Paul Specht/WRAL News Obtaining and renewing North Carolina driver’s licenses may soon get easier. The North Carolina House of Representatives on Wednesday voted 109 to 7 to pass House Bill 245, which would allow North Carolinians to renew their driver’s licenses online more frequently and scrap a law requiring new...

Alan Wooten/The Center Square  Duke University and the Duke Law Journal are under investigation by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, accused of violating Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. According to Secretary Linda McMahon’s department, the probe is “based on recent reporting alleging that...

Gary D. Robertson/The Associated Press A former congressman will no longer seek an open U.S. Senate seat in North Carolina next year now that fellow Democrat Roy Cooper is running for the post. Tuesday’s announcement by ex-U.S. Rep. Wiley Nickel came the day after Cooper, a former two-term governor, kicked...

Brandon Kingdollar/NC Newsline As Republicans in the General Assembly geared up to override several of his vetoes Tuesday, Governor Josh Stein made a plea: stay in town and pass a budget. Speaking to reporters alongside public servants and North Carolina residents impacted by funding shortfalls, Stein urged lawmakers to enact...

Mary Helen Moore/WUNC Radio Republicans — thanks to the help of a single House Democrat — voted to override Gov. Josh Stein’s veto of an immigration bill on Tuesday. The new law requires North Carolina sheriffs to work closer with Immigration and Customs Enforcement amid the federal government’s mass deportation...

Jane Winik Sartwell/Carolina Public Press For the second year running, HCA is potentially not in compliance with its 2019 purchase agreement for the Asheville-based Mission Health hospital system. The repeated compliance issues raise questions about whether HCA is fulfilling its promise to maintain health care services for Western North Carolina...

Matt Lamb & Frank Daniels IV/The (Southern Pines) Pilot First Citizens Bank has filed a lawsuit against Southern Pines Brewing Co. owner Micah Niebauer and his wife, Patricia, for more than $2 million dollars in unpaid loans and credit card bills related to the company. Filed in Cumberland County last...

Zachary Turner/WFAE Radio Summer is in full swing even as Charlotte loses its best defense against the heat: trees. The city of Charlotte is reevaluating its tree canopy goals, but while the city collects canopy data, developers keep bulldozing forests in residential areas. Claire Morissette started a petition to temporarily...

Catherine Kozak/Coastal Review Online Nearly 40 years after the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service launched an innovative program to save the eastern red wolf from extinction, a nonprofit conservation group is challenging the agency’s prior decision to not upgrade to a more protective management designation, despite its outsized importance to...

WRAL News The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (NCDHHS) announced Tuesday a first-of-its-kind partnership with a virtual therapy platform to expand services to teenagers in N.C. The department is partnering with Talkspace to provide free virtual mental health therapy to teenagers between the ages of 13 to...

Sergio Osnaya-Prieto/Education NC Corinne Smith, director of Appalachian State University’s Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs (GEAR UP) and deputy director of College Access Partnerships, received the 2025 GEAR UP Professional Leader of the Year award at a ceremony in San Francisco earlier this month, according to a...

Gary D. Robertson/The Associated Press Former Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper will run for the U.S. Senate in North Carolina, giving Democrats a proven statewide winner in an open-seat race that is expected to be one of the most competitive 2026 contests. Cooper made the announcement Monday with a video released...

Daniel Walton/Blue Ridge Public Radio Asheville city government employees all started getting bigger paychecks July 11, as funded by the $256 million budget Asheville City Council unanimously approved in June. But one group of municipal workers, the officers of the Asheville Police Department, saw proportionally greater gains than their colleagues....

Charlie Fossen/Port City Daily The local water authority is actively seeking advanced solutions to address the challenge of 1,4-dioxane contamination in the region’s drinking water. The Cape Fear Public Utility Authority’s (CFPUA) Long Range Planning Committee convened July 24 to discuss and evaluate potential strategies for improving the removal of...

Zachery Eanes/Axios Raleigh Following in the footsteps of Raleigh and Chapel Hill, Durham has unveiled initial plans for adding a bus rapid transit line through the center of the city. Why it matters: With dreams of light rail and commuter rail across the Triangle seemingly quashed, officials in the region...