Charlotte City Council recently voted to spend $91 million buying freight railroad tracks from Norfolk Southern. That’s a critical step toward building the Red Line commuter train to Lake Norman — a plan almost three decades in the making. Here’s what the council should do next.

North Mecklenburg voters are getting a new political mailer. Republicans are playing that game, too, however. The N.C. Republican Party is sending hard-hitting mailers — nasty mailers — about two Democratic state House candidates in swing Mecklenburg districts.

In her widely praised, 35-minute acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention last Thursday, Harris dispensed with academic jargon or much talk of left-leaning social issues in a bid to claim the center.

The 2016 presidential election is remembered as a polling bust. But the reality is that 2016 wasn’t that bad of a polling miss. What’s forgotten is what a disaster 2020 was.

North Carolina’s 2024 presidential ballot is likely to be the most crowded in at least 50 years. In addition to the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates on the ballot, there are set to be five others.

Nearly a decade ago, Harvard researcher Raj Chetty released a report that said Charlotte was 50th out of 50 of large American cities for economic mobility. The study was updated recently, and Charlotte showed some of the biggest progress in improving economic mobility among large cities. It’s still in the bottom half, but is now 38th. WFAE's Steve Harrison explores some of the reasons floated for Charlotte doing better — and whether any of them fully make sense. (Spoiler alert: Few of them do.)

In his speech in Charlotte last week, Trump spewed multiple falsehoods about presumptive Democratic nominee Kamala Harris — such as an incorrect claim that she supports abortion “even after birth — the execution of a baby.” But race and gender is, for now, not on the Trump set list. So what did Trump say? And will it work?

The N.C. Board of Elections declined on Tuesday to certify petitions by progressive academic Cornel West’s Justice For All Party. Italo Medelius is leading Justice For All’s efforts in North Carolina. Leading up to the vote, he complained the state Democratic Party was playing a chicken-or-egg game with West and his followers.

Recent polling suggests Trump is a heavy favorite to win the state, of course, should Biden stay in the race. But it also raises the possibility of Republicans sweeping all 10 council of state seats along with the state Supreme Court race.

The race is not to run against Vi Lyles. But to succeed her, whenever she decides not to run again. But last Monday's City Council vote to spend $650 million to renovate Bank of America Stadium was the unofficial campaign opening for several council members, even if we don’t know when that campaign will be.