ALBANY — Free tours of both the State Education Building and the Capitol will be given on the second Saturday of each month, starting Aug. 12.

GUILDERLAND — Neighbors say that the stream that runs parallel to Western Avenue and behind their homes on Concord Hill Drive and Halfmoon Drive is now as much as 25 feet closer to their homes, threatening to swallow their outbuildings. The water is directed through culverts toward Route 146 and the Normanskill.

New York State should require large facilities that regularly throw out quantities of food to give it to food banks instead. 

The diverse coalition that backed a bill for the state’s funding of fair legal services for the poor needs to keep together and keep pushing past the governor’s veto.

The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation issued new rules at the beginning of this year for wildlife rehabilitators, drastically limiting their ability to care for injured adult white-tailed deer and placing some — less dramatic — restrictions on their ability to care for orphaned fawns.

More than $325 million in funding is available to help elderly and low- and moderate-income New Yorkers heat their homes this winter. Applications for the Home Energy Assistance Program, known as HEAP, were accepted beginning Nov. 14.

The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority has developed a guidebook to help municipalities and officials make decisions on adopting solar in and to help residents. It includes information about solar project permitting, inspection, property taxes, and land leases.

Snowmobiling has become more involved, so the rules may be more important.