Good morning, folks! Here's your Trail Mix of upstate economic news.
Both sides are gearing up for a fight over raising New York's minimum wage.
Rookie N.Y. lawyers will have to work for free.
And: Taking care of racehorses is really complicated.
Minimum wage
Speaking on public radio's The Capitol Pressroom, Gov. Andrew Cuomo sounded off on a number of economic topics. He reiterated his opposition to the Empire Zones, and recent efforts to revive them. Cuomo also voiced support for raising the minimum wage (Jimmy Vielkind, Times-Union).
The archbishop of New York is publicly urging lawmakers to hike the minimum wage. Timothy Dolan says it is "increasingly difficult for the working poor of our state to make ends meet." The current minimum wage is $7.25 an hour (Thomas Kaplan, New York Times).
Writing in the New York Post, Assembly Minority Leader Brian Kolb (R-Canandaigua) calls raising the minimum wage a "job-killer."
That's the company line from a growing chorus of Republican lawmakers and business groups. They say a minimum wage hike would actually hurt the people it's trying to help (Igor Kossov, Gotham Gazette).
Across the state
New York is set to become the first state in the nation to require pro-bono work as a condition of passing the bar (Joseph Spector, Gannett).
The Syracuse Common Council wants $2 million added to Mayor Stephanie Miner's budget (Tim Knauss, Post-Standard).
New York City Comptroller John Liu is fighting the city's "Taxi of Tomorrow" contract. Liu says he won't approve the contract with Nissan because the vehicles are not wheelchair-accesible (Dana Rubinstein, Capital New York).
What happened when President Obama dropped into NYC "looking for love and money"? Awkwardness, apparently (Nicholas Confessore, New York Times).
Horse racing
In part four of our Track Tech series, we look at the big business of equine medicine. Providing horses with top notch medical care is often balanced against the bottom line (Leslie Guttman, WEKU).
A professor in Binghamton has launched a DNA analysis business for thoroughbreds. His pitch to horse owners: "Boost the odds of getting a winner with a simple genetic test" (Press Release, Newswise).
Business
GM posts lower first-quarter profits, but beats analyst estimates. Funny, that (Fred Meier, USA Today).
More pink slips for Kodak workers - 29 more, to be precise (NYS Labor Department).
North of the border, BlackBerry-maker RIM is pinning its turnaround hopes on a next generation operating system (John Cox, Network World).
Art
"The Scream" sold for $119,922,500. Wowzers (Associated Press).
