Free Republic

Hudson Valley commuters ripped into the MTA’s congestion toll in a town hall in Ulster County Saturday, begging the Big Apple and Albany to put the controversial pricing plan on-hold. The event was sponsored by battleground congressional district Rep. Pat Ryan (D-NY), who regularly excoriates his fellow Democrats who are pushing for the Manhattan fares. “I think this is an absolutely unacceptable and ridiculous plan,” Ryan told the crowd crammed into a meeting room in the Castleton-on-Hudson Village Hall on Saturday. The proposed congestion pricing toll would charge drivers $15 a day to enter midtown Manhattan south of 60th Street....

A New York court ordered new congressional maps be redrawn ahead of the 2024 midterms, siding with Democrats salivating at the chance to overturn several embarrassing losses last November. The Appellate court reversed a lower court on Thursday and ordered the state’s redistricting commission to start work on new proposed state congressional lines impacting 26 House seats. “We’re looking forward to getting back to work,” said Karen Blatt, the commission’s Democratic co-executive director. “And we’re looking forward to working with our Republican side as well. If the congressional districts revert to the lines drawn in 2022, it would also seriously...

I live in a picture-perfect region — the Hudson Valley, memorialized by painters and poets; a patchwork of autumn reds and yellows, majestic hillsides, storied waterfalls, and little homesteads dotted picturesquely on the slopes of sleepy hamlets. Towns in our area look like Norman Rockwell paintings: there is Main Street, Millerton, with its white 19th century church steeple, its famous Irving Farm cafe with the excellent curated coffee beans, its charming antiques mall, its popular pizzeria. When you drive to Millerton, it looks like you are driving into the heart of archetypal America; everything that Woody Guthrie songs memorialize, everything...

Aliki Kraterou 18:26, 23 Oct 2022 Updated: 1:15, 24 Oct 2022 A US warship encountered an enormous "Black Triangle" UFO emerging from the sea, a member of the crew has claimed. The USS Nimitz might be best known for the famous "Tic Tac" encounter in 2004 - but crewman Kevin Thomas has claimed he witnessed a different incident about a decade earlier. Two Navy pilots are said to have captured on film a Tic Tac-shaped UFO in 2004 during a routine training mission over the Pacific. The US Navy previously identified the "tic-tac" as an Unidentified Aerial Phenomena after failing...

Bill Larkin, who spent four decades in the New York state legislature following a distinguished military career that brought him to the battlefields of World War II and the Korea War, has died, his family announced Sunday. He was 91. “America and the State of New York have lost a dedicated public servant, soldier and statesman,” the family said in a statement. “Our family lost a husband, father grandfather, great-grandfather and so much more.” The Albany legend and legislative war horse died Saturday night, his spokesman Brian Maher said. Gov. Andrew Cuomo lauded Larkin as “a constant force for good”...

Developers say local leaders in the Hudson Valley are blocking a housing project in order to keep out Hasidic Jews. In a peaceful corner of the Hudson Valley, a broad expanse of land sits at the ready for hundreds of homes ranging between 2,500 and 3,400 square feet, with views of the surrounding hills. There will be a recreation center and tennis courts, and nearly half of the development’s 117 acres will be kept as open space. But if it were up to town officials, the houses would never be built. They openly fret about the size and density of...

The old Tappan Zee Bridge in New York's Hudson Valley went crashing into the Hudson River late Tuesday morning. Traffic was backed up in both directions about 10:50 a.m. as explosives were used to tear down the eastern portion of the bridge. Video clips posted to Instagram show the bridge, first built in 1952, plummet into the water, sending up massive clouds of gray smoke.

Hillary Clinton has relaunched her campaign on Roosevelt Island with a 4,687-word speech. But it's not clear whether she and her husband, Bill Clinton, can win four presidential elections as Franklin D. Roosevelt did. Negative news for Clinton's prospects comes in the latest Quinnipiac polls in the key mega-states of Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania. In each of them, she leads or ties Republican opponents, though in many cases not by statistically significant margins. But she also is running under 50 percent of the vote in every pairing, averaging 47 percent against six different Republicans in Florida, 44 percent against seven...

Former Congresswoman Nan Hayworth won an initial skirmish against Democratic Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney on Tuesday by beating her successor in an Independence Party primary, giving her a third ballot line for their general election fight in November. Unofficial results showed the Republican about 80 votes ahead in the low-turnout contest, in which around 1,400 Independence Party voters went to the polls – around 6 percent of those enrolled in the 18th Congressional District, which includes all of Orange and Putnam counties and parts of Westchester and Dutchess. The state Board of Elections had Hayworth ahead, 729-649.

David Capobianco was a toddler in 1964 when the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge slowly soared over his neighborhood of Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, and tethered it to Staten Island. As he grew up, the improbable notion of assembling something so big and of such gossamer design propelled him to become a civil engineer. Now after years of public argument and indecision, the first new colossal steel bridge in the New York area since the Verrazano is finally beginning to rise over one of the most spacious stretches of the Hudson River, a replacement for the decaying Tappan Zee, the longest bridge in the...

<p>Citing costs and safety, the Village of Monroe plans to get rid of the F-86L Sabre jet in ‘Airplane Park’</p> <p>MONROE — The days are numbered for the F-86L Sabre jet which sits on its grassy tarmac in the rear of what’s known as Airplane Park in Monroe. The aircraft will soon be taken on a departing flatbed flight to its final destination, which the Village of Monroe expects will be determined by the Air Force, its true owner. It comes down to money. Because of the significant costs associated with repairing and maintaining the plane, combined with the village’s recent decision to purchase the decagon-shaped gazebo and its desire to be fiscally prudent, officials have contacted the Air Force and asked it to take the airplane back. If the Air Force doesn’t want it, the village will follow Air Force instructions on how to dispose of it. “We have to watch how we spend dollars,” Mayor James Purcell said Monday. “We want to ship the plane back to the government. That plane’s been there (in the back corner of the park) for about eight years like that (in disrepair). The cost to repair the plane would cost the village too much. Right now, we have no takers for the plane. It’s owned by the U.S. Air Force. We did get estimates to rehabilitate the plane and the costs are quite extensive. “ Financial decisionThose costs are an estimated $36,000 to $46,000 to put the plane back into the “pristine condition it was 50 years ago,” Purcell said. And that excludes the ongoing maintenance and security costs that would be needed afterward. Purcell said the board wishes it had the resources to keep the plane and understands its decision will not sit well with some residents who consider the airplane to be a long-term symbol in the village. But at a time when municipalities have limited available resources, the mayor said, the village board opted to spend money on the new $17,000 gazebo. He said the board believed many more people would benefit from using that new structure for any reason - to read, rest or socialize - during a visit to the village. “You have to make a financial decision at the end of the day,” said Purcell. “Irene (Conklin, a village trustee) pressed for the gazebo and the board made the decision to go with the gazebo. There’s a larger (public) benefit in the use of the gazebo versus the plane.” The board’s decision to get rid of the plane became public when Conklin posted a blog comment on The Photo News’ Web site, after stories appeared in last week’s edition about the installation of the gazebo and the 50th anniversary of the plane in the park. Conklin later referred comment to Purcell. “It’s also a large insurance liability to the village,” said Purcell, noting the plane is an eyesore. “Everybody climbs on it and it’s been vandalized. We put up temporary fences to keep people away, but the fences keep getting torn down. It’s basically sitting there until the government takes it back. We will have to get more information from the government of what we can do with it if they don’t take it. We hope to hear from them within 90 days. Our window (of time) is 90 to 120 days.” The jet came from the former Utica-Rome Air Force Base in upstate Rome in August 1963 as a monument to the men who fought and died in the Korean War. Four Monroe residents, including Sgt. Ford Dally and Mayor Jay Stahl, helped transport the plane with a tractor and trailer donated by local businesses. Air Force volunteers stationed at Stewart Air Force Base in Newburgh helped to reassemble the jet. They added a children’s slide and placed it in the park as a major part of the playground area. The slide and the jet’s nose cone are long gone. Graffiti is visible on its rusted fuselage which once gleamed in silver with red accents. Several attempts have been by volunteers to restore the plane, most recently in 2009 by a group of Marines and members of the Cornerstone Masonic Temple Lodge No. 711 to honor Dally, who was a longtime lodge member. “There were volunteers from Stewart working on the plane, but then they got shipped out and their work was vandalized,” said Purcell. “Someone would have to start all over. It’s a real safety hazard now.” It’s not known if those two groups are aware of the village’s decision to get rid of the aircraft. ‘A chronic issue’But Purcell said the board remains open to the idea of the public undertaking a fund-raising effort to raise at least $50,000 to keep the plane in Monroe. However, the money would need to raised quickly. The money would be used for restoration costs and to install a concrete pad as a permanent base for the plane. Money would also be needed for ongoing maintenance and security costs. Purcell said it would then become a monument in the village, not something kids would play on. “There have been few attempts to raise money that have not come into fruition on a volunteer basis,” he said. “When you added in all the costs of the plane, board made the financial decision to put up the gazebo.” Separately, Purcell said board has been talking about ways to revitalize the entire park. The “airplane” portion of the part was named to honor Dally. However, Purcell said, Airplane Park is really a part of the larger Crane Park, which includes the two ponds and surrounding land. “We have some ideas of what do in the park when the plane is gone, but we have to raise the revenue,” he said. “I don’t want to get into the details right now. That plane has been sitting like that in its deteriorated state for nearly eight years. The public needs to know that. It’s gone through two and a half mayors. It’s been a chronic issue to get it rehabilitated.”</p>

Gov. George Pataki remained hospitalized Monday nearly a week after undergoing a surgery to correct a postoperative complication related to an emergency appendectomy. Pataki, 60, continued eating some food Monday but also remained on intravenous nutrition and antibiotics to reduce the risk of an abscess... `The governor's doctors have indicated that there has been a slow return of normal digestive function because of the ruptured appendix,'' ... Pataki was originally to be released two days after the Feb. 16 appendectomy. ``The governor continues to be in good spirits and is reading, walking around and conducting state business,'' ...

The man accused of shooting up a Hudson Valley mall was indicted on unrelated explosives charges, along with two friends. Robert Bonelli, Kenneth Stine and Liborio Valguanera waived an arraignment on the charges in federal court in Albany. They're accused of possessing and exploding a pipe bomb. The indictment was handed up Friday. The three men are from Glasco, about 45 miles south of Albany. Bonelli is in Ulster County Jail after being charged with shooting about 60 rounds from a rifle in the Hudson Valley Mall near Kingston last month, injuring two men. A video showing the three men...

ULSTER, N.Y., Feb. 14 - The 24-year-old man accused of entering a crowded mall with an assault weapon on Sunday and aimlessly firing dozens of shots harbored a fascination with the Columbine High School shootings, a prosecutor said on Monday. The day after the shooting in the Hudson Valley Mall, in which two people were wounded, details emerged about the suspect, Robert Bonelli Jr., who was described as a loner who secluded himself in his bedroom at his father's home in Glasco, a hamlet in Saugerties, N.Y. In Mr. Bonelli's room, the police found piles of news articles and other...