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Federal fraud dragnet yields charges in N.C.

Federal prosecutors based in North Carolina have charged 13 people as part of a nationwide crackdown on Medicare and Medicaid fraud. What U.S. Department of Justice officials are calling the “2025 National Health Care Fraud Takedown” is yielding criminal charges against 324 people across the country. Among them are 96 doctors, nurse practitioners, pharmacists...

By Ray Gronberg

July 2, 2025

Child care task force favors reimbursement changes

Legislators ought to peg child-care subsidies to a statewide benchmark instead of letting them vary from county to county, a bipartisan task force appointed by Gov. Josh Stein says. The current approach sets child care reimbursements at 75% of a county’s market rate, but the problem is that it winds up shortchanging...

By Ray Gronberg

July 2, 2025

Wolfspeed files for bankruptcy to cut $4.6B in debt

Wolfspeed has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy to reduce its debt load by $4.6 billion amid continued uncertainty about whether it will ever receive CHIPS Act subsidies from the federal government. The widely-expected move came late Monday afternoon, with an announcement coming directly from the Durham-based chipmaker even as its lawyers were...

By Ray Gronberg

July 2, 2025

Puppies vs. squatters

One of the bills awaiting Gov. Josh Stein’s signature after June’s legislative bonanza includes a provision that would bar cities and counties from restricting the sale of animals by licensed pet shops. The provision got tacked on the otherwise-unrelated House Bill 96 on June 19 by the Senate’s Judiciary committee. The rest of...

By Ray Gronberg

July 1, 2025

State lands two more manufacturers

North Carolina’s business recruiters have notched two more wins, which between them are promising to bring 1,306 new jobs to Rowan and Rutherford counties. The larger of the two by far involves Jabil Inc., a Florida-based Fortune 500 company that says it’s “one of the leading [third-party] providers of manufacturing services and solutions...

By Ray Gronberg

July 1, 2025

Hall and mini-budgets

Speaker Hall, by the way, believes the House and Senate will get a budget done eventually and isn’t too worried about the current state of the talks. That doesn’t mean, however, that the road to a deal will be as straight as a desert highway. Both chambers have proposed so-called...

By Ray Gronberg

July 1, 2025

why North Carolina’s budget Is late (again): no deadline, no referee, real disagreements

Writing a state-affairs newsletter and being a disc jockey are jobs that have more in common than most may think. Of relevance for today: Both do requests, especially when the request comes from the boss. The ask for today is an explain-it-like-I’m-5 for why the General Assembly can’t pass a budget on...

By Ray Gronberg

July 1, 2025

House tries again to loosen credit-union restrictions

House members before leaving for their summer break wrote their approach to a partial deregulation of North Carolina-chartered credit unions into an otherwise-unrelated bill that deals with tax policy. Senators, however, voted 41-1 against concurring with the House’s rewrite of Senate Bill 595. Sen. Gale Adcock, D-Wake, was the only senator...

By Ray Gronberg

June 30, 2025

Tillis drops re-election bid

North Carolina is going to have a wide-open U.S. Senate race in 2026. Incumbent Sen. Thom Tillis has announced that he will not run for a third six-year term in the upper chamber of Congress. “I haven’t exactly been excited about running for another term,” and the choice is “between spending...

By Ray Gronberg

June 30, 2025

Farm Act advances without raw milk, liability provisions; key land use rules still in play

Plenty of bills cleared the House and Senate before members left town on Thursday for the summer break, but some key pieces of legislation stalled at the last moment and remain pending. Foremost among these we find the biennial Farm Act, which is now proceeding as Senate Bill 401 (an earlier version...

By Ray Gronberg

June 30, 2025

Legislators finish work on Charlotte transit bill

Also awaiting Gov. Josh Stein’s attention is House Bill 948, the bill that would authorize a Mecklenburg County sales-tax referendum to pay for construction of the Red Line, more roads and more bus service. The Senate voted out the bill 39-3 on third reading on Thursday morning. The House opted to concur without...

By Ray Gronberg

June 27, 2025

NC lawmakers approve Helene aid bill, drop business grants and spark criticism

House and Senate members on Thursday sent a new Helene-recovery bill to Gov. Josh Stein, but its compromise language dropped a House-proposed $60 million grant program to prop up businesses in western North Carolina. Conferees also dumped a Senate proposal to withhold $100 million in state road-maintenance aid from North Carolina’s seven...

By Ray Gronberg

June 27, 2025

Senate tinkers with transit bill

Senators voted 42-4 Wednesday in favor of a bill that would give Mecklenburg County permission to hold a referendum on a 1-cent sales-tax surcharge to pay for transit and road projects. But to pass before the General Assembly’s upcoming summer break, House Bill 948, the so-called PAVE Act, still needs to...

By Ray Gronberg

June 27, 2025

NC House kills shrimp-trawling ban after public pushback

The shrimp-trawl ban is dead. Rep. Keith Kidwell, R-Beaufort, said the result of a lengthy House Republican caucus on Wednesday afternoon is that House Bill 442 and the shrimp-trawling ban the Senate added to it is getting pigeonholed. “It’s going to Rules, and it’s going to stay there,” Kidwell said. “Unanimous,” added Rep. Jimmy...

By Ray Gronberg

June 27, 2025

House forces conference on Helene package

The House has declined to go along with the Senates changes to the latest Hurricane Helene relief package and instead will force the issue to a conference committee. House 1012 came back from the Senate “a much worse version than what we sent over,” said Rep. Eric Ager, D-Buncombe, who joined Rep. Dudley...

By Ray Gronberg

June 26, 2025