Liz Biro/Coastal Review Online Every summer, the women of Ocean City Beach organized crabbing trips to Topsail Island’s north end. On a waxing moon, when the tide was exactly right, moms and their kids skimmed the saltwater shallows hunting blue crabs, as many as they could carry. The fat jimmies...

Jane Winik Sartwell/Carolina Public Press Hunger and a lack of access to healthy food continues to plague parts of Western North Carolina, eight months since Tropical Storm Helene tore through the mountains. The storm ripped apart bridges, roads and farmland. Even now, some cannot easily access grocery stores — the...

Laura Sullivan/WFAE Radio When Shalana Jordan finally arrived at her parents’ trailer home in Swannanoa, N.C., alongside the river, she paused and let out a long sigh. The building was ripped open on one end, all the furniture was smashed up against the other end and a black pickup truck...

Becky Johnson/The (Waynesville) Mountaineer So far, 71 flood victims in Haywood County are seeking a buyout of their damaged homes from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, leaving a patchwork of vacant property across the county in Helene’s wake. The number doesn’t include dozens more contemplating a buyout but still deciding....

Kevin Griffin/The (Greensboro) News & Record Greensboro Councilman Zack Matheny received support from his colleagues as he faced insults and claims of conflict of interests and ethical violations at Tuesday’s city council meeting. Matheny has long been the subject of scrutiny over his dual role as both an elected official...

Dawn Attride/Sentient In Duplin County, North Carolina, there is a pollutant that hangs in the air, the water and the soil. It tumbles in the breeze and into homes through open windows, settling as a thin film of dust on their kitchen tables. It gloops together in masses of sludge...

Paul Specht/WRAL News Jason Simmons became chairman of the North Carolina Republican Party in March 2024 — only six months before voters would start casting their ballots in an election featuring races for president, governor, and more. Simmons had big shoes to fill. The previous state party chair, Michael Whatley,...

Larry Lage/The Associated Press Denny Hamlin is unfazed that a three-judge federal appellate panel vacated an injunction that required NASCAR to recognize 23XI, which he owns with Michael Jordan, and Front Row as chartered teams as part of an antitrust lawsuit. “That’s just such a small part of the entire...

Colin Campbell/WUNC Radio Sen. Dan Blue, D-Wake, is the only state lawmaker who’s been in office since the early 1980s, but the former House speaker is no longer serving as Senate minority leader after his fellow Democrats backed Sen. Sydney Batch for that role instead. Blue says he’ll still have...

Brenna Flanagan/Port City Daily UNCW is in the early stages of developing a new basketball arena and potential concert venue, a step-up for a team increasingly gaining more recognition on the national level. Last fall, UNCW Athletics launched a feasibility study into upgrading Trask Coliseum, either through renovation or a...

The High Point Enterprise The Guilford County Board of Commissioners announced late Friday afternoon that it will make an economic incentives offer at a location with a High Point company. The county would pledge incentives of approximately $57,800 for a company that would create 43 new jobs with an investment...

Ken Sweet/The Associated Press The Federal Reserve said Tuesday that Wells Fargo is no longer subject to harsh restraints the Fed placed on the bank in 2018 for having a toxic sales and banking culture. It’s a win for Wells Fargo, which has spent nearly a decade trying to convince...

Sarah Michels/Carolina Public Press Some might say newly appointed State Board of Elections Executive Director Sam Hayes wrote his own job into law. As general counsel for the Speaker of the House, Hayes had a hand in writing Senate Bill 382, the Tropical Storm Helene relief bill that also shifted...

Paul Woolverton & Maydha Devarajan/CityView Fayetteville’s long-planned downtown performing arts center and meeting space has been quashed after the Cumberland County Board of Commissioners on Wednesday voted 5-2 to discontinue the project. The decision on the 3,000-seat Crown Event Center comes seven months after construction started with a celebratory groundbreaking...

Kip Tabb/Outer Banks Voice Frustrated that their concerns about the actions of wild horse tour guides in their Swan Beach and North Swan Beach neighborhoods in the 4WD area of the Currituck Banks are falling on deaf ears, residents have become increasingly vocal in calling for additional regulations. “They’ve [the...