Catherine Kozak/Coastal Review A federal court decision issued Wednesday blocks the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service from using a potentially harmful algaecide at Mattamuskeet National Wildlife Refuge, a compound that environmental groups argued would endanger the waterfowl the refuge is supposed to protect. Refuge officials had issued a notification in...

Monica Casey/WRAL News A North Carolina couple told WRAL News their reservation was canceled at a local hotel because they are Durham residents. Gwendolyn and Ira Montague live in north Durham, and their home of 50 years was severely damaged in flooding from Chantal. The retired couple stayed at a...

Kristen Richardson-Frick, Mebane Rash & Hannah Vinueza McClellan/Education NC In 2012, The Duke Endowment partnered with one rural church to test a program to combat summer learning loss. Thirteen years later, the initiative that has grown from that investment includes several funders who work together with statewide nonprofit supporters and...

Jennifer Fernandez/NC Health News Imagine a courtroom that’s not a courtroom and a judge who doesn’t look like a judge. Imagine a less adversarial system where social workers, court officials, community members and others work with families to help them address the issues that led to their children being taken...

Brenna Flanagan/Port City Daily The county shaved off its Workforce Housing Advisory Committee from its roster Monday after some commissioners found it to be a moot point. The committee chair will push for reconsideration, hoping to gain back the support of at least one commissioner, despite the vote to move...

Andrew Marshall/The (Waynesville) Mountaineer When modern technology fails in the face of a disaster, sometimes it’s best to take a more proven — if slightly older — approach. And few things are as tried and tested as sending someone to the center of town to yell out news as loud...

Stella Mackler/WFAE Radio Last year, the U.S. Department of Agriculture awarded $50 million in grants to 140 small and midsized farms across the country. This year the grant program — meant to help farmers hire and retain workers — was frozen by the Trump administration. Hart-T Tree Farm was one...

Aaron Beard/The Associated Press Jim Phillips stood in the same spot Tuesday morning that he did exactly one year earlier as he officially opened the Atlantic Coast Conference’s preseason football media days. Only now, the message and tone is far different. The league has successfully quelled a rebellion in the...

Kyle Perrotti/Smoky Mountain News  Mountaineer Little League Baseball has been around since the 1970s, but like everything else, once Hurricane Helene hit, its immediate future was uncertain. The program, which allows kids from the western part of Haywood County to partake in America’s pastime, relies on the use of five...

Jill Doss-Raines/The High Point Enterprise Davidson County’s first outpatient mental health facility opened Tuesday as part of a $6 million new Novant Health Wellness and Education center at Thomasville Medical Center. Novant Health administration and staff, Thomasville city officials, hospital foundation members and community members gathered for the ribbon cutting...

Morgan Casey/CityView Fort Bragg could receive $240 million in federal funds to support the installation’s programs and infrastructure. The funds are included in the U.S. Senate’s version of the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2026, which the chamber’s Armed Services Committee passed earlier this month. It’s a piece...

Kate Denning/Carolina Public Press The most recent Helene recovery package from the state allocated $500 million to help address remaining damage to Western North Carolina, more than $4 million of which went to small private colleges and universities in the area. Even so, Warren Wilson College in Swannanoa, which says...

Gareth McGrath/USA Today Network Call it a state of suspended animation. A mix of politics, changing national energy priorities, a lack of regulatory direction, and industry nervousness has all but frozen progress on a handful of wind farms that were under development off the North Carolina coast, including two roughly...

Jane Winik Sartwell/Carolina Public Press In the aftermath of Tropical Storm Helene, some in government and the news media were sounding the alarm on the prospect of population loss in affected areas of the state. The fear that there would be a mass exodus from the North Carolina mountains was...

Bill Moss/Hendersonville Lightning The two newest Henderson County commissioners expressed alarmed last week when they learned that the latest cost projection added more than $15 million to the price of the jail and courthouse expansion. Already the costliest capital project in the county’s history, the jail addition and new four-story...