Jesse Deal/The Stanly News & Press      At the Albemarle City Council meeting on Monday night, councilmembers were presented with the Speculative Building Feasibility Study conducted for the Albemarle Business Center. Sponsored by ElectriCities of N.C., Inc. in partnership with the Albemarle’s Economic Development Department, the study was designed to determine...

Adam Wagner/WUNC Radio With a grin, former two-term Gov. Roy Cooper hinted Saturday night at the announcement everyone is expecting. Speaking at the N.C. Democratic Party’s annual Unity Dinner fundraiser, Cooper asked everyone who is planning to run for office in 2026 to stand up. Cooper waited a moment and...

Emma Goldberg/New York Times The first thing the mill workers noticed on what they later deemed “Black Monday” was the series of dark SUVs pulling up near the paper mill, at the heart of Canton, North Carolina. The mill’s hulking towers and plumes of smoke were visible for miles, rising...

Brenna Flanagan/Port City Daily The Trump Administration has completed its review of a $242 million federal grant for the Cape Fear Memorial Bridge replacement project, thus allowing the funds to be released for the project. North Carolina Department of Transportation spokesperson Veronica Newsome notified PCD of the status change on...

NC Health News/Asheville Watchdog Just more than a month after judges made what some saw as the final decision in a case over new hospital beds for Buncombe County and the surrounding region, Mission Hospital signaled in the state’s highest court that it’s not giving up a nearly three-year fight...

Cece Nunn/WilmingtonBiz Some Wilmington-area workforce housing advocates say the community needs a combination of public and private efforts to address a growing shortage of affordable dwellings. The New Hanover Community Endowment can’t be the only source of funding, they say, reacting to recent statements and actions by local officials. “You...

Mebane Rash/Education NC After lawsuits, letters, and almost a month of uncertainty for schools and organizations serving communities, on July 25, 2025, a U.S. Senator from West Virginia — who chairs the U.S. Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies (Labor-HHS) — announced that...

Kate Denning/Carolina Public Press A former custodian at Drexel Elementary is suing the Burke County Board of Education and several school district officials after the district fired her in May. The plaintiff, Taylor Parlier, alleges in the lawsuit the school fired her in retaliation after she raised safety concerns regarding...

Jennifer Ludden/WFAE Radio Fulfilling a campaign promise, President Trump has signed an executive order that seeks to overhaul the way the U.S. manages homelessness. The order signed Thursday calls for changes to make it easier for states and cities to remove outdoor encampments and get people into mental health or...

Bill Moss/Hendersonville Lightning Throughout the mountains, small towns thrashed by Hurricane Helene have it bad. In Henderson County, none was harder hit than Laurel Park, and the mayor is past losing patience with the pace of federal disaster aid. The mayor, Carey O’Cain, vented to his peers during a meeting...

Mark Jurkowitz/Outer Banks Voice According to several recent reports, the Cape Hatteras National Seashore (CHNS) is being monitored for information concerning sea rise and shoreline erosion as part of a Trump Administration review of content at all National Park Service (NPS) facilities. On July 22, the National Parks Conservation Association...

Jill Colvin/The Associated Press Michael Whatley, chairman of the national Republican Party, plans to run for an open Senate seat in North Carolina in 2026 with the blessing of President Donald Trump after Trump’s daughter-in-law, Lara, passed on the seat. Democrats see the race as their top chance to flip...

Jane Winik Sartwell/Carolina Public Press Your local radio news briefing, your children’s after-school PBS programming, emergency weather alerts during hurricanes, your tunes during the commute home — all of this could disappear under federal budget cuts to public media heading to North Carolina. That’s thanks to a $1.1 billion cut...

Lisa Worf/NC Health News & WFAE Radio In the past two years, North Carolina’s stricter abortion law has changed the way Jamila Wade treats a small portion of pregnant patients she sees in the emergency room. They’re clearly losing their pregnancies, but the pregnant patient’s vital signs are still stable....

Galen Bacharier/NC Newsline Local governments across North Carolina are set to receive more than $200 million in loan money to repair and renovate drinking water and wastewater facilities, Gov. Josh Stein’s office announced Wednesday. The awards will fund 48 projects across 27 counties. They’ll seek to improve infrastructure, address PFAS...