Moss Brennan/Watauga Democrat Watauga County is No. 1 in the state for AI usage, according to a report by Microsoft’s AI Economy Institute, with an estimated 47.2% of working-age residents using the technology — more than double the average for similar-sized North Carolina communities. The 2026 U.S. AI Diffusion report breaks down AI usage across […]
Paul B. Johnson/The High Point Enterprise The state budget passed late last week by the N.C. General Assembly includes $4.5 million for the High Point Market, continuing a string of state appropriations for the home furnishings trade show dating back 20 years. The $34 billion state spending plan includes money for transportation to ferry marketgoers […]
Kelly Kenoyer/WHQR North Carolina’s proposed budget is stripping NC Legal Aid and other civil defense organizations of a significant financial resource. The funding comes from NC IOLTA, or Interest on Lawyers’ Trust Accounts. Basically, any time an attorney holds money for a client, the interest is put into a shared account that has historically been […]
Emily Sawaked/Port City Daily Oak Island’s planning board denied a proposal to rezone the town-owned Yaupon Fishing Pier and adjacent oceanfront event space, a move staff said would provide flexibility for future redevelopment of the properties. While board members supported updating the town’s development ordinance to recognize event spaces and piers as permitted uses, they […]
Gov. Josh Stein has signed a bill he says will give North Carolina “another tool in the toolbox to build more homes and make housing more affordable.” He was referring to House Bill 162, which loosens parking-space minimums in many parts of the state and drainage-related restrictions on redevelopment in general. Its stormwater section expands […]
The fiscal 2026-27 budget continues the state’s previously announced strategy for supplying up to $450 million in direct appropriations to support JetZero’s plans to build an airliner factory in Greensboro. Now awaiting Gov. Josh Stein’s signature, the bill releases another $133.9 million for the project, on top of the $118.1 million legislators allotted to it […]
Now that the state’s fiscal 2026-27 is out of the legislature and on Gov. Josh Stein’s desk, the search for its inevitable pork content has begun. Rep. Pricey Harrison’s staff has taken the first stab at this and figures there are almost $1.6 billion in one-time earmarks in the spending plan. These range from the […]
Steve Harrison/WFAE Radio Even as Charlotte pushes back on new toll lanes for Interstate 77 South, the state is considering adding more express lanes to the north. The N.C. Department of Transportation said it’s in talks with toll lane operator Cintra to add another toll lane through north Mecklenburg and south Iredell Counties. The proposal […]
Ahmed Jallow/NC Newsline As North Carolina expands the number of statewide remote charter schools, lawmakers are proposing to change how those schools receive state funding. A provision in the proposed state budget would replace a funding method based on the school district where a statewide remote charter school’s administrative office is located with one based […]
Rachel Keith/WHQR | For the first time in 30 years, the Upperman family isn’t awarding any new scholarships at UNCW. Linda Upperman Smith said the way the university wanted to rewrite the language around the application wouldn’t have been in line with her father’s wishes. Born and raised in Wilmington, Linda Upperman Smith is the […]
Alex Littlehales/WRAL News The technology company delivering and operating Raleigh’s first automated parking garage is in “advanced” talks to find and build similar garages specifically for driverless cars in other cities, as redevelopment is currently underway on a prime plot of real estate downtown. “We have an equity group actively looking for sites to build […]
Abraham Kenmore/CityView Later this year, workers should start to demolish many of the permanent exhibits at the U.S. Army Airborne & Special Operations Museum (ASOM)—the first part of a two-phase project to totally revamp one of the U.S. Army’s most public-facing museums and one of Fayetteville’s top tourist destinations. The goal is “making a clean […]
Kate Denning/Carolina Public Press The use of school restrooms designated for one sex by transgender individuals who are biologically of the opposite sex has become the subject of a federal investigation in Buncombe and Cabarrus counties. Sarah Michels / Carolina Public Press Two North Carolina school districts, Buncombe and Cabarrus, are the subject of US […]
Judith Retana/WNCN One year since Tropical Storm Chantal ripped through Chapel Hill, a small business owner continues to be thankful for the community’s support. Cinderella Riggsbee’s The Shoe Repair has been in Chapel Hill since the early 1980’s. But Tropical Storm Chantal washed away everything she’d work so hard for. Riggsbee remembers the shock of […]
April Laissle/WFDD A survey recently found evidence of plastic pollution in a lake north of Greensboro. Volunteers combed waterways across the state looking for tiny plastic pellets, known as nurdles, as part of the second-annual International Plastic Pellet Count. They surveyed six sites and found nurdles at just one: a section of Lake Brandt in […]
