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The latest on the Key Bridge collapse, New York puts forth legislation to get clean energy projects on the grid and Wisconsin and other states join a federal summer food program to help feed kids across the country.

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Republicans float conspiracy theories on the collapse of Baltimore's Key Bridge, South Carolina's congressional elections will use a map ruled unconstitutional, and the Senate schedules an impeachment trial for Homeland Secretary Mayorkas.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

Healthy Homes Needed for Endangered NC Birds

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Tuesday, December 4, 2018   

WILMINGTON, N.C. — The Fourth National Climate Assessment released by the federal government outlined the impacts of severe weather on the nation. North Carolina isn't immune to the risks that climate change is creating - but there are plans to help some species make a comeback.

During Hurricane Florence, southeastern North Carolina suffered damage to long-leaf pine forests. Zach West, Southeastern Coastal Plain land steward with The Nature Conservancy, said that, in turn, created problems for another species - the endangered red-cockaded woodpecker. He said these woodpeckers are the only ones in North America that create nesting cavities in live pines - a process that takes years.

"Red-cockaded woodpeckers also nest in live long-leaf pine trees, and so, that creates a weak point in the bole of a tree,” West said. “With increased storms and increased winds, those trees can kind of snap off at that weak point."

Starting in January, West said, Nature Conservancy crews will drill cavities into healthy trees, taking care not to harm the trees, to give more North Carolina birds the shelter they need faster than than they can create it themselves.

West said the birds prefer to nest in mature long-leaf pines, since the trees are very dense. These types of trees used to make up 92 million acres of southern U.S. forestland, but now, it's less than 4 million.

"Originally it was used for naval stores. So they'd take turpentine, they'd collect the sap from these trees and create a host of different products, including tar used for shipbuilding,” he explained. “You know, once the shipbuilding industry kind of waned, then they started cutting it for timber value, and it was never really replanted."

West said controlled burning in some southeastern forests also will start in January, to help improve growing conditions for new trees. The southeast once had at least 3million red-cockaded woodpeckers, but the bird has been endangered since the 1970s. According to recent federal estimates, close to 15,000 birds remain.


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