A behemoth natural-gas facility, sitting atop a disrupted archeological site, represents the latest environmental challenge for one of the state’s most diverse yet burdened counties. But the debate over history, benefit, and protection is far more complicated than it first appears.
Past Stories
Posted inPolitics & Government
Searching for Mike Easley
He was once one of the state’s most popular politicians, and remains perhaps the most idiosyncratic governor North Carolina has ever had. Since he left office and was convicted of a felony, he’s hardly been heard from. We went looking for him.
Posted inCourts & Justice
Police Informants, Unchecked
Last month, prosecutors indicted a Raleigh police informant for fabricating drug trafficking cases. His story raises questions about how the police department manages its confidential informants, and why its officers have escaped accountability.
Posted inK-12 Education
The Making of a Mask Mandate
A fight over school mask mandates in a GOP county lauded for its high vaccination rate shows just how tough it is to lead a public institution in the midst of a fast-changing pandemic.
Posted inPolitics & Government
The Forgotten Lessons of the Hamlet Fire
Thirty years ago, a deadly fire at a chicken-processing plant in a poor North Carolina town prompted a push for employee safety. Now, workplace fatalities in the state are rising, and an Assembly investigation shows a federal agency involved in the tragedy failed to keep its promise.
Posted inHigher Education
Art, Power, and Profit at Duke University
Two longtime Duke faculty members are behind an anticipated $2 million in art sales that raise questions about the ethical use of public-domain images, power imbalances within academia, and a university’s thorny role as a gatekeeper of information and access.
Posted inEssay
The Afghanistan Papers
Craig Whitlock got his start scouring North Carolina for stories. Today, his seminal work on Afghanistan is a must-read for a nation trying to understand what went wrong in its twenty year war some seven thousand miles away.
Posted inHigher Education
The Archivist for the Lost Cause
J.G. de Roulhac Hamilton built UNC-Chapel Hill’s renowned Southern Historical Collection. He was also an apologist for the Ku Klux Klan and taught that Black people were inferior to whites. As the university debates removing the professor’s name from Hamilton Hall, his complicated legacy lives on in the archive.
Posted inPolitics & Government
North Carolina Aims for a Deal
An extraordinary state budget surplus puts a historic deal within reach. But that would require the Governor and legislative Republicans to put an acrimonious history behind them.
Posted inPolitics & Government
The Governor of Rural North Carolina
The gregarious, popular agriculture commissioner, Steve Troxler, won re-election in a landslide. But as the communities he champions shift around him, is he changing with them?