Background: On Monday, June 25, the Hurley town board voted to withdraw from the Catskill Scenic Byway project. The project, a collaborative effort between the towns of Hurley, Olive, Shandaken, Middletown and Andes, as well as the villages of Fleischmanns and Margaretville, is seeking to have a stretch of Route 28 designated by federal and state agencies as a scenic byway.

In several other towns involved in the project, local officials have recently expressed reluctance about giving the project a green light to move forward, fearing that it could interfere with town home rule. Proponents and state officials say that apart from some restrictions on road signage -- which already apply within Catskill Park, an area that spans most of the proposed byway region -- a scenic byway designation would have no effect on town home rule.

Above: Video news clip from the Times Herald-Record of Andrew Porter's $5 million lottery win on Wednesday, June 27.

On Wednesday, 50-year-old Andrew Porter, a plumber and father of seven from Loch Sheldrake, got a very large check from the New York Lottery: $5 million.

That makes him the county's seventh lottery player to win $1 million or more, according to a press release from the New York Lottery:

Sullivan County is home to seven New York Lottery millionaires, including Andrew Porter of Loch Sheldrake who today received an over-sized copy of his $5,000,000 prize check at the store where he purchased his lucky Mega Money Multiplier scratch-off ticket.

"I was stunned. I couldn't think," said the 50 year-old Porter. "I thought it was a fake at first and then I scanned it again. I started jumping up and down when I realized how big a prize it was, and then I ran straight home."

This morning, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled 5-4 in favor of letting most provisions of the healthcare reform law stand. (The ruling did strike down a provision that imposed federal penalties on states if they refuse to expand their Medicaid programs.)

The New York Times has a good explanation of the decision, which was complicated -- and had Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. siding with the four more liberal members of the court in favor of the law, though he disagreed with their reasons:

The key provision that 26 states opposing the law had challenged – popularly known as the individual mandate – requires virtually all citizens to buy health insurance meeting minimum federal standards, or to pay a penalty if they refuse.