More than 2 million people in North Carolina will be impacted when changes to the state’s Medicaid program take effect. At the end of last year, North Carolina finalized terms to move to a managed-care system for Medicaid in the state. The first regions of North Carolina where those changes will be rolled out will be announced at the beginning of February says Deputy Secretary for North Carolina Medicaid Dave Richards. “It’s really important that people understand what we are changing in

The National Park Service is asking visitors for patience while crews clean up nearly a month's worth of debris from winter weather and lack of maintenance. BPR’S Helen Chickering checked in with two people who have deep connections to the national parks here in Western North Carolina.

In our last episode "Losing" , John & Marcia agreed that the toughest kind of loss is one where the key play or key moment of a game is decided by a missed or blown call by an official. It only took a month for their point to be proved. This year's NFL Conference Championship games both went to overtime for the first time in league history. That didn't make headlines though - the officials did, mostly for a missed pass interference call in the NFC championship game. Our hosts talk about why

Security presence was higher than usual for last night's Martin Luther King Junior keynote address at the University of North Carolina Asheville. The speech by Women's March co-president Tamika Mallory was overshadowed by controversy that’s caused factions within the national movement. Mallory has been dealing with fallout for her association with Louis Farrakhan, the leader of the Nation of Islam. Last February, she attended an event where Farrakhan delivered a speech making inflammatory

This week the Asheville Citizen-Times published a study showing Asheville police were disproportionately charging African-Americans with resisting arrest. The study, which looked at the last five year, found that 35-percent of resisting arrest charges filed by Asheville police were against African-Americans. The city's black population is only 12-percent. The study also found a sizable number of those arrests for resisting an officer included no other charges. Joel Burgess of the Citizen-Times

Recreational marijuana is now legal for more than 72 million Americans in 10 states. North Carolina isn’t one of those states - but that doesn’t mean the conversation around legalization is quiet here.

You’ve probably heard about the movement to reduce the use of plastic straws, which can’t be recycled and end up in landfills and in the environment. As BPR’s Helen Chickering reports, local environmental groups are on a mission to expand that campaign here in Western North Carolina.

This Friday morning, those with outstanding misdemeanor charges and traffic citations in Buncombe County can get their cases resolved. 'Amnesty Day’ at the Buncombe County courthouse will be held from 9 a.m. to noon. No one will be arrested at the courthouse if they show up for amnesty. Buncombe County district attorney Todd Williams says many of those who could be helped by this have outstanding charges because they failed to show up for court dates previously. “If you have old process that’s

Recent high profile shootings, like the ones that roiled Louisville and Pittsburgh last year, are forcing religious and racial minority communities to evaluate how they keep their people safe. It’s confounded by another stark trend -- a rise in hate crimes -- both in North Carolina and nationally. It’s the first Sunday morning service of the new year at Mt. Zion Missionary Baptist, Asheville’s historic African American church. Sunlight pours through pastel hued stained glass and churchgoers bow

Freezing temperatures did not deter thousands from taking part in Sunday’s Women’s March in Asheville. BPR followed a women’s empowerment club from Western Carolina University as they experienced their first protest. As the Queens of WCU walked up the sidewalk chants of, “We are unstoppable. Another world is possible,” echoed in downtown Asheville. Erica McCurdy, is a junior and the President of Queens of WCU. The club was founded at the beginning of the school year and is one of the only women