North Carolina has divided government. Its most powerful executive is the Democratic governor, Roy Cooper. Four of the seven justices of the North Carolina Supreme Court are also Democrats. But Republicans enjoy majorities in the General Assembly and Court of Appeals, and hold six of the 10 offices on the Council of State. The latter...
Donald Trump’s visit to New Hanover County, specifically the Wilmington International Airport, highlights the importance of the “Port City” and its home county, one of two North Carolina counties that embraced Trump in 2016 and rejected him in 2020. New Hanover has become one of the most purple counties in North Carolina, and the largest...
Before we get to the crazy, I do want to let all the good folks down in Florida that I’m thinking of them. I know many of you are, too. As a Hurricane Katrina evacuee, I know firsthand what a big storm can do, which is decimate homes and lives. Obviously, folks throughout North Carolina...
Despite a new research paper by two Clemson University economists proving that black lynching decreased with greater firearm access, North Carolina still clings to its Jim Crow pistol permit. The state remains the only former Confederate state with the pistol permit law enacted here in 1919. Gov. Roy Cooper vetoed a repeal of the Jim Crow law...
Enjoy the sunrise It’s 6:32 a.m. I am sitting on our concrete patio in the community of Bettie, Down East, in Carteret County, on a mottled aluminum bench facing directly east. The distinct odor of exposed mud flat and salt marsh permeates the air, indicating the tide has passed low and is now rising. I...
The North Carolina of my childhood had an economy very different from that of the average state. Today our economy remains distinctive, though not by as much. When I started my first paid job in 1979 — teaching four-year-olds how to tap dance — manufacturing accounted for fully a third of North Carolina’s gross domestic...
A case involving a local government in North Carolina could help define the federal government's limits.
