Last Fall Governor Roy Cooper issued an executive order directing North Carolina to step up its efforts to combat and adapt to Climate Change. This week, state officials are in Asheville gathering public input as they shape a plan to meet those goals. BPR’s Helen Chickering talks with Department of Environmental Quality Public Information Officer Sharon Martin about the upcoming meeting.

It’s Sunshine Week - which media outlets use to underscore the importance of government transparency and access to public records. The Sylva Herald recently had to take legal action against Western Carolina University over a public document regarding the Cullowhee Dam. Herald reporter Dave Russell joined BPR’s Lilly Knoepp to talk about why the Jackson County paper felt the document was important enough to fight for. Here are excerpts from the interview: To start off let’s talk about why Western

Asheville’s Brandi Hillman, co-owner of Hillman’s Beer and Josh Dorfman, CEO of the nonprofit climate business incubator The Collider are among the sixteen members of governor Roy Cooper’s new entrepreneurial council. The group is charged with helping design policies that encourage entrepreneurship, foster economic development and support sustainable high quality jobs. Josh Dorfman says an important part of the council’s mission is helping shape the state’s entrepreunial brand. “What is our

A little-known provision in the Trump tax cut bill has the potential to bring economic investment in some of the poorest areas of the country, including all across Western North Carolina. Many local governments have economic incentive policies designed to lure new businesses, but an overlooked provision halfway through President Donald Trump’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 gave poverty-stricken census tracts a new tool for their economic development toolboxes, called “opportunity zones.”

Western North Carolina’s two most populous counties have differing policies when it comes to working with federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The Jackson County NAACP believes that a local law is a violation of their constitutional rights so they met with Sylva town leaders to make their case. Activists protested at the bottom of the courthouse steps in Sylva almost every Wednesday last year. Their most recent protest was against President Trump’s executive order for a state of emergency to deal with the crisis at the border - and to appropriate his requested $5 billion from Congress to build a wall. Betsy Swift is a member of

Earlier this decade, Buncombe County voters narrowly approved a quarter-cent sales tax hike to further fund A-B Tech. Years later, it was revealed the revenue raised by that tax hike wasn’t totally going to the school, but was instead being used to balance the county budget.

On the 200 year anniversary of territory being taken from the Eastern Band of the Cherokee in Macon County, the Franklin town council is mov ing toward a compromise to give that land back. The Franklin Town Council took a n historic step Monday night to give the sacred Nikwasi Mound to a nonprofit organization run in part by the Eastern Band of the Cheroke e - The Nikwasi Initiative. Franklin Vice Mayor Barbara McRae i s the co-chair of the Initiative . She introduced the motion to deed the

Last month, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers arrested nearly 300 people across North Carolina. Those arrests are still sending shockwaves throughout Western North Carolina’s Latinx community.

In the second part of their conversation with Maurice Clarett, John and Marcia examine what happened to the star running back after he was kicked out of Ohio State University. Clarett was selected in the NFL Draft but cut a short time later after not making an impact on the field. He wound up in prison in 2006, but jail was far from the final chapter in his life. This episode finishes with Maurice offering a piece of advice to all young athletes - advice that caught our hosts off-guard in the