MidHudson News reports that Bard College has been studying Kingston's air quality, and it could be better. Bard's air monitor was installed on the roof of the Andy Murphy Neighborhood Center on Broadway just before the COVID-19 pandemic began, said Bard Assistant Professor of Environmental and Urban Studies and Director of the Center for the Environment Sciences and Humanities. Elias Dueker. “There were observed reductions in air pollution during some parts of the COVID shutdown, but the reality is the cars are still going and in a place like Kingston, we still needed to heat our homes with oil and gas heat and we also have in Kingston, a growing and concerning number of woodburning establishments, both restaurants and in people’s homes,” he said. In 2021, the American Lung Association gave Dutchess County's air quality a grade of a D for high ozone days. High ozone days occur when pollution and weather create dangerously higher levels of ozone that can be harmful. Read more about this story at MidHudson News.

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Joshua Solomon is reporting for the Times Union that Gov. Kathy Hochul announced April 7, a deal had been reached on the state's $220 billion budget, one week past deadline. "The long-awaited day has arrived," the governor told reporters at the Capitol. This is her first budget negotiation since taking office in August. The spending plan is supported by federal post-pandemic aid and designed to help the state move beyond the two-year health crisis. With that in mind, Hochul said 15 percent of state funding will be kept in reserve, up from four percent. The governor said under the agreement reached, judges would have greater discretion to impose bail for gun charges that were previously subject to release, though additional details were not immediately available. She said a new ethics enforcement body, the Commission on Ethics and Lobbying in Government, will replace the embattled state Joint Commission on Public Ethics. The commission members will still be selected by elected officials, though the list of nominees will be vetted by a panel of law school deans. Good-government groups have criticized that arrangement as insufficient to achieve genuine independence. Key items of the budget agreed to earlier in the day included allowing takeout cocktails and suspending the state gas tax. A suspension of the gas tax will go into effect from June to the end of the year. It would strike the state's sales and use tax on gas and allow local governments to suspend their share of the tax. The governor said the state will invest $32.8 billion in infrastructure over the next five years, a plan that represents a 40 percent increase over the previous five-year plan. The budget also includes an accelerated tax cut for middle-class families and small businesses, pay increases for health care workers, and tuition aid for part-time students. Read the full story in the Times Union.

Heather Bellow is reporting for The Berkshire Eagle Great Barrington and Sheffield expect to be the first municipal police departments in Berkshire County, Mass., to have body-worn cameras for all officers before the end of the year. Massachusetts State Police are already using them. The cameras are paid for by grants awarded by the Massachusetts Executive Office of Public Safety and Security, which is promoting use of body cams for police officers. The towns will have to contribute some funds for related costs. Police chiefs from both towns said a letter of support from their union was required for the funding. Both said it was their officers who pushed for the technology. “I think it’s better for both the police and the public,” said Great Barrington Police Chief Paul Storti. “It protects the public in case we do anything wrong, and protects officers who are accused of doing something wrong.” It will also help them train new officers and review policies, said both Storti and Sheffield Police Chief Eric Munson III. The Sheffield department cruisers have had dashboard cameras for about eight years. Criminal justice reformers have encouraged the use of cameras as a way to increase accountability and transparency. The issue gained attention in the Berkshires last week after a Pittsfield police officer shot and killed a man who had a knife and had allegedly advanced on officers, according to the Berkshire District Attorney’s Office. The Pittsfield department currently does not have body cameras, and some in the community have called for their use. Read the full story in The Berkshire Eagle.

Melanie Lekocevic is reporting for Capital Region Independent Media an underground industrial fire at the LafargeHolcim cement plant in Ravena late April 3 brought out more than a dozen agencies, but resulted in no injuries. Both the Ravena and Coeymans fire departments responded to the call at the cement plant on Route 9W. “It was determined that the industrial fire was located in a lengthy underground tunnel,” according to a statement released by the village of Ravena Fire Department. “Crews started the physically demanding task of reaching the fire and started extinguishing the fire.” The fire started in equipment located in an underground tunnel, according to Lafarge plant officials. “The cause of the incident and extent of the damage remain under review, and the plant continues to operate as normal,” officials said. More than a dozen fire, rescue and other agencies assisted at the scene. The Lafarge fire was the second that night, the call coming in 30 minutes after firefighters finished battling a residential structure fire in the village. “After all was said and done, there was a lot of sweat and sore muscles, followed by even more hose to clean up, but we are happy to state that there were no major injuries," Ravena fire officials said. Read more at TheUpStater [dot] com.

Russia's brutal invasion of Ukraine is not just a war of people and weapons, but of radio waves. In early February Russia began by bombing TV towers and attacking internet services. Then a major story in the war was that Russian troops were using unencrypted signals to communicate. Here is an excerpt of a New York Times report on intercepting Russian war transmissions. Click here to download or play excerpt. On April 7 Der Spiegel magazine reported that German intelligence intercepted radio exchanges between Russian soldiers who discussed killing civilians outside Kyiv, possible further evidence of Russian war crimes. In one conversation recorded by the Germans, a Russian soldier claims he shot and killed a cyclist. In another, a Russian soldier can be heard saying that bystanders should initially be questioned, then shot. And the information war is also taking place outside of Ukraine. The British Broadcasting Corporation in early March restarted restarted broadcasts on two shortwave radio frequencies – 15735 kHz and 5875 kHz – with their World Service news in English that can be received clearly in Kyiv and parts of Russia. The BBC had stopped broadcasting to Europe on shortwave frequencies in 2008. Now, though, the BBC’s Russian language news website's weekly audience has more than tripled since the invasion began, with a record 10.7 million people in early March compared to a usual average of 3.1 million. Radio Miami International is also beaming all sorts of signals into the conflict, providing news that is not allowed to be heard otherwise in Russia, and may be difficult to receive otherwise with the infrastructure damage in Ukraine. WTWW in Lubbock, Texas is also beaming music and information into the area. “I got a friend in the Ukraine that I’ve been emailing back and forth with and corresponding with and he loves Creedence Clearwater Revival,” said Dan Collins from the station. “He loves it. I mean, he’s a big fan. It’s just kind of cool to be able to entertain the folks and also put some things in that they may not know. We have listeners in Russia. They don’t get the truth. They’ll never get the truth, but they can’t stop us. That’s the beauty of it.”

Today's daily news update.

Andrea Macko reports for Porcupine Soup that the Durham Town Board gave preliminary approval on April 5 for a 12-home subdivision on 95 acres in the hamlet of Cornwallville. Many community members opposed the project. Town Supervisor Shawn Marriot said. “Obviously, this is an incredibly tough decision for the board to be able to make for the community.” The town imposed 50 conditions on the project before final approval is granted. For instance, Bosque Development LLC of Hudson and owner Preston Jones now have additional pump test requirements and must limit the number of people allowed to congregate around the common barn area. Meanwhile, the Cornwallville Residents for Rural Preservation, a group opposed to the project, has sued the town to stop it with a court hearing set for April 22. “There will be other public hearings for this,” Marriott said. Read more about this story for Porcupine Soup.

Residents of the town of Catskill will get a vote on cannabis lounges, while citizens in Cairo will not get to decide if the newly legal drug is sold there. Roger Hannigan Gilson reports in the Times Union that in Catskill residents gathered enough signatures to force a referendum on the whether to allow cannabis lounges. The town board voted last year to allow cannabis sales, but to bar consumption lounges. But that decision will be overturned if a majority of voters disagree with their town board. In the village of Catskill, both sales and lounges will be allowed, and village voters will also get their say in the Nov. 8 vote on whether to allow lounges in the town. "We just want the other parts of the town of Catskill to have the ability to benefit from the revenue, to be able to benefit from having another option for tourism," said Sara Pickens Verdon, one of the folks gathering signatures there to get the measure on the ballot. If the vote does not pass, the town of Catskill will not get any tax revenue from the lounges in the village. Meanwhile in Cairo, Melanie Lekocevic repports for Capital Region Independent Media that voters in Cairo will not get a say in whether their town allows cannabis sales. Town attorney Tal Rappleyea says a referendum is not allowed unless local residents gathered enough signatures within 30 days of a decision. “If we did put it out to a vote, we would be violating New York state law,” Rappleyea said. “We would not have the authority to do that. It’s a great idea and I think it would be great if we could have a specific say on a vote from folks, whether they want it or not, but the time for that has come and gone.”

MidHudson News reports that on April 5 there were 598 new COVID-19 cases reported in the Hudson Valley. There were only ten new cases in Greene County, and three in Columbia County, but there were 57 more in Dutchess County, 98 new cases in Orange County, and 42 in Ulster County. A few days before the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention listed Oswego and Cayuga counties in central New York among 16 in the country right now with a "high" COVID-19 transmission risk. A new omicron strain, BA.2, has taken over at the same time mask mandates have ceased across the country. Read more about this story at MidHudson News.

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Mark Albert is reporting for the Hearst Television National Investigative Unit Amtrak has asked the Transportation Security Administration to start screening some of its passengers against the watchlist maintained by the Threat Screening Center to see if known or suspected terrorists have been riding the rails, according to a U.S. Department of Homeland Security document. The DHS Privacy Impact Assessment acquired by Hearst disclosed the existence of a rail passenger watchlist screening program. The program was previously unreported. It would compare personal passenger information from Amtrak — which may also later include a traveler's “publicly available social media” profiles viewed by DHS personnel — to the government's terrorist screening database. If the TSA finds any matches, the agency says it would provide Amtrak with statistical, but anonymous results purged of passenger names, at least for the initial stage. But in the same document, the department notes that the information gathered could be used for other purposes, including that potential and confirmed matches may be shared “with other law enforcement agencies pursuant to established routine uses.” Currently, airline passengers can opt-out of watchlist screening by choosing not to fly. However, Amtrak passengers apparently will not have that option. Amtrak routes go through 46 of the 50 states and New York had the country's highest ridership with people getting on and off Amtrak trains statewide more than 13 million times in 2019, according to the latest figures from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. The Albany-Rensselaer station was the ninth busiest nationwide with passengers entering and exiting Amtrak trains there more than 800,000 times that year. The new rail passenger screening is slated to begin once Amtrak discloses the policy to passengers in its online privacy policy. Currently, that webpage has not been updated since November. The data collected by the TSA will be retained for two years, the document says. Read more in the Times Union.

Natasha Vaughn-Holdridge is reporting for Columbia-Greene Media Ichabod Crane High School officials declared a shelter-in-place order on April 6. Posting to the district website, Superintendent Suzanne Guntlow reported that a "concerning social media post which referenced a weapon was brought to the attention of [the] administration by an Ichabod Crane high school student" and officials immediately followed emergency protocols and notified local law enforcement. The Columbia County Sheriff’s Office said that out of an abundance of caution the high school was under a hold-in-place and the middle and primary schools were in lock-out status. During a lock-out, students must stay in their classrooms and no one is permitted to enter or leave the building, but classes continue as planned. According to Guntlow, over the course of the day, the source of the post was identified and everyone involved was interviewed and searched. Columbia County Sheriff Don Krapf told the Times Union the social media post "caused concern, not only to the staff, but our agency," but he declined to disclose its content because of the investigation. In addition to the sheriff's office, members of the Troy, Albany and State police responded. Police dogs swept the area, Krapf said, but "located nothing of concern." Krapf said students were dismissed early and police conducted their final sweep of the school at 2:30 p.m. The lockdown was the second in as many days in the Capital Region. An email threat delivered to a staff member in the Menands district April 5, led to a lockout there.

Nick Reisman is reporting for State of Politics a proposal to increase spending for child care included the state budget proposal is running into problems. The development comes as lawmakers and Gov. Kathy Hochul continue to negotiate a state spending plan that was expected to pass last week. The plan under consideration would provide child care support for families that earn 300 percent above the federal poverty rate with a subsidy rate of 80 percent. But the estimate that only 15 percent of the families that qualify would participate is considered "ludicrously low," according to a source. The concern is the lack of funding and low estimation of participation in child care programs would lead to it quickly running out of money. That could force county governments to pick up costs or create a waiting list. A push for child care in the budget this year was brought in large part by the COVID-19 pandemic and the complications families faced during the public health crisis. The $3 billion cost for the program was considered by many advocates to be the minimum amount needed for the program. Read more at spectrumlocalnews [dot] com.

Free speech seems like an endangered concept these days. The right wants to stop teachers from talking about many subjects with students, and ban books they do not agree with. The left is trying to quash a growing trend of racist political speech. Neither side is happy, and radio hosts, who talk for a living, are being fired for what they say. There are two recent radio firings in the news. Last week a radio host in Kazakhstan was fired after she wrote on Facebook, "we will call in Uncle Vova if you talk too much." Uncle Vova is Russian leader Vladimir Putin, who has ordered an invasion of Ukraine complete with mounting cases of war crimes with horrific attacks against civilians. Kazakhstan shares a large border with Russia, and partners with the country on many economic issues. The Europa Plus Kazakhstan radio station fired host Lyubov Panova after the comment. With a large Russian population, and rumors that Russia could invade Kazakhstan, any talk about Putin there is bound to be controversial, and it is understandable why a host supporting Putin might cause a radio station to let them go. In the United States, that's not the case, as Tucker Carlson almost nightly says things in support of Putin on Fox News. But WMAL, near Washington D.C., fired a host last week for posting a photo of Vice-President Kamala Harris wearing the color brown in a Tweet that read, "Kamala looks like a UPS employee — what can brown do for you? Nothing good, apparently.” Right-wing commentators have decried the decision as against the First Amendment, which is silly, since the government did not fire the host, and businesses can fire people in this country for what they post on social media. Amber Athey, the host, said owners of the station Cumulus Media, told her the Tweet was racist when they let her go. But she might have been fired for more than just one Tweet. The New York Post reports that after the UPS Tweet Athey “spoke critically of protests in favor of ‘trans kids’ at the University of North Texas” — and, as she wrote, “a group of maniacal left-wing activists who want to chemically castrate children in the name of ‘gender affirmation’ came after me.” Cumulus Media officials have yet to talk about the issue in the media.

Today's daily news update.

Noah Eckstein writes for Columbia-Greene Media that the city of Hudson is "in the middle of a housing and rental crisis." The apartment rental finder website Zumper says average rents for a one-bedroom apartment in Hudson rose six percent in 2021, to $1,900 per month. There have been no new affordable housing built there in many years, and many apartments and homes have been converted to short-term rentals, driving rents higher. Meanwhile, people keep moving to the Columbia County city, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic began. “You’re not going to find a two-bedroom for $700 per month in Hudson,” said Nancy Felcetto, a real estate agent with Brown Harris Stevens. “People who own properties want rental income and they will make more from Airbnb than from renting.” The story claims that there were only six one- bedroom apartments for rent in December 2021 in Hudson, averaging $1,450 for a one-bedroom. “I get calls everyday from people looking for apartments and I have nothing to show them,” said Robert Kavanaugh, a real estate broker for Barns & Farms Realty LLC. Read more about this story at HudsonValley360.com.

Cloey Callahan reports in the Times Union that while the affordable housing crisis continues throughout the Hudson Valley a developer want to put a luxury 36-condo high-end residential housing development in Rhinebeck. Local opposition, though, is not about affordability or lack of housing for locals. “The main concern about Rock Ledge is that dumping 36 private condominium developments along a rural road that is zoned to have houses built only on five acres destroys the rural character of the area,” said David Weiner, a member of the Rhinebeck Coalition, formed to oppose the project. Charles Blaichman, a developer behind several luxury hotels in the region, including Hotel Kinsley, a boutique hotel in Kingston, and Inness, a resort and golf course in Accord, wants to build the 36-condominium project called Rock Ledge at 492 Ackert Hook Road in Rhinebeck. His argument to the opposition is that without his development the building would otherwise remain vacant and vulnerable to decay, and condos would create less traffic there than when it was as a drug rehabilitation facility decades ago. The Daytop Village Foundation, Inc. opened that facility in 1987 as a substance-abuse treatment center with 50 residents, staff offices, and a gym., but closed in 2009. The new proposal is for eight of the 36 condos within existing buildings that are listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and the remaining 28 condos would be brand-new construction on the 135-acre site. So far the opposition says they have a petition with 600 signatures. Read more about this story in the Times Union.