Scott D. Yost/Rhino Times On Tuesday, Jan. 14, at a Summerfield Town Council meeting, former NC Auditor Beth Wood – who had been hired by the town – gave her preliminary findings regarding a large number of allegations of financial wrongdoing by former town staff.  Claims to be investigated included...

Colin Campbell/WUNC Radio The Beaufort County town of Aurora, population 450, is one of a number of rural communities staking their economic futures on industrial park developments designed to attract employers. Longtime Mayor Clif Williams has been working for years on a 25-acre industrial park that will bring more jobs...

Tom Fiedler/Asheville Watchdog Newly inaugurated President Donald Trump returned to storm-battered Asheville and Swannanoa on Friday and outlined a vague plan to abolish the Federal Emergency Management Agency and shift disaster-recovery responsibilities to state governments. Trump said he will issue an executive order “to begin the process of fundamentally reforming...

Eric Miller/WRAL News RDU has plans to develop one of Wake County’s most popular parks – and says the federal government is making them do it. The plans would affect 136 acres of Lake Crabtree County Park, including nearly all of the 9.4 miles of bike trails, and a small...

Trista Talton/Coastal Review Online For the first time in more than 10 years, North Carolina land donors may be eligible to receive a tax credit for gifting property to conservation. But there’s a catch. A few, actually. The law that went into effect Jan. 1 includes caveats that were not...

Lynn Bonner/NC Newsline The Republican-led group RightCount Action is running an ad in major television markets opposing GOP Judge Jefferson Griffin’s attempts to discard votes in his race. The ad features Moore County voter James Danz, a registered Republican who says that he voted for President Donald Trump and Griffin....

Amy Diaz/WFDD Radio Winston-Salem/Forsyth County School Board members and district leaders met with local legislators this week. But while education officials pitched the need for statewide systemic change, representatives said they were there to talk money — not philosophy. School district representatives arranged the meeting on Wednesday in part to...

Felicia Sonmez/Blue Ridge Public Radio Inside the former United Methodist Church in downtown Swannanoa, local business owners from across Western North Carolina shared their at-times tearful stories of loss, resilience and determination as a crowd including many prominent elected officials looked on. The event, hosted last week by the Asheville...

Tomas Murawski/The Alamance News Tuesday night’s snowstorm put the kibosh on what was supposed to have been the first regularly-scheduled meeting of Alamance County’s commissioners since before Christmas. But aside from its import to the commissioners, this gathering had also been something like the equivalent of D-Day for a number...

Caleb M. Soptelean/The Sanford Herald Sanford has had an “unprecedented increase in rezoning approvals” over the past five years, but the number of homes has not increased proportionately. That’s the word from Marshall Downey, the city’s planning director. He addressed the city council about the issue during a work session...

Randy Foster/Cherokee Scout The Cherokee County Board of Education is expecting to propose a school consolidation plan after its next meeting Feb. 6. The board will have a workshop at 4 p.m. before the 5:30 p.m. regular meeting to discuss three consolidation proposals put forth by school board members Steve...

Steve Harrison/WFAE Radio The Charlotte Area Transit System on Wednesday released four new scenarios of how it could spend billions of dollars from a proposed one-cent sales tax — specifically which new train lines could be built and which ones couldn’t. Almost five years after Charlotte and CATS started working...

Hannah Vinueza McClellan/Education NC The State Board of Community Colleges discussed the N.C. Community College System’s (NCCCS) legislative agenda for the 2025 long session at its meeting last week, which includes the system’s primary ask of funding for Propel NC. The system is asking lawmakers for nearly $100 million to...

Lucas Thomae/Carolina Public Press Scores of waterfront property owners in Mecklenburg County are slowly moving forward with government programs to acquire or elevate their homes almost four months after Tropical Storm Helene, and later Duke Energy, upended their lives. Despite Charlotte being more than 100 miles away from the storm’s...

Gary D. Robertson/The Associated Press The North Carolina Supreme Court dismissed on Wednesday a request by the trailing candidate in an extremely close race for a seat on this same court to rule now on whether well over 60,000 ballots should be removed from the tally. Instead, the justices ordered...