Top Stories from NCPR

An apartment fire in Potsdam has left nearly 50 people without a place to live. Since the fire on Jan. 26, local people and organizations have chipped in to help, but it’s affordable housing that’s proving the hardest to find.

The battle for survival among insects is not always carried out with mandible and stinger. This branch of the animal kingdom also employs chemical warfare.

State Education Commissioner Mary Ellen Elia said she's not pleased with Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s proposal to spend just half of the amount of new money on public schools that education experts in New York recommend. She spoke Wednesday at a joint legislative budget hearing at the state Capitol.

The days of posting bail could be limited here in New York State.

New York lawmakers say it's likely they will vote soon to end cash bail and make other changes to help defendants who they say are unfairly treated in in the state's criminal justice system.

Governor Cuomo and his team are warning that a $2.3 billion budget gap that needs to be closed this year. But a growing number of voices in the North Country say the state needs to spend more money hiring forest rangers to patrol the Adirondack Park. The state’s Environment Commissioner Basil Seggos is pushing back, saying the ranger force is currently adequate to protect people in the backcountry.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo and State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli delivered some bad news Monday - the state has a $2.3 billion budget deficit.

Senator Betty Little’s office in Plattsburgh closed last week. Her budget for staff and office space in the North Country was slashed after Republicans lost their majority in the state Senate last November.

Elizabeth "Lizzie" Boolukos cuts hair for a living, but she’s an artist at heart.

Her salon, Beehive Beauty, is located in her house on Cumberland Head, a peninsula on Lake Champlain northeast of Plattsburgh. She’s less than a mile from the ferry to Vermont, and the lake is a stone’s throw away from her backyard.