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Gov. Roy Cooper has continually asked for more money from the NC General Assembly to protect the state's rivers and streams and he keeps getting rebuffed. In Western NC several nonprofits have enlisted an army of volunteers to get the job done.

Were politicians thinking about the impact sports betting, legal in NC since March 11, 2024, might have on college kids? The experts I spoke predicted a "Pandora's box of problems" would soon emerge on college campuses.

Impressed by the bonsai collection at the North Carolina Arboretum, I talked to the two men who were most responsible for making Asheville an international bonsai community. 

I took my son to the largest earth skills gathering in the country. Despite the incessant rain, we had a ball.

Bear-human encounters in Western North Carolina are growing more frequent and more intense. Talking to two women who had been attacked by black bears helped me understand what they had done wrong and what we need to do to prevent such attacks in the future.

Like me, a bunch of people have moved to Asheville to get away from climate disasters in other parts of the country--only to discover that no place is immune from climate change.

While doing a deep dive exploration of contra dance callers for The Assembly, I discovered how much this popular folk dance has gotten embroiled in our country's culture wars.

An Asheville man decided to take his son to Mobile, Alabama--by boat. An incredible Huck Finn-style adventure ensued.

Several weeks before they hosted their first major festival, the founders of the band Rising Appalachia, Leah Song and Chloe Smith, invited me to hang out with them at their "art squat" in the mountains. 

Mushroom season in the Southern Appalachians starts with one of the trickiest to find. Teaming up with local experts, I spent a month searching for, and more often than not finding, morels.