Top Stories from NCPR

Immigrants are vowing to fight to stay in the U.S. and advocates are launching campaigns after the Trump administration announced it would dismantle DACA, the program that protected hundreds of thousands of young people called "Dreamers" from deportation.

An artist who grew up in Vermont says he prefers taking his passion for writing poetry to the streets. Benjamin Aleshire lives in New Orleans, but over the last six years he has traveled across the country and Europe pitching his poems and a love for words. Aleshire has set up his vintage typewriter and sold poems at farmers markets and on the streets of London, Copenhagen, Havana and Paris. Aleshire visited St. Lawrence University this week as one of the artists featured in a new exhibit in the Brush art gallery on handmade paper, artistic expression and social justice. Aleshire was an intern with the Peace Paper Project this summer and also wrote poems for strangers on the streets of Hamburg.Aleshire shared some of his poems at a "Poetry for Peace" reading at St. Lawrence University on Monday, spoke with students about writing poetry and his travel adventures, and is artist-in-residence at BluSeed Studios in Saranac Lake this week. He set up his manual typewriter at HoboFest in Saranac Lake last Sunday. Todd Moe spoke with him about his new artist-book, "Currency," and making a living as a poet for hire.

And now, a little bit of good news: Superheroes walk among us. For the last year, a volunteer group called the North Country Crusaders has been doing good deeds in St. Lawrence County, all while dressed up as superheroes.

The military has more than 130 bands with more than 6000 musicians. But their cost, about a half-billion dollars a year, has made them a target for budget cutters in Congress and at the Pentagon.

A story about gratitude and understanding. This is a retelling of a folktale from the state of Punjab in India and was collected in "The Olive Fairy Book" edited by Andrew Lang, and originally published by Longmans, Green & Co. London, 1907.Story Traveler is unscripted storytelling from everywhere in the world, stories for the heart to hear and the mind to imagine.

When troops from the U.S. Army's 10th Mountain Division entered Somalia in early December 1992 as a part of Operation Restore Hope, they were met with smiles. By the following summer, however, the Somalis stopped smiling and began throwing rocks at their Humvees.

There's a big, messy conversation unfolding across the U.S. about removing Confederate monuments from public spaces. The North Country is kind of on the margin of that debate. But here in our region, the Confederate battle flag has become a complicated and fiercely debated symbol.It's a flag of an army that was in open treason against the U.S. government, fighting to defend slavery in the Civil War. Historians say it was later embraced by racists and politicians fighting against civil rights for African-Americans.So why do people fly Confederate flags so far north, or put Confederate decals on their trucks or T-shirts? Zach Hirsch talked with one Plattsburgh family about why they embrace the controversial symbol.

A Montreal artist spent the Labor Day weekend working on art with first year students at Paul Smiths College. The students submitted doodles, logos and words on small slips of paper that visual artist Aquil Virani used to create a final triptych design, to be unveiled later today.

In the dogs days of late summer, the garden may look a little worse for wear. Now's the time to clean up, and keep weeding. Horticulturist Amy Ivy offers some advice about end-of-summer garden care.

Rescue crews and emergency personnel from around the U.S. are in south Texas this holiday weekend to help with the recovery from Hurricane Harvey. The Red Cross says three dozen volunteers from upstate New York have deployed. Fort Drum has also sent members of the 10th Mountain Division to help - about 20 soldiers have deployed. The state of Vermont has also offered assistance to Texas. Brian Mann, our Adirondack reporter, has also traveled south to help NPR with its storm coverage. He talked with Todd Moe.