Top Stories from NCPR

Michael Welch has been carrying mail in Potsdam since 1989, when he got a job as a "city" delivery carrier with the United States Postal Service. He'd been working as a window clerk just outside New York City for a couple years, but when he go the chance to come home (Welch grew up in St. Lawrence County) and get out onto the road, he jumped at the opportunity.

Despite the extreme temperatures, December weather has had a fairly healthy pattern for the garden - steady cold to keep things dormant and a good snow cover for insulation. But your overworked heating system in sub-zero temperatures can take a toll on house plants. They can get too dry from forced air, or too warm from being near a heat vent, or too cold near a drafty window.Cooperative Extension horticulturist Amy Ivy sorts out which plants are likely to have which problems and how to keep your whole plant community thriving during the bleak midwinter.

One of the big Adirondack stories of 2017 was the decision by Iowa Pacific Railroad and its subsidiary the Saratoga North Creek Railway to store mothballed rail cars in the Park. Dozens of cars have already arrived on a stretch of track in the town of Minerva near the Boreas River and the High Peaks Wilderness. Those cars are now being removed, but the company says it is already planning to bring hundreds more of these industrial freight and tanker cars into the Adirondacks.

When Bella Doolittle heard her diagnosis last February of early-onset Alzheimer's, she sat in the car outside the doctor's office and cried."He said, 'Well, we figured out what's going on with you and this is it.' And I'm like, 'No it's not.'"

The National Weather Service is forecasting that we could be in the coldest seven-day stretch since the mid-2000s. The very cold wind chills this morning will ease only slightly before reaching 50 to 55 below zero on summits on Sunday.

This year brought with it a few threats to Great Lakes health - an above average algae bloom and an Asian carp sighting. But a financial threat also loomed over the lakes this year.

You can ring in the New Year at a number of First Night events in communities around the North Country on Sunday.First Night Burlington will celebrate 35 years with 13 hours of music, food, theater, art and a parade at 19 venues in downtown Burlington. Zach Williamson, artistic director, says it's the longest running family-friendly festival of its kind in the country.

In the North Country and across the U.S., people are scrambling to pay their property taxes before the New Year, when a new federal tax law takes effect. The law puts a $10,000 limit on state and local tax deductions. Last week, Governor Andrew Cuomo signed an executive order allowing people to pay ahead and still benefit from the old rules.

Homelessness looks different for veterans living in rural communities: shelters are few and far between, and people aren't living out on the street like they do in cities. They might be couch surfing, sleeping in their cars, or camping in the woods. That can make it hard to identify homeless veterans and connect them to the services they need.

We tend to think that dogs do this, and that cats do that. We think animal species have a recognizable set of behaviors that define the nature of their kind. But what about individual animals? Does each have something we could understand as a unique personality?Curt Stager said his cat is not like Martha Foley's cat. But what about individual birds, or even insects?Researchers say they can identify individuality even in some of the simplest creatures.