UAlbany

The Albany County Department of Health is once again advising indoor mask-wearing as guidelines established by the Centers for Disease Control show Albany County as "high" in both community level and transmission rate of COVID-19.

Sonia Manzano, the actor and author who played Maria for nearly five decades on "Sesame Street" will be the guest in this spring’s edition of The Creative Life: A Conversation Series at UAlbany, appearing at the Performing Arts Center at 4 p.m. on Saturday, April 30. She will be in conversation with WAMC's Joe Donahue. That evening, also at UAlbany, Manzano will perform as part of a Selected Shorts live event which will feature Manzano along with Patricia Kalember, and Bhavesh Patel.

Selected Shorts is getting a new host. The public radio and podcast series, created by Symphony Space, has tapped author Meg Wolitzer to become the first permanent host of the show since the death of Symphony Space founder Isaiah Sheffer in 2012. After a decade of writers and artists serving as the host of events in the series, those duties will fall to Wolitzer, whose own stories have been performed in the series. She has written bestsellers including “The Wife,” “The Interestings” and “The Female Persuasion.”Selected Shorts will be at UAlbany on April 30 featuring actors Sonia Manzano, Patricia Kalember, and Bhavesh Patel. The event is presented in collaboration with the UAlbany Performing Arts Center with support from the University at Albany Foundation, University Auxiliary Services, and the Office of Intercultural Student Engagement.Selected Shorts will be at 7:30 p.m. Prior to that, at 4 p.m. WAMC's Joe Donahue will be in conversation with Sonia Manzano (Sesame Street) for the Creative Life Conversation Series.

The University at Albany is keeping its embattled men’s basketball coach, but Dwayne Killings will be suspended for five games next season and fined $25,000 following an internal investigation into “inappropriate physical contact” with a member of the team.

The 2nd Annual Albany Film Festival -- featuring a number of "bookish" events, and events that emphasize writing – will be presented by the NYS Writers Institute on Saturday at the University at Albany. The Albany Film Festival is a very story-focused festival, with conversations about filmmakers as storytellers, book-to-film, writing vs. visual storytelling, screenwriting, criticism, and film history and biography. The emphasis is more on conversation and Q&A with guests than on screenings of full films. NYS Writers Institute Director Paul Grondahl is here to preview the festival and explore the intersection of writing and cinema.

U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer was in Albany Monday touting over $22 million dollars for local projects in the just-passed federal budget.

Local officials, students and advocates joined a SUNY faculty union to call for increased investment in the state university system.

New York lifted the statewide mask requirement for schools on Wednesday. But many colleges are keeping mask mandates in place for now.

With the rush to "test and mask" as COVID-19 cases rise, area colleges are tweaking protocols as they prepare welcome students back in January.

Ruth Reichl is a James Beard Award-winning food writer and former New York Times food critic and was Joe Donahue's guest as part of The Creative Life: A Conversation Series at UAlbany on October 5, 2021. The Creative Life conversation series is presented in partnership with the University Art Museum, NYS Writers Institute and WAMC Northeast Public Radio.