Tim Wynne-Jones lives near Perth, Ontario and writes of a young navigator from Vermont who survives a plane crash on a small Pacific Island during WWII. The island has one other living inhabitant, a Japanese soldier, and several kinds of ghosts. Wynne-Jones’s Young Adult novel received seven starred reviews, a rare honor. [full story]

The state budget is due in less than a month, but the biggest push at the Capitol is for a change that is not a spending item. It’s a measure to treat 16- and 17-year-olds as children, not adults, when they are charged with serious crimes. Many leading legislators say, for them, the issue is personal. [full story]

The St. Regis Mohawk Tribe has asked the federal government to make 140 acres of contested land in Franklin County part of the Akwesasne reservation. The tribe did the same with another 80 acres last month.The land is part of the decades-old Mohawk land claim lawsuit. St. Lawrence County agreed to a settlement to end the claim almost three years ago. But that can’t be finalized until Franklin County follows suit. But so far, it hasn’t. [full story]

Disability rights advocates say they are fed up with what they say is a lack of response from Governor Cuomo on funding for services that help them stay in their communities, including lack of funds to pay home health care workers adequate wages. At a protest outside the governor’s offices, Bruce Darling, with the Center for Disability Rights, displayed a special award that the group fashioned for Cuomo, it features a five inch gold screw on a trophy pedestal. [full story]

A tale of false accusations and forgiveness concerning the zen master Hakuin.Story Traveler is unscripted storytelling from everywhere in the world, stories for the heart to hear and the mind to imagine. [full story]

The Trump Administration could be proposing a 97 percent cut in Great Lakes Restoration Initiative funding when it unveils the federal budget later this month — a move that is drawing harsh criticism from some regional officials. The initiative is one of many Environmental Protection Agency programs in jeopardy. [full story]

Congresswoman Elise Stefanik continues to draw fire in the North Country for not holding open town hall meetings, where all her constituents are able to come and ask questions and share their opinions. In a lead editorial last week, the Adirondack Daily Enterprise argued that avoiding town hall-style meetings “reflected poorly” on the Republican lawmaker. [full story]

A guitar maker in Essex County uses the sunken logs he finds at the bottom of Schroon Lake to make his one-of-a-kind instruments. In some instances, while diving for the wood, he finds a piece of history. [full story]

The state Assembly held a hearing Monday on Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s plan to spend $8 billion in subsidies to keep three upstate nuclear power plants operating for the next 12 years. But no one from the Cuomo administration showed up. [full story]

Last week our reporter Zach Hirsch set up a storytelling booth at SUNY Plattsburgh. The booth, inspired by the national StoryCorps project, was called the Brave Space. It was part of the school’s diversity week. People went in pairs to talk about their identities, struggles, and their history. One of the conversations we recorded was with Tyrrell Muhammad. After participating in a robbery in the '70s, Muhammad spent nearly 30 years in prison at Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora.Muhammad sat down with Clarence Jefferson Hall, a history professor whose father was a corrections officer at the same state prison. [full story]