Top Stories from NCPR

The Tug Hill Region - nestled east of Lake Ontario and west of the Adirondacks - has some of the least populated towns and villages in New York State. For more than 45 years, the Tug Hill Commission has been providing critical support to local residents in the areas of conservation, natural resources, and the development of economic opportunities.

Three counties in the North Country will receive new mobile child advocacy centers.

Save the River has declared war on micro-plastics. Micro-plastics are the tiny, tiny remnants of plastic found in our waters and soils, and now, up and down the food chain, even in people.

The Thousand Islands-based environmental group is focusing on a major source of those tiny particles: the “single-use” plastic bags we commonly take home from grocery and other every-day retailers.

Religious and progressive groups say they will press Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the state Legislature to adopt what they call a "moral" state budget in 2019. The groups brought their views to the Capitol just before Christmas.

More travelers used the airport this year than ever before, but now the city's airport is waiting for the federal government’s decision on airline subsidies. That decision also carries huge implications for another airport in St. Lawrence County.

North Country Congresswoman Elise Stefanik is just days away from the official start of her third term. She won re-election in November by a wide margin. That victory was dramatic given this year's national Democratic wave. But Stefanik returns to Washington at a time of big change and big challenges. Brian Mann joins Martha Foley to talk about this. He’s our Adirondack bureau chief and pays close attention to politics for us.

For more than 20 years, horticulturist Amy Ivy has shared her expertise and love of gardening in conversation with Martha Foley each Monday morning on The Eight O'Clock Hour. Amy is retiring from her job with Cornell Cooperative Extension this week and from her volunteer job as NCPR's longtime gardening maven.

What does she plan to do with her time now? Tend (and expand) her garden.

In this last episode, she talks with Martha about what to do with the Christmas tree after the holidays are over.

We had quite a warm up last Friday - well into the 50s in some areas, and we've got another warm up underway.

2018 was the year of the first mid-term elections since Donald Trump became President. Lots of politics in the news, including here in the North Country. The race to challenge Republican Congresswoman Elise Stefanik dominated coverage in many newsrooms, including ours.

There were many other important stories that emerged though in our region. Martha Foley is joined by Brian Mann, Lauren Rosenthal, and David Sommerstein for a review of 2018.

Contrary to longstanding theories, the human sense of smell is roughly as acute as that of other mammals, with an equivalent amount of neural hardware devoted to the detection of odors. So why do we seem to be so nose-blind compared to the family dog?

Martha Foley quizzes Curt Stager about a sense that often operates unnoticed by our conscious minds.