Ely Portillo
Senior Editor for News & PlanningEly Portillo is Senior Editor for News and Planning at WFAE. In this role, he is responsible for planning and editing daily news coverage, as well as working on newsletters, digital content and long-term projects. A longtime Charlotte journalist, Ely worked at the UNC Charlotte Urban Institute and the Charlotte Observer before coming to WFAE.
-
Union County commissioners voted 3-2 Monday night to ban the use of fluoride in the county's water system.
-
If you’ve been following transit and transportation for a few years in Charlotte, you might be forgiven for a reflexive twinge of skepticism when it comes to grand pronouncements about the future. Big ideas seem to be ever-slipping out of sight over the horizon.
-
Nearly four years after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, parts of Charlotte's center city have recovered fully and then some — hotels are full with rising room rates, South End is seeing record office leasing rates for new towers, and there are still thousands of apartments under construction. But one area is emerging as a particularly troubled spot: Older office towers.
-
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools mistakenly paid 225 high school English teachers a recruitment bonus this month that they’ll now have to pay back.
-
Charlotte Douglas International Airport officials kicked off the "Destination District" project on Tuesday. The airport plans to develop the area around the airport's main entrance at Wilkinson Boulevard with hotels, restaurants, shops and more.
-
Facing a slowdown in the electric vehicle market and slumping lithium prices, Charlotte-based Albemarle Corp. announced plans to slash costs. Albemarle has been working to reopen a lithium mine in Kings Mountain, as well as a new lithium processing plant in Richburg, S.C., and a research center in Charlotte. The processing plant and the Charlotte research center are now on hold.
-
Gastonia, population 81,000, will be the biggest city in North Carolina to shift to on-demand vans, SUVs and sedans for public transportation.
-
The city of Gastonia is cutting all of its regular bus routes and replacing them with on-demand service. Gastonia operates six bus routes that drew 144,000 riders last year. But starting in July, Gastonia will instead offer on-demand rides through a three-year, $1.65 million contract with River North Transit. That means instead of waiting at bus stops along set routes, riders will use an app, website or call center to schedule a ride directly where they’re going, similar to Uber or Lyft.
-
The NFL fined Carolina Panthers owner David Tepper $300,000 on Tuesday, two days after the billionaire was caught on video tossing a drink on fans from a luxury suite at the Jacksonville Jaguars' stadium.
-
The shooting took place at Romare Bearden Park in uptown Charlotte shortly before midnight Monday. All five victims had wounds that were not life-threatening, CMPD said.