Today's audio daily news update.

Brendan J. Lyons reports in the Times Union that several anti-cannabis groups filed a lawsuit in state Supreme Court this week to overturn New York’s legalization of cannabis. The Cannabis Impact Prevention Coalition and the Cannabis Industry Victims Seeking Justice, as well as eight individudals associated with those groups, filed the lawsuit. It points out that the consumption, sale, and possession of cannabis remains illegal under federal law and contends that the state Legislature usurped Congress when it passed the Marijuana Regulation and Taxation Act in 2021. Cannabis has been legal for over two years in New York, but there are only 13 retail stores open so far. “What the tobacco companies have done the marijuana companies are doing now,” the petition states. “It is only a matter of time before there are RICO lawsuits against marijuana stores and growing operations in New York.” Officials with the state Office of Cannabis Management did not immediately comment on the lawsuit. Read more about this story in the Times Union.

Mid-Hudson News reports that the pilot of the mini submarine that imploded while diving to the Titanic wreckage was from Dutchess County. Paul-Henri Nargeolet, 77, known as “Mr. Titanic,” died with four others in the incident. In January of 2022, he moved from the Town of Kent in neighboring Connecticut, buying for $1.5 million a home on 2.75 acres on Route 292 in the Pawling hamlet of Holmes in Dutchess County. Nargeolet was also part of the first expedition that reached the Titanic wreckage in 1987. The Titanic sunk in 1912, and debris thought to be from the submarine were found approximately 1,600 feet from the bow of the Titanic. Read more about this story at Mid-Hudson News.

Andrea Macko reports in Porcupine Soup that the independently owned pharmacy located in the Greene Medical Arts Building under the ownership of Ravinder Annamneni agreed to pay $65,000 after allegations that it failed to comply with the federal Controlled Substances Act. A 2022 U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration audit of the Greene Medical Arts Pharmacy showed they failed to keep adequate records of various controlled substances, including oxycodone, hydrocodone, alprazolam, methylphenidate, and buprenorphine. The U.S. Attorney’s Office said, “Greene Pharma subsequently performed a self-audit of its controlled substance records and was unable to account for 200 oxycodone tablets, 144 buprenorphine films, and two buprenorphine tablets, which the pharmacy concluded were likely stolen by an employee who had not been adequately screened before employment.” Read more about this story in Porcupine Soup.

Today's daily news audio update.

Click above to download or play the "Better Weather." Produced by Joe Demanso of the Catskill Makers Syndicate.

Mid-Hudson News reports that a Dutchess County jury deliberated for less than an hour on June 22 and found Laquann Crimm, a 31-year-old convicted felon, innocent of assaulting a corrections officer during an incident at Green Haven Correctional Facility in 2021. Several corrections officers claimed Crimm stabbed another inmate and then punched the officer. Dutchess County Public Defender’s Office Bureau Chief Kara Gerry said, “The corrections officers’ stories do not add up,” and claimed that the involved officers were part of a “cover-up.” Gerry told Mid-Hudson News, “We are gratified that the jury listened to all of the evidence, kept an open mind, and found that no one is above the law.” Read more about this story at Mid-Hudson News.

Phillip Pantuso reports in the Times Union that over two years after New York legalized cannabis, there still aren't any legal stores in the Hudson Valley. So far there are only 13 licensed retail cannabis shops in the state, according to the Office of Cannabis Management, and only one is in the Capital Region. There might be some stores locally eventually. On June 15 the Cannabis Control Board approved 36 more licenses for retail cannabis shops, including 10 in the Mid-Hudson region. So far 26 licenses have been issued to Hudson Valley businesses. The Mid-Hudson region, which includes Columbia, Greene, Dutchess, Ulster, Orange, Westchester and Putnam counties, will get 34 of the first 300 licenses issued. Read more about this story in the Times Union.

Nick Reisman at New York State of Politics reports that crime and public safety continue to be Republican campaign issues. Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, said this week, "we're working on that, but we've made great strides." Really, Democrats have done two things on the crime issue recently. They made some changes to the bail laws, including a provision granting judges more discretion in setting bail in a wider array of cases. And legislators just passed the Clean Slate Act, that would seal an estimated two million criminal records. Hochul has not said yet whether she will sign that bill. But she seemed to hint she would saying, "This is driven by the business community at a time of great worker shortages, but we're going to have a lot of safeguards in place." Republicans, such as Assemblyperson Mike Reilly, said, "It seems like we give those who are criminals and those who are incarcerated more rights than the victims that they assault, that they murder." Read more about this story at New York State of Politics.

Today's audio daily news update.

Nancy Kern reports for Columbia-Greene Media that the Greene County Finance Committee voted for a resolution June 19 to issue $25 million in serial bonds to finance construction of a building that will house the District Attorney and Public Defender’s Offices next to the court house in Catskill. The bonds will pay for the entire building, which is located off Bridge St. The county is using 3,000 square feet of Ohio sandstone from the former county jail that was previously on the site. Construction should begin in the fall, officials said. Andrea Macko at Porcupine Soup reports that on June 21, the full legislature approved the loans to pay for the building.

Mid-Hudson News reports that Columbia County has the lowest unemployment rate in the region in May with just 2.4 percent joblessness, according to the State Labor Department on June 21. Greene County, at 3.3 percent, had the highest rate of unemployment regionally. Delaware County also had a higher rater, at 3.1 percent unemployment. Ulster and Dutchess were both at 2.8 percent. Read more about this at Mid-Hudson News.

Scott Stafford reports in The Berkshire Eagle many signs promoting a white supremacist group have been showing up around the Berkshires in recent days. A banner was hung on an overpass in Lee over the Massachusetts Turnpike. Handmade signs were seen June 18 and June 19 in North Adams, Becket, Lee, and near the Pittsfield-Lenox line. And in Pittsfield, two flyers were pasted onto a light pole near the Colonial Theatre. Another banner was hung on a fence near Brayton Elementary School in North Adams. The banners said, “Victory or Death, Patriot Front US.” Patriot Front US is an extremist group founded in 2017 that promotes fascism and the creation of a white ethnostate. Greg Roach, lives near Brayton Elementary in North Adams, and said, “I’m not happy about having to talk about Nazis in my backyard.... I was angry when I saw it. The Patriot Front is just a rebranding of the American Nazi movement, and they are not patriots.” Morgan Moon, investigative researcher with the Anti-Defamation League said that there are around 400 Patriot Front members nationwide, and about a dozen or so in Massachusetts. Jonah Steinberg, regional director of ADL New England, has tracked a rise in antisemitic events in Massachusetts, up 41 percent last year over 2021 levels. FBI hate crime statistics for 2021 show there were 412 reported hate crimes in Massachusetts, up 33 percent from the 310 incidents recorded in 2020. Read more about this story in The Berkshire Eagle.

Today's daily news audio update.

Click above to download or play the "Better Weather." Produced by Joe Demanso of the Catskill Makers Syndicate.

Phillip Pantuso reports in the Times Union that Kingston's Rent Guidelines Board voted 5-to-3 June 21 to freeze rents for one- and two-year leases at rent-controlled apartments beginning Oct. 1, 2023. Many speakers at a June 17 public hearing had urged the board to freeze rents, but the decision is unprecedented among upstate municipalities. The rent freeze only applies to properties subject to the Emergency Tenant Protection Act, which covers 64 buildings with approximately 1,200 rental units in Kingston. The city has seen the average rent doubled since 2015 and home values have increased 50 percent since 2020. It is part of the affordable housing crisis cited by Gov. Kathy Hochul and others. Kingston adopted the Emergency Tenant Protection Act last summer, and has declared a housing emergency. Aaron Narraph Fernando, a spokesperson for the advocate group For the Many, said, “Keeping rents frozen will continue to provide rent-stabilized Kingston tenants with the relief they desperately need.... Kingston does not exist in a vacuum, and the rest of New York state is taking notice.” Read more about this story in the Times Union.

Paul Kirby reports in the Daily Freeman that the state legislature has approved measure to curb late billing from utilities such as Central Hudson. Michelle Hinchey, a Democrat from Saugerties, sponsored the bill in the state Senate. Hinchey said in a statement that utility bills, “should be accurate and on time, and we know, based on the lived experiences of people across the Hudson Valley, that these core responsibilities are not being honored by certain utility companies serving our communities.... This bill has the potential to put more money back into the pockets of New Yorkers while incentivizing utilities to send customer bills in a timely and transparent way, and we look forward to the Governor swiftly signing it into law.” Central Hudson spokesperson Joseph Jenkins said, “Central Hudson agrees that our customers deserve to receive their bills in a timely fashion.... However, this legislation is misguided and will likely result in unintended negative consequences.” Jenkins claims that the energy industry is “rapidly evolving and has resulted in increasingly complex billing scenarios that pull from numerous datapoints and involve variables like time of day usage, demand rates, net metering, community choice aggregation and electric vehicle charging tariffs.... These complexities have the potential to delay bills in order to ensure customer accounts are accurate.” Read more about this story in the Daily Freeman.

Nick Reisman reports for New York State of Politics that in the state Assembly's brief special session this week, lawmakers passed a number of bills including a ban on wildlife killing competitions. “Most New Yorkers would be shocked to learn that dozens of horrific, unsporting contests take place each year in New York to kill the largest number of certain species of wildlife, or some other metric like the largest specimen,” said Assemblymember Deborah Glick, the bill's main sponsor in the Assembly. The state Senate had previously passed the bill, so it goes to Gov. Kathy Hochul for a signature or a veto. If Hochul signs the measure, New York will join California, Vermont, New Mexico, Arizona, Massachusetts, Colorado, Washington state, Maryland, and Oregon in banning wildlife killing competitions. Read more about this story at New York State of Politics.

Today's audio daily news update.

Nick Reisman reports at New York State of Politics that the state legislature approved a bill to stop the dumping of radiological waste from the Indian Point Energy Center nuclear plant into the Hudson River as it goes through the decommissioning process. But Gov. Kathy Hochul has not yet signaled her intentions to sign or veto the bill. A labor union that represents workers at the Westchester County site as well as the owner of Indian Point are about the only supporters of putting wastewater from the nuclear plant into the Hudson River, but some Republicans in Albany gave them some political cover. Republican Assemblyman Matt Slater said, "There are still a lot of questions I know I have and a lot of my colleagues have about the need to impose this type of legislation.... But now it goes to the governor's desk and we'll see what she'll do." Read more about this story at New York State of Politics.