Sloane Heffernan

Aug 25, 2023 | wral.com | Richard Adkins |Greg Clark |Anne Johnson |Sloane Heffernan

Friends and family say Lorenzo Charles, who died in a bus wreck Monday, was much more than a talented athlete who made the game-winning dunk for North Carolina State University in the 1983 NCAA championship game. Wake Chapel Church in Raleigh hosted the funeral service Saturday for Charles, 47, who died when the charter bus he was driving wrecked on Interstate 40. Despite their grief, family and friends couldn't shake the image of Charles as a smiling child and man.

Aug 25, 2023 | wral.com | Sloane Heffernan |Greg Hutchinson |Jodi Leese Glusco

Greenleaf Christian Church drew a larger crowd than usual Sunday when national labor leaders made a pit stop there, part of a push to register voters in advance of the November elections. The presidents of unions representing teachers and health care workers stopped in Goldsboro to meet with Rev. William J. Barber, president of the North Carolina State Conference of the NAACP, and to preach a message of voter registration and turnout on the eve of the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte.

Aug 25, 2023 | wral.com | Sloane Heffernan |Kelly Gardner

Some storm victims who left their homes in the wake of Hurricane Irene's impact on North Carolina Saturday say they are anxious to get back to their homes so they can assess the damage that the Category 1 storm caused. About 112 people – most of them from hard-hit Hyde and Tyrrell counties along the coast – were staying at an American Red Cross shelter at Englewood Baptist Church Monday morning, including Lloyd Liverman. "I've been here ever since Thursday," Liverman, of Tyrrell County, said.

Aug 25, 2023 | wral.com | Sloane Heffernan |Greg Clark |Matt Burns

North Carolina health officials said Monday that their long-awaited proposal to overhaul how Medicaid operates in North Carolina is "realistic" and "achievable" and will make state budgets more predictable. Now, Gov. Pat McCrory's administration must convince enough legislators to agree within the next few months to get the General Assembly to approve the core of the reform proposal.

Aug 25, 2023 | wral.com | Sloane Heffernan |Tom Normanly |Keith Baker |Matt Burns

The annual Possum Drop will go on as scheduled next week after a Superior Court judge on Monday declined to halt the New Year's Eve event in Brasstown. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has sued to stop the Clay County town's celebration, saying it's cruel to lower a possum in a plastic box at midnight. PETA won a similar lawsuit a year ago when an administrative law judge ruled that the state Wildlife Resources Commission lacked the authority to issue a permit for the event.