First came the big storm, then the big dig. Now comes the big melt.

Beth Bragg’s home was spared the worst of a lake-effect storm that buried parts of the Buffalo area under more than 7 feet of snow. So why was she out first-thing Saturday with her shovel?

Richard Johnson can see right through the masterpieces of Rembrandt and Van Gogh.

Kiryas Joel is a fast-growing island of ultra-Orthodox Satmar Hasidic Jews in a suburban stretch of New York’s Hudson Valley. Sidewalks are busy with mothers in head coverings pushing strollers, and kids’ plastic trikes seem to outnumber cars.

New York’s landmark gun control law opened a political fissure that’s still visible upstate.