The Rochester Beacon

The Rochester Housing Quality Task Force’s policy scoring spreadsheet indicates that the group deliberated on only one of the City-Wide Tenant Union of Rochester’s 10 proposals. The data, obtained by the Rochester Beacon from CWTU, shows that the task force scored down the Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act,...

I’ve really been into this jangly, 1960s-inspired psychedelia since I saw the Brian Jonestown Massacre try to kill each other some 15-odd years ago. Founded in Brooklyn in 2014, and carrying themselves a great deal more peaceful, Acid Dad has filled the scene with a chaotic mellow mash of color and wonderment.

The battle over cryptocurrency mining in the Finger Lakes took a dramatic turn Thursday when the state Department of Environmental Conservation denied a permit renewal application for the Greenidge Generating Station on the western shore of Seneca Lake. The denial of the Title V air permit renewal followed a “a...

As a House Select Committee’s investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol brings the event into renewed focus, Rochester native Andrew Celli Jr. has played a peripheral but potentially significant role in the controversy swirling around the unprecedented event. In the Jan. 6 melee, a...

Tuesday night, Gov. Kathy Hochul celebrated her primary win at the Tribeca Rooftop event venue, a location with a skylight–a literal glass ceiling. Her victory, which was called by the Associated Press at 9:26 p.m., makes Hochul the first woman to win a major-party gubernatorial nomination in New York.

Nearly nine in 10 readers who took part in a Rochester Beacon survey on Monday think the U.S. Supreme Court was wrong to overturn Roe v. Wade. When asked about the decision, announced Friday, 88 percent said they disapproved. The ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization eliminated the...

Kiva Rochester is poised to reach a milestone. The organization, which offers crowdfunded microloans to businesses in the city of Rochester, has awarded 167 loans totaling nearly $1 million since its inception in 2016. Small, interest-free, commercial loans in Rochester were nonexistent until the city of Rochester partnered with San...

Julia Nunes hasn’t played a date on the road in five years. You can blame it on COVID, but you can thank her for accepting the offer to play this Jazz Fest with her dad—that Occasional Saint himself—Paul Nunes. Her dad seemed over the moon with the invite and I couldn’t fight the tears. It was a beautiful example of a bring-your-dad-to-work day. The Bacon Brothers made no attempt to acknowledge Nunes, so I’ve got nothing to say about them.

Friday at the Jazz Fest was full of surprises. I took a more relaxed approach to the festival, stopping by random shows and not worrying about a schedule. I only got to three shows, but this more laid-back perspective allowed me to really take in the community fostered by the festival. I met a couple of really friendly people and pet a few dogs. It was a great day.

In a historic ruling that topples a half-century of legal precedent on reproductive rights, the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday overturned Roe v. Wade, ending the constitutional right to obtain an abortion. The 5-4 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, written by Justice Samuel Alito and joined by...

Tonight I was introduced to my new favorite band: New York City’s instrumental Big Lazy, a trio of endless noir delivered by this sinister three. If Tom Waits could surf, this is what he’d hang ten to. It was monstrously vociferous, all reet and all gone. The guitar’s tone set atop the drums’ ragged shag and, what can I say? Infinite cool? It led to a few suburbanite squalls and shove as the band stuffed the place to the ceiling before getting started. Yup, my new favorite band. Yours, too. We’ve got room.

KORE Wireless expects its Pittsford facility to anchor its managed services unit. The Georgia-based business, which specializes in Internet of Things offerings, opened the $1.2 million facility last month. KORE came to the area after its acquisition of Integron, an IoT company that focused on connected health care solutions. Its...

By a 6-3 vote, the U.S. Supreme Court today struck down a New York law that put limits on where gun owners could publicly carry rifles and pistols. In a video released minutes after the ruling became public, Gov. Kathy Hochul called the vote “very disturbing news.”. The stricken...

Day 6 started off with something that we have luckily avoided up until this point: rain. It was pouring during the hours prior to the start of the festival, and even though it managed to stop just as the first shows started up, some outdoor shows were canceled. It was a hot, humid, gross day, but good music heals all wounds.

With more homicides and more crime guns traced per capita than most U.S. cities, Rochester has targeted reducing the supply of guns. To do so, it has adopted an approach found in many other cities: a gun buyback program. But do these programs work? That question does not have a...

CooperVision has begun to expand and renovate its manufacturing and distribution facilities in Scottsville and West Henrietta. The company, a leading global maker of contact lenses, expects the expansions to create more than 170 local jobs in manufacturing, engineering, and technical packaging. It employs more than 1,000 people in the Rochester region—accounting for 80 percent of CooperVision’s U.S. operations—and more than 12,000 globally.

Tuesday was Jazz Fest at its peak. Shows sold out left and right, and to top it all off, the biggest headliner of the week, Robin Thicke, was set to perform at the end of the day. The almost 90 degree weather didn’t deter enough people to prevent it from being the most crowded day at the festival so far.

My six-year-old granddaughter and I were walking in Rock Creek Park—in Chevy Chase, near the D.C.-Maryland border—when we came across a park bench. It’s a plain wooden bench that sits alone under some shade trees. As we approached, I saw on the back of it this memorial plaque:

If you want cool AC, just pop into Max of Eastman Place. If you want a cool scene, just pop into Max of Eastman Place like I did first thing on Day 4 of the Jazz Fest, where I dug jazz guitarist Dan Wilson. Wilson played it cream and smooth...

The third day of the Jazz Fest had a relaxed atmosphere, as things seemed to be cooling down after the more chaotic first two days. I started the day revisiting old memories by watching the Brighton High School Jazz Band. Even though I was never in the High School Jazz Band, it wasn’t too long ago that I played with the Brighton Middle School Jazz Band at the Jazz Fest in 2016.