Paul Nielsen/The Mountaineer Repairing the closed Depot Street bridge may take just a month, maybe less, once work begins. But that may be the easy part. Getting a contractor to bid and then begin construction on the estimated $331,000 project may be a major hurdle as there is plenty of...

Zachary Turner/WFAE Radio Inside the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety’s hail lab, lab technician Michelle McClain loads a 3D-printed hailstone into a cannon. She’s running a simulation on a patch of IBHS-certified roof. The goal is to create a roof that can guard against wind and water penetration....

Felicia Sonmez/Blue Ridge Public Radio Hurricane Helene has taken a devastating toll on the region’s economy, with Buncombe County’s unemployment rate soaring — from the state’s lowest to its highest in October. This week, the North Carolina Department of Commerce announced some relief: an extension to Jan. 7 to apply...

Vicki Hyatt/The Mountaineer If Spirtas Worldwide and Two Banks, LLC (the corporation formed by Spirtas to purchase the Canton properties) is successful in its effort to purchase the Canton mill site owned by Pactiv Evergreen, the town has a more certain path forward, particularly when it comes to its wastewater...

Trista Talton/Coastal Review Online Go ahead and call Evan Gadow a Boy Scout. The shellfish farmer, lifelong North Carolinian, husband and card-carrying Eagle Scout, the Boy Scouts of America’s highest achievement, had a record as pure as the driven snow. “I pride myself on that,” he said. “I’ve never gotten...

Carli Brosseau & Sarah Nagem/Border Belt Independent By the time Columbus County Sheriff Jody Greene resigned in January 2023, it was clear that state investigators were chasing leads far beyond a recorded phone call in which he called his deputies “snakes” and “Black bastards.” District Attorney Jon David was prepared...

Jacob Biba/Asheville Citizen Times In a Dec. 6 ruling, a North Carolina Business Court judge dismissed counterclaims HCA Healthcare filed in response to N.C. Attorney Josh Stein’s lawsuit against the Nashville-based for-profit health system. Stein, North Carolina’s incoming governor, sued HCA in December 2023 alleging HCA breached the terms of...

Evey Weisblat/CityView Businesses in low-to-moderate income areas in Fayetteville could be eligible to receive up to $750,000 under a new city loan program designed to grow small businesses in economically disadvantaged areas. Administered by the Fayetteville Cumberland Economic Development Corporation and supported with $2.5 million of Fayetteville’s American Rescue Plan...

Selena Simmons-Duffin/Public Radio East In the wake of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson’s killing, there’s been a lot of attention on the dysfunction of the health insurance industry. The shooting triggered a flood of emotional posts online about health insurance denials. Since suspect Luigi Mangione’s arrest, attention has turned to a...

Peter Castagno/Port City Daily The New Hanover County endowment announced Shannon Winslow will take over as chair of the organization’s board of directors. Winslow previously served as vice chair alongside outgoing chair Bill Cameron, who will remain an active board member. She led the search committee that hired the endowment’s...

Guy Lucas/High Point Enterprise The day he first took a seat on the Guilford County Board of Education about 15 months ago, Michael Logan raised two fists in celebration. On his way out of office at his final board meeting Tuesday night, he kept his hands down, but his gesture...

Vicki Hyatt/The (Waynesville) Mountaineer The town of Canton has less than four months to figure out how its wastewater will be treated as of April 1 of next year — and right now, it has no answers. The wastewater treatment plant in Canton, part of the old Champion/Pactiv paper mill,...

Deirdra Funcheon/Hendersonville Times-News After the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Thomas R. Carper Water Resources Development Act of 2024, on Dec. 10, Rep. Chuck Edwards issued a statement highlighting water infrastructure projects in Western North Carolina that will receive funding and dam-related laws that will go into effect if...

Rylee Wilson/Becker’s Payer Issues Payer CEOs are reckoning with the public vitriol directed at the industry in the wake of the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. Mark Bertolini, CEO of Oscar Health, told Yahoo Finance the U.S. healthcare system has been “broken for some time.” “While this act in...

Sarah Krueger/WRAL News FEMA approved 536 households impacted by Hurricane Helene for temporary housing units, which are move-in ready trailers. WRAL has learned only 57 households have received them, more than two months since the storm hit. That is far behind FEMA’s original projection of having 103 units occupied by...