Free Republic

All 15 bison that roamed across a section of town for the past several hours were shot and killed by family members who owned the animals Friday. The center of attention was at a creek off of Willowbrook Avenue as authorities tried to round up the herd that escaped from a farm in Rensselaer County, crossed the Hudson River and bolted across the state Thruway. One of the hunters — "hired guns" — appeared to have a heated exchange with Albany County Sheriff Craig Apple after the gunfire started and was taken into custody. Apple said he was concerned about...

ALBANY -- Republican leaders were crowing yesterday after a series of battleground-district polls suggested Democrats could lose their one-vote majority in the state Senate in the upcoming elections. The four Siena College surveys showed two incumbent Democrats -- Darrel Aubertine of Watertown and Brian Foley of Long Island -- were neck-and-neck in tough re-election fights. Meanwhile, two veteran Republican senators -- Frank Padavan of Queens and Hugh Farley of Schenectady -- retained wide leads over their Democratic challengers. Democrats have repeatedly cited those two GOP-controlled districts as their best opportunities to even out any losses they might suffer elsewhere in...

February was not a kind month to New York State politicians. Last week, only a few days after declaring his candidacy, New York Gov. David Paterson announced that he would not run for reelection. Why the sudden change? It came to light that one of Paterson's top aides was accused of assaulting his live-in girlfriend in New York City, and that members of the Governor's State Police security detail urged her to avoid pressing charges. The night before the woman was to appear in court to seek a restraining order against the aide, Gov. Paterson himself called to "chat." She...

The subject kept coming up all the time. “Everybody I talked to over the past year has been saying, ‘Ugh, it’s so awful,’ ” former Mayor Edward I. Koch said recently. At lunches and dinners, in meetings with clients, law partners, fellow alumni of public service, business associations and good government groups, the conversation invariably turned to the political chaos in Albany. “I finally said to myself, somebody’s got to do something,” Mr. Koch recalled. “And if no one else does anything, notwithstanding the fact I’m 85 years old, I’m going to throw myself into it.” So Mr. Koch is...

The State of Shame has descended into a state of shambles.Yesterday's coup d'etat revealed Albany for the madhouse it has become, with the lunatics firmly in charge of the asylum.All you need to know to size up the execrable events is that control of New York's Senate hinged on power-playing by one man who is under indictment for allegedly slashing his girlfriend's face and by a second man who supposedly represents the Bronx but lives in Westchester and is a recidivist ethics violator.Meanwhile, Republican boss Dean Skelos is only too happy to welcome turncoat Democrats Hiram Monserrate and Pedro Espada...

New York State’s unemployment insurance system, besieged by claims from laid-off workers, ran out of money on the first business day of the year and is borrowing daily from the federal government to bridge a fast-growing and potentially huge deficit, state labor officials say. Despite paying lower benefits to its jobless residents than other Northeastern states, the state’s unemployment fund has been borrowing about $90 million a week from the federal unemployment trust fund, state officials said. The deficit has already reached $212 million and is expected to exceed $2.5 billion by the end of 2010, they said. State officials...

A zoo director calls a porcupine into his office to break the news. “There’s no easy way to say this,” the director tells the prickly animal as it squirms on its chair. “Even though you bring record numbers of people to New York and help the economy, we’re going to have to let you go.” The humorous video — made by the Wildlife Conservation Society, which oversees the city’s zoos and the New York Aquarium — has a sobering reality behind it. In New York State’s next fiscal year, which starts in April, state financing for all 76 zoos, botanical...

ALBANY, Aug. 23 — Acknowledging his problems navigating the turbulent waters of Albany, Gov. Eliot Spitzer in recent weeks has reached out to a diverse group of prominent figures for advice in putting his scandal-marred administration back on course. Members of the informal group, who come from a wide range of professional and political backgrounds, include Robert E. Rubin, the treasury secretary under President Clinton; Jerry Speyer, a real estate developer who has advised governors since Hugh L. Carey; and Abraham M. Lackman, a Republican and former top aide to the governor’s chief political rival, the Senate majority leader, Joseph...

ALBANY, April 4 — New York State is getting its first fish pathologist. A million dollars is going to jump-start the effort to provide cellphone service along a major highway in the Adirondacks where a Brooklyn man died, unable to get a signal. And the state’s dairy farmers will get $30 million to help them recover from a bad year. There are eight million stories buried in Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s first state budget, which was passed last weekend as the governor squared off with Republicans in the State Senate over education aid to suburban districts and with the health care...

ALBANY -- A distraught clergy sex abuse victim has threatened to kill Bishop Howard Hubbard if his alleged abuser is cleared of sexual misconduct allegations, according to attorney John Aretakis.Without naming the victim or the priest, Aretakis sent a Jan. 15 letter to Hubbard's lawyer, Michael Costello, apprising him of the threat. Aretakis, who represents a number of clergy sex abuse victims, said he does not think the threat is credible, but said he still felt a warning to Hubbard was warranted."I feel a moral obligation to pass this information on," Aretakis said in the letter. "Please (tell) Bishop Hubbard...

ARE WE AN INCLUSIVE CHURCH? The Rt. Rev. David J. Bena January 28, 2004 A column by the Rt. Rev. David Bena, Bishop Suffragan of the Diocese of Albany, New York. Last week, as I was checking in at an airport, the airline staff person asked if I happened to be a Catholic or an Episcopal priest. When I said I was an Episcopalian, she responded, "Well, are you an inclusive Episcopalian or an exclusive Episcopalian?" Sensing that I was being baited, I replied, "What does the word 'inclusive' mean to you?" She hesitated, and then said, "Oh, I don't...

Clifton Park -- Thousands of people awash in a sea of red-white-and-blue flags, turned out Saturday at what was billed as "The Rally for the Troops." Packed around the Veterans Monument in Clifton Commons, town administrator Mike Shahen said the crowd rivaled any Fourth of July celebration. State Police and the Saratoga County Sheriff's Office declined to give an official crowd estimate, but several officers said they believed about 5,000 attended.While there were cheers for the politicians' speeches, the biggest yells went up for the mothers of the sailors, airmen, soldiers and Marines, who were asked to come to the...