A spellbinding dark comedy by Irish playwright Martin McDonagh opens Thursday night at the Recovery Lounge at the Upper Jay Arts Center. "The Pillowman" is a Tony Award-winning Broadway hit. Set in an unknown totalitarian state where Katurian, a butcher by day and a writer of haunting fairy tales by night, faces interrogation from the local government. Katurian learns that his stories, in which characters meet grisly fates, have inspired a series of copycat crimes. Scott Renderer is directing the Upper Jay Arts Center production, that continues into the first weekend in November. He says he appreciates how playwright McDonagh explores the dark corners of imagination, storytelling and the balance between individual freedoms and the security of the state. Renderer says it's a "haunting" play that he's always wanted to produce at the Recovery Lounge.

New Yorkers who use e-cigarettes will have to comply with the same limits on smoking cigarettes in public, now that Gov. Andrew Cuomo has signed a bill into law.

The executive director of a leading government reform group has been replaced, after he turned himself in for possession of addictive illegal drugs.

In Emily Fridlund's debut novel, History of Wolves, readers meet a girl who lives in a cabin on an isolated northern lake. In her fourteenth year Linda finds that life can become far more complicated than the daily routine of fishing and feeding the dogs.

A lot of fruits won't reliably grow in this climate - peaches, oranges, the truly elusive mango. But apples we've got. Businesses producing apple juices and hard ciders have cropped up across the region, hearkening back to a long tradition of cider in the Northeast and New York. Canton Apples and Martin Bregg count themselves among that number. They started a business pressing apple juice this year, using fruit from the Canton Apples U-Pick orchard. They hope to expand into hard ciders, apple wine, and apple brandy in the next year.

The state's governor and senior senator teamed up Monday to urge New York's congressional delegation to oppose a provision in the federal tax overhaul plan that they say could be harmful to the state's taxpayers and economy.

The Chancellor of the State University of New York is defending a SUNY board committee's decision to lower some requirements for teachers at some charter schools.

A Mohawk-owned company is nearly ready to start growing and selling medical marijuana in Canada. Seven Leaf is retrofitting an old water bottling plant on Cornwall Island in Akwesasne. The multi-million dollar project hopes to employ 100 people. The company enters a booming and crowded market.

What does a dairy cow have to do with keeping the environment healthy? At the recent Great Lakes Restoration Conference in Buffalo people were invited to witness that connection first hand - and how it played into one farmer's economic survival.

During a visit with local business and government leaders on Friday, New York State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli praised the state's economic development initiatives.