Middletown | featured news

FALLSBURG — Fallsburg High School held its annual Blossom Cohen Dinner on May 3 to honor the Samuel Beytin Fallsburg Central School Community Scholarship Fund with most of the awards named for outstanding former teachers. The first scholarship recipients were honored 68 years ago.When Superintendent Dr. Ivan Katz welcomed everyone, he acknowledged the great tradition of the dinner. He especially noted the words spoken by the honorees.Each recipient told a special story. [...]

WARWICK - With ice cream, pottery bowls and fun, the Empty Bowls fundraiser at Warwick Valley High School on May 3 raised more than $5000 to fight local hunger.The event was hosted by the High School Empty Bowls Club and Warwick Valley Empty Bowls community volunteers.Warwick Valley Empty Bowls is part of an organized effort to fight hunger in communities across the United States and in other countries. Attendees had ice cream with a variety of toppings. Many [...]

POND EDDY - Sullivan County is urging the public to be cautious around wild animals and to make sure their pets are up to date on rabies vaccinations after a raccoon killed in the Pond Eddy area tested positive for the disease.Rabies is a deadly virus that infects the central nervous system of mammals and is often transmitted by a bite. However, it’s possible to become infected if saliva or nerve tissue from a rabid animal gets into a person’s eyes, nose, mouth or an [...]

U.S. Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand, Shelley Moore Capito and Tom Carper introduced a bill Thursday seeking greater transparency around PFAS chemical releases into the environment.PFAS, or per- and polyfluoralkyl substances, is a family of toxic chemicals that include perflurooctanoic acid, PFOA, and perfluorooctane sulfonate, PFOS.The PFAS Disclosure Act would require the Environmental Protection Agency to create a process for adding PFAS chemicals to a centralized database [...]

ATLANTA (AP) — Democratic presidential candidate Kirsten Gillibrand says that, as president, she'd seek to write into law the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark ruling that legalized abortion.During a rally at Georgia's state Capitol on Thursday, the New York senator criticized recent abortion bans signed into law in Mississippi, Kentucky, Ohio, Georgia and Alabama as "a nationwide assault on women's constitutional rights by ideological extremists."Anti-abortion [...]

SCHOHARIE — The limousine company operator charged in an upstate New York crash that killed 20 people was aware of prior passenger complaints about the ill-fated vehicle and had even refunded fares, prosecutors say.In a document filed last week in the case against Nauman Hussain, Schoharie County District Attorney Susan Mallery also said individuals had refused to drive the 2001 Ford Excursion stretch limousine because of its poor condition.The document was filed [...]

ALBANY — The Democrat-controlled state Senate passed a package of bills Wednesday designed to make New York's streets, roads and waterways safer, including a measure aimed at cracking down on drivers who pass stopped school buses.According to the legislation sponsored by Sen. Tim Kennedy, D-Buffalo, school districts would be allowed to install video cameras on the stop arms that extend when a school bus stops to pick up or drop off students. Drivers caught illegally passing [...]

ALBANY — More than 180 establishments holding New York state liquor licenses have been charged with serving minors during last month's statewide crackdown on underage drinking.That's according to state officials who say April's monthlong enforcement effort resulted in charges being filed against 186 out of the 851 bars, restaurants, liquor stores and grocery stores in 46 counties that were visited by underage decoys working with investigators.The compliance checks [...]

BEACON — The sloop Clearwater is celebrating 50 years of sailing on the Hudson River.Clearwater's founders and crew members will gather with public officials along the Hudson in Beacon on Friday to mark the anniversary of the sloop's launch on May 17, 1969.They will hold an on-board christening ceremony.Folk singer Pete Seeger and like-minded environmentalists wanted the ship to be a symbol of the river and a sort of floating classroom. It was built to [...]

CITY OF NEWBURGH - Police arrested five people after finding multiple handguns, thousands of decks of heroin, cocaine and cash after searching two apartments Thursday on Liberty Street.City of Newburgh police, Town of Newburgh detectives and members of the Hudson Valley Safe Streets Task Force executed the search warrants in the basement and second-floor apartments of 508 Liberty St. following a months-long investigation into drug sales at that address, police said.The [...]