Northeast
Trump's top legal foe to be handed 'unprecedented' election power ahead of November: election attorney
A new requirement in New York that will take effect this weekend is set to grant Democratic New York Attorney General Letitia James widespread power over the state’s election process, a New York election attorney said.
“Nobody is really talking about it or what a big effect it’s going to have,” election attorney Joseph T. Burns, partner at the law firm Holtzman Vogel, told Fox News Digital in a phone interview this week. “But it’s interesting because, look, there’s a lot of bad stuff that happens in New York when it comes to the elections and everything else, but this strikes me as being particularly bad. And it’s certainly quite a power grab by the attorney general as well.”
Under the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Act of New York, which Gov. Kathy Hochul signed into law in 2022, a preclearance requirement in the law is set to take effect on Sept. 22. The new rule requires certain jurisdictions in the Empire State to request preclearance from the attorney general or a designated court to make election-related decisions, which range from changing the hours of early voting to culling deceased residents from a voter list, Burns said.
Burns published an op-ed in the New York Post this week, warning that the new law hands James “unprecedented power over election processes in some of the most hotly contested congressional districts in the nation, including those on Long Island and in the Hudson Valley.” The upcoming requirement has flown under the radar, Burns said, telling Fox Digital, “Nobody’s talking about. It’s pretty remarkable.”
New York Attorney General Letitia James. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images/File)
“The new rule upends the system of constitutionally mandated, bipartisan election administration that has served New York’s voters ably for generations,” Burns wrote in his op-ed, which was published on Sunday. “The law requires certain counties, cities, towns, villages and school districts to get the blessing of the AG or a designated court before making election-related or voting-related changes.”
The new rule covers massive jurisdictions such as New York City and nine counties on Long Island, including America’s largest township of Hempstead, as well as other areas known as “covered entities” under the requirement.
The jurisdictions are determined by a handful of factors, including arrest rates for residents of “protected classes” and whether a jurisdiction committed civil rights or voting rights violations in the last 25 years, Burns said, citing documents from James’ office last year that detailed the rules.
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Burns, who has a background in Republican politics and election legal issues, told Fox Digital there are “four triggers” that label a jurisdiction a “covered entity.”
(Aimee Dilger/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images/File)
“Any political subdivision which, within the previous 25 years, has become subject to a court order or government enforcement action based upon a finding of any violation of this title, the Federal Voting Rights Act, the 15th Amendment to the United States Constitution or a voting-related violation of the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution,” Burns said, reading from the 2023 document published by James’ office.
Burns gave an example of Erie County, which is considered a “covered entity” under the new rules, when the jurisdiction was hit with a court order involving the 14th Amendment about a decade ago.
“You think, ‘Wow, this sounds really sinister,’” he said of the 2014 court order. “‘They’re probably doing something. They’re disenfranchising a minority.’”
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“No, not at all. What happened was the county executive and the county legislature couldn’t agree on a redistricting plan,” Burns said of the case. “… Something like that would put a local government under preclearance.”
New York Attorney General Letitia James sits in the courtroom during the fraud trial of former President Trump and his children. (Dave Sanders/Pool/Getty Images/File)
“It isn’t just bad policy, because it undermines the bipartisan nature of the boards of elections. Which, again, they’re not perfect, there’s so many inefficiencies. But by and large, in this day and age where people are so concerned about election integrity, what’s better than having both sides have a stake in the outcome, both sides wanting to and needing to make sure that elections are run smoothly and fairly? And now you have a partisan elected official stepping in to essentially have a veto power over our boards of elections,” Burns said.
Under New York’s Constitution, elections are run by bipartisan boards that equally represent the Republican and Democratic parties.
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“One side watches the other, and both parties have a stake in ensuring that elections run smoothly — even in jurisdictions heavily dominated by one party or the other, like New York City. It’s not a perfect system, and it certainly has its inefficiencies. But it successfully preserves voter confidence,” Burns wrote in his op-ed.
“The preclearance rules of the state VRA, however, undermine this constitutionally mandated system of bipartisan election administration,” he added.
The New York State Capitol. (Thomas A. Ferrara/Newsday RM via Getty Images/File)
Burns said it’s possible the new rule, which will go into effect roughly 40 days before the presidential election, could cause some hiccups at the polls this year.
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“It’s certainly possible. I mean, what’s going to happen if, God forbid, an early voting site or an Election Day poll site… and a pipe breaks and it floods and it’s unusable, or there’s a fire in the facility and it burns down. They got to move it,” he said.
Local commissioners would then choose a new poll site before filing an application with the AG’s office. Burns said he’s not arguing that the AG’s office wouldn’t swiftly approve the application, but rather it adds additional layers of paperwork and clearance to run an election.
“New Yorkers of all political parties and persuasions want elections to be run fairly, honestly and efficiently — and the state’s system of bipartisan election administration already serves voters well,” Burns wrote in his op-ed.
“Our elections — and the public’s faith in them — will not be improved by the AG’s meddling.”
Fox News Digital reached out to James’ office regarding the upcoming requirement and Burns’ concerns in the op-ed but did not receive a response prior to publication.
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Thousands of students across New York State this week were unable to finish annual standardized tests after a technological issue disrupted the computer-based exams for the second consecutive year.
Students in grades three through eight from Buffalo to New York City encountered error messages on Wednesday when they tried to log in to their math or English language arts exams, which do not affect students’ ability to advance to the next grade. While some could sign in and complete the tests, others were kicked offline, frustrating students, teachers and parents.
For the past three years, New York State has been transitioning to digital exams, with this spring marking the first time that every student in those grades had to take them on a computer. So when students encountered issues on Wednesday, there were no paper exams available as a backup.
The developer of the state test, NWEA, an educational testing and research group, said it had worked overnight to identify the source of the disruption, which was identified as a problem with a server, and repaired it before school started on Thursday.
After problems emerged a year ago, the company pledged that it would not happen again. The New York State Education Department has awarded $116 million in contracts to NWEA to develop the untimed, federally required assessments.
The repairs this week came too late for many New York City students who were taking the math portion of the state assessment. Education officials in the city had advised principals on Wednesday not to reschedule the math test for the next day out of concern that the system could remain offline.
But some schools resumed the math exams on Thursday after the outage had been resolved, said Dominique Ellison, spokeswoman for the Department of Education. The remaining schools will administer the test in the coming days.
“I know this issue has been challenging and frustrating for schools, students and families who have been working hard in preparation for these exams,” Kamar Samuels, the schools chancellor, said on Wednesday night at a meeting of the Panel for Educational Policy, an oversight group.
It was unclear how many students in New York State had to scrap the exams, but the disruption appeared to be widespread. JP O’Hare, a spokesman for the New York State Education Department, said that 116,000 students had taken the tests on Wednesday without problems.
It was also unclear how many students were scheduled to take the exams on Wednesday because school districts have a window of several weeks in April and May in which they can administer the tests. There are about a million third-through-eighth-grade students in the state.
On Wednesday, Buffalo Public Schools stopped all math exams for students, while more than 1,600 students at Zeta Charter Schools in New York City had to give up on their English language arts assessments.
“The current system is failing, creating unnecessary challenges for students, teachers and administrators,” Emily Kim, the chief executive of the charter school network, said. “Our students deserve a testing experience reflecting the same level of preparation, care and accountability we ask of them.”
Those must be some extra sticky fingers.
The Boston Police Department is asking for the public’s assistance in identifying a man they say robbed a South End candy shop at knife point.
The man, captured on surveillance video, entered Madeleine’s Candy Shop at 47 Clarendon St. just before 7:30 p.m. Tuesday. He then walked up to an employee while holding “what appeared to be a knife,” according to a BPD statement, and demanded cash. He fled with an undisclosed amount of money.
Police describe the man as a white or light-skinned Hispanic man wearing a maroon sweatshirt, a gray wool cap, gray sweatpants, and a black mask.
Police ask that anyone who recognizes the man or who has information on the theft to contact detectives at (617) 343-5619 or to provide information anonymously through the CrimeStoppers tip line by calling 1-800-494-TIPS (8477), texting the word “TIP” to CRIME (27463), or through the online portal at Police.Boston.gov/CrimeStoppers/.
FBI recovers stolen 17th century Italian urn
Boston FBI agents recovered and returned a 17th century urn stolen from an Italian church.
“It’s incredibly exciting when the FBI can recover a piece of history that carries such deep emotional and cultural significance,” said Ted Docks, the special agent in charge of the Boston FBI. “After all, this reliquary urn is a tangible link to intense religious devotion and a connection to the generations who lived and prayed with it.
It represents the intersection of faith, history, and art – elements that are invaluable to the people of Italy and to humanity as a whole,” he continued. “This case highlights the power of international cooperation and our collective commitment to safeguard the world’s cultural treasures, no matter where they may be.”
The reliquary urn, which authorities say is a significant piece of Italian history and is registered with the Historical Artistic Heritage Items of the Italian Episcopal Conference, was stolen sometime in August 2022 from the church of San Michele Arcangelo di Cangiano.
The piece turned up in the hands of an antiques dealer in the American Northeast on Feb. 11, 2026. The dealer, who purchased it at some point from an Italian dealer, voluntarily relinquished the urn to the FBI, who gave it back to the Italian Ministry of Culture.
Boston-based FBI agents worked with the agency’s art crime team, its attaché in Rome and with the Italian Carabinieri, a paramilitary national police agency. The FBI’s art crime division was launched in 2004 and has recovered more than 20,000 items valued at more than $1 billion, according to the agency.
A reliquary is a medieval holder of a relic, according to Bowdoin College’s art history department, an item that “belonged to a saint … or, in many cases, the relics were believed to be body parts of a saint, truly powerful objects in the eyes of many medieval Christians.”
2 teens arrested for Haverhill mill fire
Two teens have been arrested on suspicion of setting fire to a Haverhill mill building earlier this week.
Firefighters responded to the mill at 14 Stevens St. at around 2:45 a.m. Tuesday after callers reported heavy smoke and flames. Firefighters arrived to “intense fire conditions that required a coordinated, multi-alarm response,” according to the Haverhill Police Department.
Crews worked the scene all day and were still fighting hot spots at least as late as 11:22 that night, when the firefighter union made its own post on the efforts.
The building was determined the next day to be a total loss, according to a statement issued by Mayor Melinda Barrett, Fire Chief Christopher Cesati, and city Building Inspector Thomas Bridgewater.
“Due to the intensity of the fire, the resulting heat severely compromised the structural steel supporting the four-story building,” the update stated. An independent structural engineer “determined that the building sustained a critical loss of structural integrity and will require full demolition.
That same day, Haverhill PD announced the arrest of 18-year-old city resident Isabella Sargent, who they charged with arson of a structure and conspiracy to commit arson.
On Thursday, police announced they had also arrested a second teen, this one a 17-year-old juvenile, on charges of arson and related offenses.
Police report that there were no civilian injuries related to the fire and that the incident remains under investigation.
The police ask that anyone with any information contact them by calling 978-373-1212 ext.1551.
Police search for Roxbury shooters
Boston police are looking for three males they say are responsible for shooting two other males on Kendall Street in Roxbury last month.
Police responded to 3 Kendall St. in Roxbury a little after 7 p.m. on March 29. There they found two male victims suffering from gunshot wounds. Both were treated at local hospitals for non-life-threatening injuries.
One suspect fled toward the parking lot behind that address while the other two fled toward where Kendall Street intersects with Shawmut Avenue.
Police on Wednesday released a surveillance still of the suspects and ask that if anyone recognizes them or has any information regarding the shooting to contact detectives at (617) 343-5619 or through the CrimeStoppers tip line. Crimestoppers information is detailed at the bottom of the first Crime Briefs entry.
More than 50,000 people will run in one of the Pittsburgh Marathon events this weekend. It’s capped off by the marquee event of the marathon itself.
Call it a runner’s high or insanity; the marathon takes just about everything a person can muster up physically and mentally. That’s why supporters line the course, especially the tough miles down the stretch.
“It gives you a boost. It gives you a little bit of that rush to keep going, knowing that people are standing out there in sometimes not great conditions cheering you on,” said Ali Ewig with Dancing Gnome Running Club, which will be cheering around mile 23.
Running clubs, which are recent additions to the cheering sections, along with neighborhood groups like the Bloomfield Citizens Council and the Highland Park Community Council, which have been cheering for decades, all do their part. It can feel more like a block party with the vibes the groups give off as they help every runner get back Downtown.
“It’s a blast to finally be able to celebrate a sport that a lot of people do by themselves en masse together with everyone,” Dan Lampmann of Yinz Run Club said. His group will have a cheer section near PNC Park and on the South Side.
Arguably one of the toughest stretches can be crossing the Birmingham Bridge and climbing up the hill to get into Oakland. It can be a real gut check time for runners. So, Scottie Brown, dressed as Spiderman, will run up the hill with people to keep them going.
“I just run with them, encourage them, bring light to their day as they are halfway through the race, hitting that tough hill,” Brown said over Zoom.
And whether they are a yinzer running through town or someone from the other side of the world, there is pride in cheering people through the city’s neighborhoods.
“I think that we all have a lot of pride in cheering on these people that are maybe for the first time or maybe for the 50th time running this monumental personal goal for themselves,” Jessica Bowser Acrie of the Highland Park Community Council said. Her team will be set up around mile 20.
Sunday morning promises to be another marathon with miles of cheers.
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