Morning News Brief

Tuesday they announced they were coming off, now they are putting them back on.  Governor Hochul announced Wednesday that, while the federal government says masks are no longer required on mass transit or at airports and bus terminals, at least while they are appealing a Florida judge’s decision striking down the mask mandates, New York will still require masks.  The Fredrick Douglas Greater International Airport and Rochester Transit Services announced that the masks will once again be required.  Hochul says mandated masking is still being evaluated and that rising cases should be taken into account.  She says this is a temporary measure, but that she wants to keep everyone as safe as possible as the statewide case count rises.

Former Rochester Police Chief La’Ron Singletary says he is disgusted with the democrat party and that’s why he is running for State Congress as a republican.  He said that “the demonization, demoralization, and defund the police rhetoric…caused him to leave the party.”  He said  “The Democratic Party was no longer the party that I knew it to be, and no longer the party of my parents.” Singletary was fired from his position as Chief of Police for Rochester in September of 2020 after he and his entire command staff tendered their resignation over the handling of the Daniel Prude death in police custody.  Singletary later sued Warren and the City of Rochester for defamation of character, creating a hostile work environment, and wrongful and retaliatory termination and won a 75,000 dollar settlement.  In the lawsuit he said he was instructed to lie for Mayor Lovely Warren who would herself be ousted from her position.  

Inflation is here and a Buffalo news team is tracking it.  According to the 7 News team the prices of common household staples is on the rise and they took the time to figure out which items are rising the most.  After tracking prices on eggs, ground beef, milk, white bread and toilet paper for 6 weeks in 5 different grocery stores they found that ground beef rose the most and that Aldi had the highest price with it rising by more than 130%.  Strangely Walmart had the most consistent price with it not rising at all.  Milk was second with a 60 percent increase.  Third was Eggs which rose almost 50%.  Toilet paper and white bread stayed nearly the same.  

If you were up by Lake Ontario near Hamlin Wednesday you may have seen an unusual sight.  Army National Guard helicopters scooping up water in huge buckets and then dumping them on the lake. The National Guard was conducting training on how to fly with a 13,000 pound bucket full of water and hitting targets to help with extinguishing fires.  Twelve Department of Environmental Conservation Rangers also participated in the training, working on firefighting techniques and learning terminology used by firefighters.

O-At-Ka Milk adding big addition for Alcoholic beverage production.  Batavia Town Planners ok’ed the building of 3 large storage tanks at O-At-Ka Milk on Tuesday night.  They say the milk company plans to construct a 58- by 70-square-foot addition that includes three storage tanks for the company’s growing alcohol-based beverage operation.  One of the tanks measures 15 feet high by 8 feet in diameter and the other two measure 28 feet high by 12.5 feet in diameter. The addition is to be placed on the south side of the property, which spans the corner of Ellicott Street Road and Cedar Street.  In another decision The Planning and Development Committee gave permission for the Main Street 56 Theater façade to go up on the City Center building.  The two story glowing etched glass façade will be on the Main Street side of the building.