WRAL Daily Download

A mammoth question is hanging over the 2024 presidential election: Will former President Donald Trump be eligible to appear on ballots. He's the Republican frontrunner in the race. A group of Trump opponents is trying to keep him off ballots across the country using a legal strategy with roots in North Carolina. WRAL State Government Reporter Will Doran explains why conservatives say the strategy...

The Atlantic Coast Conference - known for rivalries between UNC, Duke, NC State and other East Coast teams - is going bi-coastal. ACC officials voted Friday to invite schools from California and Texas to the conference, dramatically expanding it's geographic footprint. The expansion approval came over objections from some of the league's best-known schools. WRAL Sports Investigative Reporter Brian...

Okay, so most of us are familiar with home-sharing apps like Airbnb and VRBO, but have you heard of a pool-sharing app? Yes, I said pool. It was only a matter of time before everything could be shared. “Swimply” rents private backyard pools. But one county’s health department in North Carolina is threatening to shut the site down saying the rentals don’t comply with the sta...

Have you ever lost anything important and wished you had a way to track it? Now, you do. Airtags can be placed in luggage, on your key ring, even in your wallet. They connect to your phone and show you where you can find your lost item. But what if your item is stolen? Should you go to the location and try to get it back? In this episode, WRAL 5 On Your Side Reporter Keely Arthur talked to local l...

In the hours that followed a fatal shooting inside a UNC lab Monday, profiles of the victim and suspect emerged. They worked together in a nanoscience lab - the suspect was a student, the victim an accomplished professor. As the campus mourned the loss of a colleague, police searched for a motive and a weapon - and the students raised questions about active-shooter preparedness. Ashley Talley, WRA...

Since 2000, more than 50 tropical cyclones have impacted North Carolina. In modern history there have been five hurricanes that did billions of dollars in damage to our state and resulted in dozens of deaths including hurricanes Florence, Matthew, Floyd, Fran, and Hugo. Are hurricanes getting more intense and more frequent? What is the significance of the numerical category of a hurricane? How are...

There are no words except for it happened here. A shooting took place on the campus of UNC Chapel Hill Monday afternoon in a science building, Caudill Laboratories. One faculty member was killed. The entire campus was put on lockdown for hours as police searched for the shooter. Students and staff silently cowered in locked, dark classrooms, dorm rooms and other campus buildings until they got the...

North Carolina school districts are grappling with a teacher shortage, so school districts are scouring the globe to attract new educators. WRAL Education Insider Emily Walkenhorst details the unusual lengths to which recruiters are going to bring teachers to the state. 

The family and friends of Allisha Watts have been searching for her for weeks, holding vigils to keep her disappearance in the public eye. Today, the search ended with a grim discovery-her body in a cemetery in Norman, North Carolina at the Montgomery/Richmond County line. Her boyfriend, James Dunmore, the last person to see her alive according to authorities, is now charged in her murder. WRAL re...

During the pandemic, school districts across North Carolina received tens of millions of dollars as part of special COVID funding to pay for things like cleaning schools, PPE, teacher retention bonuses, and technology needed for remote learning. That funding has now ended, and while some school districts still have part of the money left over, they are trying to figure out how to plug some of thei...

A company in North Carolina dumped massive amounts of toxic chemicals into the Cape Fear River for decades, the drinking water supply for hundreds of thousands of people. These "forever chemicals" also contaminated the air and groundwater surrounding the plant. The contamination was first revealed five years ago, but still thousands of people are being forced to use contaminated water today. It's...

When we send our children to school, there are so many things we worry about. But when was the last time you thought about fire safety in the building where your kids attend class? Our WRAL Investigates team poured over thousands of pages of fire inspection reports in Wake County schools from January to July to get a fuller picture. They found 2700 violations during this time period. In this episo...

It’s one thing to say you want to be a musician when you grow up; it’s another thing altogether to chase your dreams and make them happen. In today’s episode, we are talking to two young women from the Triangle, Abby Schiller and Brooke Hatala, who are giving it a go in Nashville. They’ve both been playing, singing, and writing music since they were adolescents, and they&rs...

We all feel the pressure when someone is checking us out at a business turns the iPad around and it prompts us to tip. It started during the pandemic as a way to reward front-line workers, but the practice seems to be hanging on long after the crisis has ended. It seems like every transaction we make now comes with a request to tip at a higher rate than ever before even when the person serving us...

Usually, when we hear stories about people getting lost at sea, they don’t always have a happy ending. This is especially true for people who are doing anything slightly risky, like scuba diving. When 4 divers disappeared off the coast of the Carolinas on Sunday, the U.S. Coast Guard from multiple stations aggressively began to search for them. Early Monday morning they were spotted and resc...

It’s a struggle every single year for school districts across North Carolina to get enough drivers to man their buses and their routes. It’s especially tough for the state’s largest school district, Wake County, to manage its 560 routes. It takes aggressive recruitment, training, and retention efforts to make it all come together. In this episode, WRAL reporter Kelsey Coffey puts...

Blasting at a construction site in North Raleigh is sending thick dust clouds onto people’s properties. Think dust so thick that you wouldn’t be able to see a foot in front of you. One North Raleigh homeowner caught the blasting on their home security camera and asked our 5 On Your Side team to investigate. In this episode, WRAL producer Pritchard Strong explains what in the world is g...

In recent months, a behind-the-scenes battle over legalized commercial casinos has emerged in North Carolina. Gaming companies have stocked up on lobbyists and they’ve donated to lawmakers. Meanwhile, dark-money groups have sprung up in opposition. Cities, counties and casino developers have tied up land. But lawmakers haven’t publicly proposed anything. WRAL Sports Investigative Repor...

4000 people are dying in North Carolina every year as the result of drug overdoses. A whopping 77 percent of those deaths are related to the powerful drug fentanyl according to authorities. The scary thing is that even in the most minute dose—think something as small as a grain of salt or sand-this drug can kill you. WRAL reporter Chelsea Donovan spent several days with undercover agents and...

Greg Taylor splits his time between North Carolina and Maui. The wildfires that have devastated the island killing dozens of people and destroying everything in their wake have Taylor grieving for his adopted home. In this special edition of the WRAL Daily Download, Taylor shares his emotional firsthand account of the destruction with us and the loss that he is witnessing.  

After attracting hundreds of visitors over the summer, the century plant in the WRAL gardens is finishing its reign. It bloomed and grew to more than twenty feet in the past few months. It is scheduled to be cut down, but don’t worry, a new one will be planted in its place. In this episode, WRAL’s Hidden History reporter Heather Leah tells us what the plant has meant to its visitors an...

Connie has had a hard life. Her family was plagued with addiction and poverty, and without good role models it looked like her future might not be bright. But, she built a home and a happy, fulfilling life for herself, her partner, and her daughter. They had a roof over their heads, cars to drive, and good jobs. They even traveled outside the country on a regular basis. Then one day, everything ca...

Everywhere you look there are high-rise office buildings that seem to be empty, or at least partially empty, in our area. Currently, 18.1% of the office space in the Triangle is vacant. At the same time a new study reveals that the Raleigh area needs 17,000 housing units. We wanted to know if that empty office space could be reconfigured into residential space as this is being done in other cities...

If Republican front-runners win key primaries next year, the top GOP general election ticket in North Carolina could be more socially conservative than any in recent memory. WRAL State Government Reporter Paul Specht explains how that could energize the Republican base - but turn off voters in the middle. He also explains how the candidates represent a shift in the state Republican party, and why...

In July, Carl Michaud, a quadriplegic, fell out of bed at the Raleigh Rehabilitation Center and died. His father wants to know how this could have happened. So far, he’s gotten no clear answers. He turned to the WRAL Investigates team. They investigated the tragedy. In this episode, reporter Sarah Krueger shares what they learned about Carl’s death.