INDY Week

01/09/2026

What's next for Chatham Estates mobile home park residents after receiving notice to vacate? The Town of Cary and a local nonprofit will help.

01/09/2026

Hundreds of Durham residents flooded into CCB Plaza in downtown Durham on Thursday night to protest the fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old Minneapolis resident who was shot and killed by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent on January 7.

Activists from across the community, including student activists and members of Durham Beyond Policing, led the crowd in call and response chants, and blasted politicians at every level of government who activists say are complicit in the increased presence of ICE agents and the lack of accountability when federal agents use unwarranted and excessive force.

Read more at indyweek.com.

01/08/2026

A 50-year plan to safeguard access to clean and abundant water for Wake County residents is nearing completion after three years in development.

The Wake County One Water Plan is designed “to protect the water supply, reduce nutrient pollution, mitigate flooding, and promote equal access to these benefits,” according to the draft dated to September 10. It is a collaboration between Wake County’s 12 municipalities to ensure there will be enough clean water as the county grows.

The county anticipates its population will grow by 250,000 people in the next decade and is preparing to add more than 2 million residents by 2070. The county also projects water demand will more than double within its municipal water supply systems by 2070, based on 2021 levels.

✍️: By Kennedy Thomason
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Wake County’s One Water Plan to address shortages in towns like Fuquay-Varina could go before the county’s board of commissioners for approval in February.

01/08/2026

A documentary on North Carolina’s drinking water crisis, Chanel Mill at Quail Ridge Books, and more events around the Triangle we recommend this week.

✍ Written by Sarah Edwards and Ryan Cocca
🔗 Read more at the link below.

A documentary on North Carolina's drinking water crisis, Chanel Mill at Quail Ridge Books, and more local events we recommend this week.

01/07/2026

BREAKING: A Durham resident facing a two-year ban from Durham City Hall will regain access to the building next week—roughly two years earlier than expected—after a Monday appeal hearing resulted in the restriction being lifted.

Amanda Wallace was banned from city hall in December after disrupting the swearing-in ceremony of newly elected council member Matt Kopac. From her seat, Wallace spent several minutes loudly criticizing both Kopac and the judge administering the oath before a police officer escorted her out of the chambers. Kopac was subsequently sworn in.

City Manager Bo Ferguson, who independently made the calls both to impose and lift the ban, told the INDY last month that the measure had nothing to do with the words Wallace uttered—he didn’t even remember what Wallace had said, he said—but rather with the fact that her conduct had interfered with the transfer of power.

✍️: By Lena Geller
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The ban would have barred Amanda Wallace from entering Durham's city hall until 2027; following an appeal hearing, the city manager reversed course.

01/06/2026

Welcome to 2026! Here's a special INDY news quiz.

How well do you know the Triangle’s biggest stories of 2025? Put your knowledge to the test with this special edition of INDY’s weekly news quiz. Can you get all 12 correct?

How well do you know the Triangle's biggest stories? Put your knowledge to the test with INDY's weekly news quiz.

01/06/2026

More than two dozen species of oak are native to North Carolina. But with a quick glance and some context clues, Luke Ferreira and Spencer Cain can identify pretty much all of them. Not to mention most trees in every other native genus as well.

On a johnboat cutting up Turkey Quarter Creek in the eastern part of the state, Ferreira has been instructing me about the differences between water oaks and laurel oaks.

Ferreira and Cain began hunting for champion trees five years ago. This uncommon hobby takes them deep into the woods to look for the biggest trees they can find in any given species—both the biggest of the big and the biggest of the small.

📝: Originally published by The Assembly
✍️: By Jonathan Pattishall
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Two arborists’ uncommon hobby takes them deep into the North Carolina woods to look for the state’s leafy giants.

01/06/2026

The hook for the story of Margaret C. Anderson is undeniably her connection to James Joyce’s Ulysses, so we’ll start there. Anderson was the founder and editor of a literary magazine called The Little Review for about 15 years, beginning in 1914, in which she championed controversial art.

In 1918, Anderson and Ezra Pound, who was serving as the Review’s poetry editor at the time, began publishing one chapter of Ulysses per issue. To say the excerpts were unpopular is an understatement. Three issues were seized and burned by the Post Office, which could operate as a federal censor at that time. Many readers hated their first encounter with Ulysses, which would go on to be considered the greatest modernist novel, and begged Anderson to stop serializing it. A bit of a tyrant in terms of taste, Anderson refused.

✍️: By Shelbi Polk
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A new biography "A Danger to the Minds of Young Girls" tells about 'Ulysses', editor, Margaret C. Anderson, and a fight against censorship.

01/05/2026

Two months ago, Sean Stegall was the successful, seemingly uncontroversial town manager of Cary—a low-profile but influential position that gave him control of a 1300-person staff and a $500 million annual budget to work with. Stegall was nearing his 10-year work anniversary and had just published a book chronicling his accomplishments and leadership philosophy. By all accounts, he deserved as much credit as anyone for making Cary a prosperous, well-run town.

Then, on November 20, the Cary Town Council placed Stegall on administrative leave after learning he had engaged in excessive spending without council approval. In the following weeks, public records requests and reporting revealed that Stegall had unilaterally signed off on land purchases totaling over a million dollars, approved the town’s payment of a council member’s tuition, and violated the town’s fund balance policy, all without informing the full town council. A few weeks later, Stegall resigned.

✍️: By Chloe Courtney Bohl
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Cary Mayor Harold Weinbrecht discusses the former town manager’s tenure, finding consensus to move forward, and regaining the public’s trust.

01/05/2026

A giant blue axolotl dancing to cheers, laughter, and honking horns: That was the vibe at Cary Indivisible’s No Kings protest in October, a gathering of some 5,000 people united against President Donald Trump’s authoritarian agenda.

The local activist group was founded back in February by longtime Democrats Steve and Martha Glass. The group’s first meeting was limited to about 30 people living in the Glasses’ retirement community, Glenaire. But word soon spread. Now, Cary Indivisible has expanded beyond Glenaire to include some 700 official members, mostly “younger seniors” and middle-aged Cary residents, with even more people, of all ages, coming to protests.

✍️: By Jasmine Gallup
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Founded by a couple with years of experience in government and politics, the Cary Indivisible chapter has grown to include members of all ages who want to fight for democracy and find some joy in the process.

01/02/2026

“The terror has calmed down now, at year 10,” laughs Erin Karcher, owner of popular le***an bar Arcana Bar and Lounge in downtown Durham. “But it felt super risky [to open a bar] at the time, and it was terrifying until we had already been open for a year.”

Karcher opened Arcana with former business partner Lindsey Andrews in December 2015, after Andrews approached Karcher, one summer night, with the idea of opening their own bar. It would be a tarot card cocktail bar, a space unlike any other in Durham.

“Lindsey and I definitely wanted to have a bar that was q***r inclusive and LGBTQ+ friendly, and particularly a place that felt safe and welcoming to women,” Karcher said of their initial vision.

✍️: By Elliott Harrell
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Last year, Arcana was designated by The Le***an Bar Project as one of 36 official le***an bars across the country. This month, it turns ten.

12/31/2025

It’s been a busy year here at the INDY since I started overseeing our Wake County coverage.

With our small team, we’ve covered police misconduct, affordable housing, budget season, Pride, transit, and local elections. We had features on an Amtrak chronicle; a look at local 9/11 survivors’ quest for affordable health care; a kid-driven mission to procure a new bike trail, and a piece on a DIY skate park.

In the year ahead, we’ll focus heavily on western Wake and keep an eye on Raleigh, which has municipal elections coming up. And we’ll keep tabs on the county commissioners, who will add two seats next fall, and the school board as it works to manage budgetary chaos.

To do this, we need your support.

https://indyweek.com/join/?utm_campaign=eoy_socials