Good morning. We're halfway to the weekend, but here's a full batch of Trail Mix for your Wednesday.
Syracuse and Destiny USA doing a familiar dance over tax breaks.
Upstate New York cities are lagging in private-sector growth.
And: Meet the two lawyers behind many of New York's local fracking bans.
Education
The Innovation Trail's Daniel Robison has this story on how refugees in Buffalo are using literacy to start anew. (Big thanks to Nicholas Gunner for pulling together the audio slideshow.)
More college students in Syracuse are using their summer breaks to work on starting a company (Ryan Delaney, Innovation Trail/WRVO).
Syracuse University is among a group of colleges pledging to make the cost of college more understandable (Rick Seltzer, CNY Business Journal).
Development
The developer of Syracuse's Destiny USA mall is up against the clock. If he doesn't start a planned expansion, he loses out on a tax break (Rick Moriarty, Post-Standard).
The steel frame of an old casino in Buffalo has finally been removed (Chris Caya, WBFO).
Jefferson County has approved a tax break for a biomass facility (Brian Amaral, Watertown Daily-Times).
Public transit facilities in Rochester are getting upgrades (The Rochesterian).
Jobs
Jobs data has darkened the economic forecast (Christopher S. Rugaber, AP).
Upstate cities have seen growth in private-sector jobs - but they're lagging compared to other parts of the country (The Business Review).
Odds and ends
A Buffalo business group funneled $800,000 to a group critics say is a front for helping advance Governor Cuomo's agenda (Tom Precious, Buffalo News).
Tourism is being credited with pumping $166 million into Tompkins County's economy, reports the Ithaca Journal.
The Innovation Trail's Matt Richmond has this profile of two lawyers working to keep fracking out of upstate New York.
One Rochester company is still going strong after two centuries of keeping up the city's nickname (Diana Louise Carter, Democrat and Chronicle).
