Morning News Brief

Election results are in for Genesee county.  In Batavia all 3 republican At large council members, Jankowski, Karas, and Bialkowski, were re-elected.  Joseph Nowakowski and Jeff Wolak were elected Bethany Town Justice.  In Bergen Starowitz and Whalin were elected to the town council.  And in Leroy Tom Feeley won as a write in candidate for Town Justice while Paddock and Fox took the town council spots.  All results are unofficial at this time.

Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown has declared victory as a write in candidate after he was primaried earlier this year by India Walton.  It appears that he won 59 percent of the vote over Walton’s 41 percent.  Low voter turnout due to a date change during the primary was blamed for Browns surprise primary loss and subsequent aggressive campaign to get people to write him in after the courts denied him a place on the ballot.  Walton has not conceded.

The CDC has advised that they believe that kids 5-11 should be able to receive the Pfizer ⅓ dose COVID vaccine.  Once CDC director Rachel Walensky signs off on the decision the vaccine will be open to being received by the 28 million children in that age group in the US.  NY is already preparing for the vaccine with Governor Hochul announcing that pop up clinics for kids are being prepared.  

The Buffalo Zoo has had to euthanize their 19 year old African Lion Shona.  She had had deteriorating health for some time and the zoo says her kidney and liver could no longer be treated medically.  Shona was born at the Como Park Zoo in St. Paul, MN. in 2002 and came to the Buffalo Zoo with her sister Acacia and brother Tsavo when they were around a year old.  Acacia passed away earlier this year. 

New York State has released the Buffalo Bills stadium study conducted by AECOM that will be used to inform stadium negotiations.  According to the study, it will cost $862 million to renovate the current stadium and $1.354 billion to build a new stadium next to the current site.  It was recommended that the Bills, state and county proceed with options for a new stadium over renovating the existing stadium.  The two main areas of land considered in the study for a new stadium are the South Park site in Buffalo, as well as parking lots 3 and 4 at the current location in Orchard Park.

The Sharks beat the Sabres 5 to 3 last night in San Jose.  Buffalo is now 5 and 3 and 1.  Jeff Skinner scored 2 goals for the Sabres and Drake Caggiula put in one.  Their next game will be against the Seattle Kraken at Climate Pledge Arena.  Both the Kraken and Sabres are coming off a 2 game losing streak.