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Albany Councilman Glen Casey wants to give some city employees an additional ten days off next year. The Catch: He doesn't want to pay them for it. "the idea is for all non union Albany city employees making $55,000 or more to have to take an additional ten days off next year. They would not get paid for it. I want to take what would be between $150,000 and $200,000 dollars in savings and give it to those employees making under 40,000 a raise" says Casey Casey pitched the idea to Council Members at Mondays meeting while they talked about...

SOME FAMILY MAN: Asse Sam Hoyt ALBANY - A married assemblyman got caught with his virtual pants down - busted by XXX-rated e-mails to a 19-year-old intern.....In one sex message Hoyt made it embarrassingly clear they shared not only an interest in the people's business, but in lusty sex and personal hygiene. Titled "what i wish," the Democratic assemblyman's list included: ". . . that i could be painting your toenails right now . . . that i could see you do that little cheerleader move . . . that i could be your human lollipop . . ....

A Roman Catholic priest from the Hudson Valley is going to federal prison for four years after pleading guilty to downloading child pornography. Raymond Ethier of Hudson was arrested in May 2007 for having videos and still images of minors engaged in sexual conducted on his home computer when he was the pastor of St. John Vianney.... The 51-year-old pleaded guilty in November to one count of possessing child pornography. He was sentenced Monday to 48 months in prison and 10 years of supervised release. He must also register with the state's sex offender registry and participate in a sex...

Truckers in Albany protested at the New York Capitol amidst concerns their industry would be hit hard by skyrocketing fuel prices and climate change legislation. About 100 truckers attended the demonstration, where they paraded big rigs past the Capitol building and blasted their horns. They’re specifically directing their anger at Democrat-controlled State Assembly for refusing a vote on a proposed gas tax holiday bill to suspend New York’s fuel tax through Labor Day. The truckers even invited Democratic Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno for a ride on one of their big rigs to lobby him.

More info and contact info here: http://www.wrow.com/pages/pages.php?page=16

Albany DA to release Spitzer, aides testimony in probePosted at: 06/06/2008 04:46:53 PM Albany County District Attorney P. David Soares says he will release the secret testimony of former Gov. Eliot Spitzer and his top aides in the dirty tricks probe that consumed much of Spitzer's abbreviated term. Soares will release thousands of pages of documents sought by several news organizations after the material is reviewed according to county policy. The testimony could show how involved Spitzer was in the work of two staffers who collected state police travel logs that showed Senate Republican leader Joseph Bruno - Spitzer's adversary...

ALBUQUERQUE, NM, April 25, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - "I want to save others from the same fate that I was almost put into," said 14-year-old Janelle Bushnell referring to a silent protest against abortion she has been punished for planning at her New Mexico middle school. Bushnell and a friend have been distributing flyers to fellow students at their James Monroe Middle School, encouraging them to wear red armbands and duct tape in protest of the scourge of abortion that has silenced the voices of so many of Bushnell's unborn peers. Bushnell was inspired to protest abortion after learning that her...

About two dozen bikers descended upon the Code Pink headquarters in Albany Saturday. The bikers are former marines and say Code Pink's protests in front of the Marine recruiting office in Berkeley goes too far. The Marines Motorcycle Club roared into Albany for what turned out to be a rather quiet protest. The veterans obtained a two-hour permit to demonstrate in front of the Code Pink headquarters on Solano Avenue, but no one was home. Code Pink left a sign saying, "Sorry we missed you boys." "Since they're in our house, the Marines Recruiting Center, we're coming to their house...

ALBANY, N.Y. (WIVB) - - The Albany Police Department has activated the New York State AMBER Alert and is investigating a confirmed child abduction that occurred at 41 North Allen Street , in Albany, NY at about 3:00 PM on 4/7/2008. The CHILD, Jose Estrada is a Hispanic male , approximately 6 years old with brown hair and brown eyes . He is approximately 3 feet 1 inch tall and weighs about 48 pounds. Jose was last seen wearing blue jeans, a mustard colored shirt and/or a plaid button down shirt, an orange jacket with blue sleeves, and black sneakers....

March 31, 2008 ALBANY - The scandal-scarred State Police is suspected of harboring a renegade unit that for years has secretly compiled personal information on top New York officials - possibly including Gov. Paterson, The Post has learned. The governor got a whiff of the existence of such an illegal, politically directed operation after being told by several lawmakers that the State Police targeted them for unjustified traffic stops and "interfered in their personal lives," a senior Paterson aide told The Post yesterday. The explosive information - supplied to Paterson by both Democrats and Republicans - suggests that the Dirty...

Of all the wisecracks heard in the marble halls of New York's Capitol after Gov. Eliot Spitzer's downfall in a call-girl scandal, one jest enlightened as much as it stung: Spitzer's got to be the only guy in Albany who PAYS for sex. It is an open secret that there is a lot of fooling around going on at the statehouse. And at other statehouses, too. In fact, Gov. David Paterson, in an extraordinary news conference on Tuesday, his first full day on the job after taking over from Spitzer, acknowledged he had had extramarital affairs with a number of...

March 14, 2008 Echols County - A bootleg liquor operation in South Georgia has been put out of commission. Echols County Sheriff's Office discovered two moonshine stills Wednesday. Sheriff Randy Courson says they located the stills on the Wolf Bay Hunting Club Property just off of Highway 84. Together the stills produce about 130 gallons of liquor. They estimate they'd get $35.00 a gallon if sold. They say the stills are so dangerous and dirty that the best way to get rid of them is to blow them up. The GBI, DNR, and the Department of Revenue was brought in...

Video at link. "Bringing Some Passion Back to Albany" http://www.observer.com/2008/eliot-spitzer-bringing-passion-back-albany

Called to be Church, our pastoral planning process to ensure the viability and vitality of the Church of Albany in the early years of the 21st century, has been underway for 18 months. All 165 parishes in our diocese have been involved.Our 39 local planning groups, each comprised of participants from several parishes, have met many times. Members have gotten to know each other, familiarized themselves with pastoral activities in each other's parishes, and reviewed the mission of the Church in the areas of prayer and worship, evangelization, faith formation, Christian service and stewardship.They have increased their understanding of the...

It's crunch time for "Called to be Church." After more than a year of meetings and discussions, local planning groups (LPGs) for every parish in the Albany Diocese will spend the first half of 2008 creating recommendations for their parishes' futures."Status quo is not an option," reads the manual for this phase of the process, sent by diocesan officials to each LPG.Time to chooseAll parishes, the manual notes, must come up with recommendations to close, merge or at least link their parishes with others:* A merger would mean that two or more parishes become one, sharing assets and liabilities;* linked...

ALBANY - The prosecutor who sent two local Muslim men ensnared in an FBI terror sting to prison is on the short list for a federal judgeship. Many in the Capital District's growing Muslim community are outraged. Members of Albany's Muslim Solidarity Committee say they will do everything in their power to ensure Glenn Suddaby doesn't receive the nomination. The activists formed their group after the arrest and conviction of Mohammad Hossain, an Albany pizza shop owner, and Yassin Aref, an Albany imam. Despite grass roots opposition, Suddaby has at least one pretty big name supporter - U.S. Sen. Charles...

Pakistan has protested to the United States over what it says was an FBI sting operation involving a fake plot to kill Pakistan's UN envoy. Islamabad called the operation bizarre and mind-boggling. A spokesman said it had endangered the life of Munir Akram, Pakistan's permanent envoy to the United Nations. Two men are being held in the US for allegedly laundering money for an agent posing as a militant who wanted to use a missile to kill Mr Akram. Pakistani foreign ministry spokesman Masood Khan asked why the US authorities had not picked an American "target" instead. "It is...

A message from Rome hits a nerve in Albany Diocese seeks to address concerns of non-Catholics over Vatican statement about "the true church" ALBANY -- An international controversy over Vatican statements on the primacy of the Catholic church has the Albany Catholic Diocese moving to prevent local fallout. The uproar revolved around a document that "reasserts the position that only Catholics make up the true church, while Protestants are merely 'Christian communities' and not churches 'in the proper sense,' " as Religion News Service summarized it. The document also spoke of "defects" in non-Catholic churches. The World Alliance of Reformed...

The body of a missing priest from St. Bonaventure University was found Monday night in the Kinzua Dam Reservoir. Father Greg Brennan vanished over the weekend while boating along the New York-Pennsylvania border. Two priests from St. Bonaventure identified Father Brennan's body. In a written statement, St. Bonaventure President Sister Margaret Carney said "Our hearts are broken, both personally and professionally here at St. Bonaventure and for all of the people in the Southern Tier whose lives Father Greg touched, especially his parishioners at St. Pacificus and all of the fire company members in Olean and Allegany to whom he...

"I love both Masses equally, the English and the Tridentine Latin," Rev. William Gorman said.That's a good thing: In one weekend, the administrator of St. Peter's and St. Paul's parishes in Troy might celebrate three Masses in English before a fourth in Latin at St. Peter's, the church in the Albany Diocese designated years ago by Bishop Howard J. Hubbard to host a Tridentine Mass.The Tridentine Mass is entirely in Latin. Altar servers are only males; communion is received on the tongue as congregants kneel at the altar rail. The priest celebrates the liturgy with his back to the people...