North Carolina
NC Celebrates A Half Century Of Helping Feed Women And Infants – The Rhino Times of Greensboro
In 2024, the State of North Carolina is celebrating 50 years of a well-known food benefits program titled “Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children” – better known as WIC.
The program has grown tremendously over the years, and now Guilford County, to take just one example of that growth, operates a WIC van that takes services to clients rather than making them come down to a county building.
The North Carolina WIC program helps ensure that mothers, babies and young children across the state have the food and other support they need so the youngsters have a strong and healthy start in life.
Over the decades, multiple studies have found that WIC programs improve pregnancy and birth outcomes, resulting in healthier babies.
Also, children who receive WIC support have demonstrated better intellectual development later in life than those who didn’t benefit from the program.
According to state officials, the current WIC program helps out over 230,000 women, infants and children in North Carolina. Each year, the program provides access to supplemental healthy foods, nutrition education, and breastfeeding training – and it also offers support and referrals for health care and social services.
The WIC program brings roughly $200 million in federal funds into North Carolina and allows families to buy approved foods and other items at over 1,500 stores and other food retailers.
Director of the NC Department of Health and Human Services Division of Child and Family Well-Being Yvonne Copeland stated in a Monday, June 10 press release celebrating the 50-year milestone of the program, that it is critical to supporting women, kids and infants in the state.
“WIC supports half of all infants born in North Carolina by providing access to the best resources and services for mothers and children,” she said. “This year, we recognize an incredible milestone in the evolution of maternal and child health care with the 50th anniversary of the WIC program. Since the opening of the first clinic in 1974, WIC has been an unwavering beacon of support committed to improving public health outcomes for women, infants and children.”
In 1974, the federal WIC program provided supplemental food to 88,000 people across the entire country. Back then, their average food benefit was $15.88 per month.
Since then, like many government programs, it has grown exponentially: In 2023, WIC provided food for 6.6 million women, infants, and children nationally whose average food benefit was $56 a month.
WIC food benefits provide a wide range of foods for clients – including fruits, vegetables, whole grain breads, cereals and dairy products.
The monetary value of these benefits can reach up to $240 a month.
WIC is available to pregnant, breastfeeding and postpartum women, and infants and children up to the age of 5.
Foster families with qualifying individuals may also be eligible to receive WIC benefits.
To qualify, NC WIC participants have to live in the state and have a family income of less than 185 percent of the US Poverty Income Guidelines. That’s roughly less than $57,720 in annual income for a family of four.
Those who are receiving Medicaid, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families – also known as Work First – or NC Food and Nutrition Services, automatically meet the WIC Income Guidelines.
AVERY COUNTY, N.C. (WLOS) — Former Madison County Sheriff’s Chief Deputy Bronis Coy Phillips was processed on Thursday, June 25, in a North Carolina county, according to court documents.
The warrants were served in Avery County on behalf of Madison County. He is now being held without bond, according to the court paperwork.
SBI ARRESTS FORMER MADISON CO. CHIEF DEPUTY FOR CRIMINAL ACTIVITY INVOLVING INMATES, STAFF
The North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation announced that Phillips was arrested on June 14 in Maricopa County, Arizona. He’s expected to face charges in N.C., as News 13 previously reported.
According to court records, Phillips faces multiple felony charges, including:
- Furnishing controlled substances to inmates
- Furnishing deadly weapons to inmates
- Involuntary servitude
- Two counts of assault with a firearm on a detention facility employee
COURT RECORDS REVEAL NEW DETAILS IN FORMER MADISON CO. CHIEF DEPUTY ARREST
He was also charged with two misdemeanors:
- Furnishing alcoholic beverages to inmates
- Furnishing tobacco products to inmates
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The NCSBI said the charges stem from an investigation into alleged criminal activity involving inmates and detention facility staff.
North Carolina and NC State, scheduled to meet just once in the men’s basketball regular season for the second consecutive season, are working to schedule a nonconference meeting in Greensboro in December, WRAL has learned.
The Atlantic Coast Conference rivals had played annual games in Raleigh and in Chapel Hill for more than 100 years before last season when the teams met just once in Raleigh. This season, the ACC scheduled just one meeting between the schools in Chapel Hill.
The additional meeting, which is not finalized, would be played Dec. 15 in Greensboro, according to a source.
The 18-team ACC moved from 20 conference games to 18 before last season in an attempt to improve the league’s NCAA Tournament credentials. It worked as the league received eight bids to the NCAA Tournament in 2026, but it also created some scheduling changes, including the elimination of a second game between NC State and UNC in most seasons.
The current conference schedule dictates that each school plays two teams twice (a primary partner and a variable partner), plays 14 teams once and misses one school altogether. In 2026-27, UNC will play Duke (primary) and Louisville (variable) twice and won’t play Clemson. NC State will play Wake Forest (primary) and California (variable) twice and won’t play Syracuse.
Greensboro was the longtime home of the conference office. The ACC men’s basketball tournament has been held at First Horizon Coliseum, formerly the Greensboro Coliseum, 29 times – the most in league history.
For decades, the ACC played a true round robin among its members — a format that became unworkable as the league grew to 12, 15 and, now, 18 basketball-playing schools.
State lawmakers have pursued various measures to force schools in the UNC System to play each other, citing the economic impact of such meetings. North Carolina and NC State are UNC System schools.
A 2024 bill would have required the two ACC schools to play each other and other in-state public universities in football and basketball. A 2025 bill, aimed at potential conference realignment, would have required that NC State and UNC play each annually in football, men’s and women’s basketball, baseball and softball. The Senate’s 2025 budget proposal would have required more basketball games between UNC, NC State and smaller schools across the state. The budget would have added UNC and NC State to the schools that receive annual distributions from sports betting tax revenue.
None of those measures have become law.
NC State and North Carolina have been conference mates since 1911, first in the South Atlantic Intercollegiate Athletic Association, then in the Southern Conference and now the ACC. Both have been members of the ACC since its 1953 founding.
There is some sad news from the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission’s popular Barn Owl Live Cam.
Wildlife officials say a Great Horned Owl entered the barn Wednesday around midnight and killed one of the barn owl owlets. Biologists have not been able to determine which owlet was lost.
They have confirmed it was one of the three youngest birds in the nest. The Wildlife Commission says the incident is heartbreaking but also a natural part of life in the wild.
Great Horned Owls are one of the main predators of Barn Owls, and encounters between the two species do happen. The attack was captured on the live camera.
Officials say the video also shows an extremely rare moment when the adult female Barn Owl fought the Great Horned Owl on top of the nest box. Despite the loss, the surviving owlets are expected to continue growing over the coming weeks.
They will lose their fluffy down feathers, begin exploring outside the barn, and continue developing hunting skills.
The Wildlife Commission says some of the young owls could leave the nest as early as July.
After leaving the nest, they usually travel alone and may eventually move hundreds of miles from where they hatched. The Barn Owl Live Cam remains available for the public to watch.
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