News

Mutants are neither the creepy brain domes of science fiction, nor the smart-mouth turtles of the cartoons. Mutations arise all the time from environmental exposure to mutagenic substances and from imperfections in cellular reproduction. Martha Foley and Dr. Curt Stager talk change, genetic change.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo gave a speech at the annual meeting of the Rev. Al Sharpton's National Action Network, honoring the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., where he offered remedies to fix the nation's Democratic Party.

Mutants are neither the creepy brain domes of science fiction, nor the smart-mouth turtles of the cartoons. Mutations arise all the time from environmental exposure to mutagenic substances and from imperfections in cellular reproduction. Martha Foley and Dr. Curt Stager talk change, genetic change.

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) New York's attorney general is launching an inquiry into the operations of several leading virtual currency trading platforms.

State officials say a Bolton man has been charged with felony counts of falsifying environmental reports at a wastewater treatment plant near Lake George. Thomas French, age 37, was arrested Tuesday. He allegedly falsified testing reports from the town wastewater plant in Bolton, which sits in the Lake George watershed.

This week, we're looking into the DRI: New York state's grant program that awards small cities $10 million to bolster their downtowns. That money gets divvied up among a bunch of projects, so to make it more impactful, the DRI and other grant programs rely on this idea of leverage: the state gives grant recipients a certain amount of money to put into a project, and those people invest additional money of their own. But in communities that don't have a lot of wealth, putting up that kind investment can be difficult for business owners.

The Working Families Party split up over the weekend, with some of the last remaining major unions leaving the group. The progressive political party announced it is backing Cynthia Nixon for governor, while Gov. Andrew Cuomo withdrew from consideration, saying he's sticking with the major unions, for now.

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) Lawmakers in the New York state Assembly have again passed bills intended to make it easier for voters to participate in elections.

Check the coffee/tea aisle at your local grocery store and you'll find lots of choices - black, green and herbal. What about chaga tea? Never heard of it? A young Adirondack entrepreneur is hoping to tap into this little-known fungal super food.

The Working Families Party split up over the weekend, with some of the last remaining major unions leaving the group. The progressive political party announced it is backing Cynthia Nixon for governor, while Gov. Andrew Cuomo withdrew from consideration, saying he's sticking with the major unions, for now.

A controversial wind farm in St. Lawrence County got a reprieve last night. Board members in the town of Hopkinton voted against a strict new law that would have pushed wind farms at least a half-mile away from local homes and the boundary of the Adirondack Park aAnd limited the amount of noise that turbines can give off.

COLCHESTER, Vt. (AP) Small schools in Vermont say they may be forced to close once lawmakers change how the state disperses small school grants.

Small cities across New York have been competing for $10-million state grants to jump start improvements to their struggling downtowns. Communities are nominated by the state Regional Economic Development Councils. So far in the North Country, plans entered by Watertown, Plattsburgh, and Glens Falls have won grants under the two-year-old Downtown Revitalization Initiative, or DRI. Potsdam hopes to be next. Each community lists its own priorities, but the state favors splashy anchor projects, including a new farmer's market building in Glens Falls and a riverside city center in Plattsburgh. And there's no free ride. Communities are required to use the state money to pull in local financing. This week, we're taking a look at whether this push and pull can really change the game for the North Country's small downtowns.

SYRACUSE, N.Y. (AP) The head of a Chicago investment firm has been sentenced to 57 months in prison for conspiring to defraud a northern New York company out of $2.5 million.

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) Nearly $3 million in additional relief funding is going to communities in five upstate New York counties along Lake Ontario to help them recover from last year's flooding.

Have you ever seen a picture of a 600-pound sturgeon? How about an 1890s butter plant, or a mail boat making the rounds on Cranberry Lake? Those are the sorts of things you'll find in our freshly launched North Country at Work website, a place built to explore the photos and stories we've been collecting from around the region for the last few years.

Monday marked the first day that the former breakaway Democrats in the New York State Senate were working with the mainstream Democrats after they agreed to reunify earlier this month.

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) New York state's call center for tax filing information is extending its hours to answer last-minute questions.The tax filing deadline is Tuesday.

Canton is poised to become one of a handful of schools in the North Country to have a full-time armed officer in school. The position, called a "school resource officer," is part of the budget set to be finalized at a school board meeting Monday night.Calls for gun-carrying police in schools have increased nationwide after major shootings - from Columbine to Sandy Hook and, most recently, to Parkland, Florida.But in Canton, some parents are concerned there hasn't been enough discussion over whether an armed officer is a good idea.

There are a lot of big disagreements on the left in New York state with Democrats divided over the future of their party and their movement. That extends to the North Country's congressional race. There will be seven Democratic challengers in the New York 21 House primary right up through the end of June.