Wednesday’s Links Worth Checking

Rudolph W. “Rudy” Giuliani, who served as New York city’s mayor from 1994 to 2001, will endorse Republican Matthew A. Doheny for the 23rd Congressional District seat during a 2:30 p.m. event Wednesday at the Watertown International Airport.

They went there.

The United States has dropped out of the “top 20” in a global league table of least corrupt nations, tarnished by financial scandals and the influence of money in politics, Transparency International said on Tuesday.

A recent Kaiser Permanente Study found the heaviest smokers, those who went through more than two packs per day, had a 157 percent elevated risk of getting Alzheimer’s disease.

Electricite de France SA and Constellation Energy Group Inc. have agreed to restructure a joint venture to allow the French state-controlled utility to move forward with plans for a third nuclear reactor in Maryland.

Cicero Town Supervisor Judy Boyke plans to recommend the town board consider a local law to abolish the Cicero Police Department

New Process Gear has notified New York state that it plans to lay off 220 workers in January.

In the countryside, in the suburbs or even in the leafier districts of New York’s outer boroughs, a treehouse would hardly raise an eyebrow. But in a historic Manhattan neighborhood whose residents have included Mark Twain and Eleanor Roosevelt, it raised hackles.

Sgt. First Class Charles Sadell, 34 died Sunday at National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland of wounds he suffered in an insurgent attack.

New York candidates for Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and Dan Donovan squared off in a debate held at the capitol. Albany correspondent Karen DeWitt was on the panel of questioners and reports on the highlights.

A panel of the state Department of Environmental Conservation decided Monday to take more public comment before acting on proposed rules to phase out polluting outdoor wood-fired boilers.

The head of the New York Federal Reserve Bank says Upstate NY is recovering, slowly, from the recession.

An interesting idea: “A simple election reform, the adoption of Ranked Choice Voting, could open up the process and allow for real choices in states across the country. Under Ranked Choice, voters don’t just tick the name of one candidate and walk away. They rank the various candidates—first choice, second, third, fourth and so on.”