Cover • In North Carolina and everywhere else in the country, a sense of hopelessness exists for a shared federal-state crisis: Medicaid. Costs for the program that provides inexpensive health-care coverage for the poor, aged, and infirm has spun out of control, and promises only to escalate in the future.
Cover • Negotiations with a now-defunct company in 2001-02 revealed fissures in North Carolina’s economic development structure, which apparently are harming the state’s ability to lure business. Page 1 North Carolina • CropTech Corp. negotiated a relocation package to come to North Carolina through State Sen. Marc Basnight because company…
Cover • Is the appointment of an independent redistricting commission the solution to breaking North Carolina’s unrelenting conflicts over the process in the General Assembly? A look at other states with such panels doesn’t produce optimism. Page 1 North Carolina • A precedent set in July by the N.C. Supreme…
Cover • Illiteracy is still a pervasive problem in North Carolina, and new federal standards are adding pressure to improve student performance. Public schools, community colleges, and nonprofit organizations want to reduce the number of uneducated adults and to prevent the statistics from growing in the future. Page 1 North…
Cover • The John A. Hyman Memorial Youth Foundation, chaired by U.S. Rep. Frank Ballance, failed to account for hundreds of thousands of dollars in state funds, according to an audit released Oct. 22 by the State Auditor’s Office. Page 1 North Carolina • Last year Lenoir County’s emergency medical…
Cover • The 6,450 layoffs at Pillowtex, Inc., which included about 4,800 in North Carolina, may have been mitigated had the union representing its employees not blocked a deal to sell the company. Page 1 North Carolina • The secondary deal behind the purchase of North Carolina Natural Gas by…
Cover • What was the General Assembly’s solution to the state’s budget problems this year? Higher taxes, onetime money, more borrowing and ignoring efficiency ideas seemed to be the answers. Page 1 North Carolina • Two reports released in August conclude that North Carolina’s primary job creation program, the William…
Cover • In the just-passed budget, the legislature authorized the state to purchase what once was its only two significant private prisons from the property trust company that owns them. The budget provisions signaled that the state plans to get out of privatization and will operate prisons itself for the…
Cover • A total of $1.3 billion is needed for repair and renovation of state buildings and property. Observers say the problem stems from the setting of wrong priorities rather than lack of money. Page 1 North Carolina • A bill that has passed the state House would turn what…
Cover • A taxpayer-funded natural-gas pipeline project for eastern North Carolina, at the center of a government conspiracy alleged by a Raleigh businessman, was facilitated by State Sen. President Pro Tem Marc Basnight and steered to the control of friends under his direct influence. Page 1 North Carolina • U.S. Rep.
