Abigail Eggers/The Watauga Democrat A new business has found its home in the old Goober Peas location just outside of Boone. Crop and Trade is a producer-owner and worker-owner-run store that opened June 1. The business was co-founded by a former frequent visitor to Goober Peas and a Boone native,...

Adam Wagner/WUNC Radio With a final vote in the U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday, a sweeping tax bill that will touch almost every sector of the economy and overhaul industries like energy and health is headed to President Donald Trump’s desk for a signature. In North Carolina, Gov. Josh...

Lucas Thomae/Carolina Public Press Officers with the State Bureau of Investigation and the Cherokee Indian Police Department arrested Swain County Sheriff Curtis Cochran last week following a joint investigation into alleged sexual assaults he committed against women on Cherokee land. Sheriff Cochran, 72, was suspended from office by a superior...

Emily Walkenhorst/WRAL News Thousands of people who switched careers to become North Carolina public school teachers are leaving their roles within three years, new data shows, the latest indicator of the hiring challenges plaguing school districts across the state. Temporarily licensed teachers — largely people who enter the profession from...

Charlie Fossen/Port City Daily The ongoing dispute between the Pender-Topsail Post & Voice and Pender County has escalated, with the local newspaper issuing a lawsuit against the county and several commissioners. Filed on Tuesday, July 1, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina, the lawsuit...

Andrew Marshall/The (Waynesville) Mountaineer North Carolina’s school bus driver shortage continues unabated in Haywood County, with the local school system looking to hire 13 drivers to plug existing gaps in its 70 routes. “It takes a unique fit to need to drive in the morning, drive in the afternoon, but...

Pat Kimbrough/The High Point Enterprise High Point leaders say they’re reevaluating plans for a potential future City Hall on a downtown site. The city bought the campus of First Baptist Church of High Point in 2023 for $11 million for the development of a new municipal facility there at an...

Michael Koh/WCHL Chapelboro Union Grove Farm in rural Orange County will appeal a ruling from the county’s Planning & Inspection Director preventing the construction of a “Farm Stage,” and shared its first public rendering of the project. The county’s ruling came as part of a Final & Binding Determination letter...

WFAE Radio The tax and spending legislation the House voted to send to President Donald Trump’s desk on Thursday, enacting much of his domestic agenda, cuts federal health spending by about $1 trillion over a decade in ways that will jeopardize the physical and financial health of tens of millions...

Woody Marshall/The (Greensboro) News & Record The news that Greensboro City Attorney Chuck Watts would be leaving his position after six years came suddenly on Wednesday afternoon. Neither Watts nor city officials had publicly announced beforehand that Watts was planning to leave the city. The news came as Watts faced...

Johnny Casey/Asheville Citizen Times Forrest Gilliam has had the best interests of residents in his hometown in mind since before he was a teenager. Now, Gilliam will work with the state governor to help Western North Carolina towns in their rebuilds. The former Marshall town administrator and Madison County manager...

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...

Colin Campbell/WUNC Radio President Donald Trump’s megabill could cost North Carolina hundreds of millions of dollars in funding for a federal food assistance program. Sometimes referred to as food stamps, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) helps cover the cost of groceries for low-income families. Both the House and Senate...

Joy Crist/Coastal Review Online Dare County Board of Commissioners Chairman Bob Woodard sent a letter June 30 to Senate Leader Phil Berger expressing “deep concern” about the last-minute changes to House Bills 442 and 441, which resulted in last week’s “Shrimpgate” protests. Following the surprise introduction of legislation that would...

Ben Humphries/Education NC “We are the union! The mighty, mighty union!” members of the North Carolina Association of Educators (NCAE) chanted at meetings in school districts across North Carolina. The word choice — union instead of association — is intentional and represents an organizational shift. Though NCAE is classified as...