Lauren Jessop/The Center Square Surging electricity demand, an aging grid, and generation sources retiring faster than new ones can be built have become some of the nation’s most pressing challenges. Although experts agree the solutions are complex, states, frustrated at the lack of progress, are uniting to demand change. Except,...

Daneen Khan/The Daily Tar Heel The UNC School of Data Science and Society and the School of Information and Library Science will be consolidating into a new school focused on artificial intelligence. SILS and SDSS faculty were informed of the decision on Wednesday at two independent school meetings before it...

Paul Woolverton/CityView Fayetteville City Council Member Lynne Greene is considering whether to file a complaint with the police that her former opponent in this year’s municipal election, Enrique “Ranger Rick” Murillo, levied a threat against her on Wednesday morning. The alleged threat was in a Facebook post, which Greene said...

Morgan Casey/CityView Cuts to North Carolina’s Medicaid reimbursement rates could cost Cape Fear Valley Health millions of dollars in revdenue this year and decrease access to care for thousands of patients, according to the health system’s leaders. The cuts, which range between 3% and 10%, went into effect on Oct....

Steve Harrison/WFAE Radio Two weeks ago, Mecklenburg County Commissioner Susan Rodriguez McDowell hosted a forum in Steele Creek about the multi-billion-dollar transportation plan on the November ballot. Interim CATS Chief Executive Brent Cagle was on the panel, along with McDowell, Matthews Commissioner Renee Garner, eastside leader Greg Asciutto and former...

Michelle Crouch/NC Health News & The Charlotte Ledger Jacqueline Stowe has seen big promises come and go. The 76-year-old grew up in Brooklyn, a thriving Black community just outside uptown Charlotte that in the 1960s was bulldozed for urban renewal. City leaders told residents they would rebuild and that families...

Mebane Rash/Education NC As of Oct. 6, 2025, the total number of students receiving vouchers in North Carolina is 98,917, according to new data, up from 80,472 at the end of 2024-25. Of the 2025-26 recipients, 65,491 are students who renewed their voucher. That means almost 15,000 students who had...

Richard Stradling/The (Raleigh) News & Observer WakeMed will soon break ground on a new campus in Garner that will put two new hospitals under one roof. One will be a 45-bed acute care hospital, where people will be treated for heart attacks, broken bones and other physical conditions. The other...

WFAE Radio LendingTree CEO Doug Lebda died Sunday in an ATV accident. The Charlotte-based company announced his death Monday morning. Lebda founded LendingTree in 1996, and it has since grown into one of Charlotte’s most prominent homegrown financial companies. Scott Peyree, who has been LendingTree’s president and chief operating officer,...

Paul Nielsen/The (Waynesville) Mountaineer An unexpected hit to the town’s budget has Maggie Valley aldermen debating whether to freeze putting a new police officer on the streets just months after the board voted to add the additional position. Town Manager Vicki Best told alderman Tuesday morning during an agenda setting...

Will Doran/WRAL News More than $6.5 billion in medical debt has been relieved for more than 2.5 million North Carolinians over the past year, through a program set up by the state and paid for with federal funds. Poor credit scores, dragged down by debt, can make it hard for...

Ahmed Jallow/NC Newsline The debate over whether North Carolina should continue running its own liquor system came up again this week, as House lawmakers again weighed the system’s efficiency against the hundreds of millions of dollars it funnels to state and local governments. State lawmakers have discussed ending the state’s...

Kayla Bradshaw & Jackson Auchincloss/The Daily Tar Heel At a UNC Students for Justice in Palestine tribunal demonstration on Thursday, a crowd of about 40 gathered in front of the flagpole on Polk Place to watch members of the group condemn the University’s affiliation with individuals and groups they deemed...

Paul B. Johnson/The High Point Enterprise Rep. Cecil Brockman, D-Guilford, met the 15-year-old he’s accused of having sex with through a dating app five months ago while the teenager was in the Atlanta area, the Guilford County district attorney said during a court hearing Friday. During the hearing in Guilford...

Liz Carey/NC Health News A new program touted to give $50 billion in federal funding to rural hospitals won’t necessarily keep rural hospitals from closing, according to several experts in rural health. The funding is part of a compromise made in Congress to help rural communities after H.R. 1, the...