Reconciliation and restoration are key to relationships: but they rarely come up in the criminal justice system. That may soon change, as North Carolina makes Restorative Justice an integrated part of the Department of Public Safety.

On this episode, we sit down with Republican candidate Jason Smith and Democratic Candidate Rebecca Zimmer Donaldson, who are both running to replace recently retired District Attorney Ben David, who represented Pender and New Hanover counties for 20 years.

On today’s show, we’re discussing the Freeman family's land — including the community known as Seabreeze.We’re sitting down with descendants of the Freeman family, Christopher Eaton and Dorian Cromartie, to learn how patriarchs Alexander and Robert Bruce Freeman amassed large amounts of land in the southern part of New Hanover County. We'll also discuss how they hope their family’s history is taught to future New Hanover County students with nuance — including the family's successes and challenges.

On this week's episode, we ask one of toughest questions defining our time in the Cape Fear Region: Why are there so many apartments going up? We spoke to a concerned resident who shared some very common questions with us — and then put them to one of the top officials in the City of Wilmington's development-approval process.

On this episode, we’ll get a behind-the-scenes look at an upcoming project from WHQR. In the aftermath of a Supreme Court ruling that pulled back on the rights of the unhoused, we’ll take an intimate look at the inner lives of our homeless neighbors, with insights from the people who serve them.

On this episode, WHQR News Director Benjamin Schachtman sat down with Derrick Anderson, host of a long-running community affairs show, to talk about the New Hanover Community Endowment. It's a conversation they've been having since 2019 — about an organization that could reshape the region, but that's also created concerns about transparency, diversity, and accountability.

On this episode, we sit down with Scott Simon, longtime journalist and host of NPR's Weekend Edition to talk about the state of the news — plus highlights from Simon's remarks at the recent WHQR 40th anniversary luncheon.

New Hanover County's anti-violence department — Port City United — has been mired in criticism and bad press, and will likely be shuttered at the end of June. But the social issues that inspired its creation still exist, so it's worth talking about where the program came from, the good work it did do, and what the future could hold.

On this episode, it's a conversation with Jon Martell, a retired doctor and former hospital administrator who says he nearly died at New Hanover Regional Medical Center — not because of a mistake made by a nurse or doctor, but because of systemic issues at the hospital. The experience led him to found a new nonprofit to push for a safer, higher-quality hospital. WHQR also spoke with top Novant medical administrators to work through some of Martell's systemic concerns.

On this episode, Ben Schachtman and Rachel Keith sit down with John Biewen and Michael Betts, writers and co-hosts of Echoes of a Coup — the sixth season of the Scene on Radio podcast from Duke University’s Kenan Institute for Ethics. The five-part series takes a deep dive into Wilmington’s 1898 coup and massacre.