A spate of early announcements by local candidates hoping to gain seats in the North Carolina General Assembly may have voters feeling like they’ve been here before — because the candidates certainly have.

It’s September in the hills when Western Carolina University’s fall foliage forecaster Beverly Collins attempts to quantify the quality of the annual color show in Western North Carolina through a scientific-based prediction. And Collins is anticipating a good display across the mountains this year.

A report recently issued by the Land of Sky Clean Vehicles Coalition clears the air about Haywood County’s greenhouse gas reductions.

Long before the Oct. 3, 1880, arrival of the first scheduled train in Asheville, the American railroad has been romanticized in both story and song, on stage and on screen.

Trains took us to our baby, or away from our baby. Trains took us off to war, or home to peace. Trains opened vast swaths of the American West to settlement, bringing with them jobs, growth, trade and prosperity while quietly gliding over miles upon miles of cold steel rail.

One needn’t look further than industries like Sylva’s Jackson Paper, Canton’s Evergreen Packaging and Waynesville’s Giles Chemical for evidence of how rail access benefits the economy in small Western North Carolina towns.

The inherent paradox in American government is that a nation founded upon Christian values by Christians provides for the separation of church and state in its governing charter.

While that is de jure status quo, it is far from de facto; customs, holidays and laws with a basis in Christianity remain at the core of the American tradition, often with implicit if not explicit government support.

With the June 29 passage of Senate Bill 155, North Carolina became the 47th state in the union to allow alcohol service before noon on Sundays.

Now in their senior and sophomore years of high school, Karen and José Ramos — ages 18 and 16, respectively — are just starting to imagine how they might make their mark on the world after graduation.

In a nation of more than 320 million people, a small group of just 800,000 sit squarely in the crosshairs of a controversial proposal that could end their dream of American citizenship and possibly erode the underpinnings of the American Dream itself.