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O&R has given $5,000 to robotics programs at each of four area high schools. Students from Clarkstown North and South, Nanuet and Tappan Zee were among 46 local and international robotics teams involved in a competition last month at RCC. O&R spokesman Mike Donovan says the $20,000 donation will help students become future tech leaders…

The goal of the “For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology” program is to stimulate the innovators and creative problem solvers who can make the world a better place.

Orangetown’s supervisor has decided not to run for re-election and is giving up politics to go back into the private sector. Supervisor Chris Day, whose father is county executive Ed Day, held a press conference yesterday and cited stress and a strained relationship with his father for the past few years as his reasons for ending his political career. Personal issues came to the forefront on social media over the past few days. Supervisor Day had been slated to run for re-election this November. He won his first term as Orangetown supervisor in 2017.

An area state representative is very unhappy with New York’s budget which passed over the weekend. Western Ramapo and Orange County Assemblyman Karl Brabenec says he was hoping area libraries would get more money…

Assemblyman Colin Schmitt of Stony Point and Orange County says he was disappointed that Mirant debt relief for Stony Point wasn’t included in the budget, though it did have bi-partisan support…

Schmitt was pleased the budget made the property tax cap permanent, restored AIM funds to municipalities, and restored over $5 million to veterans’ mental health services.

New legislation in New York State has raised the legal tobacco purchase age to 21. Rockland State Senator David Carlucci says the bill can help save lives…

The bill includes e-cigarettes as well as tobacco-based products. Rockland had already passed a similar law last year.

Funding for “Donate Life New York,” the group that encourages organ donation, has been restored in the new budget, a line that was originally wiped out by the governor. Mike Prendergast runs the local chapter of Donate Life, now known as the Rockland Organ Donation Alliance, and says it’s been a successful program that deserves the funding…

April is National Donate Life month, designed to celebrate and build awareness about organ, eye and tissue donation.