NC News

NC News

July 18, 2025

AG Sues FEMA Over Revoked Infrastructure Funds

North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson announced Wednesday he is suing FEMA over its decision to cancel the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) program. The program was expected to provide $200 million to North Carolina for public utility services damaged by storms.

FEMA canceled BRIC in April and announced that its undistributed funds would be returned to the federal Disaster Relief Fund.

Jackson’s lawsuit follows a bipartisan letter signed by numerous members of Congress, including North Carolina Republicans Rep. Chuck Edwards and Sen. Thom Tillis, urging FEMA to reinstate the funds.

North Carolina Department of Public Safety Secretary Eddie M. Buffaloe Jr. also supports Jackson’s lawsuit, which is joined by the attorneys general of 18 other states.

9 Charged in Stolen Checks Fraud Ring

Nine people have been charged in Buncombe County after a five-month investigation into a fraud ring that raked in nearly $100,000 after checks, IDs, and debit cards were stolen from mailboxes in neighborhoods still recovering from Hurricane Helene.

The investigation led detectives from the Buncombe County Sheriff’s Office to two of the nine suspects: Angela Queen and Wesley McCrary, who allegedly ran the ring. The U.S. Marshals Carolina Regional Fugitive Task Force arrested Queen and McCrary on June 4 in Marion and recovered a large amount of the stolen items.

Queen’s charges, consisting of 102 counts, include trafficking in stolen identities, identity theft, felony conspiracy, obtaining property by false pretense, financial card theft, and forgery of an instrument, among others.

Six of the nine individuals charged have been arrested, while three remain at large with active warrants.

Post-Helene River Cleanup Project Launches

MountainTrue, a Western North Carolina-based conservation nonprofit, is partnering with the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality to conduct a comprehensive debris cleanup of rivers flooded by Hurricane Helene.

The program will use $10 million in state funding to deploy paid crews over the next 18 months, working alongside MountainTrue’s existing volunteers to clean over 150 miles of river throughout the region.

“This is more than a cleanup—it’s a recovery effort that puts people back to work and brings communities together to restore the rivers we all depend on,” said MountainTrue Clean Waters Director Hartwell Carson.

Cleanup crews and volunteers have already removed 3 million pounds of trash since the storm hit. Anyone interested in joining the program can apply here.