News

The Sisters of Life will be celebrating the beauty and dignity of women at their “Feminine Genius Brunch” this Saturday in Pearl River. Sister Virginia Joy is the director of the Respect Life Office of the archdiocese and says the event celebrates the attributes all women have…

The event is this Saturday at 10AM at the Pearl River Hilton. It’s $30 and registration ends tomorrow. For more information and to register click here.

Legislation passed in the New York State Senate Wednesay that aims to fix code enforcement failures in our area and around the state. Rockland and Orange County state senator James Skoufis, who chaired the Senate investigations committee, spent much of last year holding hearings regarding Ramapo, Newburgh, Mount Vernon and Albany, which all have code enforcement issues to deal with. Skoufis says the bill provides stronger tools to help protect New Yorkers…

The bill would, among other things, create a residential rental registry, develop new penalties for dangerous apartment alterations that restrict fire department access or residents’ ability to evacuate, and increase the minimum standards for training and certification for code enforcement personnel. The package would need to pass in the Assembly and then be signed by the governor to become law.

A shift in focus at a pharmaceutical company’s Orangetown facility could end up with a greater number of jobs by the end of the year. Pfizer is moving the Pearl River plant’s oncology research team to California and bringing in a vaccine development group. Orangetown supervisor Teresa Kenny says in the long run it’ll be good for the area…

In his state of the county last week, Rockland County Executive Ed Day said Industrial Realty Group, or IRG, is taking much of the rest of the Pfizer campus to expand its New York Center for Innovation…

IRG has about 212 of the 500-plus acres that Pfizer originally acquired in 2009 from Wyeth and has brought in a number of bioscience and energy companies.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has extended the public comment period on the decommissioning of Indian Point another 30 days to March 25th. Rockland Congresswoman Nita Lowey, and U-S senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand got the NRC to extend the public comment period so more information could be gathered on the shutdown. Meanwhile, the Times-Herald Record reports New York Attorney General Letitia James says selling the plant could be “very risky” and wants federal safety regulators to think twice before moving ahead. She’s concerned the new company handling the decommission, Holtec International, doesn’t have enough money to pay for the 12-15 year process.

An area lawmaker would like to see everyone sitting in the back seat of a car use the safety belts. Rockland and Westchester state senator David Carlucci says rear seat passengers are two times more likely to get killed and eight times more likely to be seriously injured in a car accident when not wearing safety belts…

Chief of Trauma and Critical Care at Albany Medical Center, Dr. Kurt Edwards, said putting on the seat belt is a simple way to save lives…

According to AAA New York, 30 other states already have a rear seat belt law.