Igor Bobic/Huffington Post One of the most vulnerable Republican senators in next year’s election is sounding the alarm on President Donald Trump’s global tariffs ― and he’s not mincing words about it. “Whose throat do I get to choke if this proves to be wrong?” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) asked...

Catherine Kozak/Coastal Review Online Fifty years after the need for a bridge between mainland Currituck County and its barrier island beaches was first identified, and 30 years after a draft planning document for the proposed mid-Currituck bridge was first released, a recent public meeting revealed that the same issues are...

Jane Winik Sartwell/Carolina Public Press The Cape Fear River Basin is the source of drinking water for 1.5 million North Carolina residents. It is also where three municipal governments — Asheboro, Greensboro and Reidsville — are legally dumping dangerous levels of 1,4-dioxane, a colorless industrial solvent linked to cancer. But...

WUNC & The Associated Press Hiking the Pacific Crest Trail is a challenge, especially for adventurers making the entire run from Southern California to Canada, and Eric Kipperman’s job is to greet them at the start and lay bare the difficulties ahead. He has lately begun warning that the journey...

Rachel Crumpler/NC Health News When the calls from prison suddenly stopped in February 2024, Erik Ramsey’s family started worrying. Frequent communication was their way of trying to help Ramsey, 29, who’d been diagnosed with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, get through the time until his scheduled release in February 2026. In...

Claire Cranford & Ana Despa/The (Duke University) Chronicle The federal government terminated the visas of two Duke graduate students and an alumnus on Optional Practical Training, according to a Monday morning email sent to international students. The email, sent by Kevin D’Arco, senior associate dean of international students, and Duke...

Hannah Vinueza McClellan/Education NC Last fall, the General Assembly established a Hurricane Helene Emergency Grant Program for postsecondary students to provide grants of up to $2,500 to eligible students experiencing financial hardship due to Helene. At the time, the General Assembly allocated $10.5 million in funding for emergency grants for...

Lucille Sherman/Axios Raleigh North Carolina’s state health department has ordered the Vance County jail to drastically reduce the number of inmates it houses — from more than 140 to just 20. Why it matters: The order, detailed in a letter sent to county officials April 1, comes after the department...

Andrew R. Jones/Asheville Watchdog For nearly 18 years, Eric Penland Jr. has heard the monotonous sound of the ventilator that keeps him alive. Hour after hour, day after day, year after year, its swoosh-swoosh is as regular as a metronome in the stillness of his semi-dark, seventh-floor room at Mission...

Alan Wooten/The Center Square Hugo and Helene are rare, as is the ever-dangerous tornado outbreaks that sometimes plague the South. Charlotte, regardless of frequency, remains in a dangerous gap every day. U.S. Rep. Tim Moore, R-N.C., has introduced the Radar Gap Elimination Act as a vehicle to close it. Bipartisan...

Helen Chickering/Blue Ridge Public Radio A key corridor in Asheville is back in service as of Friday afternoon, as Swannanoa River Road (N.C. 81) reopened between Biltmore Avenue and Bleachery Boulevard. The reopening follows six months of cleanup, restoration and construction after Hurricane Helene flooded the Swannanoa River and destroyed...

Sarah Michels/Carolina Public Press More than 61,000 voters challenged by NC Supreme Court candidate Jefferson Griffin have 15 business days to prove their eligibility, or have their ballots removed from the count in Griffin’s 2024 bid to unseat Justice Allison Riggs, according to a Friday ruling from a three-judge panel...

Brian Shrader/WRAL News For decades, Johnston County didn’t look all that different from other parts of rural North Carolina. It relied heavily on agriculture and other industries that started to crater at the end of the 20th century. “We really took it on the chin in the mid 90s with...

Brenna Flanagan/Port City Daily Special-use permits are on the chopping block as Wilmington city council and staff feedback favors conditional zonings instead. However, the planning commission has chosen to go through another month of analysis before it issues any recommendation. Aside from the approval of two Kerr Avenue developments —...

Jack Evans/Asheville Watchdog A series of deals between federal and state agencies, finalized last week, will allow the North Carolina Department of Transportation to mine rock on more than 600 acres of the Pisgah National Forest as part of its efforts to rebuild I-40 along the Pigeon River Gorge. The...