Peter Kramer

Published May 18, 2022. BUFFALO — For hours on that incomprehensible Saturday, the Rev. Julian Cook and fellow members of the clergy had been outside the Tops Friendly Markets store that was the city's open wound, moving among an increasingly anguished crowd. So many questions. Some were asked through sobs, others borne on a rising tide of anger. Why shoot people who were just grabbing a few things at the store — charcoal and hot dogs, a birthday cake? Why was the accused gunman treated so...

The sun had been up for about 20 minutes when Ivan Varava drove his black Peterbilt tractor-trailer south on the New York State Thruway into South Nyack on Aug. 31, 2023. He was a long way from his home in Hollywood, Florida, as Labor Day weekend approached. The 39-year-old trucker’s trip had begun days earlier and 1,404 miles west, in Salina, Kansas, where he had lashed a massive steel tower to his flatbed trailer. Varava, the Peterbilt and the tower were bound for Bridgeport, Connecticut,...

BUFFALO — When it snows in Western New York, you plow after you plow. You go back to clean things up, because if you don't, when the next storm comes — and there's always a next storm — things will only get worse. It's inevitable. Which is why traffic has slowed here in Varysburg, east of Buffalo, even though the road was long ago cleared of the five inches that fell yesterday. The plow is back to clear the far right edge of the shoulder; the cleanup continues. On a recent weekday, snow...