• David Duprey / AP

    Amish women ride in a buggy on their way home from shopping in an Amish country store in Centerville, N.Y. Centerville, a town south of Buffalo, has an established Amish community. Longstanding Amish population centers in Pennsylvania and Ohio have lost families while Amish numbers in New York have boomed in the past two years, according to a new study by Elizabethtown College researchers.

    Amish communities booming in western New York State

    By Rich Shulman

    The long lens foreshortening (and some planning) really make this photo.

    As AP reported:

    HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Affordable rural farmland and proximity to traditional population centers are driving a recent boomlet in new Amish colonies in New York state, according to a study by Elizabethtown College researchers.

    The Amish, many of them from Ohio or Pennsylvania, have established 10 new settlements in New York since the start of 2010 — growth that doubles any other state. Total population there has grown by nearly a third in the past two years, to 13,000.

    The first Amish districts in New York were established in the Conewango Valley in 1949, but in-migration amounted to a trickle until about a decade ago. As recently as 1991, there were just 3,900 Amish in the state.

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  • NY Senate passes gay-marriage bill

    Hans Pennink / AP

    Supporters of same sex marriage celebrate after Senate members voted and approved same-sex marriage at the Capitol in Albany, N.Y., Friday, June 24. New York lawmakers narrowly voted to legalize same-sex marriage Friday, handing activists a breakthrough victory in the state where the gay rights movement was born. New York will become the sixth state where gay couples can wed and the biggest by far.

    From NBC News:

    ALBANY, N.Y. — New York state senators Friday night voted 33-29 to legalize gay marriage, a breakthrough victory for the gay-rights movement in the state where it got its start. Read the full story ...

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    Thousands turned out in New York City to celebrate the legalization of gay marriage in New York, a day some say they have waited years for. Msnbc.com's Keva Andersen reports.