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Dec 12

2025

Cops shouldn’t cooperate with ICE, advocates say

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A panel of law students and advocates presented the report Wednesday. Photo by J. Dale Shoemaker. A handful of local law enforcement agencies turn migrants they encounter over to federal immigration agencies like the U.S. Border Patrol — a practice some now say should end. In a report released Wednesday, professors and graduate students with the Buffalo Human Rights Center — part of the University at Buffalo’s law school — detailed the cooperation between local and federal agencies, criticized the practice and called on state lawmakers to ban it. “Our conclusion across many contexts and many actors is that cooperation[...]

Posted 11 hours ago

Dec 11

2025

A double-dipping Niagara Falls defense contractor

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Americarb’s existing production facility. Photo via the Niagara Gazette. A Niagara Falls defense contractor is “double dipping” from public coffers, critics say, after winning a Department of Defense contract, a state grant and now, on Wednesday, local tax breaks. First came the $12.6 million federal contract, announced in September. Americarb, a materials manufacturer, was awarded the funding to develop a process for converting woven rayon fabric into “carbonized rayon phenolic,” a material that the military will use to insulate the rocket nozzles of tactical and hypersonic missiles. The company plans to expand its Niagara Falls factory and hire 40 people[...]

Posted 1 day ago

Dec 10

2025

Interview: Drew Warshaw, candidate for state comptroller

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Drew Warshaw, candidate for New York State comptroller. New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli has been the state’s chief financial officer for 18 years. That’s long enough, according to Drew Warshaw, who hopes to compete the first contested primary election DiNapoli has faced in his long tenure. It’s “one of the most powerful offices in government,” Warshaw said in an interview with Investigative Post this week. And yet “virtually no one has ever heard” of it, many “can barely pronounce” it, and even fewer could name the man who’d held the office since 2007. The office’s power, Warshaw said, derives[...]

Posted 2 days ago

Dec 9

2025

Local police who cooperate with ICE

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The Cheektowaga Police Department heads the list of a half-dozen local law enforcement agencies that are cooperating with federal agencies to detain and deport migrants. So far this year, police in the Buffalo suburb have turned over at least 21 people to federal immigration agents after detaining them for low-level offenses like shoplifting. Sheriff offices in Erie and Niagara counties are also working with U.S. Border Patrol and ICE. So are police in Lewiston, North Tonawanda and Amherst, though to a lesser extent.  Buffalo police do not appear to collaborate with immigration authorities. Mayor-elect Sean Ryan said it’s not the[...]

Posted 3 days ago

Dec 8

2025

Buffalo’s incoming mayor begins to build his team

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Mayor-elect Sean Ryan’s management team is starting to take shape with the announcement Friday of four deputy mayors. Three of the four are present or past members of Mark Poloncarz’s team in Erie County government. That’s a good sign — on the surface, anyway — as the county executive has been a competent administrator, the terrible deal on the Bills stadium notwithstanding. Past mayors have had one, sometimes two, deputies. Ryan’s approach is to give each deputy mayor a portfolio of departments to oversee. The most thankless assignment will fall to Eugenio Russi, responsible for the police and fire departments.[...]

Posted 4 days ago

Dec 4

2025

Lack of medical care led to prison deaths

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  Jason “Poppy” Phillips’ family protest outside Greene Correctional Facility where Phillips died in December 2023. Video by by Angus Mordant for The Marshall Project. Ashley Dolcy heard panic in her husband’s voice. On most evenings, they would talk after she returned home from her job as an assistant principal at a school in the Bronx. Jason “Poppy” Phillips would call on a prison-issued tablet from his cell at Greene Correctional Facility near Albany. On Dec. 14, 2023, he told her that, since lunch, he’d increasingly had trouble breathing and swallowing. Alarmed that Phillips was struggling to breathe while locked[...]

Posted 1 week ago

Dec 3

2025

Opioid epidemic funds lack oversight, transparency

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Overdose-reversal drugs at a liquor store on Niagara Street in Buffalo’s Riverside neighborhood. Photo by Adam Smith-Perez. This is the second of two stories about government’s response to the opioid epidemic. Nearly half a billion dollars intended to address the opioid epidemic has flowed through state agencies in New York over the past four years, the result of an ongoing legal battle against opioid manufacturers and distributors for abetting addiction.  Experts have concerns about how those funds are being deployed — not just by the state, but by the counties, cities and towns that have been granted shares of the[...]

Posted 1 week ago

Dec 2

2025

Buffalo’s indifferent response to opioid overdoses

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Editor’s note: This is the first of two stories on the use of opioid settlement funds by government agencies. Part 2 is here. The City of Buffalo has spent less than a third of the almost $6 million in state funding it has received over the past three years to fight the opioid epidemic. During that time, more than 500 people died of overdoses within Buffalo city limits, according to data from the Erie County medical examiner. The victims have been disproportionately Black and Latino. Of the $1.75 million the city has spent, about $500,000 went for equipment and activities[...]

Posted 1 week ago
Investigative Post