Derick Lee/EducationNC With National Poetry Month just around the corner, EducationNC is highlighting the students who will represent North Carolina at the national Poetry Out Loud competition. Poetry Out Loud is a partnership between The Poetry Foundation and The National Endowment for the Arts. The national program promotes arts in...

Trista Talton/Coastal Review Online A federal grant awarded last year to improve drinking water quality in hundreds of rural Brunswick County homes made U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin’s round of funding cuts earlier this month. But Zeldin’s plan to terminate the nearly $20 million grant awarded in December...

Mila Mascenik/WCHL Chapelboro When an email with the subject line “Music Education Program Update” popped up in Corey Sheppard’s inbox last March, he said he couldn’t have prepared himself for the news it held about his chosen field of study. Sheppard, a junior music major at UNC-Chapel Hill, would be...

Mebane Rash/EducationNC On March 20, 2025 — two months after he took office — President Donald Trump signed a presidential action, also called an executive order, titled “Improving Education Outcomes by Empowering Parents, States, and Communities.” In part, the order says, “The Secretary of Education shall, to the maximum extent...

Grace Vitaglione/NC Health News Kristin Goforth and Lauren Cox, twin sisters aged 49, moved their father into a Piedmont Triad-area assisted living facility on March 13, 2021. Rick Goforth, then 75, was in good health; he was an avid walker who enjoyed being outside. But he was exhibiting signs of...

Colin Campbell/WUNC Radio Gov. Josh Stein’s newly released budget recommendations include a plan to increase starting teacher pay above $50,000, with the goal of making it the highest in the Southeast. Stein noted in his State of the State address that Republicans in the N.C. House have already filed a...

The Associated Press Wildfires forced a mandatory evacuation Sunday in a North Carolina county still recovering from Hurricane Helene, and South Carolina’s governor declared an emergency in response to a growing wildfire in that state. The North Carolina Department of Public Safety announced a mandatory evacuation starting at 8:20 p.m....

Peter Castagno/Port City Daily An international advocacy group is partnering with Brunswick County residents pushing county officials to ensure safe water for African American and low-income residents. This comes as federal spending cuts reduce grant opportunities, leading some to argue the county should directly fund water extensions. International human rights...

Paul Nielsen/The (Waynesville) Mountaineer The idea of banning new vacation rentals in certain Waynesville neighborhoods appears to have fizzled out. A surge in homes being converted to vacation rentals and the associated problems that come with that prompted Waynesville last year to consider whether it’s time to rein them in....

Jack Evans/Asheville Watchdog In 2004, David Clarke, a botanist who teaches in the biology department at the University of North Carolina Asheville, bought a house on Dortch Avenue, on an edge of the Five Points neighborhood that bleeds into campus. The home was still under construction when Clarke set his...

Nick Fogleman/The Watauga Democrat The Blowing Rock Town Council has tabled a proposed rezoning and redevelopment project for further discussion following concerns over building height, aesthetics and overall community impact. Chris Barefoot of Oak Hill Management presented plans to redevelop the Shoppes on the Parkway property into a mixed-use residential...

WRAL News Brad Briner left a career in high finance to pursue one of the highest-pressure roles in North Carolina government: state treasurer. The treasurer’s department is responsible for managing one of the biggest pension plans in the nation, as well as overseeing health benefits for hundreds of thousands of...

MacKenzie Sigalos/CNBC Bo Hines has no professional background in crypto. He earned his law degree three years ago from Wake Forest. He’s twice unsuccessfully run for Congress in North Carolina. Now the 29-year-old former football player is wrapping up his second month as one of the leaders of President Donald...

Cristina Bolling/Charlotte Ledger For years leading up to 2023, the financial situation at the Aldersgate retirement community in east Charlotte was quietly deteriorating, and neither state regulators nor residents grasped the magnitude of what was happening. Entrance fee refunds that were due to former residents or their estates were going...

Jane Winik Sartwell/Carolina Public Press Last year was an all-time low in the history of North Carolina farming, thanks to drought and flood. Farmers are desperate to catch a break in 2025. But just as planting season begins, large swaths of the state are still plagued by dry conditions. At...