After a 10-month hiatus, Asheville city government has resumed discussions of panhandling restrictions. Asheville Police Chief Mike Lamb wants to increase the number of places designated as High Traffic Zones, areas where it is illegal under city code for a person to verbally solicit and/or panhandle. Solicitation with a sign...

Partisan divisions within North Carolina’s Supreme Court are bound to attract attention. That’s especially true in an election year. Voters will choose a Democrat or Republican this fall to serve an eight-year term on the state’s highest court. Republicans will enter 2025 with either a 5-2 or 6-1 majority. As...

North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, the Republican nominee for governor, is planning a campaign fundraiser Tuesday with a secretive religious group that for years has been publicly accused of wielding cult-like control over its followers and of engaging in criminal behavior including slave labor, financial fraud and the sexual...

A month and more than 2,000 community comments later, New Hanover County planning staff are no longer recommending residential and mixed uses be permitted along the western banks of the Cape Fear River. County staff recently released an updated draft version of an amendment outlining a new place type, downtown...

Gov. Roy Cooper late Monday afternoon declined to sign a bill that includes granting a state regulatory agency’s request to delay new mandatory catch-reporting rules for recreational anglers and commercial fishermen. The decision was over unrelated provisions that Cooper described as an “unconstitutional power grab.” A paragraph tucked into Senate...

Nearly 4,000 parcels of land in Stanly County are now in the rural preservation area of the county land plan after a 6-1 decision by county commissioners at Monday’s meeting. A public hearing lasted close to two hours Monday night, with many citizens speaking for and against the proposed amendment....

Residents of East West Asheville say vacant homes now owned by the NCDOT to make way for the upcoming I-26 Connector project have become havens for drug users and people experiencing homelessness. Cathy Sherman said she moved to Asheville eight years ago and bought a house just off Hanover Street...

At the release end of the Jordan Lake Dam in Chatham County, an osprey fishes for its dinner. The bird spins in the air, dives low over the water, and yanks a fish out with its talons. A heron, watching from the riverbank, squawks jealousy and lunges at the osprey....

Weeks before one of North Carolina’s state-supported behavioral health management agencies merged with another one in eastern North Carolina, there was a flurry of questionable financial activity that led to more than $4 million in payments to two top executives and back pay to the law firm that counseled the...

Like child care centers nationwide, St. Stephens Loving Daycare Center in Rocky Mount used the tens of thousands of dollars of federal COVID-19 relief funding it received during the pandemic for far more than cleaning supplies and face masks. Director Carolyn Slade said first she used the quarterly relief checks...

Mission Hospital and the Mission Nurses United union didn’t reach a deal on a new labor deal by midnight July 3, the expiration date for the current contract, increasing the possibility of a strike. Nurses told Asheville Watchdog that they and the hospital remain far apart on key issues, including...

Tribal members in Cherokee can legally buy recreational marijuana, and it’s giving some residents hope for marijuana legalization in the state in the future. Members of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians backed the adult use of marijuana on their tribal land in an overwhelming vote in September and the...

Ozempic and other injectable weight-loss medications have soared in popularity in the past two years. Supply issues and spotty insurance coverage have driven some patients to seek out compounded versions of the drug, which tend to be less expensive. Anna Wysock’s “aha” moment arrived in an Ohio amusement park, as...

North Carolina Republicans have reserved an estimated $5.6 million in television and digital advertising over the coming weeks in three of the most competitive state Senate districts, the party tells Axios. Why it matters: It’s already the most the party has ever spent in state Senate races, indicating just how...

As schedules allow, Moore County Schools Superintendent Tim Locklair and Sandhills Community College President Sandy Stewart meet regularly at the Villager Deli in Pinehurst to talk over their jobs and share information. When they met nine months ago they asked themselves, “What does the community need?” “Obviously, there is a...