BREAKING: Fresh off losing a reelection bid last month, former Durham city councilor DeDreana Freeman has filed to challenge state senator Sophia Chitlik for the District 22 seat

An activist who interrupted a swearing-in ceremony in Durham has been banned from city hall for two years, which may be unprecedented:

Scenes of panic, paranoia, and solidarity unfolded across Durham on Tuesday as U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents descended on the Triangle. www.theassemblync.com/news/politic...

BREAKING: Federal agents detained at least three people in Durham on Tuesday, chasing them through a shopping center parking lot as stores locked down and shoppers fled.

If you think the origins of a pipe cannot make for compelling investigative reporting, boy do I have a story for you

A Durham woman’s foundation is collapsing after 28 years of erosion from a stormwater pipe. The city shares ownership of the pipe. A local nonprofit sold her the house. Who’s responsible? (for @indyweek.bsky.social)

spent a week digging through Durham candidates' campaign finance reports. some hadn't filed reports until I asked:

Following the INDY's investigation into Yes for Durham, all four candidates the group endorsed have publicly rejected its support

Scoop: A brand new nonprofit endorsing Durham candidates hasn’t disclosed its leadership—but initially listed an endorsed candidate’s husband’s property as its address, and mirrors her campaign messaging

the East Durham glory hole/Jesus banner mystery has been solved

I spent time with Chapel Hill residents whose home flooded during Tropical Storm Chantal. They're trapped in a house no one will buy, watching luxury apartments rise upstream while their land erodes beneath them.

This is an area near us. In America now, make one serious mistake and unless you have wealth or a needed skill you are done. Happily we are higher than them; and about the highest house on our street. FEMA, I think, has bought endangered houses and destroyed them; no more.

Read this story! (by @writingthings.bsky.social)

From @writingthings.bsky.social: Rev. Lorenzo Lynch Sr. was the patriarch of a prominent Durham family, his daughter Loretta the former U.S. attorney general. Now tenants of his derelict properties are mired in a legal dispute with the family. www.theassemblync.com/politics/cou...

a hilarious and slightly unsettling story about an opulent drink deserves an opulent lede (@writingthings.bsky.social 🦀)

Even if you already heard about a Holly Springs bar trying to break the world record for largest Bloody Mary, you should read @indyweek.bsky.social's version bc a) you should read everything Lena @writingthings.bsky.social writes and b) no one else was behind the scenes for this behemoth's creation.

the New Yorker just published a comprehensive piece on Trump's "No Tax, No Tips" wolfe-in-sheeps-clothing proposal. From June, here's @writingthings.bsky.social's interview with Triangle chef Cheetie Kumar about her work trying to amend the legislation and push for fairer policies.

you may have seen ads for Switchyards, a rapidly expanding "work club" chain that's open 24 hours a day. for @indyweek.bsky.social, i wrote about the vanishing line between work and everything else

“Richards was struck by how quickly the sense of community dissolved.”

I spoke to two women trapped at a Chapel Hill mall during the flood—one hunkered down in a movie theater until 1am, the other escaped to keep delivering for DoorDash

Also unsurprisingly @indyweek.bsky.social has excellent coverage.

"DoorDash gave her half pay for her delivery attempts. She went home and ate the pizza she’d tried to deliver earlier."

wrote about Big Bob's, where business cards for a bail bondsman named "The Rock" sit by the register and the burgers are larger than God

new for @indyweek.bsky.social: the Ellerbe Creek Watershed Association, which owns & oversees nearly 500 acres of protected lands in Durham, has quietly dissolved

well, this is surreal!

made it into The New York Times for being a trash goblin

Not only did @writingthings.bsky.social write this story I've wanted to read a version of for years, she made much more of it than I could have imagined indyweek.com/culture/duke...

My sister, writing about the fortunes that Duke Students throw out after every semester.

Over the past few weeks, I salvaged $6,000 worth of luxury goods Duke students threw away in my apartment building—Balenciaga slides, Valentino sneakers, barely-used Lululemon. In trying to make sense of it all, I made spreadsheets and cried:

The first time I went down there, last week, I noticed something neon in a tote bag and pulled out $395 Balenciaga slides. Nearby were $980 Valentino sneakers—worn, but definitely wearable.

A year later, McLaurin and his team are preparing to open their own permanent brick-and-mortar location in American Tobacco Campus! @writingthings.bsky.social got the scoop on what to expect at the new cafe. @indyweek.bsky.social indyweek.com/food-and-dri...

I appreciate this approach to food coverage so much more than the breathless coverage of whatever new "concept" one of the Triangle's five celebrity-ish chefs is gonna open next year.

A $9.50 lunch special, twenty-plus entree options, and a fortune cookie at Durham’s oldest operating Chinese restaurant.

cool @writingthings.bsky.social story on restauranteur Anthony Guerra, who says that workers should benefit from restaurant success and is tangibly working to make that happen

“There’s this old New Yorker cartoon of a dog sitting at a keyboard, talking to other dogs on the computer, and no one knows you’re a dog. Radio is kind of like that. It’s mysterious. You are talking into the void and making human contact with somebody you’ve never met.”

Is it possible to find a satisfying meal for under $15 in 2025? In the INDY’s new column, Lena Geller visits Durham’s most affordable lunch spots to find out. (@writingthings.bsky.social)

Over the course of nine decades, Miriam Elizondo (also known as Doña Miriam) delivered much of the population of the Costa Rican village of Tres Equis and gave birth to 19 children of her own—all at home, never in a hospital.

spoke with @sobsey.bsky.social about his new memoir "a jewish appendix" where he falls mysteriously ill in romania, his ancestral homeland, and recovers the day he leaves. we discuss jewish identity beyond the holocaust, the gnawing feeling of non-belonging, etc:

I was interviewed & my memoir ‘A Jewish Appendix’ beautifully considered by @lenarosegeller.bsky.social @indyweek.bsky.social. Writers dream of such generous treatment. indyweek.com/culture/in-p... (Please buy my book from @flyleafbooks.bsky.social or order here: bookshop.org/p/books/a-je...)

Now this is a great, fun community story. “It Smells New”: Durham’s Revamped Wheels Roller Skating Rink is a Blast from the Past indyweek.com/news/durham/...

i wrote about Wheels reopening in Durham. it's exactly how you remember it, only better. serving lava-hot pizza and nostalgia by the slice

Maybe the feel-good civic story of the year, one that makes you proud to live in Durham. @lenarosegeller.bsky.social's writing is, as always, impeccable in capturing the moment and the joy. Can't wait til my kid is old enough to get out there with some rental skates and a walker!

If you want to kinda cry while reading about rollerskating, representation, mozzarella sticks, and the reopening of Wheels, @lenarosegeller.bsky.social (per usual) has the piece for you. 🛼 ( @indyweek.bsky.social)

powerful investigation by @ccourtneybohl.bsky.social and @eringretzinger.bsky.social into the crisis at Saint Augustine's University: unpaid wages to 370+ employees, controversial property deals with florida developers, and a board chair who compares oversight concerns to a "terrorist attack"

wrote about Durham's most charming food critics: 92-year-old Margaret Teta and her grandchild Ae, who hunt down local desserts and review them on Instagram

I'm at the union election vote counting party outside Amazon's RDU1 warehouse in Garner, NC, where workers and supporters are gathered as NLRB officials begin tallying ballots.

over 100k people are expected to come see the cherry blossoms at Duke Gardens this year but the main entrance and parking lots will be closed for renovation. here's how to see the blooms without losing your mind

Amazon Labor Union founder Chris Smalls is rallying workers in Garner, NC ahead of next week’s unionization vote at RDU1 warehouse

durham's newest dessert spot has a xanax framed on the wall and serves scones in flavors like cacio e pepe

"this case is a little different, because it's almost like we've met our Greenland or our Canada." here's how Durham city council voted on the Moriah Ridge development