Alan Wooten/The Center Square  Dominance in national air power defense would be enhanced through three proposals awaiting action in the Committee on Armed Services, says senators from North Carolina and New Hampshire and some of their colleagues. Expanded fighter aircraft production, retention of mid-career Air Force aviators, and a program...

Peter H. Lewis/Asheville Watchdog In comments to financial analysts Friday, Sam Hazen, CEO of Nashville-based HCA Healthcare, cited “a significant workforce deficit” at Mission Hospital and a higher-than-expected number of sick people seeking care in the region. “We’re having to bring in labor – nursing (and) non-nursing – to support...

Justin Moore/WNCN News Deep inside a Fort Bragg training range near Southern Pines, U.S. Army soldiers spent the day testing a new weapon built for one of the fastest-growing threats in modern warfare: drones. About 20 soldiers trained Thursday with the Bumblebee counter-drone system, including the first local field testing...

Steve Harrison/WFAE Radio A leader in the influential Black Political Caucus of Charlotte-Mecklenburg said he is disillusioned that the Charlotte City Council hasn’t moved to stop the construction of the toll lanes on Interstate 77 in south Charlotte, a sign the issue remains potent. Raki McGregor, who chairs the BPC’s...

Sergio Osnaya-Prieto/Education NC North Carolina now ranks 32nd nationwide in preschool access for four-year-olds, according to the National Institute for Early Education Research’s (NIEER) 2025 State of Preschool Yearbook, dropping four positions from last year. The report finds that North Carolina Pre-K served 26,707 children, or 21% of the state’s...

Katherine Zehnder/The Carolina Journal In 2012, the US Postal Service began mandating that all new housing developments use cluster box units (CBUs) rather than individual mailboxes. According to Kim Phillips, regulatory affairs director for the Triad Real Estate and Building Industry Coalition (TREBIC), this new requirement, which wasn’t enforced in...

Emma Whitford/Inside Higher Ed One in 10 faculty members working in states that restrict academic speech are seeking jobs out of state, according to survey data released this week. Six percent reported they are trying to leave the academy altogether. The new data on relocating researchers underpins anecdotal stories about...

Zachery Eanes/Axios Raleigh Raleigh Police Chief Rico Boyce says his department is finally back to adequate staffing after years of shortages coming out of the pandemic. But as the city’s population continues to boom, he says the force must keep growing and be given the tools to focus on crime....

Aaron Sánchez-Guerra/WUNC News  Five years ago, 42-year-old Andrew Brown, Jr. died in his car a few yards away from his home in Elizabeth City, with a deputy sheriff’s bullet in the back of his head. Brown Jr.’s death in 2021 made international headlines as a national reckoning of racism and...

Monica Casey/WRAL News Students, faculty and WRAL keep pushing UNC to release results of an investigation into one of its schools. A review of the “School of Civic Life and Leadership” cost the university $1.2 million and wrapped up earlier this year. However, the full report still hasn’t come out....

Hudson Steiner/WECT News State environmental officials held a public hearing in Wilmington on Thursday for the proposed rules to monitor and reduce PFAS chemicals in North Carolina’s waterways. The meeting at the Wilmington Skyline Center drew such a large crowd that the fire marshal declared the venue at capacity and...

Caroline Yaffa & Will Doran/WRAL News Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools officials said Thursday that books in their libraries comply with state law, as do processes aimed at vetting the appropriateness of titles in the stacks — but didn’t appear to convince the Republican state lawmakers who had called them in...

Cory Vaillancourt/Smoky Mountain News A stretch of land along Ratcliff Cove Road — quiet, rural, long-defined by fields, creek-bottoms and generational ties — became the focal point of a larger question April 14, as Waynesville Town Council took up an annexation request that would determine not just what gets built...

Mackenzie Thomas/Carolina Public Press A series of alleged misconduct and removal cases within the past year involving Western North Carolina sheriffs has been making waves in the state’s mountain counties due to their rare occurrence, with the district attorney saying she’s “not seen it like this before.” The cases in...

Kadia Goba/NOTUS The House Ethics Committee interviewed a number of Rep. Alma Adams’ former aides as part of an investigation into an alleged inappropriate relationship between the lawmaker and a staffer who works out of her North Carolina district office, NOTUS has learned. Over the course of several months in...