Northern Light NCPR

State lawmakers passed a $237 billion budget that incentivizes new affordable housing and restores cuts to school aid; a major newspaper covering the Akwesasne Mohawk community has had to suspend publication as it deals with financial troubles; also, in celebration of Earth Day we'll take a walk and talk with Vermont poet David Crews about how his writing connects him to nature, the environment and a new season!

The community of North Creek is crossing their fingers for a state grant to keep their nursing home open. Elderwood is hosting an open house Saturday morning for the community to meet residents, staff and families; we’ll take a tour of the shop in the lower Adirondacks that makes all those yellow and brown Adirondack Park signs; and John Warren checks the trail conditions in the Adirondacks for us this weekend.

We’ll take a closer look at the economic impact from the tens of thousands of tourists who came to the region during the total solar eclipse. Tourism officials estimate that Essex County alone saw a $2 million boost in sales; so far, two Democrats and a Republican have thrown their hats in the ring to become Plattsburgh's next mayor. Now an independent candidate is joining the field; New York Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie says Governor Hochul spoke prematurely this week when she said they’d reached a tentative budget agreement; plus, music and conversation with Brian Keane, the drummer of Gordon Lightfoot’s band. He's performing in Brockville Friday night.

Eight years after it was awarded a Downtown Revitalization Initiative grant, Glens Falls is getting close to finishing its DRI projects, which would make it the first community in the North Country to do so; Hochul announced that a tentative $237 billion budget deal has been reached. A surprising and controversial change is a plan to close regional centers that help people with developmental disabilities hire their own healthcare workers, and move them out of state; we debrief with astronomer Aileen O'Donoghue about the eclipse and consider a star that looks like it will explode.

Jefferson and St. Lawrence Counties recently increased the amount it reimburse funeral homes when they bury people who can’t afford to pay. But, it doesn’t help working families who are on the edge of qualifying; we hear about how a small canal transformed Glens Falls in the 1800s; lawmakers are two weeks late on hashing out a spending plan for the state for the next year and there’s no resolution in sight; and NCPR book reviewer Betsy Kepes shares her thoughts about Canadian writer, Amanda Peters' debut novel, "The Berry Pickers".

A nursing home in North Creek in the southern Adirondacks is teetering on the brink of closure; the state budget, now over 10 days late, is hung up over housing, and tenant's rights; the spring snowmelt in the Adirondacks creates powerful, roaring waterfalls, including at Auger Falls in southern Hamilton County.