Due South

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Year in Review: WUNC reporters recap biggest stories of the year

WUNC Military Affairs Reporter Jay Price gives us a rundown of his top stories of the year.

Jay Price, military and veteran affairs reporter, WUNC

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Checking in with Durham's Hayti Heritage Center

As Hayti Heritage Center wraps its 50th year, the organization finds itself facing a need to reset, after financial and staffing issues have led to celebration postponements and cancellations. New artistic director Tyra Dixon talks about an ambitious roster of events slated for 2026 and the changes to both the center and the neighborhood surrounding it.

Tyra Dixon, artistic director, Hayti Heritage Center

Marcus Greene, board member, Hayti Heritage Center

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Medicaid and autism therapy coverage 

Families of children with autism faced uncertainty amid Medicaid reduction of payment for therapy. The Assembly’s Johanna Still joins us to discuss ABA therapy coverage cuts and their recent reversal.

Johanna Still, investigative reporter, The Assembly

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On the North Carolina News Roundup... President Trump offers a Truth Social endorsement of a leading state Republican in the face of an upcoming primary. With health care subsidies set to expire, a reversal of sorts within Medicaid. And credit card fees are on the rise this holiday season. Due South co-host Jeff Tiberii and a panel of journalists cover the week in NC news.

Guests

Mary Helen Moore, reporter for Axios Raleigh

Claudia Rivera Cotto, Political Reporter, Enlace Latino NC

Danielle Battaglia, Capitol Hill correspondent, The News & Observer/The Charlotte Observer/McClatchy

Nathan Collins, investigative reporter, The News & Observer

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In this first installment of Due South’s Year in Review conversations with WUNC reporters, co-host Jeff Tiberii talks with K-12 education reporter Liz Schlemmer about the most memorable stories she covered in 2025 and what she’ll be watching for in 2026.

Liz Schlemmer, K-12 Education Reporter, WUNC

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The college football bowl season starts this weekend. Then come the playoffs, which continue for a month until the national championship game in January.

For fans, the football frenzy starts and ends with the games. But for the players at big time football schools, living the football life is all consuming. And for Black players in these programs – who comprise large portions of teams, but small fractions of the student populations – the football life can be particularly complicated.

Duke professor Tracie Canada wrote the 2025 book Tackling the Everyday: Race and Nation in Big-Time College Football. She joins co-host Jeff Tiberii to talk about power dynamics, the “football family," and her ethnographic research on campus and the sidelines.

Tracie Canada, Andrew W. Mellon Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology & Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies, Duke University

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Fast-growing Fuquay-Varina has requested to pull water from the Cape Fear River – and not return it. Communities from Fayetteville down to Wilmington object. Reporter Paul Woolverton talks with co-host Jeff Tiberii about the request, the dispute and the stakes for the municipalities, and the people, that would be impacted.

Paul Woolverton, Senior Reporter, City View

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Forecasting the local weather is challenging enough, but what about predicting the climate outlook for an entire state? That’s the task of Corey Davis, an assistant state climatologist at the North Carolina State Climate Office. He joins Due South to talk about what to expect this winter, and how he turns prediction into a playful practice.

Corey Davis, Assistant North Carolina State Climatologist and editor of the State Climate office’s Climate Blog

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Frasier firs, which represent the vast majority of Christmas trees grown in North Carolina, face a lot of threats during their ten-year growing cycle, especially from climate change.

Co-host Jeff Tiberii talks with North Carolina State University assistant professor Justin Whitehill, who runs the NC State Christmas Tree Genetics Program, about his efforts to grow trees that can be harvested sooner, hold onto carbon more efficiently and look more like the “perfect Christmas tree”– with a goal to benefit growers, consumers and the environment. (This Due South encore conversation first aired April 10, 2024.)

Justin Whitehill, Assistant Professor and Christmas Tree Genetics Program Lead, North Carolina State University

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Leoneda Inge speaks with Secretary of State Elaine Marshall –- the first woman elected to statewide executive office in North Carolina –- about her career and the threat of scams this charitable giving season. 

Plus, how to recognize scams to protect your finances from fraud when donating online and the state resources to find verifiable charities before you donate.

Elaine Marshall, North Carolina’s Secretary of State

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What it means that UNC decided to end the group’s prominent space on campus, and where the student group will go now. Leoneda Inge speaks with the current president of the Black Student Movement at UNC-Chapel Hill.

Plus, a report from WUNC’s Higher Education reporter Brianna Atkinson about the Black student experience at UNC-Chapel Hill two years after the end of race-conscious admissions.

Brianna Atkinson, WUNC's higher education reporter

Adam Sherif, 58th president of the Black Student Movement and a Pogue Scholar at UNC-Chapel Hill

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Pioneering scientist Joseph L. Graves Jr.’s new book tackles the racial life expectancy gap

A new book from North Carolina A&T biology professor Joseph L. Graves, Jr. interprets the gap in life expectancy between Black and white Americans and debunks the misconception that race can dictate disease prevalence.

Joseph L. Graves, Jr., evolutionary geneticist and MacKenzie Scott Endowed Professor of Biology at North Carolina A&T State University and author of the new book, “Why Black People Die Sooner: What Medicine Gets Wrong About Race and How to Fix It”

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‘Black, White, Colored’ explores the hidden history of a 19th century insurrection in Laurinburg  

Mother-daughter writing and research team Lauretta Malloy Nobel and LeeAnet Noble spent years traveling to Laurinburg, NC to corroborate the family stories they’d grown up hearing about the town and the affluent Black community there. The book blends history of Laurinburg’s Black and Irish neighborhoods and accounts of an insurrection that preceded the Wilmington massacre in 1898.

Lauretta Malloy Noble and LeeAnet Noble, authors of Black, White, Colored: The Hidden Story of an Insurrection, A Family, A Southern Town, and Identity in America

On the North Carolina News Roundup...

This week candidates officially filed their papers for big races like Congress and the U.S. Senate. 

Leoneda Inge speaks with our panel of reporters about the week's top news, including the fire in Raleigh, a new law that allows teachers to carry concealed weapons at private schools, and Jason DeBruyn asks the group questions from the WUNC News Quiz (online at wunc.org/quiz).

Plus, journalism professor and author Paul Cuadros shares how immigration enforcement actions in North Carolina are affecting his students, and the broader Latino community.

Laura Leslie, Editor of NC Newsline

Colin Campbell, WUNC’s Capitol Bureau Chief

Gary Robertson, State House Reporter, the Associated Press

Jason DeBruyn, WUNC’s Supervising Editor for Digital News shares WUNC’s Weekly News Quiz

Paul Cuadros, UNC-Chapel Hill Journalism professor and author of, "A Home on the Field: How One Championship Soccer Team Inspires Hope for the Revival of Small Town America."

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Riverside High School grad Wildin Acosta discusses new book about his 2016 deportation case

In 2016,WildinAcosta, a senior at Riverside High School in Durham, was detained by ICE agents on his way to school. The Honduras native was kept in detention for months. Students and faculty at Riverside raised media attention about his case through protests, social media campaigns and news coverage, ultimately resulting in his release. Riverside journalism teacher Bryan Christopher worked with Acosta to write a new book about Acosta’s experience. 

Bryan Christopher, author of Stopping the Deportation Machine: One Immigrant Student’s Arrest and the Kids Who Took on Washington to Get Him Back

Wildin Acosta, Riverside High School graduate, who faced deportation as a student

Aaron Sanchez Guerra, WUNC’s race, class and communities reporter

This conversation originally aired on October 1, 2025.

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As immigrant arrests continue across NC, experts and advocates see surge in mental health care needs

Due South’s Jeff Tiberii talks with a panel of mental health experts and advocates about the impact of deportation fears in Latino communities, barriers to accessing mental health care, and strategies to support vulnerable populations during these uncertain times.

Camila Angelica Pulgar, Assistant Professor, Wake Forest University School of Medicine

Heather Ladov, Director of Clinical Services, El Futuro

Yazmin Garcia Rico, Director, Community Engagement & Impact, Cone Health Foundation

Yesenia Cuello, Co-Founder and Executive Director at NC FIELD

This conversation originally aired on August 26, 2025. 

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Smartphones and social media are largely unregulated for America’s youth. One North Carolina nonprofit is seeking a better framework under which teens, and tweens, can navigate social media and smartphones in schools.

Ava Smithing, Advocacy Director, Young People’s Alliance

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A neuroscience and psychology professor talks about what we know – and what we don’t yet know – about how social media impacts adolescent brain development.

Eva Telzer, Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience and the Co-director of the Winston Center on Technology and Brain Development, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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An entrepreneur is hoping to resurrect a longstanding tool of communication with a new-age twist. Tin Can Phones are something of an homage to the phones many of us grew up with.

The new iteration runs off Wi-Fi and is an alternative to smartphones and access to social media.

Chet Kittleson, Co-Founder, Tin Can Phone