Orange County, NY, Middletown | featured news

NEW YORK (AP) — The American Museum of Natural History announced big plans Wednesday for its big 150th anniversary, including exhibits, an anniversary website and a new space show in the planetarium.The slate of events is starting next month to commemorate the museum's incorporation in April 1869, with the opening of the "T. rex: The Ultimate Predator" exhibit on March 11, and will continue over the next couple of years.Another part of the plan is an exhibition on [...]

Area residents age 65 and older have until Friday to enroll in the Enhanced STAR program.The Enhance STAR exemption is separate from the Basic STAR exemption, the latter of which applies to homeowners with a household income of up to $500,000.Homeowners 65 and older, whose household income does not exceed $86,300, can enroll in the enhanced program.If a home is jointly owned, only one homeowner has to be 65 in order to qualify.Applications must include [...]

ALBANY — A more than 100-year-old mistake in the spelling of 19th century abolitionist Frederick Douglass' last name on his stone carving at the New York state Capitol has been corrected.His face is among the faces of 77 famous people carved into the ornate interior stonework of the "Million Dollar Staircase" from 1884 to 1898.The Douglass face is believed to have been carved into a third-floor column sometime in the 1890s, with his name spelled "Fred. Douglas." A [...]

KINGSTON - An Ulster County jury deliberated for just 19 minutes before convicting a man in a burglary in which a Saugerties couple awoke to find an arrow embedded in their living room wall and an axe with a bloody handle nearby, said Ulster County District Attorney Holley Carnright.Following trial in Ulster County Court, the jury found Johnnie Lancaster, 25, of the Town of Ulster guilty of first-degree burglary and third-degree criminal possession of a weapon, felonies. [...]

Nicole Bell’s phone has been ringing off the hook since the story broke that New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft was charged with two counts of soliciting prostitution at a day spa in Florida.The Worcester woman is a survivor of sex trafficking and executive director of Living in Freedom Together, a nonprofit resource [...]

NYACK — A pregnant mother of six who police say was killed when a driver from Washingtonville intentionally hit her family outside a convenience store was mourned and celebrated Thursday for her kindness and generous spirit.Melissa DeLoatch's children sat in a pew with her husband during her funeral at St. Ann's Church in suburban Nyack, according to the Journal News.The Rev. Roman Palecko told Shawn DeLoatch that the children can learn and grow spiritually [...]

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — Lawmakers in New York have voted to join 41 other states in criminalizing revenge porn.The Democrat-controlled Assembly and Senate passed legislation on Thursday that would make it a misdemeanor to disseminate explicit photos of a person without their permission.The measure would also allow victims to file lawsuits against the person responsible for distributing their photos.Debated for years, the bill had been held up over concerns [...]

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — North Korea's foreign minister is disputing President Donald Trump's account of why the summit between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un collapsed, saying the North demanded only partial sanctions relief in exchange for shutting down its main nuclear complex.Trump, who was on his way back to Washington on Thursday, said before leaving Hanoi that the talks broke down because Kim insisted that all the punishing sanctions the U.S. has imposed on [...]

A cashier at a local supermarket says that when she walks past someone on the street or in a parking lot she always says hello.“Maybe it will brighten the rest of their day,” she tells me.A man running a local Agway spends precious minutes during the holiday shopping season to show me pair after pair of the warmest winter socks. It seems he genuinely cares about keeping my feet warm in the frigid Catskill cold.Then there’s the salt truck driver [...]

LIBERTY — The willowy woman in the mauve suit leans against the grille of a ’73 Corvette. A graceful hand dotted with age spots hesitates above the photograph, then an index finger, knuckles thickened, taps the image."I used to have such pretty legs," Ruth Grant says.The consensus in the room is that Grant still has great-looking legs — especially considering she just turned 110.Right, 110. That makes Grant, a longtime Liberty [...]