The General Assembly is back in session and lawmakers still face a budget impasse. A deal was reached on closing the $319 million Medicaid shortfall – it includes immigration checks and work requirement provisions. 

And, what does the future looks like for a proposed property tax referendum? Plus, a playoff update on those Canes. We’ll cover all that and more on this week’s North Carolina News Roundup.

Claudia Rivera Cotto, Political Reporter, Enlace Latino NC

Mary Helen Moore, Reporter, Axios Raleigh

Bryan Anderson, Statewide Politics Reporter for The Assembly, creator of the “Anderson Alerts” newsletter

0:01:00

Sarah Vowell was an early contributor to This American Life, before she became a voice actor, and the author of several books. She speaks with Leoneda Inge ahead of an event for Durham County Library on April 23.

Sarah Vowell, author, former longtime contributor to This American Life, voice actor for Violet in the Disney animated series The Incredibles.

Vowell speaks Thursday, April 23. Details here: https://durhamcountylibrary.libcal.com/event/16470004

0:25:36

The NCYTE has been going strong for more than 40 years. Jeff Tiberii speaks with the current Artistic Director, who was once a member of the ensemble herself, about the history of the ensemble, and how she intends to keep it growing.

Emily Shoemaker, Artistic Director of the North Carolina Youth Tap Ensemble

Find details about the North Carolina Youth Tap Ensemble's performance on April 25 here: https://www.ncyte.org/up-next

0:01:00

A new memoir pulls back the curtain on what it’s like to study at the nation’s top culinary school, the Culinary Institute of America. Trinidad native food writer Brigid Washington talks about her time as a student at NC State, the role that Raleigh played in her culinary career and working with the James Beard Foundation.

She'll be discussing and signing her new book, Salt, Sweat & Steam: The Fiery Education of an Accidental Chef on April 28 at Quail Ridge Books. 

Brigid Washington, food writer, vice chair of the James Beard Foundation Journalism Committee and author of the new memoir, Salt, Sweat & Steam: The Fiery Education of an Accidental Chef

0:23:00

Alonzo Bodden is a comedy veteran with more than 20 years in the stand-up game. A frequent guest on NPR’s Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me!, Bodden got his start in aviation before pivoting to a career in humor. (This Due South encore conversation originally aired December 17,2025.)

Alonzo Bodden, stand-up comedian and actor

0:01:00

Recycling has been around a long time and faces relatively little pushback compared to more politically-charged sustainability efforts. Still, recycling has its obstacles, including that it's hard to know what's recyclable and what's not. As Bianca Howard of Wake County Solid Waste Management Division says, "there is nothing intuitive about recycling."

This Earth Week on Due South, three waste management experts demystify municipal recycling.

Bianca Howard, Outreach & Marketing Supervisor, Wake County Solid Waste Management Division

Muriel Williman, Senior Assistant Solid Waste Manager, City of Durham Waste Disposal and Recycling Center

Shauna Taylor, customer service representative, Shimar Recycling

Related: Recycling guidelines for Durham, Orange County and Wake County

0:33:00

Bryce Brooks follows the old adages “reduce, reuse, recycle” and “one person’s trash may be another’s treasure.” She’s the co-founder of The ReCollective, a service that collects hard-to-recycle items and finds them new homes, keeping them out of the landfill and supporting local businesses by providing needed materials.

Bryce Brooks, co-founder, The ReCollective

This Due South encore episode originally aired June 25, 2025.

0:01:00

A consistent practice of recycling and reusing materials maintains the state’s recycling infrastructure and stimulates a circular economy. We talk to Matt James of the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality about ways to strengthen individual and community recycling practices across the state.

Matt James, Recycling Program Analyst, NC Department of Environmental Quality

0:13:00

When Heather Anne first walked into Durham's The Scrap Exchange, she thought to herself: "I've never been in a place like this before." The organization's dedication to creative reuse of secondhand items, community building, and environmentalism resonated for her, and Heather soon became a Scrap Exchange regular.

She eventually became an employee and led the organization through some changes, but at least one thing remains the same — inside the Scrap’s barrels and bins of leftover fabric, yarn, broken jewelry and "glorious junk" are countless opportunities for someone’s creativity to turn cast off old items into something new.

Heather Anne, former Interim Executive Director at The Scrap Exchange

0:33:00

INDY Week reporter Lena Geller salvaged $6,000 worth of luxury items from Duke students moving out of her apartment complex. She also found that Duke donates and tracks significantly more than similar private universities in the U.S.

Lena Geller, Staff Writer at INDY Week. Read her piece I Salvaged $6,000 of Luxury Items Discarded by Duke Students. Why Did It Make Me Feel So Terrible?

On this week’s NC News Roundup... water restrictions set to go into effect on Monday in Raleigh, severe drought conditions impact more than 20 percent of the state, and a legislative hearing tackles ongoing concerns over Medicaid funding and fraud.

Colin Campbell, Capitol Bureau Chief, WUNC News

Dawn Vaughan, Capitol Bureau Chief, The News & Observer 

Zach Eanes, reporter, Axios Raleigh

Sarah Michels, NC elections and statehouse reporter, Carolina Public Press

0:01:00

Data centers are popping up across North Carolina. As some communities welcome them and others consider moratoriums, journalists from BPR, the NC Newsroom, WFAE, and WUNC News explore the data center boom and its impact on our state.

Due South talks with three reporters who worked on the collaborative reporting project “Hyperscale, Hyperspeed: Inside the Data Center Boom Reshaping NC Communities.”

Katie Myers, reports on climate in Appalachia for Blue Ridge Public Radio and Grist

Adam Wagner, Editor and Reporter, NC Newsroom

Zachary Turner, Climate Reporter, WFAE

0:33:00

One of the state’s foremost transportation reporters has the latest on western North Carolina’s Hurricane Helene recovery, updates to potential train and rail projects, and the possible impact an extended blockade of the Strait of Hormuz would have on gas prices here.

Richard Stradling, Transportation Reporter, The News & Observer

Related: Read Richard Stradling's articles about federal support for Triangle transit agencies and RDU expansion.

0:01:00

North Carolina’s prisons face a crisis of staffing and funding

North Carolina’s 55 prisons are operating at minimum staffing, in a steep funding deficit. The state’s Department of Adult Correction is in need of an updated budget that accounts for the growing and aging prison population. WUNC News’ Colin Campbell updates Due South on the current state of the carceral system.

Colin Campbell, Capital Bureau Chief, WUNC News

0:13:00

Former inmate and recidivism reduction activist Kerwin Pittman’s journey to success 

Kerwin Pittman spent more than 11 years in the North Carolina prison system. With the support of family, he was able to navigate the re-entry process upon his release, becoming a recidivism reduction activist in the process. Eight years after his release, Pittman has become the first formerly incarcerated person in the United States to purchase a prison campus.

Kerwin Pittman, founder of Recidivism Reduction Educational Program Services, Inc.

0:33:00

Full Frame Documentary Film Festival takes off

Due South speaks with the Co-Festival Director of Full Frame on the legacy of the festival, along with the Southern and North Carolina film selections screening during this year’s fest.

Sadie Tillery, Co-Festival Director and Artistic Director, Full Frame Documentary Film Festival

We’re all too familiar with the phrases by now: “constitutional crisis,” “slide toward authoritarianism” and “erosion of the rule of law.”

Today, Due South delves into what those words really mean — and what’s at stake for our nation — with two local legal experts.

Our conversation begins with the Honorable Allyson K. Duncan. When Judge Duncan was a child growing up in Durham, she spent afternoons after school at North Carolina Central University's law library, where her mother worked.

While Duncan watched future lawyers study, a seed was planted that grew into a career of firsts, including being the first African American woman to serve on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.

Now retired from the federal bench, she talks with co-host Jeff Tiberii about challenges she sees today to the separation of powers and the rule of law.

Then, a conversation with constitutional law professor Marcus Gadson about his book, ‘Sedition: How America’s Constitutional Order Emerged From Violent Crisis’, and what constitutes a constitutional crisis.

Guests

Allyson K. Duncan, retired federal judge, United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit; member, Keep Our Republic’s Article III Coalition

Marcus Gadson, Associate Professor of Law, Associate Professor of Law, University of North Carolina Law School

0:01:00

The Assembly’s Billy Warden discusses his discoveries about the lives of North Carolina’s political spouses in a candid profile that includes interviews with First Lady Anna Stein and Susan Tillis, wife of Sen. Thom Tillis. (This Due South encore conversation originally aired March 24, 2026.)

Billy Warden, marketing specialist, writer, contributor to The Assembly

0:13:00

In March of 1944, two basketball teams in North Carolina played perhaps the most important game that nobody has ever heard of. It was the first unofficial interracial college basketball game in the Jim Crow South. And it remained a secret for half a century.

Scott Ellsworth, author of “The Secret Game: A Wartime Story of Courage, Change, and Basketball’s Lost Triumph”

This episode of The Broadside was produced by Charlie Shelton-Ormond and edited by Jerad Walker.

0:33:00

Chef Oscar Diaz is known around town for Little Bull, a Michelin-recommended restaurant in Durham. But around the country, he’s known as a “cheftestant” on the current season of ‘Top Chef’ – filmed in Charlotte, NC and Greenville, SC. Co-host Leoneda Inge talks to Diaz about how he spins the food of his childhood, his travels, and the Triangle into flavors that are both new and familiar.

Oscar Diaz, chef and owner, Little Bull and several other North Carolina restaurants