Hochul unveils controversial $254 billion New York budget

Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY) unveiled her $254 billion state budget, including a number of controversial proposals mostly unrelated to finance.

Hochul sparred with her left flank for a month over several criminal justice, child welfare, and public safety measures. Among them: the ability of police to remove people in psychiatric crisis from public spaces, a ban on cellphones in schools, restrictions on wearing masks, and discovery requirements regulating how prosecutors hand over evidence to defendants in the pretrial phase.