Top Stories from NCPR

The story of two sisters from Heuvelton who took the musical world by storm in the early 1900s will be presented in the opera house at Pickens Hall this weekend. Bessie and her twin sister Jessie, were the granddaughters of John Pickens, the original owner of the building.After their father died in the early 1890s, the girls' joint musical career began in Pickens Hall, neighborhood parlors and vaudeville houses singing in musical comedies and popular favorites, with Bessie on the banjo and Jessie on the guitar.Eventually, Bessie's vocal talents earned her a trip to Europe where she studied opera with some of the top vocal coaches of the era. She sang at the Paris opera house and joined the Metropolitan Opera in New York City in 1906. "C'mon In, the Musical Story of Bessie and Jessie Pickens" will be performed on Saturday night at 7 pm, and Sunday at 3 pm, in the same space that the Pickens sisters began their musical careers more than a hundred years ago. Todd Moe spoke with Samantha Stinson and Elaine Kuracina who will portray Bessie and Jessie in the show, which will include a variety of music from Broadway to Vaudeville.

A grassroots media project founded at St. Lawrence University is turning ten. Weave News is celebrating with a conference focused on citizen journalism this weekend.

What we call reindeer moss is nothing of the kind. It's not even a plant; it's a lichen. Lichens, which account for half of the natural nitrogen fertilizer used by plants and animals, are a combination of a fungus colony with algae and cyanobacteria that can live on practically nothing - dust, pollen, rain and snow.Martha Foley and Curt Stager talk about nature's original minimalists.

There are so many plans and programs in place to clean up the Great Lakes, it's hard to keep track. Next month, environmentalists from across the region will meet to discuss their biggest challenges.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo is again wading into national issues this week. He's had a press conference against the latest attempt in the U.S. Senate to repeal the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. And he met with the governors of California and Washington to discuss steps to slow climate change.

One of the country's foremost authorities on fungi says he's looking forward to foraging for mushrooms in the Adirondacks this weekend, and he says conditions should be ideal. Rick Van de Poll is a New Hampshire ecologist and mycologist, and is one of the featured speakers Saturday at the Adirondack Fungi Festival at the Paul Smith's College VIC.Mushroom experts say the Adirondack Park is home to one of the most bountiful fungi eco-zones on the planet.Van de Poll has presented dozens of walks and workshops throughout New England for the past 30 years. He has identified thousands of mushroom and fungi species in the Northeast, and told Todd Moe that he's always on the look-out for new species.

Big changes are coming to one of the North Country's state prisons. The Adirondack Correctional Facility in Ray Brook - between Lake Placid and Saranac Lake - will be converted into a prison for 16- and 17-year-old offenders. The newly revamped facility will open in the fall of 2018. This comes after the Cuomo administration pushed to raise the age of adult criminal responsibility to eighteen.

Republicans in the state of New York met for a planning session in Albany on Tuesday in advance of the 2018 campaigns, which will begin shortly.The party's leader, Ed Cox, believes Republicans have a good chance at winning statewide offices against Gov. Andrew Cuomo and others next year.

Last week marked the 46th anniversary of the Attica uprising: when inmates took over the prison for five days, taking hostages and demanding an end to mistreatment.

Forest rangers found a missing New Jersey man dead yesterday on Wallface Mountain in the High Peaks. 28-year-old Alex Stevens from Hopewell New Jersey was located in a rugged area of the Adirondacks following an exhausting search.