Kip Tabb/Outer Banks Voice After more than a year and a half of discussion and meetings, the Dare County Housing Task Force is transitioning to a housing nonprofit. “It is my goal to have the paperwork filed by the end of the year. So we are actively working on that,”...

Jaymie Baxley & Anne Blythe/NC Health News On Tuesday evening, just days after President Donald Trump signed into law the new federal budget passed by Congress, several dozen people took a seat in the Pullen Park Community Center in Raleigh. Two of the capital city’s Democratic state lawmakers — Sen....

Adam Wagner/WUNC Radio Gov. Josh Stein has vetoed House Bill 96, saying language preventing local government regulation of pet shops had swayed him against the squatter legislation he originally supported. “This bill would facilitate inhumane puppy mills in North Carolina. Without this provision, I would sign the legislation. With it,...

Kate Denning/Carolina Public Press Public school regulation of cellphone use is now law in North Carolina after Gov. Josh Stein signed House Bill 959 last week. The new law prompts public schools to develop a wireless device policy that will limit students’ access to their cellphones and other wireless electronic...

Stella Mackler/WFAE Radio Move over tobacco — there’s a new cash crop in town. Part of the “battery belt,” North Carolina will soon be home to four major factories producing lithium-ion batteries, the power behind electric vehicles. But President Trump’s sweeping federal reconciliation bill eliminated tax credits for purchasing an...

Sally Kestin/Asheville Watchdog Jennifer Horton was still relishing her history-making victory last November as Buncombe’s first Black woman county commissioner when she received jolting news. Her business running five adult assisted living homes in Buncombe would be cut off from public funding under a state law prohibiting payments to facilities...

Paul Garber/WFDD Radio A federal trial over North Carolina’s Congressional and state senate maps wrapped up Wednesday in Winston-Salem. At issue is whether some of the boundaries are gerrymandered along racial lines. Attorneys for GOP mapmakers in the state legislature say they are legally drawn along partisan lines, and race...

WRAL News Zebulon’s former town manager Gilbert Todd has announced he will run for mayor in November. His announcement on Thursday came less than three months after Todd resigned from his role with the town. In April, WRAL News reported that citizens were concerned after Todd and assistant town manager...

Chloe Collins & Kara Fohner/Gaston Gazette The city of Gastonia opened the old Salvation Army building Monday to use it as a cooling station, but it’s still unclear what the future of the building will be. Jennifer Stepp, a member of the Gastonia City Council, said that she received a...

Paul Nielsen/The (Waynesville) Mountaineer A temporary fix from a delayed blow from Tropical Storm Helene that destroyed a key sewer line is currently costing Maggie Valley around $10,000 a month. And the town will incur that cost for the next eight months until repairs can be made. Alderman started that...

Kip Tabb/Coastal Review Online Dare County commissioners and school board officials gathered Wednesday and plunged their ceremonial shovels into the ground at the south end of the College of the Albemarle campus here, marking the start of construction of the Dare County Early College building. Early college programs are part...

Julian Berger/WFAE Radio New data from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement shows a 160% increase in the number of daily arrests across North Carolina compared to the same period last year. According to data obtained through the Deportation Data Project, in the timeframe since Trump began his second term through...

Brighton McConnell/WCHL Chapelboro Central North Carolina and the Orange County community are in the earliest stages of figuring out a way back from some catastrophic floods to neighborhoods and towns from Tropical Depression Chantal on Sunday. That includes people who have lost their homes, as emergency responders conducted dozens of...

Alan Wooten/The Center Square  Applications for $16 billion in federal assistance for North Carolina agricultural producers who suffered crop losses from Hurricane Helene and other natural disasters in 2023 and 2024 are opening this week. Secretary Brooke Rollins of the U.S. Department of Agriculture said Wednesday the Supplemental Disaster Relief...

Rachel Crumpler/NC Health News North Carolina prison officials plan to have beds in all 54 state prisons fully air conditioned by 2026. Work is needed at 22 prisons to achieve that goal. April Barber Scales recalls her 18 summers spent incarcerated without air conditioning at the North Carolina Correctional Institution...