Clayton Henkel/NC Newsline As the Cooper administration transitions to the Stein administration, leadership changes are happening across state cabinets as well. NC Newsline sat down with outgoing NC Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kody Kinsley just before the holidays to discuss his remarkable three years at the helm...

The Watauga Democrat The High Country Real Estate Market of Alleghany, Ashe, Avery, and Watauga counties saw sales down 27.8% in November compared to last year, according to the High Country Association of Realtors monthly report. Inventory also climbed 3% during November compared to last year. In November, 117 closed...

Peter Castagno/Port City Daily A plan to generate clean energy at a former asbestos waste site in the county’s landfall is being scaled back in the short-term, but a separate plan to install rooftop solar at a nearby wastewater plant is projected to be complete in 2025. New Hanover County’s...

Tom Joyce/The Mount Airy News When passing by that impossible-to-overlook big blue building on Willow Street in downtown Mount Airy, one might wonder just what the heck is going on inside the structure. The site is not accessible to the general public, and X-ray vision is a skill possessed only...

Pat Kimbrough/High Point Enterprise The long-delayed development of a John Deere dealership in north High Point is moving forward. A site plan submission by James River Equipment to support ground-up construction of a 57,065-square-foot facility at 700 Gallimore Dairy Road is in review by city planners. The company got the...

Ana Risano/The (Southern Pines) Pilot Southern Pines maintains over 256 miles of water mains, 169 miles of sewer lines and over 83 miles of roads — a lofty task the Public Works Department takes on day after day. Residents often play a key role in keeping track of each line...

Gary D. Robertson/The Associated Press North Carolina’s latest Democratic governor was sworn into office on Wednesday, as Josh Stein succeeded Roy Cooper in a top elected position for the second time in eight years. During a small ceremony inside the old Senate chamber of the 1840 Capitol building, Stein took...

Eleanor Mueller & Zachary Warmbrodt When a 29-year-old Patrick McHenry entered Congress in 2005, few would have believed the man described as the GOP’s “attack dog-in-training” would retire two decades later as a paragon of pragmatism. But after he spent his first terms brawling to little effect, the North Carolina...

Connor Giffin & Ryley Ober/USA Today Network Paul Brock stood at a microphone before a panel of government officials at the Lake Lure Inn, whose packed dining hall had become a makeshift town hall. Neighbors gathered in late October to recovery efforts with the town council. Weeks before, Tropical Storm...

Luke Barber/The Watauga Democrat A local entrepreneur is protesting the Town of Boone’s system development fees after discovering that opening a new gym within the town’s limits would cost him an additional $33,348. Seth Norris, the lead pastor at Perkinsville Baptist Church and chief of the Deep Gap Volunteer Fire...

Jacob Biba/Asheville Citizen Times  Three months after Tropical Storm Helene hit Western North Carolina, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has approved $288 million in recovery assistance to more than 142,000 household and individuals, the agency said in a Dec. 27 release. An additional $307 million in public assistance funding has...

James Farrell/WFAE Radio North Carolina ranked 48th in the country in terms of public education funding for the third year in a row, according to the latest annual state-by-state analysis of school funding from the Education Law Center. The state also ranked 49th in terms of funding effort, which looked...

Port City Daily The film industry brought hundreds of millions of dollars to the state in 2024, thanks to the entertainment industry rolling cameras from mountains to coast. More than 55 productions were set up and made $302 million in purchases statewide for their projects. According to the N.C. Department...

Laura Leslie/WRAL News The Federal Emergency Management Agency is increasing its footprint in the Triangle in the wake of Tropical Storm Helene. The agency has leased a 117,000-square-foot office building in Durham, just outside Research Triangle Park. The building, Danbury Hall, is part of the Sheraton Imperial Office Center. A...

Holly Kays/Smoky Mountain News For the first time in nearly three years, the trail to Great Smoky Mountains National Park’s tallest waterfall is fully open — and following an intensive rehabilitation of its entire four-mile length, Ramsey Cascades Trail is in better shape than it’s been in decades. “It’s a...