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Ag Commissioner Troxler opts in; 770 workers under Treasurer Folwell, Labor Commissioner Berry will not benefit Beginning next month, new parents working for the state will be able to take up to eight weeks of paid parental leave.

Before the State Board of Education approved its new five-year strategic plan, SBE member James E. Ford was asked to clarify the meaning of the word "equity," which is a reoccurring theme throughout the document. That proved easy work for Ford, who co-chaired the SBE Strategic Planning Committee. He’s also a professional consultant on issues of equity in education who just released a major report on the subject.

Last week Robin Jordan shared her experience at a field hearing on Medicaid expansion organized by N.C. Senator Paul Lowe (D-Forsyth) and Rep. Evelyn Terry (D-Forsyth). It wasn’t her perspective as a registered nurse she shared Friday at the Wake Forest School of Medicine in Winston-Salem. It was her experience as a mother.

Every year, North Carolina removes registered voters from its voter rolls as part of a maintenance routine required by state and federal laws. The removal is often referred to as “purging,” but North Carolina State Board of Elections spokesman Pat Gannon said the term is “an overused, inaccurate and misleading way to describe maintenance of the voter rolls.” Below is information from the State Board about its voter list maintenance process in 2017 and 2018, as well as nationwide voter “purge” data from the Brennan Center for Justice.

Numerous questions remain, however, about the treatment of dozens of other trans inmates Kanautica Zayre-Brown made history Thursday. When the Department of Public Safety moved her from Warren Correctional Institution in Manson to Anson Correctional Institution in Polkton, she became the first transgender prisoner in North Carolina to be transferred from a prison designated for one gender to one designated for another.

The Trump Administration’s new public charge rule will do more to keep families separated than it will to discourage immigrants from using public benefits by implementing a “wealth test” and defining the type of foreigner they’re willing to let stay in this country.

GIBSONVILLE -- The tobacco fields near East Guilford High School are reminders of times bygone when getting into trouble at school meant a trip to the principal’s office, and maybe a phone call to a child’s parents. A paddling by the principal, now banned in most places, and a severe scolding at home were about the worst outcomes for a student who misbehaved.

They clutter the gutters and girdle the turtles. They snag in the trees and float in the seas.  Plastic bags are strangling the planet. To reduce the amount of plastic waste in Durham, the city-county Environmental Affairs Board last week unanimously endorsed a proposed draft ordinance that would assess a 10-cent fee on most single-use plastic and paper bags, as well as Styrofoam containers, at many food and retail outlets.

If you struggle to pay your rent or mortgage each month, this next fact won’t surprise you: In no state in the U.S. can a worker who earns the federal minimum wage afford a modest two-bedroom rental home working the standard 40-hour work week.

Complex rules, poor coordination by regulators have allowed single property owner to put Raleigh's water supply in harm's way First, the land suffocating under 40 feet of dirt and construction trash was to become a horse pasture. But no horses ever arrived.

Editor's note: On August 26th and 27th, the North Carolina Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in six death penalty cases involving the Racial Justice Act -- a law enacted by the North Carolina General Assembly and Gov. Beverly Perdue in 2009 and later repealed after Republicans took control of the legislature and the Governor's mansion in 2013. The following review of the law and its history...

State Representative Marcia Morey, flanked by fellow Democratic lawmakers, implored Republican members on Tuesday to join them in taking action on two gun bills that have been languishing in committee since they were introduced early in the 2019 legislative session.

Levels of 1,4-Dioxane, which the EPA has linked to cancer, increased for a fourth straight month in raw water entering the Cape Fear River Authority’s Sweeney plant in Wilmington, according to the utility.

Essie Mae Kiser Foxx Charter School in the Rowan County town of East Spencer recently notified the Charter School Advisory Board that it will part ways with its management firm – Raleigh-based Torchlight Academy Services (TAS) – after only one year due to poor fiscal and operational management.

If you drive through eastern North Carolina some days, especially in the wet heat of a summer afternoon, you might become immersed in the stench of hog waste. Many farmers hail it as the smell of money. Some neighbors of the industrialized swine operations denounce it as the foul air of misery. But for Murphy-Brown and their insurance companies, the odor represents nearly $100 million in damages and legal fees from hog nuisance lawsuits that as it stands today, somebody will have to pay.

In a one-on-one interview, Satana Deberry explains how she's transforming the prosecutor's office in NC's 6th largest county When Satana Deberry was executive director of the North Carolina Housing Coalition, it was easy for her to see the ripple effects of interactions with the justice system. A single arrest, a single plea, a single conviction for even a low level infraction could close doors to employment, housing and education, she said. That could lead to further arrests, perpetuating generational cycles of poverty.