Max Tendler/WUNC Radio A support system for the Triangle’s formerly incarcerated residents expanded this week as Recidivism Reduction Educational Programs and Services unveiled their second mobile support center. The aid-on-wheels program, which began this past January, served 3,000 individuals in its first 70 days, illustrating the “urgent need,” the organization...

Cory Vaillancourt/Smoky Mountain News Across Western North Carolina this fall, local governments will hold their first municipal elections since Hurricane Helene ravaged the region and saddled many small, rural towns across the mountain west with damages that in most cases approach or exceed millions. As these communities recover, the candidate...

Trista Talton/Coastal Review Online There have been nights Clint North has lost sleep thinking about his land. Ten years from now, he knows exactly what he wants the hundreds of acres of land he’s bought up in this unincorporated area of Pender County to look like: exactly the same, if...

Renee Spencer/Wilmington StarNews The North Carolina Forest Service is facing critical staffing shortages, impacting daily operations and wildfire response. Low pay, limited career advancement, and poor work-life balance are the primary reasons employees leave. While employees enjoy their work, many cannot afford to stay due to low salaries and the...

Mark Jurkowitz/Outer Banks Voice At their July 8 meeting, the Southern Shores Commissioners are expected to approve a resolution formally adding their voice to those opposing the opening of the waters off North Carolina to offshore energy drilling. That follows a mid-April announcement from the Department of the Interior and...

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...