Culture

BY JIM OSTROWSKI “War is the health of the state,” said Randolph Bourne.  “War is hell,” said General Sherman.  The war criminal Sherman was an expert in the subjects of hell and war.  When I was twelve, I attended my

BY TONY FARINA Carrie Cohen was a big-time prosecutor with corruption-fighting U. S. Attorney Preet Bharara in the Southern District of New York and before that, with the State Attorney General’s office.  But she left it all behind a few

BY TONY FARINA The big political news this week, of course, was the nomination of New York billionaire Donald Trump as the Republican nominee for president at the GOP convention in Cleveland. Prominent among the Trump supporters is Buffalo developer

BY TONY FARINA Almost lost in the unbelievable feeding frenzy over the indictment last week of political operative Steve Pigeon was the news that Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s highly-touted job-creation program Start-Up NY has created more tax-free zones than jobs. Empire

BY FRANK PARLATO As everyone knows, there is often a difference between “the law” and justice. After all laws are made by elected officials under the influence of lobbyists and their desire to enrich themselves, and get reelected. Anyone who

BY TONY FARINA Gov. Andrew Cuomo came to Niagara Falls on Tuesday to officially break ground on the long-awaited Hamister hotel project in downtown Niagara Falls and he used the occasion to praise his state development team led locally by

BY MATT RICCHIAZZI One of the most accomplished political activists of his generation, former Erie County Democratic Party Chairman G. Steven Pigeon has long been a target of entrenched special interests and party hacks. Today, he is fighting for his

BY FRANK PARLATO ‘Equate,’ the brown, blackish, mulch-like product – with a piquant taste and curious smell – is made up of about 60 percent human excrement, mixed with other undissolved solids that once went happily down the drain after

BY JOSEPH KISSEL Rus Thompson says he can’t talk about it, but as he said during his Sunday “remove the tolls” address at Fisherman’s Park in Grand Island, anybody else can. Thompson was recently charged with five felony counts of

BY TONY FARINA Dr. [Eugene] Gosy was “the last best hope for patients suffering from chronic pain,” said Joel Daniels this week in describing the difficulties many patients have had finding help since the Williamsville pain treatment center operated by

Rumor has it that County Clerk Chris Jacobs is nervous following sweeping losses for the school board’s reform coalition earlier this month. Jacobs has been a chief architect of the reform coalition for years, and is said to be shaken by

Former State Senator Greg Ball, a popular two-termer from the lower Hudson Valley, has taken a major annual political fundraiser private. The move follows a decision last year to forgo a reelection effort after US Attorney Preet Baharara started asking

BY MATT RICCHIAZZI Attorney Ann E. Evanko, the politically connected managing partner of Hurwitz & Fine, a law firm that contributed to Mayor Byron Brown’s election efforts, will be issuing a legal opinion as to whether Commissioner Joe Mascia’s removal

BY JAMES HUFNAGEL National Fuel supplies natural gas to over 730,000 residential and corporate customers throughout Western New York and northwestern Pennsylvania. The Williamsville, NY-based oil and gas concern is vertically integrated across five business divisions: Exploration & Production, Pipeline

BY JIM OSTROWSKI The power elites who have run Buffalo into the ground for decades have largely squandered the greatest inland waterfront in the United States, ours.  Only in recent years has progress been made.  It is said that China builds the

BY MIKE HUDSON High priced flood insurance, erosion that eats up your back yard and government inaction are just a few of the joys associated with creekside living in Lackawanna. For years, residents living along Smokes Creek in all four

BY TONY FARINA We have learned that State Atty. Gen. Eric Schneiderman is expected to impanel a special grand jury in Buffalo on Monday (May 9) with the sole purpose of investigating former Erie County Democratic Chairman Steve Pigeon’s political

BY MARC GROMIS As the number of patients qualifying to purchase medical cannabis under New York’s program slowly rises, many are complaining about the high price of the medicine in New York.  Medical marijuana, which is not covered by health insurance,