Rusty Jacobs/WUNC Radio New guidelines for voting adopted by the state elections board’s Republican majority might conflict with state law. Under the newly adopted rule, around 98,000 North Carolina voters previously eligible to cast regular ballots in state and local elections might now have to vote provisionally. As required under...

Jenna Fryer/The Associated Press NASCAR has promised a federal court it will not re-distribute any charters pending the conclusion of the antitrust suit filed against the stock-car series by two race teams, one owned by Michael Jordan. The Friday filing in the Western District of North Carolina comes one day...

Jane Winik Sartwell/Carolina Public Press Attorney General Jeff Jackson agrees with the findings of an independent monitor that HCA may be in violation of its purchase agreement of Mission Health, the dominant hospital system in Western North Carolina. This marks the most recent step in a process designed to hold...

Brianna Atkinson/WUNC Radio Nearly a year ago, Helene brought unprecedented flooding to western North Carolina – wiping out roadways, triggering more than 2,000 landslides, and taking the lives of more than 100 people. The Swannanoa Valley was especially hard hit, home to a namesake river that broke a flood record...

Cory Vaillancourt/Smoky Mountain News Scenic Chimney Rock has historically been an out-of-the-way place, nestled tightly against the Broad River in a narrow valley between lush, towering peaks that peer down at nearby Lake Lure. It’s always been difficult to get there — especially now, with most roads still closed 11...

NC Voices Earlier this month, President Donald Trump officially implemented tariffs ranging from 10% to 41% on 70 countries. Small business owners in the Triangle are saying that these tariffs are already affecting their bottom lines. “I can’t charge $30 for a chocolate bar, I can’t raise your price three...

Elisabeth Rosenthal/KFF Health News Wary of inflation, Americans have been watching the prices of everyday items such as eggs and gasoline. A less-noticed expense should cause greater alarm: rising premiums for health insurance. They have been trending upward for years and are now rising faster than ever. Consider that, from...

John Peters/The Mount Airy News The chairman of the Surry County Board of Elections resigned shortly before noon on Thursday, two days after he was arrested and charged with multiple crimes, including felony child abuse, in the city of Wilmington. Among the accusations are that he spiked the food of...

WRAL News Two self-proclaimed religious leaders were arrested Wednesday on federal indictments for their alleged roles in a nationwide forced labor and money laundering conspiracy. The two people involved are 53-year-old David Taylor and 56-year-old Michelle Brannon, both associated with the Kingdom of God Global Church (KOGGC), formerly Joshua Media...

The Associated Press The Democratic National Committee is seriously considering scrambling the party’s 2028 presidential primary calendar. And South Carolina — the state that hosted the Democrats’ first-in-the-nation contest in 2024 — is far from a lock to go first. That’s according to several members of the DNC’s new leadership...

Brenna Flanagan/Port City Daily Two resolutions aimed at the state government — one advocating for the release of hundreds of millions of dollars in funding and the other supporting law changes to address student vaping — were voted down by the New Hanover County Board of Education Monday. According to...

Sarah White/The (Waynesville) Mountaineer Haywood County’s tax collection rate has fallen for the third year in a row, but municipalities within the county aren’t seeing the same downturns that County Tax Collector Sebastian Cothran credits to Helene. “Helene did not impact any of our collection rates,” said Wanda Lurvey, Canton’s...

Katie Dukes/Education NC The number of licensed family child care homes (FCCHs) in North Carolina has decreased by 22% since before the pandemic. During the five years when pandemic-era funding was used to stabilize the state’s licensed child care programs, the number of licensed FCCHs decreased by 19%. Since the...

Lily Levin/Smoky Mountain News As you enter Chimney Rock, you will see bulldozers and construction workers and other visceral reminders of Hurricane Helene’s catastrophic impact. But as you absorb the village’s incredible landscape and people, you’ll notice shops newly reconstructed and others half-filled with merchandise, a proud proclamation of their...

Charlie Fossen/Port City Daily A long-simmering debate over who controls development in Brunswick County took a turn at a recent commissioners’ meeting, as a motion was put forward to strip the planning board of its final authority on major projects. During an Aug. 4 meeting and after a lengthy discussion...