Charlie Fossen/Port City Daily Representatives of Pender County and Pender EMS and Fire sat down Thursday to discuss a merger in the works. The meeting took place as outside counsel for EMS also sent a letter to the county regarding concerns on how it’s being handled. Attorney Timberly Southerland of...

Peter Castagno/Port City Daily A judge with enduring influence over environmental policy was nominated to the agency responsible for setting Duke Energy’s rates. His controversial history ranges from handling Duke’s coal ash pollution a decade ago to striking down 1,4-dioxane regulation last year — and his spouse is chair of...

Steve Harrison/WFAE Radio The Metropolitan Transit Commission rejected on Wednesday a request from the town of Matthews to study a different funding split for a proposed one-cent sales tax increase for transportation. Matthews had proposed spending 45% of the sales money on rail transit instead of 40%. The town hopes...

Kyle Perrotti/Smoky Mountain News Rep. Mark Pless is taking heat from local paramedics and EMTs after introducing a pair of bills that first responders say will weaken their ability to provide emergency care. With the bills, Pless, himself a former paramedic, again lives up to his reputation of being controversial...

Jane Winik Sartwell/Carolina Public Press The State Health Plan is deeply in debt. To get out of the red, the 750,000 employees who receive coverage will experience something many were hoping to avoid: the first significant premium increase in nearly a decade. It’s part of the strategy from Brad Briner,...

Adam Wagner/WUNC Radio A bill giving State Auditor Dave Boliek more power to fire or discipline some employees in his office advanced Tuesday, despite concerns from the State Employees Association of North Carolina. Under House Bill 549, any employees the Auditor’s Office hires after July 1 would be exempt from...

The Associated Press A veteran North Carolina Republican legislator announced Wednesday that she will run next year for the state Supreme Court, seeking the seat currently held by Democratic Associate Justice Anita Earls, who is already preparing for a reelection bid. Rep. Sarah Stevens of Surry County said in a...

Inside UNC Charlotte With a new gift of $24.9 million, The Leon Levine Foundation is expanding its enduring support for the Levine Scholars Program, UNC Charlotte’s signature merit-based scholarship that attracts top-tier high school students from across the country. “This program continues to reflect the very best of what higher...

Chantal Brown/Education NC During a hefty House K-12 Education Committee meeting on Tuesday, lawmakers discussed bills ranging from math reform and school performance grades to publishing the salaries of district central office staff. Not every bill advanced unanimously or without discussion, but 14 education bills did move forward in the...

Becky Johnson/The (Waynesville) Mountaineer When Haywood County Schools Superintendent Trevor Putnam got a call asking the school system to be featured in a commercial promoting the N.C. Education Lottery, he couldn’t believe his ears. Lottery promoters wanted school systems to share stories about how helpful lottery funding is. “The commercial...

Coastal Review Online An area branch of the NAACP has joined the fight to keep Chemours and its predecessor company DuPont from shielding thousands of pages of documents from the public eye. The Southern Coalition for Social Justice on Tuesday filed a motion on behalf of the National Association for...

Rachel Crumpler/NC Health News North Carolina has emerged as a vital access point for abortion care in the South in the wake of a wave of restrictions in neighboring states since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022. Nationwide, the Tar Heel state served the second...

Colin Campbell/WUNC Radio The state House voted 68-45 along party lines Wednesday to ban diversity, equity and inclusion in state government agencies. The bill would ban the use of DEI in hiring practices and in employee training. The bill would define DEI as a program or policy intended to “influence...

Gary D. Robertson/The Associated Press A North Carolina appeals court ruled Wednesday that a law stripping the governor’s authority to appoint State Board of Elections members can take effect for now, even though trial judges struck it down as unconstitutional just last week. Three judges on the intermediate-level Court of...

Sarah Krueger/WRAL News  The majority of the cases related to the January 2024 crash that killed University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill student Molly Rotunda have been resolved in court, including one as recently as Tuesday. WRAL News has reported extensively on the deadly single-car crash on Jan. 21,...