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UNC schools slip in FIRE free-speech rankings

Five UNC System universities, including both its flagships, lost ground in the updated campus-free-speech rankings issued by the Philadelphia-based Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. UNC Chapel Hill took the biggest hit, dropping 12 places (down to No. 31) in the rankings in part because FIRE gigged it over the...

By Ray Gronberg

September 21, 2026

Splitting biz property in divorce: Call an accountant

A recent N.C. Supreme Court decision portends big changes in how business property gets parceled out when a couple divorces, says a forensic accountant who valued the law practice that’s at the center of the case. Justices in August unanimously ruled that the “personal goodwill” embedded in the value of...

By Ray Gronberg

September 21, 2026

ESPN: Nashville’s MLB bid is lacking

Amid all the talk about Raleigh’s pursuit of a Major League Baseball team, there’s been an assumption that Nashville, Tennessee, would have the inside track to any East Coast expansion franchise. Now, one of MLB’s top business partners questions whether that’s so — and says Raleigh is a “dark horse”...

By Ray Gronberg

September 21, 2026

Lottery and online games: Big growth, low return

The N.C. Education Lottery’s fastest-growing new offerings also generate the lowest rate of return for North Carolina’s schools, State Auditor Dave Boliek and his team say. Online “digital instant games” account for all the growth in lottery revenues from fiscal 2023-24 onwards, Boliek’s team says in a new performance audit....

By Ray Gronberg

September 21, 2026

NY on the NC

Whenever I visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, I always get a kick out of their admission pricing. It’s $30 for most tourists, but if you’re a card-carrying New York State resident, you get a discount. As in, pay what you want, so long as you...

By Ray Gronberg

September 21, 2026

Major cities to get more LGC scrutiny

Touting it as a major shift, State Treasurer Brad Briner and his aides say they’re going to subject North Carolina’s largest cities to the same level of financial oversight as its smaller ones. “Financial concerns should be taken seriously regardless of the size of the local government,” Briner says. They...

By Ray Gronberg

September 21, 2026

K-12 test scores continue post-pandemic rise

Students in North Carolina’s K-12 public schools are doing better on their end-of-grade tests, but across the state only 59.2% tested on grade level in the 2025-26 academic year. That’s 4.2 percentage points better than the year before, and 7.8 points better than the pandemic year of 2021-22, the Department...

By Ray Gronberg

September 21, 2026

Berger Jr. not seeking re-election to Supreme Court

North Carolina’s Supreme Court is assured of getting at least one new justice at the end of the 2028 election cycle, with Justice Phil Berger Jr. announcing that he’s not going to seek re-election to his current seat. The Hillsborough resident’s Twitter posting left the door open to running for...

By Ray Gronberg

September 21, 2026

JetZero lines up more money

JetZero says it’s lined up $100 million in loans that will help pay for “tooling and production facilities” at the airliner factory it’s building at Piedmont Triad International Airport. The money comes from a group of lenders led by the Bay Area’s Pinegrove Venture Partners. Also involved are Pinegrove backers...

By Ray Gronberg

September 21, 2026

Lawsuit targets nursing “collaborative practice” payments

North Carolina’s system of requiring some advanced-practice nurses to pay physicians for the right to ply their trade is the target of a lawsuit filed by the owner of a Fuquay-Varina menopause-treatment clinic. Jamie Gallagher and her lawyers say she pays $16,500 to a doctor for the “collaborative practice agreement”...

By Ray Gronberg

September 21, 2026

Boliek has questions for N.C. Housing Finance

State Auditor Dave Boliek says the Local Government Commission should more closely scrutinize the borrowing requests it fields from the N.C. Housing Finance Agency. Boliek briefly held up but ultimately joined other commissioners in supporting the agency’s latest request, permitting it to issue up to $1.25 billion in revenue bonds...

By Ray Gronberg

September 21, 2026

ECU Health cleared to borrow $700M

Local Government Commission members have given ECU Health permission to borrow up to $700 million to refinance existing debts and add to its facilities. ECU Health intends to use $200 million from the impending bond sales to, among other things, “expand and equip” the fifth and sixth floors of its...

By Ray Gronberg

September 21, 2026

Buckhout caught in Kalshi dragnet

GOP First Congressional District nominee Laurie Buckhout has been suspended from the online prediction market Kalshi for three years, apparently for betting on her own campaign. The New York City market also says its settlement with Buckhout also includes a $2,590 financial penalty. The agreement “established that Buckhout purchased less...

By Ray Gronberg

September 21, 2026

Teachers and business

Over at Business North Carolina, former stone-quarry executive Tom Oxholm laments that the state’s business leaders aren’t more involved in pressing legislators for better funding of the public K-12 schools. His criticism of state policy takes in the state’s teacher-pay scale, newly adjusted in the fiscal 2026-27 budget to have...

By Ray Gronberg

September 21, 2026

Two WakeMed execs departing

WakeMed is losing two of its key executives even as the debate about its planned merger with Atrium Health continues. Thomas Gough, WakeMed’s COO, is leaving for a similar post with Florida-based Baptist Health. He starts there on Sept. 14. Dr. Seth Brody, previously WakeMed’s chief physician executive, is now...

By Ray Gronberg

September 21, 2026