ALBANY - State lawmakers in Albany on Wednesday passed a bill to extend cannabis cultivator licenses for one year, avoiding a potential disruption of the state’s fledgling cannabis industry. When the cannabis industry first started, the state issued one-year conditional licenses to cannabis cultivators, which were set to expire Thursday. Because the state’s cannabis industry has developed slower than expected, state lawmakers have now extended those licenses before the end of the legislative session on June 8. Currently, cultivators — the people who grew the state’s first legal cannabis plants — are allowed to sell their product to processors and…

ALBANY - Ahead of the Memorial Day holiday weekend, a new audit by state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli’s office released Friday found that the New York State Thruway Authority needs to improve identifying, billing and collecting the $276.3 million it is owed in unpaid tolls and fees. The state Thruway is a 570-mile highway throughout the state that includes 816 bridges, 134 interchanges and 27 travel plazas.  Tolls and related fees comprise of 90% of the Thruway Authority’s revenue. After the Authority fully implemented cashless tolling in November 2020, 90% of those tolls are collected through E-ZPass accounts, with the remaining…