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News Policy Watch Investigates Top Story

Not dead yet: Republican lawmakers seek to pass several previously vetoed bills

Lela Ali was in the Legislative Building last Wednesday as the organization she is part of, Muslim Women For, works to oppose a bill that would require sheriffs to cooperate with federal immigration officials.  She also happened  to be sitting in the House gallery that day as lawmakers approved a bill along party lines that takes responsibility for the state’s three schools for deaf and blind students away from the State Board of Education and gives it to local boards of trustees. 

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Environment News Top Story

Monday numbers: We can’t drive our way out of climate change

A half dozen modular homes are crammed in the elbow of the offramp from I-785 to US 70 on the fringes of Greensboro. In east Durham, a largely Black neighborhood is wedged in a chute of air pollution between the railroad tracks and NC 147.

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Congress News Top Story

Child poverty dropped to a record low last year. A new report shows how to keep it that way.

North Carolina is among the states that benefited the most from an expanded Child Tax Credit The expanded child tax credit that families received in 2021 helped reduce child poverty across the country, but particularly in the South where families lack a sufficient safety net, according to a paper released on Wednesday.

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Environment News Top Story

Wind and whales: ‘No evidence’ links projects to deaths

Duke University marine biologist's assessment debunks claims advanced on Fox News The U.S. offshore wind power industry is in its infancy, with just a handful of turbines installed along the Atlantic coast. But they’re already being blamed for the deaths of whales that have washed up on beaches in New Jersey, New York, Virginia and elsewhere.

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Education News Top Story

State Board of Ed unlikely to reverse decision to deny Wake County charter school application

Application spurs unusual split between State Board and charter school oversight panel A State Board of Education member is defending her vote to deny Heritage Collegiate Leadership Academy (HCLA) of Wake County a charter to open in 2024 despite the Charter School Advisory Board’s (CSAB) glowing recommendation.

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Law and the Courts News Top Story

‘It has ruined me.’ Listening session offers glimpse into solitary confinement 

People who survived solitary imprisonment talk about its lingering effects on the mind, and call for reform Solitary confinement broke John Howell. Stuck in a prison cell, he lost touch with his family, the outside world and eventually, reality. “You sit there in that box,” he said, “and you slowly lose your mind.”

Howell isn’t locked in a cell anymore, but in a way he's still imprisoned. ...
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Law and the Courts News Top Story

Biden student debt relief plan met with skepticism from U.S. Supreme Court conservatives

WASHINGTON — The majority conservative wing of the U.S. Supreme Court appeared skeptical Tuesday that the Biden administration had the authority to implement a federal student debt relief program that was estimated to potentially aid millions of borrowers. The conservative justices, who hold a 6-3 majority on the court, questioned whether the Department of Education could implement a program without explicit congressional approval that would cost more than $400 billion over the course of 30 years. 

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News Top Story

States strive to help SNAP recipients cope with lower benefits

North Carolina HHS official: "The need is still there" The white words on a red background are plain. “Important notice: SNAP emergency allotments ending after February.” If there’s any doubt, the Colorado Department of Human Services SNAP webpage adds, “All Coloradans who receive SNAP benefits are going to see a reduction in their monthly benefit amount after February.”

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Top Story Weekly Briefing

A bad idea that refuses to go away: Legislators try again to revive misnamed “Taxpayer Protection Act”

The idea of slapping inaccurate or deceptive names on controversial legislation in order to drive and manipulate public opinion is nothing particularly new in the frequently cynical world of politics. Authoritarian regimes across the globe have long used this tactic, but it’s an American phenomenon too. Two decades ago, the administration of President George W. Bush...

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Original Commentary Progressive Voices Top Story

The 2023 legislative session: Out of the starting gate — sideways

We weren’t expecting it to be pretty – “it” being the launch of the N.C. General Assembly’s new session, with freshly emboldened conservatives eager to flex their muscles. The reality, one month after things got under way, hasn’t failed to disappoint. Two themes stand out:

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News Policy Watch Investigates Top Story

Monday numbers: Facing hostile legislation, rising generations are more LGBTQ than ever

Last week Gallup released its latest study of how Americans identify their own sexuality. The result: 7.2% of US adults identified as LGBTQ in 2022, double the percentage who identified that way when Gallup began measuring a decade ago. Younger generations — millennials and adult members of Generation Z — were the most likely to identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, pansexual or asexual, according to the study.

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Health News Top Story

Doctors recount ‘heart-wrenching’ stories in new study on medical care post-Roe

Researchers at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) are trying to piece together how the end of Roe v. Wade has so far transformed pregnancy-related medical care in America, and the yet-to-be-released preliminary data are alarming, the lead principal investigator told States Newsroom in an exclusive interview. The team has already received dozens of stories about health care providers directing patients to continue very high risk or doomed pregnancies, which they might not have done before their states criminalized abortion.

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Original Commentary Other Voices Top Story

America is the world’s most powerful democracy. Why is it impotent to stop mass gun violence?

Whether in a grocery store, a place of worship, a shopping mall, a community celebration, at work or in school, you are at risk for becoming a victim of senseless gun violence. Why is America the only industrialized nation in the world that is plagued by frequent mass shootings? Has our form of democracy allowed the minority to run amuck when it comes to the rights of an individual to own any kind of gun vs. the majority’s right to live without fear of mass murder?

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Law and the Courts News Top Story

A federal law was meant to free sick or aging inmates. Instead, some are left to die in prison.

COVID deaths at federal facility in Butner, NC highlighted Jimmy Dee Stout was serving time on drug charges when he got grim news early last year. Doctors told Stout, now 62, the sharp pain and congestion in his chest were caused by stage 4 lung cancer, a terminal condition. “I’m holding on, but I would like to die at home,” he told the courts in a request last September for compassionate release after serving about half of his nearly 15-year sentence.

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Education News Top Story

Durham high school students plead with state leaders for action to combat gun violence

“Thoughts and prayers” are no longer enough to protect children from gun violence, says Durham Hillside High School Principal William Logan. Gun violence proliferates, Logan said, because guns are too readily available, and lawmakers are unwilling to pass meaningful gun control laws.

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Higher Ed News Top Story

Too many lawyers? Commission on university governance examines board memberships at its first public forum

In their first public listening session Tuesday, members of the Governor’s Commission on the Governance of Public Universities in North Carolina outlined their mission and heard concerns from parents and faculty members from UNC-Wilmington. The meeting, held in Wilmington and live streamed online, was the first opportunity for the bi-partisan commission to hear from the public on its overall mission - examining the current appointment system for members of the UNC System board of governors and trustees at the 16 constituent campuses. The commission is also examining how that governance can better reflect the state’s ethnic, racial, gender, regional, economic and political diversity and working to craft a set of principles and responsibilities for university governance.

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