The New York Lottery today announced there were multiple top-prize winning tickets sold for the Feb 9 TAKE-5 drawing. The tickets were sold in Oneonta, Jamaica Queens, & Tonawanda.  The Oneonta tickets were sold at the Mirabito’s at 167 Oneida Street, which sold 1 prize winning ticket worth $17,859.50.    Take 5 numbers are drawn every evening at 11:21 PM, winning tickets at all prize levels may be cashed up to one year from the date of the drawing.

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22 year old Brandon Clark pleaded Guilty today in Oneida County Court for the murder of 17-year-old Bianca Devins of Utica.  Clark pleaded guilty to 2nd-degree murder, he admitted to stabbing and killing Devins on July 14 in Utica and posting photos of her body on social media. Clark faces 25 years to life in prison when he is sentenced later this year.

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2 proposals have been forwarded in the State Senate regarding changes to the Daylight Savings Time system.   State Senator Jim Seward introduced a bill that would create a task force to study the impact and effects of eliminating Daylight Saving Time in New York, while State Senator James Skoufis of the 39th Senate District introduced a bill that would move the state to Atlantic Standard Time, eliminating the need to turn clocks ahead or back.  Both bills would have to still be passed by the State Assembly and State Senate before being delivered to Governor Andrew Cuomo for him to either veto or approve.

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Governor Cuomo proposed to put together a task force to study the issue of bringing High Speed rail to the state.  The first high-speed rail system began operations in Japan in 1964, with the famous “bullet train.”  High speed rail is also prevalent across China & throughout Europe, in the US, the closest to a high speed rail line is the Acela Express, running between New York City and Washington D.C. & reaches a top speed of 150mph, but averages only 66 miles per hour.

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Attorney General Letitia James today filed a lawsuit against the Trump Administration over a new federal policy that prohibits New Yorkers from enrolling or reenrolling in the federal government’s Trusted Traveler Programs. The suit against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security & the U.S. Customs and Border Protection argues that the policy change was made as a result of an arbitrary process that poses a threat to New Yorkers’ safety and the state’s economy.  Economists have estimated that border delays on the U.S./Canada border have already cost American businesses billions of dollars & resulted in jobs loss, especially in Western New York, where New Yorkers seeking to commute across the border into Canada & back has been severely hampered by the Trump policy.

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Lawmakers continue to work on a variety of issues in Albany, including the controversial Bail reform Law, Local Assemblyman Cliff crouch comments:

(Crouch 2-10-20)

So far, there have been numerous instances of people leaving court after being freed on only an appearance ticket, and immediately committing a crime, something that would not have happened last year.  In Delaware County, a suspected MS-13 Gang member was released from the County Jail, Stole a County employee’s vehicle in the parking lot & was arrested in Stamford about 30 minutes later.

Fire destroyed a mobile home at 2571 Colesville Road in Harpursville Friday night.  Firefighters responded to the 6:30 PM call & the structure was full involved, no one was home when the fire broke out, the cause of the blaze remains under investigation.

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Samples from 22 New Yorkers have been sent to the CDC, so far 16 have come back negative for the corona virus, 6 were pending, and there are still no confirmed cases of the coronavirus in New York State.  The State Health Department said that the number of flu cases continues to rise, Last week 1,889 New Yorkers were hospitalized with lab-confirmed influenza; there have been 13,460 flu-related hospitalizations.  Last week, 17,231 laboratory-confirmed flu cases were reported to the State Department of Health, a 15% increase from the week before.  There have been a total of 89,597 lab-confirmed cases in New York State this season, with 3 flu-associated pediatric deaths.

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Spectrum announced that their service has been restored to the entire Northeast.  Spectrum officials said a damaged fiber optic cable is what caused the outage, which affected service in Upstate New York, Maine and New Hampshire.  Frontier, Verizon, Sprint, and AT&T were also affected.

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