Top Stories from NCPR

Add Gov. Andrew Cuomo's name to the list of state politicians wary of holding a constitutional convention. Voters get to decide this November whether New York should hold the event.Cuomo initially supported holding a constitutional convention. He wanted to reform the delegate selection process and even included $1 million in his 2016 budget proposal to lay the groundwork for the event.

Congresswoman Elise Stefanik met with small groups yesterday in Plattsburgh. She's in her home district until next week for the Fourth of July recess. She had a meeting with agricultural leaders and took a tour of Norsk Titanium. She also brought some good news for that company.

Questions are growing about the future of a tourism train that local leaders hoped would serve as a major attraction, bringing visitors from the Capital District to the Gore Mountain region in the southeastern Adirondacks.

The Remington Museum in Ogdensburg is hosting Carolyn Wirth as artist-in-residence. She's a sculptor and long-time aficionado of the life and work of Ogdensburg sculptor Sally James Farnham, who was a contemporary of Frederic Remington.Remington Art Museum Executive Director Laura Foster says Wirth's inclusion of a project involving Sally James Farnham is part of plans to establish a permanent exhibit showcasing Farnham's work on the second floor of the Remington. Foster hopes to host more artists and scholars-in-residence on a regular basis.

The Erie Canal is celebrating its 200th birthday in July. To mark the occasion, the Albany Symphony Orchestra is performing a series of floating concerts along the canal route this week.

Norsk Titanium has become a huge source of pride for people in Plattsburgh. It's a Norwegian aerospace company that makes airplane parts using high-tech, industrial, 3-D printing machines. The plant opened last year, and recently Norsk delivered its first federally approved parts for Boeing commercial airplanes. The 3-D printing technology is at the cutting edge in the aerospace industry. Business leaders have called this the next industrial revolution. We visited the company's research and testing facility to see how it works.

When you think about weather and the big storms that batter the North Country, you probably don't think of the Sahara Desert in North Africa. But a new study co-authored by Dr. Curt Stager at Paul Smiths College has found a link between the world's largest desert and the hurricanes that slam the East Coast of the U.S. Their research is part of a wider effort to understand how climate change is transforming our earth, turning deserts green and making oceans more volatile.

Historically high water levels on the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River are presenting the shipping industry with both challenges and opportunities.

Flooding has continued along Lake Ontario for two months, like some slow-motion natural disaster. And it's still creating problems in Toronto, the biggest city in Canada.

It's been a fairly wet spring and summer this year, but when it gets dry for weeks at a time, the New York State Forest Rangers keep a close watch on forest fire danger in the Adirondacks.In the early 1900s, fires ravaged thousands of acres of forest land in the Adirondack Park, particularly along railroad corridors. It caused alarm in Albany. The old system, created when the Forest Preserve was formed in 1885, wasn't working. A new approach was needed, so the New York Legislature enacted new laws in 1909 to fight fires in the Adirondacks and Catskills. It was a game-changing moment, one that would lead to the establishment of the Forest Ranger Division in 1912 and the construction of more than 100 fire towers.