Liz Schlemmer

North Carolina's winter weather has been unpredictable -- swinging quickly from spring-like temperatures to snow and back. If that continues, those extreme swings could affect farmers.

The UNC System Board of Governors is not making any immediate decisions on what to do with the Silent Sam monument, now that it is awaiting the statue's return.

UNC System Interim President Bill Roper said he will seek a "lasting, legal solution" for the future of the statue torn down by protesters, but that it will not return to its former location at UNC Chapel Hill.

"It will not go back on campus," Roper told reporters Friday.

A new study from North Carolina State University suggests that aging levees across the country might be in worse shape than inspectors realize.

The UNC Board of Governors has accepted the resignation of a member of the East Carolina University Board of Trustees. The Board of Governors convened a special meeting to consider sanctions against ECU Trustees Phil Lewis and Robbie Moore for meddling in student government elections.

The governing board of East Carolina University is plagued with in-fighting, as ethics complaints between warring factions of ECU’s Board of Trustees went before a committee of the UNC Board of Governors on Wednesday. 

A group of UNC-Chapel Hill faculty are asking the UNC Board of Trustees to reconsider its ban on naming campus landmarks, in an effort to allow the renaming of buildings that honor people with racist ties.

A group of high-profile UNC-Chapel Hill alumni are joining the fight against the UNC System Board of Governors' settlement with the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

After holding months of listening sessions across campus, students and faculty members of the UNC-Chapel Hill Campus Safety Commission announced their preliminary recommendations to a public audience on campus Tuesday night.

The North Carolina School of Science and Math has been aiming to open a residential campus in western North Carolina for fall of 2021, but it could be delayed by a year due to the state budget stalemate.

Updated at 5:50 p.m. Jan. 18, 2020

The UNC System Board of Governors is taking the side of the Republican-led General Assembly in its budget fight with Democratic Governor Roy Cooper. The Board unanimously passed a resolution Friday urging passage of the GOP version of the budget approved by the General Assembly and vetoed by Cooper.

While policymakers and parents are wringing their hands about how to get kids not to vape, a number of e-cigarette companies are offering college scholarships to teens. Authors of a new report in the journal Tobacco Control interpret the scholarships as a possible marketing scheme.

Having declared his candidacy in November, Democratic presidential hopeful and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg campaigned in North Carolina today. He spoke in Raleigh and Fayetteville, where he is opening field offices.

In Raleigh, he said he chose the location of his office based on its proximity to a local pizzeria, Poole'side Pies.

Updated at 2:45 p.m.

A Superior Court judge will reconsider the $2.5 million settlement between the UNC System and the Sons of Confederate Veterans. The judge's decision today was a small victory for the UNC Chapel Hill students and professor who sought to overturn the settlement.

UNC-Chapel Hill students demonstrated in the rain outside a nearly empty board room Friday to show their discontent with the UNC System Board of Governors’ decision to give a neo-Confederate group $2.5 million to preserve the Silent Sam monument. None of the members of the Board of Governors were physically present at their December meeting to hear the students’ chants.

State Superintendent Mark Johnson and the Department of Public Instruction are taking steps to reduce the amount of time North Carolina students spend taking standardized tests. Johnson says the moves are meant to help relieve stress on students.

North Carolina's Read to Achieve program, enacted by the General Assembly in 2012, is continuing to get lackluster results. The program is a statewide intervention for third grade students who are not proficient in reading. Struggling students are placed in summer reading camps, receive other specialized instruction, and could be held back if they do not pass an alternative test.

The partial federal government shutdown has food bank operators nervous that they could lose food distributions from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Meanwhile, the families they serve could also lose food benefits.

A new study from Duke University shows that life expectancy is decreasing for Gen-Xers and older Millennials. The study comes after widely-publicized health research that shows life expectancy for white Americans has gone down for the first time in decades.

A law that allows for town-run charter schools in four Charlotte suburbs has been criticized because it could lead to more racially segregated schools in that area. Now, a bill to offer state pensions to teachers at those proposed schools could make it easier for the model to spread to more cities.

That bill (S469) is on the governor’s desk awaiting veto or signature.

The Department of Public Instruction considers about 1 in 5 North Carolina teachers chronically absent, which it defines as taking 10 or more non-consecutive sick days in a school year. State education officials say chronic absenteeism is costing schools in student test scores and pay for substitute teachers.