More times than I can count, people have told me they want to see more positive news in the newspaper, no matter which newspaper it is I was working for at the time.

Henderson is a small town with some big-city traffic problems. Citizens like Penny Collins are doing their part to fight back against them, but it’s an uphill battle unless elected officials and local-government administrators work shoulder to shoulder to help.

For a country founded on its opposition to rule by a hereditary monarch, the United States has rather more than its share of family political dynasties. North Carolina has a few of its own, and as of this week a new one might be taking root.

It appears the discussion about the future of the N.C. High School Athletic Association is winding toward a conclusion that will put the State Board of Education, rather than legislators, in charge of working out a deal with the group about rulemaking and finances.

When it comes to fighting COVID-19, we have no patience for cant, and even less for partisanship. So it was disappointing this week to see North Carolina’s senior U.S. senator, Richard Burr, indulge in both when he added his name to a letter demanding that the Biden administration update its…

Until recently, Warren County hasn’t been the focal point of the COVID-19 pandemic in the Tri-County. The virus was slower to arrive there initially, and its death toll has been lower in absolute terms than it has been in larger Vance and Granville counties.

In some North Carolina houses, this is a time of empty rooms and empty spaces. Children, so long ever-present, are now suddenly gone away to college.

The wheels of justice may turn slowly at times, but it’s been gratifying in the past couple of weeks to see resolutions or progress in a trio of cases that have brought heartache to as many counties in our region.

There’s a showdown looming in Raleigh, and for once it’s not between the N.C. General Assembly and Gov. Roy Cooper. Instead, it’s between the General Assembly and a Wake County trial judge.

Twenty years. Twenty years since the unbelievable happened. Twenty years since a quartet of terrorist attacks took the lives of 2,977 people in New York City, Washington and a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

Yet again, the N.C. General Assembly is playing the game of saying it’s against something while at the same time it’s advancing legislation that actually does what the majority says it’s against. In this case, when the House and Senate say they’re against political indoctrination in the scho…

For the most part, the dropoff in student test scores the N.C. Department of Public Instruction reported last week for the 2020-21 school year was entirely expected. Thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s been a year and a half since children have had anything like a normal educational experience.

It’s perhaps startling to realize that, far from being a relatively new observance, Labor Day is among the oldest of federal holidays. Then-President Grover Cleveland signed the law creating it in 1894.

Twice nothing still being nothing, the newly revised version of a N.C. General Assembly bill to reorganize the governance of high school athletics is no better or more acceptable than the first draft.

While details of implementation at the local level remain to be determined, the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that the federal moratorium against evictions during the COVID-19 pandemic is illegal.

Vance County Sheriff Curtis Brame quite likely finds it embarrassing, uncomfortable and frustrating that three of his deputies, among them his second in command, are facing criminal charges in connection with his office’s attempts to seize a car they think had been used in a drug deal.

There have been a number of developments in the past week or so that show the Tri-County has the sort of leadership that can help move its communities in a favorable direction.

There are cogent arguments against the so-called “prison gerrymandering” that favors one particular corner of Granville County. But the Granville County Commissioners and the county school board would nonetheless do well in the coming weeks to put them to the side.

For the third time in four years, Vance County and Henderson officials find themselves needing to recruit a new business recruiter.

There are certain days and certain times when Dabney Drive is about as difficult to navigate as any road in North Carolina, or indeed in the United States. There’s a lot of congestion from people dipping off the interstate to get a meal or some gas, a lot of turning traffic, and not many pla…

It took a disaster — more specifically the emergency aid after one — for the state to commision a survey of Vance County’s historic properties. High time, we say, as it’s never done one here before.

Given the destructive impulses their counterparts in some other states have indulged since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, it was perhaps inevitable that 55 Republicans in the N.C. House would sign a letter criticizing the chiefs of the state’s major hospitals for mandating vaccination i…

Norlina’s Police Department showed initiative recently by landing a $200,000 grant from the federal government to install a set of security cameras in the community’s primary business districts. But it also bought itself a bit of controversy because the cameras tie into a “cloud” system that…