Albany Pine Bush

Karner is a hamlet of the town of Colonie, Albany County, New York, United States. Once called Center Station, it was a stop along the New York Central Railroad (NYCRR) that became famous for being the site where the Karner Blue butterfly was first identified.

Excelsior University is a private online university in Albany, New York. It offers undergraduate and graduate degrees and comprises three schools: the school of undergraduate studies, the school of graduate studies, and the school of nursing. It serves mostly non-traditional, adult working students through their distance education programs.

WDCD was a news/talk radio station licensed to Albany, New York, United States and served New York's Capital District, Adirondacks, and much of western New England. The station was owned by DJRA Broadcasting, and broadcast on 1540 kHz at 50 kilowatts from a three-tower directional antenna array adjacent to the station's studios in Colonie, New York.The station went off the air in April 2012 and returned to the air on March 27, 2013 simulcasting Christian talk-formatted WDCD-FM 96.7. On July 10, 2013, The NEW 1540 AM was announced with a news/talk format including Laura Ingraham, Bob Dutko, Neil Boron, Jerry Doyle and Andrea Tantaros. On October 16, 2017, WDCD went silent for the final time. The station surrendered its license to the FCC on September 28, 2018.

Kohl's Plaza is a strip mall at 1814 Central Avenue in Colonie, New York which includes the big box store Kohl's and several smaller tenants. It is one of two original locations for Kohl's in the New York Capital Region. Prior to Kohl's arrival in the plaza, it was known as Builder's Square Plaza as Builders Square was the only big box store in the plaza. The plaza has been in place since at least 1990. The Mohawk Drive-in Theatre operated from 1946 to 1986 at this location.

WKLI-FM (100.9 MHz, "100.9/107.1 The Cat") is a commercial radio station, licensed to Albany, New York, and serving the Capital District, including Schenectady and Troy. The station is owned by Pamal Broadcasting and broadcasts a country music radio format. Its programming is simulcast on WKBE (107.1 FM) in Corinth. WKLI-FM has an effective radiated power (ERP) of 6,000 watts. Its transmitter is off Kings Road near the New York State Thruway in Guilderland near the boundary of Colonie and Schenectady, adjacent to the station's former radio studios. WKLI-FM now has its studios and offices in the Pamal Broadcasting facility on Johnson Road in Latham near Crossroads Plaza.

The Rapp Road Community Historic District is located in the Pine Bush area of Albany, New York. It is a 14-acre (5.7 ha) residential neighborhood. In 2002 it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It was established in the 1920s by Rev. Louis W. Parson, an African American minister, and his wife, who had moved north from Mississippi in the Great Migration out of the rural South to industrial cities, originally settling in Albany's South End. He was followed by other members of his congregation. Neither he nor they liked urban life much, and eventually he bought the land along Rapp Road where they all moved. Half of the original purchase was taken by the state for road projects in the 1970s. The remaining half, today's historic district, has many of the original buildings. Most of the original families' descendants still live there. It is a rare intact example of a chain migration community from the Great Migration, although many such communities formed in northern cities.

Crossgates Commons is a large shopping plaza in Albany, New York along Washington Avenue Extension. It is owned and managed by Pyramid Management Group, Inc., who also own and manage the nearby Crossgates Mall.

In the early afternoon of October 8, 2014, a coworker of Jin Chen, 39, of Guilderland, New York, United States found the bodies of Chen, his wife and their two children in their home. Police were called to the scene and determined that the family had been killed sometime in the hours before dawn that day by either a knife or a hammer. No suspects have been identified and as of January 2020, the investigation is continuing. It was the first quadruple homicide to occur in New York's Capital District, the region surrounding Albany, the state capital. A considerable amount of forensic evidence, including DNA, has been collected but has not generated any leads; cultural, legal, and linguistic barriers have also made progress difficult despite outreach to other law enforcement agencies in other large U.S. cities, Canada, and China. Investigators have considered links to Chinese American organized crime; there is evidence the Chens may have been involved in illegal gambling and/or the human trafficking of undocumented immigrants from China. They have also considered whether the killings are connected to two other unsolved slayings of Chinese immigrant families elsewhere in the U.S. during the early 2010s.

Westmere is a hamlet in the town of Guilderland, Albany County, New York, United States. Since the 1970 Census, a census-designated place (CDP) has been established with the name of Westmere for tabulating the population of what the census has defined as the boundaries for Westmere. The population was 7,284 at the 2010 census. It is a suburb of the neighboring city of Albany. U.S. Route 20 (Western Avenue) bisects the community and is the major thoroughfare and main street. Along Western Avenue are numerous strip malls, shopping plazas, and commercial buildings, with residential use on the side streets to the north and south. Crossgates Mall, the Capital District's largest shopping mall, is in Westmere's northeastern corner.

Colonie is a village in Albany County, New York, United States. The population was 7,793 at the 2010 census.The village of Colonie is within the town of Colonie. Both are north of the city of Albany, the capital of New York.

Crossgates Mall is an enclosed, automobile-oriented, super-regional shopping mall located in the Albany, New York suburb of Guilderland. It is the largest indoor shopping center in the Capital District, and the third largest in the State of New York. The mall is anchored by retailers Macy's, JCPenney, Dick's Sporting Goods, Primark, Burlington, and Best Buy. Both Crossgates Mall and the nearby Crossgates Commons shopping plaza are owned and operated by the Pyramid Management Group, Inc. through multiple subsidiaries. The mall has a gross leasable area of 1,700,000 sq ft (160,000 m2) and features 212 stores and restaurants as well as an 18-screen IMAX Regal Cinema theater. Vehicular access is available from Western Avenue, Washington Avenue Extension, and a ramp just south of Adirondack Northway terminus. There are 10-12 parking lots. Public transit is available via a major bus stop served by multiple Capital District Transportation Authority routes.

NXIVM ( NEK-see-əm) was a cult led by Keith Raniere. NXIVM is also the name of the defunct company that Raniere founded in 1998, which provided seminars ostensibly about human potential development, and served as a front organization for criminal activity by Raniere and his close associates. Following Raniere's multiple convictions in 2019 for racketeering and sex offences, the Department of Justice seized ownership of NXIVM-related entities and their intellectual property through asset forfeiture. The NXIVM Corporation was based in the New York Capital District and had centers throughout the United States, Canada, and Mexico. The subsidiary companies of NXIVM recruited based on the multi-level marketing model and used curricula based on the intellectual property ("tech") of Raniere called "Rational Inquiry". Courses attracted a variety of notable students including actors as well as the children of the rich and powerful. At its height, NXIVM had 700 active members. Over its existence, former members and families of NXIVM clients, alarmed by Raniere's behavior and NXIVM's practices, spoke to investigative journalists of Forbes, Vanity Fair, The New York Observer, and the Times Union of Albany describing the organization as a cult. The organization was criticized in similar terms by Rick Alan Ross of the Cult Education Institute and activists and academics. In 2017, former members Sarah Edmondson, Bonnie Piesse and Mark Vicente, as well as Catherine Oxenberg (mother of member India Oxenberg) spoke to The New York Times and revealed grave concerns about Raniere and NXIVM, including the existence of a secret society called "DOS" in which women were branded, made to record false confessions and provide nude photographs for blackmail. Following the New York Times exposé, the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York investigated the organization, and in 2018 brought criminal charges against Raniere, co-founder Nancy Salzman and her daughter Lauren, actress Allison Mack, Seagram heiress Clare Bronfman, and bookkeeper Kathy Russell. The U.S. Attorney's Office argued in its Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act prosecution that NXIVM and its subsidiaries existed to promote, enhance and protect Raniere and members of the enterprise. The indictment alleges that Raniere and his co-defendants comprised an organized racketeering enterprise by recruiting others into NXIVM and DOS for financial and personal benefits and committed crimes ranging from sex trafficking to forced labor and visa and wire fraud. All defendants except for Raniere pled guilty. Raniere chose to go to trial in 2019. Prosecutors revealed a decades-long pattern of grooming, sexual abuse of girls and women, physical and psychological punishments against dissenters, and hacking and vexatious litigation against enemies. Raniere was convicted on the top charge of racketeering and racketeering conspiracy as well as several other charges. Judge Nicholas Garaufis sentenced Raniere to 120 years imprisonment. Co-conspirators Clare Bronfman, Nancy Salzman, and Allison Mack were given lesser prison sentences. Lauren Salzman and Kathy Russell were each given non-prison sentences. Following Raniere's conviction, he continues to direct a small set of loyal members from his prison cell, encouraging continued recruitment. At his direction, members of the group danced outside Raniere's jail and staged protests against individual prosecutors. Based on statements of support, it was estimated that about 50 to 60 persons remain loyal to Raniere.