A family of four in Pindars Corners, a neighborhood in the Delaware County town of Davenport, lost their home and most of their possessions in a Friday morning fire. Homeowners Jason and Lacey Layton and their two children were unhurt by the blaze, but two dogs, four cats, and several tanks of fish died in the fire.

Today's Daily Star has an in-depth article about the fire. In it, Jason Layton, a worker at the Chobani yogurt plant in South Edmeston and an Army veteran, describes how he acted swiftly to get himself and his infant son Kale out of the house:

Jason Layton of Pindars Corners said he had just put his 7-month-old son into a crib for a nap Friday morning when he heard a “pop,’’ then a sizzling sound.

In the adjacent living room, Layton said, he saw the Christmas tree engulfed in flames and rising smoke.

“I grabbed my son and went out the front door,’’ Layton said. “The flames were going up the tree and across the living room ceiling.’’

Upstate Films in Woodstock. Photo from Upstate Films' Facebook wall.

Upstate Films, a nonprofit that runs two small arthouse movie theaters in Rhinebeck and Woodstock, is racing the clock to raise $180,000 for two digital projectors.

It's an upgrade the theaters are being forced to make, along with thousands of small movie theaters like them across the country. This year, all film distributors will stop making films available in the old 35mm analog format. 

With about $150,000 already raised, the Woodstock Times reports this week, the theaters are still $30,000 shy of the goal, and the clock is ticking. Upstate Films's Steve Lieber lays out the gravity of the situation:

The governors of New York and New Jersey are publicly venting outrage over a decision by the Republican-controlled House of Representatives to adjourn on Tuesday night without voting on a critical Hurricane Sandy relief bill.

This afternoon, New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, a Republican, issued a joint statement:

Sidney radio station WCDO, which broadcasts on 101 FM and 1490 AM, rang in the New Year with a new online live audio stream. As of January 1, the station -- one of the few that broadcasts original local news and sports in the region -- can be heard live online at WCDOLive.com.

The station began livestreaming local high school sports games a few months ago, said WCDO news director Rob Ray, who called the experiment a "great success."

WCDO's livestream isn't perfect: It doesn't include the station's local sportscasts, which are broadcast on a separate channel, and the station is offline for certain hours of the day due to "contractual constraints." Also, it's Flash-based, meaning that users of the iPad and iPhone, which don't support Flash natively, will have to download an extra app to hear the stream from their smartphones.