In North Carolina, annual state funding for public schools totaled $11.6 billion in 2023-24. Federal funding, not including COVID-19 relief funding, provided another $1.10 billion. Local appropriations and supplemental taxes brought in $3.58 billion. That should count as big business. The K-12 education industry includes our state’s Department of Public...

Randy Abbott lost his daughter to a drug overdose in 2015. No one called for help in time. Diannee Carden’s son died from a heroin overdose in 2012. No one called for help in time. As North Carolina continues to lose more people to overdoses every year — a record...

Pactiv Evergreen, owner of the shuttered papermill in Canton, has been working to clean up two separate seeps leaking toxic substances into the Pigeon River under an administrative order of consent (AOC) with the Environmental Protection Agency. While the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality (NCDEQ) has been working with...

A key environmental board controlled by Republican appointees is stalling efforts to regulate chemicals that have contaminated North Carolina drinking water supplies, including forever chemicals and an industrial solvent that is a likely human carcinogen. North Carolina does not have enforceable surface water standards for the chemicals despite scientific evidence...

Greensboro Mayor Nancy Vaughan, who was first elected to that job in 2013, announced at the very end of the Greensboro City Council meeting on Tuesday, May 7, that she would not be seeking another term as mayor next year. Vaughan prefaced her announcement by speaking passionately about the accomplishments...

After facing a lawsuit related to alleged wrongful detentions and arrests, several defendants have been dropped from the case against them. eCourts is a $100 million software overhaul for the North Carolina court system. It launched more than a year ago, with Wake, Johnston, Harnett and Lee Counties as the...

Private groups, including many aligned with conservative Christian churches and activists, have received hundreds of millions of dollars in state government funding in recent years. But they aren’t being transparent about their operations, Democratic state senators said during a press conference Wednesday. It’s an accusation strongly denied by some of...

The chair of Henderson County’s Republican Party has been charged with assault on a female after a fellow GOP county officer said he grabbed her forcefully. Brett Callaway, 63, the head of Western North Carolina’s most prominent county GOP organization, was charged with the misdemeanor after summons issued on behalf...

North Carolina’s charter school board voted Monday to let two low-performing schools in Charlotte expand dramatically next year. The votes were a test of new powers granted to the charter board last year. Until last year, charter schools that had been designated low-performing couldn’t expand by more than 20% a...

Many Duke Energy customers saw higher energy bills last year due to a sharp increase in natural gas prices, according to a new report by the Environmental Defense Fund. The report examined how price fluctuations impact ratepayers’ electrical bills to make a pitch for more renewable energy. Fuel prices caused...

North Canton Elementary in Haywood County only runs one morning bus route, and at the wheel is Carol Harkins. She has been a bus driver for 25 years. “I like building those relationships with these kids, and just seeing how they get so comfortable with you, that sometimes they call...

State fisheries officials are asking lawmakers for another year to roll out a new harvest reporting requirement for coastal recreational anglers and commercial fishermen. “This will allow us more time to get the word out to the fishing public about the new law and to help them understand the importance...

A man convicted of killing his landlord’s adult son with a sawed-off shotgun is entitled to a new trial because the presiding judge failed to instruct jurors about a possible self-defense argument, the state Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday. A three-judge panel vacated the first-degree murder conviction of Ronald Wayne...

When UNC-Chapel Hill administrators closed the Campus Y building this spring, outcry from students and alumni was immediate. And while the building reopened under limited hours less than a week after it closed, student leaders have continued to feel that the fate of the space is unsettled. The Campus Y...

The North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission said its anonymous reporting program has been helpful in apprehending poachers since launching last year. The new anti-poaching program has led to the conviction of more than 20 people. NC Wildlife launched its NC WILDTIP program last November, allowing anonymous reports of poaching through...