After a routine surgery, Haywood County native Clayton Suggs ended up hooked on opioids until on the first day alone in his new apartment after a year of sobriety, his addiction eventually cost him his life. 

It was finally moving day, and that empty little Greensboro apartment must have seemed like a mansion to 29-year-old Clayton Suggs. 

Fitting, the lack of furnishings; the whole thing was a blank slate, a new start.

A successor has been chosen for Sylva Police Chief Tammy Hooper following a three-month search by a panel of Western North Carolina law enforcement and managers.

Gov. Roy Cooper signed the Death by Distribution Act into law earlier this month, making it easier for prosecutors to charge drug dealers with second-degree murder for selling someone a lethal dose. 

Nine months after a traffic accident that resulted in a pair of drug possession charges for a lead law enforcement supervisor with the Blue Ridge Parkway, the officer is still barred from performing law enforcement duties — despite the charges being dismissed and expunged from the record.

Not long after retired U.S. Air Force officer and former teacher Mary Ford moved to Waynesville with her husband, she decided to enroll in something called the Waynesville Civilian Police Academy. The next year, she found herself in charge. 

The longstanding brouhaha over a makeshift dwelling near Frog Level has escalated to the point where enforcement action is likely in the coming days. 

It’s likely to be another tough budget year as Macon County commissioners are faced with a growing list of capital and security improvement needs, increased health care costs and stagnant property values.

A juvenile justice system already stressed to the limit is about to be stretched even further, thanks to a change in state law that will increase caseloads as well as the need for youth diversionary programs. And although this coming change has been on the radar for some time now, there’s still no clear signs on who’s going to pay for it, how or when. 

A major law enforcement operation targeting drug trafficking in and around the Qualla Boundary has resulted in the arrest of more than 75 individuals on federal, state and tribal charges.