WFAE Local Content

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Animal Care and Control is often near capacity, but what makes the current situation urgent is that between Oct. 1 and Oct. 23, dogs at the shelter stayed an average of about 26 days before being adopted — up from roughly eight days during the same period last year.

With the federal government shutdown expected to stretch into November, many federal employees will miss paychecks, and SNAP benefits are temporarily suspended. In North Carolina, about 1.4 million residents depend on SNAP assistance. In Mecklenburg County, that number is around 140,000.

Con el cierre del gobierno federal que se espera se prolongue a través de noviembre, muchos empleados federales no recibirán sus cheques de pago y los beneficios de SNAP se suspenderán temporalmente. En Carolina del Norte, alrededor de 1.4 millones de residentes dependen de la asistencia de SNAP. En el condado de Mecklenburg, esa cifra ronda los 140,000.

Students at Hidden Valley Elementary School celebrated Halloween with members of the community, who spent the day going classroom-to-classroom, reading books for the school’s inaugural Fall Read-A-Thon.

Tuesday is the big day: Mecklenburg County voters will decide whether to approve raising the sales tax to fund a multibillion-dollar transportation plan. Transit Time has been covering the issue for years, and with Election Day fast approaching, here is an overview of the plan, followed by details of what it would do.

It’s been one month since a new North Carolina law requiring sheriffs to work more closely with ICE went into effect, and the Mecklenburg County Sheriff's Office is navigating the new landscape.

The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department will soon have a new police chief. CMPD on Friday named Estella Patterson, who was formerly the Raleigh Chief of Police, to lead the department. Patterson will now become the first female police chief in Charlotte’s history.

The trial begins for two men accused of murdering Scott Brooks of Brooks Sandwich House. More than 100,000 recipients in Mecklenburg County face losing SNAP benefits due to the federal government shutdown. CMS sets rules on the use of artificial intelligence. And it’s do or die for Charlotte FC in the playoffs after losing on Tuesday.

Some Charlotte area nonprofits are stepping up to help people poised to lose SNAP benefits this weekend. Head Start programs across N.C. will be forced to close their doors today due to the government shutdown. Participation in early voting for Tuesday's municipal election is up sharply. N.C. scientists discover a new species of dinosaur.

Recent federal actions cast uncertainty over the future of North Carolina’s solar industry. But people familiar with the history of rooftop solar in the state say uncertainty is nothing new.

North Carolina lawmakers have finished the session they began in January, four months late. Republican leaders said last week they don’t plan to hold any more votes this year. If that’s the case, this session will go down as one of the General Assembly’s most unproductive, depending on the metrics you look at.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools is trying to increase the percentage of students scoring at the highest level on the state Math I exam. But they’ve got a lot of ground to make up, especially among high schoolers.