Top Stories from NCPR

The Orchestra of Northern New York will combine music, astronomy, mythology and original animation when it performs Holst's "The Planets" this weekend in Potsdam. A digital artist will join ONNY with visuals on the big screen featuring NASA photography and images from spacecraft. The concerts are 7:30 pm Saturday, and 3:00 pm Sunday, in SUNY Potsdam's Snell Theater. Seattle visual artist Adrian Wyard created "The Planets Live," as a visual accompaniment to Holst's "The Planets."The multi-media presentation features animations and images that are cued live to follow the conductor. Wyard told Todd Moe that his approach allows the imagery to add a new dimension, while Holst's music retains center stage. [full story]

The storm affected people in all kinds of ways. And just as it was getting really intense, a flood was building in Malone. A mile-long ice jam built up on the Salmon River and water poured into certain streets in the village. It was two feet deep in some places. Some people were asked to leave their homes yesterday, and residents were making dams and trenches out of snow to protect their houses. [full story]

The legislature’s one-house budgets make some changes to Governor Cuomo’s $163-million proposal to offer free tuition at public colleges in New York to some middle class students.Governor Cuomo’s plan would have the state pay for the tuition of students at public colleges and universities whose combined family income is up to $125,000 a year, when the plan is fully phased-in in two years. [full story]

It’s a big weekend for North Country college hockey fans. Clarkson University’s womens' team is in the NCAA Division I Frozen Four. [full story]

Trying to put nature back the way we found it can be more complicated than just leaving things alone. Dr. Curt Stager talks with Martha Foley about attempts to restore "green tree reservoirs," flood-plain forests that have been reduced 80 percent in size by human encroachment. [full story]

Vermont took another step toward muting certain parts of President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown Tuesday. The House passed its first vote for a bill that would make it harder for state law enforcement to cooperate with federal agents in detaining undocumented immigrants. The Senate passed the bill unanimously last month. [full story]

Tuesday's winter storm hit much of the North Country hard with crazy amounts of snow, driven at times by wind gusts spiking to 45 miles an hour. That meant a near-shutdown of travel in the region, with the Lake Champlain bridge closing and the ferry from Essex to Charlotte Vermont still out of service. They Ferry company says they'll announce sometime after 9:30 am whether they'll reopen that route today.The worst accident we've seen was a 30-car pileup near Kingston Ontario that left one person dead and sent dozens to the hospital. There are still treacherous conditions in many parts of New York, Vermont, Ontario and Quebec this morning. And we have reports this morning of serious flooding along the Salmon River in Malone in northern Franklin County. [full story]

In this Hasidic tale, the Rebbe of Lublin finds "a bright light" in a generous coachman.Story Traveler is unscripted storytelling from everywhere in the world, stories for the heart to hear and the mind to imagine. [full story]

State Police say a 14-year-old student threatened to shoot his or her classmates at Northern Adirondack Central School in Clinton County. The scare triggered an emergency response over the weekend that ended in the student’s arrest. [full story]

A federal audit released last week found that the Franklin County district attorney's office mishandled nearly half a million dollars worth of cash. The money was paid out to the county prosecutor over a five-year period by the U.S. Department of Justice as part of an asset-forfeiture arrangement with local law enforcement. Federal investigators say they still don't know where all the money went. [full story]