Last summer, BPR reported on rallies across Western North Carolina in support of the Black Lives Matter movement . These demonstartions echoed those seen across the country during the months of protests for racial justice following the murder of George Floyd. One such rally was in Murphy . TeLor Allen was one of the organizers. For this episode of BPR Presents 'The Porch' on one year after the summer of racial justice protests, BPR’s Lilly Knoepp checked in with Allen about what she learned from

It’s been a week since the CDC announced fully vaccinated adults are no longer required to wear a mask. In Asheville, businesses and customers are still figuring out whether they’re ready to let go of the mask.

Demolition of the Vance Monument in downtown Asheville began Monday and will take roughly two weeks to complete.

Colleges and universities in Western North Carolina vary when it comes to deciding whether students should be required to get a Covid-19 vaccine before returning to campus in the fall.

In this episode of The Waters & Harvey Show, we talk about forgotten history, and why it gets forgotten. Our co-host Dr. Darin Waters helped reclaim a piece of Asheville's forgotten history when he and Citizen Times reporter Joel Burgess went looking for the grave of the city's first Black elected official. Hear the story of Newton Shepard and the quest to find where he's buried in Riverside Cemetery in this episode.

Owners of a Maggie Valley motel are getting death threats over a sign disparaging police officers and now a “Back the Blue” rally is scheduled in response. This follows heated and confrontational demonstrations at a pair of Black Lives Matter marches in this small Appalachian tourist community last summer. There’s a strip of Soco Road in Maggie Valley lined with quaint mom-and-pop motels built in the 1960s. Usually the signs out front say things like, “Welcome to our valley” or “Kids eat free,”

BPR is answering listener queries about the Coronavirus in our weekly segment – Talk to Us: COVID Questions . BPR’s Helen Chickering brings us this week’s answer.

In this episode of Going Deep, we mark the beginning of the minor league baseball season this week with an episode that looks at the growing differences between the minors and college baseball. Our guests include the manager of the Asheville Tourists Nate Shaver, and the head baseball coach at UNC Asheville Scott Friedholm. And for the first time, we take questions from our listeners! (Music featured includes I'm Fat by Blanket Music and Elmore Heights by Blue Dot Sessions)

The Asheville Tourists opened their season Tuesday night at McCormick Field. Friends, families and long-time fans dusted off their jerseys and waited six-feet apart to enter McCormick field. Greetings were shouted from afar as fans said hello to one another behind baseball-themed masks. The threat of rain didn’t scare away a sell-out crowd.

The groundbreaking on a new Angel Medical Center in Franklin has some local leaders applauding HCA for following through on a promise it made when it purchased Mission Health. Macon County Commissioner Gary Shields was among the crowd for the groundbreaking on a windy afternoon in Franklin. “When you enhance your health services you help everybody – and that’s what we are looking for,” said Shields. The new $68-million-dollar facility was part of HCA’s 15 commitments made when it purchased