All Over Albany

Scotia man accused in mother's death, another underground cable fire in Albany, SPD says bank robber got away on bike, new tune at ALB

A Scotia man has been charged with killing his mother at their home in the village. Scotia police haven't shared many details, but say 20-year-old Jeffrey Steele was arrested early Sunday morning. [TU] [Daily Gazette]

Jennica Duell -- the mother of the three children who died in the Hulett Street fire in May that also killed a father and badly burned another child -- now tells the Times Union she wasn't at the scene of the fire, as she previously told a grand jury. Duell's now-former boyfriend, Robert Butler, is accused of arson and possibly facing a death penalty case in federal court. [TU]

After the recent train wreck and explosion in Quebec, concern about the railroad cars used to transport oil through the Capital Region. [TU]

The SUNY board of trustees will be considering a recent report that recommends spinning off the NanoCollege and the "Albany NanoTech Megaplex" into its own school, separate from UAlbany. [TU]

FEMA has approved federal aid for upstate counties hit by flash flooding earlier this summer. [TU]

A class action lawsuit against the state over a civil confinement policy issued by George Pataki in 2005 -- in which sex offenders could held indefinitely based on mental health evaluations -- could leave the state on the hook for a huge financial penalty. [TU]

Chris Gibson is part of push in Congress to reform the War Powers Act: "When we move forward on these decisions to use force, it needs to be a public debate." [TU]

There was another cable fault -- and smoking manhole -- in Albany Friday night, this time on Madison Ave in midtown (map). Madison was closed while National Grid addressed the situation. [TU] [News10]

There were apparently far fewer people taken to the hospital from Camp Bisco this year. [Daily Gazette]

State Police say a Michigan man is accused of leaving his kids -- ages 13 and 8 -- at a hotel in Schenectady with drugs while he attempted to make a drug delivery to grounds of Camp Bisco. (State Police say the kids were found "in fine health.") Three more arrests the State Police say were Bisco related. [NYSP] [NYSP] [NYSP] [NYSP]

Schenectady police say a woman robbed a bank on Eastern Parkway Friday (map), then got away. On a bike. Pedaled by someone else. [News10] [TU]

A fire destroyed three houses Albany's South End overnight (map). [News10]

After shifting toward a K-8-in-one-school model, it now looks like the Schenectady school district is thinking about switching back to a middle school model. [Daily Gazette]

An activist is walking from Albany to Binghamton -- 133 miles -- in support of an appeal for Yassin Aref, one of the Albany men convicted of laundering money in a made-up terror plot created by the feds as part of a sting. | A local man is fasting to protest the jail at Guantanamo Bay. [TU] [TU]

One of the problems facing the horse racing industry, which is dealing with ongoing decline in attendance and betting: too many small tracks are being propped up by VLTs and slot machines. [TU]

There's a push for Troy to add "Grafitti Buster" app. [Troy Record]

It looks like Arthur's Market in the Stockade is headed for a re-opening. [Daily Gazette]

There's an effort to raise money for renovations of the Troy Spring site in Troy. [TU]

ALB has switched the terminal music from classical to oldies. [TU]

After seeing a story about a Ravena woman whose mother and grandmother died a day apart, a philanthropist came forward to pay the young women's college tuition. [TU]