Alli Lindenberg/Education NC “I cannot tell you how good it feels to be back in eastern North Carolina,” said Dr. Maria Pharr, president of Pitt Community College. In mid-August, Pharr began her tenure as president at Pitt Community College after serving as president of South Piedmont Community College for seven...

Elvis Menayese/WFAE Radio Smith, 15, has been looking after horses at Shining Hope Farms in north Charlotte for four months. On a recent weekday, he was learning how to ride one. Being around the farm is a new experience for him — it’s one he’s enjoying. “I never had an...

Kimberly King/WLOS News Clay Eddleman, the chairman of Henderson County’s Election Board, addressed about 50 citizens on Monday, Sept. 16, during an emergency board meeting to state Linda Rebuck would remain on the board. The meeting comes after last week’s controversy around Rebuck’s email to about 30 Republican state legislators....

Paul Nielsen/The (Waynesville) Mountaineer It’s back to the drawing board for a proposal that would allow Waynesville property owners to build additional homes on their lots in town. The Waynesville town council unanimously voted at its meeting Tuesday night that the town’s planning staff and its planning board get on...

Paul Woolverton/CityView The Sandhills summer put a sheen on the forehead of Fayetteville State University Chancellor Darrell T. Allison on an early July morning. Despite the stifling temperature and humidity, Allison kept his blazer buttoned as he shook hands and greeted construction workers, politicians, trustees, and students. They were gathering...

Danielle Battaglia/The (Raleigh) News & Observer A North Carolina man found himself in custody Sunday after the Secret Service’s advance team noticed a barrel of a gun sticking through a fence at the hole where former President Donald Trump was about to play golf. The Secret Service fired at the...

Jack Igelman/Carolina Public Press On Wednesday April 19, 2023, a campfire may have sparked a wildfire in a pine forest in the core of the 160,000-acre Croatan National Forest, about 20 miles southwest of New Bern. Known as the Great Lakes Fire, the blaze spread from its source to several...

Anne Blythe/NC Health News Ana Ilarraza-Blackburn becomes animated when talking about how immigrant communities are thrust into the state and national spotlight during election years. Her voice grows louder, its cadence quickens and she unleashes an impassioned assessment about the negative health impact that political rhetoric can have on immigrant...

Katie Myers/Blue Ridge Public Radio Macon County commissioners have curbed local restrictions that aimed to reduce soil erosion and stream sedimentation. Landowners and developers now will be subject to North Carolina soil disturbance requirements, instead of a more stringent ordinance that’s been in place locally since 2001. In August, Macon...

John Boyle/Asheville Watchdog As former Buncombe County Sheriff Van Duncan was winding down his third term in office in 2017, he accepted a $124,871 retention bonus designed to keep key employees in their jobs. The bonus, offered by former Buncombe County Manager Wanda Greene, who later served time in federal...

Ben Rappaport/Border Belt Independent Danny Parsley and his family were excited to move from northern Virginia to Lumberton, where they appreciate the small-town charm and more affordable housing prices. Shortly after they arrived in April and settled in a quaint neighborhood on the north end of town, however, they quickly...

NW Observer Summerfield is getting a permanent manager: Charles “Twig’” Rollins from the eastern North Carolina town of Magnolia. The Town Council voted unanimously last night to approve an employment agreement with Rollins, at an annual salary of $140,000. He starts work Oct. 13. Rollins emerged from a list of...

Tyler Davis/The (Henderson) Daily Dispatch On Sept. 11, Vance County Sheriff’s deputies found 21-year-old Javion Magee at 285 Vanco Mill Road deceased, sitting up against a tree outside a fenced-in area — one end of a rope tied around his neck and the other on a tree branch. Officials moved...

Aaleah McConnell/WHQR The long-contested civil case filed by the former director of the Wilmington Crime Lab was officially dismissed by Superior Court Judge Hoyt Tessener, following last month’s hearing. In a sparse ruling, Superior Court Judge Hoyt Tessener noted only that there was “no genuine issue of material fact” to...

Emily Walkenhorst/WRAL News School bus drivers in some of North Carolina’s biggest counties are being driven away by disjointed workdays, low wages and unruly kids — a brew of factors leading them to higher-paying commercial driving jobs. The scenario is leaving school districts struggling to service routes and scrambling to...