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"One Year After Helene: People who lost their homes turned to FEMA for aid. Some are still slogging through red tape. Wealthier Getting More: We found that in some North Carolina counties, homeowners with the highest incomes received two to three times as much FEMA housing assistance as lower-income ones."

"Slogging through a thick slop of mud and rock, Brian Hill passed the roof that Hurricane Helene’s floodwaters had just ripped off someone’s barn and dumped into his yard. Then he peered into the unrecognizable chaos inside what had been his family’s dream home.

"Staffing cuts under the Trump administration mean forecasters are struggling to maintain normal operations." "Some National Weather Service staffers are working double shifts to keep forecasting offices open. Others are operating under a “buddy system,” in which adjacent offices help monitor severe weather in understaffed regions."

"Bracing himself against the current in waist-deep water, Clancy Loorham wrestles a broken length of PVC pipe from the rocky bottom of the French Broad River and peers inside."

"NAACP leaders cite energy, water usage and a lack of transparency around the project as causes for concern."

"When 12-year-old Natalie Briggs visited the ruins of her home after Hurricane Helene, she had to tightrope across a wooden beam to reach what was once her bedroom."

"The Trump administration has axed nearly two dozen projects addressing health and environmental issues in Southern Black communities, a Washington Post analysis found, reversing years of work to address pollution, sewage leaks, flooding and more."

"A billion-dollar seawall may shield the city’s wealthy core — but not the vulnerable communities beyond it. Who will be forced to move?"

"A Georgia judge on Tuesday said he will toss the racketeering charges against all 61 defendants accused of a yearslong conspiracy to halt the construction of a police and firefighter training facility that critics pejoratively call “Cop City.”"

"N.C. research would have provided crucial data on understudied effects of the burgeoning industry on predominantly Black, Indigenous and Latino residents."