Today in your Trail Mix:
The feds can't make up their mind about the fate of the Niagara Falls Air Reserve Station.
The changing face of Syracuse's downtown.
And students in Syracuse flex their engineering skills on robots.
Government
The Niagara Falls Air Reserve Station is getting buffeted by mixed messages: a $28.1 million cargo plane simulator is slated for the base - but job cuts in the hundreds are also being proposed (Jerry Zremski, Buffalo News).
After two failed attempts to grab federal funding to fill in its Inner Loop, Rochester is diverting $2 million to bolster its plans for revitalization (Zack Seward, WXXI/Innovation Trail).
Only four people showed up to comment on a public meeting about how Buffalo will use federal HUD dollars (Mike Desmond, WNED).
New York representatives are pushing Congress to approve $1.2 million for a venture capital fund to help launch new businesses (Alissa Kline, Buffalo Business First).
Business
Syracuse is starting to look a lot less commercial and a lot more residential downtown - and developers are looking to cash in on that trend (Ryan Delaney, WRVO/Innovation Trail).
Syracuse's auto show opens tomorrow, on the heels of the Buffalo auto expo (Charles McChesney, Post-Standard).
The Finger Lakes wine industry is attracting more Millennials to its ranks (James Battaglia, Press & Sun-Bulletin).
Oswego's Palladium-Times newspaper has managed to stay alive in a tough media environment, and even grow, by concentrating on its rural audience (Joyce Gramza, WRVO).
Construction jobs numbers in New York are failing to return to 1990s-era highs, and some contractors are forced to drive hours to find work (Ryan Delaney, WRVO/Innovation Trail).
Education
Syracuse students struck a blow for humans in the eventual humans-versus-robots war, at the VEX Robotics Competition. The Innovation Trail's Ryan Delaney stopped by, just in case the robots got an edge:
http://youtu.be/x2xLtpIA_ek
SUNY's board chair says the construction of a new nanotechnology facility in Albany is a "small miracle" that will have a "transformational effect" (Larry Rulison, Times Union).
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