Top Stories from NCPR

Food is generally near the top of the list of things that draws visitors to the New York State Fair in Syracuse. And this year's fair offers some first-ever concoctions.Along with the sausage sandwiches and pizza frites, there are some new dining options to greet fairgoers this year - like the Milk Bun, which melds the worlds of ice cream and donuts.

Officials in Plattsburgh have been at war over the city's money problems and how to solve them. The mayor and his allies in the Common Council have already eliminated four city departments. Critics say that was a mistake, and there have been shouting matches and hard feelings as officials work on the budget for next year. But things were unusually calm at Thursday night's meeting.

While the North Country is not exactly the tropics, we do have our share of exotically-colored birds. Blue creatures, for example, are rare in nature but we have the bluebird, the blue jay and the indigo bunting.Then there are the goldfinches and the cardinals, the ruby-throated hummingbird and more. Martha Foley and Curt Stager celebrate a little of the local color in colder climes.

New Yorkers will be asked in November if they want to call a meeting to re-write the state's Constitution. That's a constitutional convention, nicknamed a con-con, and voters are asked every 20 years if they want one. Usually, they don't. The last was held in 1967 and the state's founding document hasn't seen major changes since 1938.

Governor Andrew Cuomo visited the state fair on its first day yesterday. He announced that the state is already launching planning on a new exposition center at the state fairgrounds.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo is set to open on Thursday the first span of the new Thruway bridge over the Hudson River, known as the Tappan Zee Bridge and to be renamed the Gov. Mario Cuomo Bridge. But questions still linger over how, ultimately, the bridge will be paid for.

Republican assemblyman Marc Butler of Herkimer County has announced he will not run for re-election in 2018 after more than 20 years representing the southern Adirondacks and more recently, parts of St. Lawrence County.

The music of one of America's greatest composers will be performed at the Adirondack Lakes Center for the Arts in Blue Mountain Lake on Saturday night at 7:30 pm. Richard Dowling is a classical pianist who has maintained a lifelong passion for Scott Joplin's ragtime, and the Adirondacks is part of his nationwide all-Joplin recital tour.This year marks the centennial of Joplin's death and Dowling decided to commemorate Joplin by playing all his piano works, from memory, in a single concert. Joplin was an African-American composer and pianist who achieved fame for his ragtime compositions and was dubbed the "King of Ragtime." He died in New York City on April 1, 1917. Dowling told Todd Moe that, like a lot of Baby Boomers, he fell in love with Joplin's music through the movie, "The Sting," in the early 1970s.

State officials are still scrambling to contain an outbreak of Hemlock woolly adelgid, an invasive insect that turned up in the Adirondacks for the first time last month. Scientists say it could have a big impact here in the North Country, where hemlock trees are common.

The results of this year's Common Core-related standardized tests show scores for New York's schoolchildren inching up. About one-fifth of the children boycotted the tests altogether because of continued controversy over the Common Core learning standards.