Fire at Grandview Palace (formerly Brown's Hotel)

Above: YouTube footage of a fire at the Grandview Palace in Fallsburg. Early on in the video, a woman - presumably a resident of the complex - can be heard saying, "Well, there goes our first investment in real estate."

For the second weekend in a row, fire has raged across the site of a former icon of the Borscht Belt, destroying buildings and calling hundreds of firefighters to the scene.

On Saturday, a fire broke out at the Fallsburg condo complex Grandview Palace, formerly known as Brown's Hotel, and destroyed or damaged seven of the complex's nine buildings.

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Irene, goodnight: Name retired from storm list

Hurricane Irene over the Bahamas on August 25, 2011. Image by NOAA.

Hurricane Irene caused so much death and destruction in 2011 that the World Meteorological Organization has retired the name 'Irene' from the rotating list of Atlantic Basin tropical storm names, to be replaced by 'Irma.'

(So much for what Daily Beast media critic Howard Kurtz infamously called the "hurricane of hype.")

A news release from NOAA states that Irene was responsible for 49 deaths, as well as $15.8 billion worth of damage in the U.S. alone.

Looks like NOAA left something out of their release, though:

The most severe impact of Irene was catastrophic inland flooding in New Jersey, Massachusetts and Vermont.

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SUNY Delhi students take top prizes at state skills championship

SUNY Delhi students Jonathon Cusimano, Phil Bianchi, and Andrew Marsh at the New York State SkillsUSA competition on March 24 at Alfred State's School of Applied Technology, Wellsville. Photo courtesy of SUNY Delhi.

Three SUNY Delhi students are headed for the nationals in a career skills competition after winning top prizes at the New York State level.

SkillsUSA -- formerly known as the "Skill Olympics" -- is a national competition for vocational and technical skills, pitting students across the country against one another in career-related events like producing a radio spot, performing aircraft maintenance tasks, or conducting a crime scene investigation.

At the New York State SkillsUSA competition on March 24, SUNY Delhi student Phil Bianchi of Montauk took first prize in automotive service. Jonathon Cusimano of Vestal and Andrew Marsh of Elmira Heights took first and second place in carpentry.

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Ulster County executive bans spread of frac fluid on county roads

Mike Hein announces an executive order banning the use of frac fluid by any county department. Photo courtesy of the Office of the Ulster County Executive.

Ulster County executive Mike Hein issued an executive order today to prevent the spreading of brine from hydraulic fracturing on any county-maintained roads.

The executive order bans "the purchase of any liquid waste product from hydraulic fracturing operations (fracking waste brine) or the use of such fracking brine by any part of Ulster County government." The ban does not apply to town or state roads in the county.

The frac fluid spreading ban is Hein's second executive order since taking office in 2009. Hein's first executive order, in 2010, was an official ban on nepotism in hiring for county jobs.

Roxbury school to launch Internet learning classroom

Photo of check presented to Roxbury Central School by GRLIC for a new media and technology center at the school. Courtesy of Jenn Schuman.

With school budgets under fierce pressure, and enrollments dropping throughout the region, many local schools are contemplating radical measures like school closings and district mergers.

Not Roxbury Central School. At this small Delaware County school, which hosts about 400 children from pre-K through 12th grade in one building on Roxbury's Main Street, officials are seeking to try a different kind of consolidation: Teaching via the Internet.

In a recent editorial in the Daily Star, superintendent Thomas O'Brien and board of education president Edward Fersch laid out a case for bringing more digital teaching into the classroom:

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New York State to cover local share of Irene and Lee recovery costs

Gov. Andrew Cuomo at the Middleburgh Fire Department today, announcing that New York State will cover the local share of flood recovery costs in 25 counties. Photo by David Avitabile of the Schoharie County Times Journal; reproduced by permission.

Local officials in flood-ravaged towns across New York State are breathing a sigh of relief today, after an announcement by Gov. Andrew Cuomo that the state will be picking up the tab for the local share of flood recovery funding. Cuomo visited the Middleburgh Fire Department today, in hard-hit Schoharie County, to make the announcement before an audience of about 150 local officials and residents.

Disaster recovery projects are usually funded by FEMA at 75 percent, with the remaining 25 percent split equally between the state and local towns, counties or villages. The local share of costs -- 12.5 percent -- doesn't sound like a lot compared to the entire cost of the projects. But for last year's flooding, all those local costs add up up to a whopping $61 million in New York State alone.

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Bank robberies in Greenport and Saugerties connected?

Two banks were robbed in the region this week: the Bank of Greene County in Greenport on Monday, and the Sawyer Savings Bank in Saugerties on Tuesday. Police have arrested suspects in both robberies, and think they may be connected.

On Tuesday, just hours after the Saugerties robbery, three suspects were arrested: John B. Streb Jr., 27, of Rochester; Ryan W. Novick, 31, of Rochester; and Amy K. Muhs, 29, of Albany. The Daily Freeman has more on the robbery and arrests.

Early this morning, while investigating the Greenport robbery, the Columbia County Sheriff's Office arrested another Rochester man, 24-year-old Jonathan Mills. The Daily Mail reported on Mills's arrest today.

Captain David Bartlett of the Columbia County Sheriff's Office told the Watershed Post that police are looking into the possibility that the robberies are connected.

"Possibly, but the investigation is still ongoing," he said.

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Cuomo in Middleburgh today

Gov. Andrew Cuomo will pay a visit to the Schoharie County town of Middleburgh today at 12:30 to make a public announcement about flood recovery in the area.

Cuomo will be at the headquarters of the Middleburgh Fire Department, at 127 Railroad Avenue. On their Facebook page, the Middleburgh Fire Department tells people who want to attend to get there early so they can be seated.

Update, 10:40am: Gannett state government reporter Jon Campbell tweets:

Capital Tonight has it too:

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Town of Olive resolves to pass drilling moratorium

Gas drillers aren't exactly clamoring to set up rigs in the Ulster County town of Olive, well north and east of the more gas-rich parts of the Marcellus Shale in New York State. But town officials are worried enough about the prospect of hydraulic fracturing that they've voted to draft a sweeping moratorium on all gas-related activity in the town.

At a town meeting on April 10, YNN reports, the town board unanimously passed a resolution to place a one-year moratorium on the exploration, extraction, disposal and storage of natural gas.

The law itself has not yet been drafted. But in a resolution (embedded below), the town board calls for a local law to be drafted that will place a moratorium not only on hydraulic fracturing, but also on "the transportation of any by-product of hydro-fracking on any roads that traverse the Town of Olive."

Route 28, a state highway that is one of the major transportation arteries in the region, runs through the town of Olive.

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