WEST LEYDEN — Marissa L. Sykes, 22, Ava, was charged by Oneida County sheriff’s deputies with driving while intoxicated and other traffic infractions after she was involved in a one-car crash at 2:58 a.m. Thursday on East Ava Road in the town of Ava.

Deputies said Ms. Sykes was driving east in a 2012 Chevrolet when she lost control of her vehicle on a curve in the road due to speed and it hit a guide rail, tearing off the driver’s side front wheel. The vehicle then struck a driveway culvert and overturned, landing in the ditch on the other side of the driveway.

Ms. Sykes was taken to St. Elizabeth Medical Center, Utica, by AmCare ambulance for treatment of a head injury. Her blood alcohol content was not provided.

The West Leyden Volunteer Fire Department assisted at the scene.

POTSDAM — Village police on Thursday charged Jack S. Wilson III, 25, of Potsdam, with driving while intoxicated. He was also cited with failure to stop for steady red light.

Police charge that at 2:18 a.m. at Market and Main streets in the village, Mr. Wilson failed to stop for a steady red signal and during a traffic stop they detected the odor of consumed alcohol coming from him. Mr. Wilson then failed a series of field sobriety tests and he was determined to have a blood alcohol content of 0.17 percent.

State law says a BAC of 0.08 percent or higher constitutes intoxication.

Mr. Wilson was issued tickets returnable to Potsdam Town Court.

The state Attorney General’s office is offering consumers tips for avoiding scams on Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

Among the tips are avoiding misleading bargains by stores marking up prices before reducing them, reading warranty details, ensuring the details of merchants’ layaway plans, checking return and refund policies and avoiding restricted gift cards.

“As New Yorkers begin making holiday purchases for family and friends, they should know that some deals are too good to be true,” said Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman. “We encourage consumers to follow our tips to protect against fraudsters and ensure they spend their money wisely and safely this holiday season.”

The office also advised online shoppers to only use secure websites that have URLs beginning with “https://”, avoid websites with fake names similar to name brands, using a credit card or debit card when shopping and avoiding online posts promoting giveaways that seem too good to be true.

They also recommended that shoppers read the fine print for sales and internet promotions.

BELFAST, Northern Ireland — Sophomore goalie Jake Kielly stopped 22 shots to pick up his national-leading fifth shutout of the season as the Clarkson University men’s hockey team defeated Rensselaer 2-0 in a semifinal of the Friendship Four tournament Friday morning at the SSE Arena.

The Golden Knights (11-3-1 overall) will face ...... at 2 p.m. today in the championship game.

Kielly also shut out RPI (2-8-3) earlier this season in a 6-0 win at Cheel Arena in an ECAC Hockey game. Friday’s game was a nonconference contest. Kielly is 6-1 against the Engineers in his career with a .937 save percentage.

While Kielly was handling things on the defensive end, freshman Josh Dickinson continued his hot scoring ways on the other side of the ice for Clarkson.

Dickinson scored both goals for the Golden Knights to give him nine for the season. Teammate Sheldon Rempal has 11 and they are the only teammates to rank in the top 10 nationally in goals. Dickinson also leads all freshman nationally in goals scored.

Clarkson outshot the Engineers 9-4 in the opening period and took the lead late in the period when Dickinson scored a power-play goal with 1 minute, 50 seconds remaining.

Dickinson scored his eighth goal of the season on a shot he put between the legs of Engineers goalie Linden Marshall. Dickinson has now scored a goal in six of Clarkson’s last seven games.

The power play resulted after RPI’s Gavin Payne was called for tripping Clarkson’s Nico Sturm at 16:11.

Clarkson dominated the second period, outshooting the Engineers 16-5, but did not add another goal.

RPI was more competitive in the third period, outshooting Clarkson 13-9.

But Dickinson scored on a breakaway with 2:32 left in the game to pick up his second goal and put the game out of reach.

An unnatural number of earthquakes hit Texas in the past decade, and the region’s seismic activity is increasing. In 2008, two earthquakes stronger than magnitude 3 struck the state. Eight years later, 12 did.

Natural forces trigger most earthquakes. But humans are causing earthquakes, too, with mining and dam construction the most frequent suspects. There has been a recent increase in natural gas extraction — including fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, but other techniques as well — which produces a lot of wastewater. To get rid of it, the water is injected deep into the ground. When wastewater works its way into dormant faults, the thinking goes, the water’s pressure nudges the ancient cracks. Pent-up tectonic stress releases and the ground shakes.

But for any given earthquake, it is virtually impossible to tell whether humans or nature triggered the quake. There are no known characteristics of a quake, not in magnitude nor in the shape of its seismic waves, that provide hints to its origins.

“It’s been a head-scratching period for scientists,” said Maria Beatrice Magnani, who studies earthquakes at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. Along with a team of researchers at the U.S. Geological Survey, Magnani, an author of a new report published Friday in the journal Science Advances, attempted to better identify what has been causing the rash of Texas quakes.

A cluster of earthquakes around a drilling project can, at best, suggest a relationship. “The main approach has been to correlate the location to where there has been human activity,” said Michael Blanpied, a USGS geophysicist and co-author of the new study.

The study authors took a different approach in the new work - they hunted for deformed faults below Texas. “This technique is called high-resolution seismic reflection imaging,” Magnani said. Seismic reflection is the same tool that allows extractors to find oil and gas deposits in underground structures.

To collect seismic reflection data, an artificially generated wave ripples through the ground and reflects back to the surface, like light off a mirror. The result is “a little bit like an ultrasound,” Magnani said, revealing not baby toes but twisted rock.

The scientists compared the Texas earth with Mississippi, another seismically active region that, like Texas, is not close to a turbulent edge of a tectonic plate. Unlike Texas, though, north Mississippi has a much longer history of recorded earthquakes, going back to the early 1800s.

An underground ultrasound revealed that, beneath Texas, the most recent signs of active faults were in a geologic layer 300 million years old — 70 million years before the first dinosaur took its first step. All the younger layers above it were stable.

“All the displacement was stopping at a layer that is 300 million years old,” Magnani said. “The fault did not move after that layer was deposited.”

In the Mississippi region, in contrast, the rock told a story of continuous fault activity, unbroken for the last 65 million years.

Given the lack of faults in Texas’s most recent 300 million years of history, there is no known geologic process that could explain its sudden quake outbreak. “There is no other explanation” except that these earthquakes are caused by human activity, Magnani said.

The study is in line with what other earthquake experts had surmised using different analyses. “We don’t expect a lot of pushback” from the scientific community, Blanpied said.

“This is a landmark contribution in the question of whether the Fort Worth basin earthquakes are man-made,” said Cliff Frohlich, a geophysicist at the University of Texas, Austin who was not involved with the study. Frohlich said this research eliminates the possibility, sometimes raised by the oil and gas industry, that the Texas quakes are part of a natural cycle of faults that awaken every few thousand or million years.

The seismic reflection data provide a powerful argument “that these earthquakes are something new and different,” he said - activity stemming from the injection of wastewater deep into basement rock. (“Most of the time it’s the large volume injection,” he said, “not the little frack jobs.”)

In March 2016, the USGS published a map of the likely areas where human-made earthquakes will strike in the United States. About 7 million people are at risk of these events, with Texas and nearby Oklahoma among the most susceptible states.

“We hope that the response from our colleagues will be to deploy this [technique] elsewhere,” Blanpied said. Magnani said she would like to apply seismic reflection to Oklahoma, which has also experienced an unusual uptick in earthquakes.

But seismic reflection data are difficult and expensive to collect, though the oil and gas industry will sell the information. As for why no one else had attempted to do this before, the authors said Magnani was simply the first person to have the idea to use seismic reflection to look for old faults.

There is still more work to do. Any successful regulatory process, Magnani said, will require an understanding of the physical processes that trigger human-made earthquakes.

CAIRO — Militants set off a blast and gunned down fleeing worshippers at crowded mosque in Egypt’s northern Sinai Peninsula on Friday, killing at least 235 people in what appeared to mark the deadliest single assault on Egyptian civilians by suspected Islamist extremists.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack on the mosque — which is often frequented by Sufi Muslims — where an apparent suicide bombing ripped across the facade and people were shot as they tried to scramble to safety.

Egyptian security forces have struggled for years against an Islamic State affiliate based in the Sinai Peninsula that has killed hundreds of police and military personnel in an insurgency against the government of President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi.

The mosque death toll, reported by state media, could not be independently confirmed. Yet Egyptians were already mourning it as the biggest loss of life from a militant attack in decades — surpassing the number of dead in the downing of a Russian airliner over Sinai in 2015 believed carried out by Islamic State-linked militants.

Islamist attacks have targeted Coptic Christian churches in the past, but strikes against mosques have been rare. Many Sunni Muslim militant factions consider Sufism, a mystical branch of Islam, to be heretical.

The bloodshed at the Rawda mosque, near the town of Bir al-Abd, also took place in an area dotted with security outposts, underscoring the ability of militants to strike at the heart of government-protected zones.

The attack had the hallmarks of a highly coordinated operation. Militants who arrived at the mosque in several four-wheel-drive vehicles, according to Egypt’s ambulance authority. Bombs were detonated at the mosque, and as worshipers fled, they were gunned down by the militants, the authority said.

But further details remained unclear on the motives for the attack, including the number of assailants and why the mosque was targeted.

Dozens of bodies covered with blankets or bloodied sheets, laid in rows inside the mosque. Some of the injured were ferried away in cars and in the beds of pickup trucks.

Tarek Eldewiry, a 22-year old resident of Bir al-Abd who was not present during the attack but spoke to injured friends and neighbors afterward, said the assault started with an explosion outside the mosque after the first Friday sermon.

“When the people ran outside, a number of gunmen started shooting randomly at everyone.” Some survived by running back inside the mosque, he said.

The mosque would have been packed. It was frequented by the town’s residents, and on a Friday, travelers on the road often stopped to pray there, he said.

“Horrible and cowardly terrorist attack on innocent and defenseless worshipers in Egypt,” wrote President Donald Trump in a tweet. “The world cannot tolerate terrorism, we must defeat them militarily and discredit the extremist ideology that forms the basis of their existence!”

Egypt’s insurgency gathered momentum after a military coup in 2013 that ousted Mohammed Morsi, Egypt’s first democratically elected president and a leader of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood.

The militants have repeatedly mounted large-scale, complex attacks on security personnel. Since July 2013, at least 1,000 members of the security forces have been killed in attacks in Sinai, according to data compiled by the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy.

Assaults on civilians — like Friday’s mosque siege — have been more rare. The Islamic State affiliate in Egypt, called Wilayat Sinai, had previously claimed responsibility for the downing of a Russian airliner over Sinai in October 2015 that killed all 224 people on board. The militants have also increasingly targeted Egypt’s Coptic Christian minority, as well as Sufi Muslims, considered heretics by the Islamic State.

Sinai remains one of the lingering strongholds for the Islamic State as the group’s self-proclaimed caliphate in Syrian and Iraq has all but collapsed under air and ground attacks.

Last year, militants in Egypt claiming affiliation with the Islamic State asserted responsibility for two beheadings near Arish, including an elderly cleric, identified as Sulaiman Abu Haraz, who was believed to have ties to the area’s Sufi followers.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel told her European Union partners it’s business as usual again as she returned to the international stage and the Social Democratic opposition leader opened the door to a governing coalition for the bloc’s biggest economy.

Pressure has been mounting on SPD head Martin Schulz to drop his opposition to an alliance with Merkel, after her efforts to form a government with three other parties collapsed on Sunday, raising the prospect of an unprecedented repeat election and months of political drift in Europe’s biggest economy.

Schulz backed off his flat refusal to consider a renewed “grand coalition” with Merkel’s Christian Democrat-led bloc, saying that the SPD “won’t play an obstructionist role” in parliament, though he insisted party members will have the final say on any deal. It could be the first step toward rejoining Merkel as junior partner in a government, the combination that’s underpinned two of her three terms over the last 12 years.

After canceling a planned meeting Monday in Berlin with Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte and skipping an EU summit in Gothenburg, Sweden last week, Merkel traveled to Brussels Friday for a summit of EU leaders and partners from Eastern Europe. Next week, she heads to Ivory Coast for an EU summit with African countries.

Currently governing in a caretaker capacity, the chancellor said she had been asked by EU colleagues about the political situation in Berlin and had sought to reassure them: “I was able to tell them that we, as the acting German government, will fully fulfill our European obligations and that we will actively engage,” Merkel said in a statement to reporters, adding that her comments had been well received.

Two months after an inconclusive election that brought a far-right party into parliament, Merkel is still trying to work out how she can govern and is operating for now in a caretaker capacity. While the chancellor is skeptical about ruling without a parliamentary majority and Schulz wants to avoid a formal coalition, the two sides are inching toward each other.

German companies are watching developments in Berlin closely but appear to be confident a favorable solution will be found. The Ifo institute’s German business confidence index climbed to a record in November.

“Most companies think that in the next weeks or months there will be a government so the economy is strong,” Ifo president Clemens Fuest said in a Bloomberg Radio interview on Friday. “Demand is strong and so far this political uncertainty doesn’t affect the economy.”

Schulz is facing calls by SPD lawmakers and state leaders to drop his refusal to join a coalition as junior partner to Merkel’s Christian Democrat-led bloc. He favors pledging SPD support for a minority government instead, something Merkel wants to avoid.

Manuela Schwesig, the SPD prime minister in the eastern state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, said the party’s willingness to talk did not necessarily mean it was ready to join another “grand coalition” with Merkel, the alliance of the two biggest parties that underpinned two of the chancellor’s three terms.

“For us it’s clear that if there are talks, then we will also take part in these talks,” Schwesig said on ZDF television Friday. “Just because we’re saying that we’re open to talks, it’s not automatically a discussion about a grand coalition, and certainly not a vote for a grand coalition.”

Whatever the SPD decides, it may require the approval of members, Heiko Maas of the party’s leadership committee said on a German talk show on Thursday. The SPD is holding a party congress in Berlin from Dec. 7 to Dec. 9, when Schulz will be up for re-election as chairman.

After leading the SPD to its worst result since World War II in September, Schulz is under pressure from within his party to step aside, a move that might help clear the way for a grand coalition. Heil sought to quell the speculation on Thursday, saying “personnel matters” aren’t on the agenda for now.

Schulz met with President Steinmeier on Thursday as Germany’s head of state, a former SPD foreign minister, tries to secure a stable government.

As they prepare to engage with Merkel, the Social Democrats are split between those on the left who see the two coalitions with Merkel as the main reason for the slump in its support and those who spy a chance to push through policies such as expanded health care and reaching out to French President Emmanuel Macron to strengthen the euro area.

Many in the SPD would prefer to stay out of government to prevent the far-right Alternative for Germany, which entered parliament for the first time with 12.6 percent of the vote in September, from becoming the biggest opposition force.

Mike Molson Hart, who sells toys on Amazon.com Inc.’s marketplace, realized earlier this month something was amiss. His company’s popular disc-shaped plastic building set, called Brain Flakes, had dropped precipitously in the ranks of Amazon’s best-selling toys as the critical gift-giving season approached.

He visited the product page on Amazon.com and suspected he was the victim of “sniping,” when one merchant sabotages another by hiring people to leave critical reviews of their goods and then voting those reviews as being helpful, making them the most prominent feedback seen by shoppers. Freelancers in China and Bangladesh willing to do this for $10 an hour are easily found online. Even though the toy has a 4.8 star rating out of 5 based on more than 1,100 reviews, shoppers first see a string of critical one-star reviews and many may get scared away.

Maintaining order on Amazon — where 2 million merchants compete to win billions of dollars in business from 300 million shoppers — has become a running problem for the online giant and it only heats up during the busy holiday season. Some merchants engage in black-hat tactics with precise timing, trying to maximize their own sales when shoppers spend most before their tricks are detected. When Amazon clamps down on one exploit, they regroup and find a new one.

“This stuff has been going on nonstop since we started selling on Amazon,” said Hart, president of VIAHART in New York City. “It’s still the Wild West. There are tons of scams and they constantly evolve to keep gaming the system.”

Amazon said it “does not tolerate fraud or abuse of our policies.” In a statement, the company said it’s “constantly working to improve the ways we detect and prevent abuse from impacting customers.” Amazon said it suspends or blocks “bad actors” suspected of illegal behavior or infringing on others’ intellectual property rights.

The trickery escalates during the holidays when the stakes are highest. U.S. online spending in November and December will top $107 billion this year, with the five-day period between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday the busiest, according to Adobe Systems Inc. Merchants who are targets of sniping stand to lose the most. If shoppers are dissuaded by fake reviews or ratings, they’ll just move on to another product and Amazon still gets its commission on the sale. The targeted vendors have few other options since Amazon is the world’s biggest online retailer.

Manipulation of reviews has been increasing the past several months and Amazon doesn’t appear to be fixing the problem, said Chris McCabe, a former employee who now runs a consulting business to help Amazon merchants. The gamesmanship on the site is so bad he has created new teams to help merchants fight review manipulation, he said.

“It’s a massive problem and until it’s more publicly known I don’t think they’ll do anything about it,” McCabe said. “There’s blood in the water and everyone knows they can get away with it, so it’s a free-for-all.”

The threat to Amazon is faith in its customer reviews, which it has used to boost confidence of shoppers buying something online they may not have touched or seen first-hand.

Two years ago, Amazon filed lawsuits against more than 1,000 people it alleged were writing fake product reviews for money through the online marketplace for small tasks Fiverr.com, saying they were diminishing consumers’ trust. Last year, Amazon filed lawsuits against merchants it accused of selling counterfeit products, acknowledging it couldn’t police the problem on its own.

The Seattle-based company also clamped down on “incentivized” reviews written by people who received free or discounted products. Amazon initially saw such posts as a way to help new products get discovered and required those receiving free and discounted items to make disclosures. It has since realized the practice of offering freebies for reviews was being abused.

The lawsuits and crackdowns are proving to be little more than speed bumps to those looking to game the system, who keep finding new tactics. Fake product reviews are now offered on the classified website Craigslist, with posters offering $10 through PayPal for each 5-star review. Finding a freelancer in Bangladesh to write fake reviews or up vote the negative reviews on a competitors page is as simple as visiting the online marketplace Upwork and searching “Amazon up vote.”

Product review forums on Facebook are a common place merchants can search for accomplices, sending them Amazon gift cards so they can get a free item in exchange for a positive review, while eluding detection from Amazon.

Some merchants seeking to game the system also take advantage of Amazon’s heightened sensitivity toward counterfeits. Cheaters can file a false trademark infringement claim against a competing merchant, getting a legitimate business suspended in Amazon’s guilty-until-proven-innocent vetting system. Even if the target of the false complaint gets its selling privileges reinstated, the process can take days or weeks, giving the competitor valuable time to win sales.

Another scam is to relentlessly click on the Amazon advertisements of a competitor’s product without buying anything, which drains their advertising account. Amazon issued refunds to multiple merchants this year after discovering “invalid” advertising clicks, which merchants suspect was gamesmanship by rivals.

Hart said he’s frustrated with Amazon’s response to his complaints about his products’ reviews getting manipulated. He said he fears retribution for speaking publicly, but the stakes are high as he estimates he could lose $1 million in sales this season. Hart has been going back and forth with the company via email and phone calls since Monday. Amazon has said it’s examining his concerns. Meanwhile, Hart has dropped his prices and sales are still sluggish.

“Amazon knows about this problem and it has become their policy to not do anything about it,” he said.

The following editorial appeared in the Los Angeles Times on Nov. 24.

LOS ANGELES (Tribune News Service) – Alarmed by President Trump’s bellicose statements and impulsive governing style, two congressional Democrats have introduced legislation that would prohibit the president _ any president _ from launching a nuclear first strike without a declaration of war by Congress explicitly endorsing such an attack.

We too are dismayed by Trump’s rhetoric, including his threat to rain “fire and fury” on North Korea. We shudder to think about the human consequences of any use of nuclear weapons, even in self-defense, which is why we support arms-control agreements and efforts to prevent nuclear proliferation. We also believe that, as a general matter, Congress needs to be more assertive in exercising oversight over the use of military force.

But we can’t support the Restricting First Use of Nuclear Weapons Act of 2017 proposed by Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts and Rep. Ted Lieu of Torrance.

In seeking to restrict the president’s authority to launch a first strike, the bill cites Congress’ authority under the Constitution to declare war. The legislation says that the framers understood that “the monumental decision to go to war ... must be made by the representatives of the people and not by a single person.”

The problem is that Congress’ authority to declare war has always been in tension with the Constitution’s designation of the president as commander in chief, a role that sometimes requires the president to act swiftly to defend the nation. The nuclear age further complicated the relationship between the two branches because decisions about launching a nuclear attack may have to be made under severe time pressure.

Our principal concern about this bill is that it would make it harder for a president not just to use nuclear weapons, but also to deter aggression by leaving adversaries in doubt about whether and when such weapons might be used. This ambiguity is part of the paradoxical policy of nuclear deterrence that traces back to the Cold War era, in which Soviet military planners contemplating ways to overrun NATO countries’ defenses with tanks and troops had to reckon with the possibility that the U.S. might respond with nuclear weapons. But it still has some relevance today, which is why the U.S. hasn’t committed to “no first use.”

The Obama administration considered but decided against such a commitment. Instead, that administration adopted a policy stating that the U.S. would consider use of nuclear weapons only in certain extreme circumstances. It also promised to strengthen conventional capabilities with the goal of “making deterrence of nuclear attack on the United States or our allies and partners the sole purpose of U.S. nuclear weapons.”

In testimony before the Foreign Relations Committee last week, Brian P. McKeon, a Pentagon official in the Obama administration, said that the Trump administration is continuing to follow the Obama policy while it develops its own approach.

That would be consistent with Trump’s comments about “first use” during last year’s campaign. In a debate with Hillary Clinton he said: “I would certainly not do first strike. I think that once the nuclear alternative happens, it’s over. At the same time, we have to be prepared. I can’t take anything off the table.”

Of course, many members of Congress _ not all of them Democrats _ worry that this sort of cautious formulation might give way to a heedless reaction if the mercurial Trump felt provoked.

At the Foreign Relations Committee session, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said he and others were concerned “that the president of the United States is so unstable, is so volatile, has a decision-making process that is so quixotic, that he might order a nuclear weapons strike that is wildly out of step with U.S. national security interests.” And while the committee’s chairman, Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), does not support proposals like the Markey-Lieu bill at the moment, he told the New York Times last month that some of Trump’s comments made him worry “we could be heading toward World War III.” (In the same interview, Corker added that “I don’t believe he is a warmonger.”)

We understand the concerns about Trump’s temperament. Indeed, we share them. But, despite his Twitter rants, the president has deferred to the advice of his national security team, including on nuclear strategy. So long as that is the case, Congress shouldn’t attempt to legislate a drastic change in the president’s authority to defend the nation.

___

(c)2017 Los Angeles Time. Visit the Los Angeles Times at www.latimes.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

WATERTOWN — City Councilman Mark C. Walczyk thinks more needs to be done to get motorists to stop at downtown businesses while they maneuver their way through busy Public Square.

He recently proposed building a downtown parking garage that would solve what he believes is a longtime parking problem that keeps shoppers away from businesses in the center of Watertown’s business district.

The first-term councilman also recently brought up an old idea of possibly closing off the north side of Public Square — basically the city’s main street — to vehicular traffic and opening it up for more pedestrian traffic.

“I just think we should do something to play up the strengths of Public Square,” he said.

He got the discussion going at a recent Advantage Watertown meeting about possibly making the north side of the square a pedestrian mall. The group of community and business leaders, who meet monthly to talk about city issues, generally liked the idea.

Councilman Walczyk suggested that the north side of the square be totally closed for vehicular traffic or partially closed to create more parking in that section. Creating more green space for Public Square park could be another alternative.

“I think you have to find a way to get people to stop,” said Ian Law, principal for PLACE Alliance, the Schenectady urban design firm helping the city with its $10 million downtown grant.

If the north side was shut down, the south side could become a four-way thoroughfare, said city planner Geoffrey T. Urda. Both the north and south sides of the square now have angled parking.

Finished in 2008, the city spent about $7 million on the Public Square reconstruction enhancement project that created the current traffic pattern with three lanes of driving on each side.

The oval-shaped Public Square, considered the center of town, can be difficult to maneuver through with motorists often zigzagging their way from one end of the square to get to the other.

“You have to gun it to get to the other side,” said Advantage Watertown board member Peter W. Schmitt, who would like the city to explore ways to improve the downtown parking situation.

It’s a trickier situation because six busy state routes and city streets connect with Public Square, Mr. Urda said.

During the planning of the $7 million reconstruction project, closing off one side of the square was briefly discussed, but the proposal was quickly dismissed, recalled Michael A. Lumbis, the city’s director of planning and community development.

Over the decades, the idea also surfaced on occasion. Thirty years ago, a group of downtown enthusiasts urged the closing of the south side. The proposal never went anywhere.

A pedestrian mall may not be a good fit for Public Square because it doesn’t have the right “geometric” atmosphere, Mr. Lumbis said. The square is too wide of an open area and its buildings are not high enough to make it comfortable for pedestrians to want to use in that fashion, he said.

“I think you already have a very walkable downtown,” he said.

Mr. Law believes the issue is more of a perceived parking problem that causes motorists to drive past Public Square businesses. There’s a lot of parking, but people don’t necessarily like to walk far to shop, he explained.

Councilman Walczyk proposes using some of the city’s $10 million downtown grant — through a private-parking partnership — to build a downtown parking garage.

He said motorists have to hunt for parking spots downtown, especially at peak times. A 30,000-square-foot parking garage can contain 800 parking spaces, he said.

Mr. Law, an urban architect, pointed out that parking garages can be designed so that they fit into a downtown landscape. They can have street-level storefronts or architectural features that blend into other nearby buildings.

ADAMS — State police charged Cody L. Lockerbie, 23, of Adams, with fourth-degree criminal mischief in connection with an incident Thursday night.

Troopers did not release information about the incident.

Mr. Lockerbie, charged at 11:50 p.m. Thursday in the 12000 block of Wright Street Road, was later released with an appearance ticket for a local court.

MASSENA — The Cincinnati, Ohio company that took over operation of the Department of Veterans Affairs Community-Based Outpatient Clinic in Massena this year could lose financially if the company isn’t able to retain staff.

During last week’s meeting of the North Country Veterans Advisory Committee, Chairman John B. Lambert wondered what action could be taken if Sterling Medical Associates of Cincinnati was barely making a staffing quota or not making it at all under terms of its contract with the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Sterling assumed operation of the Massena clinic over the summer, taking over for OnSite Occupational Health and Safety, Inc., Princeton, Ind.

“Hit them in the pocketbook. They’re not meeting contractual obligations,” said Richard G. Kazel, primary care line manager for the Syracuse VA Medical Center.

He said the contract includes a provision that payment will be withheld for the component part that doesn’t meet the requirements.

“That’s done through the contracting officer,” Mr. Kazel said.

Committee members said it’s not the recruitment that’s the issue, it’s retaining the individuals once they’ve been hired.

“Withholding payment is fine, but if there are 200 patients and one provider and they need to be seen weekly, we have a serious deficit in health care,” committee member Patrick R. Rourk said.

Mr. Kazel said one option would be to use the Telehealth program, which would allow the veterans to be seen in Massena by a physician at another location. That program, which is under consideration, could be run by the VA.

“Either the contractor’s going to do it or the VA’s going to do it,” he said.

Lauren Love-Debeau, the behavioral health care line manager at Syracuse VA Medical Center, said behavioral health is one area where they’re currently looking at the necessary staff ratio. She said they’ve been made aware that Massena is below the staffing ratio, but established patients are able to be seen.

She said they’re in regular contact with Sterling to receive updated staffing information.

“We need to know the status of their recruitment efforts,” she said.

Ms. Love-Debeau said their first priority is to make sure veterans get the appropriate health care, which could include allowing them to receive care in the community if they can’t be seen at the clinic.

Marina owner John J. Kilius wants a normal tourism season next year and to never see the flooding in Lake Ontario that ravaged his business again.

A normal season at Mr. Kilius’s Henderson Harbor-based marina, Henchen Marina, has sunnier days with more boats cruising up and down the lake uninhibited by record-high lake levels, he said.

This year, however, his business and several others in communities along the lake and the St. Lawrence River saw above-average water levels and rainfall that inhibited tourists from visiting the area and decreased their revenue. The water even damaged some business owners’ facilities including Mr. Killius’s marina, whose gift shop was flooded and docks were underwater. Revenue for Henchen Marina was down 30 percent from normal, and Mr. Kilius said he had at least $75,000 in damages.

“We lost about a third of our usable docks,” he said. “We still haven’t completed repairs because the water is still a little too high.”

Cari L. Greene also hopes next year will bring her a normal tourism season at her Chaumont restaurant, the Blue Heron, and not another flood that would damage homes and deter visitors.

The Blue Heron served fewer cottage owners and seasonal guests throughout much of the season as the high waters and flooding prevented them from using their cottages or docks, Ms. Greene said. The restaurateur said her faithful seasonal customers even drove up and told her they would not be visiting this season because of the elevated water levels.

“It was not a normal summer,” she said, “and let’s hope that this is not a trend, that this is a one-time thing.”

Several business owners in waterfront communities claimed high waters and rainy weather were the primary forces behind derailing what should have been another normal and successful season.

About 80 percent of businesses in the Thousand Islands region recently surveyed by the 1000 Islands International Tourism Council reported that damage from the high waters, both real and perceived, negatively affected them. The data released by the council also reported that the businesses that were surveyed had average revenue losses of about 29 percent this season.

Gary S. DeYoung, executive director of the council, said the Thousands Islands region was on track for another banner season due to relatively stable gas prices, a relatively stable rate of exchange between U.S. and Canadian currency, consumers’ increase in disposable income and a continued interest in the region.

“Then, of course, it started raining,” he said, adding that, “with the high waters, we saw a lot of soft business early in the season.”

About two-thirds of respondents in the council’s survey said they faced “quite a bit” or “a lot” of physical damage, and about half claimed their operations were inhibited by similar effects.

Anthony P. Randazzo, family owner of the Clayton-based Coyote Moon Vineyards, said the high water flooded the basement in his family’s Riverside Drive store, causing much of the floor to collapse and damaging about $20,000 in inventory. The high waters and rain also reduced the foot traffic Coyote Moon and downtown Clayton regularly experiences, Mr. Randazzo said.

“This year really caught us by surprise,” he said. “Thank God it’s over. I’m looking forward to 2018.”

Thomas W. Scozzafava, who owns Sackets Harbor Brewing Co., also said his decline in sales was primarily caused by the rain and high water. Many seasonal visitors were either discouraged from coming to the village or had to address the damage at their camps or island retreats, he said. The high water also flooded the lower level of Mr. Scozzafava’s brewery and damaged his dock.

“If (seasonal residents) have to allocate funds into rebuilding docks or fixing whatever damage ..., that’s funding that doesn’t get allocated to the more normal things that they do,” he said.

Some business owners, including about three-fourths of entrepreneurs who responded to the tourism council’s survey, claimed media reports about the high waters played a role in discouraging visitors.

Michael C. Stock, who owns Riverbay Adventure Inn in Chippewa Bay, said high water and flooding-related coverage led tourists to believe many local attractions closed their doors when they were, in fact, still open, discouraging them from visiting the area. The reports, in conjunction with the above-average water levels and rainfall, caused a decline in traffic for many enterprises in Chippewa Bay and Hammond, Mr. Stock said. Kayak rentals experienced the greatest decline at the inn, but boat rentals were up.

Ronald G. Thomson, who owns Uncle Sam Boat Tours and several other businesses in Alexandria Bay, said high water coverage made several potential customers believe the village streets were underwater, leading them to cancel reservations at his motels and contributing to a drop in three to four percent in sales for the boat tours and Capt. Thomson’s Resort.

“We had inconveniently high water, but we were not flooded,” Mr. Thomson said. “All of my employees — none of them were allowed to use the word ‘flooded.’”

The water levels began to recede as the season progressed and the later months were filled with sunnier days, which brought more tourists to waterfront communities.

Mr. DeYoung said the shift in weather later in the season helped some businesses to make a slight comeback and earn additional revenue after suffering losses from May to mid-July.

“The spring weather was gloomy and cold and the fall weather was glorious and beautiful,” Mr. DeYoung said. “Even if nature took some stuff away from us, it gave us a little reprieve.”

Both Boldt Castle in Alexandria Bay and Singer Castle in Chippewa Bay experienced increased attendance during the later months as the temperatures rose and the water fell, ending the season on a positive note for officials despite an overall drop in visitation.

While visits at Boldt Castle fell from 234,557 in 2016 to 193,261 this season, Shane K. Sanford, facilities director, previously said this abnormal year was still the castle’s ninth-best since 1977.

Thomas A. Weldon, president of Singer Castle on Dark Island, said the castle experienced a rebound in late July as rainfall decreased, the water receded and more boaters cruised through the river. Castle staff also helped by making efforts to mitigate the effects by adjusting the docks and building a small facility to temporarily replace the gift shop when it was flooded, Mr. Weldon said.

The number of visitors to Singer Castle fell from 26,000 in 2016 to 23,000, but Mr. Weldon said that figure still represented the castle’s second-best year in operation.

“It (originally) looked like it would be a pretty bleak year,” Mr. Weldon said. “We were ready and we did what we needed to do. We just stepped up to the plate.”

Foxy’s Restaurant in Fishers Landing saw a drop in boaters due to the high waters, but owner Peter A. Beattie said he saw business return as early as July as the water began to slowly recede. Mr. Beattie’s other restaurants, Channelside and Johnston House in Clayton, still served many customers despite the rainy weather and high water, he said, adding that he believed both kept customers in town. The restaurateur also said the warmer fall weather brought more customers into his establishments.

“Fall was awesome,” he said. “It almost kind of made up for what we lacked in April and in May.”

Businesses like the Blue Heron, Uncle Sam Boat Tours, Coyote Moon Vineyards and Henchen Marina also experienced an uptick in traffic and revenue from late July or August to October, but, according to their owners, not enough to make up for the sales they lost early in the season.

“We didn’t make up for that lost money,” Mr. Randazzo said.

While several business owners along Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River struggled with excessive water levels and rainfall, others claimed they had another steady season.

David M. Cortright, who owns Reel Commander Fishing Charters in Alexandria Bay, said he still served several customers from across the country like any other season despite the high waters. Laura A. Foster, executive director of the Remington Museum in Ogdensburg, said the museum lost visitors due to cancelled cruises, but its activities and promotions still brought customers through the door.

“I think it was a good, solid, positive year, season for tourism,” she said.

Sales were up this season for Artworks Creperie in Waddington as new facilities and recurring events like the Bassmaster Elite brought more foot traffic to the area, said owner Mark Scott. Unlike other towns, Mr. Scott said Waddington didn’t experience increased water levels because its sea level is naturally lower than other areas along the river.

“We’re continuing on,” he said. “A lot of places shut down in the winter. We’re going full speed ahead.”

WATERTOWN — A lawsuit filed in state Supreme Court Wednesday alleges that a Henderson woman became seriously ill from an infection suffered after being treated at a Watertown urgent-care clinic.

Abagail Tamblin was allegedly injected with a contaminated intravenous solution while being treated at Med­Ready Urgent Care on Dec. 20, 2014. This is the second time MedReady and the manufacturers of Wallcurr IV solutions have been subjects of a similar lawsuit locally.

According to a complaint filed in Supreme Court, Ms. Tamblin was administered a non-sterile solution — made only for training and educational use — by practitioners at MedReady Urgent Care on U.S. Route 11. The manufacturer, Wallcur LLC, San Diego, Calif., is also named in the summons because the practice IV bags made their way into the supply chain of medical care facilities in multiple states, including New York.

The documents allege that Ms. Tamblin sought treatment for flu-like symptoms at MedReady Urgent Care on Dec. 20, 2014. Physician Assistant Christopher G. Symenow and an unnamed nurse determined Ms. Tamblin needed IV fluids.

She was instead administered the Wallcur practice IV bag and “her condition significantly worsened and she became seriously ill.” According to the lawsuit, the IV was “not sterile, (was) not fit for use in the treatment of humans, and contained various dangerous and harmful contaminants and bacteria.”

Mr. Symenow, the unnamed nurse and MedReady operator Dr. Paula S. Curtis are alleged to have negligently failed to adequately inspect the bag before treating Ms. Tamblin.

Wallcur is alleged to have improperly labeled and shipped the IV bags to patient care facilities.

In 2015 an Adams teen’s adverse reaction to one of the same IV bags may have been what triggered a national recall of the product, according to Syracuse attorney Donald S. DiBenedetto.

Kyra R. Kempney was allegedly administered the solution on Dec. 19, 2014, at the same urgent care center. Shortly after the fluids were provided, her condition worsened and she was taken to Samaritan Medical Center. She was diagnosed with septic shock, a potentially life-threatening complication of an infection. She spent five days in the hospital’s intensive care unit.

Mr. DiBenedetto, Syracuse, is representing Ms. Kempney in her suit, which is ongoing, and is currently representing Ms. Tamblin. He was unavailable for comment Friday.

In Ms. Kempney’s case, Mr. DiBenedetto said that Dr. Curtis recognized that the IV solution may have contained bacteria or other contaminants and notified both the state Department of Health and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

The FDA opened an investigation, and in late December, alerted health care professionals that some of Wallcur’s IV solutions intended for training purposes had been distributed to health care facilities, and cautioned professionals not to use the products on humans or animals. Wallcur initiated a recall of the product.

The FDA reported in April 2015 that it was aware of 40 patients across several states who received the simulated solution, with 26 patients reporting adverse reactions, including fevers, chills, tremors and headaches. Of the 26 sickened patients, 11 required hospitalization, the FDA said. Depositions for Ms. Kempney’s lawsuit were completed over this past summer.

CARTHAGE — A Carthage man was involved in a Thanksgiving hunting accident in the Oneida County town of Whitestown.

According to Oneida County Sheriff Robert Maciol, Darwin Cooley, 50, Carthage, at around 9:30 a.m. Thursday was hunting with his brother-in-law Travis Dam. 42, Whitesboro, in an area north of the village of Whitesboro when Mr. Cooley shot at a deer that ran between the two of them and the bullet grazed the side of Mr. Dam’s head.

Mr. Dam was able to walk to his four-wheeler and drive out on his own and was transported by Central Oneida County Ambulance, to St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center, Utica, then transferred to Upstate Medical University, Syracuse. His injuries do not appear to be life-threatening, according to a Sheriff’s Department release.

Sheriff’s investigators and state Environmental Conservation police are investigating the incident. No charges have been filed and the investigation is continuing.

BOONVILLE — Two Boonville residents suffered minor injuries when their vehicle hit a deer at 6:50 p.m. Thursday on Route 46 in the town of Boonville.

Oneida County sheriff’s deputies said Jennifer Rothrock, 47, driving south in a 2016 Subaru, was unable to avoid the deer and the vehicle’s airbags deployed.

She and front-seat passenger Christian Rothrock, 44, were transported by Boonville Ambulance to Rome Memorial Hospital for treatment of minor, unspecified injuries. A rear-seat passenger, Erica Ross, 31, Rome, was not injured.

The Boonville Fire Department assisted at the scene.

LOWVILLE — A Glenfield woman who was injured in a two-vehicle crash Monday afternoon died from her injuries Tuesday night at Upstate Medical Center in Syracuse.

Crystal L. Farney, 19, of Glenfield, was sideswiped by a delivery truck driven by Jeremy N. Harris, 31, of Watertown, after her car crossed into the opposite lane, according to Sgt. Ryan J. Lehman of the Lewis County Sheriff’s Department. The truck struck Ms. Farney’s car, which Sgt. Lehman said was slightly sideways, in the right rear.

“We are unsure as to what reason caused her to cross over into the other lane,” he said. “The roads were slushy and snow-covered.”

A portion of Number Four Road between East Martinsburg and Markowski roads was closed in the afternoon and evening and an accident reconstruction team from the state police was called to the scene.

LOWVILLE — Lewis County legislators have chosen a Theresa woman with experience in aging services and emergency assistance as their next Office for the Aging director.

Kelly E. Hecker, appointed by lawmakers at their meeting Tuesday, is scheduled to start in her new position Monday. Her annual salary was set at $52,000.

“She has a fantastic personality,” said Legislator Andrea J. Moroughan, R-Watson, a member of the legislative Office for the Aging committee.

Mrs. Moroughan said her committee interviewed a few applicants but Ms. Hecker stood out both for her experience in aging services, management and budgets and the relaxed manner she displayed during her interview.

“She’s very bubbly and was comfortable talking with us,” she said.

Ms. Decker holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from Hawaii Pacific University. She served as manager of coordinating services for the City and County of Honolulu Elderly Affairs Division from 2008 to 2010 and director of assisted living operations at Kindred Nursing and Rehabilitation from 2011 through 2013.

For the next couple of years, she served as emergency manager for the American Red Cross in Lewis, Jefferson and St. Lawrence counties and has also owned and operated a liquor store in Evans Mills.

Ms. Decker replaces Brenda J. Bourgeois, Lowville, who resigned from the position at the end of September after nearly six years of service.

Legislators also reappointed Highway Superintendent David L. Becker through 2021, approved an increase in the regular work week for all probation officers from 35 to 40 hours and requested a waiver from the state Office of Community Renewal on a conflict of interest between Snow Belt Housing Co., Inc. and an eligible recipient of housing rehabilitation funding through a Community Development Block Grant.

Snow Belt Executive Director Cheryl L. Shenkle-O’Neill said the daughter of her board’s vice chairman, Dennis M. Mastascusa, qualifies for a $33,525 repair project that would include window, door and flooring replacement, painting and other work. “They are pretty typical repairs,” she said.

However, because of the situation, the county — as applicant for the state funding — would need to request the waiver, even though Mr. Mastascusa has recused himself from discussion or voting on the matter, Ms. Shenkle-O’Neill said.

County attorney Joan E. McNichol said she had reviewed all documentation and Snow Belt did “everything to the letter.”

ALBANY — The state ban on e-cigarettes in public places has officially gone into effect.

As of Wednesday, the use of electronic cigarettes is now prohibited indoors — everywhere that smoking tobacco products is also prohibited.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo signed a bill in October to add e-cigarettes to the Clean Indoor Air Act, which bans the smoking of tobacco in cigars, cigarettes and pipes while inside a public place.

“These products [e-cigarettes] are marketed as a healthier alternative to cigarettes but the reality is they also carry long-term risks to the health of users and those around them,” Gov. Cuomo said in a statement. “This measure closes another dangerous loophole in the law, creating a stronger, healthier New York for all.”

While many counties have already banned the use of e-cigarettes in public places, this bill makes the law consistent across the state. Electronic nicotine and vapor delivery systems, like e-cigarettes, vaping pens, e-hookahs and similar devices, typically contain nicotine, which could have long-term health effects on both users and bystanders.

Earlier this year, Gov. Cuomo signed a bill that specifically bans e-cigarette use on public school grounds, regardless of whether it’s indoors or outdoors. State Sen. Patricia A. Ritchie, R-Heuvelton, was the sponsor of that bill.