News

Two of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s political opponents were at an Earth Day rally on climate change attended by hundreds at the state Capitol Monday, where they said the governor’s energy policies are far from adequate.

Democrats are favored to win the two Senate seats up for grabs today, which would bring the party's total to 32. That would give Democrats enough seats to take control of the chamber from Republicans for the first time in about eight years. 

Sen. Joe Griffo (R-Rome) says that's concerning for upstate, where only three senators are Democrats.

Everything is on the table, according to Syracuse University officials, including expulsion, for the 18 students involved in racist videos by the Theta Tau fraternity. SU officials said it will be a fair but expeditious disciplinary process.

Watertown is applying for a federal grant to help pay for new firefighters, but officials are divided on whether it will ultimately save the city money.

Watertown Fire Chief Dale Herman will file the application on behalf of the city, hoping to bring on four new firefighters with the Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response (SAFER) grant. It would be the first time the fire department has hired since 2012.

Onondaga County Democratic Committee member Diane Dwire made a general objection last week to the petitions collected by Democrat Juanita Perez Williams in the race for the 24th congressional district.

Perez Williams is challenging the designated Democratic candidate Dana Balter, after entering the race less the two weeks before the petitions were due.

Onondaga County Democratic Elections Commissioner Dustin Czarny said it is typical that campaigns will file general objections to their opponents' petitions, but it is difficult to get someone knocked off the ballot.

It’s not easy to keep up with the latest in health and wellness. Each day, new studies, research and developments in health make it difficult to pick out the most important information for you.

We’ll be sharing a few of the latest developments in health at the end of each episode of “Take Care” this year. As the year goes on, we may even revisit some earlier news to see where things stand months later.

Opioids can have devastating consequences for the people who abuse them, affecting their health, safety and freedom -- but it doesn’t stop there.

Drug abuse can ruin the lives of people who never touch the substances themselves.

As the opioid epidemic continues across the country, one graduate student is working on the collegiate level to provide a support system to treat opioid and other types of addiction on campus.

Bob Lamb is a graduate student in the Master of Public Health program at Temple University in Philadelphia and founder of the Temple Collegiate Recovery Program, a student group dedicated to fostering a community of peers in recovery. He spoke with us on “Take Care” about his personal and academic journey with addiction and how college programs can be an important part of recovery.

As an overdose crisis continues to afflict Philadelphia, debate is heating up over the future of possible supervised injection sites in the city as a possible solution.

"Take Care" spoke with Elana Gordon, reporter and producer for WHYY in Philadelphia and the founding member of their weekly health and science program, The Pulse, about the situation and progress there.

West Virginia has been one of the hardest-hit states in the opioid epidemic, especially when it comes to neonatal abstinence syndrome -- a condition where addicted mothers give birth to drug-exposed babies.

"Take Care" spoke with Dr. Sean Loudin, pediatrician and neonatologist at Cabell Huntington Hospital in West Virginia and assistant professor at the Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine at Marshall University, regarding his research and efforts surrounding treating this growing problem.

As the opioid crisis continues to affect millions of Americans, researchers are working to counteract addiction more effectively.

"Take Care" spoke with Dr. Richard Rawson, a professor at the Vermont Center on Behavior and Health at the University of Vermont and professor emeritus at UCLA School of Medicine, about his research and possible solutions to multiple forms of drug addiction.

The Surgeon General has issued a public health advisory urging more Americans to carry naloxone, a drug that can reverse an opioid overdose. It is not the only solution to the opioid epidemic, but experts say keeping people alive is the first step.

Officials with the Mohawk Valley Health System (MVHS) say they are on schedule to break ground in downtown Utica next year for their new $480 million hospital. MVHS has gotten approval from the state to complete the hospital designs, and now has a pathway to use eminent domain so it can clear the way for the facility.

Suspended Syracuse parks commissioner Lazarus Sims was charged with third-degree grand larceny after an audit from City Auditor Marty Masterpole found money missing from the department. The audit also revealed other areas where the department is at risk for errors and fraud.

Masterpole said the Syracuse Common Council came to him with an initial red flag about the parks department that turned out to be nothing. But in the process of conducting the audit, Masterpole said they found something else.

Smokers who visit Upstate University Hospital in Syracuse will be able to get their nicotine fix while on the no-smoking campus. But they won’t get it through smoking or vaping.

The hospital will begin offering nicotine replacement therapy lozenges to smokers who visit campus, according to Upstate respiratory therapist Theresa Hankin.

“We need to acknowledge that people are under a lot of stress, and they’re going to what is comfortable to them at the time, and we want to keep them comfortable,” said Hankin.

New York's new budget sets aside money to combat harmful algal blooms that have closed some of the state's lakes and threatened the municipalities that use them for drinking water. The funding would be a welcome relief for several communities in central New York that have been battling the blooms for years.

Hawley Markets on Syracuse’s northside gets a lot of business from a nearby elementary school, as well as neighborhood folks who don’t have access to cars so they have to do food shopping at cramped corner stores. It’s been six months since co-owner Rita Algattas started offering more healthy options than the candy bars and chips that crowd many corner store shelves.

"Having fresh fruit and vegetables, having it all the time visible on the counter," Algattas said. "Trying to have healthy choices."

Tuesday evening, SUNY Oswego will host a conversation on how the arts and entertainment industry can be more diverse and inclusive, and will feature documentary filmmaker Rita Coburn. The discussion is part of the college's 'Voices of Diversity' speaker series.

Monday marked the first day that the former breakaway Democrats in the New York State Senate were working with the mainstream Democrats after they agreed to reunify earlier this month.

Democratic Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins said so far, it’s all proceeding smoothly, but she dampened expectations that major new legislation would get done before the session ends in June.

Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) said Monday that now is the time to get Canada to end a program hurting upstate’s dairy industry, as President Donald Trump's administration renegotiates the North American Free Trade Agreement or NAFTA.

Researchers at Upstate Medical University are almost ready to send a test to market that would use saliva to help determine if a child is autistic.

The average age a child is diagnosed with autism is 4.5. But researchers at Upstate say testing the microRNA found in the saliva of a toddler can help doctors determine if a child is autistic sooner than that. Principal investigator Dr. Frank Middleton says that’s important because earlier treatment can help the outcomes of children facing an autism diagnosis.

The response to arming teachers as a way to combat school shootings sounds like any other debate about guns. Proponents say it's a practical way to stop shooters, while opponents argue that it will actually increase the risk of danger. But among some educators, the debate doesn't fall along those same lines.