Today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a national holiday to honor and celebrate the life of the civil rights activist. King was a Baptist minister and activist who was considered one of the leaders of the civil rights movement until he was assassinated in 1968. The numbers below give more information about King and the life he led.
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WASHINGTON — The U.S. House passed a resolution Thursday that would overturn a Trump administration rule that critics say guts protections for defrauded student loan borrowers. The resolution expresses congressional disapproval of the so-called borrower defense rule, which was revised by Education Secretary
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New facilities and policies offer hope to 16 and 17 year-olds once consigned to the adult corrections system Tall trees and a rocky, woodsy landscape envelop the C.A. Dillon juvenile detention campus in Butner. Save for the tall metal fence that rings the confinement building, the area could be mistaken for a summer camp or private school grounds. The feeling that greets the visitor of wanting to go for a group hike or play flag football with old pals quickly diminishes inside, however...
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State Rep. Holly Grange (R-New Hanover) failed to disclose a business owned and operated by her husband on state Statement of Economic Interest (SEI) forms for several years, according to documents reviewed by Policy Watch. In North Carolina, public officials are required to disclose connections to all non-publicly owned companies by which they or their immediate family members are employed or in which they have an interest.
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By the time the new Interstate 885 opens in Durham later this year, some of the people who conceived of the original project will have been long dead. In the works for 60 years, the East End Connector, as Durhamites call it, funnels traffic over four miles from NC 147 to US 70 and onto I-85, to reduce congestion on surface streets.
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The controversial Silent Sam settlement now faces challenges from both a judge reexamining the agreement and a lawsuit claiming the UNC Board of Governors violated the state open meetings law in negotiating and approving it. As the NC division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans continues to fight to preserve the deal...
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State and federal officials are starting to act, but proposed rules and standards take time and vary widely Toxic PFAS — perfluorinated compounds — are known as “forever chemicals” because they persist in the human body and the environment for decades, if not hundreds of years. It also takes forever to pass permanent environmental standards regulating them.
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The DTH Media Corporation, the non-profit that operates UNC-Chapel Hill’s Daily Tar Heel student newspaper, has sued the UNC Board of Governors over the controversial Silent Sam settlement. The suit, filed Tuesday, alleges that the board violated North Carolina Open Meetings Law in the way it approved the $2.5 million deal with the Sons of Confederate veterans, which also included a $74,999 payment to assure that the group would not use Confederate flags in on-campus protests.
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WASHINGTON — The GOP-controlled U.S. Senate heads into 2020 with few major legislative victories but a significant one on the judicial front: a dramatic reshaping of the federal bench. Over the past three years, the Senate has confirmed 185 of President Trump’s judicial nominees, more than any of the last five presidents at the same time in their presidencies. That tally includes a raft of nominees approved just before lawmakers left Capitol Hill for the holiday recess.
...At the start of what many think will be one of the most momentous years in American history, the leaders of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives are locked in an impasse over the nature of the trial that the Senate will conduct of President Donald Trump in response to the House's historic December 18 impeachment vote.
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In an historic agreement, Duke Energy will remove coal ash from unlined pits at its six plants – Allen, Belews Creek, Cliffside/Rogers, Marshall, Mayo and Roxboro – which will finally cut off this source of groundwater and surface water contamination near those communities. The NC Department of Environmental Quality, Duke Energy and the Southern Environmental Law Center, which represented community groups in litigation against the utility, all announced the details of the settlement today.
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The year ended with a bang on the K-12 education front in North Carolina. WestEd, an independent nonprofit research group, released a long-awaited report intended to help North Carolina meet its constitutional obligation to provide its school children with a “sound, basic education.”
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1) PW exclusive: Experts question business dealings of UNC Board of Governors member Thom Goolsby has a long history of controversy – as an attorney, a lobbyist and a former North Carolina state Senator. But when Policy Watch broke this story about Goolsby in September, it wasn’t about fiery public comments over Silent Sam or controversial rhetoric targeting liberal adversaries.
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