☀️ In Today’s Edition

1. A Few New Faces
2. The Forever War
3. Around Our Network
4. What We’re Reading
5. Our Recent Stories

Welcome to the Team!

We wanted to kick off the week with a few introductions, since we’ve recently added new faces to The Assembly Network.

Korie Dean starts this week as our newest higher ed reporter and co-author of The Quad. Many of you already know her work on the beat at The News & Observer, and we are overjoyed to not be competing with her for scoops.

Sarah Day Owen Wiskirchen will be anchoring a new newsletter for us based in western Wake County, which is debuting shortly. She previously held a number of editorial and audience roles, including as a senior editor at USA Today and The Desert Sun, and has been a local news entrepreneur here in N.C.

We also added two new folks to our team down in Fayetteville. Rachel Heimann Mercader is CityView‘s new government reporter. She has reported from Memphis, the Bay Area, Florida, and Chicago, and has an eye for accountability stories. Dasia Williams joined last week as CityView‘s K-12 education reporter. She comes to us from the Chattanooga Times Free Press and has written for Open Campus Media and The Charlotte Observer.

We’re excited to work with all of them!

Have a news tip for our team? You can reach us at scoops@theassemblync.com.

In 2013, scientists first discovered seven different types of PFAS in the Lower Cape Fear River, the drinking water source for several public utilities in the region. The insidious chemicals were eluding traditional water treatment systems and flowing through the taps of hundreds of thousands of people. 

The scientists traced many of the compounds to Chemours’ Fayetteville Works plant, 80 miles upstream. State and federal documents indicate that the plant had been tainting the water for decades.

It took several more years for that information to reach the public. But once it did, it kicked off a massive campaign to get officials to regulate the chemicals. Advocates finally prevailed in 2024, when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced it would regulate five types of PFAS. But as Lisa Sorg reports in the first of a multi-part series for Inside Climate News, the celebratory period didn’t last long.

A Short-Lived Win in a Never-Ending Fight Over Forever Chemicals

For seven years, N.C. activists overcame political and scientific hurdles to convince the EPA to regulate PFAS in drinking water. Now they’re confronting a Trump administration intent on quashing their success.

When Jarrod Lowery announced last month he was leaving the state House for a job in the Trump administration, he declined to share details about his new job. Now he tells Border Belt Independent where he’s heading.

After 20 years of discussion and planning, the Durham Rail Trail stretching along an inactive railroad corridor is finally entering its final stage of development, INDY reports.

What would it take to turn Fayetteville into an arts mecca? CityView columnist Tim White has some ideas.

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What We’re Reading

The Old College Try: “Only five games into Belichick’s first season, UNC football has spiraled from nationally relevant to national punchline,” The Athletic reports.

Whoop (Here It Is): North Carolina is seeing an uptick in pertussis cases, per WFAE.

E for Effort: All 10o N.C. counties will be launched on eCourts as of Monday, WCNC reports. As we’ve reported previously, the rollout of the $100 million digital records system has face technical and legal challenges. 

Our Recent Stories

Joy Follows the Flood

After a year that was both hard and heartening, much of the mountain community of Lansing has finally reopened.

UNC-Chapel Hill’s Lesson in Civics

The School of Civic Life and Leadership’s hiring battle is part of a long-running rupture over the mission of similar efforts.

Why Politicians Learned to Love the Sales Tax

The combined state and local sales tax has more than doubled since 1970. Now Mecklenburg voters are mulling another increase.

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