Top Stories from NCPR

The city of Watertown got big news Wednesday. Governor Andrew Cuomo visited to announce the city won one of the state's downtown revitalization awards, worth $10 million.

There's a lot of excitement at Clinton Community College in Plattsburgh. The school's Institute for Advanced Manufacturing is now open for business.It's a place where students can get hands-on training in a high-tech factory environment. It's meant to create a pool of highly skilled workers and attract new employers to the region. The college threw a big celebration last week.

The well-equipped medevac helicopters that transported injured troops in Vietnam became the model for today's air ambulance services in the U.S.

Adirondack Bureau Chief Brian Mann is in Las Vegas this morning, reporting with the NPR team. He's there under a new partnership between NCPR and NPR. He talks with NCPR news director Martha Foley about the situation in Las Vegas and his new reporting role for NPR.

Candidates looking to challenge Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-Willsboro) next November met for their second forum Tuesday night in Canton's high school auditorium. The event was organized by Write The Power NY21. Seven Democrats and one Republican introduced themselves to voters. Stefanik was invited, but a spokesman said she couldn't attend because Congress was in session in Washington, DC.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo said he may have to call a special session in December to deal with potential funding cuts from Washington that he calls part of a "federal assault" on New York.Cuomo said he's developing a plan to manage what he said will be over a billion dollars in cuts to the state's public hospitals, now that Congress has failed to renew a key program.

This year thousands of people crossed the border to apply for asylum in Canada. Many were Haitians with temporary status and others facing deportation in the U.S. On social media, word spread quickly about a loophole in the rules for asylum seekers. It turns out they're allowed into Canada at unofficial border crossings. In August alone, 5,530 people entered Quebec this way, according to the Canadian government.But not everybody does make it across. In fact, some end up in jail in Plattsburgh.

This is the last week to visit an exhibit at the Brush Art Gallery at St. Lawrence University devoted to handmade paper. "Turn the Page, Sing a Line, Form a Sheet" includes hand papermaking by artists and refugees in Hamburg, Germany.

Every five years, Congress debates a huge piece of legislation that has a disproportionate impact on rural places like the North Country. It's the Farm Bill, a $100 billion a year hodge-podge to fund everything from crop insurance to food stamps.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo has ordered that flags be flown at half-staff across New York in a memorial for the victims of the Las Vegas incident that left at least 58 dead and hundreds injured, calling it "yet another senseless and horrific mass shooting."Anti-gun violence advocates are renewing calls for a new law that they said might prevent some of these events in the future.