Tuesday, June 30, 2015
Sunday, officials at the Alice Hyde Medical Center were glad they did. A New York State trooper shot escapee David Sweat as he tried to run away less than two miles from the Canadian border. Sweat arrived at the hospital at 4:04 p.m.
Alice Hyde is in a residential neighborhood of well-kept Victorian homes. As part of their plan, hospital officials, with assistance of law enforcement, set up a perimeter to keep the media and civilian onlookers at a safe distance. They also locked down the entire hospital to “prevent any unnecessary person from gaining access to the facility,” said Megan Avery, communications coordinator. The emergency room, however, was open to local residents who needed it.
“I am extremely proud of my colleagues at Alice Hyde for providing exceptional care to their patient under very unusual circumstances,” CEO Douglas DiVello said in a statement released Tuesday. “Despite the large presence of law-enforcement officials and media, the doctors, nurses and staff at Alice Hyde did what they do best — provided clinically appropriate care to a seriously injured patient.”
Hospital officials offered no details about the care Sweat received, citing patient privacy.
Sweat departed the hospital a little later at 6:45 p.m. in an ambulance. He was transported to Potsdam Airport, flown to Albany International Airport and taken by ambulance to Albany Medical Center. Sweat was moved, Avery said, because the Albany hospital has a trauma facility equipped with a locked unit for potentially dangerous individuals.
The Albany Times Union reported Sweat was admitted to the Albany hospital Sunday and was critical, but his condition has since been upgraded to fair.
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City Market has been thriving at its downtown location. It boasts more than 11,000 members and has nearly $40 million in annual sales. Outgoing general manager Pat Burns joked that market officials decided it was time to open a second store when residents formed a Facebook page to commiserate about the downtown grocery store's infamously crowded and chaotic parking lot.
Tuesday marked Burns' last day on the job. His successor, John Tashiro, told the crowd assembled at ArtsRiot for the announcement that, "There's a bit of a buzz in the air." He hopes the store will be ready for customers by spring of 2017.
But Tashiro also noted that significant work remains, including an environmental assessment.
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But their decision, vigorously opposed by local cab drivers and debated at length, does not mark the end of the discussion about the hugely successful — and controversial — ride-hailing company.
Uber, which connects drivers with passengers through an app, came to the Queen City last October. In the city attorney's view, it has been operating illegally until now. But from the beginning, Mayor Miro Weinberger, citing the "undersupply" of ride options during peak hours, has said he wanted to find a way to bring the company within the law.
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Sanders' evidence? His 1996 vote against the Defense of Marriage Act, which defined marriage as "a legal union between one man and one woman" and allowed states to refuse to recognize gay marriages performed elsewhere. The bill was signed into law by President Bill Clinton, husband of Sanders' rival for the Democratic nomination, Hillary Clinton.
"Back in 1996, that was a tough vote," Sanders told his audience, according to The Hill. "Not too many people voted against it, but I did."
That was hardly the first time Sanders went to bat for LGBTQ community, according to records of his tenure as mayor of Burlington, which are housed at the University of Vermont Library's Special Collections.
When gay rights organizers planned Burlington's first-ever pride parade in June 1983 — two years after Sanders was elected mayor of the Queen City — they called on the Board of Aldermen to designate June 25 Lesbian and Gay Pride Day.
"This human rights issue is of great importance to our community," the Organizing Committee of the Lesbian and Gay Pride Celebration wrote in a June 6 letter to the board.
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Kanarick has worked for the mayor ever since serving as his spokesman during the 2012 campaign. His responsibilities will be split between the two other staffers in the mayor's office. Weinberger is appointing projects coordinator Brian Lowe as the new chief of staff. His administrative assistant, Jen Kaulius, will take over Kanarick's press duties and Lowe's old role under the new title "communications and projects coordinator."
Kaulius, who interned with Weinberger's 2012 campaign as an undergrad at the University of Vermont, has worked in the office for three years. Last spring, she managed the mayor's reelection campaign. Lowe, previously a policy advisor at the U.S. Department of the Treasury, has been working in the mayor's office for roughly two years.
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"The transaction is expected to close in the near future," GlobalFoundries wrote in a brief press release posted to its website.
The two companies announced last October that IBM would pay GlobalFoundries $1.5 billion to take its money-losing chip unit — including its Essex, Vt., plant — off its hands. Because GlobalFoundries is owned by the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, it first needed to obtain clearance from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, an inter-agency panel charged with protecting national security in major commercial transactions.
"With the conclusion of the CFIUS review, the companies have completed the regulatory process in the United States," GlobalFoundries said in Monday's statement. "All necessary regulatory approvals outside the United States were previously received."
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Monday, June 29, 2015
"We are going to win New Hampshire. We're going to win Iowa, and I think we're going to win the Democratic nomination, and I think we're going to win the presidency," Sanders told ABC News' George Stephanopoulos Sunday morning on "This Week."
The independent candidate for the Democratic nomination appeared on the broadcast from Concord, N.H., during a two-day, seven-stop swing through the Granite State. And judging by the turnout at Sanders' events — WMUR-TV pegged attendance at a Nashua town hall meeting at 500 — Sanders isn't the only one who thinks he has a chance.
A pair of stories in the national media indicate Clinton, the former secretary of state, is taking Sanders seriously. On Sunday, the Washington Post headlined a piece, "In Bernie Sanders, an unlikely — but real — threat to Hillary Clinton." In a Saturday story on the top-ranked Dems, CNN said Clinton "must weather the summer of Sanders."
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Sunday, June 28, 2015
A state trooper shot Sweat, 35, around 3 p.m., the New York Times reported. The incident occurred in Constable, N.Y., 40 miles northwest of Dannemora, WCAX and other outlets said. Sweat's condition was not immediately clear.
The news comes two days after authorities shot and killed Sweat's fellow escapee, Richard Matt, in Malone, N.Y. Authorities on Sunday released the autopsy findings on Matt, which revealed he was shot three times in the head. His body also showed bug bites and blisters.
The Buffalo News reported that Matt was likely drunk and suffering from an illness at the time of his death.
The convicted killers were discovered missing from the Clinton Correctional Facility on June 6, triggering a manhunt that captured international attention and attracted swarms of reporters to the sleepy region.
Tags: Dannemora , David Sweat , Richard Matt , Image , Web Only
Friday, June 26, 2015
A large group gathered on short notice Friday evening to celebrate the Supreme Court's 5-4 ruling that same-sex marriage is a right protected by the Constitution. People hugged, cried, and wished one another, "Happy Decision Day."
"Today, love won," said Kim Fountain, executive director of the Pride Center of Vermont.
Several people reflected on Vermont's pioneering efforts — first allowing civil unions and then becoming the first state to legalize gay marriage legislatively.
House Speaker Shap Smith (D-Morristown) recalled weeping after lawmakers successfully overrode Governor Jim Douglas's veto of Vermont's gay marriage bill. "I went back to my office and just felt the release of having done something so monumental," he said.
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The two convicted killers were discovered missing from Clinton Correctional Facility June 6, starting an intense manhunt that has transfixed the Adirondack region and has drawn media hordes to its tiny towns. At one point, authorities suggested the pair may have been headed for Vermont.
The search area a week ago included a region of New York near Pennsylvania. But recently, traces of the men's DNA were found in a hunting cabin near Owls Head, about 15 miles from the prison, invigorating search efforts nearer to the correctional facility.
The Times reported that federal agents shot Matt in a remote area in Franklin County. CBS identified them as Border Patrol agents.
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