In testimony, the facts didn't always add up to the truth

Kenneth Harrison III slouched in a hard wooden bench in a Vance County meeting room, the posture of a man who might have spent the day in the cab of a dump truck. He wore a mask bearing a print of the American flag.  His lawyer, Tom Terrell of Greensboro, well-known in North Carolina for representing mining companies, landfill operators and other industrial pariahs, looked fresh and spiffy in a dark suit and red tie, his silver hair curled over the white collar at the nape of his neck.

More than 10% of all registered voters in North Carolina have already requested an absentee ballot for the November election, according to the State Board of Elections, a 1,400% increase compared with the same time in the 2016 election cycle. And the number will certainly increase before the Oct. 27 deadline to request an absentee ballot. The uptick in requests is attributed to concerns about voting in-person during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Maxwell Foods alleges Smithfield intentionally lied, low-balling the price of pigs to drive Maxwell out of business For 22 years, a cabal of the nation’s largest hog producers held an annual private get-together — a high-powered gathering that court documents describe as “The Circle.”

Town of Huntersville holding public meeting tonight to answer questions about the spill and the cleanup plan. In the early evening of Aug. 14, a person riding an ATV near the Oehler Nature Preserve in Huntersville saw a strange phenomenon: liquid gurgling from beneath the ground and spreading downhill.

Mostly Republican pols invited to hear Andrew Wheeler issue an Apprentice-stye challenge for new chemical clean-up solutions North Carolina is now into Year 4 of its GenX crisis — nearing the equivalent of a presidential term — since the residents of Cumberland, Bladen, Brunswick and New Hanover counties learned their drinking water was contaminated with toxic GenX discharging from the Chemours plant upstream.

Powerful Republican lawmaker admits wrongdoing, seeks plea deal In early 2019, State Rep. David Lewis, a Harnett County Republican, introduced a bill entitled "Civic Responsibility in Education." The measure would have required public school districts to teach students about respect for authority and service to others. The bill language defined good citizenship as "obeying the laws of the nation and State...

Yard waste, specifically illegally sprayed grass, is suspected as a source The tomatoes grew necks like gourds. The leaves of the purple cornflower, a favorite of butterflies, were twisted and deformed. More plants — cucumbers, peppers, green beans, even the majestic Roselle Hibiscus — began to wither and fail. Earlier this summer throughout central and western North Carolina, gardeners flooded their neighborhood listservs, county extension offices and garden stores with complaints: Something was killing their plants, en masse.

In 1972, my family bought our first color TV, a 26-inch screen illuminated by cathode-ray tubes and encased in a behemoth cherry cabinet made by RCA that was roughly the size of a stove. But it was an upgrade from the 19-inch plastic black-and-white model on which we had watched Johnny Carson, Batman and Robin and the first moon landing, so my father’s near-hernia to haul in this exciting new piece of furniture was worth it.

The news sounded significant, if not groundbreaking: A 2019 state consent order was amended yesterday to force Chemours to stop 99% of GenX and PFAS contamination from entering the Cape Fear River, a drinking water source for hundreds of thousands of people downstream.

“This is a huge win for the Cape Fear River and the people who depend on it. This plan will ensure that contaminated groundwater, streams, and runoff no longer pollute the river and don’t reach communities downstream,” said Kemp Burdette, Cape Fear Riverkeeper in a prepared statement.