Elizabeth Casolo/Becker’s Payer Issues Chapel Hill, N.C.-based UNC Health hospitals have voluntarily dismissed two lawsuits against Humana over alleged 340B drug underpayments, according to July court filings. UNC Health Care System and affiliated hospitals dismissed their case against Humana and ChoiceCare Network July 17 in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North […]
Shea Carver/Port City Daily Two-hundred-ninety-one single-family homes will be added to a development already under construction near Southport. In a 4-1 vote from the Brunswick County Planning Board, the Southport Meadows neighborhood at full build-out will make up 536 units on 232 acres on River Road. Located in the county’s unincorporated area near N.C. Highway […]
Durham-based American Efficient has filed for a Chapter 11 bankruptcy, seeking to reorganize its debts in the face of its troubles with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. The energy-efficiency trading firm lists FERC as by far its largest credit, with a listed debt to it of of $1.1 billion. That includes both a $722 million […]
Duke Energy has once again lowered its requested rate increase for 2027 and 2028, dropping it to an average 7.4% over the two years. The move follows a settlement with the N.C. Public Staff and some key business and environmental groups. Presuming the N.C. Utilities Commission ultimately OKs the deal, homeowners in Duke’s Carolinas service […]
Dan DeWitt/Asheville Watchdog The fourth floor of the new apartment building on Long Shoals Road is designed like the upper levels of countless other rental blocks in Buncombe County, the state, and most of the nation: A staircase on one end of the floor is connected by a long corridor to another set of stairs […]
Heather Hollingsworth, Nicky Forster & Emily Walkenhorst/The Associated Press & WRAL News Nearly 300,000 North Carolina college-goers have defaulted on their federal student loans, collectively owing $7.8 billion, data analyzed by the Associated Press shows. About half of those people, owing an average of $26,500, have gone into default just since last September. Across the […]
Rachel Crumpler/NC Health News As of July 16, 2,146 people were in custody in Mecklenburg County’s uptown Charlotte jail — 242 people above the jail’s capacity of 1,904. Pods designed for 53 people now routinely hold as many as 84, Sheriff Garry McFadden told NC Health News. Mecklenburg isn’t alone. As sheriffs and jail administrators […]
Bradley George/WUNC News Sales of private aircraft have boomed since 2020. And that’s causing a problem at general aviation airports, the kind used by corporations, private pilots, flying schools, and the like. It raises the question: Where do you park all those planes when they’re not in the air? At Triangle North Executive Airport, about […]
Mackenzie Thomas/Carolina Public Press A recent state audit has calmed concerns that Rocky Mount residents were double-billed for utilities, but also drew attention to more than $30,000 in total outstanding utility bills from two City Council members. Rocky Mount provides utility services for more than 31,000 customers across the city as well as nearby areas […]
Will Michaels/WFAE Radio When Gov. Josh Stein signed a bipartisan bill limiting how students could use their cellphones in schools last year, the North Carolina Parent Teacher Association celebrated. “Public schools in North Carolina are now cellphone-free zones,” the organization said in a Facebook post last July. But a closer look at the state’s 115 […]
Mary Helen Moore/Axios Raleigh Half the shrimp marketed as “wild-caught American” at Outer Banks restaurants last month was actually imported, according to genetic testing by SeaD Consulting. Why it matters: Consumers often pay premium prices at the coast expecting genuine U.S.-caught shrimp, even as cheaper imported shrimp dominates the wider market. What they’re saying: “We […]
Emily Sawaked/Port City Daily A city-proposed zoning amendment to regulate data centers in Southport drew backlash as residents questioned why a ban wasn’t on the table. However, no amendment was recommended by the Southport Planning Board this week, which instead voted unanimously to suggest a 15-month moratorium to aldermen. On July 16, the board met […]
Jennifer Allen/Coastal Review Online North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality staff are in the process of updating the state’s long-term strategy to protect coastal habitat, a necessity for a sustainable seafood industry. According to the strategy called the Coastal Habitat Protection Plan, or CHPP, the need for a coastwide habitat plan came about in the […]
Savannah Peters, Rodney Overton & Mary Smith/The Associated Press Taylor Farms has expanded a voluntary recall to include North Carolina for iceberg lettuce products sourced from central Mexico over a potential link to the multistate cyclospora outbreak that has sickened hundreds in the Raleigh area and others across the United States. At least 307 cases […]
Atrium Health is finally speaking out about its exclusion from the State Health Plan’s preferred-provider list — and it’s not happy. The decision “could leave more than 130,000 North Carolina state employees facing substantially higher costs if they wish to continue receiving care from the physicians, hospitals and care teams they know and trust,” it […]
