Hot Copy

By Cathy DeDe, Chronicle Managing Editor

I Love New York anticipates as many as 200,000 people could attend the 50th anniversary Adirondack Balloon Festival, Sept. 21 to 24, Balloon Festival President Mark Donahue tells The Chronicle.

Last year, he estimated about 150,000 attended.

As always, admission to the Balloon Festival is “100% free,” notes committee member and organizer Erin Reid Coker.

Balloon events begin tonight, Thursday, in Glens Falls and …

By Cathy DeDe, Chronicle Managing Editor

Make way, cannons!

Fort William Henry is preparing to store away 32 cannons to make way for Moment Factory of Montreal to install its new interactive Winter Experience projected to bring thousands of visitors to Lake George, December though March.

“In order to transform the Fort from a museum to an attraction, we will have to make some structural changes,” Fort William Henry President …

Chronicle Managing Editor Cathy DeDe advises:

• • My Number One suggestion: Get to the airport for a morning launch. Yes, it’s painfully early, and the cars are lined up by 4:30 a.m., well before the gates open, but there’s nothing like the excitement of 100 hot air balloons rising with the sun while bleary-eyed thousands cheer them on.

t Sunday morning is “Walter’s Mass Ascension,” when all the balloons go up …

By Hannah Hughes, Chronicle Summer Staff

“When your pager goes off, it’s part of the thrill of it.…You simply never know what’s coming next,” said Todd Mahony, President of the North Queensbury Volunteer Fire Company and member of the Rescue Squad’s Board of Directors.

Mr. Mahony has been a member of the Company for 20 years and joined after he retired from his business career.

“I regret that I didn’t …

By Zander Frost, Chronicle Staff Writer

A woman driving alone returning from a trip visiting grandchildren was swarmed Friday, Sept. 15, by “75-100” bike riders on Veterans Road in Queensbury. Her car was damaged and she said she was terrified.

She took video of the incident. It was shared with The Chronicle.

It shows bike riders filled both sides of the road and aggressively confronted — and some collided with …