KNOX — A week after Ken Fortuin was charged with setting his own house on fire, police and friends alike are focusing on the fact that he is alive. He is in Albany County’s jail, with bail set at $150,000.

Albany County Sheriff Craig Apple said he had worried “it would be suicide by cop or he’d take his own life.”

Jason Rudebush, speeding home from Camp Bisco, was stopped by Altamont Police who found drugs in his car; he says their confiscating his car and money made him desperate.

Richie Phillips's forbearers wrote tunes for comic characters like Popeye and Betty Boop; he composes country songs for local places — like Altamont.

Landon Cooper ran a marathon to show his love for a friend battling sarcoma. He kept on running, across the country, and now around it, to raise funds and awareness about the rare cancer.

Pete Seeger's voice — reedy and upbeat — carries on in the memory of all he encouraged to raise their own voices. I'm one of them

A third of the Suburban Council school districts, typically thought of as wealthy, are deemed by the state comptroller to be susceptible to fiscal stress, part of a statewide trend as taxes are capped and property values stagnate.

Faced with reduced resources and a government reform agenda, Superintendent Marie Wiles wants school leaders, rather than outside pressures, to define Guilderland's future.

Guilderland has 20 teachers on required improvement plans, a measure the superintendent says is unwarranted because the numbers from hastily implemented state tests, she said, don't mean much.

Tim Wiles performs "Casey at the Bat" but does not have the "haughty grandeur" of his alter ego; the president of the library board that just hired him as director says he is a team player.

Knox's first official business district is one step closer to reality as the planning board finalized a map, stretching the length of the hamlet along Route 156.