NY Senate OKs Budget Bill To Boost State Minimum Wage To $15 and other top stories.

• NY Senate OKs Budget Bill To Boost State Minimum Wage To $15

  ALBANY, N.Y. (CBSNewYork/AP) — The New York Senate on Friday overwhelmingly passed a budget that includes a measure to gradually raise the state’s minimum wage to $15. The Republican-controlled chamber voted 61-1 for the final bill after working through the night to pass other parts of the $156 billion spending plan for the fiscal year that began Friday. “We knew we could lift millions out of poverty if we just stayed focused,” said Sen. Andrea Stewart-Cousins, leader of the Senate’s Democratic..

  >> view original



• Art & Design

  

  Because he’s become part of the canon, with auction prices to match, but there are still places — The New York Times is one — where his most sexually charged photographs are considered too transgressive for reproduction. By HOLLAND COTTER

  >> view original



• New York Today: A Fools' Parade

  

  Just kidding.To all of the above.The nonexistent parade is solely a fixture in the imagination of the New York artist Joey Skaggs, a prankster who creates elaborate hoaxes as a form of social activism.He’s blasted out news releases, posted videos and has managed to get his April Fools’ Day Parade website appearing near the top of search engine results.“It’s a mystery to me how we continue to enable fools to make fools of us,” Mr. Skaggs said.Touché.Here’s what else is happening:Weather It’..

  >> view original



• Middle East|Obama Rebukes Donald Trump's Comments on ...

  

  Photo President Obama with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan at the Nuclear Security Summit on Friday in Washington. Credit Doug Mills/The New York Times WASHINGTON — President Obama on Friday questioned Donald J. Trump’s fitness for office, citing recent statements by the Republican presidential candidate suggesting less constraint on the use of nuclear weapons. “We don’t want somebody in the Oval Office who doesn’t recognize how important that is,” Mr. Obama said.Spe..

  >> view original



• Baseball|'A Front-Row Seat. To Misery.'

  

  Anthony Orso A Mets fan since 1969 “When the ball got hit to Wright, it just felt like, Wow, we just dodged a bullet. From our standpoint, from the minute the ball left Duda’s hand, we knew that that throw was offline, and you just couldn’t believe that this would be the way this game would go down. Just couldn’t believe it.” Phil Griffin President of MSNBC “It’s visceral. It’s painful. It’s so hard to get here. And we just threw it away. And those of us right here, we had a front-row se..

  >> view original



• NY / Region|Why New York City's Waterworks Works

  

  Photo Between the completion of the first water tunnel in 1915 and the start of construction on the second in 1928, the city built the Williamsburg Conduit to improve the water distribution system in parts of Brooklyn and Queens. This photo of the conduit was taken from the Hewes Street elevated train platform in 1925. Credit New York City Department of Environmental Protection One hundred years ago, mountain water from the Catskills began flowing into the cupped hands ..

  >> view original



• Saudi Arabia Moving to Reduce Dependence on Oil Money

  

  Photo As the head of a council that oversees Saudi economic policy, Prince Mohammed bin Salman is leading the kingdom’s search for ways to reduce the country’s dependence on oil income. Credit Charles Platiau/Reuters RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — A top Saudi prince has announced new elements of a plan to reduce the kingdom’s heavy dependence on oil, amid a drop in world prices that has sent shock waves through the Saudi economy.The plans include publicly selling shares of the..

  >> view original



• Bernie Sanders Says Victory in New York Will Win Him the Presidency

  

  Bernie Sanders kicked off his New York campaign with a rally in the heavily Hispanic South Bronx area of New York City on Thursday night, telling the crowd he'd win the presidency if he secures a victory in the state on April 19."If there is a large voter turnout, we will win," Sanders said to loud cheers. "And if we win here in New York, we are going to make it to the White House!"Fresh off sweeping wins in Washington state, Alaska, and Hawaii last weekend, Sanders is hoping that New York, whi..

  >> view original



• A Week of Misconceptions

  “Where did the Big Bang happen?” It’s a question that Dennis Overbye, The New York Times’s cosmic affairs correspondent, gets a lot. Actually: The Big Bang didn’t happen at a place; it happened at a time. Read on from your spot at the center of the universe. (That’s not an April Fools’ joke, either, as you’ll find out.)

  >> view original



• New York State Steps Up Arrests of Parole Violators

  

  Some on the roundup list, like Warren Morris, who had served 16 years for beating a person to death with a baseball bat, had violent pasts. But many more caught up in the dragnet were nonviolent offenders.The people on the list had, for the most part, avoided committing crimes since leaving prison. A recent study by the state corrections department that followed 23,710 former inmates for three years found that only 9 percent returned because of new felony convictions.But the 165 the police were..

  >> view original

No, New York City Is Not Hillary Clinton's "Hometown" .	Windows Phone's no-show at Build drives home Microsoft's mobile neglect .
NFL Demands Retraction From New York Times .	Police Misidentify Suspect as Brussels Airport Attacker .