News

Many New Yorkers who live along the Erie Canal are rediscovering the waterway via long-distance bicycle trips.

The recreational trail along the canal is becoming a well-used resource by people living in towns that were built by the canal. And they’re spending money too.

A survey by Parks and Trails New York finds a million and a half people take to the Erie Canal Trail every year. A large majority, nearly 90 percent, of those are bikers.

Technological times have changed since the Tech Garden set up shop on Warren Street in Syracuse almost ten years ago.

Six months ago, the technical infrastructure at the Tech Garden was sadly lacking.

"The projection wasn’t widescreen, it wasn’t high-definition," said Seth Mulligan, Tech Garden Innovation Services vice president. "The Internet was crashing and it was slow.”

Everything old is new again, so the saying goes. With that in mind, the Preservation League of New York State announced a plan to repurpose five vacant industrial buildings in the Capital region with the hopes of attracting young professionals and revitalizing communities.

The Industrial Heritage Reuse Project, or "trendy hipster bait," launched on Thursday in hopes of breathing new live into old buildings.

Novelis Inc. is in federal court in Syracuse to defend itself against charges by the National Labor Relations Board. The case stems from allegations by the United Steelworkers Union that the Oswego aluminum company interfered with a vote by its workers to unionize.

A poll conducted fifteen weeks before Election Day shows incumbent New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is maintaining a wide lead over his nearest challenger.

According to a recent Siena Research Institute poll, Cuomo is 37 points ahead of Republican challenger Rob Astorino.  The Democrat also has a high favorability rating, while 60 percent of voters have never heard of Astorino.

Candidates’ financial statements were released earlier this month, and Cuomo reported having $35 million, compared to Astorino’s $2.4 million in the bank.

The sight of cranes in the air, and shovels in the ground abound in central New York this summer.  That doesn’t jive though, with the latest job figures from New York state that the Syracuse area continues to lose jobs at an alarming rate.

As the removal and capping of industrial pollutants in Onondaga Lake continues, planning for the next phase of restoration is beginning.

Honeywell’s dredging of the lake shore and wetlands restoration is meant to remediate and prevent further damage from chemicals dumped in and near the water. Now environmentalists are eyeing how to make Onondaga Lake useable again. 

The president of the state’s teachers’ union says members are not yet ready to rescind a vote of no confidence in state Education Commissioner John King, despite improved relations in recent months.

New York State United Teachers President Karen Magee was elected in April amid deep dissatisfaction over education policy in New York.  Magee ousted a three-term incumbent, and teachers held a symbolic vote of no confidence in King, over what critics call a botched roll out of the new Common Core learning standards.

You may have had your last cold a few months ago, but did you know that there are many ways you can get sick during the summer? Taking some time to familiarize yourself with summer illnesses before stepping outside can go a long way towards staying healthy this season.

This week on “Take Care,” Dr. Cynthia Morrow discusses summertime diseases in our area and how to avoid them.  Morrow is a public health physician and teaches public health and preventive medicine at Upstate Medical University.

Click "Read More" to hear our interview with Dr. Cynthia Morrow.

Do you dwell on mistakes you’ve made throughout the day? Alternatively, maybe you forgive yourself quickly. Both of those tendencies are learned and trained behaviors, according to our guest this week.

This week on "Take Care," we spoke to Linnea Duvall. Duvall is a marriage and family therapist based in Santa Monica, California. She works to shift her patients' destructive self-talk from negative to positive.

Click "Read More" to hear our interview with Linnea Duvall.

The shade of a palm tree is an unusual place for students from Utica College to take a class, but that’s where Tom Crist teaches his summer course in osteology -- the  study of bones.  

Standing at the head of a concrete picnic table recently, Crist carefully lifted a cranium—a human skull—from a plastic Ziploc bag.

“So you are meeting your first Butrint individual,” Crist told the students.  “This is from burial 1250 from area 19. You can see some of the orbital bone is broken away here. That is post-mortem loss."

A ceremony in Syracuse Friday launched the new face of cancer treatment in central New York. The Upstate Cancer Center is ready for patients, and assistant director Dick Kilburg says its innovative design merges nature and advanced cancer-fighting technology.  
 

"Basically what we’re doing with this facility is bringing all the services under one roof, and being able to offer patients what they deserve in this community," Kilburg said. "All the extra services that a cancer center should be offering.”

Heroin is the latest drug that is wreaking havoc in central and northern New York, and around the country. At a recent WRVO community health forum, WRVO a panel of regional experts discussed why so many people are becoming addicted to heroin and other opiates and what can be done about it.

As Brad Finn, the executive director of the Prevention Network in Syracuse says, heroin has always been around.

“Heroin when it came back recently is much more pure and it’s much less expensive than ever before.”

In an attempt to increase the number of New York high school graduates who are work ready, one state assemblyman is pushing for the approval of a new high-tech and manufacturing-based diploma. The goal is to help employers fill jobs with qualified graduates.

Although the state legislature won't return to Albany until January, Assemblyman Anthony Brindisi is getting an early start by promoting his bill to create a Career and Technical Education, or CTE, diploma.

Syracuse could be a potential landing spot for unaccompanied immigrant children who’ve been crossing the Mexican border in droves in recent months. Mayor Stephanie Miner is hoping a letter to the president can bring those kids to central New York sooner rather than later.

Miner is asking President Barack Obama to consider forming a partnership between Syracuse and the federal government to help with the humanitarian needs of the kids, who are waiting for deportation hearings.

She says dealing with immigrants in the past, and in the present, is in Syracuse’s blood.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s running mate, lieutenant governor candidate Kathy Hochul, is explaining why she now feels differently about undocumented immigrants. Hochul, the former Erie County clerk, once wanted to turn immigrants suspected of being in the country illegally over to federal authorities.

Hochul has been meeting privately with key Latino leaders since her nomination in May. She says it was a different time and place back in 2006, when she was Erie County clerk and opposed to then Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s plan to issue drivers licenses to undocumented immigrants.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo is creating another ballot line for the November elections -- the Women’s Equality line.

Kathy Hochul, Cuomo’s running mate, lieutenant governor candidate and former western New York congresswoman, announced the formation of the new ballot line at a press conference with women supporters near a statue of Eleanor Roosevelt on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.

“It’s time we organized our own movement led by our own political party,” Hochul told the cheering crowd.

The New York State Police helicopter operation based in has moved to Rochester, which will cause a gap in air support for police investigations and rescues in central New York. Onondaga County’s Air One helicopter will still fly, but needs more funding to provide those services.

Before the state police helicopter moved, the troopers generally took care of calls during the day, and Onondaga County’s Air One handled them in the evening. County Sheriff Kevin Walsh says the county’s crime fighting helicopter can’t fill those day time hours at this time.

Some central New Yorkers opposed to the idea of housing immigrant children who are waiting to be deported in Syracuse are protesting.

A dozen or so protesters carried signs that said things like, “Honk if you support legal borders” in front of the Sisters of Saint Francis property on Syracuse’s Northside during rush hour Wednesday evening.

The site is a location federal officials have looked at as a potential place to house some of the immigrant children flooding across the border from Central America in recent months.  

The Environmental Protection Agency's proposal to reduce carbon pollution nationwide means a goal of reducing carbon emissions in New York state by more than 40 percent. Judith Enck, the area's EPA regional administrator, was in Syracuse to discuss how the plan will allow the nation to keep producing energy, while reducing pollution. Enck says the regulation, which is scheduled to start in 2020, isn't just about protecting the environment from air pollution.

A key oversight board approved half of the amount Gov. Andrew Cuomo had sought for a loan from a clean water fund to help pay for the construction of the Tappan Zee Bridge. But the meeting included accusations from a board member that Cuomo administration officials are trying to hide bad news about future toll hikes on the bridge and the rest of the New York State Thruway.

Public Authorities Control Board member, state Sen. John DeFrancisco, cast the deciding vote to go ahead with the loan that was reduced from around $500 million to just over $250 million.

Homeowners in the city of Oswego will be able to voice their opinions at a pubic hearing on a proposal to reinstate the city's five percent property tax cap. The original limit was removed in 2011, but after the city's common council approved a 43 percent property tax increase in December, support has been growing to bring it back.

But Oswego Mayor Tom Gillen says this year's tax hike was unavoidable.

Besides some clouds on Nov. 12, 2013, Air National Guard crew members recalled to accident investigators that it was a nice day for flying.

But it was a cold, late fall day, just below freezing on the ground at Fort Drum, where the Air National Guard launches its remotely piloted aircraft for training missions over upstate New York. 

Gov. Andrew Cuomo says he’s not concerned about reports that the casino gambling industry may not be all that healthy. The negative news comes as the state is considering authorizing four new gambling centers in the next few months.

One third of Atlantic City’s casinos, including one run by Donald Trump, have announced plans to close, and Moody’s investor rating services has downgraded the casino industry from stable to negative citing “declines in comparable monthly gaming revenue.” 

Gov. Andrew Cuomo is already ahead of his Republican challenger in name recognition. Now, according to required campaign disclosure filings with the state Board of Elections, Cuomo is far ahead in fundraising as well.

Cuomo, who already had more than $33 million in his campaign war chest, took in an additional $8.4 million during the first six months of the year and spent around $6.5 million, leaving him with a balance of more than $35 million.

Rob Astorino, the GOP candidate for governor, faces an uphill battle against the incumbent governor.

The Republican candidate for state attorney general says the man who holds the office now, and those who served before him, have treated it has a political stepping stone.

A.G. doesn't stand for "aspiring governor," John Cahill said.

Cahill was an aide and environmental conservation commissioner to former Gov. George Pataki, a Republican who ran the state from 1995 to 2006.

Cahill is now challenging Democratic Attorney General Eric Schneiderman for the role of New York's top lawyer.

Rep. Dan Maffei has picked up the endorsement of an informal group of central New York business and economic leaders.

About two dozen executives are backing the Syracuse Democrat in his bid for re-election against Republican John Katko.

Eric Mower, of the advertising firm Eric Mower and Associates, says he’s neither a Republican nor Democrat and he supported former Rep. Jim Walsh, a Republican.

But he says has focused on the issues facing the region.

The Empire Brewing Company in Syracuse is planning an expansion that will let the brewpub create a new kind of farm-to-bottle brewing model.

The company is looking for $200,000 in federal funding to help with operation of a farm and construction of a bottling plant in Madison County. Sen. Charles Schumer says the funds would come from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which would be a good fit.

Environmentalists are urging a key review board to vote no on a request from the Cuomo administration to help finance the rebuilding of a major Thruway bridge with a fund designed for municipal clean water projects.  

Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration wants to use money from a revolving loan fund, designed to help local governments keep their sewer and water treatment systems up to date and their drinking water clean, to instead help pay for the massive Tappan Zee Bridge replacement project.

Less than two weeks ago, Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) vowed to help attract a grocery store to Syracuse’s Armory Square neighborhood. Monday, he announced that the trendy organic grocer Whole Foods has returned his call.

“They are interested in Armory Square. And they are going to visit -- myself, the mayor and representatives of Whole Foods -- in the fall,” said the senator.

Schumer says one thing that has grabbed Whole Foods attention is that the only other store in upstate New York, in Albany, has exceeded its sales projections.