David Boraks

Charlotte and state Department Of Transportation officials have put out a call for developers interested in building the proposed Gateway Station mixed-use project next to realigned passenger rail tracks uptown. The development on 13 acres off West Trade Street could include shops, offices, housing and a hotel as well as a new Amtrak train station. 

Thousands of drivers a day have been using toll lanes on I-77 for speedier commutes since the first 15-mile section opened in June in the Lake Norman area. But it may be a while before commuter buses are taking advantage of the lanes. 

Rising temperatures from global warming will more than double the number of dangerously hot days across the United States by 2050 unless the country does more to fight the problem. That's according to the Union of Concerned Scientists, which says the Southeast could see the biggest effects of rising temperatures.

Drivers took a half-million trips on the I-77 Express toll lanes north of Charlotte in June, the first month they were open. But you didn't need to pay a toll to get a faster ride. 

Several top-level city staffers who oversee environmental policy in Charlotte are departing this month, at a time when City Hall is trying to focus on environmental issues.

The Carolina Panthers' executive who is leading efforts to bring Major League Soccer to Charlotte says a pair of soccer-related deals announced Tuesday gives the city momentum to land a top-level professional team.

Public hearings are planned Tuesday night in High Point and Wednesday night in Charlotte on Piedmont Natural Gas's first rate hike request in six years.

Investigators continued searching the rubble of a south Charlotte home Wednesday as they try to learn what caused an explosion Tuesday that killed one person and seriously hurt another. 

Updated 4:24 p.m. 

Wednesday afternoon, Charlotte Fire Marshall John Leonard said investigators determined an interior gas leak caused the explosion that leveled a home in the Ballantyne area of Charlotte. 

Rania Karam, 58, was killed when her home on James Jack Lane exploded around 1:45 p.m.  Her husband, Jebran Karam, a cardiologist practicing at Raleigh General Hospital in Beckley, West Virginia, was seriously injured in the explosion.

The fire department says it took rescuers about seven hours find Rania Karam in the debris. 

Charlotte is getting another professional soccer team.  Stumptown Athletic is scheduled begin playing this fall in a new men's league at the third level of U.S. soccer. 

Updated 2:42 p.m.
North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper has vetoed the state budget approved Thursday by the Republican-controlled General Assembly. Speaking to reporters Friday morning, Cooper called the budget "an astonishing failure of common sense and common decency."

Lowe's has picked a site in Charlotte's South End for a new $153 million global technology center that eventually is expected to have up to 2,000 employees. 

The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that North Carolina's congressional map is not an unconstitutional gerrymander, giving the Republican leadership in the General Assembly a victory.