Elena Marsh/The Southern Pines Pilot Local tourism officials are beginning to see greater revenue totals flowing in following January’s increase of the room occupancy tax rate. The Board of Commissioners last year approved raising the rate from 3 to 6 percent per night on accommodations. From the start of its...

Chase Pellegrini de Paur/IndyWeek  The Durham County government has spent the last month practically begging the Durham Public Schools (DPS) Board of Education to lower its expectations for county funding. Take DPS’s $11 million continuation request—the funding increase that administrators say would do nothing except maintain DPS services at their...

WSOC News The Catawba County Board of Education unanimously approved a plan Monday to begin contract negotiations for a middle school expansion project. The additions and renovations are estimated to cost between $120 million and $140 million, officials said. The board selected LS3P as the design firm and Hickory Construction...

Thérèse Boudreaux/The Center Square  Only 10 U.S. senators voted against the bipartisan housing bill that restricts large institutional investors from buying up single family homes and requires investors to sell build-to-rent homes within seven years. Those lawmakers also each received tens or sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars in 2024...

Paul Woolverton/CityView The Fayetteville Public Works Commission voted on Wednesday to hire Harper General Contractors for $133.7 million to build “forever chemical” filtration systems at the utility’s two water treatment plants. The action is to comply with anti-pollution regulations from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The filtering systems, which will...

Brian Murphy/WRAL News  The University of North Carolina has suspended discussions about the future of the Smith Center until the Tar Heels hire their next men’s basketball coach and that coach has had time to develop his program, potentially pushing any decision on a basketball arena decision into the future....

Kate Denning/Carolina Public Press In the wake of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Tim Hall, a K-12 Social Studies Instructional Specialist at Vance County Schools and former president of the North Carolina Council for the Social Studies, learned in real time that he didn’t know how to teach...

Andrew Marshall/The Waynesville Mountaineer A tear-jerker of a video extolling the virtues of Haywood County has won two major national awards, and if you watch it, you’ll see why. The video, produced by the Haywood County Tourism Development Authority as part of its 2025 rebranding, took home Gold and Best...

Emma Cooke/WCHL Chapelboro Orange County’s Board of Commissioners recently met with Mebane to discuss ways to plan for the future of the city and how to accommodate its growing population. Although currently the county’s smallest municipality, it is also its fastest growing one. In Dec. the city’s council adopted “Mebane...

Laura Hackett/Blue Ridge Public Radio An estimated 130 people in Buncombe County are still homeless as a result of Hurricane Helene. And the total number of unhoused people has increased to 824, a 9% uptick from last year. That’s according to the Point-in-Time Count, an annual, HUD-mandated survey that relies...

Lydia Winstead/The Daily Tar Heel Even before UNC junior Eloise Herdegen began to learn Russian at UNC, she had experience speaking the language and studying abroad in Kyrgyzstan. In the summer before her first year at UNC, she participated in the National Security Language Initiative for Youth, a  weekslong program...

Rachel Crumpler/NC Health News The Central Prison Healthcare Complex bustles with activity. Inside the 600,000-square-foot Raleigh facility, incarcerated men from across North Carolina shuffle through the five-story building for medical care, ranging from dental procedures, imaging, specialty care or even surgery in one of two on-site operating rooms. Some arrive...

Mary Helen Moore/Axios Raleigh  NIL money is allowing some Duke basketball players to live in downtown Durham’s most high-end apartment building. Why it matters: In the NCAA’s new era, Division I athletes have gained access to a lifestyle that just five years ago would have risked sanctions or been reserved...

Steve Harrison/WFAE Radio A board member for the North Carolina Department of Transportation said Wednesday night that if Charlotte rejects a plan to build toll lanes on Interstate 77, he would question whether the state should fund other transportation projects in the city. Opponents of the I-77 project said DOT...

Rian Stockett/WLOS News After receiving federal approval, the North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT) will move forward with its newest plans for the Interstate 26 Connector project. It affects the northern section of the project, from the Haywood Road/I-240 interchange to the north end. “We can begin construction, which is...