Sally Kestin/Asheville Watchdog Jennifer Horton was still relishing her history-making victory last November as Buncombe’s first Black woman county commissioner when she received jolting news. Her business running five adult assisted living homes in Buncombe would be cut off from public funding under a state law prohibiting payments to facilities...

Paul Garber/WFDD Radio A federal trial over North Carolina’s Congressional and state senate maps wrapped up Wednesday in Winston-Salem. At issue is whether some of the boundaries are gerrymandered along racial lines. Attorneys for GOP mapmakers in the state legislature say they are legally drawn along partisan lines, and race...

WRAL News Zebulon’s former town manager Gilbert Todd has announced he will run for mayor in November. His announcement on Thursday came less than three months after Todd resigned from his role with the town. In April, WRAL News reported that citizens were concerned after Todd and assistant town manager...

Chloe Collins & Kara Fohner/Gaston Gazette The city of Gastonia opened the old Salvation Army building Monday to use it as a cooling station, but it’s still unclear what the future of the building will be. Jennifer Stepp, a member of the Gastonia City Council, said that she received a...

Paul Nielsen/The (Waynesville) Mountaineer A temporary fix from a delayed blow from Tropical Storm Helene that destroyed a key sewer line is currently costing Maggie Valley around $10,000 a month. And the town will incur that cost for the next eight months until repairs can be made. Alderman started that...

Kip Tabb/Coastal Review Online Dare County commissioners and school board officials gathered Wednesday and plunged their ceremonial shovels into the ground at the south end of the College of the Albemarle campus here, marking the start of construction of the Dare County Early College building. Early college programs are part...

Julian Berger/WFAE Radio New data from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement shows a 160% increase in the number of daily arrests across North Carolina compared to the same period last year. According to data obtained through the Deportation Data Project, in the timeframe since Trump began his second term through...

Brighton McConnell/WCHL Chapelboro Central North Carolina and the Orange County community are in the earliest stages of figuring out a way back from some catastrophic floods to neighborhoods and towns from Tropical Depression Chantal on Sunday. That includes people who have lost their homes, as emergency responders conducted dozens of...

Alan Wooten/The Center Square  Applications for $16 billion in federal assistance for North Carolina agricultural producers who suffered crop losses from Hurricane Helene and other natural disasters in 2023 and 2024 are opening this week. Secretary Brooke Rollins of the U.S. Department of Agriculture said Wednesday the Supplemental Disaster Relief...

Rachel Crumpler/NC Health News North Carolina prison officials plan to have beds in all 54 state prisons fully air conditioned by 2026. Work is needed at 22 prisons to achieve that goal. April Barber Scales recalls her 18 summers spent incarcerated without air conditioning at the North Carolina Correctional Institution...

Mebane Rash/Education NC On Monday, June 30, the U.S. Department of Education (Department) sent the following to the N.C. Department of Public Instruction (DPI) regarding federal funding that was expected to be disbursed on July 1. Given the change in Administrations, the Department is reviewing the FY 2025 funding for...

Jane Winik Sartwell/N.C. Health News North Carolina is the most expensive state in the nation for health care, according to a highly cited claim made by Forbes magazine, at least. But how true are those claims about costs? Not very, according to a new analysis that challenges both the methodology...

Galen Bacharier/NC Newsline North Carolina officials have denied a local firm’s request for the state to re-bid a critical hurricane rebuilding contract. The state held a hearing last month after IEM International, which is based in Morrisville, filed a complaint alleging that it was improperly disqualified from receiving the $81.5...

Bill Moss/Hendersonville Lightning Convened in separate special called meetings on June 16, the Henderson County Board of Commissioners and the Hendersonville City Council each voted unanimously to adopt an interlocal agreement and proposed legislation to settle their differences over city utility extensions. At last, it appeared, the end was in...

Kyle Perrotti/Smoky Mountain News Rebecca Fitzgibbon hasn’t breathed easy since her 11-year-old son was put in the back of a police car by his school principal in the parking lot of Shining Rock Classical Academy. Since then, as she’s looked for accountability — or at least answers — she’s faced...