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Chemours – the billion-dollar company responsible for contaminating the drinking water of hundreds of thousands of people in the Lower Cape Fear River Basin, the company that is challenging the EPA’s scientific findings that GenX is toxic, the company that after 28 months has yet to submit a revised corrective action plan to clean up polluted groundwater...

A new federal Inspector General's report found that ReBuild NC couldn't provide "reasonable assurance" that $2.5 million in Hurricane Matthew disaster relief funds had been "properly spent," according to an audit dated Sept. 16 and published by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development. If the state can't provide documentation for those expenditures, it must repay those funds to HUD.

Shaletta Ryans went to court Monday afternoon without even having to leave jail. She appeared in a Guilford County courtroom via a live video feed, her image beaming onto five computer screens in front of prosecutors, a public defender and a judge. She didn’t say much, but the courtroom’s speakers rattled with the sound of chains, the cacophonous soundtrack of jail.

For the better part of the past century, the American electric power system evolved around large, mostly fossil fuel power plants delivering electricity to residences, businesses and industry through a network of transmission and distribution wires that collectively came to be called the electric grid. But as the threat of climate change driven by carbon pollution becomes more dire and as technological advances make wind, solar and battery storage ever cheaper options for powering homes and business, states, corporations and voters are increasingly pushing to aggressively decarbonize the grid.

The historical DuPont corporation -- known in court records as "Old DuPont" -- has parked roughly $20 billion in two “paper companies” (which have no employees, offices or equipment) to shield those assets from legal liability, a lawyer for the North Carolina Attorney General argued before the state Supreme Court today.

Despite being historically underfunded and cheated out of proper allocations as land grant universities, North Carolina’s historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) have announced record-breaking enrollment, donations, expanding programs and campuses in the last two years. Elizabeth City State University - the smallest of the UNC System’s HBCUs -  - has seen a recent series of big announcements as it continues to recover from an enrollment slump, grow its programs and offerings and attract new students from North Carolina and beyond.

They arrived with folded papers pulled from their pockets. Some came carrying folders that brimmed with documents neatly arranged in binder clips. Others arrived empty-handed, but hoped to leave with answers. With scores more watching in person and online, survivors of hurricanes Matthew and Florence spoke before a state government oversight committee Wednesday about the injustices they have endured – a direct result of the bungled disaster relief program run by the NC Office of Recovery and Resiliency, also known as ReBuild NC. 

Commissioners’ meetings in Surry County are a showcase of election conspiracy theories where distrust of the machines that count ballots plays a starring role   This story is part of a project called Democracy Day, in which newsrooms across the country are shining a light on threats to democracy.  The northwestern North Carolina county on the Virginia border is probably best known as the home of Mount Airy, the birthplace of Andy Griffith and the inspiration for Mayberry in his eponymous television show from the 1960s. This year, Surry County has been a stop on the circuit for prominent election deniers who falsely maintain that votes were engineered to have President Joe Biden win in 2020. 

State lawmakers aware of the erroneous deductions in March Bobbie Cavnar, a Gaston County Schools high school English teacher, was shocked last month when his paystub showed $1,600 worth of unexplained deductions. Fortunately for the 2016-17 North Carolina Teacher of the Year, his spouse works, and the couple could transfer money from savings to cover monthly bills.

Cases were moving slowly through Courtroom 2A on Monday morning. Several of those whose names were written on a criminal docket pinned to the wall in the lobby grumbled that they had to get a move on. They didn’t want to spend their whole day at the Chatham County Courthouse. The room got quiet when District Court Judge Samantha Cabe called Garima Sinha’s name. Sinha took her place beside her public defender, Melissa A. French, and stood in front of a microphone, her back to what would soon become a rapt audience. Sinha had been charged with assault and battery and injury to real property, both misdemeanors, and assault by strangulation, a felony.

Faculty members at UNC Chapel Hill have often spoken their minds – but in some cases, they have done so at their own peril. Political appointees on the UNC Board of Governors have targeted academic centers whose work they oppose. They have allegedly meddled in faculty hiring decisions for political reasons.

Republican lawmakers have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to end state court oversight of federal elections and pro-democracy advocates are pushing back  It’s a pending U.S. Supreme Court case about the control of elections, a subject most people don’t think about every day. But Moore vs. Harper has become a rallying cry for the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, Common Cause NC and other voting rights groups...

In the mid-20th century, Chapel Hill residents unknowingly strolled the streets in a miasma of coal ash. Until federal regulations required the UNC coal-fired power plant to install pollution controls, the ash carpeted the town, its residents -- and its residents' lungs -- in invisible particles. In addition, hundreds of thousands of tons of leftover fly ash was dumped, along with other trash, at what is now 828 Martin Luther King Blvd., the home of the Chapel Hill Police Department.

WASHINGTON — Democrats in the U.S. Senate are confident the Department of Veterans Affairs can implement a new policy that allows its doctors to provide abortions when the pregnancy threatens the patient’s life or health, or when it's the result of rape or incest.  The VA announced the new policy last week to cheers from Democrats who have been searching for ways to broaden abortion access in states where the procedure has been outlawed since the U.S. Supreme Court ended the constitutional right to abortion in June.

It's still unclear if the source of the arsenic is naturally occurring or a former lithium mine Before Abby and Jason Hollis bought their 1,200-square-foot house on Laboratory Road in rural Lincolnton, the inspector required them to test their drinking water well, a routine step when purchasing a home.

First Lady Jill Biden will accompany Sec. Miguel Cardona to NC next week as part of "Road to Success Back to School Bus Tour" WASHINGTON — Amid K-12 teacher shortages, book bans and attacks over critical race theory, U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona at a meeting with reporters on Wednesday stressed the need for higher salaries to attract prospective educators to the profession.