Ariel Zangla reports in The Daily Freeman that Maurice Hinchey, the former state assemblyperson and congressperson from Saugerties, has frontotemporal degeneration, a rare and terminal neurological disorder. His family made the announcement June 27. Hinchey’s wife, Ilene Marder, said in a press release that Hinchey, 78, was diagnosed in 2011, and, “we’ve been getting calls from all over the region and the country inquiring about him, so we decided to publicly share what is happening, particularly in light of what is going on in Washington in terms of health care reductions, which would effectively make it almost impossible for the average family to secure the essential long-term care required for an illness like this.” While in Congress, Hinchey also led the fight to force General Electric to clean up the polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) it dumped into the Hudson River between 1947 and 1977. The Environmental Protection Agency is currently considering ending the removal of PCBs from the Hudson River. Read the full story in The Daily Freeman.