ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) - The state Senate has passed legislation that would allow police to stop and ticket motorists for texting while driving.

Sen. Carl Marcellino, a Long Island Republican and the bill's primary sponsor, says all police will have to do is see a driver holding a cell phone as grounds to pull them over.

It's already a primary traffic offense to talk on a hand-held phone while driving in New York. Hands-free phones are permitted.

However, using a portable electronic device while driving is currently a secondary offense, which means that a person can't be stopped solely for driving while texting.

There must be some other offense like speeding. The legislation would upgrade it to a primary offense.

The Senate voted 57-3 in favor Tuesday.

A companion bill is in the Assembly.

(Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press.  All Rights Reserved.)

ALBANY -  New York State health officials reversed course Tuesday afternoon, eliminating new guidelines that had put some local summer camps in a financial bind.    

Regulations went into effect April 1st that would classify recreation camps where kids play things like Catch the flag, Tag and even Wiffle ball to abide by the same rules as big programs like this one in Guilderland. Saying because those activities carry the risk of injury, all day camps have to have a nurse or medical professional on call and have an adult director in charge.

"They had to follow all the Department of Health guidelines and that would include staffing ratios, 1 to 10 ratios or they need to have a nurse on staff," said Karen Hennet of the YMCA in Guilderland, a larger program which is already certified.

ALBANY - Is it double jeopardy or double trouble for Joe Bruno? That's something a federal appeals court will have to decide.

In court papers filed late Thursday afternoon, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of New York Richard Hartunian formally asked the Second Circuit Court of Appeals to allow him to retry the former powerful leader of the New York State Senate on three charges -- two that he's already been convicted of and a third that resulted in a hung jury in December 2009.

The legal brief measures 71 pages thick. It amounts to a formal government request to retry Bruno, the former Republican kingpin who became a symbol of New York's corrupt political culture.