North Carolina
In NC, a species of concern is threatened by the vagaries of climate change • NC Newsline
WATAUGA COUNTY—Ben Dalton broke the glassy surface of the Watauga River, spit out his mouthpiece and gasped for breath. All morning, Dalton, a state wildlife biologist, and two other snorkelers had been scouring the river bed, trying to rescue as many eastern hellbenders as they could.
So far, they had not saved a one.
“They just hunker down and press themselves against the sides of the rock,” Dalton said, in a nasal voice through his snorkeling mask. He wielded a “tickler,” which resembled a long, yellow pipe cleaner. “I’m going to try to goose the hellbender and see if it will shoot out the front.”
Glistening in a sleek wetsuit, Dalton is thin, lean and agile, much like the hellbenders he was trying to rescue. In early July, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, with support from American Rivers and MountainTrue, would begin staging heavy equipment nearby, the first step in dismantling the Shull’s Mill Dam, southwest of Boone in the Blue Ridge Mountains. The dam, which once powered a timber mill, has fragmented and degraded the giant salamander’s sensitive habitat.
Dalton is accustomed to the mercurial moods of amphibians. His biology career has taken him to Missouri, where he studied the Ozark Zigzag salamander, to Puerto Rico, where he observed Coqui frogs, and now to the mountains of North Carolina, where he’s trying to outwit a hellbender.
“If hellbenders don’t want to come out,” Dalton said, “it’s really hard to get them out.”
Throughout their range in the eastern U.S., the number of hellbenders is plummeting. In some states, like Ohio and Indiana, they are listed as endangered. North Carolina has the most hellbenders of any state in their range, but even here, they are classified as a species of concern: vulnerable, and without interventions, en route to becoming threatened or endangered. So precarious is the species in North Carolina that it is illegal to take, possess, transport or sell hellbenders or attempt to do so.
“They’ve survived millions of years,” said Lori Williams, a biologist with the state Wildlife Resources Commission. “Something has changed now.”
Williams has devoted much of her career to salamanders, especially the hellbender. The Wildlife Society named her Biologist of the Year in 2020 for her conservation and monitoring of their habitats.
She’s seen how in western North Carolina, extreme weather, the result of climate change, is altering the hellbenders’ habitat. When it floods, the force of the water can wash them out of the river. In 2021, after the catastrophic Tropical Storm Fred, Williams said, “we found dead hellbenders near Asheville.”
As recently as last fall, 15 mountain counties experienced severe drought conditions during a stretch that ranked among the top five driest periods on record, according to the State Climate Office. When stream levels drop, the hellbenders’ eggs are exposed to predators. Even full-grown hellbenders can be plucked from the water by river otters and bald eagles.
Dams, like the one at Shull’s Mill, compound the effects of climate change on aquatic habitats. Without a free flow of fresh water, oxygen levels drop and river temperatures rise; both are detrimental to the hellbender, which needs cool, oxygenated water to survive. Sediment accumulates behind the dam, covering and suffocating critical food sources and breeding grounds.
But now, the dam will be demolished.
“Some little ones will die,” Williams said, sounding resigned. “But it’s important to save the breeders.”
Williams had tucked her brown hair beneath a gray-and-white cap emblazoned with “NC Wildlife Resources Commission.” Wearing a black wetsuit, she, too, was prepared to join the search. She turned and asked the rescue team to prepare to return and dive that night, if necessary. That’s when the hellbenders, who are nocturnal, would come out to feed on crayfish, their preferred food.
“I don’t want to leave any animal behind,” Williams said.
Thwarted wanderlust
At midday, the scuba tanks arrived, which would allow the rescue team to remain underwater longer. With waterproof flashlights, the divers could seek out the hellbenders, which blend in with their surroundings: Rust-colored with black spots, stubby legs that end in padded pink toes and with a shovel-shaped tail, hellbenders appear prehistoric.
“Hellbenders are beautiful,” Dalton said. “They’re perfectly adapted to their environment. But what’s really fascinating is that they can help tell us about the health of the streams.”
Hellbenders are an indicator species. If climate change alters the river levels and temperatures, if trees are cut along the banks, if sediment enters the water from urban runoff, the number of hellbenders will decline.
Dr. Mike Gangloff, a professor of freshwater conservation biology at Appalachian State University, has been monitoring the health and number of hellbenders in North Carolina for more than 15 years.
In the headwaters of the Watauga River, the hellbender density is the highest in the state, “like they were 500 years ago before we changed our rivers and the landscape.”
But the worrisome trend, Gangloff said, is “we’re not seeing as many middle-sized animals.”
The proliferation of exurban luxury housing developments is degrading the water quality. These communities often have their own wastewater leachfields that discharge into the river, Gangloff said.
Private fishing clubs with state permits are stocking the river with large fish, Gangloff said, which can prey on the hellbender larvae. “When we relocate the hellbenders, we put them where there are fewer ginormous fish,” he said.
And when it’s time to mate, hellbenders have wanderlust, which dams thwart. “They need to travel,” Dalton said. “They need large, continuous spans of river to breed.”
The rescuers donned their scuba tanks and plunged into the river. They split off, some swimming toward a boulder and others heading for the dam.
The Shull’s Mill dam has been abandoned since the Great Flood of 1940, which drowned and buried areas of western North Carolina in water and mud. Over the past 84 years, the dam has eroded and in one spot has been breached. A keyhole in the concrete allows some water to gush through like a firehose, while behind it lie slicks of sediment, a tangle of rebar and chunks of tree trunks and concrete.
“The hellbenders can’t make it through the dam, even though it’s been breached,” said Andy Hill, Watauga riverkeeper and High Country regional director with MountainTrue. “What we’re seeing is isolated thriving populations, but they’re not thriving throughout the system in a continuous way.”
There are more than 28,351 dams in North Carolina, according to the Southeast Aquatic Resources Partnership. Most of them are privately owned, and many have been abandoned. “A lot of these structures are remnants of the historical past,” said Erin McCombs, Southeast conservation director with American Rivers. Sixty-three dams have been removed in North Carolina, gaining 5,593 miles of reconnected rivers and streams—equivalent to two trips across the continental United States.
Dam removal won’t eliminate the effects of climate change, but it can mitigate them. Water temperatures decrease, and when stream banks are replanted with native trees and plants, they’re better equipped to trap sediment when the inevitable flood does occur.
Three years ago, the removal team dismantled the Ward Mill dam, also along Watauga. Unlike Shull’s Mill, the Ward structure was intact, and a tall, wide table of sand had amassed behind it. Now that segment of the river flows freely and its conditions are optimal for the relocated hellbenders.
“Rivers know how to be rivers,” McCombs said. “And when they are healthy, all life that depends on them benefits.”
‘I Got Him!’
The hellbender was cornered. But his removal required the rescue team to use pry bars to lift the boulder so Dalton could dive beneath it and retrieve him.
“Give me a foot of space,” Dalton told the rescue team. “Make sure you have a good hold. If you can’t hold that rock for 15 seconds or more, I won’t go.”
Dalton dove. The team lifted the rock. Other rescuers readied large nets.
After what seemed like an interminable length of time, Dalton bolted from the water.
“I got him!” Dalton said, hoisting the hellbender as if it were a newborn baby.
Hellbenders feel cool and wet, similar to Jell-O, yet tough and sturdy, like a well-toned bicep.
Dalton placed the hellbender in a mesh bag. Hannah Woodburn, a staff scientist at MountainTrue, gingerly removed him and placed him on a scale—about a pound in weight and a foot in length. A brief wave of a wand indicated he had never been tagged by biologists.
Meanwhile, Lori Williams of the state Wildlife Resources Commission counted his toes—he had all of them—and scanned his body for scars—he had none.
“He’s not yet mated,” Williams said. “This will be his first season to fight.”
Williams injected a tag into his tail. And Woodburn placed him in an aerated cooler full of water until he would be relocated 12 miles to a different segment of the Watauga that afternoon. Scientists temporarily place hellbenders in wooden crates to allow them to calm down and get their bearings.
Near the dam, a diver yelled: “I got another one!”
It was a male, who had a bruised rear right foot and a missing toe on his back left.
And then another, and another. Over several days, the rescue team relocated eight hellbenders out of harm’s way.
U.S. Fish & Wildlife has begun chipping away at the dam and should be finished by mid-July.
“This will serve as a climate change mitigation measure,” said Hill, the Watauga riverkeeper. “The river will meander once and again and find its own path. You’re allowing the river to flow free.”
If you see an eastern hellbender in the wild, they should be left alone and reported to the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission. Send the location, a photo if possible and other details to Lori Williams, a wildlife diversity biologist with the Wildlife Commission, at [email protected].
North Carolina
North Carolina (NCHSAA) High School Softball 2026 State Playoff Brackets, Matchups, Schedule – May 11
The 2026 North Carolina high school softball state playoff brackets are out, and High School On SI has all eight brackets with matchups and schedules for every team.
The first round begins on May 5, and the playoffs will culminate with the NCHSAA state championships being played May 27-30 at Duke University in Durham.
2026 North Carolina High School Baseball State Tournament Schedule
May 5: First Round
May 8: Second Round
May 12: Third Round
May 15: Fourth Round
May 19-23: Regionals
May 27-30: State Championships
North Carolina (NCHSAA) High School Softball 2026 State Playoff Brackets, Matchups, Schedule – May 11
CLASS 1A BRACKET (select to view full bracket details)
Third Round – May 12
No. 1 Bear Grass Charter vs. No. 5 Vance Charter
No. 3 East Columbus vs. No. 2 Northside – Pinetown
No. 1 Robbinsville vs. No. 5 Falls Lake Academy
No. 6 Bethany Community vs. No. 2 Oxford Preperatory
Third Round – May 12
No. 1 North Duplin vs. No. 8 Camden County
No. 5 Rosewood vs. No. 4 East Carteret
No. 3 Perquimans vs. No. 11 Pamlico County
No. 10 Franklin Academy vs. No. 2 Manteo
No. 1 South Stanly vs. No. 9 East Wilkes
No. 5 South Stokes vs. No. 4 Starmount
No. 3 Swain County vs. No. 6 Murphy
No. 7 Highland Tech vs. No. 2 Roxboro Community
Third Round – May 12
No. 1 Midway vs. No. 9 Providence
No. 12 Wallace-Rose Hill vs. No. 4 Heide Trask
No. 3 Farmville Central vs. No. 11 Ayden – Grifton
No. 10 Northwood vs. No. 2 McMichael
No. 1 West Lincoln vs. No. 8 Union Academy
No. 5 Draughn vs No. 4 Pine Lake Preperatory
No. 3 West Davidson vs. No. 11 East Surry
No. 7 Walkertown vs. No. 2 West Wilkes
Third Round – May 12
No. 1 Randleman vs. No. 9 Nash Central
No. 5 Bunn vs. No. 4 East Duplin
No. 3 Southwest Onslow vs. No. 6 Roanoke Rapids
No. 7 Ledford Senior vs. No. 2 Central Davidson
No. 1 West Stokes vs. No. 8 Forbush
No. 5 Pisgah vs. No. 4 West Stanly
No. 19 North Surry vs. No. 11 Foard
No. 10 Mount Pleasant vs. No, 2 Bunker Hill
Third Round – May 12
No. 1 Southeast Alamance vs. No. 8 C.B. Aycock
No. 5 Seaforth vs. No. 4 Rockingham County
No. 3 Eastern Alamance vs. No. 6 West Carteret
No. 7 South Brunswick vs. No. 2 Southern Nash
No. 1 Enka vs. No. 9 Oak Grove
No. 5 Crest vs. No. 13 West Rowan
No. 3 North Davidson vs. No. 6 Franklin
No. 10 East Rowan vs. No. 2 North Lincoln
Third Round – May 12
No. 1 Union Pines vs. No. 9 South Johnston
No. 5 South View vs. No. 4 Gray’s Creek
No. 3 J.H. Rose vs. No. 6 Harnett Central
No. 7 Triton vs. No. 2 West Brunswick
No. 1 Kings Mountain vs. No. 8 Charlotte Catholic
No. 5 Alexander vs. No. 13 T.C. Roberson
No. 3 Piedmont vs. No. 6 Central Cabarrus
No. 10 A.C. Reynolds vs. No. 2 South Caldwell
Third Round – May 12
No. 1 D.H. Conley vs. No. 8 Wake Forest
No. 5 Purnell Sweet vs. No. 4 Cleveland
No. 3 Heritage vs. No. 6 Topsail
No. 7 South Central vs. No. 2 New Bern
No. 1 Weddington vs. No. 8 Mooresville
No. 5 A.L. Brown vs. No. 4 Hickory Ridge
No. 3 East Forsyth vs. No. 11 Porter Ridge
No. 7 Ronald Reagan vs. No. 2 South Iredell
Third Round – May 12
No. 1 Willow Spring vs. No. 4 Hoggard
No. 3 E.A. Laney vs. No. 2 Cornith Holders
No. 1 Providence vs. No. 4 Hough
No. 3 West Forsyth vs. No. 2 Apex Friendship
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North Carolina
Perspective | What North Carolina gets right about workforce: Progress beyond politics
Across the country, workforce development is often framed as a policy challenge. In North Carolina, we’ve come to understand it as something more fundamental: a shared responsibility between educators and employers that works best when it rises above politics. It is a nonpartisan priority with bipartisan support — and a clear focus on outcomes.
North Carolina’s approach to workforce and talent development offers a different model — one grounded in collaboration, consistency, data, and a relentless focus on student and employer needs.
Over the past several years, our state has aligned around an ambitious goal: ensuring that 2 million North Carolinians ages 25-44 hold a high-quality credential or postsecondary degree by 2030. myFutureNC is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization, led by a bipartisan Board of Directors, that was created to champion this work.
This goal is not owned by a single administration or political party. It is the state’s attainment goal — codified in law with bipartisan support and signed by the governor — to ensure North Carolina remains economically competitive now and into the future. The work is guided by leaders across business, education, policymakers, and philanthropy.
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This kind of alignment doesn’t happen by accident. It requires trust, discipline, and a willingness to prioritize long-term impact over short-term wins — placing the needs of students and employers above the silos that often define education and workforce systems.
North Carolina’s leaders don’t agree on everything, and unanimity is not what makes this work. There is broad agreement on a set of essential truths: Talent is the top driver of economic development. Education fuels economic prosperity, public safety, and healthier communities. Having a robust educational system and an educated population is one of our state’s greatest assets. Economic mobility matters. And preparing people for meaningful work benefits everyone.
This alignment is delivering results. North Carolina has been named the No. 1 state for business three out of the past four years and ranks No. 1 for workforce — reinforcing what’s possible when leaders stay focused on shared priorities.
This strong foundation has enabled progress in areas that often stall in partisan debate. Through strategic policy and philanthropic investments, the state has expanded pathways into high-demand careers, strengthened connections between education and industry, and increased access to work-based learning opportunities, including apprenticeships and pre-apprenticeships.
That same foundation is shaping how policy is developed in real time. The proposed Workforce Act of 2026 reflects North Carolina’s cross-sector approach — bringing together business and education leaders, policymakers, and philanthropists to strengthen pathways into high-demand careers and expand access to work-based learning. Rather than introducing a new direction, this Act builds on what is already working, demonstrating how alignment can translate into coordinated action.
The bipartisan-led Governor’s Council on Workforce and Apprenticeships puts this approach into practice. Building on the state’s existing foundation, the council brings together leaders from industry, education, and government to strengthen coordination across the workforce system. Its value lies not in setting a new direction, but in reinforcing and accelerating a shared one.
This is what it looks like to build systems designed to last. Workforce development is not a one-year initiative or a single funding cycle — it is a long-term investment in people, communities, employers, and the educational infrastructure that supports them. North Carolina’s progress is rooted in structures that bring partners together consistently, align efforts across sectors, and create continuity beyond political cycles.
By embedding collaboration into how the work gets done — not just what gets prioritized — the state has created a model that can evolve over time while staying focused on its goals.
Work remains to be done. Gaps in attainment persist, and ensuring opportunity reaches every corner of the state will require continued focus and innovation. But North Carolina’s significant progress and continued success being No. 1 nationally in many related categories demonstrates what is possible when leaders choose partnership over partisanship.
At a time when it’s easy to focus on what divides us, North Carolina offers a reminder: Some of the most important work we do — preparing people for the future of work and ensuring employers have access to skilled talent — is our north star and unifying force.
And in our shared goal of 2 million by 2030, we are not just building a stronger workforce. We are building a stronger state — for today and for generations to come.
RALEIGH, N.C. (WNCN) — (AP/WNCN) — The remains of a U.S. Army soldier with ties to North Carolina who went missing during military exercises in Morocco a week ago have been recovered in the Atlantic Ocean, the U.S. military said Sunday. Military teams are still searching for a second missing soldier.
The remains found are those of 1st Lt. Kendrick Lamont Key Jr., a 14A Air Defense Artillery officer, who was one of two U.S. soldiers who fell off a cliff during a recreational hike in Morocco while off duty.
Key, 27, from Richmond, Virginia, was a graduate of Methodist University in Fayetteville.
The two were reported missing on May 2 after participating in African Lion, annual multinational military exercises held in Morocco.
Key earned a Bachelor of Science in marketing from Methodist University in Fayetteville, with minors in international business, entrepreneurship, and business administration.
“A Moroccan military search team found the Soldier in the water along the shoreline at approximately 8:55 a.m. local time May 9, within roughly one mile of where both Soldiers reportedly entered the ocean,” U.S Army Europe and Africa said in a statement.
The two went missing around 9 p.m. near the Cap Draa Training Area outside Tan-Tan, a terrain characterized by mountains, desert and semidesert plains, according to the Moroccan military.
Their disappearance triggered a search-and-rescue operation involving more than 600 personnel from the United States, Morocco and other military partners. The operation deployed frigates, vessels, helicopters and drones.
Search efforts will continue for the missing second soldier, a U.S. defense official told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity as they were not allowed to speak publicly on the issue.
The official said a U.S. contingent remained in Morocco after the multinational war games ended Friday to provide command and control and to continue search and rescue operations.
Key was assigned to Charlie Battery, 5th Battalion, 4th Air Defense Artillery Regiment, 10th Army Air and Missile Defense Command, U.S Army Europe and Africa said.
He entered military service in 2023 as an officer candidate and earned his commission through Officer Candidate School in 2024 as an Air Defense Artillery officer. He later completed the Basic Officer Leader Course at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, according to the statement.
Key is survived by his father, Kendrick Key Sr.; his mother, Jihan Key; his sister, Dakota Debose-Hill; and his brother-in-law, U.S. Army Spc. James Brown.
CUMBERLAND COUNTY NEWS
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The search-and-rescue operation, now in its ninth day, has covered more than 12,000 square kilometers of sea and littoral zone, currently adding around 3,000 square kilometers per day.
The soldiers had been taking part in African Lion 26, a U.S.-led exercise launched in April across four countries – Morocco, Tunisia, Ghana and Senegal – with more than 7,000 personnel from over 30 nations. Since 2004, it has been the largest U.S. joint military exercise in Africa.
In 2012, two U.S. Marines were killed and two others injured during a helicopter crash in Morocco’s southern city of Agadir while taking part in the exercises.
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