The state Commerce Department is suing VinFast to take control of the Chatham County land the Vietnamese company had promised would become the site of an automobile factory. Filed on Thursday, the company contends that work has stalled and it’s now impossible for the company to have a factory up and running there this year, […]
State Transportation Secretary Daniel Johnson conceded that his agency could’ve and should’ve done a better job communicating with Charlotte residents about the plan to add more toll lanes to Interstate 77. Along the way, “we had a lot of robust engagement on the development of the project with with local officials and with the” local […]
Rep. Jeff Zenger and his allies are taking another stab at making local governments loosen their restrictions on housing development. A revised version of Senate Bill 445 rolled out this week in the Forsyth County Republican’s Regulatory Reform committee includes provisions that would force cities and counties to allow home construction in commercial zones. That […]
House Republican have proposed a series of restrictions on data-center development, but are coupling them a restriction on the retirement of existing baseload power plants. The proposal’s embedded in a proposed revision of Senate Bill 730 that cleared the House’s Energy and Public Utilities committee on Wednesday. In all, the intent it to “put ratepayers […]
Gov. Josh Stein has hired former Urban Institute Vice President Janneke Ratcliffe to serve as his senior adviser for housing policy. Ratcliffe will serve as Stein’s point person for an effort to come up with and implement a statewide housing strategy. An executive order rolled out on Tuesday instructs state agencies under the governor’s control […]
A Durham County grand jury has indicted the former head of the political-action arm of the Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People on two counts of embezzlement. Cassandra Shana Stokes also faces a count of obtaining property by false pretenses. The charges allege that Stokes pilfered almost $74,975 from the advocacy group, with […]
Last week’s piece on the North Carolina lobbyists who’ve registered the largest number of clients brought forth an interesting comment from one of them who’s also a loyal Tribune reader. This basically notes that while our method identifies quite a few well-known heavy hitters, it shortchanges the lobbyists who basically serve one or a couple […]
An ABC-law rewrite that could put pre-mixed cocktails on grocery-store shelves has cleared its first committee, but not before getting watered down, literally. The version of House Bill 921 that cleared the House’s ABC committee on Tuesday includes a lower, 9.9.% cap on the volume of alcohol a pre-mixed cocktail can contain. The original version […]
It’s looking like legislators are going to walk back a 2019 decision that allowed the Brunswick County Commissioners to farm out most all land-use decisions to appointed boards. Pending bills in both chambers say that going forward, the final decision in all development approvals will rest with the commissioners. House Bill 1222 has already passed […]
Back in 2023, Julia Greenfield was a retired nurse and political activist. That made her a recruiting target for Mecklenburg County Democrats as they looked for candidates for office. She wound up running, unopposed, for the District 100 state House seat after former Rep. John Autry announced he wasn’t going to seek re-election. Now in […]
Florida-based NextEra Energy is buying Virginia’s Dominion Energy in an all-stock deal worth about $66.8 billion at current market prices. The acquisition will create the single largest regulated electric utility in the world, with roots in four of the country’s fastest-growing states, North Carolina among them. Dominion’s service area includes northeast North Carolina. NextEra argues […]
Cierra Noffke/WilmingtonBiz UNC System’s Board of Governors granted UNCW permission to begin the planning process for its proposed medical school. The motion passed with unanimous support at the full Board of Governors meeting today. The medical school was proposed in April at a Board of Governors Committee on Educational Planning, Policies and Programs meeting, where […]
Ashley Fredde/NC Health News State lawmakers are proposing a bill they say would reduce administrative burden and redundancy for inspections in adult care homes, the places that manage the care for some of the state’s most vulnerable residents. “Adult care homes” have a specific designation in North Carolina. They’re places where the housing management provides […]
Daniel Walton/BPR News Buncombe County plans to ask its voters for permission to take on $70 million in new debt this November. At Tuesday night’s meeting, the Board of Commissioners began the legal process for placing two bond referenda on the general election ballot. Two documents unanimously approved by the board outline plans to seek […]
Paul Nielsen/The Waynesville Mountaineer Maggie Valley has been bleeding $10,000 a month to pump sewage across Jonathan Creek to the sewer plant following Helene damage to a critical line. That broken line — one of the last large-scale Hurricane Helene recovery projects for Maggie Valley — will soon be in the rear-view mirror. Maggie Valley […]
