NEW YORK (AP & WXXI News) — New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who held himself out as a champion of women and a liberal foil to President Donald Trump, resigned from office after four women accused him of physical violence during intimate encounters.

It was a swift and stunning fall for a Democrat who had pledged to use the power of his office to hold others accountable for abusing their power.

A bipartisan group of state lawmakers is pushing for an anti-bullying measure that would require schools to tell parents when their child is being bullied, or if their son or daughter is behaving like a bully toward others.

The measure, Jacobe’s law, is named after Jacobe Taras, a 13-year-old from the North Country town of Fort Edward who committed suicide in 2015 after he was bullied at school.

His father, Richard Taras, said Jacobe often stuck up for other children who were bullied, and as a result, he was the target of bullying himself.

A board that helps oversee the level of Lake Ontario says that while water levels across the lake and the St. Lawrence River have begun their typical spring rise, conditions are a lot better than they were a year ago. There were months of very high lake levels and shoreline damage in 2017.

Tom Brown is a member of the International Lake Ontario-St. Lawrence River Board.  He says Lake Ontario is about 16 inches lower than it was at this time last year, although the lake level is about 8 inches higher than its long term average.

NEW YORK (AP) — Sen. Chuck Schumer says the Food and Drug Administration should immediately ban e-cigarette flavors like candy and cookies that can appeal to young people in the wake of warnings that teens and children are increasingly using e-cigarettes.

The New York Democrat on Sunday released a letter to FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb saying the agency had the legal authority to regulate e-cigarette flavors, and encouraging it to do so.

Actor Cynthia Nixon, who is running for governor in a Democratic primary against incumbent Andrew Cuomo, released her tax filings on Friday. She and her spouse earned $1.9 million last year and paid nearly $200,000 in taxes.

Nixon initially filed for a six-month extension, but a few days ago, she completed and submitted her taxes.

Marc Molinaro, the presumptive Republican candidate for governor, released his tax returns for 2017, but his opponent, incumbent Gov. Andrew Cuomo, raised the stakes, saying his GOP challenger should release 10 years of tax returns.

Meanwhile, a third candidate, Cynthia Nixon, has filed an extension and has not made any information available yet.

Molinaro and his wife, Corinne Adams, earned $174,048 last year, the bulk of it from his salary as Dutchess County executive. They paid $24,573 in taxes.

New York State officials are in a bit of battle with Charter Communications, the corporate name for the company that provides Spectrum cable TV and internet services.

Governor Andrew Cuomo issued a statement this week saying that the NYS Public Service Commission has started legal action against Spectrum for potential violations of its franchise agreement.  Cuomo says the state approved the acquisition of Spectrum and its ability to operate in New York based on the company fulfilling certain obligations, including providing broadband access to underserved parts of the state.

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP)  Lawmakers in New York state have approved a bill that will officially remove the terms ``policeman'' and ``fireman'' in state law. 

The Assembly approved a bill Tuesday that would replace the terms with the gender-neutral terms ``firefighter'' and ``police officer.'' The Daily News reports Democratic Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie says state laws will now reflect that women are an important part of police and fire departments statewide. 

Teachers wouldn’t be evaluated based on their students’ standardized test scores any longer under a measure approved by the New York State Assembly.

It’s a reversal of a controversial policy that helped lead to a widespread boycott of the third- through eighth-grade tests associated with the former Common Core program.

But the measure faces an uncertain future in the state Senate.

The newly reunited Senate Democrats held their first press conference, where they focused on what they said was their No. 1 priority — a package of bills making it easier to vote.

Senate Democrats conducted a survey of eligible voters in New York on their voting patterns. Senate Democratic Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins said it confirms what she already knew: New York’s voter participation rate is abysmal. The state ranks 41^st of all 50 states in the 2016 elections, with a voting rate of 57 percent.