eedition The Daily Mail May 9-10 2020

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KIDS REPORT INSIDE

Look for interesting, educational activities for your kids inside today’s paper. Famous New Yorkers, Mazes, Online Offerings and other great kids activities to keep your kids busy at home.

The Daily Mail Copyright 2020, Columbia-Greene Media Volume 228, No. 93

WEEKEND

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Saturday-Sunday, May 9-10, 2020

80 tested at C-GCC clinic

nFORECAST WEATHER FOR HUDSON/CA TODAY TONIGHT SUN

By Nora Mishanec Winds becoming strong

Mainly clear and cold

Mostly cloudy and cool

HIGH 46

LOW 33

59 40

Columbia-Greene Media

Complete weather, A2

INSIDE TODAY! Saturday - Sunday, May 9-10,

GREENPORT — More than 80 Twin County residents were tested for COVID-19 on Friday at the first of a series of planned clinics to determine how widespread the virus is in the region.

Columbia Memorial Hospital staff members and several volunteers conducted diagnostic testing in the parking lot of Columbia-Greene Community College. The clinic was open to the public by appointment only.

Columbia County Health Department Director Jack Mabb called the clinic a success and said the county will continue to make diagnostic testing available to residents.

“I don’t see this changing until there is a vaccine,” Mabb said, noting that his staff is prepared to battle COVID-19 until the end of 2020 if necessary.

Pre-registered Twin County residents entering the drive-thru clinic Friday first passed through several security checkpoints, where they were required to present a testing PIN number and photo identification through the car window.

Once verified by Department of Health staff, the individuals to be tested drove to a tent at the opposite end of the parking lot, where they were met by medical personnel wearing full PPE.

Nora Mishanec/ Columbia-Greene Media

Staff from CMH and volunteer EMS personnel perform COVID-19 testing at a clinic in the ColumbiaGreene Community College parking lot Friday.

See CLINIC A2

2020 - C1

COLUMBIA-GREENE MEDIA

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‘HOLLYWOOD’: What

if diversity had been seen 70 years ago?

By HANK STUEVER Washington Post

so that Given the century or Hollywood spent scrubbing clean the American experienceracial, of stories by and about ethnic and sexual minorities — along with its consistently treatment cruddy and abusive rewrite of women — why not What’s some of its dearest lore? so sacred about silver-screena endure history that it can’t revifancy slap of intentional see sionism, in which studios before the light of diversity long it could be clearly seen? of That’s the blunt messageyet Ryan Murphy’s grandiose ix drama often captivating Netfl town is “Hollywood”: If the and big built on make-believe make dreams, then let us now producbelieve that a few of its someers, writers and directors years or 70 woke became how thus alterso ahead of schedule, of ing the post-war trajectory cinema’s Golden Age. dream Why not give the had back to those who neverblack the a chance to win it — gay screenwriter, the secretly heartthrob, the mixed-race to cast his director who wants a leading black girlfriend in head got role? What if a studio on civil an emphatic snap-to than rights from none other started Eleanor Roosevelt and that degreenlighting pictures

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rules are changing Valerie Macon/AFP/Getty

Here’s what’s new due

By JOSH ROTTENBERG Los Angeles Times

coronavirus crisis has LOS ANGELES — The with movie theaters left Hollywood reeling, at a standshut down and film production of Motion Picture still. But the Academy determined that, Arts and Sciences is Oscars are conat least as far as the go on. cerned, the show must made e organization has

Images/TNS

to the coronavirus crisis

available on a are instead first made release but due to closures may qualify for the Oscars streaming or VOD service available on the acad60 as long as they are made streaming site within emy’s member-only all other eligibildays of release and meet ity requirements. approached “This has always been rming the of affi from a perspective to the priacademy’s commitment and macy of theatrical exhibition the most satour belief that that’s a moisfying way to experience

INSIDE TODAY! The 93rd Academy

By Kate Lisa

n SPORTS

Johnson Newspaper Corp.

Spring success tied to breeding Ed Farley (right) with a nice tom he took while hunting in Albany with Frances DiDonato.

PAGE B1

n REGION Face to face, no health risk FASNY Firemen’s Home installs speaker phone system so families can talk to one another PAGE A3

n INDEX Region Opinion State/Nation Obituaries Sports Classified Comics/Advice

A3 A4 A5 A5 B1 B4-B5 B7-B8

On the web www.HudsonValley360.com Twitter Follow: @CatskillDailyMail Facebook www.facebook.com/ CatskillDailyMail/

POUGHKEEPSIE — Victims can file time-barred cases under the Child Victims Act for five additional months and officials are studying evidence that shows COVID-19 may mimic symptoms of severe illnesses in children, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Friday.

The state will extend the Child Victims Act look-back window an additional five months through Jan. 14.

Cuomo signed the Child Victims Act in February 2019 to allow survivors of childhood sexual abuse to seek justice and file a case with expired statute of limitations, but only for one year.

The window to file an expired or timebarred case was set to close Aug. 14, 2020.

“Many aspects of society have been closed down or are less operational during this pandemic, and the court system is among them,” Cuomo said during a briefing Friday afternoon at Marist College in Poughkeepsie. “Because of the reduction in court services due to the virus, we are extending that window for an additional five months until Jan. 14 to ensure survivors have the access to the courts that they need to file a claim and get the long-overdue justice they deserve.”

Gary Greenberg of New Baltimore spearheaded the movement to pass the Child Victims Act in New

Courtesy of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s office

Minority communities continue to have the greatest incidence of COVID-19 infection and fatalities, especially in New York City and downstate areas.

York state, which gave child sexual abuse survivors a vehicle to file civil suits against their abusers. Greenberg, a candidate for the Democratic nomination for the 46th state Senate District seat, led the effort through

forming the Fighting for Children PAC and ProtectNYKids Inc. Friday’s extension is historic, the local activist said.

“Victims will now have more time to file a claim and find an attorney,”

Greenberg said. “I hope the Legislature takes action on creating a fund for victims who cannot file a claim in civil court and pass the Adult Victims See WINDOW A2

Hospital to resume elective surgery

By Nora Mishanec Columbia-Greene Media

HUDSON — Columbia Memorial Health received permission from the state on Wednesday to resume elective medical procedures, ending a months-long state-mandated standstill.

The go-ahead is a clear indication from the state that CMH can provide a safe environment for patients amid the COVID-19 pandemic, said CMH spokesman William Van Slyke on Thursday.

Columbia and Greene counties were initially left off the list of counties allowed to resume elective

surgeries in late April, when 35 of the state’s 62 counties got the green light to resume procedures.

CMH officials were prompted to apply for the Department of Health waiver after the Twin Counties were excluded from that initial group of 35 counties, Van Slyke said.

CMH and Albany Medical Center each got the go-ahead from the Department of Health on Wednesday night, as did several other area hospitals including Glens Falls Hospital and St. Mary’s Hospital in Amsterdam. Columbia Memorial Health is an affiliate of Albany Medical Center.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo previously announced the state would allow elective surgeries to resume in counties and hospitals without significant risk of a COVID-19 surge.

CMH officials are creating a plan to gradually resume elective procedures, such as colonoscopies, hernia repairs and orthopedic surgeries.

“Increasingly in the region, the concern is shifting from COVID-19 to the thousands of people who require consistent care for chronic illnesses,” Van Slyke said. “We can’t do everything in a telehealth setting.”

For many patients See RESUME A2

File photo

Columbia Memorial Health in Hudson received permission from the state to resume elective surgery.

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COLUMBIA-GREENE MEDIA • THE DAILY MAIL

A2 - Saturday - Sunday, May 9-10, 2020

Weather

Clinic From A1

FORECAST FOR HUDSON/CATSKILL

TODAY TONIGHT SUN

MON

TUE

Winds becoming strong

Mainly clear and cold

Mostly cloudy and cool

A bit of rain

HIGH 46

LOW 33

59 40

58 32

WED

Partly sunny Partly sunny and cool and cool

52 30

60 29

Ottawa 44/29

Montreal 45/32

Massena 45/30

Bancroft 39/26

Ogdensburg 44/34

Peterborough 42/29

Plattsburgh 44/32

Malone Potsdam 40/28 42/31

Kingston 44/32

Watertown 44/32

Rochester 43/34

Utica 39/32

Batavia 41/34

Buffalo 42/36

Syracuse 43/34 Binghamton 38/29

Hornell 40/32

Burlington 45/34

Lake Placid 34/25

Albany 46/35

Window

Catskill 46/33

From A1

Hudson 47/33

Shown is today’s weather. Temperatures are today’s highs and tonight’s lows.

SUN AND MOON

ALMANAC Statistics through 3 p.m. yesterday

Temperature

Precipitation

Yesterday as of 3 p.m. 24 hrs. through 3 p.m. yest.

High

0.08”

Low

Today 5:41 a.m.

8:04 p.m.

10:58 p.m.

7:24 a.m.

Sunrise Sunset Moonrise Moonset

Sun. 5:39 a.m.

8:05 p.m. none 8:14 a.m.

Moon Phases Last

57

New

First

Full

37 YEAR TO DATE NORMAL

May 14 May 22 May 29

11.16 12.12

Jun 5

Forecasts and graphics provided

by AccuWeather, Inc. ©2020

CONDITIONS TODAY AccuWeather.com UV Index™ & AccuWeather.com RealFeel Temperature®

2

3

4

24

28

31

5

3 31

5

35

5

35

4

36

35

2

2

1

32

33

30

8 a.m. 9 a.m. 10 a.m. 11 a.m. Noon 1 p.m. 2 p.m. 3 p.m. 4 p.m. 5 p.m. 6 p.m.

The higher the AccuWeather.com UV Index number, the greater the need for eye and skin protection. 0-2 Low; 3-5 Moderate; 6-7 High; 8-10 Very High; 11+ Extreme. The patented AccuWeather.com RealFeel Temperature is an exclusive index of effective temperature based on eight weather factors.

NATIONAL WEATHER TODAY Winnipeg 46/27 Seattle 83/57

Montreal 45/32

Billings 57/34

Minneapolis 60/37

Toronto 44/31 Detroit 51/37

Chicago 59/46

San Francisco 67/52

Denver 62/36

New York 49/39 Washington 54/40

Kansas City 62/39

Los Angeles 81/59

Atlanta 65/44 El Paso 89/65 Houston 78/56 Chihuahua 84/57

Miami 91/77

Monterrey 73/62

ALASKA HAWAII

Anchorage 63/48

-10s

-0s

0s

showers t-storms

Honolulu 86/71

Fairbanks 74/44 Juneau 69/47

10s rain

Shown are noon positions of weather systems and precipitation. Temperature bands are highs for the day.

Hilo 84/68

20s flurries

30s

40s

snow

50s ice

60s

70s

cold front

80s

90s 100s 110s

warm front stationary front

NATIONAL CITIES City Albuquerque Anchorage Atlanta Atlantic City Baltimore Billings Birmingham Boise Boston Charleston, SC Charleston, WV Charlotte Cheyenne Chicago Cincinnati Cleveland Columbus, OH Dallas Denver Des Moines Detroit Hartford Honolulu Houston Indianapolis Kansas City Knoxville Las Vegas

Today Hi/Lo W 82/52 s 63/48 pc 65/44 s 50/42 pc 52/36 pc 57/34 pc 65/41 s 81/52 s 51/37 c 70/48 s 52/33 pc 63/37 s 54/27 pc 59/46 s 56/38 pc 49/38 pc 53/35 pc 75/52 pc 62/36 s 65/39 pc 51/37 pc 49/34 sh 86/71 pc 78/56 pc 57/39 s 62/39 pc 59/33 s 99/76 pc

Sun. Hi/Lo W 79/55 pc 61/44 pc 72/48 s 62/53 pc 65/46 pc 50/34 pc 73/45 s 87/56 pc 59/47 pc 72/54 pc 63/39 pc 69/44 pc 54/28 c 53/36 r 61/36 sh 59/36 r 60/36 c 80/54 s 66/35 pc 55/35 c 57/33 r 60/43 pc 85/71 pc 82/57 s 60/35 sh 58/36 pc 68/40 s 97/72 pc

Once swabbed, they were handed instructions for selfquarantining until receiving results by phone. The whole process took less than five minutes.

COVID-19 testing is conducted by inserting a 6-inch swab into the nasopharynx and holding it there for 5 to 10 seconds, said Melissa Heermans, a physician’s assistant who works in the emergency room at Columbia Memorial Hospital. The nasopharynx is at the back of a person’s nasal cavity, above the soft palate.

Heermans conducted COVID-19 tests at Friday’s clinic, taking turns with the other assembled clinicians. She also taught several volunteers how to swab, including Greg Fox, Greenport Rescue Squad’s advanced life-support

Act.” Child and domestic abuse reports have increased since the COVID-19 pandemic, Greenberg said.

“We must continue to pass laws that help victims and stop predators from committing heinous crimes against our children,” he added.

Greenberg will face Michelle Hinchey of Saugerties, daughter of the late U.S. Rep. Maurice Hinchey, in the Democratic primary June 23 for the 46th Senate seat held

by Republican George Amedore Jr. Officials are investigating evidence COVID-19 can cause severe illness in children — mimicking symptoms similar to Kawasaki disease and Toxic Shock Syndrome.

A 5-year-old boy died in New York City on Thursday from similar virus-related complications.

“We thought children might be vehicles of transmission, but we didn’t think children would suffer from it,” Cuomo said. “So caution to all people who may have believed that their child couldn’t be affected by COVID.” Seek medical attention immediately if your child has a fever lasting more than five days, severe abdominal pain, diarrhea or vomiting, a change in skin color such as turning pale or blue, trouble breathing, decreased amount or frequency of urination, racing heart rate or infants having difficulty feeding or

Resume From A1

City Little Rock Los Angeles Miami Milwaukee Minneapolis Nashville New Orleans New York City Norfolk Oklahoma City Omaha Orlando Philadelphia Phoenix Pittsburgh Portland Portland Providence Raleigh Richmond Sacramento St. Louis Salt Lake City San Francisco Savannah Seattle Tampa Washington, DC

Today Hi/Lo W 66/43 s 81/59 pc 91/77 pc 57/44 pc 60/37 r 62/40 s 75/61 pc 49/39 pc 59/43 pc 69/48 s 64/36 sh 88/71 pc 50/39 pc 100/76 pc 45/34 c 47/34 r 85/57 pc 49/36 pc 61/36 s 58/36 s 90/53 pc 65/45 s 76/52 s 67/52 s 76/53 s 83/57 pc 86/70 pc 54/40 pc

Sun. Hi/Lo W 74/45 s 76/57 pc 80/70 r 48/33 r 50/34 pc 71/42 pc 80/60 s 62/48 pc 68/55 s 66/46 pc 56/32 pc 79/67 sh 63/49 pc 96/74 pc 57/37 pc 55/41 pc 85/56 pc 60/47 pc 68/47 s 67/50 pc 81/51 pc 60/40 pc 84/60 pc 67/52 pc 76/55 pc 83/57 pc 80/67 sh 66/49 pc

Weather(W): s-sunny, pc-partly cloudy, c-cloudy, sh-showers, t-thunderstorms, r-rain, sf-snow flurries, sn-snow, i-ice.

managing painful symptoms, the resumption of elective medical procedures will come as a welcome development, said Van Slyke, who noted that the term “elective” encompasses a variety of conditions.

Albany Medical Center will begin carrying out elective surgeries at its South Clinical campus Monday. Patients will be tested for COVID-19 and must test negative for the procedure to go forward, Dr. Fred Venditti, general director of Albany Medical Center, said Thursday.

More than 6,000 backlogged patients are awaiting treatment, said Dr. Dennis McKenna, president of Albany Medical Center.

Albany Medical Center is starting with small surgeries that will take 60 minutes or less and with low risk of blood loss.

coordinator, who volunteered to serve at the clinic.

Heermans, who was previously named Physician Assistant of the Year by REMO, said she has felt protected with adequate PPE since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic more than two months ago.

Despite the unusual circumstances, she said treating patients is what she signed up for when she joined the medical field.

“I don’t see us as heroes,” Heermans said. “This is our job. We are here to take care of people.”

Most residents who signed up for the clinic either had symptoms or had been exposed to someone who tested positive for COVID-19, said Elizabeth Galle, director of patient services at the Columbia County Department of Health.

The youngest individual tested was 18 months old and men and women were tested in

equal measure, she said.

Only 42 residents registered for testing of Tuesday morning, but by late Thursday nearly all slots had been taken.

The clinic was limited to 100 people to avoid overwhelming the Wadsworth Center in Albany, where the tests will be analyzed, Mabb said.

“Wadsworth is trying to stay above water,” said Victoria McGahan, a public health educator for Columbia County.

“They only have a certain capacity.”

The Columbia County Health Department plans to hold the next testing clinic in Hudson to reach people who may not have access to a car.

Non-symptomatic individuals will be invited to get tested then as well, Mabb said.

Mabb acknowledged that Columbia County was late to begin diagnostic testing, which hampered publichealth officials’ ability to determine exactly how many

people have been infected.

“Now the public wants antibody testing,” he said. “People want to know if that nasty flu they had in January was [COVID-19].”

Columbia County is committed to conducting antibody testing, Mabb said, adding that Emergency Preparedness Coordinator Chuck Kaiser has already begun researching antibody testing kits.

A total of 2,029 Columbia County residents and 1,482 Greene County residents have been tested for COVID-19 since testing began in March.

The majority of those individuals were tested at clinics in Albany and Ulster counties, Mabb said.

Columbia County has had a total of 317 positive cases of COVID-19 and Greene County has had a total of 220 positive cases, according to the Columbia County and Greene County health department websites.

drinking fluids, according to the governor’s office.

New York’s COVID-19 fatalities reached at least 20,324 Friday — up from 20,108 Thursday. The state saw 216 virus-related deaths Thursday, including 171 in hospitals and 45 in nursing homes. The death rate remains flat after 231 fatalities Wednesday, 232 Tuesday and 230 Monday.

The state tested 1,121,543 people as of Friday, revealing 330,407 total positive cases of COVID-19. New York’s hospitalization rates continued a downward trend to 8,196 patients Friday, down 469, according to the governor’s office. About 600 new virus patients enter hospitals statewide each day, down from about 1,000 new daily hospitalizations last week.

“We went up very quickly,” Cuomo said of the state’s virus hospitalization and death rate. “We would have hoped that we would have come down very quickly. That’s not what’s happening — it’s more flattening out.”

Minority communities remain the most impacted by COVID-19, with higher rates of infection and virus-related fatalities. Of the 21 ZIP codes with the most new COVID-19 hospitalizations, 20 have greater-than-average black or Latino populations.

Hospitals continue to provide the state detailed demographics about newly admitted patients.

“This is something we’re focused on and we’re going to address,” Cuomo said.

“We’re going to address it immediately and will have more information on this in the

next several days.”

Some upstate regions of New York may be ready to resume construction and manufacturing — the first of four reopening phases per state guidelines — in the coming weeks. The state’s 10-point executive NY On Pause order, which closed schools and nonessential businesses, expires May 15.

It’s unlikely downstate areas and counties will be ready to start reopening that soon, Cuomo said.

“If you look at these numbers, upstate New York — it’s entirely different,” he added.

“It’s like a different state. If we react too quickly, it’s only going to be more problematic and be longer.”

The state continues to work on getting unemployment benefits to millions of New Yorkers — thousands of whom have not received benefits because of a logjam of applications with the Department of Labor since the statewide quarantine started in mid-March.

The state’s unemployment rate soared from about 2.8% to 20%, Cuomo said. Every state’s unemployment system, which is accustomed to hundreds of applications, has been overwhelmed. New York has thousands of employees addressing the state’s unemployment applications to meet demand during the pandemic.

“The volume of the calls has been so great it has literally crushed the phone system time and time again,” Secretary to the Governor Melissa DeRosa said. “We’re throwing literally everything we can at it.”

The state paid $2.1 billion in unemployment benefits in 2019. The state paid $6.8 billion to 1.6 million people in the last seven weeks.

“We haven’t experienced anything like this — period,” DeRosa said. “We’re literally building the plane while we’re trying to fly it.”

Cuomo also named the 20 members of New York’s Reimagine Education Advisory Council — comprised of educators, students, parents and education leaders — to help districts reimagine schools as they prepare to reopen, how virtual learning can bridge the gap and supplement face-to-face education while enforcing social-distancing guidelines.

The council, chaired by SUNY Empire State College President Jim Malatras, includes Albany City Schools Superintendent Kaweeda Adams, Hudson Valley Community College President Roger Ramsammy, Guilderland Board of Education President Seema Rivera, teacher Stephanie Conklin from the South Colonie Central School District, state Education Department interim Commissioner Shannon Tahoe, former state Education Department Chancellor Dennis Walcott and American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten.

The hospital will ramp up its elective surgery schedule over the coming weeks, Venditti said.

“We feel this is going to have no impact on our ability to treat COVID-19 patients,” Venditti said.

As the pandemic intensified, hospitals around the region shut down elective surgeries, redistributed staff and converted operating rooms into COVID-19 treatment centers.

To meet the state goal of increasing hospital capacity by 50%, CMH rented extra hospital beds and converted operating waiting rooms into COVID-19 care units, CMH Chief Medical Officer Dr. Clifford Belden said at a late-March press briefing in Albany.

Like many hospitals nationwide, CMH has seen a sharp decline in patients seeking routine treatments over the course of the pandemic.

“This is a time when people are fearful to do anything,

whether it is going to the supermarket or the doctor’s office,” Van Slyke said.

CMH furloughed 125 staff members April 21. The hospital is evaluating how and when it may call back those employees, Van Slyke said.

Cuomo acknowledged that the ban on elective surgeries has put a strain on hospitals around the state.

“When you cancel elective surgeries, hospitals feel a financial pinch because that’s where they make their money,” the governor said April 29 during his daily COVID-19 briefing in the Red Room at the state Capitol.

To see the complete county breakdown of positive COVID-19 cases and deaths statewide, view the COVID-19 map and tracker at hudsonvalley360.com/site/ covid19.html

HUDSON RIVER TIDES High tide: 4:41 a.m. 5.2 feet Low tide: 11:36 a.m. −0.7 feet High tide: 5:16 p.m. 4.2 feet Low tide: 11:44 p.m. −0.2 feet

THE PUBLIC NEEDS THE TRUTH; NOT SOCIAL MEDIA HEADLINES & FAKE NEWS.

#SupportRealNews

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Saturday - Sunday, May 9-10, 2020 - A3

COLUMBIA-GREENE MEDIA • THE DAILY MAIL

CALENDAR EDITOR’S NOTE: Most events and meetings are being cancelled due to the virus outbreak. Please call ahead to confirm.

Monday, May 11 n Ashland Town Board 7:30 p.m.

Town Hall, 12094 Route 23, Ashland n Catskill Village Planning Board 7 p.m. Senior Center, 15 Academy St., Catskill n Coxsackie Village Board 7 p.m.

Village Hall, 119 Mansion St., Coxsackie 518-731-2718 n Greene County Legislature 6 p.m. county services and public works via zoom – instructions for audio/video conferencing are on county website n Greenville CSD BOE 6:30 p.m.

Virtual Meeting Only (see website for link)

Tuesday, May 12 n Catskill Town Planning Board 7

p.m. Town Hall, 439 Main St., Catskill n Coxsackie Town Board 1 p.m. via teleconference. The public is invited to call-in, however, the board will not be taking public comments. The callin number is 1-470-869-2200 and the meeting ID # is 149 747 3020. Feel free to mail or email any correspondence to clerk@coxsackie.org n Coxsackie Village Historic Preservation Committee 6 p.m. Village Hall, 119 Mansion St., Coxsackie 518-7312718 n Greene County Legislature special meeting executive session regarding personnel matters 6 p.m. Legislative Chambers, 4th floor, Greene County Office Building, 411 Main St., Catskill

Wednesday, May 13 n Athens Village Board 6:30 p.m.

Village Hall, 2 First St., Athens 518945-1551 n Catskill Town Zoning Board 6 p.m. Town Hall, 439 Main St., Catskill n Jewett Town Board 7 p.m. Jewett Municipal Building, 3547 County Route 23C, Jewett

Thursday, May 14 n Greene County Legislature 4

p.m. finance audit

Monday, May 18 n Athens Town Board 6:45 p.m.

Town Hall, 2 First St., Athens 518-9451052 n Greene County Legislature 6 p.m. economic development and tourism; gov. ops. and finance via zoom – instructions for audio/video conferencing are on county website n Greenville Town Board 7 p.m.

Town Hall, 11159 Route 32, Pioneer Building, Greenville

Tuesday, May 19 n Athens Village Planning Board

6:30 p.m. Village Hall, 2 First St., Athens 518-945-1551

Face-to-face get-togethers — with a twist

By Nora Mishanec Columbia-Greene Media

HUDSON — Staff members at the FASNY Firemen’s Home in Hudson are working overtime to keep residents connected to their families as the facility begins testing for COVID-19.

The Firemen’s Home received enough testing kits from the Columbia County Department of Health to test all of its residents and personnel on Friday, Firemen’s Home Acting Administrator Sherri Mier said.

The Firemen’s Home had no suspected or confirmed cases of COVID-19 as of Friday, Mier confirmed.

As nursing homes and adult-care facilities around the region struggle to keep COVID-19 out, Sophia Kamenovsky, social services director for the Firemen’s Home, wanted to ensure NORA MISHANEC/COLUMBIA-GREENE MEDIA the public that the 72 residents, known Mary Duntz speaks with her mother Beatrice Tkacy through the window at the as members, could see family members FASNY Firemen’s Home in Hudson on Sunday. without compromising their health.

Kamenovsky worked with the home’s the safety of a bench Kamenovsky placed her daughter Mary Duntz for the first maintenance crew to install a speaker outside the window. time since the shutdown began. phone system where members can The distance has been challenging as “Seeing each other is a wonderful speak to their loved ones through a glass thing,” she said. “It is helping a lot of the family grieves Donald Tkacy’s recent members to see [family], even if they death. window.

“I worry about her, because dad did Members now frequently chat can’t hug them.”

Beatrice Tkacy, widow of Donald Tka- pass away and we haven’t had any physithrough the window with family members, who call the speaker phone from cy, spoke face-to-face last weekend with cal contact with her since his passing,”

Duntz said.

Donald Tkacy, who was a 5th Ward Supervisor in Hudson, served as a member of the Columbia County Board of Supervisors and held many county offices including treasurer, clerk, coroner and commissioner of motor vehicles.

He died March 18 in hospice care at the Firemen’s Home. He was 97. The Tkacys would have celebrated their 74th wedding anniversary in June.

Duntz said she sends her mother games and scratch-off cards to keep her occupied, but said the ban on visitors has been hard on Beatrice, who is used to socializing and participating in fish fries and chili bake-offs.

The staff has had to be creative to compensate for the loss of regular activities, said Kamenovsky, who has worked at the Firemen’s Home for 48 years. The facility broadcasts bingo on its in-house television station and members play along in their own rooms, she said.

Members can visit the courtyard garden or go outside if the weather allows. Kamenovsky once arranged for one member to play golf on the facility’s lawn.

“They are adapting the best they can,” she said.

GREENE COUNTY POLICE BLOTTER Editor’s Note: A charge is not a conviction. All persons listed are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Charges can be amended or dismissed.

STATE POLICE n Pamela T. Derosiers, 60, of Cornwallville, was arrested at 1:28 p.m. April 27 in Catskill and charged with driving while intoxicated and aggravated DWI, both unclassified misdemeanors. She was released to a third party. n Marvin D. Tefft, 63, of Athens, was arrested at 4:59

a.m. April 28 in Catskill and charged with second-degree criminal use of drug paraphernalia, a class A misdemeanor.

He was issued an appearance ticket. n Darren H. Larose, 32, of Catskill, was arrested at 11:58 a.m. April 27 in Greenville and charged with fifth-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance, a class D felony; seventh-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance and possession of a hypodermic instrument, both class A misdemeanors. He was

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issued an appearance ticket. n Justin F. Carrasco, 29, of Hudson, was arrested at 3:23 p.m. April 27 in Coxsackie and charged with fourth-degree criminal possession of marijuana, a class A misdemeanor.

He was issued an appearance ticket.

n Catherine A. Hulsen, 50, of Catskill, was arrested at 9:58 p.m. April 28 in Catskill and charged with second-degree assault, a class D felony, and fourth-degree criminal possession of a weapon, a class A misdemeanor. Her arrestee

status is unknown. n John P. Hulsen, 59, of Catskill, was arrested at 9:58 p.m. April 28 in Catskill and charged with third-degree assault and criminal obstruction of breathing, both class A misdemeanors. He was issued an appearance ticket.

New Multi-Surgery Clinic Now Open in Hudson Albany Med surgeons are now seeing patients and performing same-day procedures at new offices in Hudson at Columbia Memorial Health’s Medical Office Building. This new collaboration between CMH and Albany Med offers comprehensive care close to home.

Rakel Astorga, MD General Surgery and Breast Surgery

David Chismark, MD Colorectal Surgery

Paul Kreienberg, MD Vascular Surgery

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OUR VIEW

Giving renters another break As the COVID-19 pandemic spread through the state, many New Yorkers who rent were gradually unable to make their monthly payments as they were furloughed from their jobs and left out of work for what is now two months.

Fortunately, renters who owe to their landlords got a break Thursday as officials extended a state moratorium two months Thursday mandating New Yorkers cannot be evicted for not paying rent through Aug. 20 because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said. The mandate includes residential and

commercial renters.

Shelter nearly became the odd man out in the effort to keep food supplies rolling and preserve access to basic necessities, but rent is becoming a premiere issue. Families are struggling, and nobody wants to see families and children evicted at this time through no fault of their own.

The moratorium extension also covers late payments or fees for missed rent payments and allows renters facing financial hardship due to COVID-19 to use their security deposit as payment and repay their security deposit over time.

Renters are not the only concern. Landlords will face hardships as well. The state is working to secure relief for banks so landlords do not have to worry about foreclosures.

Counties and municipalities are laying off employees, many of whom are renters with families. The mounting financial losses are jeopardizing the livelihoods, not to mention the lives, of working families all over New York.

Extending the moratorium on evictions for not paying rent through Aug. 20 is a fair and compassionate move.

ANOTHER VIEW

Georgia’s Abrams should be taken out of the veepstakes Henry Olsen The Washington Post

Georgia Democrat Stacey Abrams became a national progressive icon in 2018 after narrowly losing her gubernatorial bid in that historically conservative state. Her open campaign to become former vice president Joe Biden’s running mate, however, shows that faith in her is sorely misplaced.

Abrams has not been shy about seeking the job. Unlike other rumored contenders, she comes right out and says she’d make an excellent running mate. Nor is she shy about saying what she thinks she’d bring to the ticket: campaigning skills among minority communities, a history of public service and “25 years in independent study of foreign policy.” Surely, Biden must be honored that someone so distinguished and talented would find his campaign so attractive.

But look closer: Abrams has never held any federal office, nor has she ever been a mayor or governor. She was the Democratic state House minority leader, but that simply means she rallied the opposition party to oppose Republican initiatives.

She simply has never had the experience at any substantial level of proposing serious initiatives that have a chance of becoming law or implementing policies.

Nor is her close defeat necessarily a tribute to her campaigning skills. The 2018 campaign was the closest to

a party-based election that the United States has had in decades. In state after state, voters angry with President Donald Trump voted for Democrats up and down the ballot, regardless of their personal backgrounds or positions. In her own state of Georgia, the same suburban voters who backed her also backed Democrats for the House and state legislature in nearly identical proportions. Former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke can attest that a close defeat in 2018 in a once-deep-red state does not necessarily mean you’re ready for prime time.

Biden’s own criteria for the vice presidency clearly rule out someone with Abrams’s personality and experience. He has repeatedly said that the person he chooses must be able to step into the presidency on Day One, a clear recognition that his advanced age means voters know the vice president could easily have to become president if Biden’s health deteriorates. Only the most blinkered ideologue can say Abrams meets that measure.

Biden has also said he needs to personally and philosophically “simpatico” with his No. 2. Abrams’s pugnacious persona is miles apart from Biden’s.

This raises serious questions about her own selfawareness. That she is openly campaigning for the job, while denying the obvious in interviews, also raises questions about her judgment.

The Daily Mail welcomes letters to the editor. All letters must contain a full name, full address and a daytime telephone number. Names will be published, but phone numbers will not be divulged.

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How can someone seriously think this will work or raise her stature?

Abrams’s decision to do this rather than run for George’s U.S. Senate seat also boggles the mind. The appointed incumbent, Sen. Kelly Loeffler, R, is clearly a weak incumbent. She had no political experience before becoming Gov. Brian Kemp’s, R, choice to succeed the retiring Johnny Isakson, and she immediately become embroiled in an alleged insider trading scandal. The Republican alternative, Rep. Douglas Collins, is a hard-right ideologue from rural Georgia - not the type of person one imagines would appeal to the suburban electorate that Republicans need to keep the Senate seat. Abrams nevertheless decided not to run for this eminently winnable seat, one that would have given her necessary national experience.

At 46, a Sen. Abrams could easily have dreamed of moving quickly into a serious White House bid. But she’s running around the country tilting at windmills and obliviously embarrassing herself.

Abrams could have become a serious Democratic player. Instead, the ideologue looks more and more like the next Sarah Palin, milking her comet-like appearance on the national stage for all its worth until she slowly fades from view.

or publications. Writers are ordinarily limited to one letter every 30 days.

The Supreme Court’s chance to affirm its neutrality WASHINGTON — Oral arguments are not the only sounds that will be heard by the Supreme Court next Tuesday. There will also be the fluttering of chickens coming home to roost.

Before congressional Republicans fell in love with their current leader, they embraced a principle from which he claims to be exempt. His Republicans, who believe nothing displeasing to him and everything convenient for him, are now required to believe this: A president should be “categorically immune” to grand jury subpoenas from a local prosecutor even for materials possessed by a third party, materials unrelated to the president’s activities as president.

In 2018, the District Attorney’s Office of New York County, where Donald Trump conducted his businesses before he became a public servant, began investigating possible criminal activities connected with those businesses. In 2019, the office obtained a grand jury subpoena for financial materials, including some tax returns. Trump’s organization balked at producing the tax returns. When the district attorney subpoenaed Trump’s accounting firm for eight years of financial and tax records, Trump claimed absolute immunity as president from any “criminal process” even when subpoenas are received by a private third party, an accounting firm.

In 1974, the court held (concerning Richard Nixon) that presidents have an “executive privilege” to shield many confidential communications concerning presidential duties. In 1982, the court held (concerning Nixon) that presidents are immune from civil liability for actions taken in office. However, the court has never held that presidents are immune from criminal prosecution while in office, or that they are immune from criminal processes that might lead to prosecutions.

Today’s justices surely

GEORGE F.

WILL regret the perception that the Supreme Court is so politicized that many of its decisions reflect not neutral jurisprudential reasoning but fidelity to the politics of the presidents who nominated the majority of justices.

The case to be argued Tuesday gives the court an occasion to mitigate this perception. In 1974, the court, with three Nixon nominees voting in 1974, and in 1997 with two Bill Clinton nominees, unanimously ruled against Nixon and Clinton in separate cases.

Trump argues that anything less than complete immunity from all criminal processes could hinder his performance of his duties and “stigmatizes the President in ways that will frustrate his ability to effectively represent the United States in both domestic and foreign affairs.” Leave aside the grandiose idea that a president — the head of one branch of one of the nation’s many governments — must “represent,” whatever that means, the nation in the complex, churning spontaneity of its domestic life.

Nevertheless, the privilege Trump asserts, if validated by the court, would exacerbate the obnoxious tendency of presidents to think of themselves as, and to be perceived as, trailing clouds of glory.

In November, a threejudge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled unanimously against Trump, holding that state prosecutors can compel third parties to surrender a president’s financial information for use in grand jury proceedings. Chief Judge

Robert A. Katzmann’s decision included this footnote: “We note that the past six presidents, dating back to President Carter, all voluntarily released their tax returns to the public. While we do not place dispositive weight on this fact, it reinforces our conclusion that the disclosure of personal financial information, standing alone, is unlikely to impair the president in performing the duties of his office.”

During Bill Clinton’s first term, many congressional Republicans were whitehot supporters of the special committee that investigated the Clintons’ role in the Whitewater land deal in Arkansas before he assumed presidential duties. The committee held 300 hours of hearings that generated more than 10,000 pages of transcripts. The committee’s work was facilitated by its power to subpoena pre-presidential financial records of the then-sitting president. The Clinton presidency was not paralyzed by this, and Congress has not subsequently been promiscuously intrusive in subpoenaing financial records of sitting presidents. It is unlikely that even today’s president, with his unusual business and personal histories, will be immobilized by the needs of the New York district attorney in connection with possible criminality.

Trump’s refusal to release his tax returns invites speculation about what he is hiding. His behavior, however, is primarily germane to assessing the Republican Party that since the Whitewater affair has adjusted its principles about many things, including presidential privileges. Aside from those fluttering chickens coming home to roost, other fowls come to mind: What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.

George Will’s email address is georgewill@washpost.com. (c) 2020, Washington Post Writers Group

ANOTHER VIEW

A time for national service The Washington Post

We need an army of workers to reopen the country. The good news is, a group of senators has an idea for where to find one.

Sens. Chris Van Hollen, DMd., Christopher Coons, DDel., and several colleagues introduced legislation this week to pay for 750,000 national service positions over the next three years. It’s a big number because it has to be: Experts estimate that the United States will require hundreds of thousands more public health employees to track cases, conduct tests and more. Contact tracing alone would call for almost 300,000 personnel to match the scale of successful efforts in Wuhan, China; more conservative estimates of what’s necessary still hover in the six-figure range.

The senators propose leveraging AmeriCorps and other existing programs to bridge the alarmingly wide

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gap between what the nation needs and what it has. Their concept makes good sense; these organizations already have partnerships with government agencies and the institutional know-how to perform all sorts of essential community-minded tasks.

The bill would prioritize Peace Corps volunteers and Fulbright and other fellowship recipients, as well as, crucially, the many Americans this crisis has left unemployed. Another bill from Van Hollen and Sen. Edward Markey, D-Mass., aims to mobilize FEMA volunteers with medical expertise to aid in roles that require it - but the bulk of the jobs crying out to be done are layman-friendly with minimal training.

The proposal offers an opportunity for national action at a time when President Trump has largely left states on their own. Localities are diverse and idiosyncratic enough that it can be easier

for those on the ground to see what’s needed than for someone far away in Washington.

But it’s abundantly clear that at the moment what’s needed, for everyone, is more.

Standing up a ready-to-go cadre of Americans who can be deployed anywhere across the country would be instrumental in serving areas where staffing is relatively scarce and sickness is spreading not only now but also in the many months ahead.

Studies say an additional $3.6 billion is required to enable governments to ramp up their tracing, and Congress ought to give it. The crisis is costing the nation that much in lost economic output every few hours. To begin to restore that output - to get people back to work - the country needs far more testing, and far more people to help implement a sound public health strategy. This legislation offers an essential building block for that strategy.

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Kathryn Massaro Kathryn Massaro, loving Heart Church Parish in Cairo, mother and grandmother, age NY. She made friends wherever 71 years, of 2 Christy Avenue, she went, too many to ever list.

Leeds, N.Y., passed away on She is known to all for her deep May 3, 2020, at her home. She faith, resilience, quick smile and was born on September 4, 1948 boundless love and kindness, in Amityville, N.Y. and is the but also for an amazing sense daughter of the late Jack and of humor. She battled cancer for Dorothy (Pankowsky) Massaro. over a decade, but it never kept Besides her parents, she is pre- her from witty remarks or interdeceased by her sister Janie fered with her consideration of Dillworth. others. With the wonderful asSurvivors include sistance of Community her son Sean ClevenHospice, she passed stine and his children away peacefully at Alexis and Richard, home with family and and her daughter Krisifriends at her side. anne Clevenstine and Services for the imher daughter Emma mediate family will be Rain Whitbeck. Kathheld and interment will ryn is one of seven sibtake place at the famlings including Maria ily plot of St. Patrick’s Massaro Leis, Jackie Massaro, Cemetery, Catskill, Deborah Lane, John N.Y. Mass of the Massaro and Joyce Massaro. Christian Burial and memorial Kathryn was devoted to fam- services will be held at a later ily and thought of her in- laws date. In lieu of flowers, please as brothers and sisters includ- send donations to St. Jude’s ing Bernie Leis, Dave Dillworth, Children’s Research HospiJonas Havens, Patrick Lane, tal, P.O. Box 1000, Dept. 142, Lisa Massaro and Cheryl Rings. Memphis, TN, 38148-0142 or She also held her three dear at stjude.org, or to The Sacred “sisters of the heart” that she Heart Church, Attn. Fr. Steve, adopted into the family Julie 30 Church Street, Cairo, N.Y. Rhodes, Kathy Hulbert and 12413 (for local families in need) Christine O’Connell. Among or to The Community Hospice of her large and extended family, Columbia and Greene counties, she will be greatly missed by 16 47 Liberty Street, Catskill, N.Y. nieces and nephews, numerous 12414 or at communityhospice. great nieces and nephews and org. Arrangements are under a network of cousins in Greene, the direction of Richards FunerNassau and Suffolk Counties, al Home, 29 Bross Street, Cairo, as well as many friends and N.Y. 12413. Condolences may neighbors. Kathryn was a very be made at www.richardsfunerdevout Catholic at the Sacred alhomeinc.net.

Wallace F. Pullen III Wallace F. Pullen III, 39, Harder Jr. of California. of Hudson, passed away Wally was an excellent guiWednesday, May 6, 2020, at tar player and a big fan of stock Columbia Memorial Hospital car racing. He went to Lebaafter an illness which he could non Valley Speedway with his fight no more. Born August 9, grandfather every week and 1980, at CMH, Wally was the raced with his friends on the son of Mildred L. (Dolly) Pullen computer. He was a fan of of Hudson and Wallace F. Pul- Mark Martin. He also attended len Jr. of West Ghent, both of the races with his uncle, Mark whom survive him.

Pullen of Stottville, at various He is also survived by a locations. Wally had been embrother, Travis J. Pulployed as an accomlen (Laura Deters) of plished welder and Spring Hill, Florida; his fabricator with Wally’s fiance, Ann Griffin of Welding and, more reHudson and her son cently, with Bill Baldand daughter, Daniel win and Sons, learnand Caitlin Jennings; a ing to operate heavy daughter, Myley Rose equipment. Wally atPullen of Massachutended school in the setts; and his grandChatham School Dismother, Blossom A. Pullen III trict and also attended Pullen of Stottville. He St. John’a Episcopal also leaves behind many aunts Church in Stockport, where and uncles, including Bonhe served as an acolyte in his nie (Harder) Ostoyich (Jim) of Germantown; Nancy (Harder) younger years.

Visitation for family memFontaine (Fred) of Hudson; bers and close friends will be Connie (Harder) Horton (Bob) of Germantown; Donna (Pullen) 4-6:30 p.m. Friday, May 8, at Manchuck and Mark Pullen, the Bates and Anderson Redboth of Stottville; and Wayne mond & Keeler Funeral Home, Dedrick Sr. (Linda) of Auster- 110 Green Street, Hudson, litz. He was predeceased by with a service beginning at 6:30 his paternal grandfather, Wal- p.m. . Following cremation, lace F. Pullen Sr. of Stottville Wally’s ashes will be interred and his maternal grandparents, with his paternal grandfather John F. and Shirley E. Harder of at 10 a.m. Friday, May 15, in Germantown. Also, aunts and Mellenville Union Cemetery. A uncles, Roger and Lee Rekow reception celebrating Wally’s and Philip H. Dedrick III (Linda), life will be announced at a later all of Germantown; and John F. date.

Almon M. Whitbeck FREEHOLD – Almon M. Almon is survived by his Whitbeck, 60, passed away on daughters, Amy (Eliah) GoldThursday May 7, 2020 at the ing and Sarah (Keith) DoFulton Center for Rehabilita- mermuth; his grandchildren, tion and Nursing in Glovers- Kaydence, Jordan, Roman, ville. He was born in Catskill Natalyah, and Weston; his sibon November 4, 1959 to the lings, Joseph (Debbie), Roblate W. Bruce and ert (Edelgard), WilEmily Byrne Whitliam (Molly), and Luke beck. He was raised Whitbeck, and Ellen in Freehold and after (the late Kenneth) Barhigh school, joined din; and many nieces the US Air Force. After and nephews. being honorably disA graveside service charged, he worked will be held on Monfor the Greene County day May 11th at 1pm Highway Dept. Almon at the Freehold CemWhitbeck was a communicant etery, County Route of St. John the Baptist Church and served as a 67, Freehold. In lieu of Flowreligious education teacher. ers, donations can be made to He was also a longtime mem- St. Jude Children’s Research ber of the Greenville-Norton Hospital, 501 St. Jude Place, Hill Wildlife Club. He enjoyed Memphis, TN 38105. Condohunting and fishing, and loved lences can be posted at ajcunanimals, especially dogs. ninghamfh.com.

Celia ‘Peg’ McGhee Celia “Peg” McGhee, 90, of Hillsdale, NY passed away on Thursday May 7, 2020 at home surrounded by her loving daughters. She was born on November 12, 1929 in Hudson, NY to Ira and Celia (VanderBiesen) Stalker.

Celia was a graduate of Roeliff Jansen High School in 1947 and Albany Business College in 1948. She later worked at the Hotchkiss School as secretary to the headmaster. On March 5, 1949 she married Floyd McGhee and became a stay at home mother and homemaker. Her husband predeceased

her on January 12, 2009, after grandchildren: Scott Grenon, 59 years of marriage. Celia John Grenon and Amber Herloved her family with rick, as well as an “adall of her heart and opted” grandson, Joe her home was referred Gherardi; three greatto as “Grand Central grandchildren: HarStation”. She was a mony Grenon, Khloey wonderful wife, mom, and Khyia Simmons grandma and great- Grenon. In addition grandma and will be she is also survived by missed greatly by her a sister, Janetta Mcadoring family.

Cauley and a cousin She is survived by Beth Kilmer. She also McGhee three daughters and leaves her four grand their partners, Sandra White- dogs Lily, Jack, Manuel and man (Neil Crawford), Kathy Gi- Enu. ulian (Mike) and Sally Herrick Due to the COVID – 19 Pan(Philip). She also leaves three demic, a private service for im-

mediate family members will be held on Monday May 11, 2020 at the Peck and Peck Funeral Home in Copake with the Rev. Kenneth Phesay officiating. Interment will follow in the North Hillsdale Cemetery. In memory of Celia, kindly consider donating to either the ColumbiaGreene Humane Society or the Wounded Warriors Project c/o Peck and Peck Funeral Home, PO Box D, Copake NY 12516.

To send an online condolence, please visit: www.peckandpeck.net.

Deemed nonessential, DMV trucks on

By Abby Hoover Columbia-Greene Media

HUDSON — Department of Motor Vehicle offices across the state have suspended many of their services but may still be helping with special situations.

New York State DMV Commissioner Mark Schroeder issued a notice March 23 extending all driver’s licenses, learner’s permits, non-driver identification cards and vehicle registrations scheduled to expire on or after March 1, 2020, until further notice.

Schroeder said, additionally, all dealer temporary registration documents remain valid until further notice, rather than expiring after 45 days as usual.

The extensions do not apply to insurance coverage, which must be maintained during the extensions. Vehicle inspections are also not included in the extension.

The DMV closed to the public March 23.

Columbia County Clerk Holly Tanner continues to assist residents while the Columbia County DMV is closed.

Services are available on a limited basis, Tanner said. She is available Mondays through Thursdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. for people to drop off documents for limited vehicular transactions.

“I am trying to help people with their DMV needs, yes,” Tanner said. “We are unable to do any in-office transactions, no licenses, no permits, no permit testing of any kind, no license upgrades. But there are limited vehicle transactions that we can help people with.”

While some of these transactions can be done by mail, it is easier to drop off in case there is an issue with paperwork, Tanner said.

Tanner said while there have been long lines outside the DMV, everyone in the line is wearing a mask and staying six feet apart.

“Unfortunately, I don’t anticipate that we’ll be reopening anytime soon,” Tanner said.

Reopening the state’s DMV offices poses its own concerns, as Gov. Andrew Cuomo plans to reopen by region. Tanner said she will be speaking with Lt. Gov. Kathleen Hochul later Friday to get clarifcation on reopening state government offices.

Government entities were not specifically addressed in any of the phases, Tanner said, and she is advocating that the reopening of government offices not be regionalized.

“We can’t work from home,” Tanner said. “Everything that we have to do is in-office. We can’t do DMV at home and can’t record documents at home...We’re alternating shifts for people to come in and work.”

BILL WILLIAMS/COLUMBIA-GREENE MEDIA

Customers line up to enter the Columbia County Department of Motor Vehicles in Hudson on Monday.

The DMV and records department are preparing to reopen, although there is no date at this time. Preparations include making six-foot spaces, installing Plexiglas shields and providing staff with face masks and gloves.

“I feel very comfortable with the job that the county’s doing in regards to the ability of my staff to perform their jobs,” Tanner said.

The executive order that closed DMV and county clerk offices expires May 15, but that does not mean they will be able to reopen on May 18.

“Why the DMV isn’t essential is a little bit of a question,” Tanner said. “Because it is essential in upstate New York.

People don’t have public transportation. There’s no subway system. You could walk, I suppose, 20 miles to your job, but you’ll be exhausted when you get there.”

Tanner said she has everyone from CDL drivers to 16-year-olds wanting to take permit tests.

If DMVs resume business in areas that meet the criteria to reopen, but not statewide, people could travel there from other parts of the state, potentially spreading the disease and overcrowding rural offices.

Tanner is considering going to an appointment system to prevent a “mad rush” to the DMV once it reopens.

“Most of the clerks have been thinking very seriously about how we’re going to serve the public and do it to follow the CDC’s guidelines and the governor’s guidelines,” Tanner said.

The Greene County DMV in Catskill remains closed to the public, but is staffed Monday through Wednesday. The office will continue to accept DMV mail and transactions, as well as dealer work, at the backdoor drop box, according to the website.

The office is alternating staff

and is running at about 25% capacity, Greene County Legislature Chairman Patrick Linger, R-New Baltimore, said.

“They’re doing any online transactions, they’re doing any weekend business that came in through that method, and then we have drop boxes at the lower entrance to our county office building where people can get their forms, they can drop their paperwork off in a drop box, and then DMV calls them when it’s ready to be picked back up,” Linger said.

The DMV is an essential service in rural areas, Linger said.

“We prefer that they use their county DMV office rather than going on and doing things online,” Linger said. “That issue revolves around the amount of revenue that comes back to the county for any of that business we do as opposed to the state getting all the revenue when someone does it online.”

While it’s only 12.5%, Linger said the revenue gained by using the local DMV office is a “far cry from zero.”

It is impossible for departments like Social Services and the DMV to work from home because they are linked to a state system in order to do a lot of the paperwork, Linger said.

“There’s limited things that they can accomplish,” Linger said.

The Department of Homeland Security announced March 26 the deadline for New Yorkers to upgrade to REAL ID was extended one year to Oct. 1, 2021.

“The federal, state and local response to the spread of the coronavirus here in the United States necessitates a delay in this deadline,” Acting Secretary Chad Wolf said in a statement.

The 2005 REAL ID Act established minimum security standards for state-issued driver licenses, permits and ID cards. The Act also prohibits federal agencies, like the

White House aide tests positive for virus ahead of Pence trip

By Jennifer Jacobs Bloomberg News (TNS)

A White House aide has tested positive for coronavirus infection, according to people familiar with the matter, the second person working at the executive residence to contract the virus this week.

Vice President Mike Pence is scheduled to travel to Iowa on Friday to discuss the effect

of the coronavirus outbreak on churches and on the food supply. But his plane left Joint Base Andrews outside Washington more than an hour behind schedule, after some passengers de-boarded.

It wasn’t clear if the delay was related to the positive virus test.

The people familiar with the matter asked not to be identified because the positive test

hasn’t been announced. Earlier in the week, a member of the military who works on the White House grounds tested positive for the virus.

Other White House staffers who were in contact with the infected aide are being tested, the people said. President Donald Trump and Pence said Thursday that they are each now tested daily for the virus.

Transportation Security Administration, from officially accepting cards from states that don’t meet the standards.

New York State DMV started issuing REAL IDs Oct. 30, 2017.

“States across the country are temporarily closing or restricting access to DMVs,” Wolf said. “This action will preclude millions of people from applying for and receiving their REAL ID. Extending the deadline will also allow the department to work with Congress to implement needed changes to expedite the issuance of REAL IDs once the current health crisis concludes.”

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COLUMBIA-GREENE MEDIA • THE DAILY MAIL

A6 - Saturday - Sunday, May 9-10, 2020

When pooches go missing, Fixing a common problem ‘who ya gonna call’

By Charlene Marchand For Columbia-Greene Media

CONTRIBUTED PHOTO

Meet Bailey, a 5-year-old Dutch shepherd who loves to run!

She wants to be the queen of the household as she doesn’t get along with other animals...but she loves her people! Bailey’s favorite pastime — aside from hanging out with CGHS Adoption Counselor Alexa Caunitz — is playing with tennis balls for hours.

Cuomo’s extended stay-inplace policy and continued business regulations, CGHS/ SPCA’s lobby will continue to be closed to the public.

We are making every effort to continue to offer vital shelter services while ensuring a safe environment for staff and visitors.

To meet the essential needs of our community, we will continue to offer some services and adoptions in a limited capacity.

The Food Bank will continue to be open 11:30 a.m.-4 p.m. daily. If you are quarantined and need food for your pet, please call 518-828-6044 ext. 100 or 108, or email jessica@cghs.org.

We are maintaining adoption services. Potential adopters can view animals on our website at cghs.org and fill out an online application to be pre-approved for adoption. Interaction with pets is limited to ensure the safety of staff and the potential adopters.

Please call for up-to-date grooming information at 518-828-6044 ext. 103. Since so many clients are medical professionals and rely on our boarding and daycare services to care for their dogs, we continue to offer these services by appointment only.

If you have questions, please call or text 518-6103232, or email jessica@cghs. org.

For up-to-date information on any of our clinics, please call us at 518-828-6044 ext.

100.

Donations of pet food and supplies can be left at the front door. If you need a receipt, please call or text Ron Perez at 518-828-6044 ext. 100 or email ronperez@cghs.org.

If you have any general questions, please call Ron Perez, President/CEO 518828-6044 ext. 100, or email ronperez@cghs.org.

Charlene Marchand is chairperson of the Columbia-Greene Humane Society/SPCA Board of Directors. She may be contacted at cghsaaron@gmail.com.

WHITTLING AWAY

DICK

BROOKS and when you become filthy rich send me a buck or two.

A common problem for a lot of senior folks is that their houses outgrow them. You get married and get a cozy little cottage. The kids start arriving and things start getting tighter.

You contemplate moving to a larger place but you love where you live, so you add a couple of bedrooms and an extra bath or two.

The kids finally get fed and educated to the point that they leave. Your mother-in-law moves in about this time and since she doesn’t climb stairs well, you add on a downstairs bedroom and bath for her.

After a couple of months, she hooks up with a 90-year-old stud with all his own teeth at the local senior center and they elope to a senior trailer park in Florida. You and your sweetie are finally alone again, but your cute little cottage has swelled to the point where you frequently can’t find each other.

Time to downsize. You can get $200,000 for the house, according to the realtor you talk to. He shows you a couple of small, cute little cottages but they start at $350,000. What to do? Here’s where the ponder of the day comes in.

There’s a big opportunity for a person or company to go into business shrinking houses.

Think of the advertising possibilities — House too big, too many bedrooms, bathrooms that aren’t being used? Call Shrinkemnow Contractors.

We’ll cut your house in half for cheap.” Think of the savings in utility costs, increased privacy for you and your spouse, no extra rooms for relatives or returning children. Your assessment will go down so your taxes will decrease, maintence costs go down.

Having trouble getting up stairs? Have the second floor removed. Turn that 14-room colonial into a cozy Cape Cod cottage. This is an idea that could make money!

Well, time to go mow the lawn before it’s time for lunch and the afternoon ponder.

Thought for the week — “Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for lunch.” James Bovard Until next week, may you and yours be happy and well.

Reach Dick Brooks at Whittle12124@yahoo.com.

To Place a Classified Ad Columbia-Greene

MEDIA

As spring blossoms beautifully, not all of our or our neighbors’ pooches understand what “stay in place” means!

Below, you’ll find valuable contact information for dog control officers in each municipality across the two counties we serve. If you have a lost dog or have spotted one, these are the folks to call. A reminder that cases of abandonment, neglect, abuse, or cruelty are not under the jurisdiction or authority of dog control officers, and must be reported to law enforcement authorities.

A special note: It is with deep regret that we must send our best wishes to one of our finest dog control officers in Columbia County, Wes Powell, who laid down his official leash and duties at the end of March.

The animal savvy, expertise, and caring that he exhibited during his many years of tenure as a DCO for multiple municipalities was unparalleled and appreciated beyond measure.

There are so many people who can never be replaced… and Wes, you are one of them!

Thank you!

Below the list, you’ll find some new information pertinent to our ongoing services at the shelter during the current restrictions.

Columbia County: Ancram: Richard Prentice, 518398-7121; Austerlitz, Copake, Ghent, Hillsdale, Taghkanic: Kyle Miller, 845-407-1367; Canaan: Lynne Torello, 518794-0406; Chatham: Darrell Dutcher, C 518-917-3330, H 518-794-0432; Claverack: Reg Conklin, 518-755-3152, (Village of Philmont: PD at 518-672-4000); Clermont: Desiree Weber, 321-863-3875; Gallatin: Jim Reilly, 845-7564136; Germantown: Anthony Cidras, 518-821-9197; Greenport: Jennifer Pinkowski, 518-567-7668; Hudson, Stockport: James Delaney Jr., 518-567-6951; Kinderhook, Stuyvesant: Diane Ryan, 518275-9983; Livingston: Martin Palumbo, 518-929-7891; New Lebanon: Maggie Banker, 518-365-9872; Greene County: Ashland, Cairo,Hunter, Jewett, Lexington, Windham: Bruce Feml, 518-589-6155; Athens, Catskill, Coxsackie, Greenville: Sherry Vieta, 518-3229783; Durham: John Van Tassel, 518-947-0963; New Baltimore: Joe Tanner, 518703-4746; Prattsville: Jeremy Marsh, 518-299-3375 Based on Gov. Andrew

I was having my usual Telly — my trusty canine companion — sprinkle walk, toast and coffee before-the-day-starts ponder.

A little time to contemplate the events of the oncoming day or to digest the morning news is a pleasant way to start the day.

It is a good replacement for the thinking time I used to have during my daily commuting time.

It’s the best time for thinking, my brain — or what passes for it — being well-rested and kicked into action by its morning shot of caffeine. I frequently solve world problems, decide the political path for our country or design a birdhouse I’d like to build.

Many of these ideas have the potential to make me a player in the upper financial level. The Queen is unavailable to discuss the possibility of our financial improvement since she’s already left for work. Telly will listen attentively but doesn’t offer much advice, so the idea gets filed in my mental filing cabinet under the “Things I’m Gonna Do When I Get Around to It” label. I very rarely reopen that file except to insert another idea.

Since I’m not using the results of my ponders and because I’m by nature extremely generous, I thought I’d put in print the subject of this morning’s ponder. Feel free to use it

1-800-724-1012 Fax: 315-661-2520 email: classified@registerstar.com or place your classified ad online at: www.registerstar.com or www.thedailymail.net

Register-Star • The Daily Mail • Shop & Find Open Monday 8 a.m. - 5 p.m.

The global pandemic has left businesses of all types and sizes staggered by its impact on people’s lives and the economy.

Any investment or expense at this time can be a challenge and yet is necessary to bring in as much revenue as possible during these unprecedented times.

Recognizing the challenges facing each business, the Downtown Digital Group in association with the Register Star, The Daily Mail, and HudsonValley360.com is introducing A HAND UP MARKETING GRANTS for local businesses headquartered in the Register-Star and The Daily Mail’s coverage area. We know local businesses would rather have a hand up than a hand out, so in May, we’re offering a matching grant program of up to $5,000 per business for marketing solutions with the Register-Star and The Daily Mail.

To apply for A HAND UP MARKETING GRANT, go to https://www.hudsonvalley360.com/handup and fill in the required information. We will follow up with your application quickly and be back in contact with you about how we can help your business.

Together, we can get through this crisis.

All we need is the willingness to give each other A HAND UP when needed, and that time is now.

LOCAL BUSINESS HELPING LOCAL BUSINESS

CMYK

Religion/Neighbors

www.HudsonValley360.com

Saturday - Sunday, May 9-10, 2020 - A7

COLUMBIA-GREENE MEDIA

Not quite spring

Church Briefs Editor’s Note: If your church is having virtual worship or meetings on Zoom, we would be more than happy to include those on this page. Please send the pertinent information to us at editorial@registerstar. com; editorial@thedailymail. com; or schasney@registerstar.com. Thank you.

ST. PAUL’S EPISCOPAL CHURCH KINDERHOOK - St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Kinderhook offers the following services: Sunday Morning prayer with sermon at 8 a.m. Weekday Morning Prayer at 9 a.m.

Weekday Evening Prayer at 5 p.m.

Services are live streamed on Facebook at the stated times.

Videos remain on the Facebook page (“Saint Paul’s Episcopal Church, Kinderhook”), and are also uploaded to Saint Paul’s YouTube channel ( “Saint Paul’s, Kinderhook”) for later viewing.

For personal prayer, or to speak with a priest, send an email to saintpaulskinderhook@gmail.com or call 518758-6271 and leave a voice mail. Messages are retrieved frequently.

Follow the Facebook page or check out the website (www.SPECK1851.weebly. com) for news and information.

To receive the weekly

e-mail newsletter, send an e-mail to saintpaulskinderhook@gmail.com with your name and the word “Subscribe” in the subject line.

NORTH CHATHAM UNITED METHODIST CHURCH NORTH CHATHAM - Until such time as parishioners are able to gather in the sanctuary, the North Chatham United Methodist Church is worshiping via Zoom at 10 a.m. Sundays. The church is also hosting “Monday Meditations” at 7 p.m. every Monday. All are invited and the Zoom login information is on the website (northchathammethodistchurch.org). For more information on North Chatham United Methodist Church, call 518-766-3535 or visit the website.

TRI-COUNTY LUTHERAN PARISH VALATIE - The eight congregations of Tri-County Lutheran Parish would like to invite you to worship with them.

They worship at 10 a.m. every Sunday via Zoom: https:// zoom.us/j/7700997419. If you would like to receive an email with the Sunday bulletin, email the office at stlukes@ slelc.com to request a copy.

FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH HUDSON - First Presbyterian Church of Hudson offers a modified worship service broadcast weekly from the sanctuary for the duration of

the closure. Worship at the regular worship time at 10:45 a.m. The Facebook page will again host a Watch Party. To join in, visit www.facebook. com/firstpreshudson.

This will be immediately followed by an informal Fellowship Hour and Prayer Powwow at 11:30 a.m. on Zoom. Use the following credentials to come. Zoom Meeting: https://us04web.zoom. us/j/5986288602?pwd=Q0RF NVNqcVpob0xiT0pkMXpLMHdDdz09 Meeting ID: 598 628 8602 Password: 12534.

Take this opportunity to join a live-streamed worship service with one of the sister churches: Caldwell Presbyterian Church: Live streaming Sundays at 10 a.m. Visit their website for details on how to join.

First Presbyterian Church of Glens Falls: Live Streaming Sundays at 10 a.m. from their YouTube channel, FPCGF Church Mayfield Central Presbyterian Church: Live Streaming Sundays 10:30 a.m. Visit their Facebook page to watch.

Note that you do not need to have a Facebook account to watch a Facebook Live video stream.

Westminster Presbyterian Church, Albany: Live Streaming Sundays at 10 a.m. Visit their website for details on how to join.

College Corner COLGATE UNIVERSITY SELKIRK - Benjamin Gagnon of Selkirk has earned the fall 2019 Dean’s Award for Academic Excellence at Colgate University in Hamilton.

ELMIRA COLLEGE ELMIRA - Elmira College released its Dean’s List for Academic Achievement for the Winter 2020 Term. Students recognized include Krystyna Lilland of Saugerties andErin Marafioti of Coxsackie.

SUNY CANTON CANTON - SUNY Canton students received academic awards at the college’s Daniel G. Fay Honors Convocation.

For the first time in college history, Honors Convocation was held in a virtual format to correspond with stay-at-home directives used to combat COVID-19.

Area students who received awards include Ashly M. Costello, a senior in SUNY Canton’s

Finance program from Kingston and Carly R. Voerg, a senior in SUNY Canton’s Veterinary Service Administration program from Saugerties.

SUNY ONEONTA ONEONTA - A total of 218 students received the SUNY Oneonta 2019-2020 Susan Sutton Smith Award for academic excellence. To be eligible for the award, a student must be a freshman, sophomore or junior with a grade-point average of 3.9 or higher.

Daniel Ball of Saugerties, who is studying Physics and Lucas Bruce of Coxsackie, who is studying Music Industry.

ONEONTA - More than 100 SUNY Oneonta students presented projects as part of the college’s annual Student Research and Creative Activity Day. Tayler Baldwin of Coxsackie developed an original project titled “Evaluating the Effectiveness of Methods Used to Teach

the Translation of Research into Evidenced-based Practice in Undergraduate Dietetics Students” under the guidance of Emily Riddle (Human Ecology) Zachary Peterson of Coxsackie developed an original project titled “Regulation of Lipolysis by AMP-Activated Protein Kinase in Adipocytes” under the guidance of Allan Green (Chemistry & Biochemistry) ONEONTA - SUNY Oneonta is one of 28 colleges and universities featured in Billboard magazine’s 2020 list of “Top Music Business Schools.” The college currently enrolls 250 students in its music industry program, which is known for giving students uncommon opportunities and hands-on experience.

Among those enrolled are: Lucas Bruce of Coxsackie, Bachelor of Arts in Music Industry; Kale Gransbury of Selkirk, Bachelor of Arts in Music Industry.

I arrived back in New York about a week ago and I am glad to be home.

I certainly enjoy my winters in sunny Florida where I get to fish, a lot, and visit my kids and grandkids, but my home is in Conesville.

Every year I worry I will miss the arrival of spring in the Hudson Valley and after that, the arrival of spring in the Catskill Mountains, about two weeks later.

This year, I was not certain when I would be able to return, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. My Florida landlord told me I could stay there as long as I needed to. I was tempted to stay a bit longer, but May 1 is opening day of the spring turkey-hunting season, and I have not missed opening day in at least 35 years.

It turns out my concern about missing spring was totally unnecessary. Not only did I not miss spring, but as of this writing it has felt more like winter this past week than early spring, even.

The trees and shrubs in the forest surrounding my home have not yet begun to leaf out.

The shadblow tree in front of my house just bloomed yesterday and the cold temperatures, coupled with plenty of rain, has preserved the valley bloom of shrubs such as forsythia, flowering almond, Bradford pear, magnolia, quince, cherry, redbud and a host of other lovely trees and shrubs.

Spring flowering bulbs have been open for some time already, but my only spring bulbs are a clump of hyacinths that were given to me about five years ago by my friend Lionel. They were originally meant as an Easter gift to be enjoyed and then discarded. I planted the bulbs after the foliage had faded and they have come back

GARDENING TIPS

BOB

BEYFUSS every year.

If you received an Easter Lily or some other bulbous plant that was forced to bloom for the holiday, keep it in a sunny window and keep watering it until the foliage begins to yellow. By mid-May you can transplant it outside into a perennial garden and with some luck, it will bloom again for you next year.

I have noticed many overgrown clumps of daffodils and some other bulbs that are stunted and have only a few blossoms. If yours look like this, mark their location with a survey flag so you will be able to find them in the fall.

Dig them up in September, divide the clump and replant them as individual bulbs in October. In the meantime, give them some fertilizer right now, either a liquid such as Miracle Grow or even some granular fertilizer such as 5-10-5.

If your forsythia or any other spring flowering shrub has finished blooming, you can prune it back to encourage new growth and new flowers for next year. Don’t be afraid to prune pretty severely if you want to reduce the overall size. You can cut it back by a third, usually without doing any harm. My experience with forsythia is that you can prune it back almost to the ground without killing it.

This is also the optimal time to apply pre-emergent

crabgrass preventer for those of you who want to get rid of this annual weed. There are both chemical as well as organic crabgrass preventers available at your local garden center. I strongly encourage you to shop as locally as possible this year to support these small, local businesses that are struggling to survive this pandemic.

I find it ironic that the bigbox stores are all open and thriving, while the small places have been forced to close. I am happy the little supermarket where I shop is open and well stocked. If Jim’s Great American in Prattsville does not sell it, I probably don’t need it.

If we are serious about “social distancing” as a means to prevent the spread, we should have closed the bigbox stores and let the small ones stay open. According to my doctor, you are far more likely to be infected in a store with 50 or 100 people inside, than a small store where you can easily maintain a safe distance. More people mean more touching the items you are buying, as well as sharing the air with them.

I would also ask that you be kind to the city people who have already returned to their summer residences a month or more earlier than normal.

I don’t blame people from the metro areas of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut for trying to escape the disease in a far safer environment than they have to deal with. They represent little to no risk to you or your family, as long as they obey social distancing, wear a mask and observe the standard precautions.

If you were in their situation, you would do the same thing.

Reach Bob Beyfuss at rlb14@cornell.edu.

SUNY Empire State College announces cancellation of 2020 commencement ceremonies SARATOGA SPRINGS SUNY Empire State College announced that all June commencement ceremonies have been cancelled due to COVID-19-related public health precautions. SUNY Empire was slated to confer 782 associate, 3,402 bachelor’s, and 349 master’s degrees, five undergraduate certificates, and 51 graduate certificates.

SUNY Empire will not let this milestone go unacknowledged and is developing

virtual celebrations and a series of online congratulatory messages and speeches. Specifics will be announced in the coming weeks.

“Although we cannot be together with students, we will find meaningful ways to celebrate their accomplishments, and wish the class of 2020 all the best,” said SUNY Empire State College President Jim Malatras. “We share in our students’ disappointment, but the health and well-being

of our community is our primary concern.”

The following commencement ceremonies have been cancelled. SUNY Empire State College remains committed to rescheduling in the fall, but may adjust the number of ceremonies.

June 7: Rochester; June 14: Albany; June 19: New York City; June 19: Harry Van Arsdale Jr. Center for Labor Studies; June 20: Long Island.

House of Worship

News & Services Trinity United Methodist 1311 Rte. 143, Coeymans Hollow | NY 12046 • 756-2812

Pastor Paul Meador • Sunday Worship 11:00am (all are welcome) • Church School: “Faith Builders Kids Christian Education” Wednesday at 7pm • Wednesday, Bible Study & Prayer - 7-8:30pm (all are welcome) • Food Pantry, Last Saturday of the month, 10-11am and last Monday of the month, 5-6pm, or by appointment • Thrift Shop Open April 12 - Mid Oct., Thursdays 10 - 4 Saturdays 10 - 2 and when Food Pantry is open. (Handicap Accessible) • Youth Group - Grades 6 - 12 2nd and 4th Thursdays @ 6:30pm

Catholic Community of Saint Patrick 24 North Washington Street, Athens 12015 · 945-1656 66 William Street, Catskill 12414 · 943-3150

Janine O’Leary, Parish Life Coordinator Fr. L. Edward Deimeke, Sacramental Minister Saturday* 4:00 p.m. EST / 4:30 p.m. DST *1st / 3rd Athens and 2nd /; 4th Catskill Sunday 8:45 a.m. Catskill / 10:45 a.m. Athens

All Are Welcome!

New Baltimore Reformed Church 518 756 8764 • Rt. 144 and Church St. NBRChurch@aol.com • www.nbrchurch.org

Rev. Rick L. Behan, Pastor Sunday Worship - 9:30 AM Communion First Sunday every month Fellowship before and after worship Thursday - Choir Rehearsal 4:45 PM Tuesday - Bible Study 10:00 AM 2nd Sunday - Helping Hands 10:30 AM Come to the Church in the Hamlet! Working together since 1833

Church of Saint Patrick 21 Main Street, Ravena, NY 12143 • (518) 756-3145

Pastor: Fr. Scott VanDerveer Weekly Mass: 9:00 a.m. Wed & Thurs Saturday Vigil 4:30 p.m. Sunday 9:30 a.m.

Food Pantry Hours: Tues & Thurs 10-11 a.m.

Wednesday 6-7:00 p.m.

Thrift Shop Hours: Wed. 6:00-7:00 Thurs, Fri. & Sat. 1:00-3:00 p.m.

All Are Welcome!

To list your Church Services please call Patricia McKenna at (518) 828-1616 x2413

CMYK

COLUMBIA-GREENE MEDIA • THE DAILY MAIL

A8 - Saturday - Sunday, May 9-10, 2020

Virtual gardening help is available

By Thomas Christopher For Columbia-Greene Media

The onslaught of the coronavirus may have forced the Berkshire Botanical Garden to close its grounds to the public this May, but it hasn’t diminished our commitment to sharing and teaching.

Instead, the Garden’s educators are reaching out through new media. Consider, for example, the virtual helping hand that Director of Horticulture Dorthe Hviid is extending to first-time vegetable gardeners this spring.

Dorthe has been growing her own food since her childhood in Denmark and, among her many responsibilities at BBG, she has overseen the kitchen and herb gardens for the 28 years of her tenure as Director of Horticulture.

Despite her experience and expertise, Dorthe hasn’t lost her sympathy for those just starting out as gardeners. This is an especially common situation this spring; many people are using the enforced leisure of sequestration to start growing their own food for the first time. Dorthe wants to make sure that these novices have a successful introduction to her craft. To help them get off on the right foot, she has produced a series of four, 5-minute videos about the process of starting a vegetable garden, which she is sharing on Berkshire Botanical Garden’s Instagram and Facebook accounts every Wednesday, as

CONTRIBUTED PHOTO

BBG Director of Horticulture, Dorthe Hviid, teaches beginning vegetable gardeners how to start getting their hands dirty in her weekly video series on BBG’s Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube pages.

well as on their YouTube and virtual learning page, BerkshireBotanical.org/virtuallearning. These are available to the Garden’s members, of course, but also to any member of the public who cares to log on.

The first video in this series

is about choosing a suitable site for the vegetable garden and selecting and ordering seeds. The second is about preparing the soil for planting, whether you choose to grow in a raised bed or in the open ground. Third comes an introduction to starting plants

from seed, and video number four details how to transplant seedlings into the garden.

I joined Dorthe recently by phone and asked her to share with me some of the information I might find in her videos.

I found her quite eloquent on the subject of kitchen gardening, but also realistic. Among the benefits a gardener might derive from this activity is not only the actual vegetables one might harvest, but also improved physical health, from the time spent outdoors in the fresh air and from the stress relief to be had from this active form of self-expression.

It’s good for a person’s morale, she agreed, to take at least some control over their food supply.

However, Dorthe also cautioned the new gardener to be realistic about their commitment of time and energy.

Better to cultivate a small plot successfully, she pointed out, than to dig up and plant a big area only to have it be overrun by weeds. Having made this mistake myself in my beginning years as a vegetable gardener, I can testify to the wisdom of her advice; during my first, overly ambitious attempt at vegetable gardening, I harvested little besides frustration. Don’t disdain the small plot, Dorthe urged. A bed just four feet long and four feet wide is enough, she points out, to grow a couple of tomatoes, or a couple of peppers, and maybe some lettuces.

Not just any spot will do, either. To be successful, a vegetable garden needs “full sun” — that is, direct, unfiltered sunlight for 7-8 hours a day. Ideally, the spot should provide fertile soil — though Dorthe’s videos offer advice on boosting soil fertility — and it needs good drainage.

If the only sunny spot available to you happens to lie in a low spot where the soil remains persistently wet, then Dorthe recommends creating a raised bed, a patch enclosed by a 12-inch high wooden frame and filled with compost amended topsoil. Another consideration for locating the garden is that it needs to be within easy hose-dragging range of a water faucet. Irrigating a vegetable garden, especially one planted in a fast-draining raised bed, with a watering can is unlikely to provide sufficient moisture for the plants to flourish.

For the rest of Dorthe’s advice on vegetable gardening basics, I recommend you go to her online videos

at BerkshireBotanical.org/ virtual-learning or on their YouTube channel. There, novices will find all the information they need to go from seed to harvest and start their own farm-to-table endeavor.

Be-a-Better-Gardener is a community service of Berkshire Botanical Garden, located in Stockbridge, Mass. Its mission, to provide knowledge of gardening and the environment through a diverse range of classes and programs, informs and inspires thousands of students and visitors each year. Thomas Christopher is a volunteer at Berkshire Botanical Garden and is the author or co-author of more than a dozen books, including Nature into Art and The Gardens of Wave Hill (Timber Press, 2019). Be-a-Better Gardener is syndicated in 19 print and online publications, reaching 250,000 readers. Tom’s companion broadcast to this column, Growing Greener, streams on WESUFM.org, Pacifica Radio and NPR and is available at his website, https://www.thomaschristophergardens.com/podcast.

“Help us Bridge The Gap Between Hospital and Home” by joining our team at

518-943-9380 Greene Meadows Nursing and Rehabilitation Center is a 120 bed facility located in Catskill, NY (exit 19 off of the NYS Thruway). Greene Meadows has long been acknowledged as a leader in senior care along with providing a variety of other specialty services.

Great work environment. Come be part of our family!!

CMYK

Sports

SECTION

Looking ahead

COLUMBIA-GREENE MEDIA

Giants, Judge open season on Monday Night Football vs. Steelers. Sports, B2

& Classifieds

B Saturday - Sunday, May 9-10, 2020 - B1

Tim Martin, Sports Editor: 1-800-400-4496 / sports@registerstar.com or tmartin@registerstar.com

Yankees president Randy Levine is beating the drum for baseball’s return Kristie Ackert New York Daily News

TAMPA, Fla. — Calling baseball players “patriots,” Randy Levine is making the rounds to make the case for baseball in the time of the coronavirus pandemic. The Yankees president, in three interviews over the last 24 hours has been hopeful that Yankee Stadium in the Bronx — and Citi Field in Flushing — will be open with fans cheering on their teams at some point this summer.

With over a month of the MLB season now lost to the coronavirus pandemic, there are still huge hurdles to getting back to baseball. Not only do government and public health officials have to get an idea of how great the infection is in the population — requiring millions of tests to be produced and processed — but MLB has to negotiate a new pay-rate with their players.

Levine was optimistic to say the least.

“I think our players are

patriots,” he said on Good Day New York. “They want to do it. We all are trying to get there. The commissioner’s doing a great job. So hopefully in a little bit, we’ll hear, ‘Play ball!’ “ Whether or not we will hear those familiar words this summer will likely be decided in the next week or two. According to reports, the league is expected to turn over a proposal to get the game back on the field, starting with spring training in June and the regular season starting in July.

The players’ union chief Tony Clark told ESPN’s Marly Rivera this week that despite several leaked “plans” there has been no official proposal from the league yet.

MLB and union officials confirmed they had not discussed anything official as of Thursday afternoon.

“Well, there’s no official date yet,” Levine said Wednesday in another See YANKEES B6

In Spring, sleep is overrated, location, not so much PHOTO CONTRIBUTED

Ed Farley (right) of Syracuse with a nice tom he took while hunting in Albany with Frances DiDonato.

By Larry DiDonato For Columbia-Greene Media

ZHE JI/GETTY IMAGES

UFC President Dana White attends the press conference after the UFC Fight Night event at Shenzhen Universiade Sports Centre on August 31, 2019 in Shenzhen, China.

Biologists report turkey hunters took about 17,000 birds in New York during the 2019 spring season. They noted spring harvest success is often tied to breeding productivity two years prior, as hunters focus on adult gobblers that are at least two-years-old.

The cold, wet start to the 2019 breeding season meant low reproductive success and poor recruitment in many areas, but conditions were better in 2018.

DEC says, “The population gains made in 2018, combined with good overwinter

survival because of abundant food in the fall and relatively mild winter conditions this year, may offset 2019’s poor reproductive success.”

Generalizations like that can be helpful, but like politics, “all turkey hunting is local”. What you see in the fields and woods where you hunt may differ significantly from statewide reports. Just like real estate, it’s all about location.

That being said, this year’s mild winter, with a general lack of snow, and the absence of a deep crusted snowpack, definitely helped wild turkeys survive. Deep snow with a thick ice crust can be deadly

for turkeys.

It doesn’t allow them to feed on protein rich foods like acorns on the ground.

That leads to both lower quality and lower quantities of available forage. Their access to the bumper crop of both soft and hard mast this past fall and their access to them this winter certainly helped with survival.

As for this spring’s hunt, youth hunters seemed to do well and many hunters are connecting with nice longbeards during the regular season. The weather has been less than ideal, but when it has improved,

Why Dana White is staging UFC 249 amid coronavirus NFL releases a full 2020 schedule, Arash Markazi Los Angeles Times

UFC President Dana White was typically unapologetic as he prepared to travel from his home in Las Vegas to Jacksonville, Fla., for Saturday’s UFC 249 pay-perview.

“Critics have never built anything,” he said in a phone interview with the Los Angeles Times. “I really don’t care what the critics have to say.

Somebody has to be first, and it will be cool to be first and share this with our fans and people who will be watching for the first time.”

The “first” White was referring to was Saturday’s show, which will be the first live major professional sports event in the U.S. in nearly two months.

White was included last month when President Trump announced the formation of several panels designed to help reopen the economy when danger from the COVID-19 pandemic subsided. White was part of a group of league commissioners, executives and owners.

The other members have mostly kept quiet about the work, but White, who has publicly supported Trump, spoke about it. “It was great,” he said. “I thought the

president did a great job on that call. Everybody involved and all the powers-that-be had great input, great ideas and great questions.

“A lot of times, you could be involved in something like that and feel like you wasted an hour and a half of your life, but that that was not the case when I got off that call.

I was proud to be a part of it, and it was very informative and very well done.”

White said his big takeaway was that Trump wanted sports to return as soon possible. White is committed to do what he can to make it happen.

“The president’s take on it was we have to get live sports back first,” White said. “Show everybody how to do it safely.

Give people who have to stay home some entertainment so they’re not bouncing off the walls. From there, we can figure out how we get people back to work and how we get kids back to schools.

“That’s really what the president laid out to us that day on the phone and how he would like to see it happen.

I’m going first. ... hopefully after I do this, other leagues will start looking and say, ‘Yeah, we can do this.’ “ See WHITE B6

See OUTDOORS B6

with potential adjustments built in Mark Maske The Washington Post

The NFL took a hopeful step Thursday toward its goal of having a full and on-time 2020 season beginning in the fall, releasing a regular season schedule that opens with a Sept. 10 game between the Kansas City Chiefs and Houston Texans.

The schedule, announced first by individual teams and then by the league Thursday night, does appear to make allowances for the possibility the season will be disrupted by the novel coronavirus pandemic and state and local restrictions. Each NFL team is scheduled to play two home games and two road games in the season’s first four weeks, making that chunk of the schedule subject to relatively uncomplicated potential adjustments.

The league could easily cancel those four weeks of games if needed, leaving each team with six home games and six road games in a 12-game season, or move them to the end of the season, resulting in a full 16-game season with a delayed start. A person familiar

JAMIE SQUIRE/GETTY IMAGES

A general view of Arrowhead Stadium, home of the Kansas City Chiefs, in Kansas City, Mo. on April 9.

with the league’s planning had said last month the schedule was being constructed with such contingencies in mind.

The schedule does not have teams playing exclusively non-division or nonconference opponents in the season’s first few weeks, as some

observers had predicted. The 17-week, 256-game regular season concludes Jan. 3. The Super Bowl is slated for Feb. 7 in Tampa, Fla. “The plan is to move forward as normal to play a full season, a full schedule, until the medical community tells

us otherwise,” Troy Vincent, the NFL’s executive vice president of football operations, told the league-owned NFL Network during its schedulerelease show. “And that’s been our approach from Day 1 . . .

See NFL B6

CMYK

COLUMBIA-GREENE MEDIA

B2 - Saturday - Sunday, May 9-10, 2020 Davis, LAL Doncic, DAL Adams, OKC Ibaka, TOR Westbrook, HOU

Pro hockey NHL Eastern Conference Atlantic Division GP W L OT SO Pts Boston 70 44 14 5 7 100 Tampa Bay 70 43 21 5 1 92 Toronto 70 36 25 4 5 81 Florida 69 35 26 4 4 78 Montreal 71 31 31 8 1 71 Buffalo 69 30 31 6 2 68 Ottawa 71 25 34 7 5 62 Detroit 71 17 49 3 2 39 Metropolitan Division GP W L OT SO Pts Washington 69 41 20 5 3 90 Philadelphia 69 41 21 2 5 89 Pittsburgh 69 40 23 6 0 86 Carolina 68 38 25 5 0 81 Columbus 70 33 22 11 4 81 NY Islanders 68 35 23 7 3 80 NY Rangers 70 37 28 3 2 79 New Jersey 69 28 29 6 6 68 Western Conference Central Division GP W L OT SO Pts St. Louis 71 42 19 7 3 94 Colorado 70 42 20 7 1 92 Dallas 69 37 24 5 3 82 Winnipeg 71 37 28 4 2 80 Nashville 69 35 26 5 3 78 Minnesota 69 35 27 4 3 77 Chicago 70 32 30 4 4 72 Pacific Division GP W L OT SO Pts Vegas 71 39 24 6 2 86 Edmonton 71 37 25 7 2 83 Calgary 70 36 27 6 1 79 Vancouver 69 36 27 3 3 78 Arizona 70 33 29 4 4 74 Anaheim 71 29 33 8 1 67 Los Angeles 70 29 35 3 3 64 San Jose 70 29 36 4 1 63 Season suspended

GF GA 227 174 245 195 238 227 231 228 212 221 195 217 191 243 145 267 GF GA 240 215 232 196 224 196 222 193 180 187 192 193 234 222 189 230 GF GA 225 193 237 191 180 177 216 203 215 217 220 220 212 218 GF GA 227 211 225 217 210 215 228 217 195 187 187 226 178 212 182 226

NHL LEADERS Goals Alex Ovechkin, Washington David Pastrnak, Boston Auston Matthews, Toronto Leon Draisaitl, Edmonton Mika Zibanejad, NY Rangers Sebastian Aho, Carolina Kyle Connor, Winnipeg Jack Eichel, Buffalo Nathan MacKinnon, Colorado Connor McDavid, Edmonton Patrick Kane, Chicago Nikita Kucherov, Tampa Bay Max Pacioretty, Vegas Artemi Panarin, NY Rangers

GP 68 70 70 71 57 68 71 68 69 64 70 68 71 69

G 48 48 47 43 41 38 38 36 35 34 33 33 32 32

GP 71 64 69 69 70 69 69 68 70 59

A 67 63 63 60 59 58 55 52 51 51

Assists Leon Draisaitl, Edmonton Connor McDavid, Edmonton Artemi Panarin, NY Rangers John Carlson, Washington Brad Marchand, Boston Nathan MacKinnon, Colorado Jonathan Huberdeau, Florida Nikita Kucherov, Tampa Bay Patrick Kane, Chicago Mitchell Marner, Toronto

Pro basketball NBA Eastern Conference Atlantic W L Pct Toronto 46 18 .719 Boston 43 21 .672 Philadelphia 39 26 .600 Brooklyn 30 34 .469 New York 21 45 .318 Central W L Pct Milwaukee 53 12 .815 Indiana 39 26 .600 Chicago 22 43 .338 Detroit 20 46 .303 Cleveland 19 46 .292 Southeast W L Pct Miami 41 24 .631 Orlando 30 35 .462 Washington 24 40 .375 Charlotte 23 42 .354 Atlanta 20 47 .299 Western Conference Northwest W L Pct Denver 43 22 .662 Utah 41 23 .641 Oklahoma City 40 24 .625 Portland 29 37 .439 Minnesota 19 45 .297 Pacific W L Pct L.A. Lakers 49 14 .778 L.A. Clippers 44 20 .688 Sacramento 28 36 .438 Phoenix 26 39 .400 Golden State 15 50 .231 Southwest W L Pct Houston 40 24 .625 Dallas 40 27 .597 Memphis 32 33 .492 New Orleans 28 36 .438 San Antonio 27 36 .429 Season suspended

GB — 3.0 7.5 16.0 26.0 GB — 14.0 31.0 33.5 34.0 GB — 11.0 16.5 18.0 22.0 GB — 1.5 2.5 14.5 23.5 GB — 5.5 21.5 24.0 35.0 GB — 1.5 8.5 12.0 12.5

NBA LEADERS Scoring average G FG PTS AVG Harden, HOU 61 603 2096 34.4 Beal, WAS 57 593 1741 30.5 Anttkounmpo, MIL 57 623 1690 29.6 Young, ATL 60 546 1778 29.6 Lillard, POR 58 531 1677 28.9 Doncic, DAL 54 512 1549 28.7 Westbrook, HOU 53 568 1456 27.5 Leonard, LAC 51 476 1370 26.9 Davis, LAL 55 508 1467 26.7 Booker, PHX 62 544 1619 26.1 James, LAL 60 586 1544 25.7 LaVine, CHI 60 539 1530 25.5 Mitchell, UTA 64 560 1525 23.8 Ingram, NOR 57 469 1358 23.8 Siakam, TOR 53 459 1253 23.6 Tatum, BOS 59 499 1390 23.6 McCollum, POR 62 549 1395 22.5 DeRozan, SAN 61 503 1352 22.2 Wiggins, GOL 54 437 1175 21.8 Walker, BOS 50 350 1060 21.2 Middleton, MIL 55 424 1159 21.1 Sexton, CLE 65 513 1349 20.8 Dinwiddie, BKLYN 64 424 1318 20.6 Brown, BOS 50 378 1022 20.4 Rebounds per game G OFF DEF TOTAVG Drummond, CLE 57 250 614 864 15.2 Whiteside, POR 61 244 625 869 14.2 Antetokounmpo, MIL 57 130 653 783 13.7 Gobert, UTA 62 211 639 850 13.7 Sabonis, IND 62 189 582 771 12.4 Valanciunas, MEM 62 190 506 696 11.2 Vucevic, ORL 54 130 466 596 11.0 Adebayo, MIA 65 165 518 683 10.5 Jokic, DEN 65 155 508 663 10.2 Thompson, CLE 57 226 351 577 10.1 Jordan, BKLYN 56 141 420 561 10.0 Love, CLE 56 54 493 547 9.8 Randle, NYK 64 151 471 622 9.7 Porzingis, DAL 51 89 394 483 9.5 Allen, BKLYN 64 195 410 605 9.5

55 54 59 50 53

124 69 196 104 94

393 433 347 310 332

517 502 543 414 426

9.4 9.3 9.2 8.3 8.0

Transactions COLLEGE FOOTBALL Massachusetts - Announced WR Brennon Dingle has left the program and will transfer to UTSA as a graduate.

South Carolina - Announced OL Summie Carlay has left the program and will transfer to The Citadel as a graduate.

Southern California - Named Jacob Brown director of football video production.

Southern California - Named Will Stout assistant director of football video production.

PRO FOOTBALL National Football League Baltimore Ravens - Signed RB J.K. Dobbins to a four-year contract. Signed G Evan Adams and DT Aaron Crawford.

Buffalo Bills - Signed DB Dane Jackson to a fouryear contract. Signed K Tyler Bass to a four-year contract. Signed WR Isaiah Hodgins to a one-year contract. Signed T Trey Adams, RB Reggie Gilliam, DB Josh Thomas, RB Antonio Williams, and DB Isaiah Brown.

Dallas Cowboys - Signed T Cam Erving to a oneyear contract.

Las Vegas Raiders - Signed K Dominik Eberle, WR Siaosi Mariner, and DT Mike Panasiuk. Waived C Kyle Kalis.

Miami Dolphins - Signed DE Jason Strowbridge to a four-year contract.

New England Patriots - Signed T Justin Herron to a four-year contract. Signed LB Cassh Maluia and K Justin Rohrwasser to a four-year contract.

Signed LB Josh Uche to a four-year, $5.39 million contract.

New Orleans Saints - Re-signed WR Austin Carr to a one-year contract.

New York Giants - Signed LB Tae Crowder to a four-year contract.

Tennessee Titans - Signed C Aaron Brewer, LB Cale Garrett, TE Tommy Hudson, LB Khaylan Kearse-Thomas, K Tucker McCann, T Anthony McKinney, RB Cameron Scarlett, DT Kobe Smith, DT Teair Tart, WR Nick Westbrook, WR Kristian Wilkerson, and WR Kyle Williams.

Auto racing MONSTER ENERGY CUP Through March 9 1. Kevin Harvick, 164 points 2. Joey Logano, 163 3. Chase Elliott, 144 4. Alex Bowman, 138 5. Jimmie Johnson, 131 6. Ryan Blaney, 123 7. Kyle Larson, 121 8. Aric Almirola, 121 9. Matt DiBenedetto, 118 10. Brad Keselowski, 118 11. Denny Hamlin, 111 12. Kyle Busch, 111 13. Clint Bowyer, 105 14. Chris Buescher, 102 15. Martin Truex Jr., 96 16. Kurt Busch, 90 17. Ricky Stenhouse Jr., 88 18. Darrell Wallace Jr., 87 19. William Byron, 87 20. Austin Dillon, 77 21. Erik Jones, 77 22. Cole Custer, 73 23. Corey LaJoie, 68 24. Ty Dillon, 68 25. Tyler Reddick, 68 26. John Hunter Nemechek, 63 27. Michael McDowell, 60 28. Brennan Poole, 40 29. Ryan Newman, 36 30. David Ragan, 33 31. Daniel Suarez, 32 32. Christopher Bell, 26 33. Ryan Preece, 25 34. Reed Sorenson, 17 35. Quin Houff, 11 36. Garrett Smithley, 7

XFINITY SERIES POINTS LEADERS Through March 9 1. Harrison Burton, 176 points 2. Chase Briscoe, 173 3. Austin Cindric, 155 4. Brandon Jones, 148 5. Ross Chastain, 146 6. Noah Gragson, 143 7. Ryan Sieg, 143 8. Justin Haley, 140 9. Justin Allgaier, 138 10. Michael Annett, 119 11. Riley Herbst, 109 12. Brandon Brown, 91 13. Alex Labbe, 87 14. Josh Williams, 83 15. Myatt Snider, 79 16. Ray Black II, 76 17. Jesse Little, 66 18. Vinnie Miller, 64 19. Chad Finchum, 63 20. David Starr, 59 21. BJ McLeod, 58 22. Daniel Hemric, 54 23. JJ Yeley, 52 24. Robby Lyons, 48 25. Jeremy Clements, 44 26. Tommy Joe Martins, 33 27. Jeb Burton, 32 28. Anthony Alfredo, 31 29. Joe Graf Jr, 30 30. Matt Mills, 28

Pat Leonard New York Daily News

NEW YORK — The coronavirus pandemic did not stop the NFL from scheduling a Giants home game in Week 1 of the 2020 NFL season. On the contrary, it pushed Big Blue into prime time against the Pittsburgh Steelers in their first Monday Night Football home opener since 1995.

Tom Brady’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers also will make a Monday night Week 8 visit to MetLife Stadium, marking the first time in the 51-year history of Monday Night Football the Giants will host two Monday games in the same season.

And a late-season revenge visit from Odell Beckham Jr. and the Cleveland Browns helps to cap off a challenging schedule awaiting first-year head coach Joe Judge.

“I’ll tell you what, when you get the schedule, it definitely does give you a little surge of energy,” Judge said Thursday night.

“The number one positive is we’re getting ready to play football, so that’s the biggest thing.”

The NFL’s contingency plan if it cannot start the regular season on time is simply to move the early weeks of the schedule onto the back end after its Week 17 slate. Any week could serve as the opening week.

Every team shares the same bye week as their Week 2 opponent. And the Super Bowl (Feb. 7) could be pushed back if necessary. But for the time being, the NFL is proceeding as if everything is on schedule, though obviously the preseason in August is no guarantee.

Judge’s head coaching debut against the Steelers will be the Giants’ first Monday night season opener since 2014, when they lost, 35-14, to the Lions in Detroit. But the date every national

TREVOR RUSZKOWSKI/USA TODAY

New York Giants head coach Joe Judge speaks to the media during the 2020 NFL Combine in the Indianapolis Convention Center on Feb. 25.

media outlet will have circled on their calendars is Nov. 2, when the Giants will come off an 11day break to host Brady’s new bunch.

“I think we’ll be very aware of Tom being on the other team,” said Judge, who spent the last eight seasons coaching the Patriots’ special teams. “At that point of the year, I’m sure everyone is going to get used to him wearing a different color jersey.

I’m in a different jersey myself.

We’re more conscious of the opponents we’ll be playing. The Buccaneers have a very good defense, they have tons of receivers, tons of weapons, and they made some great additions in the offseason with Tom and Rob (Gronkowski). Seeing those guys over there, no matter where our paths may have crossed in the past, all that’s going to matter is that Monday night.”

Most intriguing game: Week 8, vs. Buccaneers on Monday Night Football Brady’s trademarked new “Tompa Bay” NFL dream team arrives with Gronkowski, Mike Evans and Chris Godwin in tow.

And Eli Manning isn’t around anymore to knock off Brady in the big games. Daniel Jones unforgettably won his NFL debut last season at Tampa Bay, but he is 0-1 head-to-head against Brady after last season’s turnover-filled loss in Foxborough.

He’ll seek revenge in this primetime matchup that promises to draw a gazillion eyeballs.

Toughest stretch: Week 3-8 The back end of the Giants’ schedule isn’t friendly, either, with a Week 13 trip to Seattle and a Week 17 visit from Dallas bookending home face-offs with the Cardinals and Browns and a trip to Baltimore. But the Giants will be fortunate if they reach that point in one piece: they host the reigning NFC Champion 49ers in Week 3, Washington in Week 6 and the Bucs in Week 8, and interspersed are trips to Los Angeles for the Rams (Week 4), to Dallas (Week 5) and to Philly in prime time (Week 7). The Giants have lost their last seven to the Eagles and their last six to Dallas.

Easiest stretch: Weeks 9-12 At Washington. Vs. Eagles. Bye week. And a trip to Cincinnati to

face Joe Burrow. Not easy by any stretch, but a breather compared to the rest of the slate. They’re 3-2 in their last five against Washington, the only division opponent they’ve been able to beat.

Here’s the full 2020 Giants schedule: Week 1: (Sept. 14) vs. Steelers on Monday Night Football, 7:15 p.m.

Week 2: (Sept. 20) at Bears, 1 p.m.

Week 3: (Sept. 27) vs. Niners, 1 p.m.

Week 4: (Oct. 4) at L.A. Rams, 4:05 p.m.

Week 5: (Oct. 11) at Cowboys, 4:25 p.m.

Week 6: (Oct. 18) vs. Washington, 1 p.m.

Week 7: (Oct. 22) at Eagles on Thursday Night Football, 8:20 p.m.

Week 8: (Nov. 2) vs. Buccaneers on Monday Night Football, 8:15 p.m.

Week 9: (Nov. 8) at Washington, 1 p.m.

Week 10: (Nov. 15) vs. Eagles, 1 p.m.

Week 11: BYE Week 12: (Nov. 29) at Bengals, 1 p.m.

Week 13: (Dec. 6) at Seahawks, 4:05 p.m.

Week 14: (Dec. 13) vs. Cardinals, 1 p.m.

Week 15: (Dec. 20) vs. Browns, 1 p.m.

Week 16: (Dec. 27) at Ravens, 1 p.m.

Week 17: (Jan. 3) vs. Cowboys, 1 p.m.

Preseason Schedule Week 1: (Aug. 13-17) at Jets, TBD Week 2: (Aug. 20-24) at Titans, TBD Week 3: (Aug. 27-30) vs. Packers, TBD Week 4: (Sep. 3-4) vs. Patriots, TBD

Here’s the 2020 Jets regular season schedule Manish Mehta NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Golf PGA TOUR FedEx Cup Points Leaders Through March 9 Trn 1. Justin Thomas 8 2. Sung-jae Im 14 3. Brendon Todd 14 4. Webb Simpson 5 5. Marc Leishman 9 6. Lanto Griffin 16 7. Sebastian Munoz 15 8. Patrick Reed 8 9. Kevin Na 12 10. Hideki Matsuyama 11 11. Cameron Smith 10 12. Cameron Champ 11 13. Bryson DeChambeau 7 14. Joaquin Niemann 12 15. Nick Taylor 12 16. Scottie Scheffler 13 17. Tyrrell Hatton 4 18. Tom Hoge 13 19. Harris English 11 20. Rory McIlroy 6 21. Adam Scott 7 22. Carlos Ortiz 13 23. Byeong-Hun An 13 24. Tyler Duncan 15 25. Tiger Woods 3 26. Patrick Cantlay 5 27. Andrew Landry 12 28. Adam Long 15 29. Danny Lee 12 30. Mark Hubbard 14 31. Tony Finau 9 32. Gary Woodland 8 33. Abraham Ancer 11

Giants, Judge open season on Monday Night Football vs. Steelers

Points 1,403 1,390 1,116 1,083 1,059 1,042 1,006 996 842 807 782 728 721 705 699 693 691 656 630 630 617 598 594 592 571 561 560 555 552 538 532 507 505

NEW YORK — The Jets will spend plenty of time on airplanes this season after logging a franchise-low 6,688 air miles last season.

The Jets will have the second toughest strength of schedule in 2020 behind only the Patriots based on opponents’ winning percentage last season. Adam Gase’s club had the fifth-easiest schedule last year based on opponents’ final winning percentage.

The Jets will host two primetime games (Thursday night against the Broncos in Week 4 and Monday night against the Patriots in Week 9). They will play seven games against teams that made the playoffs last year (and eight against teams with winning records), including both Super Bowl LIV participants. On the bright side, Gang Green is finally be free of Tom Brady. The expanded playoff format also gives hope that the Jets could break their nine-year playoff drought.

Most intriguing game: Week 1 at the Bills This will be an early litmus test for the new-look Jets, who will have to go through Buffalo now in the Tom Brady-less AFC East. Sean McDermott, coming

off a 10-win campaign and playoff berth, has the most complete roster in the division. A win against the division favorites could springboard Sam Darnold & Co. The Jets return to Orchard Park for the first time since they won a de facto preseason game in Week 17. McDermott won’t be playing his second- and thirdteamers this time.

Adam Gase will have payback on his mind after his team squandered a two-touchdown, fourthquarter lead in last year’s season opener to the Bills.

Toughest stretch: Weeks 14-17 The schedule makers certainly didn’t make it easy for Gase’s club down the stretch. The Jets play three of the final four games on the road against three teams with winning records last season.

The final quarter of the season appears to be the most daunting right now, but things have a way of changing year to year.

Douglas was with the Eagles in 2017 when Philly did the exact same thing between road games against the Seahawks and Rams.

The Eagles practiced at the Angels baseball stadium in Anaheim during the week after flying down from Seattle. The Eagles lost starting quarterback (and MVP candidate) Carson Wentz against the Rams, but wound up

winning the Super Bowl that season.

Gang Green will host the Browns in Week 16 before traveling to Foxborough for the finale.

The Jets have lost eight in a row against Bill Belichick entering this season.

Easiest stretch: Weeks 9-12 The Jets will host the Patriots on Monday Night Football in Week 9 before facing the Dolphins twice in a three-week span. They’ll have a bye between the Miami games. This will give Gase’s club a chance to re-charge for what looks like a daunting final month of the season.

Complete 2020 Jets schedule: Week 1: (Sept. 13) at Bills, 1 pm Week 2: (Sept. 20) vs. 49ers, 1 pm Week 3: (Sept. 27) at Colts, 4 pm Week 4: (Oct. 1) Thursday

night at Broncos, 8:20 pm Week 5: (Oct. 11) vs. Cardinals, 1 pm Week 6: (Oct. 18) at Chargers, 4 pm Week 7: (Oct. 25) vs. Bills, 1 pm Week 8: (Nov. 1) at Chiefs, 1 pm Week 9: (Nov. 9), vs. Patriots, Monday Night Football, 8:15 pm Week 10: (Nov. 15) at Dolphins, 4 pm Week 11: BYE Week 12: (Nov. 29) vs. Dolphins, 1 pm Week 13: (Dec. 6) vs. Raiders, 1pm Week 14: (Dec. 13) at Seahawks, 4 pm Week 15: (Dec 19 or 20) at Los Angeles Rams, TBD Week 16: (Dec. 26 or 27) vs.

Browns, TBD Week 17: (Jan. 3) at Patriots, 1 pm

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Ravens’ Earl Thomas held at gunpoint by wife after alleged affair Jonas Shaffer and Jessica Anderson The Baltimore Sun

BALTIMORE — Ravens safety Earl Thomas III was held at gunpoint by his wife last month after she allegedly caught him cheating on her, according to charging documents obtained by The Baltimore Sun. After arriving at a rental home in Austin, Texas, and finding Thomas in bed with another woman, Nina Thomas told police she held his pistol to his head, documents said. Nina said she did not think that the gun could fire, as she’d taken out the magazine. But police said the 9 mm Beretta was still loaded with one round in the chamber.

Another woman at the home later told police that she heard Earl say, “Put the gun down.” A female voice responded, “The safety is off. If you come any closer, I’ll shoot you.” Video of the incident showed Nina pointing the gun at Earl’s head in the hallway from less than a foot away, with the safety disengaged and her finger on the trigger, police wrote.

According to the charging documents, the video shows Earl flinch, duck his head and wrestle the gun away from her. The video later shows ABBIE PARR/GETTY IMAGES Nina strike Earl in the nose before it ends, police Free safety Earl Thomas of the Baltimore Ravens prior to their game against the the Seattle said.

Seahawks at CenturyLink Field on October 20, 2019 in Seattle, Washington.

The woman Earl was with at the rental home told police that Nina also threatened her and the The Austin Police Department responded to weapon. Nina was released on $25,000 bond and other woman who was there with Earl’s brother, the incident about 3:41 a.m. April 13, according issued an emergency protective order that reSeth. She pointed the gun at them and yelled, “I to the charging documents. Police found Nina, quired her to stay 200 yards away from Earl and got something for all you hoes.” Police said the with a knife in her hand, chasing Earl, who was his alleged lover, according to the charging docuwoman told her that one of the two women Nina shirtless and had a pistol in his hand, around a ments. Earl was not arrested. arrived with swung a knife during the altercation, car. When cops drew their weapons and ordered A Ravens spokesperson said Thursday that the “as if to keep her at bay.” them to the ground, they reportedly complied team “became aware of the situation when we The woman who was with Earl told police she without incident. read and saw it on the reports late last night and had been in a romantic relationship with him for Nina and two other women were charged with early this morning.” about two months and that Earl had said he was burglary of a residence, records show. Nina was Nina’s attorney, Jonathan Goins, said in a regetting a divorce, according to the charging docu- also charged with burglary of a residence with in- lease Wednesday that she had been wrongfully tent to commit aggravated assault with a deadly arrested. Goins said they had already gathered ments.

information that “controverts every single allegation made on the night in question” and that they were cooperating with the Travis County district attorney’s office.

Nina told police she’d discovered the alleged extramarital affair by logging into his Snapchat account after an argument and finding video of Earl with another woman. She then used his Snapchat account to track his location to the nearby rental home. According to the charging documents, she brought the two women with her and his pistol to scare him.

When the women arrived, they said they discovered Earl and his brother in bed with women in separate rooms.

In an Instagram video posted about an hour before TMZ first reported the incident, Earl said his agent had told him the outlet would soon report on an “altercation that happened with me and Nina.”

“I mean, it’s really not anybody’s business,” he said in the video. “It pisses me off that it got out, but it’s the world we live in today. But instead of talking about us, just keep us in your prayers.

Stuff like this happens. You try to live the best life you possibly can, but sometimes it don’t go as planned. Just pray for us as we go through this stuff. We’re back talking. I’m seeing my kids. Just keep us in your prayers.”

Earl and Nina were married in 2016 and have three children.

Thomas, 31, is coming off a strong bounceback season in Baltimore. He was named to his seventh Pro Bowl in his first year with the Ravens, starting all but one game after an injurymarred previous three seasons with the Seattle Seahawks. He signed a four-year, $55 million deal with $32 million guaranteed with the Ravens in 2019 after spending the first nine seasons of his career in Seattle.

Take 5: NFL can’t-miss games of 2020 David DeChant Field Level Media

Normally, the NFL’s schedule release is like Christmas morning — except, after unwrapping all of your gifts, you have to stare at them for four months before opening anything.

This year is different.

This year, the gifts unwrapped Thursday might never actually be opened at all, with the unknown of the coronavirus pandemic requiring a series of contingency plans.

But let’s assume for this exercise the NFL schedule goes ahead as planned. If so, these are the games you absolutely can’t miss.

1. Kansas City Chiefs at Baltimore Ravens – Monday, Sept.

28, 8:15 p.m. ET (ESPN) On paper, this is 2020’s best matchup, headlined by the last two league MVPs (and Madden cover athletes), who many expected to meet in last year’s AFC Championship Game.

It’s too early to declare Patrick Mahomes vs. Lamar Jackson the new-age version of

Peyton Manning vs. Tom Brady, but it sure feels like it’s headed that way. This will be the third installment of a matchup that we can only hope to see at least 10 more times.

Mahomes and the Chiefs have won the first two meetings with Jackson and the Ravens, but both were in Kansas City and decided by five or fewer points, with one requiring overtime.

The latter contest, a 27-24 final in Week 14 of 2018, featured one of the most fascinating schematic battles in recent memory. Ravens defensive coordinator Wink Martindale threw haymakers all day to frustrate Mahomes, only for the wunderkind to foil the plan with a few spectacular off-schedule plays (remember his 48-yard heave to Tyreek Hill on fourthand-9?).

The other side of the ball is also intriguing, as Baltimore’s greatest strength (the run game) lines up with a perpetual Kansas City weakness (run defense). The Chiefs are known for overcoming deficits, but the

Ravens are built to salt games away.

No matter how this plays out, it should be spectacular.

2. San Francisco 49ers at New Orleans Saints – Nov. 15, 4:25 p.m. ET Much like the Chiefs and Ravens, this was a possible conference championship last season that went awry with a surprise upset, as the Saints lost at home in the wild-card round to Minnesota.

Of course, the 49ers avoided the wild-card round in part thanks to a thrilling win at New Orleans in December, a 48-46 thriller highlighted by George Kittle’s rampage through four poor Saints defenders to set up the game-winning field goal.

The 49ers have restocked well to fill their few holes this offseason, while the Saints’ roster might be the NFL’s best.

Head coaches Kyle Shanahan and Sean Payton might be the league’s two best play-callers (a major reason why last year’s meeting brought so many fireworks).

This matchup also appeals to

those who love trench warfare.

The 49ers’ defensive line is one of the NFL’s best, but the Saints’ O-line might be THE best. The matchup on the other side of the ball has plenty of fireworks, too, with a deep Saints D-line highlighted by Cameron Jordan facing a Niners O-line that just added Trent Williams.

3. Green Bay Packers at Tampa Bay Buccaneers – Oct. 10, 4:25 p.m. ET Despite a combined 35 seasons of NFL experience, Aaron Rodgers and Tom Brady have faced off just twice as starters, splitting meetings in 2014 (Packers home win) and 2018 (Patriots home win). Rodgers was backing up Brett Favre in 2006, then injured in 2010.

Rodgers and Brady nearly met in two Super Bowls, but a Packers collapse in Seattle thwarted a Super Bowl XLIX appearance, and Green Bay couldn’t get by Atlanta in the conference title game two years later.

Barring injury, this will be the third meeting, so be sure to savor it. With Brady now in the

NFC, it’s possible these two will play another time or two, but nothing is guaranteed.

The matchup is also intriguing on both sides of the ball.

Brady is more susceptible to pressure than ever, and the Packers have the disruptive forces – Za’Darius Smith, Preston Smith and Kenny Clark especially – to wreak havoc.

On the other side, Matt LaFleur seems increasingly focused on building around the running game, but the Packers might have a hard time against Vita Vea and Ndamukong Suh, putting more pressure on Rodgers to sling it.

4. Cleveland Browns at Pittsburgh Steelers – Oct. 18, 1 p.m.

ET Barring an injury to Ben Roethlisberger, Mason Rudolph won’t be playing, but Myles Garrett very likely will be. The NFL and its referees will surely be watching closely for foul play, but the dynamic should nonetheless be fascinating in Garrett’s first action against the Steelers since the helmetswinging incident.

While the Ravens hold pole position, both the Browns and Steelers are talented enough to win the AFC North, which might be the best division in football. If Cleveland’s offensive line clicks, it might have a top-five offense. With a healthy Roethlisberger and an elite defense, Pittsburgh has few holes.

5. San Francisco 49ers at New England Patriots – Oct. 25, 4:25 p.m. ET This one certainly won’t lack storylines.

Jimmy Garoppolo has yet to face Tom Brady, and he won’t this year – at least in the regular season – and perhaps not ever (the 49ers and Bucs aren’t guaranteed to meet until 2022).

But we will see Garoppolo face former coach Bill Belichick, who will apparently lean on Jarrett Stidham as Brady’s successor – the job that Belichick once meant to be Jimmy G’s. Belichick, of course, sent Garoppolo to San Francisco for a secondround pick in 2017, reportedly in part due to his respect for Kyle Shanahan.

Woods, Mickelson, Brady, Manning match to raise $10M Field Level Media

The previously announced exhibition golf match featuring Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and football icons Tom Brady and Peyton Manning will be held May 24 and raise $10 million for coronavirus relief.

Turner Sports announced the donation on Thursday along with scheduling details for “The Match: Champions for Charity.”

The four will tee off that day at 3 p.m. ET at the Medalist Golf Club in Hobe Sound, Fla., where Woods is a member, without fans in attendance. WarnerMedia and the participants will join to make the multimillion-dollar donation to benefit COVID-19 relief.

Funds will be given to

organizations that are providing supplies to health workers, collecting plasma for COVID-19 treatment, helping small businesses survive during the pandemic and feeding those in need.

Woods, Mickelson, Brady and Manning also are taking part in the ALL IN Challenge, in which celebrities are donating experiences to be sold. During the telecast, viewers can bid on the experiences featuring the pro golfers.

The match will be simulcast on TNT, TBS, truTV and HLN. “The COVID-19 pandemic has caused unimaginable tragedy and heartbreak,” said Jeff Zucker, chairman of WarnerMedia news and sports. “We’re hopeful this event and platform

will help raise meaningful funding for COVID-19 relief, while also providing a source of brief distraction and entertainment for all sports fans.”

Mickelson and Brady will team up against Woods and Manning. Manning pointed out in a video chat with Ernie Johnson of Turner Sports that he and

his partner have a combined 17 titles - Super Bowl and majors to 11 for Brady and Mickelson.

They also engaged in some good-natured trash talk.

Mickelson won The Match against Woods in November 2018 and made sure Woods could see the trophy in the background. Woods responded

by draping his green jacket won at The Masters over him.

“I’m a little chilly,” Woods said.

And Manning said he would have rather played against Brady, who recently signed a two-year, $50 million contract with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, outside Brady’s home

state.

“I’ll be honest — I’ve never played Tom very well on his home turf,” adding, in jest, he knew he had to go to him because he wasn’t sure Brady would be allowed to leave the state after his recent reprimand for working out in a Tampa park closed by the pandemic.

CMYK

COLUMBIA-GREENE MEDIA

B4 - Saturday - Sunday, May 9-10, 2020

The first commercial jigsaw puzzle was created by John Spilsbury, a London cartographer and engraver, around 1760.

The largest jigsaw puzzle in the world was 58,435 square feet and had 21,600 pieces. It was assembled on Nov. 3, 2002, in Hong Kong by 777 people.

Jigsaw puzzle pieces were first used as a symbol for autism in 1963, because of the “puzzling” nature of autism and the inability to “fit in.”

Wikipedia/Pexels photos

Why solving puzzles feels so satisfying, especially during a quarantine insight while doing various types of puzzles. “It turns out that 92% of the time we have an insight, For many long minutes, the orange glazed we’re likely to be correct.” doughnut wouldn’t come together. It wasn’t a A GIANT STEP FOR HUMANKIND: real doughnut, but a jigsaw puzzle on my kitchen The elation is also important on a broader scale. table, and no matter how I configured the pieces, “I think it was a very smart move that Mother Nathey refused to connect. Then — aha! — I saw the ture did by linking the generation of new ideas solution. I rearranged once again, and the doughand reward,” says Salvi. “Every time something is nut took shape. What a rush! rewarding, we tend to want to do it more.”

During these days of quarantine, solving things And the more we think creatively, the more hu— whether jigsaw puzzles, crosswords, sudokus manity moves ahead.

Insight, Oh says, stimulates or murder mysteries — is one of the ways many of “curiosity and exploration and the production of us are amusing ourselves. These activities can be new ideas that induce the advancement of all aschallenging, brain-aching and time-consuming, pects of human society, including science, techbut we relish them anyway. Why? nology and culture. It has evolutionary advanHERE, WE EXPLORE THE AHA! tage.”

That eureka moment: Marcel Danesi is a professor of semiotics (the Moments of insight — the ones that make you study of signs and symbols) and anthropology at cry out (mentally, if not verbally) — occur when the University of Toronto and author of several new ideas suddenly emerge into your awareness. books on puzzles. Solving puzzles seems to be in(This contrasts with step-by-step analytical think- stinctive both to individuals — ask a child why a ing, which uses conscious, deliberate thought.) chicken crosses the road, and he or she will immeAn instant ago, you didn’t know the solution to diately try to figure it out — and cultures. “When a problem. A flash-second later, you do. It could cultures become conscious of themselves, the be where that puzzle piece goes, what word that first things they resort to are things like riddles,” anagram spells, which person is the villain in your he says. The ancient Greeks and Romans loved novel or what strategy you should use to slam your challenging their minds in this way, and an exopponent in a board game. pression equivalent to aha! appears in an ancient “This is a moment that triggers a lot of excite- Egyptian manuscript. ment. But why do we need so much drama?” asks He says that puzzling ideas tend to spread beCarola Salvi, a research scientist at the University tween people, even over great distances. Consider of Texas at Austin. She offers an answer: Having this brain-stumper, which has many variations: A an insight involves the brain’s reward system, traveler arrives at a riverbank with a goat, a head “which is the same system that responds to food of cabbage and a wolf. The boat there can only and to other basic pleasures.” carry the traveler and one other across at a time.

A recent study out of Philadelphia’s Drexel UniIf the traveler leaves the goat and wolf alone on versity provides some evidence. Thirty students either bank, the wolf will eat the goat. If the goat solved anagrams while researchers used electroremains with the cabbage, the cabbage will also encephalography (EEG) to record their brain acmeet its end. So how can they all cross safely?* tivity. Very soon after activity in the right middle To solve a puzzle like this, someone may start a frontal gyrus, located near the forehead, indicatflow chart or diagram. “Once you start doing this, ed a moment of insight, activity then occurred in you’re developing a science,” he says. “It leads to the orbitofrontal cortex, above the eye, which is logic. This has occurred over and over in the hisresponsible for processing rewards. Co-author Yongtaek Oh, a doctoral candidate in psychology tory of puzzles.”

By GALADRIEL WATSON Washington Post

at the university’s Creativity Research Lab, says, ORDER AND ESCAPE: “Generally, such activity is associated with ‘wantOf course, the greater good is probably not why ing’ and ‘liking.’” we’re so keen on jigsaws, mysteries and other insight-giving activities in times like pandemics.

A SOURCE OF REWARDS, MORE OR LESS: However, not everyone in the study activated “Puzzles give psychological order to the chaos the rewards region equally. That’s because some we feel,” Danesi says. “When you come out of it, people are naturally more sensitive to rewards when you’ve solved the puzzle, then life seems to than others. If you’re highly sensitive to rewards, work better. I’ve had anecdotes throughout my it appears your enjoyment of the aha! is greater. life and experiences where, as people do puzzles, If your sensitivity is low, your enjoyment seems they seem to come out better in terms of mental health.” more muted.

Salvi warns that pressures such as anxiety — “There are certain personality types that are which is an issue for many of us right now — revery, very reward-oriented,” says Salvi, who was duce our ability to achieve moments of insight. So not involved in this study. “This depends on the does a lack of time — which may not currently be balance of the neurotransmitter called dopamine the case.

“I do think that, for some people, solving in the brain.” problems might be a very, very nice way to feel These differences in sensitivity also explain why momentarily rewarded and put your mind away some people gorge on too much food, take drugs from the news,” she says.

“It’s a way to escape reor gamble: These experiences trigger the same ality.” system. So could puzzling and other insight-inLittle pleasures should be cherished these days ducing home activities also be addictive? Oh says — and getting a spark of excitement while seeking that research-wise, it’s too soon to know. them can make them even better. “When you get However, he and his teammates did make anthat feeling,” Danesi says, “you feel really damn other interesting discovery. While their brains good about yourself.” were working to find the solution, people with Which is why — mystery novel waiting on my high reward sensitivity registered less activity in coffee table and doughnuts done — I’m now emthe reward area than others. Oh says, “This may barking on my fifth puzzle this pandemic. As a mean that highly reward-sensitive individuals joy-boosting bonus, this one’s embellished with don’t enjoy working on the problem as much as pretty gold foil. people who are low in reward sensitivity, but they enjoy solving it with an aha! more.”

NOTE: To get the wolf, goat and cabbage across A PUSH IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION: the river safely, the traveler should follow these The brief buzz creates other benefits. “We also steps: think that it motivates people and gives you en1. Cross with the goat, leave it on the far side ergy for wanting to actually do that idea that came and return to the original riverbank alone. to your mind,” says Salvi. While placing a jigsaw 2. Cross with the wolf, leave it on the far side puzzle piece doesn’t take much oomph, launch- and return to the original riverbank with the goat. ing into a new artistic endeavor or putting an en3. Leave the goat on the original riverbank, gineering design into action does. That rush of cross with the cabbage and leave the cabbage with pleasure could help facilitate this. the wolf.

But is it a good idea to move ahead with a solu4. Return and get the goat. tion that popped out of nowhere? Salvi says yes.

She was first author on a study that involved more Watson is a freelance writer and author of books for than 225 participants at universities in the Unit- kids, including “Running Wild” and “Extreme Abilied States and Italy who experienced moments of ties.”

The greatest number of pieces in a jigsaw puzzle was 551,232 and was assembled on Sept. 25, 2011, in Vietnam, by students of the University of Economics, Ho Chi Minh City.

The greatest number of pieces in a jigsaw puzzle was 551,232 and was assembled on Sept. 25, 2011, in Vietnam, by students of the University of Economics, Ho Chi Minh City.

The most expensive puzzle ever sold was bought for $27,000 in 2005 at a charitable auction for The Golden Retriever Foundation.

Facts from Wikipedia.com

CMYK

Saturday - Sunday, May 9-10, 2020 - B5

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NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVE, that the annual meeting of the qualified voters of the Taconic Hills Central NOTICE ANNUAL SCHOOL DISTRICT BUDGET HEARING AND VOTE Notice is hereby given that inhabitants of the Greenville Central School District qualified to vote at the School Meeting in said District will vote on all business by absentee ballot, as per New York State Governor’s Executive Order 202.26. The school will be mailing absentee ballots through the US Postal Service to every registered voter in the District on May 18, 2020. If you do not receive a ballot and are a qualified voter who has registered, you may obtain an absentee ballot by emailing Daphane Pearson at pearsond@greenvillecsd.org. The date of the 2020-2021 Budget Vote and Board of Election is June 9, 2020 and absentee ballots are due by 5:00 PM on this date.

Notice is hereby given that the Annual Budget Hearing will take place online using YouTube on Thursday, May 28, 2020 @ 6:30 PM for presentation of the 2020-2021 proposed budget. Refer to the Greenville CSD website for the link.

Notice is also given that a copy of the statement of the amount of moneys which will be required for the ensuing year for school purposes, exclusive of public moneys, and a copy of a tax exemption report may be obtained by taxpayers during the fourteen (14) days immediately preceding the June 9, 2020 Annual Vote in the District by visiting the District website at www.greenvillecsd.org.

Notice is also given that petitions nominating candidates for the office of member of the Board of Education must be filed with the District Clerk not later than 5:00 PM on Monday, May 11, 2020.

The following vacancies are to be filled on the Board of Education: One (1) seat for Michael McAneny for a three (3) year term expiring June 30, 2023 One (1) seat for Duncan Macpherson for a three (3) year term expiring June 30, 2023 A petition is required to nominate a candidate to the office of member of the Board of Education.

Each petition must be directed to the District Clerk and must state the name and residence of the candidate. The minimum threshold of signatures required has been eliminated per the Governor’s Executive Order 202.26. Blank nominating petitions may be obtained by emailing Daphane Pearson at pearsond@greenvillecsd.org and must be submitted to the District Clerk at the District Office by Monday, May 11, 2020 no later than 5:00 PM. A voter personal registration day will be held on Wednesday, May 27, 2020 between the hours of 3:00 PM and 7:00 PM in the elevator lobby of the Scott M. Ellis Elementary School. Social Distancing rules will apply. Qualified voters may also register to vote by contacting the County Board of Elections by mail, or registering remotely through the New York State Department of Motor Vehicle’s website at https://dmv.ny.gov/more-info/electronic-voterregistration-application.

Notice is also given that the following resolutions will be voted on: BE IT RESOLVED that the Board of Education of the Greenville Central School District be authorized to increase by $700, for a total of $42,700, to the amount to be raised by tax for the support of the Greenville Public Library.

BE IT RESOLVED that the Board of Education of the Greenville Central School District be authorized to increase by $1,126, for a total of $27,642, to the amount to be raised by tax for the support of the Rensselaerville Public Library.

Dated: May 7, 2020 Signed: Daphane Pearson School District Clerk NOTICE School District will be Village of Athens held on Tuesday, June The Village of Athens 9, 2020, to vote by abwill be holding a Public sentee ballot excluHearing prior to their sively upon the followregular meeting on ing items: May 13th 2020 at 1. To adopt the annual 6:30PM for the pur- budget of the Taconic pose of hearing Public Hills Central School comment regarding District for the fiscal the Tentative Budget year 2020-2021 and to for the Village of Ath- authorize the requisite ens. Salary for the portion therefore to be Mayor will remain at raised by taxation on $5,000.00 and Trus- the taxable property tees salary will remain on the District. at $3750.00 annually.

2. To adopt the followA copy of the Tentative ing proposition: Budget is available by Shall the Board of Edrequest from the Vil- ucation be authorized lage Clerk-Treasurer at to: (a) acquire two (2) voaclerk@yahoo.com small buses at a maxior calling the clerk’s mum aggregate cost office (518) 945-1551 of $120,000; and (b) between the hours of expend such sums for 9AM – Noon, Monday such purpose from the 2019-20 unallocated through Friday.

The instructions to join fund balance? the meeting via tele- 3. To elect one memconference and/or ber of the Board of EdZoom will be posted ucation, for a five (5) on the Village of Ath- year term, commencens Facebook page ing on July 1, 2020 and expiring on June prior to the meeting.

This meeting is being 30, 2025, to succeed held in accordance Jeffrey Hotaling. toa with the Governor’s five year term.

Executive Order 202.2 4. To transact such and will be conducted other business as may electronically.

The properly come before public may join the the meeting pursuant meeting using the fol- to the Education Law lowing link or call in of the State of New York. number: Join Zoom Meeting AND FURTHER NOhttps://us02web.zoom. TICE IS HEREBY GIVus/j/89736228098 EN that a copy of the of the Meeting ID: 897 3622 statement amount of money 8098 which will be required One tap mobile to fund the School +1 646 558 8656 District’s budget for NOTICE OF ANNUAL the 2020-2021 school MEETING, BUDGET year, exclusive of pubVOTE AND ELECTION lic monies, may be ob– *COVID-19 UPDATE* tained by any taxpayer NOTICE IS HEREBY in the District during GIVE, that a public the fourteen (14) days hearing of the qualified immediately preceding voters of the Taconic June 9, 2020 via email Hills Central School request.

District will be held on AND FURTHER NOJune 2, 2020. Copies TICE IS HEREBY GIVof the budget and the EN that petitions nomitext of any proposition nating candidates for that will be presented the office of member to the voters will be of the Board of Educaavailable for review by tion to fill one expired any qualified voter be- term of five years each ginning on May 26, shall be received by 2020 upon request by the District Clerk at 73 email to the District County Route 11A, Clerk at mlayman@tac- Craryville, New York, onichills.k12.ny.us.

or by email to mlaym a n @ t a c o n i c hills.k12.ny.us not later than May 11, 2020 at 5:00 p.m. Each petition shall be directed to the District Clerk and must state the full name and residence of the candidate (signatures are not required for the petition to be deemed valid, pursuant to Executive Order 202.26).

A copy of such petition and information packet, may be obtained by email request to the District Clerk.

AND FURTHER NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that the qualified voters of the School District shall be entitled to vote in said annual vote and election by absentee ballot exclusively due to the prevalence and community spread of COVID-19, that the potential for contraction of the COVID-19 virus shall be deemed temporary illness for all qualified voters. All qualified voters shall receive an absentee ballot with a postage paid return envelope.

Completed ballots must be mailed and received by the District Clerk no later than 5:00 p.m on Tuesday, June 9, 2020. A qualified voter is one who is (1) a citizen of the United States of America, (2) eighteen (18) years of age or older, (3) resident within the School District for a period of thirty (30) days preceding the annual vote and election and (4) not otherwise disqualified under the Election Law. Anyone who meets the definition of a “qualified voter�, but does not believe (s)he will be on the School poll list, District’s which contains the names of residents who voted in previous elections, please contact the District Clerk by email at mlaym a n @ t a c o n i c hills.k12.ny.us as soon as possible to ensure timely receipt of the absentee ballot for the 2020 annual meeting/election.

The Education Lamakes special provisions for absentee voting by “permanently disabled� voters of the District and any questions regarding these rights should be directed to the Clerk of the Board. All completed ballots shall be mailed to the Office of the District Clerk no later than 5:00 p.m. on June 9, 2020.

The Education Law also makes special provisions for absentee voting for “military� voters of the District.

Specifically, the law provides a unique procedure for “military ballots� in school district votes. Whereas absentee ballots must be received by the voter by mail, a military voter may elect to receive his/her absentee ballot application and absentee ballot by mail, email or facsimile. The military voter must, however, return his/her original military ballot application and military ballot by mail or in person. The Clerk of the Board shall transmit the military voter’s military ballot in accord with the military voter’s preferred method of transmission not later than May 15, 2020.

The Clerk of the Board must then receive the military voter’s military ballot by mail not later than 5:00 p.m. on the day of the vote.

A list of all persons to whom absentee ballots shall have been issued will be available upon request to the District Clerk on each of the five days prior to the day of the election, except Saturday or Sunday, and the day set for the election. Any qualified voter present in the polling place may object to the voting of the ballot upon appropriate grounds by making his/her challenge and reasons therefore known to the Inspector of Election before the close of the polls.

AND FURTHER NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that pursuant to a rule adopted by the

Board of Education in accordance with Education Law §§ 2035, 2008, any referenda or propositions to amend the budget, or otherwise to be submitted for voting at said election, must be filed with and directed to the District Clerk at the District Office, on or before May 8, 2020; must be typed or printed in the English language. However, the Board of Education will not entertain or place before the voters any petition or any proposition if its purpose is beyond the power of the voters or is illegal, or any proposition requiring the expenditure of monies which fails to include specific appropriations for all such expenditures required by the proposition.

BY ORDER OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION OF THE TACONIC HILLS CENTRAL SCHOOL DISTRICT, COUNTY OF COLUMBIA, STATE OF NEW YORK. Dated: May 10, 2020 & May 31, 2020 Craryville, New York Melissa Layman District Clerk NOTICE OF COMPLETION OF TENTATIVE ASSESSMENT ROLL (Pursuant to Section 506 and 1526 of the Real Property Tax Law) Notice is hereby given that as of May 1, 2020, the Assessor of the Town of Greenville, County of Greene, has completed the Tentative Assessment Roll for the current year, and that a copy has been filed with the Greenville Town Clerk’s Office. Due to Covid-19 restrictions (Executive Order 202.22), the tentative assessment roll is available for viewing until Grievance Day online, on both the Town of Greenville website (townofgreenvilleny.com) and the Greene County webs i t e (www.greene.sdgnys.c om). The assessor will be available only by phone or email (assessorclerk@townofgreen-

villeny.com).

Please feel free to call with any questions or concerns. (518-966-5055 x 3).

The Board of Assessment Review will meet on June 1, 2020 from 4pm until 8pm to hear and examine all complaints in relation to assessments on the application of any persons believing himself/herself to be aggrieved.

Grievances will be heard remotely ONLY, no walk ins. All complaints must include the Grievance form and written substantiation, and must be received via mail, fax or email before Grievance Day. Mail: Town of Greenville Board of Assessment Review, PO Box 38, Greenville, NY 12083, email: assessorclerk@townofgreenvilleny.com. Application and instructions for filing a complaint are available from your assessor (call and we will mail you a form), or online at tax.ny.gov.

Dated this 1st day of May, 2020. Gordon Bennett, Sole Assessor TOWN OF GREENPORT, NEW YORK Declaration of Local State of Emergency in Response to COVID-19 EXECUTIVE ORDER NO. 1 OE 2020.2 WHEREAS, on March 17, 2020,I issued an Executive Order declaring a local state of emergency in the Town of Greenport (the "Declaration of Emergency"); and WHEREAS, on April 1, 2020,1 issued an Executive Order extending the Declaration of Emergency for an additional thirty (30) days or until May 1,2020; and WHEREAS, both travel-related cases and community contact transmission of COVID-19 have been documented in New York State and Columbia County and are expected to continue.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, Kathleen Eldridge, Supervisor of the Town of Greenport, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the State of New York, do hereby issue this Executive Order dated May 1,2020, and thereby declare the Orders enumerated in the Declaration of Emergency for an additional fourteen (14) days or until May 15,2020.

I FURTHER ORDER THE FOLLOWING, as a result of the Declaration of Emergency: 1. Pursuant to the authority vested in me by Section 24 of Article 2B of the New York State Executive Law to temporarily suspend or modify any statute, local law, ordinance, order, rule, or regulation or parts thereof, of any agency during a State disaster emergency, and in accordance with Executive Orders issued by Governor Cuomo, any meetings of the Town Board or

Planning Board may be conducted by teleconference, subject to proper public notice.

2. All Town of Greenport parks are closed and all Town of Greenport summer programs cancelled through September 2020.

ORDERED this 1st day of May 2020 at 12:01 a.m.

KATHLEEN ELDRIDGE Supervisor, Town of Greenport

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Upon acceptance of offer we will coordinate new hire paperwork and pre-employment substance screening. A valid driver’s license is required Long-term and leadership positions available to those with the drive and skills!

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CMYK

COLUMBIA-GREENE MEDIA

B6 - Saturday - Sunday, May 9-10, 2020

Outdoors From B1

gobblers are communicating; a key to hunter success in the spring.

Hunting gobblers in the spring can be exhausting. If you put a “bird to bed” on the roost the night before, you probably won’t get home ‘till well after dark. Climbing hills and getting set-up on that bird before legal shooting time means an early start the next morning.

If after sacrificing your

NFL From B1

let’s just make sure we’re responsible. We’re doing proper planning. . . . Any guidelines as it pertains to what the governors’ orders are for the stay-athome policies, let’s just make sure that we’re aligned [and] we’re following those guidelines.”

The NFL declined further comment on the flexibility built into the schedule. The league previously announced that plans to play five international games this season, four in London and one in Mexico City, would be canceled and

sleep, you roosted a bird just to have him be led away from you by attending hens, don’t give up on that bird or that location.

A few hours later when he’s been abandoned by hens who switched from breeding and feeding to brooding duties, he may well head back to your original early am set-up, especially if you are there patiently waiting and calling.

An alternate strategy that can work wonders for your circadian rhythm while turning that roosted bird into a roasted bird, is to get out mid-morning. Formerly henned-up gobblers finding themselves

alone, can be highly motivated to come to the call when there’s nothing occupying their time.

Such was the case for Ed Farley, of Syracuse, last Sunday. After getting up at an ungodly hour to a set-up on a gobbler that eventually went with hens in the opposite direction, things got quiet.

A few of hours passed and after cutting the distance somewhat, that bird was called back to very near the original location and bagged at 40 yards at 9 a.m.

So why not cut out the middle man and just show up at the appointed mid-morning

time so we all can get some sleep? If it were only that easy.

You’ll never know unless you try. Just think of all the time and energy saved that could be put toward, other important activities like trout and striper fishing!

Striper Update: Speaking of striper fishing, much like turkey hunting, timing and location are everything. Walt Bennett of Durham reports he and his cousin boated three stripers in the 24 to 30-inch range on Monday fishing well south of Germantown.

Many are doing well, and overall, it’s been a very good year so far. Those fishing from

shore as well as those on boats all up and down the river are connecting with fish in all size ranges on both chunk and live herring.

A number of fish in the 30’s with some over 40 inches are being taken, much to the frustration of river anglers given the largest legal striper you can keep is no more than 28 inches.

The fact that south of the George Washington Bridge stripers up to 35 inches in length can be kept only increases their frustration.

River surface temperatures were 53 degrees on Thursday by the Rip Van Winkle Bridge

and expected to rise slowly given the cold nights forecasted for this week.

Happy Hunting, Fishing and Trapping until next time.

Remember to report poaching violations by calling 1-844-DEC-ECOS. You can share any comments with our sports desk at sports@registerstar.com *If you have a fishing or hunting report, photo, or event you would like to be considered for publication, you can send it to: huntfishreport@gmail.com

the games would be played in the United States. The Jacksonville Jaguars regained two home games in Jacksonville that were to have been played in London. The Miami Dolphins, Atlanta Falcons and Arizona Cardinals regained one domestic home game each.

“In preparing to play the season as scheduled, we will continue to make our decisions based on the latest medical and public health advice, in compliance with government regulations, and with appropriate safety protocols to protect the health of our fans, players, club and league personnel, and our communities,” NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said in a written

statement. “We will be prepared to make adjustments as necessary, as we have during this offseason in safely and efficiently conducting key activities such as free agency, the virtual offseason program, and the 2020 NFL Draft.”

Goodell opted to press forward with the schedule release even amid so much uncertainty, just as the NFL conducted much of its earlier offseason business. The league moved ahead with free agency for veteran players in March and had a remotely conducted NFL draft last month, with teams’ coaches and general managers working from their homes and Goodell announcing picks from his basement.

The contingencies being mulled by the NFL include the possibilities of a delayed or shortened season, games in empty or partially filled stadiums, and games being relocated or rescheduled based on local conditions or restrictions, according to people with knowledge of the league’s planning.

“If there is a schedule that’s released and we all hope and expect and will shoot for those dates, I don’t really draw a tremendous amount of pause as long as we understand what goes into that is the fact that this is what we are hoping for,” DeMaurice Smith, the NFL Players Association’s executive director, said in a pre-draft

video conference with reporters last month. “I think that’s fine. But I also know that there are a lot of benchmarks that I think every medical professional would hope to see.

There are certainly a lot of questions that we would hope to have answers to.”

The Chiefs, the defending Super Bowl champions, are scheduled to host the seasonopening game against the Texans on a Thursday night. Tom Brady’s first game with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers comes three days later on Sept. 13 at New Orleans. On that same opening Sunday of games, the New England Patriots host the Miami Dolphins in their first game since the free agent exit

of Brady, their six-time Super Bowl-winning quarterback.

The Los Angeles Rams face the Dallas Cowboys to open their new L.A. stadium in the season’s first Sunday night game. The Raiders play their first game in their new home city, Las Vegas, with a Sept. 21 Monday night game against the Saints. The Baltimore Ravens, with reigning league MVP Lamar Jackson, play on Thanksgiving night at Pittsburgh. The Saints host the Minnesota Vikings in a Christmas Day game, making for the first Friday NFL game in 11 years. Brady’s Buccaneers are scheduled for five prime-time games over the course of the season. who has been advocating to reopen the nation’s economy along with professional sports.

As of Thursday afternoon, there were 1.26 million confirmed coronavirus cases and 74,665 deaths in the United States. Some projections were expecting daily increases throughout the month peaking at 3,000 deaths a day on June 1, as areas try to ease their shutdown regulations and restart their economies.

Levine sees baseball as a way to help the country through a tough time.

This week, Levine has sounded a hopeful and patriotic theme. “We’re very, very hopeful that we can get going,” he said. “Baseball has stepped up in troubled times to be a leader. We’re used to it.

It’s a distraction. It’s comforting to people. It comes with the rhythm of their life.”

for my staff and my fighters.”

White said he also planned on holding cards on “Fight Island,” a private, undisclosed location outside the United States. He said the infrastructure was being put in place and the island would be ready to host its first UFC event in June.

“Everybody wants to be a part of this,” he said. “I talked to Conor (McGregor) yesterday and he wants to fight there. Khabib (Nurmagomedov) came out and said as soon as Ramadan is over, he’ll be back training and he’ll be back this summer.

“All of our athletes are ready to compete. Hopefully this weekend kicks it off and we get everybody back and give the world some sense of normalcy.”

Florida or Texas. MLB officials are now very interested in getting teams back to their major league cities. That would cut

down on the challenge of travel in these uncertain times, but also cut down the costs of housing and feeding players

and personnel at spring training sites.

That could pose some problems, however, with

cities such as New York that are hotspots for COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio poured cold water on the idea of games being played in the Bronx and Queens.

“I don’t think that’s coming soon,” de Blasio said of games being played in the city.

Later Thursday, Levine went on WFAN and reiterated his stance that the Yankees and Mets could play home games this season.

Levine has been pushing for a return to baseball — and the gate that comes from having fans in the seats. He is on New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s re-opening New York committee, along with Mets COO Jeff Wilpon, Knicks owner James Dolan and several other New York City sports executives.

Levine is also a long-time ally of President Donald Trump,

aren’t far behind; they’re scheduled to come back in the next few weeks. He might be right, too, in feeling team sports could be concerned about jumping back in based on the criticism the NBA took over the optics of coronavirus tests being given to entire rosters when the tests were still scarce for the general public.

“Somebody has to dive in and take the lead on this thing, and I’m going to do that,” White said. “When my event is over, people will see that it can be done safely.”

And, of course, he stands to reap a big profit by being first with a pay-per-view when millions of sports fans are yearning to watch live sports.

UFC 249 was originally scheduled for April 18 at the Tachi Palace Casino Resort, which sits on tribal land about 40 miles south of Fresno. The location would have allowed

UFC to skirt stay-at-home orders in California and most of the rest of the U.S. at the time.

Those plans were thwarted, White said, by Gov. Gavin Newsom a week before the event was to be broadcast by ESPN. Two years ago, UFC agreed to a five-year, $1.5 billion deal with ESPN, which is owned by the Walt Disney Co., and White said he got a call from the “highest level” at Disney and ESPN to postpone the event.

“I figured out a way that I could put on an event where the state government wasn’t involved,” White said. “I literally told my lawyers, ‘Get me into a spot where I cannot be stopped by the state government.’ That was where we were and the governor called in a favor for that event not to happen. He’s doing what he has to do and I was doing what

I have to do.”

We’re at a different point now in the battle against COVID-19. Major League Soccer camps have opened this week for voluntary individual workouts, and in some states NBA teams are starting to bring players into their training facilities. Timelines are beginning to form for many sports.

White said Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Jacksonville Mayor Lenny Curry had been supportive. DeSantis deemed all sports, including professional wrestling, “essential services” last month.

“Obviously this COVID-19 thing is real, it’s serious, and it’s a problem, but let’s figure out solutions. Let’s figure out how to fix this,” White said.

“How do we get live sports back? How do we get people back to work? ... How do we do it safely? We should be working with our government, not

fighting against them.”

White would like to stage another UFC event at the company’s training center in Las Vegas on May 23, but Nevada’s stay-at-home orders are in place through at least May 15.

White submitted the same proposal to Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak as he did to DeSantis.

It outlines the UFC’s plans to hold the events in a controlled environment, without fans, and with diagnostic swab COVID-19 tests and antibody tests administered to all fighters, corner people and officials upon arrival to one hotel that would house all essential personnel.

White said he thought Gov. Sisolak “was impressed by it and liked it.”

“I’m confident we’ll be able to do this event in Vegas,” White said. “I built a $100 million facility over here so I could do these types of things

Yankees From B1

interview with 1010 WINS. “There are many plans that all the clubs and the commissioner are looking at right now.

Obviously, what happens on the ground with the virus is important to monitor on a day-to-day basis. But I think we are moving closer to finalizing a plan, which we would set forth, talk to all the public health officials, make sure that they’re on board and see if we can progress. So I can’t give you a date right now. All I can tell you is everybody’s working really hard to get this done.”

Players vocally pushed back against the floated idea of quarantining with officials and essential broadcast and team personnel in Arizona,

White From B1

From what White heard on the conference call, however, he isn’t optimistic other professional sports leagues will rush back even after the UFC stages three events over 10 days in Jacksonville, on Saturday, Wednesday and May 16.

“I think a lot of these other, bigger leagues are afraid of criticism, to be honest with you,” White said. “You can’t be afraid of criticism.”

Although he acknowledged he didn’t know the intricacies of other sports, he said NASCAR or golf could have been first, since those athletes are in cars or easily able to keep distance between themselves on a course. He might be right about that, but those sports

FILE PHOTO

New York Yankees President Randy Levine.

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Saturday - Sunday, May 9-10, 2020 - B7

COLUMBIA-GREENE MEDIA

Insensitive question leaves grieving mother speechless Dear Abby, My daughter unexpectedly died very recently. A “friend” called today asking how I was doing (quarantine, food, pet food, etc). Then she asked me the most unnerving question: “Do you have ‘June’ with you?” I was floored. So many thoughts DEAR ABBY came rushing at me at once.

June was disabled since birth. She went to live in a group home nine years ago.

The friend knew I brought her home for weekends.

After I didn’t speak for several minutes, she asked in an annoyed tone, “Well, did you go get her ashes or not?” (As if having her ashes with me was a comfort? It isn’t!) Abby, I didn’t know what to say. Her question slammed me against the wall. I mumbled a response, said I had to go and hung up.

I’m trying to make myself believe she meant nothing but concern, but I can’t seem to make myself believe that the words she used weren’t purposely cruel. My warm feelings for her have changed to something ugly. I’m still gasping. Your thoughts?

Grieving Mother

JEANNE PHILLIPS

Let’s give the woman a perfect 10 on the insensitivity meter. She was tactless, but she may not have meant to be unkind. My thought is that you handled the situation as well as you could since her question left you understandably flat-footed. However, I would have answered her differently. I would have responded, “Why do you ask?” and let her explain herself.

Dear Abby, My older sister bullied me from the time our parents divorced. I was in elementary school, and she was in middle school. We

are now adults and retired. Her form of bullying now is to exclude me. It started with announcing to me that I was adopted and progressed to saying in front of me, “Let’s have a family reunion” and not inviting me.

When our father died, she was his executor. She showed the will to my sisters, but would not allow me to see it. Yes, I was in the will as an equal. She told the attorney I was a granddaughter, which I caught and corrected.

When I told my oldest sister my feelings were hurt, she accused me of being jealous and blocked me on social media. It’s hard to disengage because I have no other family, but I keep busy in other social circles. I was unable to have kids, and the one child I adopted is busy working in another state, so it’s just my husband and me now.

I tried for years to be nice and to contribute as much as possible. I know I have done nothing wrong. I have searched my soul to see why I deserve this treatment. I don’t!

Should I just let go of my family since at least two of my three sisters seem to want to let go of me?

Left Out In Florida Yes, you should. Disengaging from the emotionally abusive sisters who treat you cruelly would be healthy for you. Maintain a relationship with the one who is open to it.

I have advised more than once in this column that sometimes it’s necessary to create a family of one’s own if circumstances prevent a normal relationship with a person’s birth family. You and your husband should continue branching out socially. I predict that once you move in that direction, you will be far happier than you are today.

Family Circus

Classic Peanuts

Garfield

Blondie

Husband’s difficult diagnosis out of left field My husband is being tested to confirm the pulmonologist’s tentative diagnosis of mycobacterium avium complex. He was a relatively healthy person up to this point, so could you please explain how he could have contracted this? The prognosis does not look good. Are there any new treatments available?

TO YOUR GOOD HEALTH

Mycobacterium avium complex is caused by a group of bacteria that are closely related to tuberculosis, and cause pulmonary disease. In men, it often occurs with preexisting lung disease, especially from smoking. In older women, it more often occurs without any known lung disease. It is thought to be acquired by inhalation from water sources.

Treatment is with multiple antibiotics, generally for six months or longer. The prognosis is good for people with sensitive bacteria, but disease from resistant bacteria is hard to treat. Consultation with an expert is

DR. KEITH ROACH

necessary in such cases, and surgery is an occasional option. Although new antibiotics are always being developed, I am unaware of any imminent breakthrough.

I have COPD and I am on oxygen. My cat was chewing on my oxygen tubing, and I thought I would have to give up my pet.

A friend suggested I get 1/2 inch split conduit tubing at an automotive store. It’s used to wrap wiring in the engine to keep squirrels and other animals from chewing on the wires. You slip the oxygen tubing into the conduit tube, and your pet will not chew on it. I hope this helps someone else to be able to keep their pets.

Hagar the Horrible

Zits

I thank C.C.S. for writing. It’s a solution to a problem I didn’t know existed, and I also hope somebody finds it useful. Pets are extremely important social supports for many people.

Horoscope

By Stella Wilder Born today, you are something of a visionary, and you are able to see the world in which you live not as it is, but as you wish it would be. This can be quite frustrating, however, because it will not always be easy for you to close the gap between what is and what might be, though you are perfectly willing to do all you can for your cause — and sacrifice much in the process. Your passion and your motives may not be understood by everyone, and some may write you off as nothing more than a “crackpot” — but this says more about them than it does about you.

You will always carry with you a part of your youth, and this makes you in many ways one of the most integrated individuals born under your sign. There is not one trait that cannot be, in some way, aligned with another or explained by its likeness to another you have.

Also born on this date are: Billy Joel, singer and songwriter; Mike Wallace, newsman; Prince Fielder, baseball player; Rosario Dawson, actress; Candice Bergen, actress; Albert Finney, actor; J.M. Barrie, writer.

To see what is in store for you tomorrow, find your birthday and read the corresponding paragraph. Let your birthday star be your daily guide.

SUNDAY, MAY 10 TAURUS (April 20-May 20) — You’re able to anticipate when things may go awry and thus prepare for such eventualities — though they may not come to pass today.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20) — You may find yourself in an uncomfortable position today because of the passions set alight by an unexpected development. Don’t lose control!

CANCER (June 21-July 22) — You can put together something today that will be highly valued

by others — though one insignificant criticism takes you by surprise.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22) — Nothing is certain today but uncertainty — and that you can deal with by remaining open, flexible and willing to change when change is required.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22) — Thoughts of material gain must not overtake the plans you have made that can bring you inner contentment. You may have both very soon!

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22) — You’ll be able to keep pace with someone who is widely considered the best in his or her field. Your daring likely receives wide acclaim.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21) — What you do is less important today than how you do it. There is nothing new under the sun — but your unique qualities are valuable.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21) — You mustn’t pretend you are not interested today when someone brings you an attractive offer that you’ve long anticipated.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19) — You’re not about to take “no” for an answer — but you must be ready for what “yes” will mean for you today, tomorrow and the day after that.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18) — You’ve been trying long enough to solve a problem that just refuses to yield to your will. It’s time to bring in an expert you know.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20) — You can surely trust your instincts today, but don’t let anyone know — yet — that you’re not basing your decisions on established facts.

ARIES (March 21-April 19) — The more energy and commitment you bring to a certain endeavor today, the more you will be rewarded. You may surprise yourself.

COPYRIGHT 2020 UNITED FEATURE SYNDICATE, INC.

Baby Blues

Beetle Bailey

Pearls Before Swine

Dennis the Menace

CMYK

COLUMBIA-GREENE MEDIA

B8 - Saturday - Sunday, May 9-10, 2020 Close to Home

SUPER QUIZ

THAT SCRAMBLED WORD GAME

By David L. Hoyt and Jeff Knurek

CORUC AACWM CONKUL FLUERF ©2020 Tribune Content Agency, LLC All Rights Reserved.

Answer here: Yesterday’s

“

Score 1 point for each correct answer on the Freshman Level, 2 points on the Graduate Level and 3 points on the Ph.D. Level.

Get the free JUST JUMBLE app • Follow us on Twitter @PlayJumble

Unscramble these Jumbles, one letter to each square, to form four ordinary words.

Literary characters Level 1

2

3

4

Now arrange the circled letters to form the surprise answer, as suggested by the above cartoon.

”

(Answers Monday) Jumbles: GRIPE SHIRT APPEAR HYBRID Answer: When the church at the summit was voted “Fourth Best Monument” in France, it was — HIGH PRAISE

5/9/20

Solution to Friday’s puzzle

Complete the grid so each row, column and 3-by-3 box (in bold borders) contains every digit, 1 to 9.

For strategies on how to solve Sudoku, visit

Heart of the City

sudoku.org.uk © 2020 The Mepham Group. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency. All rights reserved.

Mutts

Name the novel in which the characters appear. (e.g., Margaret March, Josephine March, Elizabeth March. Answer: “Little Women.”)

Freshman level 1. Katie Scarlett O’Hara, Captain Rhett Butler, Major Ashley Wilkes.

2. Tom Joad, Ma Joad, Jim Casy.

3. Atticus Finch, Jean Louise “Scout” Finch, Arthur “Boo” Radley.

4. Vito Corleone, Santino “Sonny” Corleone, Johnny Fontane.

5. Old Major, Napoleon, Snowball.

Graduate level 6. Elizabeth Bennet, Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy, Mr. Bennet.

7. Charlie Bucket, Willy Wonka, Oompa-Loompas.

8. Ishmael, Captain Ahab, Starbuck.

9. Bilbo Baggins, Gandalf, Thorin Oakenshield.

10. Lucy, Edmund, Susan, the White Witch.

PH.D. level 11. Holden Caulfield, Mr. Spencer, Robert Ackley.

12. Miriam, Messala, Balthasar.

13. Anne Shirley, Marilla Cuthbert, Diana Barry.

14. Wilbur, Charlotte, Fern Arable.

15. Winston Smith, Julia, O’Brien.

SUPER QUIZ ANSWERS 1. “Gone With the Wind.” 2. “The Grapes of Wrath.” 3. “To Kill a Mockingbird.”

4. “The Godfather.” 5. “Animal Farm.” 6. “Pride and Prejudice.” 7. “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.” 8. “Moby-Dick.” 9. “The Hobbit.” 10. “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.” 11. “The Catcher in the Rye.” 12. “Ben-Hur.” 13. “Anne of Green Gables.” 14. “Charlotte’s Web.” 15. “1984.”

24 to 30 points — congratulations, doctor; 18 to 23 points — honors graduate; 13 to 17 points — you’re plenty smart, but no grind; 5 to 12 points — you really should hit the books harder; 1 point to 4 points — enroll in remedial courses immediately; 0 points — who reads the questions to you?

Dilbert

Pickles For Better or For Worse

Get Fuzzy

Hi & Lois

Crossword Puzzle Mother Goose & Grimm

FOR RELEASE MAY 9, 2020

THE Daily Commuter Puzzle ACROSS 1 Kingsley or Stiller 4 Wealthy financier John Jacob __ 9 Chronic lung disease 13 Go out 15 Walked off with 16 Overly zealous 17 Hamlet or Hans Christian Andersen 18 Black-and-white animal 19 Greek cheese 20 Hard-hearted 22 Waiter’s item 23 Ms. Winningham 24 “Son __ gun!”

26 Pitcher’s delight 29 Marc Mezvinsky, to Hillary 34 Like clichés 35 Nearer to the ground 36 “What Kind of Fool __?”

37 Violent anger 38 Word attached to blood or grey 39 Astonish 40 Words that end the single life 41 Hula __; twirling toys 42 Honking birds 43 Goes on stage 45 Deliberate deceptions 46 Part of spring: abbr.

47 Lab bottle 48 Con artist’s game 51 About to happen 56 Additionally 57 Facial hair 58 Actor Robert De __ 60 Lanai dinner 61 Slipper size 62 Pleased 63 Griffey Sr. & Griffey Jr. 64 Stage direction 65 Pupil’s place DOWN 1 Piece of furniture

by Jacqueline E. Mathews

Bound & Gagged

Created by Jacqueline E. Mathews

2 Test 3 Midmorning 4 Have high hopes 5 No longer fresh 6 Muscle quality 7 Cutlass maker 8 Used logic 9 Lounging robe 10 “__ the Rainbow’ 11 Stuffed bread 12 WWII Normandy invasion date 14 One who eats on the house 21 Birthday party dessert 25 Forest tree 26 Get ready for a bath 27 Profession 28 Severity 29 Minestrone & chowder 30 __ up; confesses 31 Glove material 32 Make laugh 33 Dinner beverages 35 Weaving device 38 Awful

5/9/20

Friday’s Puzzle Solved

Non Sequitur

©2020 Tribune Content Agency, LLC All Rights Reserved.

39 Making airtight 41 Little leap 42 Egg on 44 Well-known 45 Obstruct; impede 47 Threshold; brink 48 Vaccine developer Jonas 49 Helpful hint

5/9/20

50 As straight __ arrow 52 Cruel 53 Hair line?

54 Long African river 55 Hair color 59 Beethoven’s “__ to Joy”

Rubes

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Oscars eligibility

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‘HOLLYWOOD’: What

if diversity had been seen 70 years ago?

By HANK STUEVER Washington Post

Given the century or so that Hollywood spent scrubbing the American experience clean of stories by and about racial, ethnic and sexual minorities — along with its consistently cruddy and abusive treatment of women — why not rewrite some of its dearest lore? What’s so sacred about silver-screen history that it can’t endure a fancy slap of intentional revisionism, in which studios see the light of diversity long before it could be clearly seen?

That’s the blunt message of Ryan Murphy’s grandiose yet often captivating Netflix drama “Hollywood”: If the town is built on make-believe and big dreams, then let us now make believe that a few of its producers, writers and directors somehow became woke 70 years or so ahead of schedule, thus altering the post-war trajectory of cinema’s Golden Age. Why not give the dream back to those who never had a chance to win it — the black screenwriter, the secretly gay heartthrob, the mixed-race director who wants to cast his black girlfriend in a leading role? What if a studio head got an emphatic snap-to on civil rights from none other than Eleanor Roosevelt and started greenlighting pictures that defied conventional wisdom, as well as Jim Crow? Woulda, coulda and definitely shoulda.

Co-created by Murphy and “Glee” and “Scream Queens” collaborator Ian Brennan, “Hollywood” (streaming Friday) is a pure fantasy writ as large as the iconic hillside sign that serves as this story’s big, fat metaphor. About halfway through, it will dawn on a viewer that the most provocative part of “Hollywood” is not its sauciness; it’s that the show fully intends to hand out happy endings the way Oprah used to give away cars.

Fasten your seat belts, as Bette Davis might have bellowed in this parallel universe, it’s going to be an incredibly smooth night.

“Hollywood” opens with a wide-eyed Midwesterner, Jack Castello (David Corenswet), who returns from the war and moves to L.A. with his dutiful wife, Henrietta (Maude Apatow), hoping to turn his good looks into boffo box-office.

be

derstands you.

rules are changing Valerie Macon/AFP/Getty Images/TNS

Here’s what’s new due to the coronavirus crisis

By JOSH ROTTENBERG Los Angeles Times

LOS ANGELES — The coronavirus crisis has left Hollywood reeling, with movie theaters shut down and film production at a standstill. But the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is determined that, at least as far as the Oscars are concerned, the show must go on.

The organization has made changes to this year’s eligibility rules that, for the first time, will enable films to qualify for Oscar consideration without a theatrical release.

In a virtual Zoom meeting held Tuesday morning, the group’s 54-member board of governors, which includes such luminaries as Steven Spielberg, Laura Dern and Whoopi Goldberg, voted on a series of rule changes in response to the global pandemic that will temporarily relax the normally strict requirements for Oscar consideration.

Academy rules have long required that a film be screened at at least one theater in Los Angeles for a week in order to be eligible for Oscar consideration. But with movie houses in L.A. and around the world shut down indefinitely, the group’s leadership clearly needed to make a change. Since the mass closure of theaters in mid-March, studios have scrambled their release schedules, shifting some titles to later in the year or beyond to avoid box-office doom and, in some cases — like Universal’s animated “Trolls World Tour” and Disney’s upcoming fantasy adventure “Artemis Fowl” — bypassing theaters entirely and going directly to digital releases.

Under the new rule, films that had planned for a theatrical

release but due to closures are instead first made available on a streaming or VOD service may qualify for the Oscars as long as they are made available on the academy’s member-only streaming site within 60 days of release and meet all other eligibility requirements.

“This has always been approached from a perspective of affirming the academy’s commitment to the primacy of theatrical exhibition and our belief that that’s the most satisfying way to experience a motion picture,” academy president David Rubin told the Los Angeles Times following the announcement. “This is really about looking out for our community and our filmmakers and understanding the extraordinary circumstances in this period of time.”

Once theaters begin to reopen, in order for films to more easily meet the academy’s exhibition requirements, the number of qualifying venues will be expanded beyond L.A. County to include New York, the San Francisco Bay Area, Chicago, Miami and Atlanta.

The academy’s announcement follows a recent move by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association to relax its eligibility requirements for next year’s Golden Globe Awards to accommodate the disruption of theatrical exhibition. The Screen Actors Guild and the British Academy of Film and Television are expected to make similar rule changes for their respective awards.

For years, even as the boundaries between film and television have blurred, the film academy has resisted making any major changes to the theatrical requirement, safeguarding the primacy

The 93rd Academy Awards: Feb. 28, 2021

See OSCARS C2

See DRAMA C2

Michelle Obama’s ‘Becoming’ doc is a surprise Netflix new release FORMER FIRST LADY:

All-female production team chronicling book tour released

By SONAIYA KELLEY Los Angeles Times

A documentary chronicling former First Lady Michelle Obama’s book tour for her bestselling memoir, “Becoming,” came to Netflix this month.

The Netflix original — in partnership with Higher Ground Productions, Barack and Michelle Obama’s production company affiliated with Netflix — boasts an all-female production team led by director Nadia Hallgren.

The streaming giant announced that the documentary would have a global release on Netflix on May 6 and offer a

behind-the-scenes glimpse at Obama’s life during her 34-city book tour in 2018.

“Those months I spent traveling — meeting and connecting with people in cities across the globe — drove home the idea that what we have in common is deep and real and can’t be messed with,” she said in a news release.

“In talking about the idea of ‘becoming,’ many of us dared to say our hopes out loud. I treasure the memories and that sense of connection now more than ever as we struggle together to weather this pandemic, as we care for our loved ones, tend to our communities and try to keep up with work and school while coping with huge amounts of loss, confusion and uncertainty.

“Even as we can no longer safely gather or feed off the energy of groups, even as many of

Michelle Obama appears in the upcoming documentary “Becoming,” which will be released under the Obamas’s Higher Ground Productions banner. Netflix

us are living with grief, loneliness and fear, we need to stay open and able to put ourselves in other people’s shoes,” she added. “Empathy is our lifeline here. It’s what will get us to the other side.”

Obama’s “Becoming” sold more than 725,000 copies on its first day of sale,

becoming the fastest-selling book of 2018 at Barnes & Noble. As of last month, it has sold nearly 10 million copies, putting it on track to become the most successful memoir in history. An audio edition of the memoir won a Grammy this year in the spoken-word category.

CMYK

COLUMBIA-GREENE MEDIA

C2 - Saturday - Sunday, May 9-10, 2020

Drama From C1

First, he must get in line (literally) at the fabled gates of Ace Studios, where a lucky few are picked each day to play extras in movies.

After some setbacks, Jack meets Ernie West (Dylan McDermott), who hires him to pump gas at his popular filling station, where Jack soon learns that when customers pull up and ask to go to “Dreamland,” that’s the attendant’s cue to hop in the car and go have sex with them — splitting a topdollar fee with Ernie.

Jack eagerly acquiesces when the customers are wellto-do women — including Avis Amberg (Patti LuPone), the tough but tenderhearted wife of Ace Studios founder Ace Amberg (Rob Reiner). But when Jack is asked to have sex with a man (Cole Porter, who doesn’t like to be kept waiting), he balks. Jack then meets Archie Coleman (Jeremy Pope), an aspiring gay, black screenwriter, who agrees to split Jack’s workload between them: Jack has sex with the women; Archie handles the men.

“Hollywood” has an unsuccessfully nuanced degree of ambivalence about Ernie’s operation, in which sex work is portrayed as a means to an end, and which the series all but rousingly endorses — while at the same time deploring the old ways of perverted agents, casting-couch ogres and gruelingly strict beauty standards.

The show’s plot hardly leaves time to sort through these moral ambiguities, as the characters begin to intersect and compare their common goals. A series of chance meetings triggers a mini-revolution in the studio, in the bedrooms and in the general

Oscars From C1

of the traditional moviegoing experience in the face of what some see as the existential threat of streaming services such as Netflix. Indeed, lest anyone read too much into the newly announced changes, the academy’s leadership stressed that, though they will remain in effect “until further notice,” they are meant to apply only to the current circumstances with all their attendant uncertainties.

“I don’t think anyone is pretending to know the future, even what’s going to happen in May, June, July,” academy chief executive Dawn Hudson told the Times Tuesday afternoon. “It’s really unknowable now, and the rules reflect that.

We understand that theaters reopening in one state does not necessarily mean you have the ability to have a theatrical release. So that’s why these rules were meant to address this time now and are fluid for the future.”

Though the 93rd Academy Awards, scheduled for Feb. 28, 2021, are still ten months away, some have raised concerns that a resurgence of COVID-19 in the fall and winter could

celebresphere of yore.

Archie’s screenplay, based on the real-life 1932 suicide of actress Peg Entwistle (she jumped off the “H” in the Hollywoodland sign), gets the attention of a rising director, Raymond Ainsley (Darren Criss), who pitches it to an intimidating but receptive Ace executive, Dick Samuels (Joe Mantello). Dick’s growing enthusiasm for the idea is matched by his chief coconspirator, Ellen Kincaid (Holland Taylor), the studio’s discerning head of casting.

Archie, meanwhile, falls in love with one of his gaspump regulars — a lunkheaded but awfully nice (and closeted) aspiring actor named Roy Fitzgerald (Jake Picking). Roy signs on with the cruelest and most sexually and verbally abusive agent in town, Henry Wilson (Jim Parsons), whose first order of business is to change Roy’s name to ... Rock Hudson.

There’s a lot of that kind of thing in “Hollywood” — a supercollider of fiction and fact, sure to shatter your curious Google searches into atomic shards. When we’re not killing time at the legendary Schwab’s Pharmacy soda fountain, we’re off to George Cukor’s debaucherous Sunday dinner parties, with great, flouncified cameos from Tallulah Bankhead, Noel Coward and Vivien Leigh, among other surprises.

(Try to keep up! Wikipedia won’t help!)

“Hollywood” is more than just a personality parade, however, and it’s soon clear that Murphy, Brennan and company have something better in mind for LuPone than just minks, turbans and moods.

It’s a toss-up as to who has more fun with their roles — her or Parsons. Both are terrific, while everyone else just seems boundlessly high on the fumes of putting on a show. There’s

plenty of razzle-dazzle in “Hollywood” that keeps it humming along, even as it overpreaches. At an efficiently brisk seven episodes, it’s nobody’s idea of a dull time.

The central crisis comes down to whether Ace Studios will have the courage to see Raymond’s vision through, reimagining Entwistle’s tragic life as that of “Meg,” now written as the story of a young, black actress — whom Raymond’s girlfriend, Camille Washington (Laura Harrier), would very much like to play — yearning for parts that aren’t merely maids and servants.

Meg is worn down by Hollywood’s intolerant typecasting and ready to end it all.

In this regard, “Hollywood” turns out to be more or less

force the cancellation of such large-scale public events. But for now at least, the academy has decided not to postpone the date of the awards. Nor has the group made any decision about the scheduled opening of its long-delayed Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, which is set for Dec. 14.

“We’re having ongoing discussions about all of this because we don’t have a crystal ball right now,” said Hudson.

“We want to make the right decisions with as much information as we can — or I should say the right guesses. That’s really all we can do right now.”

“We do look forward to an opportunity to celebrate motion pictures along with our entire community — that’s very much part of our plan,” Rubin said.

The academy also announced a series of other permanent rule changes on Tuesday. Most notably, two sound categories, sound mixing and sound editing, are being combined into one award for best achievement in sound — a move that was initiated by the sound branch itself. The number of Oscar statuettes awarded (up to six) remains the same, however. Eligible recipients may include one production sound mixer, two supervising sound editors and

three rerecording mixers.

Further, in the international feature film category — formerly known as foreign language film — all eligible academy members will now be invited to participate in the preliminary round of voting. Film submissions will be made available through the academy’s in-house streaming platform to those members who opt in, and members must meet a minimum viewing requirement in order to be eligible to vote in the category.

Previously this preliminary round of voting was done by a committee of volunteers.

In accordance with the academy’s ongoing sustainability effort — and simply the reality that many members no longer have DVD players — this will be the final year that DVD screeners will be allowed to be distributed.

Since the coronavirus crisis erupted earlier this year, the academy’s leadership has been in discussions with stakeholders across the film industry to help forge a way forward. Earlier this month, the organization pledged $6 million to help support film employees and their families who are experiencing financial hardship as well as institutions boosting diverse filmmakers.

From left, Jeremy Pope stars as Archie Coleman, Darren Criss as Raymond Ainsley and Laura Harrier as Camille Washington in “Hollywood” on Netflix. Saeed Adyani/Netflix

the story of being Ryan Murphy, circa 2020, leveraging his own clout into an equal break for others, reaching down as he’s reaching up, using those increasingly bigger deals (now with Netflix) to remedy long held biases about the stories we tell and the stories we see.

“Hollywood’s” most graceful note is one viewers already understand, perhaps thanks to a show like “Glee” or “Pose” — it’s that intense satisfaction of seeing “someone like me” represented on the screen or at awards shows.

The series is not always successful in its attempt to braid its socially conscious message with its fanboy nostalgia for old-school glamour, but, as with so much of Murphy’s TV work, the buckets of

exuberance come in handy for patching the cracks. Beyond the show’s optimism and mixed signals, a question remains unanswered, perhaps

deliberately so: How can moviegoers and TV viewers still love and worship this thing — Hollywood — that has treated them so poorly, for so long?

All-day happy hour?

SURVEY: Americans

drinking while working at home in pandemic The Charlotte Observer (TNS)

Angeles Times

Adyani/Netflix

For those who drink at home while they work, beer is the most popular beverage of choice. Vecteezy

By MARK PRICE

Lead Scenic Artist Dena D’Angelo works to cover Oscar statues with plastic to protect them from rain and fingerprints as they are prepared for touch up before they are moved to their locations around the Hollywood and Highland Complex for the Oscar show at the Kodak Theatre in February 2008. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has made changes to this year’s eligibility rules that will enable films to qualify for Oscar consideration without a theatrical release. Al Seib/Los

From left, Jeremy Pope as Archie Coleman, Darren Criss as Raymond Ainsley and David Corenswet as Jack Castello. Saeed

Millions of Americans are drinking on the job as they work from home during the COVID-19 outbreak, according to multiple worker surveys.

Beer is their drink of choice over cocktails, according to Alcohol.org, but that’s probably little consolation to corporate bigwigs.

One survey, released Monday, found 42% of nearly 13,000 workers were drinking on the clock at home, according to Fishbowl, a social network “for verified employees.”

“Advertising and marketing agency employees had the highest percentage of employees answering with ‘Yes’, with 49.14%,” Fishbowl reported.

More than half of those surveyed said they feared layoffs due to the pandemic and 60% said COVID-19 “had caused clients to pause or cancel

work,” the survey said.

None of the surveys reported asking how much people were drinking, but Americans began stockpiling alcohol as cities, counties and states started announcing stay-athome orders and restricting travel for the virus.

A 55% spike in alcoholic sales was reported in the third week of March, when panicked shoppers began hoarding alcoholic and other necessities, MarketWatch.com reports.

“Spirits like tequila, gin and pre-mixed cocktails led the way, with sales jumping 75% compared to the same period last year. Wine sales were up 66% while beer sales rose 42%.

And online sales far outpaced in-store sales,” Marketwatch said.

The Alcohol.org study of 3,000 workers broke the drinking down by state, revealing where most of the drinking was taking place. It found half those surveyed in Virginia and New Hampshire were drinking on the job, while 60% admitted to it in Rhode Island. In New York, 38% of those who

responded said they drink on the job.

“One-fifth of respondents stockpiled alcohol for self-isolation,” the survey added.

The larger Fishbowl survey showed workers in North Carolina, Oregon and Connecticut were the biggest drinkers, each with 47% partaking on the job.

Economist Nicholas Bloom of the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research believes the “work-from-home movement ... could actually generate a worldwide productivity slump and threaten economic growth for many years,” according to a March 30 report.

“We are home working alongside our kids, in unsuitable spaces, with no choice and no in-office days. This will create a productivity disaster for firms,” he said in the report.

“I fear this collapse in office face time will lead to a slump in innovation. The new ideas we are losing today could show up as fewer new products in 2021 and beyond, lowering long-run growth.”

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Food

Carrot cake muffins with maple cream cheese frosting. Tom McCorkle/Washington Post

‘Yes, please’: Try carrot cake muffins with maple cream

Diners enjoy an evening meal in Nice, France. Trip Advisor

Dine in Provence without leaving home

MAKE SOME FOR MOM: Treats

are easy to make, easier to eat

By ELLIE KRIEGER Washington Post

I often daydream about food, mulling over what I am craving, homing in on every detail of how I want it to be, and then plotting a way to satisfy my desire. This recipe was born from that place, a revelry over carrot cake — a moist crumb with shreds of tender carrot peeking through, a homey vanilla-cinnamon fragrance, an occasional nutty crunch, and a sweet, subtly tangy, cream cheese frosting.

But I wanted that carrot cake experience in a way that didn’t send me into sugar shock after two bites or overwhelm me with a two inch-thick slab of frosting.

I envisioned an uplifting treat to savor with my afternoon coffee, and these carrot cake muffins answer that call.

They are muffins with a cupcake vibe, bringing all the carrot cake flavors I craved without the stuff I didn’t. Sweet enough to feel like a special treat, they boast a modest amount of added sugar and are made with healthier oil rather than butter. Applesauce added to the batter provides a naturally sweet boost, and makes the muffins extra-moist, and their delightful little dollop of frosting is sweetened with just a touch of maple syrup.

These muffins are not only a better-foryou way to hit that carrot-cake spot, they would also (hint to my daughter) make for

HELPFUL HINTS: n Any type of lettuce

can be used instead of frisee. n Any type of cheese can be used in the salad. n Toasting the walnuts intensifies their flavor.

SHOPPING LIST: To buy: ½ pound eggplant ½ pound zucchini 1 package slice button mushrooms 1 can reduced-sodium diced tomatoes 1 head frisee, 1 small package walnut halves 1 small piece brie cheese 1 whole wheat baguette 1 bottle reduced-fat vinaigrette dressing Staples: olive oil, onion, sugar, salt and black peppercorns.

See MUFFIN C6

Fresh ratatouille features the vegetables of southern France

By LINDA GASSENHEIMER Tribune News Service

Freshly made ratatouille, a tasty blend of Provencal vegetables, is a popular dish in the Provence region of France. It’s gained wider popularity now perhaps due to the movie “Ratatouille.” This vegetarian meal is a quick version that captures the flavors of Provence without lengthy cooking.

Frisee is a member of the chicory family. It curly leaves and a slightly bitter edge and goes well with the ratatouille.

Heat olive oil in a nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add eggplant, zucchini, onion, and garlic.

Saute 3 to 4 minutes or until onion becomes golden. Add the mushrooms and toss several seconds. Add diced tomatoes and sugar. Bring to a simmer over medium heat. Lower heat and cover. Simmer 15 minutes. Vegetables should be cooked through but a little firm. Add salt and pepper to taste. Serve with bread on the side. Yield 2 servings.

SIMPLE RATATOUILLE (SAUTEED PROVENCAL VEGETABLES)

FRENCH FRISEE SALAD

1 tablespoons olive oil 2 ½ cups eggplant cubes, washed unpeeled and cut into 1-inch pieces 2 cups zucchini cubes, washed and cut into 1-inch pieces 1 cup sliced onion 2 teaspoons minced garlic 2 cups sliced button mushrooms 2 cups reduced-sodium canned diced tomatoes 1 tablespoon sugar Salt and freshly ground black pepper 4 slices whole wheat baguette

¼ cup walnut halves or pieces 4 cups frisee lettuce½ large head 2 tablespoons reduced-fat vinaigrette dressing 1 ounce brie cheese cut into small pieces, (about ¼ cup) Toast walnuts in a toaster oven or under a broiler for 2 to 3 minutes.

Watch to see that they do not burn.

Place frisee in a bowl and toss with the vinaigrette dressing. Sprinkle with the walnuts and cheese. Serve with the ratatouille. Yield 2 servings.

Butter on pasta carries lemon to Fresh take on Italian American classic great heights

By CHRIS ROSS

San Diego Union-Tribune

By ALI SLAGLE Washington Post

The inspiration for this simple lemonbutter pasta dish came from a cake. A lemon-poppy seed cake that’s floral and sweet with lemon — except it didn’t have any lemon juice.

Instead, the Lemon & Poppy Seed Cake in Yotam Ottolenghi and Helen Goh’s “Sweet” (Ten Speed Press, 2017) uses just one tablespoon of lemon zest. But how can such a scant amount ripple across a whole loaf?

The answer, as in so many good things, is butter. Fat carries flavor — whatever is warmed in melted butter (or warm olive oil, or animal fat), unleashes through the fat. Think about when garlic hits a pan of warm olive oil — you know the smell.

That’s the garlic’s oil swimming through the olive oil.

Similarly, when the zest of just one lemon sits in a skillet of melted butter, its oils release and permeate through the fat.

The butter is now lemony without introducing the pucker of lemon’s juice. When we take a bite of something draped in this now-infused butter, the flavor lingers on our tongue longer that it would in its unbloomed state.

See PASTA C6

In “Big Flavors From Italian America,” the new cookbook from Cook’s Country magazine, you get a healthy dose of history along with all the great recipes.

There are countless cookbooks on Italian cooking, but this one focuses on how the Italian immigrants who settled in our country adapted dishes from their homeland. Tucker Shaw, editor in chief of Cook’s Country, writes in the book that between 1880 and 1910 more than 5 million people immigrated to the United States from Italy. Money was tight for most of these immigrants so they adapted recipes to American ingredients and their tastes gradually evolved.

“Riffing on old-country underpinnings of bread, pasta and all-day sauce,” Shaw writes, “they created new, wholly American dishes: Spaghetti and meatballs. Cioppino. Scali bread.”

An example of that evolution is this recipe for Chicken Cacciatore. In this country, cacciatore, which translates to “hunter style,” often is made with a marinara sauce, though in Italy the dish does not always include tomatoes. And in Italy, the meat often was rabbit or game hen. The Cook’s Country version improves on the American marinara with a combination of red wine, diced tomatoes and chicken broth.

Cook’s Country and Cook’s Illustrated are publications of America’s Test Kitchen, so all cookbook recipes undergo the rigorous testing process that ATK is known for.

This generous recipe should provide leftovers

Chicken cacciatore from “Big Flavors From Italian America.” Joe Keller/Keller + Keller

for most families.

CHICKEN CACCIATORE Instead of using a cut-up whole chicken, we made our cacciatore with chicken thighs. Not

only is it easier to buy a package of thighs than it is to butcher a chicken, the thighs gave the braising liquid a more intense flavor. But the See CLASSIC C6

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C4 - Saturday - Sunday, May 9-10, 2020

Books & authors Behind West Virginia’s deadly opioid crisis,

AN ADDICTION TO MONEY

By SALLY SATEL Washington Post

Death in Mud Lick

By Eric Eyre Scribner. 289 pp. $28 In October 2005, the body of William “Bull” Preece, 45, was discovered in his rusted trailer in Mud Lick, West Virginia.

He had overdosed on oxycodone, a prescription opioid. His older sister, Debbie Preece, suspected foul play and resolved that Bull wouldn’t be just “another number, a statistic, in the overdose death toll.

Somebody was going to pay.”

Debbie hired a lawyer, and the two discovered rivers of pills — Lortab, Percocet, Vicodin and more — coursing through the hollows of Appalachian coal country. They eventually learned that the Sav-Rite pharmacy in Kermit, West Virginia, where Bull obtained his pills, had received 2.2 million hydrocodone and 78,500 oxycodone pills in the year after his death.

That volume was delivered to Sav-Rite by a single distributor, a company that purchases prescription pills from drug manufacturers, transports them to regional warehouses, and then delivers the medications to hospitals and pharmacies that ordered them. Over six years, from 2006 to 2012, distributors delivered 780 million hydrocodone and oxycodone pills to the state while 1,728 West Virginians fatally overdosed on those two painkillers.

“How did it happen?” asks Eric Eyre, a statehouse reporter for the Charleston Gazette-Mail. “How did 780 million painkillers spew into West Virginia and nobody said a word? How did millions of pills get dumped in small towns?” These questions had been driving Eyre since 2013, when, he says, he “stumbled into the middle” of Debbie Preece’s legal battle with the distributors. Soon he and his newspaper became part of the quest to get the facts.

“Death in Mud Lick” is the story behind the gargantuan shipments of pills. It is about addiction to money as much as to pharmaceuticals. The book features an ecosystem of participants: Dr. Feelgoods and the pharmacists who blithely filled their stream of prescriptions; the pharmacies that existed cheek-by-corrupt-jowl with pill mills manned by doctors who didn’t even examine patients and prewrote prescriptions that were handed out by secretaries; distributors that failed to report to the Drug Enforcement Administration “suspicious orders” — when pharmacies’ painkiller purchases abruptly spiked from one month to the next — or did not do so reliably; the overwhelmed West Virginia Board of Pharmacy, which received suspicious orders from the distributors but did little; and the DEA, which had precious knowledge about distributors’ deliveries but resisted the efforts of the courts and Congress to pry the data

out of the agency — until it no longer could resist. And then there was the state’s attorney general, who had conflicts of interest with one of the distributors and sought to suppress Eyre’s investigations. “Pablo Escobar and El Chapo couldn’t have set things up any better,” Eyre writes.

Yet it is the actions by distributors that lie at the heart of “Death in Mud Lick,” a highly readable account where events unfold in ticktock and the scenes are set cinematically. Eyre describes a balcony over a judge’s bench where in earlier trials “deputies stood, armed with rifles watching for trouble back when trials pitted union mine workers against coal companies.” In the legal tussle over the dumping of prescription painkillers, he shows us a baldheaded trial lawyer holding a Cuban cigar. “Was he

going to light it? No, he was chewing it into a wet mess, spitting the juice into a Styrofoam cup.”

The middlemen “delivered the opioid epidemic,” as the author puts it in the book’s subtitle. (Technically, drug companies — which are referenced in the subtitle — are pharmaceutical makers; the subtitle applies the term over-broadly.)

Over the years, those companies, most prominently McKesson, Cardinal Health and AmerisourceBergen, were in and out of court. They paid lots of fines but kept on trucking. In 2018, their chief executives gave sworn testimony before the House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce: All denied contributing to the opioid crisis. Later that year, the committee released the results of an 18-month

study. It found that distributors failed to conduct proper oversight of pharmacies by not questioning suspicious activity and not properly monitoring the quantity of painkillers shipped. The report also fingered the DEA for failing to monitor the flow of powerful prescription painkillers from manufacturers to sellers and for lax enforcement against distributors.

Eyre’s quest for answers culminated in a grand legal victory in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit last June. The Gazette-Mail, its sister publication the Herald-Dispatch and The Washington Post successfully petitioned the appeals court to overturn the decision of a Cleveland federal judge to seal DEA data. When that data was released, the magnitude of the distributor activity became public: 76 billion oxycodone and hydrocodone pills had been shipped to towns across America from 2006 to 2012.

While “Death in Mud Lick” contains little commentary or interpretation, it raises lots of delicate questions. For example, how to reconcile the structural causes of addiction — poverty, low-paying jobs, social malaise — with personal agency? Many addicts, after all, used and stole drugs long before they showed up at the rogue pain clinics, as Eyre describes. And what about local dealers — don’t they shoulder significant responsibility for facilitating drug abuse and overdoses among their neighbors? As Eyre relays, the FBI arrested the Preeces in the 1980s for selling drugs out of a trailer parked beside the town hall and police station. When supplies got low, they hung up a sign: “Out of Drugs. Back in 15 minutes.” And the doctors? Couldn’t headlines just as easily have announced that doctors prescribed 76 billion oxycodone and hydrocodone pills over six years?

Though focused on distributors, “Mud Lick” also shows why the blame should be widely diffused.

A powerful subtext of the book is the irreplaceable role of local journalism. Not simply to inform — an essential task in itself — but to help serve justice through investigation. Consistent with its “sustained outrage” ethos, the Gazette-Mail has been a tireless watchdog on the coal industry. Eyre was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 2017 for “courageous reporting, performed in the face of powerful opposition, to expose the flood of opioids flowing into depressed West Virginia counties with the highest overdose death rates in the country.”

“Death in Mud Lick” is a product of one reporter’s sustained outrage: a searing spotlight on the scope and human cost of corruption and negligence.

Satel is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and a visiting professor of psychiatry at Columbia University’s Irving Medical Center.

An anthropologist observing a remote fishing village becomes part of the story

By ELLEN AKINS Washington Post

Subduction

By Kristen Millares Young Red Hen. 272 pp. $16.95 What was it the anthropologist said? Claudia wonders as she types up her notes. “Oh, yes. ‘An observer is under the bed. A participant observer is in it.’ She doubted he foresaw her situation.” Because in “Subduction,” Kristen Millares Young’s debut novel, Claudia is in it, in a big way She has just left the embrace of Peter, a member of the Makah Tribe she’s ostensibly observing.

Claudia has recently fled to Neah Bay, a Native whaling village on the Pacific coast, to salve her wounded heart with work after her husband left her for another woman — her own sister. Claudia aims to conduct an anthropological study of Makah culture focused on one village elder, Maggie. Complicating the picture, Maggie’s prodigal son, Peter, has just returned to tend to his mother after 20 years away.

A second complication: Maggie has begun to lose the memory that Claudia hoped to plumb, and she has become a hoarder. Her trailer home is packed with mildewing papers, toys, clothing, flotsam

like key chains and plastic food baskets and blankets — “the kind Peter remembered from every couch of his childhood ... thick velour in royal blue and crimson, covered with airbrushed wolves howling at the moon.”

Where Peter sees junk to be consigned to dumpsters, Claudia finds significance. As she puts it in her field notes, Maggie has been “buying and saving these items for a potlatch that she wants to host for Peter, who she believes is in line to receive a song that proves chiefly lineage.” Maggie is also harboring a secret, the dark truth behind Peter’s departure 20 years ago.

At its heart, “Subduction” is all about stories — the stories that constitute personal, family and cultural identity and, perhaps more important here, the stories that people tell, about themselves and to themselves, to make life meaningful and livable.

While Peter tries to reconcile his own story with the Native tradition his mother so desperately wants him to accept, Claudia is trying to incorporate them both into hers, as an anthropologist seeking professional legitimacy, and as a betrayed woman seeking clarity and comfort — which mostly takes the form of sex, and

what rip-roaring sex it is. This is, at times, a welcome respite from Claudia’s exhaustive self-examination. As she herself puts it: “What a relief to be outside herself, if only for a moment, in his company.”

As the characters make their winding way toward the vaunted potlatch, there are passages of quiet beauty, deep emotion and sharp observation. Claudia’s “headache expanded like a dying star,” Young writes. But lyricism and passion vie throughout with an academic impulse not unlike Claudia’s own: “She’d had unprotected sex with the son of her best hope for a meaningful qualitative study,”

Claudia considers. And of that wildly inappropriate union, this whip-smart, if at times uneven, novel is the rightful offspring.

Akins is the author of four novels and a collection of stories, “World Like a Knife.”

Publisher’s Weekly best-sellers Tribune News Service (TNS)

Here are the bestsellers for the week that ended April 25, compiled from data from independent and chain bookstores, book wholesalers and independent distributors nationwide.

HARDCOVER FICTION 1. Walk the Wire. David Baldacci. Grand Central 2. If It Bleeds. Stephen King. Scribner 3. Masked Prey. John Sandford. Putnam 4. The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse. Charlie Mackesy.

HarperOne 5. American Dirt. Jeanine Cummins. Flatiron 6. The Book of Longings. Sue Monk Kidd. Viking 7. Texas Outlaw. Patterson/Bourelle. Little, Brown

8. The Book of Lost Friends. Lisa Wingate. Ballantine 9. The Boy from the Woods. Harlan Coben. Grand Central 10. The Giver of Stars. Jojo Moyes. Viking/Dorman

HARDCOVER NONFICTION 1. Magnolia Table, Vol. 2. Joanna Gaines. Morrow 2. Untamed. Glennon Doyle. Dial 3. Fierce, Free, and Full of Fire. Jen Hatmaker. Nelson 4. The Splendid and the Vile. Erik Larson. Crown 5. Medical Medium Cleanse to Heal. Anthony William. Hay House 6. About Your Father and Other Celebrities I Have Known. Peggy Rowe. Forefront 7. Hidden Valley Road. Robert Kolker. Doubleday 8. Fortitude. Dan Crenshaw. Twelve

9. Arguing with Socialists. Glenn Beck. Threshold 10. Get Our of Your Head. Jennie Allen. WaterBrook

MASS MARKET 1. Little Fires Everywhere (TV tie-in). Celeste Ng. Penguin Books 2. Lost and Found. Danielle Steel. Dell 3. First Comes Scandal. Julia Quinn. Avon 4. Shelter in Place. Nora Roberts. St. Martin’s 5. Envious. Lisa Jackson. Zebra 6. The 18th Abduction. Patterson/Paetro. Grand Central 7. Neon Prey. John Sandford. Putnam 8. Window on the Bay. Debbie Macomber. Ballantine 9. Denim and Diamonds. Debbie Macomber. Harlequin 10. The Woman in the Window (movie tie-in). A.J. Finn. Morrow

TRADE PAPERBACK 1. Little Fires Everywhere. Celeste Ng. Penguin Books 2. Revenge. Patterson/Holmes. Grand Central 3. The Night Fire. Michael Connelly. Grand Central 4. The Woman in the Window (movie tie-in). A.J. Finn. Morrow 5. Before We Were Yours. Lisa Wingate. Ballantine 6. City of Girls. Elizabeth Gilbert. Riverhead 7. Normal People. Sally Rooney. Hogarth 8. The Odd 1s Out: The First Sequel. James Rallison.

TarcherPerigee 9. Sunrise on Half Moon Bay. Robyn Carr. Mira 10. The Step-by-Step Instant Pot Cookbook. Jeffrey Eisner.

Voracious

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Puzzles Last week’s puzzle answers

Answers on C6

Answers on C6

Answers Next Week

Horoscope

Goren bridge WITH BOB JONES ©2020 Tribune Content Agency, LLC

WHICH PLAY? North-South vulnerable, North deals NORTH ♠ 10 9 7 6 5 3 ♥4 ♦ AKQ ♣Q42 WEST EAST ♠AK ♠QJ42 ♥ Q 10 9 6 ♥7 ♦ J52 ♦ 98763 ♣KJ87 ♣ 10 6 3 SOUTH ♠8 ♥ AKJ8532 ♦ 10 4 ♣A95 The bidding: NORTH EAST 1♠ Pass 2♠ Pass

SOUTH 2♥ 4♥

WEST Pass All pass

Opening lead: Ace of ♠ Declarer will often reach a crossroads in the play of a hand, where he must choose between one play or another. It might seem like a toss-up, but it almost never is. There is usually something to go on.

The ace of spades held the first trick and West continued with the

king of spades. South ruffed and cashed the ace and king of trumps.

East’s discard was a big disappointment. This would have been an easy one had the trumps split 3-2, with perhaps an overtrick or two coming declarer’s way. South had to decide what to do. Hoping for a 3-3 split in spades, South crossed to dummy with a diamond and ruffed a spade. Had the spades split evenly, South would have discarded a club on the queen of diamonds and another on an established spade.

West, however, over-ruffed the third spade, cashed the queen of hearts, and exited with a diamond. He couldn’t be prevented from taking a trick with the king of clubs for down one.

Could South have done better? Yes! Instead of ruffing a spade when he did, he could have cashed two more diamonds and then ruffed a spade.

Regardless of how he defended, West would eventually be forced to lead a club away from his king. Should South have found this play? We think so. West would have been most unlikely to continue with a spade at trick two if he held three of them.

(Bob Jones welcomes readers’ responses sent in care of this newspaper or to Tribune Content Agency, LLC., 16650 Westgrove Dr., Suite 175, Addison, TX 75001.)

By Stella Wilder Born today, you are something of a visionary, and you are able to see the world in which you live not as it is, but as you wish it would be. This can be quite frustrating, however, because it will not always be easy for you to close the gap between what is and what might be, though you are perfectly willing to do all you can for your cause — and sacrifice much in the process. Your passion and your motives may not be understood by everyone, and some may write you off as nothing more than a “crackpot” — but this says more about them than it does about you.

You will always carry with you a part of your youth, and this makes you in many ways one of the most integrated individuals born under your sign. There is not one trait that cannot be, in some way, aligned with another or explained by its likeness to another you have.

Also born on this date are: Billy Joel, singer and songwriter; Mike Wallace, newsman; Prince Fielder, baseball player; Rosario Dawson, actress; Candice Bergen, actress; Albert Finney, actor; J.M. Barrie, writer.

To see what is in store for you tomorrow, find your birthday and read the corresponding paragraph. Let your birthday star be your daily guide.

SUNDAY, MAY 10 TAURUS (April 20-May 20) — You’re able to anticipate when things may go awry and thus prepare for such eventualities — though they may not come to pass today.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20) — You may find yourself in an uncomfortable position today because of the passions set alight by an unexpected development. Don’t lose control!

CANCER (June 21-July 22) — You can put together

something today that will be highly valued by others — though one insignificant criticism takes you by surprise.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22) — Nothing is certain today but uncertainty — and that you can deal with by remaining open, flexible and willing to change when change is required.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22) — Thoughts of material gain must not overtake the plans you have made that can bring you inner contentment. You may have both very soon!

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22) — You’ll be able to keep pace with someone who is widely considered the best in his or her field. Your daring likely receives wide acclaim.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21) — What you do is less important today than how you do it. There is nothing new under the sun — but your unique qualities are valuable.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21) — You mustn’t pretend you are not interested today when someone brings you an attractive offer that you’ve long anticipated.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19) — You’re not about to take “no” for an answer — but you must be ready for what “yes” will mean for you today, tomorrow and the day after that.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18) — You’ve been trying long enough to solve a problem that just refuses to yield to your will. It’s time to bring in an expert you know.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20) — You can surely trust your instincts today, but don’t let anyone know — yet — that you’re not basing your decisions on established facts.

ARIES (March 21-April 19) — The more energy and commitment you bring to a certain endeavor today, the more you will be rewarded. You may surprise yourself.

COPYRIGHT 2020 UNITED FEATURE SYNDICATE, INC.

CMYK

COLUMBIA-GREENE MEDIA

C6 - Saturday - Sunday, May 9-10, 2020

Pasta From C3

Lemon zest, which refers to just the bright yellow peel with none of white pith just below it, is citrusy without being acidic. There’s a bit of pleasant bitterness, which is only tempered by our buddy, butter. The easiest way to get the zest off your lemon is with a rasp-style grater, which grates small wisps of the peel. (Microplane is the most common brand.) Grate your lemon zest right over the butter and you’ll be rewarded with a wonderful aroma.

Staring down into that pool of lemony butter, it’s easy to imagine turning it into a sauce for pasta. Even when you’re making a cake, it’s hard not to think about buttered noodles — rich, pure, sustaining.

This lemon-butter pasta recipe is a nod to classic fettuccine Alfredo, which does not contain cream. The richness comes from the simple emulsion of butter, Parmesan and starchy pasta water.

Like a salad dressing or pan sauce, it requires vigorous whisking to get the fat to meld with the water. But once it comes together and al dente noodles are added, stirring and tossing will lead to a silky sauce that clings to the pasta. The umami of the Parmesan plays

so well with the sneaky, fruity lemon. Only you will know its freshness comes from that generous scrape of lemon zest.

Now anytime you melt butter, you know you have created an opportunity to add more flavor to your dish. Grating zest over that butter is such an easy way to add pep: Think about a pan sauce for your chicken, now perky with lemon zest. Or a tray of roasted vegetables, bread crumbs or shrimp scampi tossed in lemony butter. Heck, even scrambled eggs — or your morning toast. You get the idea.

LEMON-BUTTER PASTA WITH PARMESAN 8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter Finely grated zest from 2 large lemons (2 tablespoons) Kosher salt 1 pound fettuccine, or another pasta 1 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese, plus more for optional garnish Freshly ground black pepper In a Dutch oven or skillet large enough to hold all the pasta, melt the butter over medium heat. Add the lemon zest and swirl to mix. Remove from heat.

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil, then add the pasta and cook until al dente, about 10 minutes. Drain the pasta, reserving 1½ cups of the pasta water.

Return the butter to medium heat, then whisk in the reserved pasta water until combined, about 2 minutes. Add the

From C3

pepper and Parmesan.

Calories: 291; Total Fat: 21.5 g; Saturated Fat: 14 g;

plants help support bees, butterflies, more

CARROT CAKE MUFFINS WITH MAPLE CREAM CHEESE FROSTING

Position the rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 375 degrees. Brush the wells of a muffin tin with oil.

Spread the nuts on a small, rimmed baking sheet and

pasta to the sauce; toss and stir until the noodles are glossed with sauce, 3 to 5 minutes.

Serve with more black

GARDENERS: Hardy

a splendid Mother’s Day treat.

1/3 cup neutral oil, such as grapeseed or canola, plus more for brushing the pan 1/2 cup pecan or walnut pieces 1 3/4 cups whole grain pastry flour , or 1 cup regular whole-wheat flour and 3/4 cup (94 grams) all-purpose flour 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon, plus more for optional dusting 1/2 teaspoon baking soda 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg 3/4 cup (165 grams) firmly packed light brown sugar 2 large eggs 1 cup (250 grams) unsweetened applesauce 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 2 cups (220 grams) coarsely grated carrots 1/4 cup (60 grams) whipped cream cheese 1 tablespoon maple syrup

Parmesan in a couple of handfuls, whisking until emulsified, 3 to 4 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Add the

Cholesterol: 71 mg; Sodium: 291 mg; Carbohydrates: 15 g; Dietary Fiber: 1 g; Sugars: 1 g; Protein: 9 g.

Quarantine activity: Plant a pollinator garden

Muffin

12 servings These muffins have a cupcake vibe, bringing you the craveable flavors of carrot cake in a better-for-you way, with a modest amount of sugar and healthier oil instead of butter. Applesauce added to the batter provides a naturally sweet boost and makes the muffins extra moist, and their delightful little dollops of frosting are sweetened with a touch of maple syrup.

Storage Notes: The muffins will keep in an airtight container in the refrigerator for about 4 days.

Lemon-Butter Pasta With Parmesan. Lisa Cherkasky/ Washington Post

By GARY THOMPSON The Philadelphia Inquirer (TNS)

Carrot cake muffins with maple cream cheese frosting. Tom McCorkle/Washington Post

toast in the oven about 3 minutes, until toasted and fragrant. Transfer the nuts to a cutting board, let cool slightly, then finely chop.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, baking soda, salt and nutmeg.

In a large bowl, whisk together the brown sugar, oil and eggs until well combined.

Whisk in the applesauce and the vanilla, then stir in the carrots. Add the dry ingredients to the wet in two or three batches, mixing each addition until just combined. Stir in the nuts until just incorporated.

Scoop the batter into the muffin tin and bake for about 20 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. Transfer the muffins in their tin to a wire rack to cool completely, then remove the muffins from the tin.

While the muffins are cooling, in a small bowl combine the cream cheese and maple syrup, beating until smooth.

Transfer the cream cheese mixture to a small plastic bag, pushing the mixture into one corner of the bag. Snip about ½ inch off the corner off the bag to create a piping bag and squeeze a dollop of frosting onto each muffin. Dust the muffins with additional cinnamon, if desired.

Calories: 247; Total Fat: 12 g; Saturated Fat: 2 g; Cholesterol: 34 mg; Sodium: 204 mg; Carbohydrates: 31 g; Dietary Fiber: 4 g; Sugars: 16 g; Protein: 4 g.

Every quarantined morning these days I sit on my front steps and watch a bee have its breakfast at a crocus or azalea, a tranquil reminder that while disruptions continue to the world of man, nature moves placidly along.

With a little help from her friends.

I planted a garden for pollinators a few years ago, something that’s really easy to start, easy to maintain, nice to look at and effective — common, hardy plants bring bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds during all but the winter months.

It’s a good project for Earth Day and can be done safely, as most plants can be ordered online and delivered, or picked up curbside from local garden centers.

We gathered tips from educator Constance Schmotzer from the Penn State agricultural extension, who is an expert in pollinator gardens.

And the gardens are needed now more than ever, she said, because bees are struggling to adapt to a decline in their habitat. Schmotzer said the best thing you can do to help the struggling bee population is to give them food (found in nectar-rich plants). It helps build a healthy bee population that can better withstand the impact of pesticides, disease, and parasites.

Here’s how you can help the bees: The optimum food for bees, she said, can be found in plants they’ve adapted to interface with over thousands

When looking for plants, stay away from hybrids, which may produce less pollen and nectar. Pexels

To help pollinators have a source of food nearly yearround, design your garden so that it includes plants that bloom in spring, summer and fall. Pexels

of years. Native plants (such as phlox, coneflower, black eyed Susans and aster) grow vigorously, require almost no watering once established and thrive in almost any kind of soil.

Look for heirloom varieties, and stay away from hybrids, which may produce less pollen and nectar. How do you find what’s native? Not-for-profit

Classic From C3

skin on the chicken turned flabby after braising and the sauce was greasy. To avoid this problem, we browned the thighs to render the flavorful fat and then removed the skin before braising them. Serves 8 8 (5- to 7-ounce) bone-in chicken thighs, trimmed 2 1/4 teaspoons table salt, divided 3/4 teaspoon pepper 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil 1 onion, chopped 6 ounces portobello mushroom caps, cut into 3/4-inch pieces 4 garlic cloves, minced 2 teaspoons minced fresh thyme

1 1/2 tablespoons all-purpose flour 1 1/2 cups dry red wine 1/2 cup chicken broth 1 (14.5-ounce) can diced tomatoes, drained 1 Parmesan cheese rind (optional; see note) 2 teaspoons chopped fresh sage Adjust oven rack to middle

online resources such as the Lady Bird Johnson Wildlife Center at wildflower.com can help you find good options.

You can also buy plants online from dealers that specialize in native plants and deliver.

Schmotzer recommends planting them relatively close together leaving little room between mature growth, so you don’t need to use pesticides or mulch. She said insects prefer the natural mulch of leaves, which also provide a habitat for pollinators in different stages of life.

Bees like to gorge on a particular kind of blossom when foraging. So plant a “drift” of similar plants, giving the bees an incentive to linger. One coneflower might not interest a busy bee. But three plants grouped together may represent an irresistible feast.

Design your garden so that it includes plants that bloom in spring, summer and fall, so pollinators have a source of food nearly year-round. In late March and early April, for position and heat oven to 300 degrees. Pat chicken dry with paper towels and season with 1 ¾ teaspoons salt and the pepper. Heat oil in Dutch oven over medium-high heat until just smoking. Brown thighs, 5 to 6 minutes per side. Transfer thighs to plate; discard skin. Pour off all but 1 tablespoon fat from pot.

Add onion, mushrooms and remaining ½ teaspoon salt to fat left in pot and cook, stirring occasionally, until softened and beginning to brown, 6 to 8 minutes. Stir in garlic and thyme and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Stir in flour and cook for 1 minute. Slowly whisk in wine, scraping up any browned bits and smoothing out any lumps.

instance, Virginia Bluebells will give bees somewhere to go in early spring. And they can be planted in shady spots, since they bloom before leaves form on trees.

You can build a garden that qualifies as a PSU certified pollinator garden. The main qualification? That your plot includes at least 75% native plants. You can find the application from the agricultural extension on the Penn State College of Agricultural Sciences website. The site also has really good information about Pa. native plants by season.

You can still plant some plants that you love, even if they aren’t native to the region. Other bee-friendly options include evergreen azalea or Japanese Andromeda, which blooms in March with cascading bunches of bell shaped flowers that attract bees in droves.

Some of the best plants for bees will also feed you. The giant hyssop (anise) in my front yard is by far the most effective at attracting pollinators across the board. It blooms early, copiously and stays around long enough for the monarchs.

Mint, oregano and basil, if you let them flower, and great at attracting bees, and also easy to grow in pots or window boxes for an herb garden.

Clustered mountain mint, Schmotzer said, is a variety that’s easy to grow and also popular with bees.

Your garden isn’t really finished until you provide a little nook for water, something like a bird bath. Bees also need to hydrate. Also, when your garden has run its course for the year, don’t be in a hurry to cut back old growth. Leave as much of it as you can. Lots of wild bees use the stalks of spent plants for a winter home.

Stir in broth, tomatoes and cheese rind, if using, and bring to simmer. Nestle thighs into pot, cover and transfer to oven. Cook until chicken registers 195 degrees, 35 to 40 minutes.

Remove pot from oven and transfer chicken to serving platter. Discard cheese rind, if using. Stir sage into sauce and season with salt and pepper to taste. Spoon sauce over chicken and serve.

Note: The Parmesan cheese rind is optional, but we highly recommend it for the savory flavor it adds to the dish.

Excerpted with permission from “Big Flavors From Italian America” by Cook’s Country magazine, a publication of America’s Test Kitchen.