Orange County, NY, Middletown | featured news

CITY OF NEWBURGH - City of Newburgh police and the Newburgh school district are investigating an allegation of animal cruelty involving the torture of at least one cat, police said.A video of the cruelty act was circulated among students at South Middle School on Wednesday, prompting Principal Lisa Buon to contact police, according to a news release from police on Thursday."At this point in our investigation, we are gathering facts and hoping to interview people who [...]

Looks like rain showers bring more than just flowers. A study done in California shows that snake bites occur more frequently when it's rainy. The research team, led by Caleb Phillips of University of Colorado Boulder and Grant Lipman of the Stanford University School of Medicine, looked at 20 years of snakebite data in California. [...]

ALBANY — A coalition of government watchdog groups and liberal organizations is urging the New York Assembly to pass legislation allowing congressional investigators to access President Donald Trump's state tax returns.The measure, which passed the state Senate last week, would authorize officials to release any returns filed in New York if requested by any of three congressional committees.The groups wrote to Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, D-Bronx, on Wednesday [...]

My wife and I sat at a Passover Seder table last month with Mike Levine’s wife, Ellen, and his sons, Ben, 33, and Sam, 30, just as we’ve done since they were boys. I looked at the copied pages of the prayer booklet, or Haggadah, that Mike, the late Record executive editor and columnist, and Ellen compiled 21 years ago. The words that jumped out were ones Mike wrote and added to the pages. They paraphrased a Hebrew saying and spoke of “hearing the still small voice within [...]

GOSHEN - A Warwick man pleaded guilty on Thursday to repeatedly sexually assaulting a child younger than 13.According to the Orange County District Attorney's Office, Douglas Castro, 64, pleaded guilty to first-degree course of sexual conduct against a child, a felony. Castro admitted that he subjected the child to repeated acts of sexual conduct between September 2012 and June 2014, prosecutors said.In exchange for the guilty plea in front of Judge Robert Freehill, [...]

NEW YORK — New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Thursday that he will seek the Democratic nomination for president, adding his name to an already long list of candidates itching for a chance to take on Donald Trump.The mayor announced his run with a video released by his campaign, then headed to the Statue of Liberty, where he said the country is in an "identity crisis" around immigration, which he called "the founding and unifying element of the American experience. [...]

Francois Barcomb, a high school physics teacher from New Paltz, has the lead after Thursday's first round of the two-day finals of the "Jeopardy!" Teachers Tournament.Barcomb finished with $20,400. Conor Quinn, a world history teacher from Albany, N.Y., was second with $5,600 and Sara DelVillano, a music teacher from Lanham, Md., was third with $4,800.The player with the highest two-day total wins $100,000 and a spot in the next "Jeopardy!" Tournament of Champions.The [...]

GOSHEN — The Taste of Goshen, sponsored by Goshen Rotarians, will return to the Harness Racing Museum in Goshen for its 10th year from 2-5 p.m. May 19.Along with foods from area restaurants, wine, beer, soft drinks and live music will be available.The Rotarians support many community projects such as scholarships, dictionaries to all third graders, five-day leadership training for high school sophomores, the Goshen Ecumenical Food Pantry and Goshen’s new [...]

ALBANY — Hundreds of parents and vaccine skeptics have called on New York lawmakers not to narrow existing exemptions to the state childhood immunization rules.The group stood in the rain outside the state Capitol Tuesday urging lawmakers to protect a state law that permits people not to vaccinate their children for religious reasons. They say that parents are best suited to make medical decisions for their children — even if the vaccines are recommended by public [...]

More than 170 Hudson Valley nonprofits have registered to participate in this year's fundraising effort.To donate, visit the website (hvgives.org) to support a nonprofit of choice. Use the #HVGives on social media to show up on the website's tag board."We have over $30,000 available in cash and in-kind prizes to be awarded to nonprofits this year," the organization wrote in a press release.