Democrat and Chronicle
Medina hosts art show
When people think of an international art exhibition, they probably don’t picture a village of about 6,000 people. But Medina, halfway between Rochester and Buffalo, is exactly where organizers wanted one. On purpose. ● The Medina Triennial, a...
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Trump learning hard lessons in Iran
The twists and turns of the Iran war, six months in, should come as no surprise. President Donald Trump is just the latest commander-in-chief to see the vision of a decisive military campaign risk becoming a longer and more complicated conflict − one...
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If it’s local you want, we’ve got it.
Our Sunday refresh offers more local news and sports, as well as “Weekend Exclusive” content to help you navigate your lives. So enjoy your Sunday reading filled with stories that will inspire, educate, inform and entertain you. FOR THE LATEST LOCAL...
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Lake Ontario to Lake America
New York officials are reacting to President Donald Trump’s executive order directing the federal government to rename Lake Ontario as “Lake America.” ● Trump signed the order Aug. 27 in the Oval Office as trade tensions between the United States and...
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NY economy taking hit from Canada trade war
New York’s economy is taking a hit in the escalating trade war between the United States and Canada, causing red flags to be raised by New York City’s hotel industry and generating increased efforts by the state to draw in more Canadian tourists. Data...
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Dolly touched lives in Rochester
Dolly Parton was born in 1946 in rural Locust Ridge, Tennessee, to Avie Lee and Robert Lee Parton, the fourth of 12 children. The family lived in extreme poverty in a two-room cabin that didn’t have electricity or running water. It was among the many...
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New name floated for Lake Ontario
President Donald Trump said Aug. 25 that the United States is considering renaming Lake Ontario. ● Trump shared his proposal in the morning on Truth Social, saying the United States is “giving serious consideration” to changing the lake’s name to “Lake...
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Navy families irate at Trump comments
A senior Navy machinist aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln pinged a family group chat in early May, asking her sister and mother whether they’d taken time off to be at her son’s graduation at Morehouse College. Getting the 22-year-old kinesiology major...
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Evergreen East rises from Perinton fire
Four years after a fire displaced dozens of residents and raised questions about the future of one of Monroe County’s largest affordable housing communities, Evergreen East has completed an $86 million transformation that secures its affordability for...
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Rochesterians eat up coverage of region’s lively food-drink scene
One thing is reliably clear when studying online readership patterns at democratandchronicle.com: We Rochesterians love us our food and our drink. That became evident yet again in late July, when food and drink reporter Tracy Schuhmacher featured the...
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LICENSE TO SPEED?
A new national study from the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety highlights a growing acceptance of speeding among American drivers and explores how risky driving behaviors continue to impact public safety and communities. The August 2026 report shows...
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Film brings focus on other Revolutionaries
It’s a part of our Revolutionary history that few Americans know. ● Two hundred fifty years ago, hundreds of enslaved Black men and women joined the fight on either side of the war, as the British and Colonial armies opened their ranks in exchange for...
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SPORTS, 1C
Kayla Canne and Kerria Weaver A man’s death after falling from a third-story window at Waterview Heights has increased scrutiny of the nursing home as regulators race to relocate residents ahead of the facility’s forced closure next week. The 229-bed...
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DOJ pressed, dropped officer assault cases
Christian Garcia admits that he threw a water bottle toward officers guarding a federal building near Los Angeles during an immigration protest last summer. ● The plastic bottle was empty, he said, and hit no one but Garcia himself — the wind blew it...
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Trail of Tears
NEW ECHOTA, GA — Horror lingers in the knotted sweet gum and bent magnolia trees. To stand here is to feel shock, cruelty and despair emanating from the red clay of north Georgia. Blood is as much a part of this landscape as the honeysuckle...
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4th defendant admits guilt in Nordquist case
A fourth defendant charged in connection with the torture and killing of 24-year-old Sam Nordquist has pleaded guilty. Kyle Sage, 35, pleaded guilty Aug. 14 in Ontario County Court to second-degree murder and second-degree kidnapping in connection...
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ABOUT YOUR D&C TEAM D&C ready for football, all sports
The term “Play ball!” might be the most succinct of calls to excite a sport’s fan base, but that magical clarion call from a baseball umpire doesn’t hold a candle to certain words meant to excite fans of a different sport. And those words are? “Are...
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Blakeman now firmly in Constantino’s corner
On a Sunday afternoon inside a banquet hall overlooking the sparkling Great Sacandaga Lake in Mayfield, New York, several hundred supporters of Republican candidates vying for varying positions across the state joined together in song. Led by Fulton...
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‘THESE PEOPLE KNOW HIM’
Tuesday, August 11, 2026. Chris Wells is in the house, just as he been in the house 999 times before. ● The house in this case is ESL Ballpark, the home of the Rochester Red Wings, who are taking on the Charlotte Knights. ● It’s a perfect night for...
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NYC’s pied-à-terre tax awaits ruling
Since being announced in April, New York City’s new pied-à-terre tax has received praise and scrutiny. Now, it’s getting legal attention. Pied-à-terre, French for “foot on the ground,” means a secondary home or residence. The tax plans to annually...
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Iconic high-rise has new owner
A Rochester landmark anchoring downtown’s Four Corners has been sold. First Federal Plaza, a 383,634-squarefoot high-rise at 26-28 E. Main St. topped by a flying saucer-shaped penthouse, has been purchased by Excelsior Communities, the company...
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Sexual assault survivor faces 20 years of pain
MERRITT ISLAND, FL —For nearly a decade, Karin Morel has kept an unsent letter addressed to the man she said sexually assaulted her after a night at a beachside bar in 2004. She titled it “My Mistake.” For years, Morel believed her mistake had been...
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Rochester reels after back-to-back killings
Two balloons stood out from the rest as hundreds of light pink hearts floated above North Clinton Avenue on the evening of Aug. 6: The numbers 1 and 4 were stretched into gold foil pillows. Fourteen. That’s how old Zah’nia Barr was when someone fired...
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ABOUT YOUR D&C TEAM Farm market fire resonates with people all across region
The Bauman’s farm market fire in Penfield last month prompted a flood of memories for many of us. Some of my most vivid childhood memories involve riding in the back of my parents’ Chevrolet station wagon from Perinton along Five Mile Line Road on...
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Lawsuit seeks to halt Micron’s $100B project
Residents living near the future home of Micron’s chip manufacturing hub in the Syracuse suburb of Clay are suing the tech giant and the state of New York, claiming the project poses a threat to the region’s air and water quality. The lawsuit filed by...
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NY congressman talks ICE facility conditions
Just a day before a high-profile death in a federal detention center in New Jersey, New York U.S. Rep. George Latimer had walked the corridors of that very facility to see firsthand how immigrant detainees are treated in Delaney Hall. ● The Westchester...
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Progressive El-Sayed wins Michigan Senate primary
Progressive Abdul El-Sayed defeated moderate Rep. Haley Stevens for the Democratic nomination for Senate in Michigan, NBC News and Decision Desk HQ projected, a major victory for the Democratic Party’s left wing in one of the most pivotal races of the...
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A year after fire, Grand Canyon starts to recover
GRAND CANYON NORTH RIM, AZ — Ranger Matt Baldwin left two aspiring junior rangers at the information booth window and trotted to a white government pickup to retrieve his signature wide-brimmed hat. There was no line of visitors behind the kids...
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Primary wins, GOP attacks draw attention to the left
Ahead of a challenging midterm election, Republicans have seized an opportunity to castigate their opponents as extremists after democratic socialists won Democratic congressional primaries in New York City, Colorado and Washington, DC. ● GOP leaders...
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Homelessness rises by 13.1% in Monroe County
New York’s homeless population has grown in communities outside New York City, including a 13.1% increase in Rochester, Irondequoit and Greece in Monroe County, despite a statewide decline, a new report from the New York State Comptroller’s Office...
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When shopping centers change, that reflects in all of our lives
I recall going with my parents in the early 1980s to the Sibley’s department store at Marketplace Mall to be fitted for a job interview suit. At that time, Marketplace in Henrietta was the “it mall.” The place was always jam-packed, it felt new and...
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Tenants rally, protest apartment conditions
Residents of buildings operated by one of Rochester’s largest landlords, Conifer Realty, rallied outside the company’s University Avenue office on Thursday, demanding action after city inspectors documented hundreds of code violations, many of which...
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GOP lawmakers seize on Fauci diary entries
Republican lawmakers have seized upon Dr. Anthony Fauci’s personal diary in making renewed attacks against the immunologist who became the public face of the nation’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic – most recently, upbraiding him at a July 29 Senate...
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ICE seen in Hudson Valley amid ‘surge’ uncertainty
A social media alert went out early on July 21 about immigration agents on Cottage Street in Middletown. The next morning, two similar bulletins were posted for Monroe and White Plains. The next day there was one in Kingston. From across the Lower...
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ECONOMIC DISCONTENT
When Ashton Reed voted for President Donald Trump in 2024, he was drawn by Trump’s vow to recharge the economy and curb the inflation that many around his hometown of Jackson, Missouri, blamed on then-President Joe Biden. Reed, 22, who has worked at...
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What finally breaks a cold case open?
For more than 40 years, John Warren’s family had no answers about who killed him. For the loved ones of Nuria Columbina Rodriguez, a young Bronx mother who disappeared in the early 1990s, it took more than three decades to learn what happened to...
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Mullin promised a quieter DHS. Then came the shootings.
If he were confirmed as the new secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Markwayne Mullin vowed, he would take the agency out of the headlines. Surges of immigration enforcement in several cities had grown increasingly unpopular among...
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What are your vital issues in this extra-busy election?
Less than three months from now in New York state, early voting begins for the Nov. 2 general election. What, you say? How’d we get so far into 2026 so quickly? Where does the time go? Yes, this sobering but true detail is factual. All adults...
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Quartz countertops driving health crisis
If you walk into a Costco, Home Depot or Lowe’s and order a countertop for your kitchen renovation, the store will likely contract with a local fabrication shop, instructing them to make one from a material called engineered stone. ● Often marketed as...
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Mary Cariola campus advances
A fire destroyed the market building at Bauman’s Farm Market on Five Mile Line Road early July 22, damaging a key part of a Penfield family business that has served the community for decades. The Bauman family has farmed in the area for more than a...
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Large fire destroys market building at Bauman’s Farm
A large fire destroyed the market building at Bauman’s Farm on Five Mile Line Road in Webster early Wednesday morning, according to a statement posted by the Bauman family on Instagram. The extent of the damage and the cause of the fire were not...
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Victor cleaning up after severe weather damage
Just like it was for many Victor residents and work crews over the weekend, July 20 was cleanup day in the village after a devastating storm tore through the Finger Lakes region the afternoon of July 18, leaving downed tree branches and limbs and...
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U.S. HOUSING MARKET DOWN
WASHINGTON — U.S. single-family homebuilding fell for a third straight month in June while permits for future construction dropped to the lowest level in 10 months, weighed down by higher mortgage rates and a glut of unsold new homes on the market. ●...
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OLD WEGMANS FIND NEW LIVES
The former Britton Road Wegmans in Greece could become climatecontrolled self-storage, and it’s just the latest former Wegmans location to find new life in the Rochester area. ● For generations of Rochester-area shoppers, these stores were where...
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ABOUT YOUR D&C TEAM For departing reporter, Rochester will always shine
When I was a teenager, Rochester was a place that had a strong sense of community and mixed reviews. A lot of my friends loved it here while a good portion were waiting on their first ticket out — me included. It wasn’t always that way, and my opinion...
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NATURE RETURNS TO MAPLEWOOD
The Maplewood Nature Center, nestled in the lower portion of Maplewood Park, has quietly been open to Rochester youth enrolled in R-Camp since July 6. The public will be able to access the facility beginning July 21. ● The building, located close to...
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Canadian wildfire smoke brings dangers to health
The hazy orange-yellow hue of skies across New York remained Thursday, July 16, as smoke from Canadian wildfires continues to move into the region, bringing unhealthy air quality and a dystopian feel. “Today is the worst we’ve seen so far,” said...
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