The State of Things

More than 500,000 transgender people live in the South, according to the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law . National data show that nearly a quarter of trans people do not get any kind of healthcare because of a fear of discrimination. A new report from the Campaign for Southern Equality and Western NC Community Health Services examines the specific barriers faced by transgender people who live in the South.

Arthur Ashe is known best as a tennis champion who achieved many firsts, including becoming the first and only African-American man to win a singles title at Wimbledon, the U.S. Open, and the Australian Open. But many do not know about his early years. Before he was acclaimed, Ashe was a small kid from Richmond getting soundly beat at the Algonquin Tennis Club in Durham’s Hayti District. The club sponsored annual tennis tournaments in the 1920s that would see the likes of Arthur Ashe and Althea

This week the Wilmington City Council is expected to vote on a consent order between the North Carolina State Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) and Chemours that would require Chemours to pay $13 million in fines and fees and provide drinking water to the area surrounding its Fayetteville plant.

Dula family reunions in western North Carolina include members of the black and white sides of the family. But for decades these two sides did not communicate or even acknowledge their relation. The two branches of the family started with a man named Alfred and a woman named Harriet. Before Harriet, Alfred had married a white woman and had six children, but his first wife died young. He then bought an enslaved woman named Harriet to help him with his family, and the two had eight more children.

How can you return to a place that was once home? That question is at the center of the new novel “ Sugar Run ” (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill/2019). Protagonist Jodi McCarty was sentenced to life in prison for manslaughter when she was 17. Eighteen years later, she returns to her home in the Appalachian Mountains after her release, and on her way home Jodi meets and falls in love with a young mother named Miranda. She brings Miranda back to West Virginia and tries to get a fresh start while

Vansana Nolintha was sent from Laos to live in the United States when he was just 12 years old. His parents wanted a better life for him and his sister Vanvisa who soon followed her brother to Greensboro, North Carolina. There were major hurdles right from the start.

What political shifts will 2019 bring? Democrats have taken control of the U.S. House of Representatives, while Republicans maintain control of the U.S. Senate. How will things change with a divided federal government? And the newly-sworn in congressional class is the most diverse in the nation’s history with a record number of women and people of color now in office. Will this new energy bring substantive change?

Chatham County was once best known for its rabbits. The wild animals were so plentiful in the region at the turn of the 20th century that thousands were shipped out as cash crops each year . This piece of forgotten North Carolina history is just one story of many that inspires the new folk duo Sarah McCombie and Austin McCombie.

“The State of Things” started 2018 with two new producers who brought an array of perspectives and talent to the show. One of them was Dana Terry: an entertainment industry veteran with years of experience producing for drivetime radio shows. This is her first foray into public radio, and she brought with her a number of entertainment industry contacts.

"The State of Things" staff reflects on 2018 by sharing their favorite segments from the last year. Amanda Magnus is one of two new producers on the show. She moved to North Carolina from Wisconsin last January, and she discovered a lot of new things about the state through the segments she produced.