The North Carolina State Board of Dental Examiners is investigating the unusual billing trends of Dr. Michael Hassan, the same Wilmington oral surgeon already facing dozens of criminal charges for allegedly sexually assaulting his female patients while they were sedated.
The FBI file from the case was recently released to WECT. Though heavily redacted, newly revealed details help explain how investigators determined Lacy died by his own hands.
It’s been more than 10 months since the New Hanover County School Board voted to approve an agreement allowing former Superintendent Tim Markley to resign - granting him more than $200,000 worth of benefits.
To the best of her understanding, while she doesn’t have to repay that portion of the loan to the government, Miller-Motte still gets to keep the money that was borrowed on her daughter’s behalf.
As the first doses of Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine arrives in North Carolina, details have slowly emerged about how the first doses are being distributed.
But WECT recently learned three children ages five and younger died by homicide in Pender County in 2017. It took more than a year to get autopsy reports for some of those cases, all of which remain unsolved.
WECT has obtained emails that indicate a local judge, who previously served as president of the Lower Cape Fear Republican Women’s (LCFRW) group, was directly involved in the sale and auction of two hats that were allegedly marketed as being signed by President Donald Trump.
The State Bureau of Investigation is looking into criminal allegations surrounding a local political group. The group is accused of auctioning off merchandise allegedly hand signed by the president, that turned out to be fake.
The Town of Carolina Beach has brought in millions of dollars’ worth of revenue from Freeman Park without owning the vast majority of the land at the North End. But the land the town does claim ownership over has been questioned in the past and was, at one point, disputed by the county.
Thousands of North Carolinians have been forced from their homes this year, despite a pair of orders from the Governor banning evictions Leegraciea Lewis, who was forced from her apartment and is now living in an extended stay hotel, is one of them.
Election administrators across North Carolina continue to update the information of people who voted on election day, even as calls increase for that information to be made public much sooner. But the process is working on schedule, just as it always has.
Nurse practitioners are questioning their own education at some colleges. There’s no national standard on how to educate nurse practitioners, while medical education for doctors was standardized more than 100 years ago.
Control of the North Carolina General Assembly, and thus a hand in the once-a-decade redraw of congressional and state legislative maps, may come down to a handful of state Senate races. And the money aimed at those races shows it.
Thirteen military veterans being housed at a Wilmington nursing home will likely have to move, after the nursing home owners failed to meet minimum standards required by the federal government.
While state-run prisons in North Carolina have been court ordered to take extra steps to protect inmates from COVID-19, the same rules do not apply to county jails. As a result, each county sheriff is operating their jail by a different set of rules.
Since Sheriff Greene took office in December 2018, his department has accepted $3.8 million dollars in surplus military equipment from the federal government, including two helicopters, a mine resistant vehicle, nine cargo and utility trucks, boats, 300 magazine cartridges and nine riot shields.
After months of legislative and legal fights over the rules for absentee-by-mail voting, North Carolina finally has some clarity two weeks before Election Day.
State Auditor Beth Wood tells WECT the State Auditor’s office did not and would not recommended "blanket travel authorization" for the college president and trustees.
North Carolina will soon launch a pilot program to begin digitizing electronic death records. It is currently one of just three states still processing death certificates by hand, which has made it hard to gauge the impact of COVID-19 on the state's mortality rate.
North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper has refused to meet with or take any action to pardon four men who were wrongfully convicted and imprisoned for crimes they did not commit. As a result, those men cannot get any compensation from the state.
The N.C. Department of Environmental Quality has issued a permit for a water treatment system at Chemours' Fayetteville Works site to remove PFAS from a contaminated stream that flows into the Cape Fear River, state officials announced Friday.
Students say they are being involuntarily withdrawn from their training program, effectively losing credit for all of their studies up to this point, and still being required to pay for that coursework.
Cape Fear Public Utility Authority has filed a motion in Bladen County Superior Court to be granted “equal standing with the State and Cape Fear River Watch in negotiations about measures Chemours must take to address the company’s PFAS releases, including contamination in the drinking water of CFPU
The homeowner said he was shocked when the builder then hired an attorney to go after him for the unpaid balance, and placed a lien request on his home.
Soles requested the change in 2019, and the bar agreed. As a result, an investigation into pending claims that he mishandled clients’ money was put on hold.
WECT Investigates took a look at decades of admitted and alleged sexual abuse by New Hanover County Schools employees, and how administrators handled allegations and complaints.
The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality and Chemours have agreed to additional PFAS control measures that will help control groundwater-related impacts of the toxic chemicals at Chemours’ Fayetteville Works site.
Many of the ZIP codes throughout the state with the highest infection rates have similar characteristics, but that doesn't mean it's easy to tell why the virus is spreading.
After WECT aired a story about Bader’s case, where WPD dropped child sex assault charges against him for lack of evidence after his highly publicized arrest, another man came forward to say the same thing had happened to him at the hands of the same detective.
The New Hanover County School board sought the release of those documents in September 2019, to use to defend themselves in a civil lawsuit filed against them by victims of Michael Kelly.
Attorney General Josh Stein on Monday announced that his office has launched a formal investigation into the manufacturers and other entities responsible for the per- or polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) contamination in North Carolina.
Of 75 complaints and referrals related to COVID-19 and the meat packing industry through July 15, none have prompted fines or even a site visit, the NC labor department says.
Documents obtained by the N.C. Watchdog Reporting Network show state health leaders waited until mid-April to begin formulating a comprehensive state-wide testing plan. At the same time, North Carolina was slipping to the bottom of the back in per-capita testing compared to other states.
North Carolina lacks a plan for regular testing for staff and residents in nursing homes and lags other states in even ordering mandatory one-time testing. Experts say that could cost lives.
After repeatedly refusing to provide itemized bills for the college’s legal expenses, insisting the bills from their attorney were protected by attorney-client privilege, CFCC changed course and gave those documents to WECT at the end of June.
Days after the North Carolina legislature’s passage of a bill that includes a measure to further restrict death investigation records from public access, some lawmakers say they plan to walk back the provision.
Leaders at health systems around the state say a combination of better medical care and larger stockpiles of protective gear mean they can handle surges in COVID-19 patients more effectively today than they could three months ago. But those same leaders warn that the additional capacity still has a
NC prison officials transferred more than 1,000 inmates between various prisons in April and May, at a time when they said inmate movement had been largely restricted. Experts say each inmate movement increased the risk of spreading the virus.
Nationwide, transparency advocates have pushed for the release of use-of-force records themselves, which provide far greater detail on each incident and the law enforcement officers involved.
Some viewed the now-tenured professor as untouchable because of first amendment protections of his free speech, but new questions about claims on Adams’ resume may be his undoing.
Donny Williams, Interim chief of the Wilmington Police Department, wrote in a Twitter post, Friday afternoon, that he was deeply troubled by what he saw happen to George Floyd.
A coalition of more than two dozen media outlets filed a lawsuit on Thursday seeking the release of a list of records related to COVID-19 that the state had, so far, refused to provide.
An investigation by the internal watchdog for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has found “insufficient communication and coordination” within the agency allowed DuPont, and later Chemours, to discharge the toxic compound GenX into the Cape Fear River virtually unchecked for nearly a decade.
CFCC has repeatedly refused to disclose itemized legal bills, or to explain the surge in expenses, saying the bills are protected by attorney-client privilege. Public records law experts say otherwise.
Barbara Anne Stewart died May 7 at a Danville, Virginia, hospital at the age of 57, about a month after she tested positive for the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.
A Wilmington-based engineering firm is scheduled to begin drilling work this week in the Kelly area in Bladen County in what would mark the first significant work to bring a dike back into working order and protect citizens in the area from potential flooding dangers.
An analysis of state nursing home inspections and records of COVID-19 infections associated with nursing homes by the Washington Post reveals dozens of facilities had infection-related violations in the months before coronavirus infections.
An analysis of limited data provided by the state shows significant gaps exist in responses to the survey, sometimes from the state’s largest hospitals.
Despite the urgent need for funding — the 2020 general election is less than six months away — North Carolina lawmakers have yet to substantively address requests made by the state board of elections.
Statewide, cases at those facilities account for nearly 18% of all laboratory-confirmed cases of the virus and more than half of the total deaths reported in the state.
Unlike many other countries, the FDA doesn't require a "made in" label on drugs, even though the federal agency estimates 80% of the ingredients and 40% of the finished drugs are manufactured overseas.
When council came out of the closed session, Mayor Craig Caster stated, “In our closed session, our manager was given authorization to look into the allegations presented in the special meeting about the police department.”
Boiling Spring Lakes Commissioners have called a closed session meeting to discuss personnel, just days after receiving a complaint from a member of the police department alleging sexual harassment and uneven discipline polices by the new chief of police.
