One of the features to be shown during this year's Tribeca Film Festival is First Winter, which is also known as the fest's "hipster apocalypse movie" because it features Brooklyn hipsters stranded in a remote country farmhouse. Now, as the festival draws near, it turns out that the film crew didn't have a license to shoot and kill two deer! And the hipster film crew killed the deer outside of deer hunting season! more ›

Forget giant rats or pizza-loving, petting zoo poseurs: feral boars are just (300) miles away in sleepy Peru, New York, feasting on apples and other crops and copulating like, well, pigs that start having sex at the age of six months. “There’s a real sense of urgency,” Ed Reed, a biologist at the DEC tells the Times. “Once the pigs get established, they are very difficult to eradicate completely.” When will Governor Cuomo follow Texas' lead and allow us to kill them with automatic weapons from helicopters? more ›

An upstate widow has been accused by authorities of breaking immigration laws and keeping an illegal alien essentially as a house slave. 39-year-old Annie George of Rexford reportedly compelled an Indian woman, identified in court as V.M., to overstay her visa and then had her cook, clean and care her her six children (while sleeping in a closet in one of the kids's bedrooms). more ›

Last fall, teen girls at LeRoy High School in upstate NY suddenly started exhibiting Tourette's-like symptoms. For months, NY State health officials could find no direct cause for why the teens developed the spasms and tics, with some doctors insisting it was "mass hysteria." But now, doctors say that several of the teens are showing signs of recovery: "The media focus, the questions on whether it is environmental or toxins, all that adds confusion, anxiety and difficulty," said Dr. Laszlo Mechtler, medical director at DENT Neurologic Institute in western NY, who has treated some of the teens with psychotherapy and behavioral therapy, as well as prescribed medication for anti-anxiety, depression and headaches. more ›

While NY State health officials have found no cause for why numerous upstate teens have developed spasms and Tourette's-like tics, many of the girls and their parents insist there must be a reason for the sudden epidemic. Doctors believe it's "mass hysteria," because environmental and infectious factors have been ruled out for the LeRoy, NY teens, but now crusading activist Erin Brockovich is stepping in. more ›

After NY State health officials said there are no known infectious or environmental causes for why numerous teen girls have Tourette's-like tics, victims and their parents appeared on the Today Show to express their frustration. Thera Sanchez, a high school cheerleader whose tics suddenly emerged last fall after taking a nap, said, "I’m very angry. I’m very frustrated. No one’s giving me answers." But one doctor who has treated some of the teens tells Today it's "conversion disorder"—a.k.a., mass hysteria. more ›

Police say that a knife-wielding man attempted a "suicide by cop" in the offices of a newspaper in upstate Schenectady yesterday—and despite being shot three times, he is expected to survive. “At this point, we’re forced to believe that this was an attempt of suicide by the police. We have spoken with a family member, who indicates to us this subject lately has been expressing suicidal thoughts," said Public Safety Commissioner Wayne Bennett. more ›

We've mentioned this before, but it bears repeating: Hurricane Irene seriously screwed up a lot of farms upstate (and beyond). Fundraisers, special events and donation sites are up and running, but in case you need a visual guide to really illustrate how bad it is, Food.Curated's Liza de Guia has put together this heartbreaking video of the damage at Maple Downs Farm in Middleburgh, New York. David and Denise Lloyd lost everything—crops, equipment, and animals (most of which were baby calves who couldn't swim in the seven feet of flooding). Check it out: more ›

Remember how there was a beautiful—and huge—mountain lion killed by an SUV in Connecticut last month? And it turned out that the cat had walked all the way from South Dakota? Now it turns out the mountain lion made its way through NY State's Lake George—and that state Department of Environmental Conservation officials knew it was there but never told local officials that a 140-pound predatory cat was in their midst. Classic Albany! more ›

Federal officials are upping their warnings to citizens about hundreds of wild boars roaming through central NY, attacking livestock, killing pets, chasing people and posing "devastating consequences" for the area. Officials who have unsuccessfully been trying to track the boars, who they believe escaped from game farms, for years now say there is evidence that they've been breeding at an accelerated pace. But even scarier? The boars are practically invulnerable to our puny weapons! more ›

Have you been getting worried that all of that anti-NYC bad mouthing Republican gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino has been spouting lately may hurt his campaign? Don't worry. It's all part of the plan. "Part of his campaign has been to mobilize the angry upstate electorate and pit upstate versus downstate. I think you will see more of it," said Buffalo Assemblyman Sam Hoyt. more ›

After the Democratic-majority State Senate rejected the same sex marriage bill last year, different gay rights advocacy groups decided to campaign against the Democrats who voted against the bill. One of those Democrats, Bill Stachowski who represents a district in western New York, lost the primary to challenger Tim Kennedy last night. Fight Back NY sent us this image showing a scoreboard: "The Gays 1, Stachowski 0." more ›

The Buffalo News' feature on gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino starts off with the Tea Party-supported Buffalo developer telling 50 supporters in Steuben County that Queens and Staten Island are "just like us...That leaves Manhattan, the Bronx and Brooklyn — and they can have them. First, you can’t get around down there, and secondly, there aren’t many Republicans." Burn? more ›

NY State budget problems have claimed another victim: Communities that benefit from the state's I Love NY tourism marketing efforts. According to the Poughkeepsie Journal, the state is "dumping plans for a summer advertising campaign to lure tourists to New York, cutting tourism funding and not sending a representative to the travel industry's premier international conference...where companies from around the globe will consider where to send vacationers." A Binghamton travel information center may close this month, and the Chamber of Commerce president worried, "What are visitors to our community going to say when they enter New York state, stop to use the bathroom, and there's a sign up of (travel) information and it says, 'Closed for Business'?" more ›

Politicians and convicts alike are arguing with the Census Bureau over where prisoners are counted. Currently, prisoners are counted as residents of the areas where they are being held, not from their hometowns. The last Census information counted 43,740 inmates from the city as residents of towns in upstate New York, meaning those areas could get more legislative districts based on a false population count. Former Attica inmate Ramon Velasquez told the Daily News, "It's not fair because we don't use their services. We're being counted just for a political purpose." more ›

Queens resident Jennifer Daddio was promised "enchanting river views" and the "best of everything" when she forked over a considerable deposit for her Summer wedding. But just 12 days after the payment was made, Hudson Valley restaurant/catering hall Monteverde at Oldstone Manor went bankrupt and, later, the wedding planner quit. According to court papers obtained by the Daily News, the 28-year-old "has not had one moment of joy or happiness related to her wedding day and instead has experienced extreme stress and anxiety over whether her wedding reception for 200 guests would proceed as planned." more ›

The federal Environmental Protection Agency has told the state that "essential environmental protection measures" must be taken before allowing The Chesapeake Energy Corporation to drill for gas within the 2,000- square-mile Catskills watershed that provides drinking water to millions of NYC residents. The EPA's letter to the State Department of Environmental Conservation reinforces criticism of the plan to blast huge volumes of water mixed with chemicals into rock to extract gas. There is worry that the drilling, which creates large amounts of wastewater, could contaminate NYC's water supply. Katherine Nadeau at Environmental Advocates of New York described the federal agency’s letter as “nothing short of awesome.” more ›

State Senator Joseph E. Robach has his eye on secession; the Republican proposed legislation that would allow the state's 62 counties to hold a referendum in 2010 asking voters: “Do you support the division of New York into two separate states?” CityRoom takes out the history books, noting that our state's boundaries have been largely unchanged since the Constitution was ratified in 1787. So why now? more ›

Environmentalists say they've come up with an unlikely way to keep the city's tap water from becoming polluted: cow manure. Amidst mounting concerns about the impact of upstate natural gas drilling on New York City's water supply, the blog CleanTechnica reports on the burgeoning cow-power movement. more ›

It was one week ago today that actress Natasha Richardson took her fatal spill on a ski slope in Canada, though originally feeling okay from the fall, she ultimately died of a blunt impact to the head last Wednesday after being transported to Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. more ›

The weather's looking lovely, just lovely this weekend, so let's just forget all about that big scary financial drama being acted out by those Wall Street divas and get the hell out of town. Fall foliage is reaching its peak in the Adirondacks and northern New England this weekend, and the Catskills and Berkshires are also just about to peak, according to the state's offical leaf peepers. more ›

The NYPD's recruiting woes appear to be continuing through 2008, with a sharp drop-off in the number of candidates applying to sit for the Police Officer Exam, which is the first step to qualifying to enter the Police Academy. According to the New York Post, the number of test takers is down 20% from number of people who took the exam at the same time last year. "Slightly fewer than 20,000 have applied for the Feb. 23 test, down from the roughly 25,000 who filed last year. In October 2004, more than 35,000 registered for the test." more ›