For almost two years, residents of a dead-end street in the Town of Plattsburgh have been at war with activists and a developer over a low-income housing project. The affordable housing supporters have won, at least for now. The town planning board approved the Caron Place apartment complex last week. The board first denied it back in 2015, and the developer took the case to State Supreme Court, arguing that the planning board was biased against low-income housing. The judge sided with the developer, and there have been intense negotiations over the project ever since. [full story]

The Adirondack Shakespeare Company is back on the road this season. ADK Shakes, as the company is fondly known, has an unusual, if not unique, process for its traveling productions. The cast comes in with lines fully memorized and the show is put up with very limited rehearsal time, usually about twelve hours. The troupe will be in Saranac Lake and Upper Jay this weekend for performances of Macbeth and Cymbeline. The Adirondack Shakespeare Company, based in Schroon Lake, can produce a show almost anywhere, outdoors in a park or in the middle of a restaurant. They subscribe to a popular adage that good theatre can be made with just “bare boards and a passion.”A couple of seasons ago, Todd Moe caught up with the ADK Shakes' Executive Director Patrick Siler, Artistic Director Tara Bradway and Meghan Blakeman, the conductor for "A Midsummer Night's Dream." They had just finished rehearsing for a performance in the Recovery Lounge at the Upper Jay Arts Center, a funky space filled with antique sofas, vintage decor, creaking floors, and warm acoustics. [full story]

There was a massive police response late yesterday afternoon following a shooting and a robbery in the town of Hague on Lake George’s northwest shore.Authorities say the shooting occurred inside the Hague Market around 4:30 pm. [full story]

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) is speaking out against proposed cuts to federal arts funding. Speaking at a visit to the Erie Canal Museum in Syracuse, Gillibrand called the suggested cuts "devastating." [full story]

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) Two Democrats in the New York state legislature say the state should be required to release the state tax returns of any president who hails from New York state.The measure does not mention President Donald Trump by name, but it comes after the New York City Republican refused to release his tax returns during his successful run for the presidency last year. [full story]

MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) Vermont's attorney general has joined 13 other attorneys general in urging the country to reaffirm a commitment to an international agreement to reduce climate-warming carbon emissions. [full story]

The president of the National Grange says her goal over the next few years is to boost membership in the country's oldest farm organization. Betsy Huber was the guest of honor at a luncheon for North Country Grange members Saturday in Ogdensburg. The Grange is celebrating its 150th anniversary this year and has about 2,000 local granges in 37 states and about 160,000 members. Huber, who was born and raised on a dairy farm in Pennsylvania, is a lifelong Grange member and the first woman elected as "master," a formal title of the president. Since it began in 1867, the Grange has been a fraternal organization with its roots in agriculture. Women were given full voting rights and encouraged to be active members since its inception. The first Grange was founded in Fredonia, and there are still many active Grange Halls in the North Country that serve as community centers. Grange membership has declined in the 21st century as the percentage of farmers has fallen, but Huber, whose office is in Washington DC, told Todd Moe that the Grange is doing well in many areas and even urban chapters have opened in recent years. [full story]

A fiscal watchdog group is questioning the state’s century-old prevailing wage law for construction workers, saying it unnecessarily costs taxpayers billions of dollars a year in added expenses for big road, bridge and other projects.The Empire Center, a fiscally conservative budget watchdog group, looked at the state’s constitutionally protected prevailing wage law. It requires contractors on public projects to pay their workers the amounts set in unions’ collective bargaining agreements. [full story]

The village of Lake Placid hopes to launch a sweeping new effort to modernize its busy main street, with new parking, more trees, and a major overhaul of an aging sewer line. But that vision has triggered a growing brawl with one of the North Country’s most powerful cultural institutions. [full story]

Find out who rings "The Bell of Justice" in this story from The Gesta Romanorum, a popular book of compiled stories written in Latin around the end of the 13th or beginning of the 14th century.The stories from the rich folk tales, legends, history and fragments of different origins from Europe and Asia became the source directly or indirectly for stories told again in Chaucer, Boccaccio, and Shakespeare.Story Traveler is unscripted storytelling from everywhere in the world, stories for the heart to hear and the mind to imagine. [full story]