A proposal under consideration by state officials may help protect Haw River and surrounding areas. The plan involves reclassifying a portion of the river in and around Guilford County. This aims to preserve existing water resources by limiting development. Jason Martin heads planning in nearby Alamance County. He says the river’s status as an emergency water supply led to the push for reclassification.

A new report released yesterday takes a close-up look at the state of workers in North Carolina’s tobacco fields.

The report – “A State of Fear – Human Rights Abuses in North Carolina’s Tobacco Industry” was produced by the Farm Labor Organizing Committee and Oxfam America.  It includes interviews with migrant farm workers, mostly undocumented and representatives of the tobacco industry.

Baldemar Velasquez is president of the Farm Labor Organizing Committee AFL-CIO. He says the only way to better the lives of the tobacco workers is for industry to step in.

The Chancellor at North Carolina Central will play a key role at a White House event next week. Charlie Nelms will lead a town hall at the annual conference of the White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities.

Each day, building materials that could be recycled or reused are removed from homes and businesses and sent to the landfill. A new business in Durham called The ReUse Warehouse has begun collecting these products and reselling them at discounted prices. The warehouse is designed to divert materials from the landfill and give local families access to reasonably-priced building goods.

Sun Records founder Sam Phillips discovered music legends like Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis and Johnny Cash, but Phillips said the greatest talent he ever met was Chester Arthur Burnett, better known as Howlin’ Wolf. The University of North Carolina will honor the Delta Blues great with a symposium and tribute concert on Monday. The event includes a talk by music scholar Peter Guralnick, who had the opportunity to see Howlin’ Wolf in concert. Guralnick is also writing a book on Phillips. He joins host Frank Stasio to talk about how Wolf’s talent and Phillips’ business sense helped shape the blues sound in the 1950s and 1960s.

Hospitals in eastern North Carolina are now using an online message board that lists beds available for patients with mental illnesses or substance abuse problems. Sixteen facilities are using the pilot program designed to streamline the admission process for those patients. Luckey Welsh is the director of the Division of State Operated Healthcare Facilities. He says patients can sometimes spend days in the Emergency Room while the hospital looks for an available bed.

Grammy-nominated blues artist Ruthie Foster grew up on gospel music. Her family sang and performed religious tunes and touches of that tradition are found in Foster’s sound. But she is also heavily influenced by folk and that combination gives her blues an authentically soulful sound that earned her the title of Contemporary Blues Female Artist of the Year at the Blues Music Awards last year. Foster performs at North Carolina State University’s Stewart Theatre tonight at 8 p.m., but first she plays live in the studio and joins host Frank Stasio to talk about her path to discovering the blues.

Governor Bev Perdue will lead a forum today on overcoming the challenges facing of the state's rural communities. Her first stop is in Martin County in eastern North Carolina.

85 of the state's 100 counties are considered rural. These small communities are struggling with higher-than-average unemployment, infrastructure problems, and young people moving away to larger cities.

Perdue will lead conversations on these and other challenges in an effort to improve rural competitiveness. The panels will be made up of state and local leaders, as well as rural development experts.

When Victor and Sarah Lytvinenko started making jeans in their downtown Raleigh apartment four years ago, they had no way of knowing where their project would take them. They went from being denim makers with a small presence in North Carolina to high style designers with products being sold across the world.This weekend they will be at fashionSPARK, part of the SPARKcon festival in Raleigh.

Just about every bluegrass musician has been directly or indirectly influenced by Wade Mainer. Mainer, a master of the banjo, taught himself to play his instrument of choice as a child and developed an innovative two-finger picking style. That style, combined with Mainer’s strong vocals earned him popularity as a performer and recording artist in the 1930s and 1940s. He is credited with bridging the gap between old-time music and bluegrass music and artists like Doc Watson and Bill Monroe have cited Mainer as a major influence. Mainer died earlier this week. He was 104 years old.