The Food and Drug Administration’s Advisory Committee on Wednesday approved expanding emergency use authorization for the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines for children from six months through 5 years old.

After the FDA makes a final decision, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will make its recommendation.

While the picture in New York generally improved this week as most of the state has counties with low or medium community levels of COVID-19 — Albany County, for the first time in nearly two months, was deemed “medium” last Friday — most of the nation is seeing an upward trend in cases and in hospitalizations, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The Food and Drug Adminstration’s advisory committee met to consider authorizing a fourth vaccine against COVID, made by Novavax. And the FDA is expected to make a decision shortly on allowing Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna’s vaccines to be used for children younger than 5.

ALTAMONT — When she hears something that intrigues her, Ellen Howie takes action.

Early one Sunday morning, she heard a broadcast on National Public Radio about No Mow May.

“It captured my imagination,” says Howie in this week’s Enterprise podcast. “And I thought, ‘Well, that’s easy.’”

A report by the state’s comptroller, Thomas DiNapoli, released on Friday, said challenges continue for New York’s Unemployment Trust Fund.

Numbers of arrests in Guilderland, which had dropped in 2020 — for juveniles (48 in 2020 to 60 in 2021), drunk driving (33 to 50 in 2021), traffic summons (785 more than double to 1,620 in 2021), property-damage crashes (872 in 2020 to 1,033 in 2021) — all rebounded last year after plummeting during the start of the pandemic.

GUILDERLAND — When Emma Harbeck competed this past weekend for the Miss New York title in the Miss America competition, she sang the song “Reflection” from the ​​1998 Disney film based on the Chinese legend of Hua Mulan.

Mulan spares her grandfather by disguising herself as a boy so she can become a warrior in his stead.

Since late December, 81,720,820 tests have been distributed throughout New York, the governor’s office reported, adding that, of the over 100 million tests procured, nearly 20 million tests have been stockpiled to help prepare for any potential surges later this year.

GUILDERLAND — On May 24, the day that an 18-year-old in Uvalde, Texas gunned down 19 students and two teachers at Robb Elementary School, the Guilderland School Board started its evening meeting with a moment of silence to honor and mourn the dead.

GUILDERLAND — After this year’s attempt to let high school students get the sleep that science shows they require, the Guilderland schools will return in the fall to the same start times the district used before the pandemic.