Asheville, NC News and In-Depth Reporting

Good News for the Sober Curious

Burial Beer’s Chaosmachine, a nonalcoholic Hazy IPA. (Photo by Morial House)

With more people exploring a less alcohol-centered nightlife, North Carolina’s brewery scene is trying something new.

Volunteers with the Environmental Quality Institute use a net to catch invertebrates. (Mike Belleme for The Assembly)

The governor keeps asking for more money to protect waterways. Citizen scientists are taking up the slack.

Tasting dishes on display at a past Chow Chow food festival. (Photo courtesy Stephan Pruitt Photography)

Food festivals have tried to correct for exploitation and elitism, but still struggle financially.

A basket of foraged wild mushrooms, rosehips, and pine sprigs. (Photo by Nevin Martell)

With 2,000 different varieties of fungi, the region is a forager’s paradise and a destination for “find dining.”

Debris from a house that burned to the ground in the Poplar Drive Fire. (Mike Belleme for The Assembly)

As more people move to “climate havens” like Western North Carolina, they are learning nowhere is immune from a changing climate.

Ehren Cruz gazes into the horizon of North Carolina’s burgeoning psychedelic renaissance.

The former home of No Evil Foods in Weaverville. (Photo by Hanna Raskin)

Former employees have accused the founders of No Evil, a North Carolina-based vegan food brand, of skirting accountability on labor concerns.

Contra dancers at the Old Farmer's Ball. (Mike Belleme for The Assembly)

Contra dance callers have one of the toughest jobs you’ve never heard of. After getting entangled in the country’s culture wars, it got even harder.

Illustration by Jason Allen Lee

David Oppenheimer has filed more than 170 infringement suits. Experts say the law that’s made him a fortune needs reform.

Photos by Mike Belleme for The Assembly.

For 115 years, the paper mill was central to Canton’s identity – for better or worse. Now the town must figure out what comes next.