DURHAM — The state’s largest health insurance company is partnering with five of North Carolina’s major health systems in a path-breaking, shared-risk payment model designed to improve the quality of patient care and drive down costs.

RALEIGH — State Auditor Beth Wood renewed her call to punish municipal officials who can’t keep their books straight. Lawmakers returning to Raleigh for the 2019 legislative long session might be asked to toughen enforcement measures.

RALEIGH — Republican Mark Harris says he expects a state court will certify him the winner of the disputed 9th U.S. Congressional District election. He will go to Washington despite what he considers political interference by a Democratic-controlled state elections board to scuttle his victory.

RALEIGH — UNC-Chapel Hill’s largest athletic booster club asked a state agency to approve $98 million in bonds for renovations to the Dean Smith Center and Kenan Stadium and construction of multiple new sports facilities. Skeptical members of the state board controlling the debt said not so fast.

RALEIGH — An ethics complaint cloud hanging over House Speaker Tim Moore for nearly a year has been lifted.

RALEIGH — For years, independent health-care providers have resisted consolidation in the medical market. State Treasurer Dale Folwell hopes to lend them a hand with State Health Plan payment reforms.

RALEIGH — Republican Rep-elect Mark Harris will get his day in court. Thursday, Jan. 3, he filed a petition in Wake County Superior Court seeking to declare him the victor in the 9th U.S. Congressional District election. Harris cites a recent precedent by the same court to support his demand.

RALEIGH — An attorney who represented the Bladen County Improvement Association during a 2016 investigation into potential absentee ballot voting misbehavior says the organization was cleared of any wrongdoing.  He hasn’t heard from investigators since.

RALEIGH — Quoting a Dr. Seuss character, a panel of 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals judges vacated a vital U.S. Forest Service permit developers of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline need to continue work on the 604-mile natural gas transmission line from West Virginia to North Carolina. The matter was returned to the Forest Service for further review.

RALEIGH — Republican lawmakers unveiled a new bill at a Tuesday, Dec. 11 news conference which would return the Bipartisan Board of Elections and Ethics Enforcement to two separate boards after years of court battles over the merger. And then they made a major change while the bill was in committee.