State and Regional

On Sept. 2, 2015, clients and employees from what is now called Our Lady of Victory Human Services were on the Lockport Cave & Underground Boat Tour when their craft capsized.

Transgender and nonbinary people are front and center this year at Pride festivals where they've often been sidelined. Many celebrations this June are taking a public stand against legislation targeting transgender people. New York City's parade will feature transgender grand marshals and a float with trans people of color. Pride in Hastings, Nebraska, focused on trans victims of violence. A Pride organizer in Reading, Pennsylvania, says a march will be dedicated to the trans and drag-performer communities. In Connecticut, restrictions on transgender people are not being proposed. But organizers of Middletown Pride still placed a major focus on trans rights this year.

A day after the tragic incident at the popular Niagara County tourist attraction that claimed one life and left 11 people injured, Lockport fire officials released new details of the frantic rescue effort.

Actor Treat Williams, whose nearly 50-year career included starring roles in the TV series "Everwood" and the movie "Hair," died Monday after a motorcycle crash in Vermont. He was 71.

Donald Trump has arrived in Florida ahead of a history-making federal court appearance Tuesday on dozens of felony charges accusing him of illegally hoarding classified documents and thwarting the Justice Department’s efforts to get the records back. Trump’s appearance in Miami will mark his second time since April facing a judge on criminal charges. But unlike a New York case some legal analysts derided as relatively trivial, the Justice Department’s first prosecution of a former president concerns conduct that prosecutors say jeopardized national security, with Espionage Act charges carrying the prospect of a significant prison sentence.

Officials in Lockport, New York, say one person died and multiple people are in the hospital after a boat capsized during a tour of an underground cavern system built to carry water from the Erie Canal. Police and fire crews were called to the Lockport Cave Tours at about 11:30 a.m. Monday. Authorities say 29 people were aboard the boat when it flipped, sending them into water up to 6 feet deep. Authorities say 11 people were sent to local hospitals with minor injuries. The tours take visitors on an underground boat ride illuminated only by small lights.

New York City Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell is stepping down after 18 months on the job. Sewell was the first woman to lead the department. She announced her resignation in an email to department staff Monday, saying “While my time here will come to a close, I will never step away from advocacy and support for the NYPD." Mayor Eric Adams confirmed the move in a statement and thanked Sewell for her “steadfast leadership.” Sewell took over as commissioner when Adams became mayor in January 2022.

Twenty-nine people were on the boat at the time it overturned, Lockport Mayor Michelle Roman said at a news conference Monday afternoon at City Hall, including 28 hospitality workers from across Erie County and one staffer.

Author Elizabeth Gilbert is delaying publication of a novel set in Russia after what she said was an outpouring of “anger, sorrow, disappointment and pain” from Ukrainian readers. She said they objected to releasing any work about Russia amid that country’s invasion of Ukraine. Gilbert’s “The Snow Forest” was based in Siberia and billed as a dramatic story about a girl living in the wilderness, and of the mystical connection between humans and the natural world. The book had been scheduled to come out next February. A Riverhead Books spokesperson confirmed it had been postponed indefinitely. The head of the free-expression organization PEN America called Gilbert's decision well-intentioned but regrettable.

There was plenty of uncertainty in the run-up to this year’s Tony Awards, which at one point seemed unlikely to happen at all due to the Hollywood writer’s strike. But the ceremony went off without a hitch on Sunday night. The event was scriptless, to honor a compromise with striking writers, but chock-full of high-spirited Broadway performances drawing raucous cheers from an audience clearly thrilled just to be there at all.  It was a night of triumph for the small-scale but huge-hearted musical “Kimberly Akimbo,” about a teenager with a rare aging disease, but also a night notable for inclusion: Two nonbinary performers made history by winning their acting categories.

Jonelle Procope’s 20-year tenure as president and CEO of The Apollo Theater evolved into an era of prosperity and expansion, markedly different from the tumultuous, cash-strapped decades that preceded it. Sure, the early years were a struggle, as the hub of the Harlem neighborhood dealt with financial difficulties and a shifting business model. However, when Procope steps down at the end of June, she will leave her successor Michelle Ebanks with nearly $80 million raised to complete a renovation and expansion of the historic theater by 2025. On Monday night, Procope will be honored, alongside hip-hop mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs and basketball superstar Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, at The Apollo’s Spring Benefit for her service.

JPMorgan Chase announced a tentative settlement with the sex victims of financier Jeffrey Epstein, the bank said Monday, which had accused the bank of being the financial conduit that Epstein used to pay off his victims for several years. According to the lawsuits, JPMorgan provided Epstein loans and regularly allowed him to withdraw large sums of cash from 1998 through August 2013 even though it knew about his sex trafficking practices. The bank said in a statement it now regretted any interaction the bank had with Epstein over the several years that he was a JPMorgan client. The settlement must still be approved by the judge in the case.