News

We spend a lot of time on this program talking about Astro-biology.  Today, we’re getting small.  It’s time to talk about Micro-biology…specifically, the workings innards of a micro-biology laboratory. Today on the Best Of Our Knowledge, we’ll hear how automation is finding its way into micro-biology labs.

We'll also find out that becoming a good Santa is about a lot more than the belly and the beard…and we’ll spend an academic minute with a lot of fun and games…and choices.

Eight Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states filed a petition with the Environmental Protection Agency on Monday seeking to force nine other states to reduce their air pollution.

The Adirondack Park Agency will decide this week on the final classification for land the state recently obtained from the Nature Conservancy in the Adirondacks.

The Massachusetts Gaming Commission has authorized Mohegan Sun to apply for a license to build a casino on land owned by Suffolk Downs in eastern Massachusetts.  However, a new voter referendum on the project will have to take place.

Seeking to avoid a scenario that would have left just one applicant for the lone casino license available in eastern Massachusetts, the five-member gaming commission voted unanimously Tuesday to waive a requirement that a casino applicant secure the approval of local voters before filing a final license application.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s Tax Commission is recommending a $2 billion package that includes a temporary freeze on property taxes, and a cut in corporate taxes to a 40 year low. 

NEW HAVEN, Conn. (AP) — The Department of Defense says the remains of an Air Force colonel from New Haven missing during the Vietnam War have been identified and will be buried with full military honors in Arlington National Cemetery.

The Pentagon says Col. Francis J. McGouldrick Jr. was on a night strike mission on Dec. 13, 1968, when his aircraft collided with another in Laos. He was never seen again and was listed as missing in action and presumed dead. He was 39.

NEW HAVEN, Conn (AP) — New Haven police say they have arrested on unrelated charges a "person of interest" who may have information about a Nov. 25 phone call that said an armed man would shoot up the Yale University campus.

Police said Monday an unidentified woman was arrested for two warrants unrelated to the Yale case that prompted a six-hour lockdown of the campus.

Police say she may be able to provide valuable information to investigators.

Police also released a photo of the woman, but no other details.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice President Joe Biden is pledging more funding for mental health as the first anniversary of the Newtown, Conn., school shooting approaches.

The White House says $100 million will become available to increase access and quality of mental health services. Biden will announce the funds Tuesday when he meets with relatives of Newtown victims at the White House.

A former inmate and a former corrections worker will get together tonight in Albany to talk about their shared experience behind bars.   In 1973, New York Legislators enacted statutes that created mandatory minimum sentences of 15 years to life for possession of four ounces of narcotics—a comparable sentence to second-degree murder.  Those statutes became known as the Rockefeller Drug Laws and they prompted an unprecedented expansion of New York’s courts and prison system. Rockefeller’s hard-line approach set the tone for the nation’s “war on drugs.”

    Readers prize Ann Patchett for her inspired fiction, with novels such as State of Wonder, and Bel Canto – but since the beginning of her career, she has written non-fiction pieces which are collected in the book, This is the Story of a Happy Marriage. For the book she has selected some of her finest pieces, curating a collection that reads almost like memoir.