Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver agreed to relinquish his duties on a temporary basis following his arrest last week on federal corruption charges. Silver’s announcement followed calls for his resignation, following accusations that he hid $4 million from bribery and kickback schemes, Silver has led the state assembly since 1994, on Sunday he designated a group of Assembly members to carry out his tasks
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Governor Andrew Cuomo challenged the teachers of new York state in his state of the state address last week, calling on them to remember why they went into teaching in he first place:

(Cuomo 1-26-15)

Cuomo proposed a new series of reforms to evaluate teacher performance, after the previous system showed that almost 100% of teachers were highly successful, yet only 35 to 40% of students were succeeding.
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Jury selection continues for a third day in Schoharie County Court today for the 3rd murder trial of Cal Harris. Only 6 jurors were seated in the first 2 days of jury selection. Harris has been convicted twice in Tioga county Court for the 2001 murder of his estranged wife Michelle, Harris had 2 guilty verdicts overturned, & this third trial was moved out of Tioga county to Schoharie county.
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Chenango county fire investigators announced that several departments responded to a fire Saturday night in Coventry at about 10:00 pm. The trailer fire was reported at county route 235, firefighters from Harpursville, Afton, Coventry, and Greene responded, no injuries were reported, the cause of the fire is under investigation.
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State Senator Jim Seward received his committee assignments for the 2015 – 2016 senate sessions. Seward will once again chair the Insurance committee & will serve on the state senate Agriculture, Education, Finance, Health, Higher Education, Mental Health, & Rules committees.
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