Peter Castagno/Port City Daily A renewable energy advocacy group is urging Gov. Josh Stein to oppose legislation that would allow Duke Energy to charge customers upfront costs for new power plants. The nonprofit argued ratepayers should not bear additional risks since Duke has a history of expensive canceled nuclear projects....

Sarah Michels/Carolina Public Press When Anderson Clayton took control of the North Carolina Democratic Party at 25 years old, she knew she needed to make some changes. The previous election cycle, Democrats had left a quarter of the state’s legislative seats unchallenged, giving Republicans a free ride to Raleigh. From...

Mary Helen Moore/NC Newsroom Sports betting brought in $128 million in taxes the first year it was legal in North Carolina. With that figure projected to grow, legislators are seeking to change who gets a cut, a move that will benefit state schools’ athletics departments. Both chambers’ budgets would, for...

Felicia Sonmez/Blue Ridge Public Radio Norfolk Southern will rebuild a key section of track east of Asheville, officials confirmed Tuesday. The plan may pave the way for the eventual return of passenger rail service to Western North Carolina. The 16-mile stretch was severely damaged by Hurricane Helene. It includes the...

Jaymie Baxley & Rose Hoban/NC Health News Sally Herndon has spent more than three decades working to get North Carolinians to quit smoking. As head of the state Health Department’s Tobacco Prevention and Control branch, she oversaw various initiatives aimed at reducing tobacco and e-cigarette use among young people. She...

Vicki Hyatt/The (Waynesville) Mountaineer N.C. Rep. Mark Pless’s proposals to change requirements for emergency medical personnel and remove local government control over ambulance services are dead in the water, at least for this session of the General Assembly, much to the relief of a number of EMS personnel across the...

Alan Wooten/The Center Square Regulations imposed, American consumers ultimately paying, and industry volatility are damaging impacts from across-the-board tariffs in a world economy where measures vary by country and product. “The reason managed trade doesn’t work is no one is smart enough to manage it,” said H.O Woltz, president of...

Lucas Thomae/Carolina Public Press When Tropical Storm Helene tore across North Carolina in September, it left behind more than just downed trees and flooded homes. It ripped open a hidden fault line in the state’s transportation system — one that has existed for the state’s roads, largely unquestioned, for nearly...

Steve Harrison/WFAE Radio Republican Edwin Peacock was appointed Monday to finish the final six months of Tariq Bokhari’s City Council seat representing District 6 in south Charlotte. Bokhari resigned last month for a high-level job with the Federal Transit Administration. The vote deadlocked, with five voting for Peacock and 5...

Jessica Wakeman/Blue Ridge Public Radio Funding to rebuild in western North Carolina after Hurricane Helene is severely lagging, according to new data released by North Carolina’s Office of State Budget Management (OSBM). Overall, federal and state government funding allocated for Helene recovery has totaled about $5.95 billion—only about 10% of...

Bradley George/WUNC Radio A town in northwest North Carolina has won a $1.7 million federal grant to clean up a long-abandoned tannery. The Environmental Protection Agency announced the award to the town of North Wilkesboro Friday, one of 23 projects selected for brownfield cleanup in the southeast. The announcement comes...

Ryley Ober/Asheville Citizen Times A monthslong internal audit of the Buncombe County Sheriff’s Office evidence rooms showed over 1,700 missing items and about 4,800 items stored under poor conditions in shipping containers. The issues have gone “unaddressed for decades” throughout multiple sheriff’s administrations, records reveal. In pursuit of accreditation through...

Lisa Sorg/Inside Climate News The North Carolina Division of Emergency Management last week fired a subcontractor that had been founded by top officials at ReBuild NC, the now discredited state agency that botched response efforts after hurricanes Matthew and Florence in 2016 and 2018. The company, PathBuilt, had been hired...

Ben Crosbie/WCHL Chapelboro At a work session on Tuesday, the Carrboro Town Council received a presentation of a draft for the Downtown Area Plan (DAP). The DAP is a priority project within the larger Carrboro Connects Comprehensive Plan, a wide-ranging plan outlining the town’s goals through 2042. Danny Wilson, an...

Hannah Vinueza McClellan/Education NC Since 2016, the N.C. Community College System (NCCCS) has been implementing a five-phased approach to modernize Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems for the state’s 58 community colleges and system office. An ERP system refers to the software colleges use that contains data on students, core financial...