Top Stories from NCPR

If you were walking through downtown Carthage in Jefferson County 120 years ago, you would have seen dozens of wood-based factories - making everything from paper to department store boxes to shutters and blinds.

Business was booming up and down the Black River, with timber arriving from logging operations in the Adirondacks. And Orman Braman, a Pennsylvania native looking to strike out on his own, wanted in.

The midterm elections are just two months away. It’s the time when candidates for Congress usually start spending serious money if they have it.

Democratic challenger Tedra Cobb says she enters the final sixty days of the 21st district House race in a strong position, with a growing base of volunteers. But Cobb struggled through the summer in her campaign to unseat Republican Congresswoman Elise Stefanik.

Even some of her volunteers say they want to hear a tougher message from the Democrat: more about Donald Trump, more about Stefanik's support for the controversial president and more about scandals in Washington.

Veterans now make up less than 20 percent of Congress, compared with about 75 percent in the 1960s. Some high-profile candidates are trying to reverse that trend.

Dozens of military veterans - many of them with recent service in Afghanistan and Iraq - are offering themselves as an antidote to Washington's partisan rancor.

People are catching record-breaking salmon in Lake Ontario this year. A report from the Department of Environmental Conservation says veteran anglers are reporting some of the best fishing in decades.

In mid-September some of a gardener's work is deconstruction, some is preparation, and some is just thinking. Cooperative Extension's Amy Ivy is pulling out spent zucchini; Martha Foley's getting rid of some really tired tomatoes and hoping the remainder will have time to ripen this month. Both are prepping an area for planting garlic later in the fall, and talking about moving all or part of the garden.

First step in that process: killing the existing grass with a thick cover this winter to make way for new beds.

It's still a busy time in more popular areas of the High Peaks, and will remain so through Columbus Day, especially on good-weather weekends like this one. Cooler and drier air is moving in and will be with us through the weekend, before the possibility of some stormy weather early next week.

It’s been three years since inmates Richard Matt and David Sweat escaped from Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora. The prison break set off a three-week manhunt. Matt was killed in a shootout, Sweat was shot and arrested.

In the months that followed there were crackdowns and investigations, some highly critical reports about corrections practices and personnel. Corrections officials say they have worked to improve security at prisons statewide. But a new report from State Inspector General, Catherine Leahy Scott, found ongoing security lapses that continued at least through last year.

A new collaboration is offering people across the North Country a chance to report and write the stories they see in their own community. Citizen journalists are ordinary citizens who take up the tools of journalism, to exercise their citizenship through journalism.

Stress levels for farmers in America have skyrocketed in recent years. With dairy prices low, many farmers are looking not just for financial support, but emotional support as well. Programs like New York State FarmNet have become integral for agricultural professionals in rural communities who may be suffering from depression.