Albany County Executive Daniel McCoy opened his Feb. 21 Black History Month forum by saying he was proud that the county had brought COVID-19 testing into minority communities and also partnered with an ambulance company to bring vaccines to residents. According to the county’s records, a disproportionate number of white, rather than Black or Hispanic, residents died of COVID-19.

“At least 5.4 million children live in a home with at least one unlocked and loaded weapon and at least 80 percent of school shooters under the age of 18 aquire their weapons from the home, including the recent Oxford, Michigan shooter, who killed four,” said Conor Webb, president of the Guilderland chapter of March For Our Lives.

The new multi-pronged state plan includes $27.5 million a year for in-patient psychiatric beds, $9 million annually to recruit psychiatrists and psychiatric nurse practitioners; and $12.5 million a year for 500 more beds to house homeless people in their communities.

Erick McCandless is returning to the place where he started. 

He grew up in Slingerlands, was trained in forestry, and now — after a sometimes far-flung career in environmentalism — he is the new project manager for the Bender Melon Farm Preserve.

In talking to Guilderland’s school administrators and to the district’s Recovery Task Force, Superintendent Marie Wiles said they felt that, when there is no longer a mandate from “a higher authority,” Guilderland would change its requirement to this: “We highly recommend masks but we don’t require them.”

Part of President Joe Biden’s climate-change agenda is protecting 30 percent of United States lands and ocean territories by 2030, known as “30 by 30.” Currently, about 26 percent of the United States’ ocean territories are protected but only about 12 percent of the nation’s land area is protected.

The new station, which supervisor Peter Barber says will be equal distance between the two locations, is to be built near the town-owned golf course, with access to both routes 20 and 146.

A few households are using five or six times the water a typical home would use, Supervisor Peter Barber told the town board at its Feb. 15 meeting. “Everybody else is subsidizing these overages,” he said.

ALBANY COUNTY — Albany County, like the rest of the state, was in a holding pattern this week as the number of new COVID-19 cases and COVID-related hospitalizations continued to fall but mask mandates remain in places that Governor Kathy Hochul termed vulnerable — like schools — and also where large numbers of people gather and contact

Individuals may receive a maximum of $9,000 per deceased individual and a maximum of $35,500 per application, if they incurred funeral expenses for multiple deceased individuals.