Regional Coverage

Our reporter, Joanna Richards, is a city girl. But since she moved to the north country four years ago, she's been boning up on the traditions and culture of rural life. She had a chance recently for a bit of North Country skill building, in a workshop on wood splitting especially for women. Joanna tells the story of her lesson.

New York Senate Republicans are pushing for middle class tax breaks in the new state budget, including a return to the New York State School Tax Relief Program property tax rebate checks curtailed in 2009.
 

Syracuse will formally commence the foreclosure process on a long vacant downtown church, aiming to turn the historic building into another part of a downtown residential boom.

As the controversy over hydrofracking drags on in New York state, opponents of the drilling method are trying to get more college students involved in the debate.  NYPIRG project coordinator Nicole Saint James is recruiting students at Syracuse University to help put more pressure on Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

Stephen Barton was a top honors student at Syracuse University—he delivered the student commencement address at the university’s graduation exercise last May. He had won a prestigious Fulbright grant to teach English in Russia, but before he could go, he was shot by James Holmes in the Aurora, Colorado movie theater on July 20th. The experience led him to join the group Mayors Against Illegal Guns.

Onondaga County emergency professionals want to prepare central New York for a potential disaster.  First they want to know whether everyday citizens are ready for anything from the storm of the century to an act of terrorism.

When President Barack Obama named the first legislation he signed into law after Lilly Ledbetter, not everyone knew her name. But, the woman who has fought for years for equal pay for women says her cause is something that affects everyone.

CORRECTION March 4: Current Mizpah Tower owner Syracuse Bangkok, LLC. is $115,646.31 delinquent on taxes, according to the Onondaga County property tax database.

A potential new owner of the long-vacant Mizpah Tower in downtown Syracuse is hoping to satisfy a certain kind of rental market. 

It's been ten years since Syracuse-area oncologist Dr. Rafil Dhafir was arrested for crimes involving the Muslim charity Help the Needy.  Dhafir continues to serve a 22-year prison sentence after he was convicted of violating U.S. sanctions against his native Iraq by sending money there. In 2005, a federal jury convicted him of 59 felonies, including fraud and tax evasion, among other things. But Dhafir's conviction and incarceration still has some central New Yorker's crying foul.

The daughter of Harry Belafonte and Julie Robinson, Gina Belafonte grew up in a household filled with the leading civil rights activists and entertainers of the day, and she went on to become an actor, producer, and civil rights activist in her own right.

The Onondaga County sheriff’s office is speaking out on New York’s new gun control rules for the first time.