Gov. Roy Cooper’s price tag for Medicaid expansion could be off by as much as $171.3 million, a report by the John Locke Foundation says. Medicaid expansion has dominated Cooper’s fights with the Republican legislature. Cooper’s pitch comes in the form…
The State Board of Elections will send voters whose absentee ballots lack a witness signature a new ballot, restoring a process for mail-in votes that was tied up in state and federal courts. Meanwhile, the N.C. Court of Appeals has ended its order blocking other provisions of a state…
Mysty Blagg’s twins, like most public school students in North Carolina, are falling behind. Academically. Probably socially and emotionally, too. Blagg’s two 7-year-olds, Reagan and Luke, attend school in Wake County, which — in part because of the governor’s lockdowns and union pressure —…
The election lawsuit merry-go-round keeps turning, as tens of thousands of North Carolinians cast ballots at early voting sites, and legislative leaders urge the State Board of Elections to “stop this chaos.” The most recent development happened Friday, Oct. 16. N.C. Superior Court Judge Bryan Collins…
Imagine being quarantined and your family, friends, and coworkers needlessly alerted and scared because you tested positive for a scrap of unviable genetic material. You thought you had a dangerous virus, but you didn’t. Without a doubt, it’s happened all across North Carolina, except that the…
Discussion of the coronavirus dominated the first half-hour of the gubernatorial debate between incumbent Democrat Gov. Roy Cooper and Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Forest. But at times, Cooper treated Forest like a proxy for the GOP-led General Assembly, as the governor attacked school choice, tax cuts, teacher pay,…
A comfortable chair, in a bookstore or coffee shop. Maybe just a hard, splintery bench in a park. A conversation with a stranger, or even an old friend. Someone you haven’t seen in awhile. Mostly gone, now. Not lost, really. We know where to find them. Rather, as my friend…
North Carolina has been shut down for six months, 30 weeks, more than 200 days. The N.C. Constitution created a feeble executive branch, and its governor remained among the weakest in the nation. Until now. When the pandemic hit, Gov. Roy Cooper seized…
N.C. Attorney General Josh Stein is hiding something, say Senate Republicans challenging a back-room, Democrat-led deal to rewrite state election laws. Stein — a Democrat who’s running for re-election and is the state’s top law enforcement officer — might learn something about government transparency from the…
Taxes and employee benefits are at the center of the race for N.C. treasurer. Republican incumbent Dale Folwell and Democrat Ronnie Chatterji are clashing over the future of the state’s finances, including its $108 billion pension fund and health plan. The candidates met recently…
