Finding teachers of Italian is also difficult, Superintendent Marie Wiles said, so a lottery is used to decide who gets to study Italian. “We right now have two Italian teachers, both of whom are excellent, and their classes are full, especially at the middle school, full to capacity, with 30 kids,” said Wiles. “Hopefully, we can hang on to these two gentlemen who teach Italian.”

ALTAMONT — Karen Williams, Linda Zell, and Megan Connolly consider themselves to be sisters.

“The bond is that strong,” said Connolly in this week’s Enterprise podcast.

The three women are not related by blood. Rather, they are part of what they describe as a “church family.”

A woman charged with stealing from a 96-year-old Selkirk man she had been paid to care for has recently been sentenced to one-and-a-half to three years in prison, according to the Bethlehem Police Department.

Richard Gifford says that 5,000 cubic yards of tree waste from off-site locations was dumped on a pasture near his home at 2357 Old State Road. “The dumping violated town ordinances,” he told the board on Aug. 16. “It also disrupted the natural drainage systems, covered wetlands identified on the national wetlands inventory, caused groundwater backup on our properties, created a fire hazard, and created an environment for rodent infestation.”

ALBANY COUNTY — The week started with the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Rochelle Walensky, acknowledging that, after a review, the agency found it did not respond adequately to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It was confusing, very frustrating, stressful, the unknown, fear of the unknown, because this was the first fall when our expectation was that everybody went back to school,”Governor Kathy Hochul said at Monday’s press conference, going over back-to-school COVID protocols. This year’s landscape is different, she said, adding, “We’re expecting it to be a much, much easier year for parents and for schools.”

Gianluca Russo became a journalist because he likes telling stories.

He has just published his first book, “The Power of Plus: Inside Fashion’s Size-Inclusivity Revolution.”

The book is “For the women who changed my life and the people who saved it.”

Her teacher, Jon Kauffmann, said in a 2019 email to the girl’s mother, “I was referring to a joke from the show NCIS, and meant no harm when I tapped the back of her head. I am devastated that she felt uncomfortable.”

GUILDERLAND — A woman says she was “held against her will” between Aug. 11 and 17 and “repeatedly sexually assaulted” by Wyatt J. Bleau at his residence, according to an Aug. 17 release from Guilderland Police.

On Aug. 11, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention relaxed standards, continuing a trend it had started earlier this year. In February, the CDC had shortened isolation times. The changes are part of a movement away from institutions enforcing COVID rules — the Albany County Health Department like others in New York State long ago stopped tracking COVID cases — and towards individuals taking their own measures to protect themselves.