Mary Liz Stewart, who founded the Underground Railroad center with her husband, Paul, in the 1990s, said the idea for the museum project came when she was looking for quotes by Black Americans for a newsletter the center regularly puts out. She came across this one by Shirley Chisolm, the first Black woman elected to Congress: “If they don’t give you a seat at the table, bring in a folding chair.”

You can’t say that education is up to the states while simultaneously demanding that states do your bidding. And yet, here we are. We again commend New York state for its stance against this perfidy. In its DEI purge, the federal government has removed historic accomplishments of people who are not white men from websites ranging from the Pentagon to the Park Service. None of us should accept the purging of our history. Men and women of different races, religions, and cultures have all made important contributions to the United States. We erase that history at our own peril.

To help achieve Governor Kathy Hochul’s initiative to plant 25 million trees by 2033, up to 2,500 tree seedlings from the Department of Environmental Conservation’s Colonel William F. Fox Memorial Saratoga Tree Nursery will be made available to plant at I Love My Park Day this year.

RENSSELAERVILLE — Seven students who conducted summer research projects at the Huyck Preserve — on earthworms, beavers, and ferns — presented their findings at the Northeast Natural History Conference on April 5 and 6 in Springfield, Massachusetts.

The spending plan comes right up against the state-set levy limit but does not pierce it. This means a simple majority vote can pass the budget. While spending is up 1.88 percent from last year, the tax levy is up 2.3 percent.

Each of us has our own way of seeing the world. We bring who we are to the art gallery when we look at paintings or sculpture, or to the theater when we see a play, or to the library when we read a book or newspaper. In turn, whoever created that art, or play, or poem brought his or her or their intention in creating it. 

With a 23-percent reduction of the emergency program, Paul Tonko said, there will be more reliance on states. That, in turn, he said, would lead to “a huge tax increase” on properties because it “then filters down to the local level.” The tax cut, Tonko said, is “spending dollars on billionaires for a bonanza tax cut.”

About 50 protesters — union leaders, research scientists, health workers, and students — chanted as they marched through the University at Albany’s uptown campus and then picketed along Washington Avenue on April 8, a national day of action to oppose the Trump administration’s cuts to research, health care, and higher education.

Supervisor Peter Barber went through a long list of events happening in town near Earth Day, which is on Tuesday, April 22, this year.

According to data graphed by the state’s Division of Criminal Justice Services, shooting incidents involving injury in Albany County peaked in 2020 at over 120; similarly, the number of shooting victims hit peaked at 100 in 2020 while the number of people killed by guns in Albany County peaked in 2021 at nearly 20. By 2024, those numbers for Albany County had declined to about 60 people injured or hit and fewer than 10 people killed.