For years, Katie and her husband have used traditional forms of birth control to prevent pregnancy. The 28-year-old knew that if it failed, she could always get an abortion.  When the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last summer, Katie began to think she needed more protection. She recently had her fallopian tubes removed by a Charlotte doctor. 

The repeatedly delayed rollout of specialized health care plans for tens of thousands of Medicaid beneficiaries — those with complex, often behavioral health needs — has been postponed indefinitely, the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services announced Tuesday. 

In March 2022, John called the police to his home in Mecklenburg County because his 16-year-old son, Paul, was experiencing a violent behavioral health episode. “We don’t feel safe. We don’t know what to do. We really need treatment for him. Please help us,” John remembers telling hospital staff as he explained the violent episodes at home.

On a warm summer evening, laughter fills a gym furnished with red and black fitness equipment as more than 20 people attempt to grab clothespins attached to each other’s shirts.  Participants range from young teenagers to those who are starting to gray around the temples. Some have cognitive and physical disabilities and join in with the families and other members of the CrossFit community.

More than 1.7 million rural Americans live in counties where there aren’t enough jobs for people who want them, making it harder for SNAP recipients to meet work requirements that were reinstated when the federal pandemic emergency declaration ended.

RALEIGH — NC by Train, North Carolina’s intercity passenger rail service, launched service and schedule changes on Monday. The improvements include more departures and some reduced ravel times for passengers between North Carolina’s two biggest cities, Raleigh and Charlotte, according to a news release from the N.C. Department of Transportation.

In early May, it’s possible to find fields of wheat and lavender-colored straw flowers bordering two-lane roads that wind through Gaston County. This part of Cherryville Township lies roughly 35 miles northwest of Charlotte and about 82 miles southwest of Black Mountain.  Continue driving, and one quickly discovers white signs lining county roads revealing what many locals see as a threat to the pastoral lifestyle that drew them here. The message in bold, black letters reads: “Gaston County Pit Mine,” enclosed in a red circle with a line drawn through the middle.

People should celebrate and have fun this Fourth of July, but anyone who drinks alcohol should not operate an automobile or boat. That was the message from traffic safety officials and law enforcement officers at Wednesday’s launch in Raleigh of anti-drunken driving campaigns aimed at automobile drivers and boaters.

After graduating from a medical school in the Northeast, Caledonia Buckheit came south to Duke University Hospital to complete her obstetrics and gynecology residency. She finished last June and found work in North Carolina — ready to provide comprehensive reproductive health care to patients, including abortion. Just weeks after finishing, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. The June 24 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization  eliminated the constitutional right to abortion that had existed for nearly half a century.

HIGH POINT — Taylor Loyd, representing Statesville, was crowned Miss North Carolina 2023 at High Point Theater on Saturday evening. Janiya Pipkin, Miss Fayetteville Dogwood, placed in the top 15.

Recently, state lawmakers discussed this year’s  regulatory reform bill  and, despite a bevy of amendments and question marks about its effects on the environment and potential conflicts with the Clean Water Act, the bill received a favorable report and is moving on in the state Senate. 

Two longtime emergency room doctors have blown the whistle on what they say is fraudulent overcharging by HCA Healthcare, which owns Mission Health, and its medical staffing company, TeamHealth, according to a recently unsealed lawsuit filed last year.

Suzanne Wertman used to work as a certified nurse-midwife at a private practice in Wilmington. But in a day, that changed. The physicians who ran the practice abruptly decided to shut down midwifery services at the practice. There was no transition period, she said. When Wertman lost her job that day in 2009, she also lost the ability to practice her profession until she found another supervisor. The same thing happened to the two other midwives at the practice.

A contractor for the N.C. Department of Transportation will close sections of North Poplar Street to through traffic from Elm Street to just north of Blues Crossing Lane for utility line repairs.

BAMBERG, S.C. — Years before Bamberg County Hospital closed in 2012, and the next-closest hospital in neighboring Barnwell shut its doors in 2016, those facilities had stopped delivering babies. These days, there’s not even an ultrasound machine in this rural county 60 miles south of Columbia, much less an obstetrician. Pregnant women here are left with few options for care.

Many of North Carolina’s so-called rural counties bear little resemblance to the pastoral hamlets that people tend to picture when they think of rural living. In reality, the 78 counties that fall under the common statistical definition of “rural” are home to about 40% of the state’s population, and North Carolina’s rural population is — next to Texas — the largest in the U.S. 

Federal regulators have threatened to terminate Medicare funding for a psychiatric hospital in eastern North Carolina after a series of visits to the facility, which started with a complaint alleging mistreatment and sexual assault of an 11-year-old patient. 

Before Europeans came to North Carolina, the Skarure Woccon tribe (Cape Fear Indians) sustained themselves by hunting, fishing and harvesting herbs and other plants in the lower Cape Fear River Basin.  More popularly known as Tuscarora Indians, many tribal members continue to live spread across land, including Bladen, Columbus and Pender counties, where they still follow cultural traditions. Some tribal members fish in the Cape Fear River, hunt on adjacent land, and harvest wild plants for food, healing and rituals.  However, a chemical commercially known as GenX in the river may force members of the tribe to reconsider long-held cultural practices to protect their health.

Kathleen Valentini was 47 when she first noticed a nagging pain in her hip. The Waxhaw mom tried physical therapy, but her pain just got worse. Her doctor ordered an MRI to find out what was going on, according to court documents and Kathleen’s husband, Val Valentini. 

A Fayetteville city councilwoman has been named to the state's top advisory panel on criminal justice. Councilwoman Courtney Banks-McLaughlin was appointed to the Governor’s Crime Commission by Gov. Roy Cooper on April 6, according to a release from the City of Fayetteville. 

People under guardianship in NC would have more rights and information, under proposed revamp of statutes Laws on guardianship in North Carolina have remained unchanged for decades, and advocates …

There’s a scene in the classic comedy film "Blazing Saddles" when the town pastor is begging town folk not to take rash action against the newly appointed and highly unpopular sheriff.

Big changes could be ahead for the UNC Health system if a bill approved Monday by the state Senate wins support in the House.

After a  high-profile contract loss this winter, nonprofit health insurance Blue Cross Blue Shield NC is asking lawmakers for a serious and potentially far-reaching change to state regulations so that it can behave more like national for-profit competitors. 

Everyone here knew the data: Black women are three times more likely to die in connection with childbirth than white women.  And they knew the cause: hard-to-solve social and structural problems in health care. Their goal: Get to the source of the problem to help save the lives of Black mothers and their babies.