Orange County, NY | featured news

Her dogs are romping in the backyard snow as Cynthia Strunsky McLean tucks in at the table in her comfy kitchen.Her paintings cover every spot on the walls, and a small easel is set up on the table.“Bethel is my destiny,” she says. “I love it here, I love Sullivan County. It has just enough of an edge to nurture creativity.”Cynthia has been an artist for most of her life.“As soon as I could hold a pencil, I could draw," she says. [...]

Will this be the year that Sullivan County climbs out of its ranking as the second-unhealthiest county in the state?Since the start of the County Health Rankings & Roadmaps in 2010, Sullivan has placed 61st in the state each year, ahead of only the Bronx.But when the annual ranking was unveiled in March of 2018, there was reason for optimism.While the county’s ranking stayed the same, the health factors that the ranking draws from rose from 58th in 2017 to [...]

NEW YORK — A new, troublesome topic hovered over the St. Patrick's Day Parade in New York this year: Britain's failed Brexit deal with the European Union that could squeeze Ireland's economy.But nothing could put a damper on the largest American celebration of Irish heritage on Saturday, with tens of thousands of marchers following a painted green line up Fifth Avenue for the six-hour procession.Kevin Coughlan, a 27-year-old spectator wearing pants with four-leaf clovers, [...]

MIDDLETOWN — The lamp didn’t work. It had no lamp shade. It was pretty, but not striking. It wasn't expensive. Yet it was priceless to Jeannie Mills, 70, whose grandfather was the original owner.And so she brought it to the Middletown Repair Café on Saturday at Thrall Library with the hope that the heirloom could come to light again.The Middletown Repair Café is part of a growing movement, a place where people who have repair skills are available to [...]

WHITE PLAINS — Michele Duggan's first reaction to news that a majority of delegates of the United Methodist Church voted to strengthen its ban on gay and lesbian clergy and gay marriage was to Google different churches she could join that aligned more with her beliefs."And then I sat back and decided I wanted to be part of this discussion, part of this solution, and by just leaving the denomination I felt like it would be copping out," Duggan said.Duggan, the lay [...]

WASHINGTON — A huge study suggests the Apple Watch can detect a worrisome irregular heartbeat at least sometimes — but experts say more work is needed to tell if using wearable technology to screen for heart problems really helps.More than 419,000 Apple Watch users signed up for the unusual study, making it the largest ever to explore screening seemingly healthy people for atrial fibrillation, a condition that if untreated eventually can trigger strokes.A-fib [...]

WASHINGTON — The Environmental Protection Agency on Friday banned consumer use of a popular but deadly paint stripper but stopped short of also banning commercial use of the product by tradespeople.EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler signed the rule, which will bar manufacture and import of the stripper methylene chloride for consumer use, in a private meeting Friday with relatives of a man who died while using the paint stripper. The EPA cited "the acute fatalities that [...]

March 20Goshen Chamber of Commerce:  Glen Arden, 214 Harriman Drive, Goshen. 7:45 a.m. March networking breakfast. Topic: Meet the representatives from the Goshen Plaza. Early registration for members, $10; nonmembers, $15.  Breakfast is catered by Orange County Bagel Bakery. goshennychamber.com​.Ulster County Regional Chamber of Commerce: The Twaalfskill [...]

In New York, a caregiver agreement, also known as a personal services contract, is a tool used by elder law attorneys to protect assets from nursing home costs in certain circumstances.Family caregivers, often adult children and predominantly women, spend untold hours and sometimes even their own money taking care of aging parents. If the parent pays the child for the caregiving, the payments will be deemed a gift if the parent applies for Medicaid in a nursing home within the next [...]

Freshman Rep. Antonio Delgado has signed on as a co-sponsor of a Democratic bill introduced in the last three Congresses that would eliminate a ban on the use of Medicaid funds for abortions that was set by the so-called Hyde Amendment in 1976 and has remained in place ever since.Delgado, a Rhinebeck Democrat whose 19th District includes Ulster and Sullivan counties, argued in a press release announcing the bill — known as the Equal Access to Abortion Coverage in Health [...]