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This week in North Carolina politics, Gov. Roy Cooper vetoes a river cleanup bill, saying it was insufficient; and Thomas Farr sits through a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on his nomination to be a District Judge on the United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina.

After multiple failed attempts by Republican leaders to repeal the Affordable Care Act, GOP lawmakers are back with their newest repeal effort. The Graham-Cassidy bill would cap funding to Medicaid, and many opponents say it would leave millions of people without healthcare coverage. 

Charles Frazier’s Appalachian novel and love story “Cold Mountain” became a modern classic. And now the story of Confederate deserter W.P. Inman and his journey to find his way back to his sweetheart Ada Monroe is on stage at the North Carolina Opera. 

Diali Cissokho and Kaira Ba have long had a dream of traveling to Senegal to record an album. This year they made it happen. The band just returned from M’bour, Cissokho’s hometown and the city where his family still maintains a large compound open to musical relatives and friends. 

Postcards from Madison County is a special series from WUNC and The Partnership for Appalachian Girls' Education that features personal storytelling from a unique summer program for Appalachian youths.

Skylar Shelton is entering 6th grade at Madison Middle School. She is from the Spillcorn community in Laurel. Skylar’s digital story is about her love for her Mamaw, and its title is "My Whole World."

About Postcards From Madison County

In North Carolina, women make up more than 51 percent of the population, yet they hold less than a quarter of the seats at the state legislature.

Songs We Love is a series and a podcast that looks at the stories behind some of the songs we're playing on our new music discovery stream, WUNC Music.

On this episode, Eric Hodge chats with Tift Merritt about her song "Stitch Of The World" from the album of the same name.

Before discussing her creative process, Merritt says that "Stitch Of The World" is a song about freeing yourself from burdens.

Listen to the episode here:

Amazon’s recent announcement to establish a new headquarters in North America has ignited a frenzy of proposals from various cities. 

On a winter evening in 1864, the H. L. Hunley became the first combat submarine to sink a warship. The vessel successfully sank its target but then disappeared along with its eight crew members. The Hunley was not found until 1995, when a number of hypotheses as to why it sank rose to the surface. But after hundreds of hours of calculations and experiments, a North Carolina-based naval engineer came up with a new theory: the Hunley sank itself with the blast it created by firing on the USS Housatonic.

Daren Wang grew up in an old farmhouse in Town Line, New York, a place that was notable for being the only town north of the Mason-Dixon Line to secede from the Union. 

Postcards from Madison County is a special series from WUNC and The Partnership for Appalachian Girls' Education that features personal storytelling from a unique summer program for Appalachian youths.

Preslea Harwood is entering 6th grade at Madison Middle School. She is from the Marshall community. The title of Preslea’s digital story is "Coming Back Home."

Guilford County residents will get another chance tonight to voice their questions and concerns about the plan for a baseball stadium in downtown High Point.

Are school movies enjoyable because they are so relatable? Or do they present the far-fetched, fantastical experiences most bored students only daydream about? 

Postcards from Madison County is a special series from WUNC and The Partnership for Appalachian Girls' Education that features personal storytelling from a unique summer program for Appalachian youths.

Megan Anderson is entering 6th grade at Madison Middle School in Marshall. She lives in the Laurel community. The title of Megan's digital story is "For Papaw."

About Postcards From Madison County

This week the Trump administration hosted an annual summit at the White House for leaders of historically black colleges and universities. The meeting follows an executive order signed in February that moved a federal initiative supporting HBCUs from the Department of Education into the White House. 

The U.S. military has been using a virtual reality program to augment therapy for combat veterans returning from war with post-traumatic stress disorder. For the first time that software was made available for use in a theatrical production.

Edwidge Danticat is a renowned Haitian-American writer whose work is rooted in her native country.