Mary Helen Moore/Axios Raleigh North Carolina’s previous congressional map left Greensboro without a hometown representative in Congress, and that won’t change under the new map passed Wednesday. Why it matters: For now, there are four Democrats in North Carolina’s 14-seat congressional delegation, despite its status as a fast-growing swing state....

James Farrell/WFAE Radio Hundreds of Union County Public Schools teachers on Wednesday called in sick and marched to protest what they consider an insufficient increase to Union County’s teacher salary supplement. The school board is set to vote on approving a $1,000 increase to the local salary supplement on Nov....

Justin Theal & Page Forrest/Pew After years of growth, states’ rainy day fund capacity—the number of days they could cover state operations—fell in fiscal year 2025, the first decline since the Great Recession of 2007-09. At the end of fiscal 2025, the median state could run on just its rainy...

Rachel Crumpler/NC Health News When an overdose is reported in coastal Carteret County, 911 dispatchers send emergency responders racing to the scene carrying naloxone — the opioid reversal medication that can bring someone back from the brink of death. At the same time, the county’s six-member post-overdose response team —...

Brenna Flanagan/Port City Daily The Community Justice Center, a grant-funded operation bringing nonprofits and the justice system under the same roof to promote efficient collaboration and access, has now been open for more than a year. The vision of a one-stop shop has yet to be fully realized, and when...

Vicki Hyatt/The (Waynesville) Mountaineer Two-thirds of all trash buried in Haywood County’s landfill in White Oak between July 2024 and June 2025 came from outside the county — due to an agreement to sell landfill space for trash hauled in from surrounding states. Meanwhile, the landfill is expected to fill...

Jennifer Allen/Coastal Review Online   The 18.8 million visitors to North Carolina’s nine National Park Service sites in 2024 injected $2.3 billion into the state’s economy, second only to California’s $3.7 billion, finds a recent report. Of that $2.3 billion statewide, around 4.7 million visitors spent $732.2 million in the...

Gareth McGrath/USA Today Network They’re rolling in from South Carolina, Georgia and Tennessee, attracted by the promise of a temperate and warming climate, vast tracts of diggable land, room to expand, and a nearly endless supply of fire ants − a delicacy for these banded travelers. But these new residents...

Dan Kane/The Charlotte Observer At a Mooresville town board meeting three years ago, a developer pitched a large planned community — a combination of 560 single-family homes and apartments across 125 acres two miles southwest of downtown. To gain the board’s support, the developers promised a $15 million road through...

Jane Winik Sartwell/Carolina Public Press A legal migrant farm worker was fatally injured while working at a major sweet potato farm in Nash County, marking the second such death at the same farm in just over two years. Daniel de la Cruz, a 36-year-old from Mexico, was at work at...

Cory Vaillancourt/Smoky Mountain News Hurricane Helene recovery czar Michael Whatley is blaming Democrats for the growing chorus of criticism over his job performance — but in heavily Republican Western North Carolina, it’s not just Democratic voices calling for Whatley to be replaced or step down. “It’s kind of funny to...

Ha Lien Gaskin/The Daily Tar Heel On Sept. 29, the N.C. Utilities Commissionruled that affordable housing nonprofit EMPOWERment Inc. will not be able to use a centralized energy measurement system in its Pine Knolls, EMPOWERment, Affordable, Community Housing (PEACH) property. EMPOWERment Inc.’s complaint against Duke Energy argued for an exception...

Rhonda Waterhouse/Coastal Review Online As you near Wilmington for your beach vacation, you take in the classic coastal Carolina scenery — tall longleaf pines, grassy marshes, and the wide Cape Fear River. But then something strange catches your eye: a forest of bare white tree trunks rising from the swamp...

Bradley George/WUNC Radio About 1.3 million checked suitcases are inspected every day in the U.S., according to the Transportation Security Administration. A startup company in the Triangle is hoping to speed up the screening process with a new spin on old technology. Like its product, the Quadridox office and lab...

Charlie Fossen/Port City Daily The Leland Town Council has adopted an open-burning ordinance, a measure residents have been vocal about for years. Council unanimously approved an open-burning ordinance during an emergency meeting called on Oct. 20. The ordinance enacts an immediate ban on all open burning for land-clearing purposes, prohibiting...