N.C. House committee OKs software for learning loss
The North Carolina House K-12 Education Committee passed a bill Jan. 31 that directs federal COVID-19 relief dollars to fund a new software program for remedying learning loss.
State Senate leader Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, wants to remove the state's Jim Crow-era literacy test for voters. It "ought to be out of our constitution," Berger said. In 1900, during Jim Crow, the literacy test requirement was added to the state Constitution.
A unanimous federal Appeals Court panel has upheld a lower court’s ruling favoring WakeMed in a dispute with car crash victims. Appellate judges ruled that the hospital did not deceive patients when asking them to sign certain forms in exchange for treatment.
Opponents of the way Currituck County uses occupancy tax proceeds offered their final written arguments Monday to the N.C. Court of Appeals. The court will hear oral arguments in the case next week.
Russian hackers were allegedly behind a cyberattack that took down 14 hospital systems websites across the country Monday, including Duke University Hospital in Durham.
Left-of-center activist group Common Cause is urging the N.C. Supreme Court to reject a new hearing in the Harper v. Hall redistricting case. In paperwork filed Monday, Common Cause labels the request from Republican state legislative leaders a “frivolous petition.”
In my role at a politics-focused newspaper, there aren’t a lot of opportunities to play movie critic. But it’s Groundhog Day… again, and the 1993 movie bearing that name is among my favorites, so I’ll take the liberty just this once. Or maybe it’s not such a departure from business as usual, as a quick...
The “problem” with freedom is that other people may do things that trouble, annoy, or even anger you. In a free society, you have no legitimate authority to stop them. Strictly speaking, that’s not a problem. It’s a solution. Throughout human history, much suffering has derived from a lack of freedom. One faction obtained government...
Decades from now, people who lived through the pandemic will remember it as a horrible period. Over a million people in our country died, with millions more sick but still surviving. Thousands of businesses closed forever, learning was lost in schools, and lives were disrupted in multiple ways. But could there be some positive impacts...
A redistricting fight in the Buckeye State raises similar questions to those in North Carolina's high-profile U.S. Supreme Court case.
N.C. Rep. Ben Moss, R-Moore, announced on Tuesday that he intends to run for North Carolina Commissioner of Labor in 2024. The announcement comes after current Labor Commissioner Josh Dobson announced at the December Council of State meeting that he will not seek re-election.
A new poll of likely Republican voters in North Carolina gives Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis a 56% to 35% lead over former President Donald Trump in a potential matchup in the 2024 primary. The first contests in the primary are more than 13 months away, but that isn’t stopping intense speculation about who on the Republican...
As soon as first-term Labor Commissioner Josh Dobson made the surprise announcement that he would not run again, Guilford County state Rep. Jon Hardister, a Republican, began hearing from supporters that he should consider the role. Contacted this week, Hardister told CJ he is highly motivated to seek the position after a successful decade in...
U.S. Congressman Patrick McHenry, representing North Carolina's 10th Congressional District, has been officially named the new chairman of the U.S. Senate Finance Committee, after serving on the committee since first elected in 2005.
In much of the country, the Republican Party fell well short of expectations in the 2022 midterms. Flawed GOP nominees in Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Nevada, and Arizona lost winnable races for U.S. Senate, thus consigning their party to another two years in the minority. Democrats lost their U.S. House majority but only by a sliver...
Donna King, Carolina Journal editor-in-chief, discusses the debate over funding the Leandro education spending plan in North Carolina. King offered these comments during the Jan. 27, 2023, edition of PBS North Carolina’s “State Lines.”
Economist Yuri Maltsev, an adviser to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev before a 1989 defection to the United States, died in January 2023. In April 2013 Maltsev spoke with Carolina Journal Radio about the “curse” of Russia’s abundant natural resources.
Mitch Kokai, John Locke Foundation senior political analyst, discusses N.C. Attorney General Josh Stein’s announcement that he’s running for governor in 2024. Kokai offered these comments during the Jan. 20, 2023, edition of PBS North Carolina’s “State Lines.”
January 2023 marks the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the Watergate investigation. President Nixon had been seeking reelection. His “burglars” broke into the Watergate building and planted listening devices to learn about his opponent. His hardball politics soon caught up with him. A year-long investigation ensued, and Nixon eventually resigned rather than face impeachment....
Donna King, Carolina Journal editor-in-chief, discusses top leaders of the N.C. General Assembly for 2023-24. King offered these comments during the inaugural Jan. 13, 2013, edition of PBS North Carolina’s “State Lines.”
portrait. On a wide range of metrics, young people today report feeling worse off than their counterparts a decade ago, underscoring the impacts of the pandemic and shifting cultural winds.
One of South Carolina's early governors – and one of the nation's most controversial founding fathers – is taking center stage in a critical U.S. Supreme Court case this week that could fundamentally alter the control of federal congressional elections.
North Carolina U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis has been working on fellow Republicans to support the Respect for Marriage Act, and found success Tuesday as it passed the chamber, 61-36. The U.S. House is expected to pass the bill by the end of the year. It will then go to President Biden's desk for signature. Opponents say it puts a target on religious organizations.
Donna King, Carolina Journal editor-in-chief, asks Senate leader Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, about potential abortion legislation in the 2023 N.C. legislative session. This exchange took place during the Nov. 25, 2022, edition of PBS North Carolina’s “Front Row with Marc Rotterman.”
Mitch Kokai, John Locke Foundation senior political analyst, discusses the New York Times’ column warning about America’s “free-speech problem.” Kokai offered these comments during the March 25, 2022, edition of PBS North Carolina’s “Front Row with Marc Rotterman.”
Canadian professor, author, and psychologist Dr. Jordan Peterson on Thursday offered a non-political and largely academic lecture on the psychology of beauty, dreams, and purpose. The reaction from city officials and activists to the address at the Durham Performing Arts Center was night-and-day from the one leading up to his appearance four years earlier. It...
As the Russian invasion of neighboring Ukraine continues to escalate, North Carolina’s local Ukrainian population is rallying to bring attention to the suffering of people in their homeland and to gather supplies to help them. Donna Goldstein, co-president of the Ukrainian Association of North Carolina, finds herself at the forefront of these efforts. Goldstein has...
The fourth estate, journalism, is racing to receivership unless we can rescue it from its rapacious self. The hubris hasn’t always been this bad, this blatant, or this biased, yet it worsens daily. In the town I grew up in, Nashville, Tennessee, there were two newspapers in the 1950s and 1960s, one for the morning,...
One of the goals within our cultural wars is to push Christmas aside, to make even more room for divisive politicized agendas that tear us apart.