It appears the Senate and the House have very different ideas about how to wind down the state’s involvement with NCInnovation — and about how to spin up its involvement in a new children’s hospital. The first pieces of the House’s budget counterproposal for the 2025-27 biennium emerged in appropriations subcommittees on Thursday. The full document is […]
The N.C. Leadership Conference’s remaining panel, with Rep. Eric Ager, D-Buncombe and Biltmore Farms Vice President Ben Teague, focused on Hurricane Helene’s effect on western North Carolina. Ager had a lot to say about FEMA that, as it happened, dovetailed with some thoughts Gov. Josh Stein relayed to the feds the day before. Despite all the private-sector aid […]
The AI panel was one of four, and the others likewise offered some interesting tidbits. Morning’s opener featured UNC Chapel Hill Athletics Director Bubba Cunningham and his counterparts from Wake Forest and East Carolina. The imminent House settlement’s financial impact on college athletics was Topic No. 1, there being general agreement that it’s going to take a few […]
Business North Carolina’s and the Trib’s annual Leadership Conference happened Friday, and it only took the morning’s final panel a few moments to get radical. How radical did the discussion of artificial intelligence get? Well, judge for yourself: “Does anybody like the way that social media is operating today? From a regulatory standpoint, the answer is […]
Brianna Atkinson/WUNC Radio The North Carolina Senate’s proposal for the upcoming biennial state budget includes more than $180 million in cuts to the state’s public universities. The reductions could impact several higher education initiatives, ranging from tuition and academic centers to scholarship programs. One proposal, a $9.5 million cut to the UNC Campus Scholarship Program, […]
Brenna Flanagan/Port City Daily The focus of conversation surrounding the Cape Fear Memorial Bridge has largely taken place on the Wilmington side of the platform, though it shifted west earlier this week as Leland Town Council received an update on progress. Trevor Carroll, North Carolina Department of Transportation Division 3 engineer, gave a presentation and […]
Rebecca Pifer/Healthcare Dive There’s still significant support in Congress for overhauling the pharmacy benefit manager industry, after reforms almost made it across the finish line late last year but died at the 11th hour, lawmakers said during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Tuesday. “Americans are fed up… they’re eager for Congress to act to […]
Mark Hibbs/Coastal Review Online The head of the Environmental Protection Agency, speaking Wednesday during a Senate budget hearing in Washington, D.C., dismissed reports that the agency was weakening standards on per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, also called “forever chemicals.” During questioning by the chair and ranking member, respectively, Sens. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., […]
Colin Campbell/WUNC Radio While the legal battle over last year’s N.C. Supreme Court election is now settled, it’s not the last unresolved election contest remaining in North Carolina. A legal dispute over the 2023 election for mayor of the Robeson County town of Pembroke is still dragging on, heading now to the N.C. Court of […]
Brian Murphy & Shaun Gallagher/WRAL News Nina King spent the second half of Duke University’s most important men’s basketball game of the season huddled in the Alamodome concourse. As the top-ranked Blue Devils tried to hold off Houston for a spot in the NCAA Tournament national title game, King — the school’s athletics director — […]
Cory Vaillancourt/Smoky Mountain News On May 2, 2024, a brief, awkward moment inside a women’s restroom at Western Carolina University was recorded, uploaded to social media and sparked a flashpoint in America’s ongoing culture wars. At the center of the encounter was Payton McNabb, a former high school athlete and emerging anti-trans activist who walked […]
John Boyle/Asheville Watchdog While you might not be wowed by the frequent flotillas of brightly colored tubes drifting down the French Broad River this summer, the river will be plenty busy with recreational users. Tropical Storm Helene’s raging flood waters did a number on the river, and particularly on its main tributary, the Swannanoa River, […]
Brighton McConnell/WCHL Chapelboro Horace Johnson, a longtime elected official who became the first Black mayor of the Town of Hillsborough, died Thursday. He was 95 years old, having celebrated his birthday just days before. The town government shared the news of the six-term mayor’s death Friday night in a release. “Mayor Johnson was a transformative […]
Nick Fogleman/Watauga Democrat Local leaders and business owners are raising alarms over a planned closure of the Blue Ridge Parkway between Blowing Rock and Linville later this year. They cite potential devastating economic impacts and urge the National Park Service to reconsider the project’s timing. Jesse Pope, President and CEO of the Grandfather Mountain Stewardship […]
Colin Campbell & Mary Helen Moore/WUNC Radio The N.C. House began releasing its budget proposal Thursday, and Republicans are planning cuts in what’s expected to be a tight budget year. Lawmakers got their first look at parts of the spending plan during a series of subcommittee meetings. The full budget bill, including tax changes and […]
