The Mountain Times (Boone, North Carolina)

2 days ago | wataugademocrat.com | Michael Phillis

On Wednesday, the Environmental Protection Agency announced plans to weaken limits on some harmful "forever chemicals" in drinking water roughly a year after the Biden administration finalized the first-ever national standards. The Biden administration said last year the rules could reduce PFAS exposure for millions of people.

3 days ago | wataugademocrat.com | John Hood

Recessions hurt. North Carolina's headline unemployment rate hit 11.2% during the peak of the Great Recession in 2010. During the COVID-era Great Suppression of 2020, it briefly hit a mindboggling 14.2%. During such times, we pretty much all know someone who's out of a job, even if we're not.

3 days ago | wataugademocrat.com | David Beasley

(The Center Square) - Advocates of hyperbaric oxygen therapy for combat veterans urged a committee in the North Carolina House of Representatives on Tuesday to maintain or increase state funding for the treatment. David Buzzard, wounded twice in Afghanistan, told the House Homeland Security and Military and Veterans Affairs Committee that he tried the treatment, called HBOT, after suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome and other conditions.

3 days ago | wataugademocrat.com | David Beasley

By David Beasley | The Center Square contributor (The Center Square) - Democrats in the North Carolina Legislature complained Tuesday that the Republican majority killed good bills without even considering them in the respective rules committees of the Senate and House of Representatives. Crossover day for a bill to clear one chamber or the other has now passed, shutting out Democrat-sponsored bills for this session, the legislators said.

3 days ago | wataugademocrat.com | Chantelle Kincy

Before Nashville became a country music hit factory and Memphis laid down the blues, Macon was already shaping the sound of America. From Little Richard's wails to the soulful ache of Otis Redding and the rebellious spirit of the Allman Brothers Band, this small Georgia city built the bones of rock, soul, and what we know now as Southern Rock. In Macon, that legacy doesn't live in the past; it's alive, echoing through studio walls, club stages, and city streets.