With new national clean air protections in place, a UNC-Chapel Hill study suggests that future air quality measures may need to be more localized. The study, led by professor Sarav Arunachalam with UNC’s Institute for the Environment, looked at the national trends of tiny air-polluting particles known as fine particulate...

Huddled in the back of a fruit and vegetable stand in the south of Culiacán, the hitman scanned the area as he described the order he received regarding fentanyl producers operating on the outskirts of Sinaloa’s capital city. “They told us to kill anyone still producing fentanyl,” he explained. “There...

President Joe Biden came out in opposition to the planned sale of U.S. Steel to Nippon Steel of Japan, saying on Thursday that the U.S. needs to “maintain strong American steel companies powered by American steel workers.” In a statement, Biden added: “U.S. Steel has been an iconic American steel...

Nearly 5,000 students received a total of approximately $3 million in aid through the short-term workforce development grant program during the 2022-23 fiscal year, according to a legislative report approved by the State Board of Community Colleges March 15th. Approximately 1,136 students have received $510,712.83 in aid during the 2023-24...

A Virginia Commonwealth University-led project cataloging dementia cases and other neurodegenerative diseases across the state is poised to be codified into law, pending Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s signature, through a bill passed by the General Assembly this year. Founded in 2021 by now-VCU professor Dr. Annie Rhodes, the Virginia Memory Project...

Two women convicted in federal court of fraud while working at the Chatham County Housing Authority continue to hold key positions at a locally and federally funded nonprofit that helps low-income residents. Central Piedmont Community Action Inc., based in Siler City, assists people in Chatham, Durham, Orange and other counties...

The fight over whether Republicans keep their supermajority in the General Assembly will come down to just a handful of legislative districts. There are 120 seats in the House. Almost all are preordained in terms of who will win. The GOP has 72 of them — the minimum number needed...

Flicking heads off shrimp is one of the first jobs you learn when you’re born a Davis. Joseph “Jody” Davis remembers filling up a bucket of beheaded shrimp for his grandmother for a quarter when he was just 4 years old. “It wasn’t bad money in the ’70s,” he said,...

LaChunda Hunter was sitting at her dining room table one February morning when her phone rang. It was the hospital. The doctor on the phone told Hunter that things were looking up for Legacy, the tiny, premature girl Hunter had delivered at Novant Presbyterian nine days earlier. Hunter said she...

Dollar General is backing away from the self-checkout trend in retail. The company is pulling out self-checkout stands in 300 stores that have the highest levels of shoplifting and merchandise losses. In 9,000 other stores, Dollar General is converting some or all of its self-checkout registers to regular checkout with...

People in North Carolina may have a little more riding on this year’s NCAA men’s and women’s basketball tournaments, as they will be able to legally bet on the games through their smartphone apps and computers for the first time. For the sixth straight year, the number of states allowing...

When Donald Trump appeared in Richmond the weekend before Virginia’s presidential primary, he vowed that if he’s returned to the White House, “we will begin the largest domestic deportation operation in American history.” This is not new; he’s said this before. Still, this is a serious policy vow, and one...

About 30 people gathered at Navassa’s Town Hall last week, and another 18 tuned in virtually, to hear representatives from Greenfield Environmental Multistate Trust make a long-awaited announcement: Cleanup of the town’s Superfund site was underway. The focus of the remediation project is a 100-acre area, the former location of...

The federal government has placed restrictive uses on the city-owned parcel, shown here in the purple-shaded area, because of its proximity to Military Ocean Terminal Sunny Point. Map: Brunswick County GIS The federal government has placed restrictive uses on the city-owned parcel, shown here in the purple-shaded area, because of...

As a coastal community, Wilmington’s skyline has traditionally been pretty flat. Increasingly, though, developers want to build taller and taller buildings. First, locals saw the rise of the 193-foot PPD headquarters downtown (now owned by the city and known as the Skyline Center), and then came the 13-story River Place,...