News

Meteorologist Jason Caterina delivers the Midday Weather Summary for Monday, August 21, 2017.

Heat or cool your home, or cut back on food and medicine? Area residents may be faced with that decision next spring.

Crime is down in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. That’s according to a city analysis released this month. WAMC’s Berkshire Bureau Chief JD Allen sat down today with Mayor Linda Tyer, who says the report is encouraging, especially considering the opioid crisis.

A group of Latino parents has filed a federal lawsuit against the state of Massachusetts and the Holyoke school system alleging discrimination for failing to provide adequate translation of educational documents for parents with limited English proficiency.

We’re going to talk now with a familiar voice on WAMC for more than a decade: sports commentator Keith Strudler. Each Wednesday afternoon, Strudler has weighed in on the intersection of sports and society, tackling everything from the NFL’s concussion crisis to the corruption of youth sports. With a PhD in Mass Communication from the University of Florida, Strudler founded the Center for Sports Communication at Marist College in Poughkeepsie. This fall, he’s starting a new job as the Director of the School of Communication and Media at Montclair State University in New Jersey. Don’t worry: he’s staying on as WAMC’s sports commentator. But we wanted to catch up about the job and the world of sports in the meantime.

  Our Falling into Place series spotlights the important work of -and fosters collaboration between- not-for-profit organizations in our communities; allowing us all to fall into place.

Falling Into Place is supported by The Seymour Fox Memorial Foundation, Providing a helping hand to turn inspiration into accomplishment. See more possibilities … see more promise… see more progress.

Castle Island Bilingual Montessori provides an accessible world-class education, fully immersed in English and Spanish, in a fully implemented Montessori environment for families in the Capital Region of New York.

We are joined by Diane Nickerson, Founding School Director and John Riccardo, AmeriCorps VISTA (Volunteers In Service To America) assigned to Castle Island as Outreach Coordinator.

    The Roundtable Panel: a daily open discussion of issues in the news and beyond.

Today's panelists are WAMC’s Alan Chartock, Political Consultant Libby Post, and Communications Consultant Theresa Bourgeois.

WAMC's political observer Dr. Alan Chartock discusses the crash of the destroyer USS John S. McCain, President Trump's Afghanistan strategy, anti-racism rallies across the U.S. over the weekend and today's solar eclipse.

  New York state regulators are seeking public input on plans to expand the mountain biking trail system in the Adirondacks.

  New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo's signature public works project, a $4 billion bridge to be named after his father, is about to begin carrying commuters across the Hudson River in New York City suburbs.

Jim Levulis talks with Ken Lovett of the New York Daily News about "make or break" tax reform for Republicans, and New York state Senator Diane Savino's comments about the Independent Democratic Conference reuniting with the Democratic conference.

  Meteorologist Jason Caterina's Morning Forecast:

Today

Patchy fog this morning otherwise, sunny, with a high in the low & mid 80s

The Los Angeles Dodgers have acquired outfielder Curtis Granderson and cash from the New York Mets for a player to be named later or cash.

The teams announced the deal after their games Friday night. The 36-year-old Granderson is hitting .228 with 19 home runs and 52 RBIs this year.

(Airs 8/18 & 8/19/17) The Media Project is an inside look at media coverage of current events with WAMC’s Alan Chartock, Albany Times Union Editor Rex Smith, and Cailin Brown, Chair of the Department of Communication at the College of St. Rose. On this week’s Media Project, Alan, Rex and Cailin talk about a listener letter asking about press coverage of white supremacists, a study on diversity in newsrooms which says it has been bad for decades and it probably won’t get better, and much more.

(Airs 8/20/17 @ 2 p.m.) The Legislative Gazette is a weekly program about New York State Government and politics. On this week’s Gazette: Governor Cuomo signed into law a measure that would create new penalties for people who make bomb threats against community centers, our political observer Alan Chartock shares his thoughts on growing pressure for a group of breakaway Democrats in the state senate to reunite with mainstream Democrats, and over 60 million dollars in grants will support drinking water and wastewater infrastructure projects across the state.

The 2007 Werner Herzog Oscar-nominated documentary Encounters at the End of the World  looks at life at McMurdo and then ventures to outlying research stations in the Antarctic. The film will be screened at the Strand Theatre in Schroon Lake, New York on Sunday.  One of the scientists featured in the film is Schroon Lake resident and polar biologist Sam Bowser.  He says he went through a standard course of training to be able to work on the southern continent.

This week Bob discusses the rotation of the earth and speed.

Alford, Massachusetts is receiving $480,000 from the state for high-speed broadband internet. 

The Vermont Department of Labor says the state's unemployment rate dropped slightly, to 3.1 percent, in July.

New York's authority to block construction of a major natural gas pipeline by denying a key permit has been upheld by a federal court.

Great Barrington, Massachusetts has approved a sewer rate hike. 

If you haven't done so already, it's time to reprogram your cell phone and/or speed dialer to include the 518 area code.

Renovating the school in Clarksburg, Massachusetts may not cost as much as initially estimated. 

Massachusetts isn’t holding a sales tax-free weekend this year, but that’s not stopping retailers in Lenox from trying to lure back-to-school shoppers. 

WAMC's Ian Pickus and resident quizzer Mike Nothnagel are back with a show about famous Virginias.