WLIU: New York Statewide News (2009-11-20)

AP-NYS--Right Now,0674

Latest New York news, sports, business and entertainment:

NY STATE BUDGET
NY lawmakers headed home, no deal on deficit

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) - New York lawmakers headed home without
agreement on how to address the state's fiscal crisis.
The Legislature was in session all week - at a cost of about
$70,000 a day - but couldn't agree on how to close this fiscal
year's $3.2 billion deficit. The Assembly, Senate and Gov. David
Paterson have been talking about steps that would likely have to
include cuts in spending on schools and health care, both protected
by powerful special interests.
Legislative leaders continued negotiating in private with
Paterson. The goal is to return to Albany possibly on Monday and
pass a deficit reduction plan. They could convene earlier if a deal
is struck.

NY GOVERNOR'S RACE
GOP advisers: Giuliani leans toward a Senate race

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) - Two state Republican advisers say Rudy
Giuliani has not decided whether to run for governor of New York
but is becoming more interested in running for the U.S. Senate.
The advisers spoke Thursday on the condition of anonymity
because they weren't authorized to speak for the state Republican
Party or Giuliani.
Republicans have been watching polls showing that Giuliani, the
former New York City mayor, would beat Democratic Sen. Kirsten
Gillibrand in a hypothetical matchup in the Senate race next year.
The polls also show that Giuliani would lose in a run for
governor to the popular attorney general, Andrew Cuomo.

NY SPECIAL ELECTION
Conservative seeks cash to contest NY House race

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) - Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman is
writing to supporters saying he lost New York's 23rd House race
because of scheming, and he's asking for financial support in case
he decides to lodge a legal challenge.
Earlier this week Hoffman withdrew the concession he issued to
Democratic Rep. Bill Owens on election night, saying if he had
known how close the race was he would have stayed in it. Owens has
been sworn into Congress.
On election night Hoffman conceded when he learned he was down
5,335. After counties started the mandatory process of checking the
machine count with a count of paper ballots, the state Board of
Elections declared he was down by only 3,026 two days after the
Nov. 3 election, with thousands of absentee ballots yet to be
counted.

POLITICAL CORRUPTION-TRIAL
Bruno grant helped associate's company

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) - Documents show former New York Senate leader
Joseph Bruno sponsored a $2.5 million state grant to a college in
his district for a new technology center where the main tenant
would be a company whose investors included Bruno business
associate Jared Abbruzzese.
Bruno is on trial in federal court facing eight fraud counts,
accused of using his state influence to enrich himself and denying
New Yorkers his honest services.
The 2006 grant to the Sage Colleges in Troy was used to help
refurbish a science building into an incubator space, meant to
foster business applications from research.
Senate finance staff testified Evident Technologies would be the
anchor tenant. Other Abbruzzese companies employed Bruno as a
consultant in 2004 and 2005.

NEW ERA-CONSOLIDATION
New Era Cap Co. going from 3 plants to 1

BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) - New Era Cap Co., Major League Baseball's
supplier, is consolidating its U.S. manufacturing operations from
three plants into one.
The Buffalo-based headwear maker says it will shut down its
322-employee Jackson, Ala., facility by February.
Spokesman Paul Gallagher says a decision on which of the other
two plants will go - either Demopolis, Ala., or Derby, N.Y. - will
come after discussions with the workers' union. The Demopolis plant
has 350 employees and there are 334 in Derby, near Buffalo.
That plant will be closed in the second quarter of 2010, along
with a distribution center in Mobile, Ala., which has 70 workers.
Gallagher says Thursday there hasn't been enough consumer demand
during the recession to keep three U.S. plants going.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

AP-NY-11-20-09 0331EST