Tiana Kennell/Asheville Citizen Times An East Asheville seafood restaurant known for its oysters, burgers, and global fusion plates will not reopen following Tropical Storm Helene. On Dec. 7, Little Pearl’s social media post announced the restaurant’s closure after four years. “To all our dear friends, followers & loyal customers, for...

Coastal Review Online The state agency “dedicated to the conservation and wise management of fish and wildlife, and the regulation of inland fishing, hunting, trapping and boating regulations” will be under new leadership effective Jan. 1, 2025. The North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission announced Thursday after its commissioners’ business meeting...

Ben Humphries/Education NC School boards have been thrust into the spotlight over the past few years by livestreamed board meetings, book banning controversies, and “parental rights” movements. They are also increasingly partisan — literally. This November, 52 school districts in North Carolina held partisan elections, where candidates’ party affiliations are...

Lora Lavigne/WRAL News Plans for a multi-million-dollar training facility for the Durham County Sheriff’s Office is getting  pushback. A recently organized group called “Durham Stop Cop City” is hoping to block plans to renovate the training facility for the sheriff’s office. Dozens of people gathered at Forest Hills Park in...

Robert Sullivan/The Salisbury Post    Ever Home Plastics will be creating its first U.S.-based facility in Rowan County, a move that will bring a planned $3.65 million investment and approximately 46 new jobs to the area over the next four years. The Rowan EDC announced on Thursday that the company, which...

Mark Jurkowitz/Outer Banks Voice Back in January 2024, the Outer Banks Community Foundation (OBCF) began a process of examining its role in disaster preparedness. Knowing that its primary post-disaster role is as fundraisers and grant makers, the focus, as President and CEO Chris Sawin notes, was “on how to leverage...

Steve Harrison/WFAE Radio This spring, Charlotte officials told the town of Matthews it can’t build both the Red Line commuter rail to Lake Norman and the Silver Line light rail from uptown to Matthews under a proposed funding formula that limits spending on trains to 40% of the revenue from...

Felicia Sonmez/Blue Ridge Public Radio Diamond Brand Gear Company, a stalwart of Western North Carolina’s outdoor industry, announced Friday that it is closing its doors after 143 years in business. The company is only the latest in the Asheville area to close in the wake of Hurricane Helene. “It is...

Becky Johnson/The (Waynesville) Mountaineer An out-of-town YouTuber has taken to the airwaves with accusations that Haywood County doesn’t care about its flood victims — garnering 750,000 views and creating a divisive wedge among those who were all on the same team up until 10 days ago. Thousands across Haywood County...

Trista Talton/Coastal Review Online Not much has changed in Sledge Forest in the more than 20 years since its distinctive features were captured on the pages of a document created to offer guidance for its future use. That, said geologist Roger Shew, is the beauty of it. The forest that...

By Pat Kimbrough/High Point Enterprise Consultants who recently evaluated downtown parking needs for the city looked into the issue as part of a larger goal of how to expand retail, office and multifamily uses in the area. “Occupied rooftops is what drives almost every other use in the market,” Billie...

Alexa Wandersee/Port City Daily A nonprofit with a vision for a 20-acre, state-of-the-art athletic complex is seeking public input on refining the plan and hoping to create cultural unity across the city. Optimism Oasis is a sports and wellness facility planned to be located on McRae Street in Wilmington’s Northside...

Lucas Thomae/Carolina Public Press  A Cabarrus County man is suing his local board of commissioners for allegedly violating his First Amendment rights when they removed him from a meeting for “naming names” of county DSS employees during a public comment period. The Liberty Justice Center, a national litigation firm, filed...

John Staton/Wilmington StarNews A feature film with some big names attached is set to begin filming in Wilmington early next year. “Driver’s Ed,” about teenagers who take their high school’s driver-education car on an illegal road trip to visit the college-freshman girlfriend of one of their cohorts, is set to...

Olivia Gschwind/Indy Week Four law practices jointly pursuing a civil lawsuit against North Carolina State University and Monsanto say the university’s lack of transparency has failed to deliver answers to people who worked and studied in Poe Hall, a building suspected of being linked to hundreds of cancer cases and...