Top stories on social media in 2015

The other involved David Sweat and Richard Matt, a pair of convicted murderers who in June escaped from Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora and were on the run from the law for nearly a month.

Responding to a Facebook campaign started in early December by Terry's aunt to solicit Christmas cards for the girl, people around the world have sent tens of thousands of cards and gifts — enough to fill whole postal trucks — and donated nearly $400,000 for her medical care and her future.

In July, Abby Sayles, a 4-year-old battling leukemia, announced to her mother that she planned to marry her favorite nurse, 29-year-old Matt Hickling, who cares for her when she receives treatments at Albany Medical center's Melodies Center for Childhood Cancer and Blood Disorders.

Local boy wins singing competition; killers break out of prison; former New York Gov. Mario M. Cuomo dies; former homeless man fired by Wal-Mart for redeeming bottles left in the store parking lot; buffalo escape from farm, swim across the river, are shot to death in a suburb after capture proves impossible.