latest in a long series of accidents they have witnessed with regularity over...
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University shooting suspect found dead
PROVIDENCE, RI – Though the suspect connected to the deadly Brown University attack and the fatal shooting of an MIT professor was found dead in New Hampshire, the questions and fallout have only begun. Providence Police Chief Col. Oscar Perez...
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‘Decisions based on reliable information’
Could New York schools again have to accept religious exemptions for student vaccinations? The state limited mandatory school vaccine exemptions back in 2019, after a measles outbreak had sickened 312 people in Rockland. The issue has again been...
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‘SEEING PEOPLE AS PEOPLE’
When Elizabeth Dalzell’s daughter Liesl complained of severe pain in her left shoulder in June by using sign language, it began a nearly monthlong odyssey through New Jersey’s health care system before the young woman with multiple disabilities...
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Free buses coming for commuters
New York state plans to bump up the number of weekday buses linking Orange County commuters to Manhattanbound Metro-North Railroad trains come January. The number of weekday trips on the Newburgh-Beacon Bridge Shuttle will increase by 60% beginning...
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How much prison time is enough before parole?
Gabrielle Hill, the newly elected Orange County Legislator for District 6, met Alton Lee during her election campaign. Lee, who works as a Hudson Valley community leader at Release Aging People in Prison, handed her a postcard that she said read: The...
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2026 BUCKET LIST
This time last year, we pulled together a list of 2025 exhilarating bucket list activities to do in the mid-Hudson Valley. But for our 2026 list, we decided to do it a bit different. We’ve curated local experiences that allow you to be a tourist in...
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Educators weigh in on NY’s school smartphone ban
Three months after New York schools implemented a bell-to-bell cell phone ban, the state is touting a transformative impact, citing more focused learning and more effective teaching, according to a state survey. Of the 350 responses submitted, a...
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Private firms snap up mobile home parks
One of America’s most affordable paths to homeownership is slipping away. h At manufactured home parks – sometimes called trailer parks or mobile home parks – rents are rapidly rising due to large-scale buyouts by private equity firms. h Although...
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‘Understand a history that was once forgotten’
The Newburgh council voted on Dec. 8 to approve a capital reserve fund for an African American burial ground memorial and reinterment site in Downing Park — a matter in the works since 2008 when human remains were found under the former Broadway...
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Defense tech firms face growing pains
SIMI VALLEY, CA – U.S. defense technology companies have roughly doubled their share of Pentagon contracts over the past year, but they face growing pains as they try to evolve from hot startups into heavyweights capable of building weapons at...
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Delivery drivers face different conditions
American households have become dependent on Amazon. h The numbers say it all: In 2024, 83% of U.S. households received deliveries from Amazon, representing over 1 million packages delivered each day and 9 billion individual items delivered same-day or...
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Brightest in the Valley
Professionals and enthusiastic residents alike have strung up, assembled and readied their holiday light displays across the mid-Hudson Valley for the 2025 festive season. Area residents and visitors have 15 major sites in area to pick from, and...
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TODAY IN HISTORY
Today is Friday, Dec. 5, the 339th day of 2025. There are 26 days left in the year. On this date in: 1578: About a year into his three-year circumnavigation of the world, English explorer Francis Drake raided Valparaiso. It was a key seaport, in...
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Volunteers help put up tree in Degnan Square
Middletown and the Middletown Downtown Business Improvement District held a Christmas tree lighting ceremony and parade on Nov. 28. Beginning on North Street at Railroad Avenue, the procession with floats and on-foot participants featured area...
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New petition: Bring back the Tappan Zee
More than 3,000 have signed onto an effort to get Gov. Kathy Hochul to change the name of the Gov. Mario M. Cuomo Memorial Bridge to the historic Tappan Zee. It’s far from the first effort to restore the historic name of the crossing over the Hudson....
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‘TIPPING POINTS’ TOO RISKY TO IGNORE
As the planet warms, it risks crossing catastrophic tipping points: thresholds where Earth systems, such as ice sheets and rainforests, change irreversibly over human lifetimes. Scientists have long warned that if global temperatures warmed more than...
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New York’s culinary scene investigators
Hidden in the food sold at New York’s grocery stores, bodegas and delis is a stealth buffet of allergens, pathogens and bacteria, waiting to sicken consumers, ruining their days or worse. Meat sliced on grinders laced with bacteria. Ice cream churned...
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2025’s biggest price tags in mid-Hudson
The priciest homes sold in the midHudson Valley this year included eclectic designs, sweeping views, sellers with prestigious resumes, ties to music icons and brokers with multi-region client lists. Though the properties distinguish themselves through...
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‘I wish this country supported artists’
Being an artist is not viewed as a real job. It’s a sentiment I’ve heard time and again, one that echoes across studios, rehearsal halls and kitchen tables – a quiet frustration that the labor of making art rarely earns the legitimacy or security...
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Political violence support overstated
Recent events have sparked alarm about rising levels of political violence in the United States. These episodes include the assassination of political activist Charlie Kirk on Sept. 10; the murder of a Democratic Minnesota state legislator and her...
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HAPPY THANKSGIVING
There is no print edition of the paper today, but you can find today’s puzzles, comics, national news and sports here in the eNewspaper.
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Banned books being judged by their covers
Over the past decade, a growing movement to restrict access to books in public schools and libraries has spread across the country. Every year, there are hundreds of attempts to challenge or ban books, targeting thousands of titles. h According to the...
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TODAY IN HISTORY
Today is Monday, Nov. 24, the 328th day of 2025. There are 37 days left in the year. On this date in: 1859: Charles Darwin’s “The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection” was published. The theory of evolution contained in its pages was...
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Shutdown agreement includes smaller provisions
WASHINGTON – Several eyebrowraising proposals are tucked into the bills that were on track to end the longest-ever federal government shutdown. While lawmakers’ attention has centered mostly in recent days around measures to reverse thousands of...
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Senate approves plan to end shutdown
WASHINGTON – The Senate approved a deal late Nov. 10 to end the nation’s longest-ever government shutdown, putting Congress on the brink of resolving a weeks-long fight that has disrupted flights and halted food stamps for millions of Americans. In a...
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Shutdown appears closer to ending
WASHINGTON – The longest-ever government shutdown is on the verge of ending, as food aid benefits are in limbo and flight cancellations and delays disrupt travelers. The U.S. Senate on Nov. 9 took the first big step toward voting on a bipartisan deal...
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Goshen chef: ‘Timing is right’ to celebrate German cuisine
Chef Franz Brendle had long wanted to have a German restaurant, but it never seemed the right time. For decades, he created and ran other restaurants in the Hudson Valley — Nina Restaurant and The Bullroom in Middletown, then Craft 47 and Pharmacy...
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Last two bears gone
BEAR MOUNTAIN STATE PARK There are no bears in the Bear Mountain Zoo. The two longtime resident bears, siblings Sadie and Pal, died this year. Sadie died in March and Pal last month. They were around 20 years old. Staff and visitors miss them...
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SNAP disruptions could hurt grocers
Like the millions of Americans who rely on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, retailers are bracing for the effects of reduced or delayed funding to a program that typically injects billions of dollars into the U.S. economy each month. The...
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Flight cuts coming due to shutdown
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced in a Nov. 5 news conference that there will be a 10% reduction in flights at 40 major airports due to the impacts of the ongoing federal government shutdown. Duffy’s comments came two days after he warned...
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‘Mandate for a new kind of politics’
Zohran Mamdani sailed to victory over Andrew Cuomo in a nationally watched New York City mayor’s race that ignited a voting surge and already is churning politics for next year’s elections for governor and key House seats in New York. The 34-year-old...
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‘Much more than vice president’
WASHINGTON – Richard Bruce Cheney was the most powerful and the most controversial vice president in American history. Cheney, 84, died surrounded by family members on the evening of Nov. 3, of complications of pneumonia and cardiac and vascular...
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Big questions hang over off-year elections
Election Day has arrived. Democrats are trying to bounce back from their 2024 thumping, while Republicans are working to blunt the typical momentum for the party out of power as voters hit the polls Nov. 4 for contests that show the mood of the...
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California set to vote on redistricting
California voters on Nov. 4 will play a big role in deciding which party controls the U.S. House of Representatives for the final two years of President Donald Trump’s time in office. Citizens of the nation’s most populous state are weighing in on...
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Federal drug prosecutions at lowest level in decades
WASHINGTON – The number of people charged with breaking federal drug laws dropped to the lowest level in decades this year after the Trump administration ordered enforcement agencies to focus on deporting immigrants, a Reuters review of nearly 2...
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Trump targets filibuster rule to end the shutdown
WASHINGTON – As the shutdown drags on, President Donald Trump is urging Senate Republicans to go around Democrats to break an impasse with growing ramifications, with millions of Americans poised to lose federal food assistance. Trump called for an...
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SNAP benefits at risk for millions in New York
Almost 3 million New Yorkers could be without federally provided food assistance starting Nov. 1, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced on Oct. 27. The potential pause is part of a broader, nationwide funding lapse as a message at the top of the U.S. Department...
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Murder trial begins for New York trooper
The murder trial for Christopher Baldner, a former state trooper accused of killing an 11-year-old girl during a high-speed chase on the Thruway in 2020, has begun in Ulster County Court. The case is being prosecuted by New York State Attorney...
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Mall’s foreclosure lawsuit taken over by new plaintiff
WEST NYACK - A new plaintiff has taken over a foreclosure lawsuit against the Palisades Center after the megamall’s owners were accused of squelching on a $418.5 million debt. Meanwhile, the mall property remains under receivership, operated by a...
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Shutdown drags on with Trump out of country
The federal government shutdown reached its 27th day on Oct. 27, and there’s little headway expected over the next few days, as President Donald Trump is away on a nearly weeklong foreign trip. Congressional leaders remain locked in a bitter stalemate...
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Striking nurses find new, winged patients
Walking the picket line for more than 80 days, Ian Lacombe and many of his fellow nurses at Butler Hospital in Providence, Rhode Island, missed the nurturing nourishment they received from helping to heal hospital patients. h After Lacombe rescued an...
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Incumbent DeStefano faces Legislator Sierra
The City of Middletown mayoral race features two candidates: incumbent Democrat Joseph M. DeStefano and Time for Change challenger Joel Sierra. Election Day is Nov. 4 and polling stations will be open from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. across Orange County. Early...
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Birds bounce back
When I started bird-watching as a teenager, a few years after the first Earth Day in 1970, several species that once thrived in my region were nowhere to be found. Some, like the passenger pigeon, were extinct. Others had retreated to more remote, wild...
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Food Bank handing out 115K Thanksgiving meals
MONTGOMERY – The Regional Food Bank Hudson Valley will partner with local organizations to provide 115,000 Thanksgiving meals in the region in 2025. Planned as the largest single-day distribution of meals in New York, the drive will serve more than...
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Too old to trick-or-treat?
If you’re in a pinch to find something to do in the mid-Hudson Valley for Halloween 2025, we’ve got a roundup of 13 spooky, exhilarating and lively options. From haunted attractions and houses to nightlife, there’s something here to pique everyone’s...
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Work begins on Trump’s $250M ballroom project
Construction began on President Donald Trump’s new $250 million White House ballroom with workers demolishing part of the East Wing ahead of building a 90,000-square-foot addition, one of the biggest changes to the presidential residence in...
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Rallies draw hundreds in mid-Hudson Valley
CORNWALL – The “No Kings” protest movement came to the usually quiet Town of Cornwall on Oct. 18. The protest in Cornwall and several others around the region, including the hundreds of people who lined up in Poughkeepsie, were among more than 2,500...
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Families ‘in limbo’ as they wait for bodies of hostages
Their son’s death was announced over a year ago. But Ruby and Hagit Chen still have not been able to sit shiva — the customary, seven-day period of Jewish mourning — for the youngest American still unaccounted for from Hamas’ 2023 terror attack in...
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‘We didn’t realize how difficult it would be’
Piece by piece, bolt by bolt, the Indian Point nuclear power plant is being stripped down to its parts, each one a snapshot in time from the plant’s six decades supplying electricity to New York City and Westchester County. Inside Unit 1’s containment...
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President seeking charges for more foes
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton on Oct. 16 became the third high-profile Trump critic to be criminally charged after the president repeatedly attacked him publicly. All three maintain their innocence...
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Report: ICE detainees get inadequate care at jail
People detained for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency at the Orange County jail are getting inadequate medical treatment, according to a report released by the New York Lawyers for the Public Interest. Among other things, NYLPI...
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NY completes $24M airport improvements
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul announced Oct. 14 that a project to transform Sullivan County International Airport into a modern, state-of-the-art facility has been completed. The project, which began in May 2023, was awarded $18.5 million from the...
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Unemployment payment cap sees big increase
New Yorkers who lose their jobs stand to get more generous aid from Albany under a 72% jump in the top unemployment pay that took effect this month. New York hoisted the payment cap to $869 per week from $504, the state’s first increase in six years...
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A triumphant Trump basking in praise
The path to a durable peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians that President Donald Trump is pursuing will surely face hurdles and setbacks ahead, and success in that long struggle is hardly guaranteed. But on Oct. 13, there was joy in the...
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