Since Harrah’s Cherokee Casino and Resort added table games with live dealers last year they’ve had to round up hundreds of new card dealers — and they’re still looking for more.

The number of high school students failing random drug tests in Haywood County has remained constant since the school system put a drug testing policy in place seven years ago.

Bringing together world culture and Southern Appalachia traditions, Folkmoot USA transcends any and all barriers.

Whether it’s language, physical boundaries or appearance, the art of live performance found at this international dance and music festival erases any differences by creating an ambiance that’s as embracing as it is unique. Entering its 30th year, the festival has solidified itself in the landscape of Western North Carolina.  

There was no shortage of work to be done when N.C. Missions of Mercy, a mobile dental camp, came rolling into town last week and set up shop in Cullowhee. 

It make have taken 50 million years, give or take, but the small, armored animal known as the armadillo is finally making into the hills into Western North Carolina after its humble roots in South America eons ago — and it could be here to stay.

An ambitious yearlong exercise to create a collective economic vision for the mountains will decide whether a long-awaited $800 million highway through the rugged and remote far western end of the state is ever built. 

Carrying a consulting fee of $1.3 million, the visioning process is supposed to quantify the emotional and ancedotal arguments about the controversial highway known as Corridor K — and ultimately determine whether it lives or dies.

Law enforcement agencies in Western North Carolina are cracking down on drug use in the region.

Mitigating the deadly and damaging effects of mountain landslides might be as simple as understanding them.

In his brief five months in Congress, U.S. Rep. Mark Meadows, R-Cashiers, has kept busy — voting on several pieces of key legislation, sitting in on committee hearings, drafting bills of his own and when he can, traveling back to Western North Carolina.

Like New York is known for its basketball legends, and Texas is known for its football stars, Western North Carolina has become one the big names in a slightly less conspicuous sport: competitive fly fishing.

Fly fishing was long dominated by regions in the Rockies and Sierras out West. But the sport has seen a shift in both interest and talent to the Southeast — and specifically the Smokies.