Dan DeWitt/Asheville Watchdog The fourth floor of the new apartment building on Long Shoals Road is designed like the upper levels of countless other rental blocks in Buncombe County, the state, and most of the nation: A staircase on one end of the floor is connected by a long corridor...

Heather Hollingsworth, Nicky Forster & Emily Walkenhorst/The Associated Press & WRAL News Nearly 300,000 North Carolina college-goers have defaulted on their federal student loans, collectively owing $7.8 billion, data analyzed by the Associated Press shows. About half of those people, owing an average of $26,500, have gone into default just...

Rachel Crumpler/NC Health News As of July 16, 2,146 people were in custody in Mecklenburg County’s uptown Charlotte jail — 242 people above the jail’s capacity of 1,904. Pods designed for 53 people now routinely hold as many as 84, Sheriff Garry McFadden told NC Health News. Mecklenburg isn’t alone....

Bradley George/WUNC News Sales of private aircraft have boomed since 2020. And that’s causing a problem at general aviation airports, the kind used by corporations, private pilots, flying schools, and the like. It raises the question: Where do you park all those planes when they’re not in the air? At...

Mackenzie Thomas/Carolina Public Press A recent state audit has calmed concerns that Rocky Mount residents were double-billed for utilities, but also drew attention to more than $30,000 in total outstanding utility bills from two City Council members. Rocky Mount provides utility services for more than 31,000 customers across the city...

Will Michaels/WFAE Radio When Gov. Josh Stein signed a bipartisan bill limiting how students could use their cellphones in schools last year, the North Carolina Parent Teacher Association celebrated. “Public schools in North Carolina are now cellphone-free zones,” the organization said in a Facebook post last July. But a closer...

Mary Helen Moore/Axios Raleigh Half the shrimp marketed as “wild-caught American” at Outer Banks restaurants last month was actually imported, according to genetic testing by SeaD Consulting. Why it matters: Consumers often pay premium prices at the coast expecting genuine U.S.-caught shrimp, even as cheaper imported shrimp dominates the wider...

Emily Sawaked/Port City Daily A city-proposed zoning amendment to regulate data centers in Southport drew backlash as residents questioned why a ban wasn’t on the table. However, no amendment was recommended by the Southport Planning Board this week, which instead voted unanimously to suggest a 15-month moratorium to aldermen. On...

Jennifer Allen/Coastal Review Online North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality staff are in the process of updating the state’s long-term strategy to protect coastal habitat, a necessity for a sustainable seafood industry. According to the strategy called the Coastal Habitat Protection Plan, or CHPP, the need for a coastwide habitat...

Savannah Peters, Rodney Overton & Mary Smith/The Associated Press Taylor Farms has expanded a voluntary recall to include North Carolina for iceberg lettuce products sourced from central Mexico over a potential link to the multistate cyclospora outbreak that has sickened hundreds in the Raleigh area and others across the United...

Savannah Peters, Rodney Overton & Mary Smith/The Associated Press Taylor Farms has expanded a voluntary recall to include North Carolina for iceberg lettuce products sourced from central Mexico over a potential link to the multistate cyclospora outbreak that has sickened hundreds in the Raleigh area and others across the United...

Alan Wooten/The Center Square Leadership in North Carolina’s seventh largest municipality, all Democrats on the Town Council and in the mayor’s office, have been recommended to “reengineer the environment” displayed in an auditor’s report showing lavish spending, unchecked VISA card use by town employees and a lack of financial oversight....

Christine Zhu/NC Newsline State Attorney General Jeff Jackson is asking North Carolinians to comment on what he’s calling a “backroom PFAS deal” between the Environmental Protection Agency and chemical manufacturer Chemours. Chemours, formerly part of DuPont, has been manufacturing chemicals on the Cape Fear river near Fayetteville for decades. In...

James Farrell/WFAE Radio Friday marks one month since Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools Superintendent Crystal Hill was placed on paid leave pending an outside investigation, and there’s still no official word on the results, status or focus of that inquiry. The CMS board announced Hill’s suspension on June 17, citing “matters involving administrative...

Rachel Heimann Mercader/CityView More than 150 business leaders, elected officials, academics, students, and young professionals gathered Wednesday at Fayetteville State University (FSU) for the inaugural Fayetteville Newsmakers. The civic dialoguet—presented by CityView and the News Foundation of Greater Fayetteville—centered on a single question: Where is Fayetteville and Cumberland County’s next...