Vicki Hyatt/The (Waynesville) Mountaineer N.C. Rep. Mark Pless’s proposals to change requirements for emergency medical personnel and remove local government control over ambulance services are dead in the water, at least for this session of the General Assembly, much to the relief of a number of EMS personnel across the...

Alan Wooten/The Center Square Regulations imposed, American consumers ultimately paying, and industry volatility are damaging impacts from across-the-board tariffs in a world economy where measures vary by country and product. “The reason managed trade doesn’t work is no one is smart enough to manage it,” said H.O Woltz, president of...

Lucas Thomae/Carolina Public Press When Tropical Storm Helene tore across North Carolina in September, it left behind more than just downed trees and flooded homes. It ripped open a hidden fault line in the state’s transportation system — one that has existed for the state’s roads, largely unquestioned, for nearly...

Steve Harrison/WFAE Radio Republican Edwin Peacock was appointed Monday to finish the final six months of Tariq Bokhari’s City Council seat representing District 6 in south Charlotte. Bokhari resigned last month for a high-level job with the Federal Transit Administration. The vote deadlocked, with five voting for Peacock and 5...

Jessica Wakeman/Blue Ridge Public Radio Funding to rebuild in western North Carolina after Hurricane Helene is severely lagging, according to new data released by North Carolina’s Office of State Budget Management (OSBM). Overall, federal and state government funding allocated for Helene recovery has totaled about $5.95 billion—only about 10% of...

Bradley George/WUNC Radio A town in northwest North Carolina has won a $1.7 million federal grant to clean up a long-abandoned tannery. The Environmental Protection Agency announced the award to the town of North Wilkesboro Friday, one of 23 projects selected for brownfield cleanup in the southeast. The announcement comes...

Ryley Ober/Asheville Citizen Times A monthslong internal audit of the Buncombe County Sheriff’s Office evidence rooms showed over 1,700 missing items and about 4,800 items stored under poor conditions in shipping containers. The issues have gone “unaddressed for decades” throughout multiple sheriff’s administrations, records reveal. In pursuit of accreditation through...

Lisa Sorg/Inside Climate News The North Carolina Division of Emergency Management last week fired a subcontractor that had been founded by top officials at ReBuild NC, the now discredited state agency that botched response efforts after hurricanes Matthew and Florence in 2016 and 2018. The company, PathBuilt, had been hired...

Ben Crosbie/WCHL Chapelboro At a work session on Tuesday, the Carrboro Town Council received a presentation of a draft for the Downtown Area Plan (DAP). The DAP is a priority project within the larger Carrboro Connects Comprehensive Plan, a wide-ranging plan outlining the town’s goals through 2042. Danny Wilson, an...

Hannah Vinueza McClellan/Education NC Since 2016, the N.C. Community College System (NCCCS) has been implementing a five-phased approach to modernize Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems for the state’s 58 community colleges and system office. An ERP system refers to the software colleges use that contains data on students, core financial...

Becky Johnson/The (Waynesville) Mountaineer A civil lawsuit involving Shining Rock Classical Academy charter school concluded Tuesday following five days of both tense and emotional testimony, but a verdict could be weeks away as the presiding judge sorts through the mountains of conflicting evidence and testimony. The lawsuit and countersuit center...

Jennifer Berry Hawes/ProPublica In their last phone call before bed, Janicke Glynn tries to reassure her husband. He is away visiting a sick relative, and a Weather Channel forecast of Hurricane Helene’s imminent collision with the North Carolina mountains is leaving him uneasy. The storm, more than 400 miles wide,...

Paige Gross/NC Newsline A footnote in a budget bill U.S. House Republicans are trying to pass before Memorial Day is the first major signal for how Congress may address artificial intelligence legislation, as they seek to create a moratorium on any AI laws at the state level for 10 years....

Will Hofmann/Asheville Citizen Times Estimates indicate eight major transportation corridor projects in Western North Carolina will cost $2.6 billion as the N.C. Department of Transportation seeks to repair roughly 90 miles of road catastrophically damaged by Tropical Storm Helene. The projects were presented during the May 12 Governor’s Recovery Office...

Gerard Albert III/Blue Ridge Public Radio Farmers in Western North Carolina are still hurting after Hurricane Helene. Between debris cleanup and lost crops, small farms throughout western North Carolina are on the hook for an average of $70,000, according to a study published this month. Most farmers had damage to...