Times Herald-Record
STRIKES HIT U.S. EMBASSY
The United States ordered nonemergency government personnel and their family members to leave Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Iraq and Jordan and closed several diplomatic missions across the Middle East on March 3 as the war with Iran escalated. The move...
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U.S. fighter jets crash in Kuwait
Three American fighter aircraft crashed in Kuwait on March 2, with crews surviving “unscathed” and in stable condition, the Middle Eastern country’s defense ministry and the Pentagon said, as the congressional debate over President Donald Trump’s...
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Entrepreneurs mentor youth at Black History Month event
NEWBURGH — YouthBuild and the Regional Economic Community Action Program (RECAP) SNUG celebrated Black History Month on Feb. 26 with community leaders, Hudson Valley entrepreneurs and motivated young people in Newburgh. The featured entrepreneur...
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Vitriol. Profanity. Politics. Experts warn about role social media has played
WASHINGTON – Most of this story isn’t fit for a family newspaper. The country’s political discourse has deteriorated to the point – or become so robust – that the president can drop an f-bomb and get one lobbed back in return. Of course, caustic...
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Clinton depositions show changed Democratic Party
WASHINGTON – In late February 2016, Hillary Clinton cruised to an overwhelming victory in the South Carolina Democratic presidential primary – an unambiguous statement of the former first lady and secretary of state’s dominance over her party as she...
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Push to automate science with AI has constraints
Consistent with the general trend of incorporating artificial intelligence into nearly every field, researchers and politicians are increasingly using AI models trained on scientific data to infer answers to scientific questions. But can AI ultimately...
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Trump’s combative address signals more storms ahead
He stuck to the script, mostly. President Donald Trump’s signature has been his willingness to ad lib his way through big speeches with bombastic rhetoric, but at the State of the Union address Feb. 24 he read a statistics-heavy speech that focused...
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Artemis II will set out for the moon at a fraught time
Back to the moon! And — maybe — just in the nick of time. The Artemis II mission to circle our next-door neighbor — the first human visit in 54 years — is at this very moment poised to blast off from a stressed, squabbling Earth. The launch, which...
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SUNY system marks upward enrollment
A 2026 update to SUNY’s Long Term Enrollment and Financial Sustainability Report shows significant growth for the system. According to the report, SUNY schools have seen a 6.5% increase in enrollment over the past three years, the first time...
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Bailout or lifeline?
Nassau County executive Bruce Blakeman, Gov. Kathy Hochul’s Republican challenger in the governor’s race, slammed Hochul’s $1.5 billion pledge to help New York City with its budget gap issues earlier this week. The governor announced the additional...
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9/11 terrorist attacks shaped ICE’s strategy
Stephen Miller’s January announcement to Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers – telling them that they have “immunity to perform your duties” and that no “illegal alien, no leftist agitator or domestic insurrectionist” can stop them – may seem...
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Lincoln’s funeral flag finds new home in NYC
A rare American flag that draped President Abraham Lincoln’s casket during his 1865 funeral procession has found a new home – at a New York City steakhouse. Keens Steakhouse, a 141-year-old restaurant in Manhattan known for its collection of...
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STUDY: PLANET IS IN WATER BANKRUPTCY
The world is now using so much fresh water amid the consequences of climate change that it has entered an era of water bankruptcy, with many regions no longer able to bounce back from frequent water shortages. h About 4 billion people – nearly half...
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‘Bipartisan opposition’
After confirmation of a property purchase by the Department of Homeland Security in Chester and discovery of a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in New Windsor, some residents and elected officials have expressed strong opposition to the...
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3 numbers could signal midterm results
Big numbers and high stakes are riding on the ballot in November: 435 House seats, 35 Senate seats, 39 governorships − and the country’s course for the final two years of President Donald Trump’s term. In the math of the midterms, a handful of...
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PRESIDENTIAL PASTIMES
TOP: Reenactor Chad Johnson, the historic site director for Knox’s Headquarters and the New Windsor Cantonment, fires his musket during a Presidents’ Day weekend celebration at Washington’s Headquarters in Newburgh. ABOVE (three photos): Martha...
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Accountability appears unlikely for accomplices
To advocates for transparency and accountability surrounding Jeffrey Epstein, the Justice Department’s release of 3.5 million pages of files was underwhelming. The department withheld another 2.5 million pages and heavily redacted much of what it did...
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ICE office in New Windsor
An Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office in Orange County in the town of New Windsor has operated surreptitiously for months. However, its existence has surprised local elected officials who say they were not informed by the federal...
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Pride flag raised again at NYC’s Stonewall Inn
NEW YORK – In defiance of a Trump administration edict, New York City officials and activists raised the rainbow pride flag again on Feb. 12 at the Stonewall National Monument, the birthplace of the LGBTQ+ rights movement, after it was removed over the...
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Will Trump cut more federal funding to NY?
One of New York’s simmering federal funding feuds with the Trump administration reached a dire point last week, when construction of a Hudson River tunnel was forced to stop and nearly 1,000 workers were laid off. The federal government stopped making...
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Student informants spur academic freedom debate
Texas A&M University told philosophy professor Martin Peterson in early January that he could not teach some of Greek philosopher Plato’s writings that touch on “race and gender ideology.” The university’s local chapter of the American Association of...
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Deadline looming for DHS reforms
WASHINGTON – Congress and the White House are locked in negotiations over potential reforms to the Department of Homeland Security as a deadline to shut down the agency approaches. Lawmakers have until the end of Feb. 13, to reach an agreement or risk...
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NY bill proposes 3-year data center moratorium
A bill in the New York State Senate would push pause on data center development in the state for three years as part of a broad moratorium amid concerns on utility prices, environmental impacts and water consumption. Sen. Liz Krueger, D-Manhattan,...
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SURGE PRICING
In just seven pages, the nonprofit that oversees New York’s electric grid offers up a thorough, if alarming, take on an issue confronting ratepayers statewide. Why are my electric bills so high? “Fuel cost volatility, increasing demand due to economic...
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Social media reshaping research on substance use
When you think of tools for studying substance use and addiction, a social media site like Reddit, TikTok or YouTube probably isn’t the first thing that comes to mind. Yet the stories shared on social media platforms are offering unprecedented insights...
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MAGA vs. Bad Bunny splits the Super Bowl
Sen. Tommy Tuberville was thrilled to attend the Super Bowl in 2025 when he hitched a ride on Air Force One, joining President Donald Trump and several other Republican lawmakers for the big game. “Happy Super Bowl Sunday,” the Republican senator for...
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NY utility crisis hitting Great Recession levels
Over 400,000 households in New York had their gas or electric service shut off for failing to pay their bills last year, surpassing levels from the Great Recession, state records show. Year-end totals tallied by the state Public Service Commission...
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$1.1M home once an 18th-century farmhouse
A Hudson Valley single-family colonial home on the market blends a stone house built circa 1790s and a contemporary cedar-clad wing that came into existence in the 1990s. Listed for $1.1 million, the four-bedroom, three-bathroom Middletown property on...
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TODAY IN HISTORY
Today is Wednesday, Feb. 4, the 35th day of 2026. There are 330 days left in the year. On this date in: 1789: George Washington was unanimously elected to be the first president of the United States by 69 presidential electors. John Adams was elected...
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Trump actions worry free-speech advocates
The FBI search of a Washington Post reporter’s home on Jan. 14 was a rare and intimidating move by an administration focused on repressing criticism and dissent. In its story about the search at Hannah Natanson’s home, at which FBI agents said they...
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CHILLY RECEPTION
CHESTER — Hundreds gathered at Chester Commons Park on Laroe Road in 13-degree temperatures and snow mounds all around in the dark evening of Jan. 29. They came to protest the proposed plans by the Department of Homeland Security to acquire and...
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New York’s role in our history
New York City, long considered the financial capital of the world, also served as the first capital of the USA. The city played a consequential role in the American Revolution and for a short while, served as the center of a new nation. Home to a...
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Shutdown still possible despite DHS deal
Lawmakers appeared to be closing in on a deal endorsed by President Donald Trump to avoid an extended government shutdown, but a key player said a brief government closure may be inevitable as there still was work to be done Jan. 30 as funding was set...
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Democrats demand DHS fixes to avoid shutdown
WASHINGTON – With an increasingly likely partial government shutdown close at hand, Senate Democrats have outlined three main demands for reforming the Department of Homeland Security in the wake of the killing of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis. First,...
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Stewart emerging as air travel hub
Stewart Airport may be small, located at 1180 1st St. in New Windsor, but the airport consistently makes its way into national headlines, most recently with the arrival flight of Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, at the Stewart Air National...
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‘I didn’t think it could happen’
On Jan. 28, 1986, the world watched in horror as the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded above the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Cape Canaveral, Florida, 73 seconds after liftoff, killing all seven aboard. Forty years will have passed on Wednesday,...
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‘When there’s hate, be the light’
AHarriman resident, Kaylie Rosenholtz, 17, felt trepidation about visiting former concentration camp sites in Nazi Germany-occupied Poland as she imagined the impact it might have. She had also preferred to visit her siblings instead in Israel, but...
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Trump economic pledges fall short
Taming the U.S. economy is easier said than done, President Donald Trump is learning. A year since his administration returned to the White House, almost every hardship that he broadly promised to fix during the presidential contest two years ago −...
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A romance. A nightmare. A family broken.
Kayla Nordquist knew in her gut that something was wrong with her brother. The young trans man had flown out of state to New York to see a woman he met on TikTok and missed his flight home. h She watched a lot of true-crime documentaries; she knew the...
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Temps plummet amid major winter storm
As part of a major winter storm that is forecast to spread heavy snow, sleet and dangerous ice and affect tens of millions of Americans across two dozen states through the weekend, cold air blasted into the central United States on Jan. 23, sending...
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‘VERY DISAPPOINTING’
CHICAGO – In Chicago’s working-class Pilsen neighborhood, a 1960s-era oil-fired power plant rises up from an industrial lot behind Dvorak Park, which in warmer weather is packed with children climbing on its colorful playground and zooming down...
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‘ICE has commenced a secretive, rushed process’
The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and Environmental Protection Bureau of the office of the attorney general have written letters, citing insufficient information, to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) regarding plans to...
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Freight rail industry dirtier than coal power plants
BNSF Railway, one of the crown jewels of Warren Buffett’s sprawling Berkshire Hathaway conglomerate, calls itself an environmental leader in the U.S. rail industry with the cleanest locomotive fleet in North America. “When you see our orange...
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‘They understand what works and what doesn’t’
CAPE MAY, NJ – It was Megan O’Rourke’s dream job. As a top climate scientist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, she oversaw grants for research projects aimed at making food production healthier and more sustainable. But when President Donald...
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STAR POWER
Blood, toil, tears and sweat. Winston Churchill’s dictum about World War II could apply to any struggle — including civil rights. The death of Emmett Till, the bombings in Birmingham, the children being sprayed with firehoses, the assassination of...
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Machado gains little in White House visit
WASHINGTON – Venezuelan opposition leader Marina Corina Machado got her courtesy luncheon with President Donald Trump on Jan. 15 but gained little else politically after the White House secured a $500 million deal for Venezuelan oil through ongoing...
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‘On the path’ to universal child care in New York
It was a rainy, dreary morning outside DAY ONE Early Learning Center in the City of Poughkeepsie on Jan. 14, but one classroom, filled with nine children bursting with energy, couldn’t have been brighter. Ashleigh Shubert, lead teacher in the...
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Local ICE detention center possible
About 600 people gathered at the monthly Village of Chester board meeting on Jan. 12 to protest the possible creation of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facility in Chester, where the Department of Homeland Security is proposing...
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Sticking it to the emerald ash borer
An Upstate New York propagation project in Ithaca may offer a way to protect native ash trees from an invasive species that has been decimating woodlands across North America. The ash saplings, planted at Cornell Botanic Gardens as part of the Nature...
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DeStefano lays out his mayoral agenda
Middletown Mayor Joe DeStefano plans to build on the progress his office has made since 2010, improving infrastructure, stabilizing taxes and replacing the century-old water and sewer mains across the city as we move further into the new...
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Where NY Capitol rioters ended up
Five years ago, they were all involved in the U.S. Capitol riot in support of President Donald Trump and wound up serving or facing prison time for serious criminal charges. A Proud Boys member from Rochester, serving 10 years after being convicted...
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U.S. changes guidance for 4 childhood vaccines
WASHINGTON – The United States on Jan. 5 dropped its recommendation that all children be vaccinated against influenza and three other diseases, a move that advances one of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s long-term goals. The decision to...
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Trump: Case against Maduro ‘infallible’
Deposed Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro was transported by helicopter on Jan. 5 to a federal courthouse in Manhattan for an arraignment on federal narco-terrorism charges. Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, were facing a four-count indictment linking...
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Dipping into state funding
Middletown YMCA has received a $1,060,000 grant for Camp Robbins pool reconstruction and facility overhaul. The funds were allocated to the YMCA’s Splash Forward initiative under the $63 million second round of the New York Statewide Investment in...
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AI to review Medicare claims in pilot program
A new Medicare program that uses artificial intelligence to review medical claims is set to launch in six states. Critics worry it will lead to patients being denied necessary care and more red tape for providers. The controversial new six-year pilot...
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NY primaries could move to Super Tuesday
New York voters would play a stronger role in choosing presidential nominees under a new bill that would move the state’s primaries to March to join a slew of others states that vote on Super Tuesday. The proposal to be taken up by state lawmakers...
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Big events on calendar for 2026
As a new year dawns, many Americans are reflecting on 2025, a year marked by historic events including the inauguration of a president, the appointment of the first American pope, and major pop culture moments like the release of “Wicked: For Good” and...
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Trump faces major challenges in 2026
WASHINGTON – Happy new year? President Donald Trump faces daunting challenges in 2026 once the holiday celebrations are done, including a familiar impasse over government spending, rising health care costs for millions of Americans, and midterm...
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Over 1M students homeless in U.S.
WASHINGTON – After T’Roya Jackson discovered the paint in her apartment gave her daughter lead poisoning, she and her children moved out. They couch-surfed for a while before moving into a homeless shelter over the summer. The hair stylist began...
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Regenerative farming making a comeback
At Troon Vineyard, in southern Oregon’s Applegate Valley, Garett Long has turned composting into an art form, using it to support soil microbes and eliminate the need for petroleum-based fertilizers. h When Andrea Malmberg and her husband, Tony, bought...
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‘FORMIDABLE CHALLENGE’
LONDON – The West’s push to build a homegrown magnets supply chain to reduce its reliance on China – led by massive U.S. backing for Nevada-based MP Materials – is running into a critical problem: the scarcity of so-called heavy rare earth...
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RING IN 2026 AT A LOCAL EVENT
Looking to spend the last night of 2025 out and about? The mid-Hudson Valley has a little something for everyone to celebrate the new year. We’ve gathered some of the numerous New Year’s Eve events across Dutchess, Orange and Ulster counties to help...
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2026 may bring more tough money decisions
Americans weary of high – and rising – prices may get some relief in 2026. Or not. Many analysts believe the economy is finding its footing after several jolts from tariffs, the long tail of the pandemic supply snarls, and more. But some think we’re...
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A joyful sight
Looking to get into the holiday spirit with some festive light displays? There are over a dozen across New York state you can take a drive or walk through this winter, with some even extending beyond New Year's Day. Here's a look at 18 light shows from...
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Reenactor marks 50 years crossing the Delaware
Ronald Rinaldi has crossed the Delaware on Christmas for five decades. The 64-year-old Branchburg, N.J., native has been reenacting the historic 1776 event, a pivotal moment in the Revolutionary War, often portraying Major General Nathanael Greene of...
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Crash-prone Monroe road frustrates residents
A New York State Police trooper was injured in a vehicle collision near 277 Seven Springs Mountain Road in the town of Monroe on Dec. 15, but residents say this is just the latest in a long series of accidents they have witnessed with regularity over...
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University shooting suspect found dead
PROVIDENCE, RI – Though the suspect connected to the deadly Brown University attack and the fatal shooting of an MIT professor was found dead in New Hampshire, the questions and fallout have only begun. Providence Police Chief Col. Oscar Perez...
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‘Decisions based on reliable information’
Could New York schools again have to accept religious exemptions for student vaccinations? The state limited mandatory school vaccine exemptions back in 2019, after a measles outbreak had sickened 312 people in Rockland. The issue has again been...
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‘SEEING PEOPLE AS PEOPLE’
When Elizabeth Dalzell’s daughter Liesl complained of severe pain in her left shoulder in June by using sign language, it began a nearly monthlong odyssey through New Jersey’s health care system before the young woman with multiple disabilities...
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Free buses coming for commuters
New York state plans to bump up the number of weekday buses linking Orange County commuters to Manhattanbound Metro-North Railroad trains come January. The number of weekday trips on the Newburgh-Beacon Bridge Shuttle will increase by 60% beginning...
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How much prison time is enough before parole?
Gabrielle Hill, the newly elected Orange County Legislator for District 6, met Alton Lee during her election campaign. Lee, who works as a Hudson Valley community leader at Release Aging People in Prison, handed her a postcard that she said read: The...
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2026 BUCKET LIST
This time last year, we pulled together a list of 2025 exhilarating bucket list activities to do in the mid-Hudson Valley. But for our 2026 list, we decided to do it a bit different. We’ve curated local experiences that allow you to be a tourist in...
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Educators weigh in on NY’s school smartphone ban
Three months after New York schools implemented a bell-to-bell cell phone ban, the state is touting a transformative impact, citing more focused learning and more effective teaching, according to a state survey. Of the 350 responses submitted, a...
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Private firms snap up mobile home parks
One of America’s most affordable paths to homeownership is slipping away. h At manufactured home parks – sometimes called trailer parks or mobile home parks – rents are rapidly rising due to large-scale buyouts by private equity firms. h Although...
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‘Understand a history that was once forgotten’
The Newburgh council voted on Dec. 8 to approve a capital reserve fund for an African American burial ground memorial and reinterment site in Downing Park — a matter in the works since 2008 when human remains were found under the former Broadway...
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Defense tech firms face growing pains
SIMI VALLEY, CA – U.S. defense technology companies have roughly doubled their share of Pentagon contracts over the past year, but they face growing pains as they try to evolve from hot startups into heavyweights capable of building weapons at...
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