WUHU 107 | radioNOVO News NY News Roundup for June 02, 2026

A high-stakes sprint is underway at the State Capitol as lawmakers officially return to Albany today for the final week of the legislative session. Following the recent passage of the state budget, both chambers are facing a massive backlog of pending items before the scheduled adjournment this Thursday. Lawmakers are expected to debate several high-profile consumer protection bills, including sweeping overhauls to ticket-scalping laws and brand-new regulations governing retail goods pricing. The final week traditionally triggers an intense legislative rush; last year, the Assembly and Senate passed over nine hundred bills in the closing days alone, and with more than one thousand pieces of legislation already moving through both chambers this term, regional leaders are bracing for a flurry of late-night votes.The pressure on state leadership comes as Governor Kathy Hochul aggressively pushes for a federal disaster declaration to protect New York’s vital agricultural economy following devastating spring weather conditions. The governor has submitted an urgent request to the United States Department of Agriculture to assist local growers impacted by severe April frost conditions. An unseasonably early bloom followed by freezing temperatures caused widespread crop damage to regional apples, grapes, strawberries, and stone fruits. If approved, the disaster designation will allow struggling family farms across the region to apply for emergency low-interest federal loans. State officials stress the relief is critical, noting that the specialty crop sector is a major economic driver, with the New York apple industry alone generating over five hundred seventy million dollars in economic impact.Meanwhile, state public safety officials are revealing the widespread scale of a massive holiday weekend traffic enforcement campaign. The New York State Police have released the final results of their coordinated Memorial Day Weekend crackdown on dangerous motorists, which ran from May twenty-second through May twenty-fifth. Statewide, state troopers distributed more than eleven thousand traffic tickets to aggressive drivers. The targeted enforcement led to dozens of DWI arrests and hundreds of speeding citations across Upstate New York, though the total ticket count fell slightly below the twelve thousand citations issued during the same holiday campaign last year.Closer to home, Southern Tier motorists are finding a localized mix of economic relief and price volatility at the pump as the summer driving season officially kicks off. According to Triple-A, the regional average for a gallon of regular unleaded fuel has dipped slightly over the past week to four dollars and fifty-three cents. While that marks a four-cent decline over the last seven days, local drivers are still paying twenty-nine cents more than last month and a staggering one dollar and forty-six cents higher than this time last year. The minor relief coincides with new local tax mitigation policies taking effect today across multiple New York counties, where municipal leaders have officially enacted sales tax caps on fuel up to four dollars a gallon to insulate consumers from surging energy costs.For more news, download the radioNOVO app. I’m Codi Gaboff, radioNOVO News, a service of Seven Mountains Media.