York State

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - The uniform of the first Union officer killed in the Civil War and the flag that draped President Abraham Lincoln's casket when it passed through Albany will be among 10,000 military artifacts housed at a new museum in the National Guard Armory here. Gov. George E. Pataki recently announced the creation of the New York State Military Museum and Veterans Research Center and pledged $1 million to remodel the 31,000-square-foot, 112-year-old armory here. Pataki said he hoped the state money would attract federal and private dollars to complete the conversion into a museum to open next spring.

CLEVELAND - Rob Hageman has no particular fondness for the New York Giants. Still, when Super Bowl Sunday arrives, his rooting sentiments will be clear. "I think I speak for a lot of other Clevelanders," Hageman, 25, said, "when I say, `Go, New York!' For four hours, anyway, I'm going to be a Giants fan." With a few exceptions, that seems to be the prevailing view here, where a Ravens victory would represent the final galling chapter in this city's recent football history. Not that Browns fans have anything against Baltimore residents.

Uncle Big Guy and Mrs. Uncle Big Guy drove down to Bel Air from their home in the Adirondacks over the holidays. After dinner one evening, we sat around the living room enjoying the fruits of a day trip to the Fiore vineyards in nearby Pylesville. As I suspected it would, the reminiscing turned eventually to Big Moose Lake. Up in the deep north woods near Old Forge, N.Y., Big Moose is not just a lake -- it's an attitude. Maybe it's a testosterone thing, but there is something about a moose, especially a big moose, that captures the imagination in a way that no otter or skunk or beaver ever could.

ONCE AGAIN, New York state is host to a celebrity carpetbagger seeking one of its U.S. Senate seats as a launching pad for the presidency. This time the intruder is Hillary Rodham Clinton of Illinois and Arkansas. Soon to relinquish her First Ladyship, she is taking full advantage of lax residency requirements in a bid to be elected the state's junior senator and eventually (let her deny it) the nation's first Madame President. All this is a replay of 36 years ago when the intruder in New York was Robert Francis Kennedy of Massachusetts and Virginia.

ALBANY, N.Y. -- The message education officials are sending is straightforward and urgent -- an already acute teacher shortage will likely worsen in the next few years as a slew of older teachers retire and more would-be educators succumb to the financial lure of the private sector. But the automated message on New York state's telephone help-line for potential teachers takes a different tone. "Office of Teaching representatives are not available to speak to you on Wednesdays or on Friday mornings," the recording says.

For the first time since the 1984 breakup of AT&T, one of the regional Bell telephone companies has won permission to offer long-distance service in its territory, a long-anticipated development that could be repeated in Maryland next year.The Federal Communications Commission said yesterday that its five commissioners had voted unanimously to allow Bell Atlantic Corp. to sell long-distance service in New York state.Bell Atlantic's New York application is seen as a bellwether for the company's entry into the long-distance markets of the other 12 states it serves, including Maryland.

NEW YORK -- New York state is opening a new legal front in its fight against pollution drifting from coal-burning power plants in upwind states with an announcement that it intends to sue 17 power plants to force them to clean up.This action would be the first by a state directly against individual companies owning power plants that send pollution in the air across state lines, according to federal environmental officials and other experts. The Northeastern states and the federal government have long battled to force these older plants, mainly in the Midwest and the Virginias, to reduce their emissions, but those efforts have faced a series of recent setbacks.

IT APPEARS that first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton will be running for the Senate from the state of New York.An excited press bursts with questions. After a thrilling eight years in the White House, would Mrs. Clinton find the Senate boring? Will Mrs. Clinton want to spend her weekends in small places like Herkimer, discussing unglamorous things like federal waste-treatment regulations? Suppose she loses the race to her likely Republican opponent, New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. What would she do then?

NEW YORK -- Deutsche Bank AG's $10.1 billion acquisition of Bankers Trust Corp. was approved by the New York State Banking Board yesterday, leaving approval by the Federal Reserve as the last major hurdle to the creation of what will be the world's largest financial-services company.The banks expect to complete the transaction by the end of the quarter."The New York State Banking Board's approval marks an important step toward completion of our merger," Deutsche Bank Chief Executive Rolf Breuer and Bankers Trust Chairman and Chief Executive Frank Newman said in a joint statement.