Industry insiders fear the sun will set on the subsidy that makes solar such a bright spot in a dreary economy.

Winston-Salem-based Hanesbrands has cut its debt to 2.5 times EBITDA — earnings before interest, taxes depreciation and amortization — the lowest ratio since its spinoff from Downers Grove, Ill.-based Sara Lee Corp. in 2006

Though demand for their booze is booming, the owners of Asheville Distilling Co. have discovered that trying to change distribution laws that date to the end of Prohibition is enough to drive a person to drink.

Cover story: A hot deal for electronic-cigarette seller blu ecigs shows where there’s no smoke, there’s fire.

Up Front: North Carolina is still a leader in manufacturing.

Winston-Salem hopes Herbalife's decision to open an East Coast manufacturing plant will fare better than Dell's venture at the same location.

President Obama touted manufacturing growth in Asheville, but the region's jobs in the industry are far from their peak.

Cover story: Having the world's biggest retailer — Walmart — as the state's largest employer affects North Carolina's economy in ways obvious and subtle.

The N.C. State Ports Authority plans to build a $60 million terminal for wood pellets at Port of Morehead City but isn’t sure how to pay for it.

Small Business of the Year Runner-up: Powder-coating company New Finish is expanding in Norwood.

Red Oak Brewery's CEO says a state law requiring beer makers to turn all of their distribution over to wholesalers if they produce more than 25,000 31-gallon barrels in a year has stymied his expansion plans.

Harris Teeter Supermarkets Inc., born in Charlotte and now based in the Queen City suburb of Matthews, has long dominated the upper end of the grocery market in and around its hometown, but a new rival Publix is threatening its turf.

Sanderson Farms Inc., the nation’s fourth-largest chicken processor, announced in August it will open a hatchery in southern Nash County, the first step in a $91.4 million project that is expected to add a processing plant and field to spray poultry waste within five years.

Two Davidson College soccer teammates started Raleigh-based Creasman and Baltz Inc., a high-end pen maker.

Thomasville-based Wright Global Graphic Solutions Inc. has diversified beyond producing labels for home furnishers to succeed and grow.

Top private companies in North Carolina are growing by acquisitions, reinvesting, rebranding, introducing new products and gaining new partners.

Shareholder return is rising faster than CEO compensation, our list shows. And that’s without a nay say-on-pay vote

Bruce Cochrane resurrected his family business because he believes manufacturing will come back from China.

Employment predictions at FedEx Corp.'s air-cargo hub at Piedmont Triad International Airport have fallen short.

Shareholder return is rising faster than CEO compensation, our list shows. And that’s without a nay say-on-pay vote

The tepid growth of the Top 75's market value reflects the recovery's current sluggish pace.

Ralph Lauren Corp. is expanding again in High Point, planning to invest $142 million and create 500 jobs.

Winston-Salem-based giants Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center and Hanesbrands are collaborating to combat illness in a Caribbean country.

SunEnergy 1 LLC, a Mooresville-based solar-panel installer, has taken advantage of the spike in solar-energy tax breaks, with contracts jumping from about $50 million last year to an estimated $130 million in 2012.

Cover story: After losing jobs and people, a factory town fights to remake itself.

For the eighth time in 10 years, Statesville-Mooresville in Iredell County was Site Selection magazine’s top U.S. micropolitan area 

Last summer, the N.C. Department of Commerce asked Andrew Tate, president and CEO of Henderson County Partnership for Economic Development, to join Project Fishbowl. So began the state and county’s combined wooing of Sierra Nevada Brewing Co.

Queen Bee can’t talk, but it has quite a tale to tell, and Edenton-based Regulator Marine Inc., which manufactured the 26-foot center-console boat, hopes that story will strengthen the company’s recent resurgence.

Business North Carolina's annual ranking of the state’s largest employers shows many have more jobs, indicating less unemployment ahead.

Once again, G.D. Gearino reviews the year that was, putting such a spin on it that 2011 feels quite dizzy.

Rachel Weeks, 27, did something radical last year. The CEO of Durham-based School House Inc., which makes high-end college apparel, moved manufacturing from Sri Lanka to North Carolina — swimming against the current of companies moving production offshore.

The U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement threatens 10,626 textile jobs in the 6th Congressional District — more than any other district in the state — according to Public Citizen Inc., a Washington, D.C.-based consumer advocacy group

Small Business of the Year: In the early ’90s, after six years of playing bass guitar for a rock band, Shane Cooper became obsessed with bicycle racing. He didn’t excel as a rider, so he took to coaching, and his team from Hickory went on to win several regional and state championships. He also became obsessed with socks — bike socks.

Small Business of the Year Runner-up: The world turned upside down in late 2008,” says Dan Brooks, president of Rhino Assembly Corp. “All of a sudden, every manufacturer was saying, ‘They’ve cut my budget. I’m not allowed to spend at all.’” Rhino, which specializes in providing customized tools for auto and aircraft manufacturers, was losing $50,000 to $100,000 a month. To survive, Brooks says, “we knew cutbacks had to be made, but we were not willing to cut employees.” 

Lee Wyatt, 58, resigned as chief financial officer of Hanesbrands, saying he wants to pursue opportunities with turnaround or spin-off companies. The apparel maker appointed Dale Boyles, its controller and chief accounting officer, as interim CFO. In an unrelated matter, the company purchased Australian clothing distributor TNF Group for $9 million. It says the deal will expand sales of its Champion brand in Asia.

STONEVILLE — Gerbing’s Heated Clothing will bring production of its apparel and blankets from China to a factory it is opening here in a former furniture factory. The Tumwater, Wash.-based apparel maker began hiring in May and says it will employ at least 150 by 2015.

Volvo Construction Equipment North America LLC will cut 220 jobs — averaging $82,500 a year — from its Asheville sales and rental operations by September 2012.

Volvo Construction Equipment North America LLC will close its sales and rental operations in Asheville by September 2012, moving 220 jobs — averaging $82,400 a year — to Shippensburg, Pa.

In business since 1916, Thomas Built Buses has a well-known brand but faces significant challenges.

To Garner Mayor Ronnie Williams, it’s simple: Wake County commissioners talk big about recruiting and retaining jobs, but they don’t follow through — at least not for his town.

Kevin McDonald moves around the main campus of the nonprofit he founded in Durham with the confidence of someone coaching a championship team.

It comes as no surprise that Winston-Salem felt pride when Chicago-based Sara Lee Corp. spun off Hanesbrands Inc. in September 2006 and set up its headquarters there.

Scott Hickman grew up in San Francisco and, after graduating from Stanford and earning a Harvard MBA, was a corporate nomad in such places as New York, Geneva and Budapest, where he led Sun Microsystems’ operations in Eastern Europe.

For a company that keeps up with every package it handles, Memphis, Tenn.-based FedEx Corp. has a hard time saying when it will deliver a fully operational sorting hub to Piedmont Triad International Airport, near Greensboro.

When commercial fishing and seafood processing foundered in the mid-’90s, industry hunters turned to another traditional maritime trade to help buoy the coastal economy.

In 1936, during the Great Depression, a High Point company that built and renovated streetcars started a new line of business.

Slowly, it seems, Americans are opening their wallets, swiping their plastic and buying more.

The September sun gives it life, siphoning moisture from the Atlantic off the coast of Africa. The earth’s rotation coaxes it into a counterclockwise spiral as it begins its two-week journey to the Gulf of Mexico, where, nudged by the jet stream, it tears northward across the Florida Panhandle into Alabama. By now it has a name — Ivan.