Jaki Shelton Green spent her childhood with her nose in a book knowing there was a great big world that awaited her. A native of Orange County, North Carolina, Green was a fidgety child and her grandmother’s solution was to give her a writing pad. This simple gesture meant to keep her still in church, blossomed into a lifelong journey. 

It was a controversial week in the University of North Carolina system. As the chancellor at East Carolina stepped away, a sitting member of the Board of Governors criticized the chair of that body, and legislators voted on future BOG members.

There were an estimated 2,200 evictions in Buncombe County last year, according to reporting from The Asheville Citizen-Times. This statistic has many wondering: With Asheville’s booming economy and the historically low unemployment rate, why are its residents struggling to pay rent?

Chef Vishwesh Bhatt remembers spending countless hours in the kitchen helping his mom prepare meals when he was a little boy in India. Much of the produce they cooked with was not much different from that found in many Southern kitchens: black-eyed peas, sweet potatoes, greens, rice, and okra.

Pianist Ernest Turner’s latest album is an ode to black American music. “My Americana” came out earlier this month, and it features jazz compositions by Stevie Wonder, Fats Waller, Kenny Kirkland and other African-American artists. Instead of playing classic jazz standards, Turner chose to highlight black composers. 

In North Carolina, firefighters are taking steps to address high cancer rates among their ranks.

Firefighters are more likely to be diagnosed with and die of cancer than the general public, according to a 2015 study from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.