Workers across all Salt City Coffee locations filed a petition to unionize on Monday, citing the need for raises, more transparency around benefits, and workplace stability. If successful, 50 baristas, bartenders, barbacks, and coffee roasters at the company’s four locations would be the first to form a union at a locally owned coffee company in Syracuse. Their effort is aided by Workers United, an affiliate of the larger Service Employees International Union that helped kick off a wave of workplace organizing at several Starbucks locations in Buffalo two years ago.  To unionize, workers ..read more

Editor’s note: After publication of this story, Syracuse University Senior Vice President and Student Experience Officer Allen Groves released a statement about the encampment. It is included at the end of the story. Students at Syracuse University raised an encampment in the center of campus Monday morning, demanding the university call for a ceasefire to the ongoing war in Gaza and halt financial investments in companies that contribute to the war effort. The encampment joins dozens of others at college campuses across the U.S. Students have congregated at those campuses and claimed them as ..read more

President Joe Biden visited Syracuse on Thursday to announce the federal government would provide Micron up to $13.6 billion in federal funding to help build a computer memory chip plant in Clay.  The White House announced the funding award earlier in the week. Micron will receive $6.1 billion in grants and another $7.5 billion in loans from the federal government. “It isn’t just about investing in America,” Biden said about the funding. “It is about investing in the American people.”  Thursday’s visit by Biden, who graduated from the Syracuse University College of Law, marked the p ..read more

Volunteers from Syracuse Grows, Jubilee Homes of Syracuse, Inc., Onondaga Earth Corps and other organizations joined forces Saturday on Community Volunteer Day. They helped community gardens and urban farms throughout Syracuse prepare for the upcoming growing season. Pictured are: Cooper Olds, a Syracuse University food studies graduate student, Kareem Youngblood, of Syracuse and Brooklyn, Dachaun Spencer, 16, of Syracuse, Precious Dixie, of Syracuse, a Syracuse University junior double majoring in forensic science and psychology, and Jaylen Dixie-Wade, 17, of Syracuse. Together, they lend a ..read more

An autobiographical series of artwork by multimedia artist Sana Musasama reflects on her work throughout the past decades and rebuilding herself, as she looks toward retirement.  Sana Musasama’s latest exhibition, “Returning to Ourselves,” is now on display through April 28 at the Everson Museum. Musasama explores history and historical figures through her own interpretations. “Returning to Ourselves” has three components: 10 topsy-turvy dolls representing female figures of diverse ethnicities, a historical house series and a contemporary house series made out of ceramics. The Queens-nat ..read more

Central Current is hiring a reporter to its growing staff. We’re looking for a motivated and curious journalist with a passion for digging into systems and reporting on tough issues. We are looking to give a reporter the freedom to explore a topic that excites them.  If you came to Syracuse, what would you want to cover? We’d love for you to pitch us on a beat. Some of Syracuse’s most critical issues include ever-increasing rents, housing instability and childhood poverty — all at the same time that the region expects an influx of private and public money. Over the next decade, Syracuse ..read more

“Chromatic Expressions by Megan Lewis: A Celebration of Vibrant Diversity,” at the Community Folk Art Center, displays a selection of 23 portraits, most of which were created in 2023 and 2024. The paintings, and a few mixed-media pieces, incorporate bold colors, a range of emotions, and various motifs– flowers, geometric patterns and glitter (sparkly forms). Lewis’ subjects, Black women and men, are seen in a series of non-traditional portraits. They appear at a street corner, in a room containing three bookshelves, and in other settings. The works, many large-sized, document a distinctive vi ..read more

This story originally appeared in New York Focus, a nonprofit news publication investigating power in New York. Sign up for their newsletter here. One hundred days into her tenure, New York’s self-described “first mom governor” signed a law committing to slash the state’s child poverty rate by half. She had inherited a serious problem: In the decade leading up to Governor Kathy Hochul’s 2021 inauguration, more than seven hundred thousand children in New York, or about one in five, had been living in poverty — including nearly one in three Black and Latino children. “Alleviating pove ..read more

People in Central New York and across much of New York State were able to experience Monday a total solar eclipse, rarely seen in the United States. At one destination, Sodus Point Lighthouse on the shores of Lake Ontario in Sodus Point, NY,  hundreds of people gathered to see the spectacle, although clouds became thicker as totality approached, making the weather cold and gray and viewing more difficult. The total solar eclipse covered parts of North America, from Mexico to Canada, and crossed parts of the U.S. The last time a total solar eclipse occurred in the United States was in 201 ..read more

Syracuse Mayor Ben Walsh has proposed a $341 million budget for the city’s upcoming fiscal year, a 10% increase in spending from the 2023-24 budget. Walsh’s proposed budget would require the city to spend nearly $25 million from the city’s fund balance and calls for a 2% increase in the city’s property tax rate. The city projects to collect an additional $7.3 million in property taxes, $7 million from an improved investment program and another $4.5 million from a growth in sales tax. Walsh’s proposed budget is the last to include American Rescue Plan Act funds from the federal government. The ..read more