The Capital Region can expect a foot of snow, falling at one to two inches an hour on Saturday night, and continuing into Sunday, said Governor Kathy Hochul at a press conference on Friday.

The annual Pine Bush Perspectives juried photo exhibit is on display both inside the Albany Pine Bush Preserve’s Discovery Center and along the preserve’s blue trail behind the center.

Online registration for the 2024 Summer Camps program sponsored by the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation will open Sunday, March 24, at 1 p.m.

County Comptroller Susan Rizzo, after being sworn in for her second four-year term on Friday, said the trailblazing women in her life had shaped her. The other officials, all men, gave more patriarchal views of family support.

According to the most recent report on Albany County’s wastewater surveillance, covering the two-week period from Nov. 28 to Dec. 14, the trends show an increase from Albany’s North and South plants and Guilderland’s plant while showing a decrease for Bethlehem’s plant. For Albany’s North Plant, South Plant, and the town of Guilderland, the detection level suggests a daily case incidence of more than 50 cases per 100,000 people, the report says.

Statewide, COVID hospitalizations are far more prevalent than they have been for months. Albany is one of 20 counties labeled with a “medium” rate and, for the first time, seven of New York’s 62 counties are labeled as having a “high” rate of COVID hospitalizations.

Governor Kathy Hochul said on Wednesday that she was “very, very sad to report that there have been two pediatric deaths related to flu.” She urged “everyone” to “get their flu shots.”

Meanwhile, the state’s health department, which tracks the distribution of COVID-19 variants statewide, has charted an uptick of new cases since early November.

The New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets, in partnership with the Hudson Valley AgriBusiness Development Corporation, has awarded grant money to 26 different meat-processing projects across the state in an effort that’s expected to expand processing capacity by 4.8 million pounds annually. 

The cost of the construction project is expected to be about $10 million, of which $3.4 million has been raised so far.