Top Stories from NCPR

World leaders have rallied around the United States after it launched a missile strike on a Syrian air base in response to this week's chemical attack.Russia condemned the move and suspended coordination with the U.S. in Syria's congested skies.The attack marked the first time the U.S. has targeted President Bashar Assad's forces. [full story]

It was an emotional night at the Strand Theater in Plattsburgh on Tuesday. Nearly a thousand people were there for a film and panel about heroin and opiate addiction. Health and law enforcement officials say it’s an epidemic that isn’t going away any time soon. Between 2011 and 2015 in Clinton County, drug-related arrests increased over 18 percent. Local treatment groups want people to keep talking about the crisis. [full story]

A group of volunteers in a small village in Saratoga County is hoping to save the community's old school house. The Corinth school board will decide the fate of the 109-year-old building on Main Street later this year. The Historic Main Street School Committee is holding a public informational meeting on Saturday at 6 pm at the High School Auditorium on Oak Street in Corinth. Steven Engelhart, Executive Director of Adirondack Architectural Heritage, will give a presentation titled “The Irresistibility of Historic Preservation” at the meeting. Todd Moe spoke with Matt Rogers, chair of the local committee working to save the school building. He said the group is open to ideas for how to use the building, and for preserving it as part of the community's history. [full story]

Fifty-five hockey players from around the world made a pilgrimage to Lake Placid last week for the third annual Miracle on Ice Fantasy Camp. They were coached by members of the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team who beat the Soviet Union in the "Miracle on Ice" game on their way to a gold medal.Andy Flynn was at the Olympic Center, speaking with some of the campers and the 1980 players during an intense three-day season that ended with a gold-medal game. [full story]

It appears that budget talks in Albany have come to a standstill, with many lawmakers leaving the capital last night without a finished spending plan. Democrats in the state Assembly continued work on their budgets into the evening. [full story]

All creatures breathe in some fashion, but how the job gets done has changed from fish to amphibian to reptile to mammal. Curt Stager and Martha Foley chart the evolution of animal respiration. [full story]

On a tiny beach at Erie Basin Marina in Buffalo, N.Y., Nate Drag scans the sand and driftwood. He's part of the Alliance for the Great Lakes, and he helps organize beach clean ups. [full story]

New York lawmakers are poised to pass a new state budget after resolving a stalemate that caused them to blow through a Saturday deadline. The state Senate began deliberations on a budget deal late Tuesday night, with the intention of passing it Wednesday, the same day the Assembly plans to take it up. [full story]

A barge carrying more than 2 million gallons of refined gasoline ran aground on rocks yesterday on the Hudson River, after leaving the shipping channel. State officials say it appears that nothing leaked from the vessel. [full story]

It's a busy season at North Country School and Camp Treetops near Lake Placid. Besides studying indoors, the students are helping with a favorite early spring chore - tapping maple trees for sap, and then boiling it into sweet syrup.It's not unusual for the students to help with outdoor work. The boarding school has a working farm and a large garden. The sap has been flowing fast and steady, according to ninth grader Spencer Darwall. He's graduating in June, so this is his last season in the sugar house. He spoke with Todd Moe as his classmates were out in the woods collecting buckets of sap. [full story]