Joel Rose & Rolando Arrieta/WFAE Radio At a public housing complex, volunteers knock on apartment doors offering assistance with an activity most of us take for granted. They carry 5-gallon buckets of water to flush the toilets of grateful residents like John Brown. “I appreciate the fantastic work you guys are doing,” said Brown, who […]
Becky Johnson/The (Waynesville) Mountaineer The tourism industry that relies on the fall leaf season to sustain it through the leaner months of winter was panicked by the official message pushed out to tourists last week: ‘It’s too dangerous to travel to Haywood County.’ The message was crafted at a time of gas, cash and food […]
Dave DeWitt/WUNC Radio Mark Robinson’s campaign for governor used images captured by freelancer Lynn Hey, originally published by WUNC, on his website without permission or compensation. It may not be the most damaging or inflammatory scandal in the past month for Mark Robinson’s campaign for governor, but a WUNC analysis of photos used on his […]
Renuka Rayasam & Fred Clasen-Kelly/KFF Health News It’s been 35 years since John Parker died after a pickup collided with the bike he was riding on Cheek Road in east Durham before school. He was 6. His mother, Deborah Melvin-Muse, doesn’t display photos of him, the second-youngest of six children. His brother’s birthday was the […]
The (Southern Pines) Pilot The Moore County Democratic Party chairman, who is also a candidate for a N.C. House race, was charged Friday in connection with the theft of political signs in Seven Lakes. Lowell Evan Simon, 68, of West End was charged with two counts of misdemeanor larceny of political signs and was released […]
The Associated Press One of the two companies that manufacture high-purity quartz used for making semiconductors and other high-tech products from mines in a western North Carolina community severely damaged by Hurricane Helene is operating again. Sibelco announced on Thursday that production has restarted at its mining and processing operations in Spruce Pine, located 50 […]
Caleb M. Soptelean/The Sanford Herald The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law of November 2021 provided $15 billion over five years for lead pipe mitigation, and Sanford has a good start on the 10-year process, according to a Cary consultant. Glynn Fleming of WithersRavenel, a civil and environmental engineering firm, updated the Sanford City Council about the process […]
House Bill 149, the Helene relief bill, includes a section that’s designed to give people and businesses affected by the hurricane a bit of breathing room on the taxes. One part of that offers a waiver of interest on underpaid state and local taxes of various sorts, including individual income taxes. The other part allows […]
Another point legislators stressed this week as they rolled out the Helene relief bill is that a deep-dive after-action review of the effectiveness of the relief effort in the mountains is a job for the future, not now. “There’s a time and there is a place for us to figure out what went wrong,” said […]
Republicans in the General Assembly are pushing back on a New York Times article that contends their deregulatory instincts may have exacerbated the damage Hurricane Helene inflicted on western North Carolina. The article (republished by WRAL) focused on recent battles about the control and content of the state’s building codes, and about restrictions on development […]
Vicki Hyatt/The (Waynesville) Mountaineer Pactiv Evergreen is suing the potential purchaser of its Canton paper mill property, trying to force the sale to completion and saying the purchase agreement remains legally binding. That purchaser, E.J. Spirtas Group and Two Banks Development, backed away from closing the sale on the Canton site immediately following record flooding […]
Destinee Patterson/WRAL News Franklin County Sheriff Kevin White is calling on County Manager Kim Denton to resign, saying her request for reimbursement paperwork related to Helene relief is a roadblock for aid in western North Carolina. “Bureaucracy often interrupts people’s lives,” White said in a Facebook post. “But it should never cost people their lives.” […]
Zachery Eanes/Axios Raleigh Insurance companies in North Carolina want to raise homeowner premium rates statewide by more than 42% on average. Whether or not they will, though, will be determined at a hearing in Raleigh over the coming weeks. Why it matters: An increase in insurance rates comes as many households are already struggling with […]
Christopher Miller/The Indepedent Tribune Several school board members expressed frustration and concern during Monday’s Cabarrus County Board of Education work session about the viability of key school projects, which are currently in a state of limbo. They directed much of their criticism at the state’s Local Government Commission, the nine-member bipartisan body which provides financial […]
Emma Dill/WilmingtonBiz N.C. Department of Transportation officials presented three design alternatives for the Cape Fear Memorial Bridge replacement on Tuesday during the first of two public input meetings. For years, local leaders across the Cape Fear region have pushed to replace the aging Cape Fear Memorial Bridge, built in 1969. Those bridge replacement efforts received […]
