Brianna Atkinson/WUNC Radio The Orange County District Attorney’s Office is dismissing all remaining criminal cases against protesters who led pro-Palestinian demonstrations on UNC-Chapel Hill’s campus last spring. The decision came a day before some trials were set to begin. In April, hundreds of protesters held a pro-Palestinian encampment at UNC....

Matthew Daly/The Associated Press Michael Regan, who championed environmental justice as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, will leave the agency Dec. 31, three weeks before the end of President Joe Biden’s term. In a letter Friday to agency employees, Regan said he was proud of the EPA’s work to...

Sarah Michels/Carolina Public Press Nearly four years after it began, an investigation into the financial reporting of Mark Robinson campaign in 2020 has been completed, leading to fines and a settlement. In a closed session earlier this month, Robinson’s campaign committee agreed to pay the State Board of Elections $35,000...

Felicia Sonmez/Blue Ridge Public Radio The regional nonprofit Mountain BizWorks has awarded nearly $3.69 million in grants to small businesses that experienced severe impacts from Hurricane Helene. The money will go to 276 local businesses in Buncombe County. Noah Wilson, director of sector development for Mountain BizWorks, said at Thursday’s...

Keely Arthur/WRAL News This month, North Carolina State University officials announced plans to remediate, renovate, and reopen Poe Hall. The announcement came just over a year after toxic chemicals were discovered in the building, prompting its closure. However, even with a comprehensive remediation plan, students say the university will face...

Brenna Flanagan/Port City Daily The City of Wilmington’s Chestnut Street parcels have officially been sold, and though the developer’s commitment to transform them into a grocery store may have decreased its market value, the city is emphasizing the value it will bring to downtown. Thursday was the deadline for upset...

Travis Loller & Leah Willingham/The Associated Press American farmers and small business owners are among those who will suffer if Congress cannot agree on a new spending bill after President-elect Donald Trump abruptly rejected a bipartisan plan that included more than $100 billion in disaster aid. The money is urgently...

Rusty Jacobs/WUNC Radio Not so fast. Republican Jefferson Griffin’s urgent bid to get the North Carolina Supreme Court to take up his election protests in a race for an associate justice seat has been shifted to federal court. Griffin, a judge on the North Carolina Court of Appeals, has not...

Dan Mangan/CNBC A father and son pleaded guilty Thursday to orchestrating a brazen stock manipulation scheme involving a small, money-losing New Jersey deli whose publicly traded parent company had an improbable market capitalization of $100 million. The men, Chapel Hill resident Peter Coker Sr. and his former fugitive son Peter...

Lucas Thomae & Jane Winik Sartwell/Carolina Public Press State oversight of nursing homes received a scathing performance audit, released on Wednesday. The Office of the State Auditor (OSA) released its audit of the Department of Health and Human Services’ oversight of nursing homes, accusing the department of consistently failing to...

Jacob Biba/Asheville Citizen Times The Buncombe County Democratic Party has tapped an environmental advocate, volunteer firefighter and community organizer to fill an open seat on the Buncombe County Board of Commissioners. At a Dec. 18 special election held at party headquarters in East Asheville, Drew Ball beat out nine other...

Trista Talton/Coastal Review Online Dr. Jordan Poler did not want to create an environmental problem by trying to solve one. More than a decade ago, the University of North Carolina Charlotte professor decided to focus on chemistry that could be both sustainable and have minimum impact on the environment. He...

Rachel Crumpler/NC Health News Ninety-five percent of incarcerated people in North Carolina will eventually be released back into the community — roughly 18,000 people return home each year from state prisons and thousands more from county jails. It’s a day that people yearn for, but also a day met with...

Julian Berger/WFAE Radio A center aimed at expanding job opportunities for people in east Charlotte has raised $5.5 million of its $20 million goal to help get its work started. Spark Centro, run by Charlotte’s Latin American Chamber of Commerce, will house nonprofits focused on workforce development, entrepreneurship training and...

Abigail Celoria/WUNC Radio Back in July, Gov. Roy Cooper and the Department of Health and Human Services announced a plan to relieve medical debt for North Carolinians. In exchange for federal funding, North Carolina hospitals would agree to forgive eligible medical debt, set new standards for charity care, and limit...