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A weather system moving through the region on Wednesday evening is expected to bring much-needed rain, continuing overnight into Thursday morning, with scattered showers throughout the day. By Thursday evening, widespread rainfall totals of up to 1 inch are possible, with some localized areas potentially receiving up to 2 inches—significantly higher amounts than many areas have seen in the past month.

In addition to the rain, colder air moving into the region may bring a mix of wet snow, particularly in the higher elevations of the Catskills and Poconos. As an upper-level low pressure system moves over New York State, it will cause rapid upward motion in the atmosphere, cooling the air and pulling in cold air from mid-levels. This could result in rain transitioning to wet snow in parts of the Catskills and the Poconos on Thursday, with some areas potentially experiencing their first accumulating snow of the season.

The higher elevations of Sullivan, Western Ulster, Western Greene, and Delaware counties are expected to see the greatest snowfall totals, with some of the highest peaks possibly receiving over 6 inches. Residents in these colder, higher-elevation areas should be prepared for snowy conditions, especially Thursday night.

However, the weather system remains unpredictable. Meteorologists caution that the dynamic nature of the storm means there's still a chance for wet snow to reach portions of the Hudson Valley, particularly in valley areas. There's a 20% to 30% chance that rapidly cooling air and strong upward motion could lead to a brief period of snow across the region on Thursday. 

For now, it's a weather event that will require close monitoring as conditions develop over the next two days.

We go in-depth on this week’s forecast and talk about the winter ahead with Michael Kistner, Lead Meteorologist, National Weather Service, Binghamton.

This article is made possible through Spotlight PA’s collaboration with Votebeat, a nonpartisan news organization covering local election administration and voting. Sign up for Votebeat's free newsletters here.

HARRISBURG — Pennsylvania’s highest court has directed three counties not to include undated or misdated mail ballots in their November election results.

Such ballots have been the subject of years of litigation in various courts, and became an issue again after Bucks, Montgomery, and Philadelphia Counties moved to count them for the Nov. 5 election.

These are the ballots where a voter has neglected to write the date on the return envelope or written something incorrect, like their birthday. There are roughly 1,500 or so ballots in play in the three counties, likely not enough to change the outcome of the U.S. Senate race that is spurring the litigation.

Still, the legal action highlights an unsettled area of policy that has long frustrated people in charge of running elections in Pennsylvania.

Attorneys for the counties had argued that officials there had constitutional concerns about rejecting the improperly dated ballots.

They pointed to Commonwealth Court, which has ruled multiple times this year that rejecting mail ballots solely for an improper date violates the state constitution’s free and equal elections clause.

On Monday, a 4-3 majority of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court told the three counties not to include undated and misdated ballots in their counts. It clarified that the Commonwealth Court rulings do not apply to the Nov. 5 election.

Here’s how to understand the background leading up to the decision:

A mail ballot in Pennsylvania comes with two envelopes: an inner secrecy envelope and an outer return envelope.

There is a field on the return envelope for the voter to write “today’s date” — meaning, the date they fill it out.

An undated ballot is one where the voter left that field blank. A “misdated” ballot is generally understood to be one on which a voter wrote a date outside a range described in a Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling — between when counties begin mailing out ballots and Election Day, when they are due.

The Pennsylvania Department of State directed counties to pre-print the full year — 2024 — on the envelope to help voters avoid writing the wrong date, like their birthdays, previously one of the most common errors.

The first way to understand the issue is based on what state law has to say about these ballots. The Pennsylvania Election Code requires voters to date and sign the return envelope in order for the ballot to be accepted and counted. However, this enforcement of this provision has been heavily litigated over the past several years.

You may have seen headlines like this one from Fox News: “Pennsylvania Democrats openly admit to counting illegal ballots in McCormick-Casey race.” Or this one from the Washington Post editorial board: “Democrats thumb their nose at the rule of law in Pennsylvania.”

These pieces reference the decisions in Bucks, Montgomery, and Philadelphia Counties to accept and count improperly dated ballots.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s order on Monday cited a ruling it made in 2022 that “the Election Code’s command” to date ballots “is unambiguous and mandatory.”

But in the years since, both state and federal courts have been asked to consider other legal challenges to the rule, including most recently an argument that it violates the state constitution.

In August, Commonwealth Court — one of Pennsylvania’s appellate courts — ruled that the dating requirement violates the free and equal elections clause of the state constitution. It ruled the same thing in October in response to a case stemming from a Sept. 17 special election in Philadelphia.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has yet to rule on the merits of such a challenge and repeatedly declined to do so ahead of the Nov. 5 election.

Instead, it threw out the August ruling on a technicality. And then, on Nov. 1, it ruled that Commonwealth Court’s decision in the Philadelphia case would not apply to the general election.

The three counties in turn argued that they had to consider whether rejecting someone's improperly dated ballot this election would violate their constitutional rights, since the high court had not ruled on the issue.

The counties did not believe that Nov. 1 ruling prohibited them from “independently assessing whether rejecting mail ballots with voting errors cast is consistent with the Pennsylvania Constitution and the statutorily prescribed process for counting votes,” their attorneys argued.

The court made itself clear Monday afternoon, telling the counties to “comply with the prior rulings of this court in which we clarified that mail-in and absentee ballots that fail to comply with the requirements of the Pennsylvania Election Code shall not be counted for the purposes of the election held on November 5, 2024.”

One state Supreme Court justice, Kevin Brobson, admonished the counties for what he said was an overstepping of their authority.

Local election officials do not have the authority “to ignore Election Code provisions that they believe are unconstitutional,” he wrote. “Only the courts under our charter may declare a statute, or provision thereof, unconstitutional.”

Monday’s order stems from suits filed by the national and state Republican parties asking the high court to stop the counties from cou...

Just in time for Thanksgiving, Kaatscast: The Catskills Podcast visits the unique International Museum of Dinnerware Design in Kingston, New York. Founded by Margaret Carney in 2012, the museum recently found its new home, offering dedicated exhibitions that celebrate the art and history of dining.

This episode highlights the museum's two inaugural exhibits, 'Dining Grails,' featuring renowned designers like Eva Zeisel; and 'Dining Memories,' showcasing a diverse array of dinnerware in nostalgic vignettes.

And for an 'interactive' experience like no other, visitors can step into the Instagram-ready 'a la carte gallery' and try their hand at the famous tablecloth trick.

Brett Barry hosts and produces Kaatscast from Silver Hollow Audio, in the heart of the Catskills. 

With the Medicare Open Enrollment period closing on December 7, scams have been rampant.

We spoke to Maria Alvarez is the Executive Director of NY StateWide Senior Action Council an organization dedicated to advocacy for the rights of seniors in New York State about how to avoid being scammed.

Scammers often pretend to be from Medicare, or connected to Medicare, to try to steal your money or personal information. They might contact you and say they need your Medicare, bank account, or credit card number for your “new” Medicare card. That’s a scam — Medicare sends its cards to you automatically for free.

Scammers might also say they need your Medicare number for a “medical equipment claim” you don’t remember making. That’s a scam, too. They want to file fake claims using your Medicare number.

Stay clear of these and other Medicare scams during Open Enrollment, and any other time:

Don’t give personal information to someone who contacts you unexpectedly and claims to be from Medicare. Medicare will never unexpectedly call, email, text, or message you on social media to ask for your Medicare, Social Security, or bank account numbers. They also won’t try to sell you anything or tell you to pay for your Medicare card. That’s always a scam.

Don’t trust your caller ID. Your caller ID might show Medicare’s name or phone number. But caller ID can be faked. It could be anyone calling from anywhere in the world. 

If you think a call might be real, hang up and call 1-800-MEDICARE (1-800-633-4227) to check.

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for Votebeat Pennsylvania’s free newsletter here.

At least three Pennsylvania counties are accepting and counting mail ballots from last week’s election that lack a proper date on the envelope, prompting a new legal clash in a long-running disagreement over how to handle these ballots.

The Republican National Committee and the Pennsylvania Republican Party filed a lawsuit Thursday asking the state Supreme Court for an immediate ruling on the issue.

Counties are in the last stage of counting their ballots and finalizing their original election results as they prepare for a recount in the U.S. Senate race starting next week. What the counties do with ballots that are undated or that have an incorrect date is a particular concern because of how close that race is. As of 4 p.m. Friday, fewer than 23,000 votes separated Republican Dave McCormick and incumbent Democratic Sen. Bob Casey, according to results from the Department of State’s website.

And the two campaigns are taking an active role in the dispute over which ballots should be counted.

The GOP lawsuit names Philadelphia, Bucks, and Centre counties as having opted to count the undated and misdated ballots. Centre County Administrator John Franek said that the county did not count any undated ballots but that officials counted three challenged ballots that had issues with how the date was filled out.

At least one other county, Montgomery, has also confirmed it is counting them, after its board of elections voted 2-1 to approve the move Thursday.

“The issue for us is, and the reason that I'm voting yes, is because we’re talking about constitutional rights,” said Neil Makhija, chair of the Montgomery County Board of Elections, at Thursday’s meeting. “I cannot take an action to throw out someone's ballot that is validly cast otherwise over an issue that … we know is immaterial.”

The Pennsylvania Department of State declined to say what the other 63 counties in the commonwealth are doing. Votebeat and Spotlight PA have confirmed that at least five, Allegheny, Snyder, Chester, Lycoming and Mercer, are not accepting the ballots to be counted.

Republicans, in their emergency petition Thursday, called for the Supreme Court to declare that the date requirement on ballots is mandatory and that counties shouldn’t count such ballots in this election.

“Regrettably … the recalcitrant rulings of these county boards, issued in the wake of a hotly

contested election in which millions of Pennsylvanians cast their ballots and made

their voices heard, require the Court to [act],” the Republican groups wrote.

Pennsylvania’s election code requires voters to sign and date the outer return envelope of their mail ballots and return the ballot in a secrecy envelope in order for it to be counted.

But enforcement of the dating requirement has been in dispute for years, with opponents, such as the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, arguing that it is immaterial to a voter’s eligibility to vote and that rejecting on that basis violates their constitutional rights. Litigation has gone on continually since 2020.

The three most recent cases, resolved in the last three months, did not bring much clarity to the issue from the state’s highest courts.

First, in August, the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court ruled in a case brought by the ACLU and Public Interest Law Center that the dating requirement violated voters’ right to vote under the state constitution. But the state Supreme Court quickly voided that order on technical grounds, though it did not rule on the merits of the constitutional question.

After that ruling, the state Supreme Court declined to take up the constitutional issue directly.

Then, a mid-September special election in Philadelphia again resulted in litigation over the dating requirement, and the Commonwealth Court again ruled, on Oct. 30, that the requirement violated the state constitution. However, the court said its decision didn’t apply to the Nov. 5 general election.

Asked to provide clarity, the state Supreme Court affirmed on Nov. 1 that the Commonwealth Court’s decision applied only to the Philadelphia special election, not the general election, and again, did not address the underlying question of constitutionality.

Still, some counties such as Montgomery looked to the Commonwealth Court ruling in the Philadelphia case as evidence that the dating requirement is unconstitutional and that the undated or misdated ballots should be counted.

Election officials have repeatedly noted that they do not use the voter’s handwritten date to determine whether a ballot was received by the deadline, which is 8 p.m. on Election Day. Mail ballots have barcodes on their return envelopes that electronically record when ballots are sent out by the county and when they are received back.

Pennsylvania's Department of State has given some guidance to counties on how to handle undated or misdated ballots, though this guidance does not have the force of law.

The guidance advises counties to segregate undated or misdated ballots — a common tactic when the legal status of certain ballots is uncertain. Citing ongoing litigation over how these ballots should be handled, it said the department would update its guidance "as soon as it is able."

In the absence of a clear ruling from the state Supreme Court, that updated guidance has still not come.

In Snyder County, where officials decided not to count undated or misdated ballots, Commissioner Joe Kantz said it was clear to the election board that the Oct. 30 Commonwealth Court ruling in the Philadelphia special election case did not apply to any other county, or to the general election.

In its suit filed before the state Supreme Court on Thursday

An alcohol-only diet would likely confuse most species, but new research indicates that hornets can survive—seemingly without any negative effects—on a diet consisting solely of an 80 percent ethanol sugar solution.

Joe Johnson is our resident science guy and he’s here with the story of those wasps that can thrive on just alcohol without getting buzzed and other science stories that caught his eye, including ice melting in Norway that has revealed an Iron Age medieval mountain pass littered with near-perfectly preserved artifacts and scientists finding a seismic role in formation of large gold nuggets. 

This story originally appeared in New York Focus, a nonprofit news publication investigating power in New York. Sign up for their newsletter here.

ELECTIONS · November 12, 2024

President-elect Donald Trump has made it clear: His administration will aggressively pursue “mass deportations.”

States may seem powerless in the face of such an agenda. Immigration is the purview of the federal government, which, in just over two months, will seek to flood communities with Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers (and perhaps the US military) to detain and deport as many people as possible, whether those communities and their state and local officials like it or not.

But deportations are a logistical game, and state and local governments hold some of the cards. For a removal campaign as massive as what Trump is promising, states can aid ICE’s efforts to find, apprehend, and lock up deportable people. Or they can throw a wrench in the agency’s plans.

Despite New York state’s immigrant-friendly reputation, the jury’s out on which role it will play. The direction it goes depends heavily on whether state lawmakers and Governor Kathy Hochul take quick action.

In the wake of the first Trump presidency, under then-Governor Andrew Cuomo, New York enacted some policies that restricted federal immigration enforcement in the state. Executive orders and legislation now prohibit immigration arrests at courthouses and within state government facilities, and state agencies are largely barred from coordinating with immigration authorities.

But unlike other blue states — like New Jersey, Illinois, and Oregon — New York hasn’t extended those prohibitions to local and county governments. That means local authorities are mostly free to deal with immigration issues as they see fit, including by helping feds facilitate deportations.

“We don’t have a statewide law that is protecting immigrant New Yorkers, or anybody traveling in New York, no matter where in the state they are,” explained Yasmine Farhang, director of advocacy at the Immigrant Defense Project.

Legislators have proposed those kinds of laws: namely, the New York for All Act,
 which was first introduced in 2020 and would prohibit local law 
enforcement from colluding with ICE. Part of the reason those laws 
haven’t passed is misconceptions about immigration and public safety, 
according to Senator Andrew Gounardes, a lead sponsor of New York for 
All.

US media and politicians on both sides of the aisle 
frequently associate immigration with crime and violence, even though 
immigrants, including undocumented immigrants, are less likely to commit crimes than US-born citizens. Despite police insinuation
 otherwise, deportable people go through the same criminal justice 
system as citizens when charged with a crime, and available research has
 found that “sanctuary”
 policies have no effect on reported crime. In fact, sanctuary 
jurisdictions are associated with lower rates of homicide and assault.

“The truth is that separating families, and sowing fear and
 chaos in communities, does nothing to ensure public safety or fix our 
broken immigration system,” Gounardes said. “Local enforcement of 
immigration wastes resources and distracts police from investigating 
crimes and responding to emergencies.”

Gounardes called Trump’s plan “a hard-right agenda that 
would tear apart families.” A Trump presidency makes enacting policies 
that inhibit aggressive ICE action all the more urgent, he said.

It also complicates those policy efforts, as Trump plans to
 recruit local law enforcement to help with immigration enforcement, and
 his allies have threatened to punish state and local governments that 
resist the mass deportation campaign. During his first term, Trump cut 
off federal grants and threatened to withhold Covid relief money from 
localities that refused to cooperate with ICE.

And Project 2025, the political initiative widely viewed as
 a blueprint for Trump’s second term, has recommended withholding 
federal disaster relief funding and law enforcement grants from those 
localities.

It’s unclear how New York feels about a wave of immigration enforcement in the state, though voters have made clear that they care about immigration as a whole: An Associated Press exit poll clocked it as the second most important issue among Empire State voters.

Nina Burleigh is an award winning journalist and author, most recently, of the novel Zero Visibility Possible.

She’s also a contributing editor at The New Republic and has written this week’s cover story for the magazine: Trump 2.0: Here Comes the Night.

Image Credit: Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Catskill Mountainkeeper, a non-profit environmental organization dedicated to protecting the Catskill Region, is emphasizing the importance of community involvement following the recent election. The organization stresses the need for grassroots action to address critical issues facing the region, particularly climate change, which is it says it "a nonpartisan challenge that affects us all."

Catskill Mountainkeeper plans to engage with newly elected officials to advocate for the Catskills' needs at the local, state, and federal levels.  The organization's first step will be to meet with newly elected members and representatives to discuss its top priorities for 2025.

Jason Dole spoke to Ramsey Adams, Executive Director of Catskill Mountainkeeper, about the presidential election's outcome on local and state climate goals. 

Dr. Sean Wall-Carty is Councilman for the Town of Fallsburg, NY and he's also an author. 

His new memoir is called “What Did You Learn?: Understanding the Benefits of Humor and Laughter in Leadership” It captures his journey through a multifaceted career in education, public service, and professional development. 

He appeared on Radio Chatskill to talk about the importance of finding joy in the workplace and beyond.