Chris Burritt/Business North Carolina Stokes County commissioners approved a request for the rezoning of nearly 1,850 acres along the Dan River at the Virginia border for a data center, despite residents’ concerns about noise and other threats to the environment and quality of life. The 3-2 vote Monday rebuffed an...

Carly Haynes/WRAL News Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman has consulted with the state auditor’s office and the State Bureau of Investigation in examining the town of Cary’s financial mismanagement. On Monday, North Carolina State Auditor Dave Boliek said a preliminary look into the town’s finances showed there was potential...

Brandon Kingdollar/NC Newsline An investigation by the North Carolina State Board of Elections found that two contributions by lobbyists to Rep. Sarah Stevens’ state Supreme Court campaign were illegal, but said they did not represent an “intentional violation.” The board issued warning letters to the Stevens campaign as well as...

James Farrell/WFAE Radio Elon University said Tuesday that it has applied to the American Bar Association for approval to launch a full-time, 2.5-year law school in Charlotte, in addition to its existing four-year, part-time program in Charlotte and another full-time law program in Greensboro. The new law program will be...

Tulsi Asokan/The Daily Tar Heel Recipients of the North Carolina Scholarship for Children of Wartime Veterans were notified in November that their spring 2026 awards would be reduced or “prorated” by 25 percent, and the notice attributed the reduction to limited funding amid delays in passing a state budget. The...

Paul Woolverton/CityView More than five years ago, a Cumberland County sheriff’s deputy shot and killed Adrian Roberts while trying to take him into custody for mental health care. The shooting led to a wrongful death lawsuit from Roberts’ wife that is still being litigated. The deputy, Justin Evans, last week...

Cory Vaillancourt/Smoky Mountain News The Republican-led North Carolina State Board of Elections voted 3-2 along party lines to allow the closure of a Democrat-leaning early voting site at Western Carolina University, against overwhelming opposition from the people the closure would affect. “It’s a war on students,” board member Siobhan O’Duffy...

Emma Cooke/WCHL Chapelboro Particularly following cuts to SNAP amid President Donald Trump’s administration changing federal funding norms, nonprofit organizations battling food insecurity in Chatham and Orange counties are struggling to sustain the increasing number of families who depend on them. In a conversation from last month’s Forum On The Hill...

Sergio Osnaya-Prieto/Education NC A new Department of Public Instruction (DPI) report says that 100% of traditional public school districts currently have a 1-to-1 digital device-to-student ratio, though many districts are struggling to replace old or damaged devices due to a lack of funding. Dr. Ashley McBride, a digital learning initiative...

Jill Doss-Raines/The High Point Enterprise Speaking as a parent and grandparent — not as a school board member — Mur DeJonge urged the Davidson County Board of Education to take stronger action on what he called “age-inappropriate, sexually explicit content” in school libraries. He said he followed the district’s formal...

Will Doran/WRAL News Hundreds of new manufacturing jobs are coming to Wilson, Gov. John Stein announced Friday, as Johnson & Johnson has decided to build a multibillion-dollar expansion onto their existing operations in town. The pharmaceutical giant has been heavily investing in North Carolina recently, spending billions on its Wilson...

The Washington Post While patrolling for Immigration and Customs Enforcement with other volunteers, two days after an officer from the federal agency fatally shot a woman in her car in this city, Sagal Ali repeated a mantra: “We will not obstruct their path. We are not escalating.” A text chat...

Rachel Heimann Mercader/CityView The annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. parade in downtown Fayetteville has been postponed—but members of the committee that runs it have conflicting explanations about why. As of Friday, the committee had not announced a new date for the parade, which was originally scheduled for January 17...

Mona Dougani/WFAE Radio Outside the Bechtler Museum of Art in uptown Charlotte, more than 200 Iranian Americans gathered Sunday afternoon to protest and stand in solidarity with Iranians demonstrating against the Islamic Republic in Iran. About 200 people waved the shir o khorshid, the Lion and Sun flag, Iran’s former...

Sarah Michels/Carolina Public Press Bobby Jenkins used to be a registered unaffiliated voter. In fact, he ran for Swain County Board of Commissioners in 2024 under the unaffiliated label and won a seat. His feat was rare. Jenkins was one of 49 unaffiliated candidates in North Carolina’s 2024 elections, and...