By Michelle Crouch Co-published with The Charlotte Ledger After months of scrutiny, Atrium Health announced this week that it has finalized a deal to fulfill one of the affordable housing promises it made in 2021 while seeking public support for The Pearl, its medical innovation district. The agreement calls for the hospital to transfer nearly 14 […]

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By Anne Blythe As the largest FIFA World Cup in history kicks off across North America, the most menacing wild card for the 48 competing countries might be the stifling summer heat. Over the monthlong marathon leading up to the July 19 championship match in New Jersey, relentlessly high temperatures and humidity will put millions […]

The post Record crowds, hot stadiums: Extreme heat could be a player during this summer’s World Cup appeared first on North Carolina Health News.

By Jaymie Baxley  North Carolina’s Department of Health and Human Services waited nearly a year for federal guidance on implementing the Medicaid work requirement approved by congressional Republicans last summer. The mandate, passed in the summer of 2025 as part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, takes effect on Jan. 1. It will force […]

The post Federal curveball upends NC’s plans for Medicaid work rule appeared first on North Carolina Health News.

By Skye Crawford Morgan Glenn parted from her dogs for the first time in nearly two years this spring when she went on a 10-day trip to visit family in Europe. Since they could not come with her, she boarded her pets at a familiar place — Inner Knowing Canine Connections in Swannanoa. Glenn, a […]

The post Dog deaths at Swannanoa boarding facility point to holes in NC animal welfare protections appeared first on North Carolina Health News.

By Rachel Crumpler When Tracy Lee worked as a probation/parole officer in Mecklenburg County, he found himself supervising people with serious mental illness — and feeling ill-equipped to do so. “I had no idea what I was dealing with,” Lee, now chief deputy secretary of the N.C. Department of Adult Correction’s Division of Community Supervision, […]

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By Jennifer Fernandez and Ashley Fredde UPDATE: The House Oversight Committee called on DA Spencer Merriweather in a letter to conduct an immediate criminal investigation into the employees who “handled, supervised, approved, screened out, documented, failed to document” any report in Dominique Moody’s case. Outrage over the death of Moore County toddler Rylan Ott in […]

The post NC lawmakers eye more child welfare changes after Charlotte girl’s death exposes chronic gaps in the system appeared first on North Carolina Health News.

By Ted Clifford Asheville Watchdog Paula Case knows the job of a medical examiner wasn’t meant to be easy. Since 2021 she has driven up and down seven counties of western North Carolina investigating deaths that are sudden, violent, unexpected or simply unattended by a physician.  Like all local medical investigators in the state, Case, […]

The post Death takes a holiday: NC medical examiners plan coordinated vacation to protest low pay appeared first on North Carolina Health News.

By Julie Leibach Coastwatch Starting just outside Charlotte, North Carolina, a vast underground deposit of lithium stretches south for 25 miles. A key component  of rechargeable batteries and energy grid  storage systems, the soft, silvery metal is a global commodity, making this subterranean cache a geopolitically important and potentially lucrative resource. Here, lithium primarily occurs within […]

The post When water meets rock: Water quality impacts from lithium mining appeared first on North Carolina Health News.

By Jennifer Fernandez When families are in crisis, foster parents often fill in to provide a safe place for children while parents get their lives together. Traditionally, foster parents were volunteers who received a small monthly stipend to care for these children.  But since the pandemic, the state has had a dearth of these volunteer […]

The post ‘A calling’: Paid foster parents are changing outcomes for NC children appeared first on North Carolina Health News.

By Will Atwater As extreme heat becomes more common, people on government-paid health plans are more likely than people with private insurance to land in the emergency department with heat‑related illnesses, according to a recent study.  The analysis, which drew on claims from more than 44 million insured patients across the country, found that heat […]

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