Karen DeWitt
Capitol Bureau chiefKaren DeWitt is Capitol Bureau chief for New York State Public Radio, a network of public radio stations in New York state. She has covered state government and politics for the network since 1990.
She is also a regular contributor to the statewide public television program about New York State government, New York Now. She appears on the reporter’s roundtable segment, and interviews newsmakers.
Karen previously worked for WINS Radio, New York, and has written for numerous publications, including Adirondack Life and the Albany newsweekly Metroland.
She is a past recipient of the prestigious Walter T. Brown Memorial award for excellence in journalism, from the Legislative Correspondents Association, and was named Media Person of the Year for 2009 by the Women’s Press Club of New York State.
Karen is a graduate of the State University of New York at Geneseo.
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Advocates for nursing home workers say the state health department is trying to undermine a law meant to establish minimum staffing requirements by getting rid of a $300 a day penalty for nursing home operators who violate the rules. -
The Republican candidate for New York governor, Lee Zeldin, is against abortion. He's asking voters to leave that aside and choose between him and Gov. Kathy Hochul on taxes, crime and the economy, saying he has no plans to change New York's current laws on reproductive choices.
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Gov. Kathy Hochul says she'll participate in one debate, but challenger Lee Zeldin says he won't agree unless there are other debates as well.
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Gov. Kathy Hochul condemned a June decision by the conservative judges on the Supreme Court to throw out some of New York's gun laws, during a time when she says we are experience “public trauma” over increased gun violence.
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Leaders of teachers unions say schools need to be better prepared for the grim reality that classrooms are increasingly a target for mass shootings and a setting for other forms of violence.
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School boards are feeling the strain of the pandemic and increased political polarization, with fewer incumbents returning as school begins this fall.
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Top New York Democrats, including Gov. Kathy Hochul, have targeted the Republican Florida governor as holding "extreme" right-wing views . Now they say Lee Zeldin, the GOP candidate challenging Hochul, is cut from the same cloth.
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The 2021 law legalizing adult recreational use of marijuana is geared toward addressing equity issues.
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Gov. Kathy Hochul says COVID-19 rules will be eased for New York’s schoolchildren this year, and masks and social distancing will no longer be required. The governor and state health officials also gave an update on the spread of monkeypox, which for the first time has infected a child.
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The second primary in NYS this year is the result of court wranglings over redistricting.
