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AI sparks debate at Business NC Leadership Conference

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...

By Ray Gronberg

May 19, 2025

The race for supersonic dominance

Growing up in California in the 1960s, my family’s house was about seven miles from Disneyland and seven miles from the beach. It was also about 15 miles from MCAS El Toro — which made sonic booms a feature of daily life. The Marines based there, you see, flew F-4 Phantoms. SOP was...

By Ray Gronberg

May 15, 2025

NCInnovation announces new set of grant awards

NCInnovation’s $500 million endowment might go away as soon as legislators pass a budget, but for now the nonprofit is still pumping money into research efforts in the UNC System. On Wednesday, it announced a group of 17 awards to projects that it sees as having “commercial promise.” Combined, they’re...

By Ray Gronberg

May 15, 2025

A new transformer factory for Goldsboro

Prolec GE Waukesha, a company with 374 employees already in Wayne County, plans to add 330 more jobs with a $140 million investment to build a second manufacturing facility on the edge of Goldsboro. Headquartered in Waukesha, Wisconsin, Prolec-GE Waukesha is one of the nation’s largest manufacturers of power transformers....

By Ray Gronberg

May 15, 2025

More jobs coming to Wayne County

A company is looking to invest $140 million and add 330 jobs in Wayne County. Gov. Josh Stein is expected to join local officials and business leaders with Prolec GE at 10 a.m. in Goldsboro to make the announcement. Prolec GE was founded in 1960 in Monterrey, Mexico, and manufactures power...

By Ray Gronberg

May 14, 2025

Winslow and U.S. 1

Another Triangle-area state legislator has come out against the idea of tolling U.S. 1 between Interstate 540 and Wake Forest. Rep. Matt Winslow, R-Franklin, says the “misguided proposal” would “choke off opportunities, burden our most vulnerable residents and stall the economic engine that makes our region thrive.” Winslow’s district is just north of...

By Ray Gronberg

May 14, 2025

DMV — a bipartisan problem

At the capitol, where the power and lights were on Tuesday morning, House and Senate Democrats held a news conference to lament the pigeonholing of all but a handful of their bills ahead of the recent crossover deadline. The event signaled that legislative Republicans don’t have any sort of monopoly...

By Ray Gronberg

May 14, 2025

Tiers under the microscope

Wake County, being a Tier 3 county, the Genentech deal also calls on the state to put $3.3 million into its Industrial Development Fund/Utility Account to help rural communities finance necessary infrastructure upgrades to attract future business. The county tiers system is integral to the administration of the JDIG, but...

By Ray Gronberg

May 13, 2025

State lands drug factory for Holly Springs

One of the Wake County communities the TriEx serves is Holly Springs, which is handy because the town’s set to host a new fill-and-finish factory for Genentech, a California-based, Swiss-owned pharmaceutical company. Announced Monday, the deal promises at least $700 million in investment and 420 jobs, in return for which...

By Ray Gronberg

May 13, 2025

Wolfspeed’s chip challenges

Wolfspeed has warned investors that it may need to pursue “out-of-court or in-court” options to restructure its debt, which implies that a bankruptcy proceeding of some sort may be in its future. Via its third-quarter report, the Durham-based chipmaker says it’s working with consultants to consider “a number of strategic...

By Welcome

May 12, 2025

Toyota and tariffs

Toyota’s leaders say the Trump administration’s tariffs are going to cost their company more than $1.2 billion in just the first two months of its 2025-26 fiscal year. The estimate covers April and May, the fiscal year for Toyota and most of Japan’s other businesses, starting on April 1 to...

By Ray Gronberg

May 12, 2025

A piece of Guilford’s sales-tax pie for Stokesdale?

It wouldn’t be crossover without some shenanigans, and this week the House provided them. Rep. John Blust, R-Guilford, asked colleagues to approve a local bill that would award Stokesdale a share of Guilford County’s sales-tax revenue distributions even though it wouldn’t normally qualify. Stokesdale doesn’t have a property tax, which...

By Ray Gronberg

May 12, 2025

Bankers get their way on ag-discrimination bill

Senators passed and sent on to the House a watered-down version of a bill that bars state-chartered banks and financial institutions from discriminating against farmers in their lending. As rewritten in committee, Senate Bill 554 forbids lending institutions from denying or canceling service to farmers based in any way on...

By Ray Gronberg

May 12, 2025

House backs PFAS compensation demands

Despite a warning from the NC Chamber that it’s scoring their votes, a near-unanimous House agreed Wednesday that PFAS manufacturers should have to compensate downstream water systems for pollution-control costs. House Bill 569 would assign to Department of Environment Quality Secretary Reid Wilson and his successor the authority to decide...

By Ray Gronberg

May 12, 2025

Housing bills stall

The drive to partially deregulate the state’s home-construction sector is running into some roadblocks. It remains to be seen if they’re temporary. Rep. Mark Brody, R-Union, conceded Wednesday that House Bill 765, the omnibus measure that would set residential-zone density minimums across the state, wouldn’t make it through the chamber...

By Ray Gronberg

May 8, 2025