Categories for DailyPost

May 23

2022

Easing the path to graduation

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The New York State Education Department has lowered the academic bar for graduating students again this year.  Last week, the Board of Regents approved a temporary policy that broadens the scope in which students are able to appeal and graduate despite failing scores on required Regents exams.  This is the third consecutive year the Board has made changes involving Regents exam requirements for graduation, citing the ongoing impacts and “varied teaching and learning conditions” caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. Before the pandemic, students were required to earn a score of 65 or higher on at least four Regents exams in[...]

Posted 3 years ago

May 22

2022

Monday Morning Read

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If you subscribe to WeeklyPost, our newsletter delivered via email Sunday mornings,  you could have read this post – and more – yesterday. Just saying. Subscribe here. Byron Brown told CNN last week that the federal government needs to do more to help cities like Buffalo. Strange words coming from a mayor who has turned his back on the East Side during his 16 years in office, as documented by a study released last fall that detailed how Black neighborhoods have suffered in part because of the neglect of city government. It looks like people in the Black community want to end the neglect,[...]

Posted 3 years ago

May 22

2022

Scenes from a tragedy

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Last Friday, Layne Dowdall, camera in hand, visited the neighborhood around the Tops supermarket on Jefferson Avenue that was the scene of the horrific shooting of 10 people by a white supremacist on May 14. She captured scenes of a community grieving and coping, and the landscape of the neighborhood which is anchored by the  supermarket. Memorials honor the victims: Volunteers hand out food and supplies: Community shows support: Undeveloped lots surround the Tops Market:

Posted 3 years ago

May 19

2022

Radical right makes school board inroads

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Eleven newly elected school board candidates in Erie and Niagara counties are only two degrees of separation away from Western New York’s radical right. That is to say, they were endorsed by Western New York Students First, which portrays itself as a non-partisan organization but has extensive ties to some of the area’s most radical figures and groups. For example, David DiPietro, considered one of the state Assembly’s most right-leaning members, hosted a fundraiser for them in September; security was provided by the New York Watchmen, a quasi-militia. WNY Students First teamed with the Constitutional Coalition of Western New York,[...]

Posted 3 years ago

May 19

2022

A smart purchase by City Hall?

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Most of Mayor Byron Brown’s proposed $5.4 million hike in police spending is for new patrol officers and detectives.  There is also $364,000 earmarked for a product called ShotSpotter. ShotSpotter deploys an array of microphones in a neighborhood — 15 to 20 per square mile, attached to buildings and light posts — to detect and pinpoint the source of gunshots, then report the location to police. The company claims the technology is 97 percent accurate, provides police with intelligence on gunfire that might otherwise go unreported, improves police response time, and helps to reduce gun-related crime. About 120 cities have[...]

Posted 3 years ago

May 18

2022

The rise of the radical right in WNY

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Some people here are taking solace in the fact that the white supremacist who killed 10 people in Saturday’s supermarket massacre is from out of town.  As if Western New York doesn’t have its own growing cadre of right-wing extremists. I’ll start with a reminder of a story we did last June in which Investigative Post reported only one county in the entire country had more of its citizens arrested on charges related to the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol than Erie County.  Among those charged was an Amherst man who assaulted a Capitol Police officer, stealing his[...]

Posted 3 years ago

May 17

2022

Buffalo is Segregation City

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Editor’s Note: The story below published May 17. The companion television story, produced wth WGRZ, aired July 7. Buffalo and Western New York need to take a close look in the mirror in light of Saturday’s supermarket massacre. And if we’re honest with ourselves, we’re not going to like what we see. The region has a long history of racism, one that has been compounded in recent years by a growing undercurrent of right-wing extremism. Witness Saturday’s shootings. In this column, I’m going to explore racism and its impact. Tomorrow, I’ll delve into the radical right. Hear me out. Related[...]

Posted 3 years ago

May 16

2022

Attorney General’s inaction on OTB

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Last fall, an attorney representing New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli asked Attorney General Letitia James to take yet another look at the gold-plated health insurance Western Regional Off-Track Betting Corp. is still providing to its part-time board directors.  The comptroller’s referral, made in September, called on the attorney general’s Taxpayer Protection Bureau to take “appropriate action,” noting that DiNapoli’s office deemed the practice “impermissible” in keeping with a prior attorney general’s opinion that “unambiguously” stated the same.  It’s now been nearly eight months since the referral was made.  What has the attorney general’s Taxpayers Protection Bureau done in that[...]

Posted 3 years ago
Investigative Post