99 NEWS HEADLINES FOR FRIDAY, 2/26/10

MASSENA SCHOOL DISTRICT FACES $3.4 MILLION-DOLLAR BUDGET GAP--Superintendent Roger Clough said Thursday a bleak state aid picture, a lower property tax base, and the loss of GM and Alcoa tax revenue will result in massive cuts in staff, equipment and supplies in 2010-2011. Also from last night's meeting...summer school will be farmed out to BOCES; some teachers are not happy.

SUNY POTSDAM TO SAVE $600K THROUGH EARLY RETIREMENTS--18 senior staff will take severance packages as a cost-cutting move a spokesperson says will allow many other positions to be preserved. Two deanships will be vacated and not filled.

SURVIVING MIGRANT FARMWORKER IN MADRID FIRE HELD FOR BEING ILLEGAL ALIEN--21-year-old Valente Fransisco, a Mapleview Dairy milker who was able to escape a burning mobile home Wednesday afternoon, is held by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement for possible deportation. The name of one farmworker who perished in the blaze will be released after an autopsy Saturday.

HIP-HOP GOOD AND BAD, KING SAYS--Martin Luther King III was asked Tuesday at SUNY Canton whether the hip-hop music and culture has taken 'realizing the dream' for African-Americans and others forward or back. King says baggy pants and the denegration of women and others are bad, however the economic prosperity it has brought some is good.

RUSSELL FORUM TO BE HOSTED BY SCOZZAFAVA--Assemblywoman Addie Russell's office announced yesterday she will not be able to attend a forum at OFA saturday at 2pm because of a death in her family. Dede Scozzafava has been asked to take it over. Scozzafava has planned a forum of her own at the Colton Town Hall Saturday 11am-12:30pm.