Trains The North Carolina Railroad Co. has awarded two $500,000 grants to prepare rail-served industrial sites for future development and has opened applications for the next round of the grant program. Harnett County and Greensboro received the grants under the NCRR’s Build Ready Sites program. “The best time to prepare...

Will Doran/WRAL News Members of N.C. State’s 1983 national championship men’s basketball team told the North Carolina Supreme Court Tuesday that former student-athletes should be paid if their university or the NCAA uses their name, image or likeness — an argument that could lead to compensation for hundreds of former...

Molly Steur/Education NC As teachers across North Carolina finish setting up their classrooms for the new school year, they often spend their own money to fill in the gaps of what is needed for their students. Some teachers share their classroom needs with the public, adding donation requests to a...

Flynn Snyder/WRAL News A committee of Cary Town Council members met Tuesday evening as fallout continues from a recent state auditor’s report that revealed “questionable” spending of taxpayer dollars. For the first time, the committee met to discuss recommendations stemming from several reviews of Cary’s financial practices, including the state...

Lily Levin/Smoky Mountain News Swain County Manager Tommy Dills at a Sept. 1 commission meeting proposed the county purchase 67 Lakeview Drive, colloquially known as the airport property, for nearly $3 million. No tax increase would be necessary, he said, to finance the transaction. Commissioners appeared unanimously onboard with Dills’...

Brenna Flanagan/Port City Daily The public has a little more than a month to provide feedback before it’s decided whether the Cape Fear Memorial Bridge will be replaced with a 65-foot movable span bridge or 135-foot fixed bridge. However, the City of Wilmington is forging its own plan after determining...

Trista Talton/Coastal Review Online Five days a week, John Richards drives the roughly 15-minute commute from his rural Beaufort County home to the Bayview Ferry Terminal or, as he calls it, the “working man’s ferry.” The half-hour ferry ride across the Pamlico River to Aurora shaves off about 45 minutes...

Paul Nielsen/The Waynesville Mountaineer One Waynesville councilmember is seeking a legal opinion on what the town can do to better regulate the ever-growing list of new multi-family developments being proposed. Councilmember Jon Feichter asked Town Attorney Martha Bradley to draft a narrow legal opinion on what options Waynesville has to...

Ted Clifford/Asheville Watchdog In August, UNC Health Pardee celebrated the opening of a 23-bed adolescent mental health unit. Dozens of people crowded into the future dayroom; standing against walls painted carefully chosen tones of soothing blue and green and sitting in chairs that are too heavy to lift, or throw....

Alex Perri/Smoky Mountain News Jackson County Commissioners voted 4-1 to shoot down a $105 million school bond referendum at a Sept. 1 meeting, leaving county schools in the lurch for funding millions of dollars of capital improvement projects across the district. Now, tough decisions must be made regarding what projects...

Emma Dill/WilmingtonBiz Film incentives, the New Hanover Community Endowment and funding for transportation and infrastructure projects, such as the replacement of the Cape Fear Memorial Bridge, proved hot topics for local and state-level candidates during the Greater Wilmington Business Journal’s Power Breakfast on Thursday. The event brought together candidates vying...

Molly Steur/Education NC The State Board of Education convened for its monthly meeting this week, where the Board heard a presentation on 2025-26 school accountability data, which showed, among other things, that the statewide graduation rate increased a full percentage point to 88.8% — the highest graduation rate in North...

Bill Moss & Amy B. McCraw/Hendersonville Lightning Given the early freezes, late frosts, windstorms, hurricanes and floods that have battered Henderson County’s apple crop over the years, it’s a rare season when growers are pleased with the harvest. “It’s not perfect, but it’s probably the best situation we’ve had in...

Shaun Gallagher, Brian Murphy & Jack Hagel/WRAL News Michael Lombardi, who resigned Thursday as the general manager of the University of North Carolina’s football program, won’t have to pay the university for leaving before the expiration of his contract, a person familiar with the mechanics of his departure told WRAL....

Daneen Khan/WUNC News Stepping into the UNC-Chapel Hill Herbarium feels similar to entering a witch’s lair. There’s no bubbling cauldrons, but jars of dried plants and vials of extracted oils line a glass cabinet near the entryway. A hodgepodge of yellowed pages and handwritten notes cover nearly every flat surface....