Rachel Crumpler/NC Health News More than one in four people leaving North Carolina prisons in 2024 were released to homelessness, according to a reentry housing assessment presented at the July meeting of the Joint Reentry Council. The assessment identified someone as homeless if they had no verified home plan, self-reported...

Liz Carey/Education NC New research has found that rural LGBTQ+ teens experience significant challenges in their communities and turn to the internet for support. The research from Hopelab and the Born This Way Foundation looked at what more than 1,200 LGBTQ+ teens faced and compared the experiences of those in...

Carolyn Thompson/The Associated Press As a student in western New York’s rural Wyoming County, Briar Townes honed an artistic streak that he hopes to make a living from one day. In high school, he clicked with a college-level drawing and painting class. But despite the college credits he earned, college...

Lucas Thomae/Carolina Public Press Former Swain County Sheriff Curtis Cochran continues to fall deeper into legal trouble. Two weeks ago, he was arrested again and charged with second-degree forcible rape according to filings in Swain Superior Court. The embattled sheriff left office last month after being arrested and charged in...

Cory Vaillancourt/Smoky Mountain News A blistering letter signed by four Democratic candidates for Congress in North Carolina’s 11th Congressional District is raising questions about party neutrality in primaries, calling the party’s decision to include only one congressional candidate — Jamie Ager — as the keynote speaker at the NC-11 Democratic...

Elisabeth Strillacci/The (Salisbury) Post  The state of North Carolina has a restriction on annexations for every community in the state that prohibits growth beyond a certain point, but there is an allowance for an exemption to that limit. The town of East Spencer is one of three remaining communities inside...

Colin Campbell/WUNC Radio PBS North Carolina announced Tuesday that it plans to cut staff due to the loss of federal funding for public media. The loss of Corporation for Public Broadcasting funding will mean a nearly $5 million cut for the TV network. It’s giving “voluntary separation offers” to most...

Galen Bacharier/NC Newsline Horne LLP, the company tapped to manage homebuilding and recovery from Hurricane Helene in western North Carolina, is facing a ban on government contract work in West Virginia. State officials informed the Mississippi-based firm on July 22 that they were pursuing debarment, or permanently banning the company...

Brian Murphy/WRAL News North Carolina football general manager Michael Lombardi signed a three-year contract worth $1.5 million annually, according to an appointment letter signed on July 31. The three years matches the guaranteed years in head coach Bill Belichick’s five-year, $50-million. contract. Lombardi was Belichick’s first hire in December and...

Alan Wooten/The Center Square  Five North Carolina counties listed as sanctuary jurisdictions in May are not included in Tuesday’s release from the Department of Homeland Security. The counties of Buncombe, Chatham, Durham, Orange and Watauga had been the only entries in the state-by-state listing. Respectively, the sheriffs are Democrats Quentin...

Sarah White/The (Waynesville) Mountaineer Haywood County has confirmed its 13th case of pertussis, or whooping cough, since early July, meaning infections are on the rise with just two weeks before students go back to school. While it’s typical to see kids getting sick about three weeks into the school year,...

Kip Tabb/Coastal Review Online The Dare County Board of Commissioners, in the face of strident pushback from residents and coastal advocates over a proposal to gut special protections for an area around the Buxton Woods Reserve, voted Monday to keep in place those development restrictions officials had previously called “unenforceable.”...

Anne Blythe/NC Health News Sometimes when mapping out things to do that could make the future better for the community, it can be helpful to pause and reflect on the path to today. That was what happened a week ago for North Carolina public health officials and people living with...

Zachary Turner/WFAE Radio The Eden Lake Retreat buzzed with activity last week as a couple hundred attendees built mini solar installations, wired battery controllers and shared stories of recovery and resilience. Absent was the hum of gas generators, as strings of solar panels powered Starlinks, lights and projectors. Jamie Trowbridge,...

Kate Denning/Carolina Public Press Alpha School, an “AI-powered” private school, is preparing to make its mark on Charlotte and Raleigh this year. North Carolina is part of an expansion into five additional states this fall for the private school company, which currently operates Texas and Florida. It plans to expand...