Caleb M. Soptelean/Sanford Herald The largest residential annexation in recent years in Sanford, but maybe ever, was approved 6-1 Tuesday, July 15, with Councilman Charles Taylor voting no. The Cherokee Land Co. and the Dalrymple and Moore families requested it for 470 acres east of Colon Road between Post Office...

Lisa Sorg/Inside Climate News About nine hours after Tropical Depression Chantal inundated central North Carolina last week, Jeff Mahagan’s phone woke him at 3 in the morning. The person working on call at the Hillsborough wastewater treatment plant was scared. Mahagan, the town’s deputy utilities director for water treatment, didn’t...

Will Doran/WRAL News North Carolina Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives say they voted for the new budget plan backed by President Donald Trump largely because of its large income tax cuts and ramped-up federal spending on immigration enforcement. They also said its large cut to Medicaid funding “restores...

Brenna Flanagan/Port City Daily The New Hanover County Board of Education heard several options for long-needed repairs to the 104-year-old New Hanover High School last week, yet how those capital projects would be funded may be more complicated than expected. The master plan, which Port City Daily first reported about...

Adam Wagner/WFAE Radio The most recent Helene relief package included $15 million to bolster the N.C. Forest Service’s efforts to fight wildfires in western North Carolina. House Bill 1012, which Gov. Josh Stein signed into law in late June, provides the funds for wildfire assets and preparedness, as well as...

Heidi Perez-Moreno/Border Belt Independent James Granger says primary care doctors shouldn’t just focus on patients’ physical health. Their mental well-being is just as important. “Being able to do both, to understand both aspects, makes sense to us in being able to send that person on their journey,” said Granger, the...

Brian Mann/WUNC Radio The Trump administration has delayed and may cancel roughly $140 million in grants to fund fentanyl overdose response efforts, according to four staff members with close knowledge of the process at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The staffers shared detailed information with NPR about the...

Kate Denning/Carolina Public Press When Tammy Finch entered the Orange County charter school she co-founded to assess the damage from Tropical Depression Chantal, instead of seeing children in the halls, she saw a fish. The Expedition School was hit hard by Chantal earlier this month due to its location inside...

Paul B. Johnson/High Point Enterprise Construction crews at High Point University are nearing completion of two major projects while starting another one. Construction on the buildings for the Workman School of Dental Medicine and Kenneth F. Kahn School of Law is at least 90% complete. A grand opening ceremony for...

Jenna Fryer/The Associated Press Legacy Motor Club on Wednesday sued the broker who helped negotiate its purchase of a charter from Rick Ware Racing, accusing him of tortious interference for now trying to buy Ware’s NASCAR team. Legacy alleged in its filing in North Carolina Superior Court that T.J. Puchyr,...

Gerard Albert III/Blue Ridge Public Radio For Transylvania County property owners still needing help to remove Hurricane Helene storm debris, county officials have changed contractors and will start using a newly formed state program. The change comes after the federal funding that was being used to pay the Army Corps...

Christopher Rugaber & Josh Boak/The Associated Press Inflation rose last month to its highest level since February as President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs push up the cost of everything from groceries and clothes to furniture and appliances. Consumer prices rose 2.7% in June from a year earlier, the Labor Department...

Liz Schlemmer/WUNC Radio North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson announced Monday he is joining 22 other state attorneys general and two governors in a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Education. On July 1, the Department of Education notified states that they would not be receiving certain K-12 federal funds...

Jane Winik Sartwell/Carolina Public Press Barns and roads collapsed. Miles of fencing and acres of corn lay flattened. Tobacco and soybean fields flooded. On Sunday, July 6, Tropical Depression Chantal left a scar on what was shaping up to be a banner season for Central North Carolina farms. The system...

Michelle Crouch/NC Health News & Charlotte Ledger When the Charlotte campus of the Wake Forest University School of Medicine holds its first classes this week, it marks more than the arrival of the city’s first four-year medical school. It also brings to North Carolina a novel approach to training doctors...