Visibility within the transgender community is often a Catch-22, especially for trans people of color, or those living in rural, conservative areas. Hiding one’s identity can be a damaging experience and increase feelings of isolation, stigma and shame. But standing out as a trans person can make someone a target for discrimination or violence.
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As strategy shifts from election lawsuits to laws, voting rights advocates warn of Tennessee As Republican-led legislatures continue a systematic push to pass laws they say are aimed at ratcheting up election security, voting rights advocates in Tennessee worry the entire nation could soon look a lot like the Volunteer State where voter turnout and voter registration figures are among the lowest in the country.
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Colonial Pipeline's own tests indicate high levels of PFAS that could be linked to clean-up efforts, but state regulators say they need more data Mysterious discrepancies in test results between Colonial Pipeline and the NC Department of Environmental Quality have raised questions about the origin of toxic perfluorinated compounds — PFAS — found in material used at a major gasoline spill in Huntersville.
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Say what you will about Donald Trump, but there was a cynical, P.T. Barnum-like genius to his brief and catastrophic run at the apex of American politics. The man obviously has no deeply held beliefs or political philosophy beyond a commitment to self-promotion and personal enrichment, but like so many other skilled con men throughout history, he could sell stuff – most notably lies and half-truths designed to manipulate audiences.
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Editor's note: The chasm between the policies pursued by legislative leaders in North Carolina and Virginia continues to grow. The following stories by reporter Ned Oliver of the Virginia Mercury highlight that divergence on two high-profile issues involving racial inequities in the criminal justice system.
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Gov. Roy Cooper's $27 billion budget for the next two years touches every segment of state government, both the seen and the unseen. We notice if there are too few nurses, counselors, psychologists and social workers in public schools ($80 million to increase the number); if there are inequities in the quality of public libraries ($1 million to standardize service); and if highway medians are overgrown or strewn with trash ($1 million for litter cleanup).
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Decades after the enactment of civil rights laws, people of color remain largely excluded from the county's political power structure To go to Alamance County is to step back in time, to the days of the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. More than a half-century later, law enforcement officers pepper-sprayed and arrested anti-racist protesters.
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With Republican lawmakers throughout the land making “election integrity” a favorite cause and rallying cry, it likely was just a matter of time before some of their North Carolina counterparts got on board. Lo and behold, along came the sterling piece of legislative statesmanship known as Senate Bill 326, filed on March 18 and entitled the "Election Integrity Act."
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Republicans on the Senate Redistricting and Elections Committee questioned the legitimacy of rule changes enacted last year by the State Board of Elections in a contentious two-hour hearing Tuesday with the board's executive director Karen Brinson Bell. Sen. Paul Newton, a Cabarrus County Republican co-chairing the committee, described the board's settlement with voting rights groups, which resulted in a modified process of voting, as "secretly negotiated" and motivated by partisan advantage.
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Supporters' pleas for school district to allow Jordan High chorus teacher to continue virtual instruction prove unsuccessful Late last year, Corrine Huber gambled big when she decided to accompany her husband to Denmark for his work. At the time, it seemed like a safe bet for the Durham Public Schools’ chorus teacher. The Board of Education had implemented remote learning for the rest of the school year.
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A year ago, hundreds of families were evacuated from a Durham public housing community just as the pandemic hit. The crisis caused some lasting impacts. Freezing rain was coming down, and firefighters were going door to door telling residents of McDougald Terrace that they needed to pack some belongings and go to the office immediately. Carbon monoxide was leaking into the public housing complex in Durham, and they needed to get out.
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These are especially difficult times in the United States when it comes to matters of race and ethnicity. Thanks in part to former President Trump’s disgraceful and cynical tolerance and encouragement of white supremacists, race-based hate crimes have spiked in recent years. Attacks on Asian Americans and Pacific islanders in particular – like the horrific murders that rocked Atlanta last week – are up dramatically.
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Nonprofits, food banks expand, but still struggle to serve all the people who can't afford groceries A crew of workers recently parceled flour, bags of broccoli, bottled water, bread, and other essentials into boxes, as vehicles lined up in the parking lot of a Durham apartment complex.
...Spat upon, assaulted, harassed: The pandemic helps spawn an epidemic of hatred and violence During the first nine months of pandemic, when former President Donald Trump chose to inaccurately call the coronavirus the "China virus," he fomented, if not tacitly sanctioned animosity and discrimination toward people of Asian descent.
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Part one: A troubled history of racism, violence and repression On a cold and drizzly February night in 1870 a mob of Klansmen came for Wyatt Outlaw, the first Black town commissioner of Graham. Wearing robes and hoods, and armed with torches, swords and pistols, some 20 men broke down the door of his home on Main Street.
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