Mid-Hudson News reports that New York environmental conservation officers and spill responders were in the Catskill Creek in the Village of Catskill to clean up a diesel spill from a boat. Environmental officers deployed approximately 150 feet of hard boom and 75 feet of absorbent boom to contain the spill. A stainless steel diesel tank on a boat leaked and its bilge pump released an unknown amount of diesel fuel into the creek. The DEC is monitor the cleanup area, but contained the spill. The Catskill Creek flows into the nearby Hudson River. Read more about this story at Mid-Hudson News.

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The Daily Freeman is reporting the New York State Thruway Authority has announced it is about to begin work on a $9.6 million infrastructure improvement project on I-87 between Saugerties and Kingston. The project includes the milling and resurfacing of a seven-mile stretch of I-87 from just after exit 20 Saugerties/Woodstock to just before exit 19 Kingston/the Kingston-Rhinecliff Bridge. Approximately 37,000 motorists travel that stretch of I-87 every day, according to the Authority. The project includes the fuel service area at the Ulster Service Area and the parking area on I-87 northbound at milepost 99 [point] 2. Safety upgrades are slated to include reflective line striping, the Authority said. Motorists  may  encounter lane closures  on the Thruway along with traffic shifts and stoppages. Thruway Authority Executive Director Matthew J. Driscoll said in a statement, “This pavement improvement project ensures an improved travel experience for motorists in this area and continues to provide a safe and reliable roadway for the millions of motorists who travel on the Thruway every year.” The project is being coordinated by Callanan Industries of Albany and is expected to be finished in the fall, but the completion date is weather-dependent, authorities said. Read the full story in the Daily Freeman.

Natasha Vaughn-Holdridge is reporting for Columbia-Greene Media that the now-familiar seasonal cement barriers will return to Warren Street when arrangements are completed, Hudson Mayor Kamal Johnson said on June 21. The blocks and planters that allow for the extension of dining spaces for businesses are now limited to restaurants, coffee shops and similar eateries. “The [Hudson] Business Coalition is still finalizing things,” Johnson said. “It should happen any time within the next week-and-a-half.” A representative of the business group could not immediately be reached for comment. Johnson said once installed, the barriers will be removed in early October, and the last he heard, roughly 20 businesses will get the blocks. The mayor said the program will be much the same as it has been for the past two years. “The only difference is it will just be restaurants, coffee shops, juice bars and stuff like that,” Johnson said. Hudson Department of Public Works Superintendent Rob Perry said the police have not received any applications for the barriers. “Police have to review the applications,... At some point, once the applications are submitted to the police department they will conduct their review and then they will let us know. And once everything is ready to go then we will schedule a time to install the blocks and the planters.” Last year, blocks and planters were placed outside of about 100 spaces and it took more than a day to install them all, Perry said. Each block weighs approximately one ton. In 2020, the city decided that providing the option to extend storefront operations into the parking lane would support local businesses with post-pandemic economic recovery. Read the full story at HudsonValley360 [dot] com.

Melanie Lekocevic is reporting for Capital Region Independent Media Ravena-Coeymans-Selkirk High School senior Uchenna Uba is the 2022 New York state champion in Division 2 girls discus. Uba competed at the New York State Public High School Athletic Association state championships at Cicero-North Syracuse High School on June 10 and 11. She came in first place with a score of 132 to 10, and second place in the Division 2 Girls shot put, with a score of 38 to 2 [point] 5. Uba then went on to compete at the state championships and placed first in discus and seventh in shot put. RCS Board of Education President Edward Reville saluted Uba’s accomplishments at the state competition during the June 15 board meeting, saying, “Congratulations to her and for representing RCS at the state meet this past week.” Uba’s accomplishments were also honored by the RCS Athletic Department when she received the female Athlete of the Year award on June 9. She was also the Section II champion in both weight toss and shot put in indoor track and field this year. Read more at TheUpStater [dot] com.

Inside Radio reports that the latest wacky legislation from Florida goes into effect July 1. Drivers must lower the volume of any car device so that it is not heard at a distance beyond 25 feet. Florida House Bill 1435 was created to stop unsanctioned “pop-up” events organized on social media according to Republican sponsor Tom Leek, who said the events were “invasions” that shut down coastal communities. The new law says that a person “operating or occupying a motor vehicle on a street or highway may not operate or amplify the sound produced by a radio, tape player, compact disc player, portable music or video player, cellular telephone, tablet computer, laptop computer, stereo, television, musical instrument, or other mechanical or electronic sound making device or instrument, which sound emanates from the motor vehicle, so that the sound is: “(a) Plainly audible at a distance of 25 feet or more from the motor vehicle; or “(b) Louder than necessary for the convenient hearing by persons inside the vehicle in areas adjoining private residences, churches, schools, or hospitals.” How loud is a radio one can hear from 25 feet away? “I feel like they’re targeting people,” Jacksonville resident Dwohn Leonard said to News 4 Jacksonville. “When they say plainly audible, that’s basically an excuse to pull anyone over because if you have your windows down and your music up even half way, plainly audible would be even somebody on the street being able to hear your music.”

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Maura Rosner reports for Columbia-Greene Media that the Town of Coxsackie has a proposal for regulating cannabis sales, a zoning amendment. “The sale of cannabis needs to be regulated to certain areas of our community, specifically commercial and industrial areas,” Town Councilperson Michael R. Veeder said June 21. The proposal also includes requiring a site plan review, and a special use permit for any cannabis business in the community. New York legalized recreational use of cannabis last year, and next year is expected to allow retail sales. Coxsackie holds a public hearing on the proposal on July 12. Read more about this story at HudsonValley360.com.

Maury Thompson reports for the Post Star about the election this fall between Democrat Andrea Smyth and Republican Jake Ashby for the 43rd state Senate district that will soon includes Rensselaer County and portions of Washington and Albany counties. Ashby is a a two-term Assembly incumbent and the paper says Smyth is "a policy analyst and advocate on state government issues for about 30 years." Smyth has a very specific proposal to rein in health care in New York as insurance companies barely give hospitals and health care providers enough to maintain adequate staff. Ashby said Smyth’s proposal merits consideration, and agreed health care costs are a large issue in the state. “I think we need to do a better job of recruiting (providers) … and recruiting them to stay in New York,” he said. Both candidates live in Rensselaer County and Ashby was a U.S. Army Reserve captain who served two combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, then was a Rensselaer County legislator before serving in the state Assembly. Smyth will retire from her current job as chief executive officer for the New York State Coalition for Children’s Behavioral Health on July 1. She narrowly lost the Rensselaer County executive election to Republican Steve McLaughlin in 2017. Read more about this story in the Post Star.

Chris Bragg reports for the Times Union that on May 31 the Brunswick Community Center, a taxpayer-supported venue, held an event for Rep. Elise Stefanik where certain taxpayers were not allowed to enter. Even though the public owns the venue, "people suspected of being political opponents" to Stefanik were not allowed to enter. Republican Phil Herrington, the town's supervisor, set up the event for the Republican Congressperson. Two years ago then-Congressman Antonio Delgado, a Democrat, was not allowed to use the same community center by a different Brunswick Republican elected official, Town Clerk Bill Lewis. "You're all the same party, you're using it politically, and I just have a problem with that," said Kathy Betzinger, the former chair of the Brunswick Democratic Party, at the town's June 9 meeting. "This is our community center. So we either have one set of rules, or it's over." Herrington acknowledged that the town bylaws likely prohibited use of the center for political events even though that is just what he did. "I didn’t check with the town attorney — because I know what his answer would have been, quickly," Herrington said. Rensselaer County GOP operative, Richard W. Crist at one point during the event ordered the doors to the venue locked to keep out those he deemed political opponents. Read more about thhis story in the Times Union.

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Brendan J. Lyons is reporting for the Times Union the focus of the FBI investigation that led to the guilty plea of a Troy councilmember is shifting to Jason T. Schofield, the Republican Rensselaer County Board of Elections commissioner, according to multiple sources. GOP employees at the board of elections have recently been subpoenaed to testify before a federal grand jury in Albany. The county also recently received a new federal grand jury subpoena for materials related to absentee ballots handled by Schofield last year. Two Rensselaer County elections registrars are among the witnesses subpoenaed to testify in front of the grand jury. The actions of Schofield, 42, surfaced in the recent case involving former Troy Councilmember Kimberly Ashe-McPherson, who pleaded guilty June 8 to a felony charge in U.S. District Court after admitting she had fraudulently submitted absentee ballots in the 2021 primary and general elections. Ashe-McPherson resigned from the council a day after pleading guilty. According to court documents, Schofield allegedly helped Ashe-McPherson obtain an absentee ballot through an online portal using the name and date of birth of a voter without "lawful authority." That absentee ballot was mailed to Ashe-McPherson's residence and submitted in the Working Families Party primary election that she won prior to being re-elected to the City Council in the general election. The grand jury subpoena recently served on the county sought records related to more than a half-dozen absentee ballot applications, including several obtained through the state's online portal by Schofield. Rensselaer County GOP leaders previously denied knowledge of any fraudulent activity by the party during the 2021 election. Read the full story in the Times Union.

Nick Reisman is reporting for State of Politics New York health officials will review the services provided by facilities statewide that offer pregnancy-related care, but do not provide access to abortions or contraceptives. The effort is part of a package of laws approved this month by Gov. Kathy Hochul and comes as the centers have been the subject of suspected attacks, including one facility in Erie County. "We need to be able to identify where these gaps and other gaps in health care and pregnancy supported needs are," said state Sen. Brad Hoylman, the Senate sponsor of the measure. Under the law, the Department of Health will review the facilities, which often provide services like ultrasounds. "In many parts of New York, there are far too few options for people who are pregnant and the need for low-cost pregnancy care and contraceptive resources," Hoylman said. The law was approved as these facilities have come under alleged attack. In Western New York, a fire broke out at CompassCare in Erie County, which officials say was an arson. Hoylman called the incident an example of why the state should have a better understanding of these facilities. "Any violence directed at these clinics is completely unacceptable, that's why I think it's more important than ever that New York state step into this void," he said. The New York Catholic Conference's Kristen Curran is worried the effort to study these facilities will make it harder for them to provide services to women in need. "We just fear that it's really designed to be onerous and force these centers to turn over all kinds of paperwork and really make them struggle more than they already do," Curran said. Read more at nystateofpolitics [dot] com.

Bill Williams is reporting for Columbia-Greene Media ten fire companies from Columbia and Rensselaer counties were involved in fighting a large brush fire on June 20, in Stuyvesant. More than 6.5 acres of land were blackened by the blaze, Stuyvesant Fire Chief Steve Montie said. At about 4:09 p.m., Columbia County 911 sent Stuyvesant Fire Company to Ridge Road after receiving reports of the fire. Upon arrival, fire officials requested mutual-aid assistance from neighboring fire companies and a request was also made for brush-fighting equipment. Smoke from the fire could be seen from miles away. Crews were able to get the fire under control after roughly an hour. The blaze started when the field was being brush hogged and the mower struck a rock which sparked the fire, Montie said. There were no reported injuries, the chief said. Fire companies from Stuyvesant Falls, Kinderhook, Niverville, Stockport, Valatie, Castleton, Schodack Landing, South Schodack and Stottville, as well as the Valatie Rescue Squad and state police, assisted. Read the full story at HudsonValley360 [dot] com.

For years corporate radio officials have claimed the airplanes will fall from the sky because of the scourge of pirate radio. But no plane crashes have been attributed to an illegal broadcast. So when the Federal Aviation Administration and airline industry officials recently began saying airplanes could fall from the sky because of 5G signals, it sounded like another conspiracy theory. Airplane altimeters tell pilots plane altitudes, and rely on a spectrum from 4.2 GHz to 4.4 GHz. That is close to where 5G signals get sent, between 3.7 to 3.98 GHz. So, unlike FM transmissions which are not nearly as close, it is conceivable for faulty transmissions or receivers could cause problems. And, it turns out many planes have older altimeters that were designed before the age of so many cell phone signals. That led to the Federal Aviation Administration objecting to the Federal Communications Commission’s authorization of 5G networks near airports earlier this year. Now Jon Brodkin at ArsTechnica reports that the FAA has announced a plan to replace or retrofit airplane altimeters that can't filter out transmissions from outside their allotted frequencies. The FCC says interference in altimeters was unlikely to occur "under reasonable scenarios" and that the aviation industry should conduct more research "on why there may even be a potential for some interference given that well-designed equipment should not ordinarily receive any significant interference (let alone harmful interference) given these circumstances." The FAA seems to be conceding to the FCC that the problem really is not that large. "During initial negotiations in January, the wireless companies offered to keep mitigations in place until July 5, 2022, while they worked with the FAA to better understand the effects of 5G C-band signals on sensitive aviation instruments," the FAA said last week. "Based on progress achieved during a series of stakeholder roundtable meetings, the wireless companies offered Friday to continue with some level of voluntary mitigations for another year." But the airline industry is mad that they are being made responsible for the issue. "At today's FAA roundtable we were told that the vast majority of our fleet (approximately 4,800 aircraft) would need to be retrofitted by July 2023," Airlines for America, a trade group that represents the major U.S. airlines, said in a letter to the FAA. "Given that the FAA has not even approved solutions nor have manufacturers manufactured these products for most of this fleet, it is not at all clear that carriers can meet what appears to be an arbitrary deadline." Read more about this story at ArsTechnica.

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Zach Williams reports in the New York Post that only one of four Republican candidates for governor would admit that Joe Biden was fairly elected president at a debate June 20. “I believe that President Trump was reelected. And I think unfortunately, we’ve seen one of the greatest crimes in American history committed against our country,” said Andrew Giuliani, the son of one of the president's lawyers who has lied about who won the presidential election in 2020. There has been no evidence of widespread voter fraud. “Certainly Joe Biden was a duly elected president of the United States,” Harry Wilson said during the debate, the only candidate who clearly spoke the truth on this issue. The other two candidates, Rep. Lee Zeldin from Long Island, and former Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino, both gave non-answers, refusing to say the truth or lie about the election. But Zeldin is already on the record, as on Jan. 6 he voted against certifying the election results, and supported a lie on the historical record. Read more about this story in the New York Post.

Do you think the 2020 election was “stolen” from Donald Trump?

Zeldin: Says a lot of stuff, never says yes or no.
Astorino: Says a lot of stuff, never says yes or no.
A. Giuliani: “I believe that Donald Trump was re-elected.”
Wilson: “I believe Joe Biden was duly elected.”

— Jon Campbell (@JonCampbellNY) June 21, 2022

Robert Harding reports for Auburn Publications that U.S. District Judge Mae D'Agostino has dismissed a challenge to the state's Human Alternatives to Long-Term Solitary Confinement Act. The new rules, which went into effect April 1, limits a person in prison's time in segregated confinement housing, will remain in effect despite the lawsuit from the New York State Correctional Officers union. They claimed that eliminating solitary confinement removes disciplinary action and increases the likelihood of prison assaults and violent incidents. The court disagreed. D'Agostino said the court "recognizes the serious dangers corrections officers face." But she added that it "strains credulity to allege that the Fourteenth Amendment's guarantee that no state shall 'deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law' imposes a constitutional obligation on the state of New York to use solitary confinement against individuals under 21 or over 55; or that New York state is constitutionally obligated to allow use of solitary confinement of prisoners for more than 15 days at a time." D'Agostino said the court "recognizes the serious dangers corrections officers face." But she added that it "strains credulity to allege that the Fourteenth Amendment's guarantee that no state shall 'deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law' imposes a constitutional obligation on the state of New York to use solitary confinement against individuals under 21 or over 55; or that New York state is constitutionally obligated to allow use of solitary confinement of prisoners for more than 15 days at a time." NYSCOPBA President Michael Powers disagreed. "Despite the ruling, we will continue our campaign to repeal HALT by organizing our membership to vote out those in the legislature who supported the act," Powers said. "Once the legislature is back in session, we will focus our efforts on repealing HALT or amending HALT to strike out the dangerous portions. NYSCOPBA continues to strongly oppose any portions of HALT that limit DOCCS's ability to separate dangerous inmates from staff and other rule-following inmates." Read more about this story at the Auburn Publications website.