Morning News Briefing

Genesee County has confirmed 64 new cases of COVID-19. The new infections involve residents from Le Roy, Batavia and eight other communities. 50 of the previous positive individuals have recovered and have been removed from the isolation list. 24 of the positive individuals are hospitalized. Three of the new positive cases are residents at Premier Genesee Center for Nursing & Rehabilitation. In Orleans County, 19 new cases of the virus were confirmed while Wyoming County reports 17 new cases.

The North Bergen Community Food Pantry and the Bergen business, Rose Garden Bowl, have worked together to assure that more than 100 area children experience some of the magic of the holidays in the form of Christmas stockings this year. This is the second year that the two organizations have collaborated on their Christmas Angel Stocking Program, soliciting donations of stockings filled with toys and personal items. The number of stockings donated has more than doubled — from 45 in 2019 to 109 stockings this year. In all more than 60 generous donors have gathered items for the stockings that will be distributed to 47 families. Recipients of the stockings are largely families that are clients of the North Bergen Food Pantry.

Governor Andrew Cuomo has signed legislation to strengthen penalties against the illegal disposal of construction debris, demolition debris, and other hazardous substances. The legislation also designates fraudulent schemes involving the disposal of solid waste as a new crime. With this signing, a number of technical changes to legislative language have been agreed to following negotiations with the legislature. The law goes into effect on January 1.

The Board of Regents adopted New York State’s first-ever K-12 Learning Standards for Computer Science and Digital Fluency. These standards, we’re told, will ensure that every student knows how to live productively and safely in a technology-dominated world, including understanding the essential features of digital technologies, why and how they work, and how to communicate and create using those technologies. The new standards are the culmination of a two-year, collaborative process that included New York State teachers and statewide experts on computer science and educational technology.

A New York judge on Tuesday ordered President Donald Trump’s company to give state investigators documents related to a suburban estate that’s the subject of a civil investigation into the family’s business practices. The Judge said the Trump Organization must turn over to the New York attorney general’s office all communications involving an engineer who worked on the Seven Springs estate in Westchester County, north of Manhattan. Trump Organization lawyers had argued that information exchanged with the engineer was privileged. The court rejected that, saying Trump’s lawyers previously agreed attorney-client privilege did not apply to the work on Seven Springs.