Smoky Mountain News The N.C. Department of Transportation and its partners have selected two sites in the Pigeon River Gorge for extracting and storing material to help rebuild sections of Interstate 40 damaged by Hurricane Helene. A nearly 33-acre site will be used to extract stone, and an adjacent 11.5-acre...

Jack Igelman/Carolina Public Press As climate-related disasters grow more frequent and costly, communities and governments face tough questions about how to mitigate future floods. Federal, state, and local decision makers often clash because they’re driven by different incentives, budget constraints and timelines, making coordination among governments challenging. State Sen. Julie...

Eli Chen/WUNC Radio After 35 years, Neo-China, one of Durham’s oldest Chinese restaurants, has closed its doors. The family-owned restaurant grappled with increasing inventory prices caused by the 145% tariff the U.S. imposed on Chinese goods in April. Since then, the trade war has de-escalated and a 90-day pause has...

Brenna Flanagan/Port City Daily The Wilmington Urban Area Metropolitan Planning Organization’s board of directors were given the chance to stop a tolled Cape Fear Memorial Bridge in its tracks this week and it chose not to, even after protest from one member. The board voted 8-4 on a resolution to...

John Boyle & Jack Evans/Asheville Watchdog After decades of planning and debate, the North Carolina Department of Transportation has said it’s close to starting construction on the long-gestating I-26 Connector project. But community members, including architects and planners, are still asking the agency to reconsider some of its designs, particularly...

Keely Arthur/WRAL News In a one-on-one interview with 5 WRAL On Your Side, newly appointed Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) Commissioner Paul Tine promised shorter wait times and fewer headaches for North Carolinians in need of DMV services. “It’s going to get better,” he said. “I wouldn’t be in the...

Chantal Brown/Education NC Some school districts in North Carolina have decided that their best future teacher candidates may already be in the area — just still in high school. These districts have begun their own iterations of teacher cadet programs, where high school students take introductory education courses and are...

Jaymie Baxley, Rose Hoban & Grace Vitaglione/NC Health News The Healthy Opportunities Pilot, a Medicaid program that addressed the nonmedical health needs of low-income North Carolinians, will cease operations July 1, according to an announcement obtained by NC Health News. The first-in-the-nation effort that has drawn national attention and praise...

Trista Talton/Coastal Review Online Coastal communities are inundated more often than previously believed, and floodwaters take longer to recede in rural areas than in urban areas, according to a new study. The study, published Monday in the journal Communications Earth & Environment, also found that the way government agencies gather...

Felicia Sonmez/Blue Ridge Radio The landscape for short-term rentals in Buncombe County has changed drastically since before Hurricane Helene. For years, Asheville and Buncombe County’s market for short-term rentals — such as those found on websites like Airbnb and VRBO — was booming. Things were going so well that some...

Paul Woolverton/CityView The Fayetteville Public Works Commission has not given up on its plan to build a $9.5 million solar farm off Ramsey Street just north of Fayetteville after the Cumberland County Commissioners on May 19 threw a roadblock in the project’s path. The electric utility’s board held a closed-door...

Liz McLaughlin/WRAL News When Hurricane Helene’s floodwaters finally receded last September, Alex Webber thought the worst was over. The co‑owner of On Your Bike Café and repair shop had fled New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, searching for higher ground in the North Carolina mountains. Instead, she found 3 feet of mud, a...

Luke Garrett/NPR The fate of legislation to enact President Trump’s domestic policy agenda moves to the GOP-controlled Senate this week, where a handful of Republican spending hawks are criticizing the price tag of the president’s mega-bill, which would grow the national debt by trillions of dollars, and calling for changes....

Grace Vitaglione/NC Health News Jennifer Burch is a second-generation pharmacist who’s been working at Central Pharmacy in Durham since she was a teen. Some of her current customers have been coming to the store since the days when she still worked with her father. In those days, when they worked...

Vicki Hyatt/The (Waynesville) Mountaineer A Republican business owner from Maggie Valley has announced his intention to challenge N.C. House Rep. Mark Pless, also a Republican, for the seat representing Haywood and Madison counties. It’s rare for a sitting legislator to face opposition in a primary.  The challenge is a reflection...