Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory is a danger to the middle class. Just ask Lt. Gov. Beverly Perdue. As for Perdue, she’s part of the power elite, one of five or six people who control everything in the state. McCrory says so.

North Carolina’s society has become multicultural, its economy has become more diverse, and the state has prospered in recent decades. But leaders must adjust their policies for a more metropolitan economy — focused on cities and suburbs — and address a widening disparity between rich and poor, says Ferrel Guillory, director of The Program on Public Life at UNC Chapel Hill.

I never meant for there to be a sequel to my August column about the newspaper business. But after John Edwards and Rielle Hunter teamed up not only to make whoopee (as well as a baby, allegedly) but also to make my point for me, that previous piece is worth revisiting.

Earlier this year, Perfect Fit Industries Inc. went shopping, hoping to refinance its debt. The Charlotte bedding maker worried about the struggles of its primary lender and wanted to reduce costs. But it couldn’t get a package it liked from anybody else.

Three years ago, downtown Charlotte’s condo market was cooking.

Offshore drilling has fueled a heated debate over tapping oil and natural-gas deposits off the North Carolina coast.

Mack Trucks Inc. could get $8.5 million in state incentives for moving its headquarters from Allentown, Pa., to Greensboro.

In Durham, N.C. Central University lives up to its name — sitting just one county away from the geographic center of the state. So what would you call its campus outside Atlanta? Trouble.

Sparta’s little teapot museum is short of funds, so it won’t be as stout as imagined.

Needless to say,” Charles Flowers e-mailed me, “this is a troubling letter.” He was referring to one that Will Sears, a Boone real-estate broker, had written about the cover story in our August issue on Bobby Ginn and Laurelmor, the mammoth residential and golf resort in Wilkes and Watauga counties.

Mark Higgins holds a syringe with a barrel the size of a bratwurst. The tip of his tongue is lodged in the corner of his mouth, and the end of the 8-inch-long needle is sunken in the neck of a corpse.