A lawsuit in eastern North Carolina could force almost one-quarter of the state’s public school districts to start their school years later than they’d like in 2025 and beyond — a legal battle that is causing consternation among coastal business and local education officials. About 27 of the state’s 115...

She opens the door wearing a gray tank top, Hello Kitty pajama pants and pink fuzzy slippers. With her 6-year-old son standing quietly beside her, she listens patiently as Liz Purvis begins discussing what’s at stake in the election this November. The woman, Cynthia, tells Purvis she doesn’t watch the...

As Eric Spirtas does his research before possibly buying the Canton paper mill site, he says he’s discovering the property’s unique nature. “You’re not like anybody,” the president of Spirtas Worldwide said, pointing to the downtown location and the many possibilities for the site. Pactiv Evergreen shut down the mill...

UNC Asheville Chancellor Kimberly van Noort announced six program eliminations, including four academic departments and two language concentrations. Religious studies at UNC Asheville hasn’t always had its own department. In the early 2000s, it was considered a branch of the philosophy department and offered to students as a minor. That...

State lawmakers dropped language from a bill that would have shielded autopsies from public review, but the Senate’s thumbs-up on the revised measure June 12 may not be the end of the issue. The previous language could return in a future session, state Sen. Danny Britt Jr. (R-Lumberton) said at...

In 2023, the drinking water produced by the Fayetteville Public Works Commission had as much as 28 times the maximum level of “forever chemical” contaminants in it than the Environmental Protection Agency will allow under new standards announced this spring. Since the EPA did not set a standard until April...

Greensboro residents voiced frustration with city officials about a proposal to move contaminated soil from Bingham Park to a local landfill at a community meeting on Wednesday. The plan, if approved, would involve moving more than 11,000 truckloads of dirt to the White Street Landfill. The site is the closet...

Mission Health board members were blindsided by HCA Healthcare’s decision to aggressively cut patient care staff in order to save money following its purchase of the hospital system in 2019, according to a working draft of a study out of Wake Forest University from a leading scholar on health care...

Damage to a utility’s power equipment by gunfire found in Durham was associated with an outage that left hundreds of people without power earlier this week, the company said. About 730 people experienced a power outage for about two hours on Monday after reports of “a fire and equipment failure”...

Two stabbings in less than a month at Scotland Correctional Institution in Laurinburg have brought renewed scrutiny to the prison that has been plagued with reports of mistreatment, unsafe conditions and overcrowding. The most recent incident, on April 30, resulted in the death of 39-year-old Christopher Michael Edwards, who was...

North Carolina lawmakers have expanded their reach over state government. At the same time, they’ve made it harder for the public to see what they’re doing. State legislative leaders two years ago tucked $6 million into the state budget for a newly formed company developing a novel COVID treatment —...

Lawyers representing state legislative leaders were in court Thursday in Raleigh, arguing to throw out an anti-gerrymandering lawsuit that targets the state’s new political districts. The lawsuit argues that the state constitution guarantees the right to fair elections, and it says the new districts violate that promise. The Republican-led legislature...

As Dollar Tree looks for a buyer for the North Carolina-founded Family Dollar franchise, what comes next for shoppers relying on its cheap goods remains unclear. Based in the Charlotte area since Family Dollar’s foundation in 1959, Virginia-based Dollar Tree purchased the chain in 2015 for $8.5 billion, then shuttered...

Insufficient child care is costing North Carolina about $5.65 billion each year, a new study from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation estimates. The report, released in partnership with the N.C. Chamber Foundation and NC Child, looked at the ways a lack of child care access hurts the state’s economy....

At a sparsely attended meeting in May at the Carrboro-based Orange Water and Sewer Authority board member Todd BenDor asked Stephen Winters, OWASA’s executive deputy director, an expensive question about what it would cost the utility to clean up the PFAS present in its water, which supplies about 80,000 customers...