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Northeast Notebook Live
WAMC’s Northeast Notebook Live brings listeners inside the conversations of the region. Each day, the hour-long show airing online and on-air will feature a deep dive into an issue that matters most, as well as analysis of the headlines and additional interviews with newsmakers and journalists to provide a broad overlook of what matters most. The show will feature reporting by WAMC journalists, and highlight the vital work local journalists do to inform their communities. Northeast Notebook Live will regularly feature reporting by the Albany Times Union, the Berkshire Eagle, and the Adirondack Explorer thanks to a formal partnership with WAMC that’s meant to explore the region’s news with breadth, depth and context.

Northeast Notebook 10/15/26: Upstate debates, gambling, and voting access for unhoused people

WAMC Northeast Public Radio | By Sam Dingman
Published October 15, 2026 at 5:31 PM EDT
Outside the Schenectady Public Library
Outside the Schenectady Public Library

The most remarkable thing about last night's debate between the candidates running for Congress in New York's 17th district... is that it happened at all. All around the region, candidates in similar races have been resistant to debating. What gets lost when candidates decline to face their opponents in a public forum?

Also today on the show...

  • The struggles unhoused people face when they try to register to vote.
  • How the New York State Gaming Commission hopes to regulate online gambling platforms - and their attempts to target vulnerable players using A.I.
  • The fascinating backstory behind a Massachusetts ballot question designed to challenge the state's restrictive gun laws.
  • And a new social media video series asks: "What's Troy thinking?"

All that and more on this October 15th edition of "Northeast Notebook."
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Sam Dingman
Sam Dingman is WAMC’s Hudson/Catskill Bureau Chief. Previously, he was co-host and reporter at “The Show” on KJZZ, Phoenix’s NPR station. Prior to KJZZ, Dingman was the creator and host of the acclaimed podcast “Family Ghosts,” which has been hailed as a critic’s choice by NPR, the LA Times and the New York Times. Dingman also co-hosted the BlueWire original series “The Rumor,” which was featured in the Washington Post and New York Magazine, and was a Webby honoree for Best Podcast Writing. He was story editor for Lemonada Media’s Signal Award-winning series “Pack One Bag,” writer and showrunner for John Stamos’s Webby-winning podcast “The Grand Scheme: Snatching Sinatra,” editor of Karina Longworth’s “You Must Remember This,” and a producer for WNYC’s Peabody-winning “On the Media.” He is a four-time winner of the Moth Grand and Story Slams, and has created, written, hosted, produced and edited podcasts for The Atlantic, Audible Originals, Gilded Audio, Gimlet Media, Lincoln Center, Panoply Media, Paramount Pictures, Pushkin Industries, Spotify, Slate, Stitcher, and Wondery.
See stories by Sam Dingman