Although Haywood County’s municipal elections in Canton, Clyde and Maggie Valley will garner the most attention through November, state legislative campaigns will fire up shortly thereafter — if not sooner.

Bryson City Board of Aldermen has been discussing potential changes to alcohol regulations that could allow local businesses to sell earlier and later on Sundays.

It’s one of those summer days that’s so hot and humid it’s impossible to walk even two steps without sweating, and inside the butterfly house the air is even heavier, thick as a tropical rainforest.

But, for the butterflies, it’s perfect.

Residents and visitors may soon be able to enjoy a mimosa or bloody Mary during their Sunday morning brunch.

A new law passed in the North Carolina Legislature will give restaurants and distilleries an economic boost by allowing them to sell more of their own product.

During the long session of the North Carolina Legislature that recently concluded, hundreds of bills were again proposed, studied and debated.

Leaders in both the North Carolina House and Senate have reached consensus on a $23 billion fiscal year 2017-18 budget June 19.

Any local, state and federal budget typically includes what is technically called discretionary spending but is commonly known as “pork.”

Assuming a legislative override of Gov. Roy Cooper’s budget veto — which happened as The Smoky Mountain News went to press June 27 — North Carolinians could be in for a slew of tax cuts that will save state residents by one estimate more than $530 million over two years when they take effect in 2019.

A legislative majority of House and Senate members have reached a state budget agreement, one that is providing nearly $700 million more in public education spending over the next two years — but not everyone is happy with where that funding is going.

Eminent figures have called for common sense, nonpartisan redistricting since even before Massachusetts Gov. Elbridge Gerry unwittingly lent his name to the unseemly practice of gerrymandering.