The number is $53.6 billion. That’s the estimate from the N.C. Office of State Budget and Management for the damage Helene inflicted on Western North Carolina. Those are just dollars; in the bigger picture, lives have been lost, transformed and forever changed. 

There are many places and things that you can bank on in our world. You can call bank on a basketball court or pool table. You can carve a bank on a skateboard. You can donate food to a food bank or blood to a blood bank. You can upload data to a data bank that runs on multiple levels of memory banks. You can climb down the riverbank to take a dip.

To the Editor:

“The Convention of States” movement, in a race against time, strongly urges the N.C. Senate to pass a bill calling for the convening of a Convention of States as authorized under Article V of the Constitution.

To the Editor:

“Welcome to the end of democracy. We are here to overthrow it completely,” Jack Posobiec said as the event began.

The owner of Long House Funeral Home, himself facing decades in prison, has hired a convicted felon to be funeral home’s director. 

That quote underneath the title of this column is from the seminal 1958 novella “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” by Truman Capote. It was also the dramatic culmination in the 1961 film of the same name starring Audrey Hepburn as Holly Golightly. 

Many years ago, one of the students in my English composition course approached me after class one day as other students were filing out, hesitating for just a moment until the last couple of them trickled into the hallway, leaving just the two of us. 

 Council considers fine, employment ban 

The Cherokee Tribal Council is considering taking formal action against a former representative who is accused of using his position to secure money and personal favors from a vendor guiding the tribe’s fledgling cannabis enterprise. 

What’s behind Republican leaders’ insistent push to legalize multiple forms of gambling – from online sports betting to casinos and video poker kiosks — despite resistance from caucus members, core Republican voters, pastors and sheriffs? What happened to concerns about crime, addiction and victimizing the poor?   

In the latest in a long line of efforts by the  Southwestern Commission  to help those affected by the Evergreen closure, the  U.S. Department of Labor  has announced an award of more than $2.5 million to support employment and training services for people in WNC affected by the closure of Pactiv Evergreen’s Canton paper mill and by the company’s reduction in operations at its Waynesville facility.