Agonizing. These lockdowns, mandates, and suppressions in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Logically inconsistent, clumsy in their application, and impossible to enforce. We’ve become prisoners of this virus, without imminent hope of reprieve. Potential treatments are enmeshed in politics, thrust into a media culture…
Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper proposed a $25 billion budget, Wednesday, Aug. 26, to expand Medicaid, increase unemployment benefits, give teachers higher bonuses, and cut funding to Opportunity Scholarships. Republicans immediately blasted Cooper’s spending plan, calling it a risky “spend now, pray later” proposal. His budget proposal…
North Carolina’s public schools and universities are asking the General Assembly for millions more to deal with COVID-19 challenges. The House Select Committee on COVID-19 education working group met for the first time in months to hear updates on how the state’s various education systems are…
Although working from home provides a great deal of flexibility and potential benefits, professional and personal, most of us don’t want to make it our default setting — even after, or perhaps because of, being ordered to work from home this spring during the initial response to the COVID-19 crisis.
University of North Carolina leaders, students, and faculty are blaming each other for the growing number of COVID-19 cases on campuses. But it’s unclear where the fault lies. Plenty of fingers were pointed at the UNC System, who left the blueprints for reopening with campus officials.
About a dozen protesters stood in the rain on an Asheville sidewalk at Mission Health on Friday, Aug. 21. Some held umbrellas or “Vote No” signs. A white banner draped over the medical center’s logo urged nurses, “don’t give your voice away.” Passing drivers occasionally honked car horns.
Each week, staff at Carolina Journal looks back at the week in N.C. politics and chooses several interesting, relevant stories you may have missed. Education team-up: Three N.C. families are joining the Institute for Justice, intervening in…
The COVID-19 response in America has focused on several fronts. The main goals are stopping the spread of the virus, mitigating economic damages, and creating a vaccine or discovering therapeutics. A new survey from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention highlights another area of concern, one that could challenge…
North Carolina has safeguards for voting by mail that other states lack. But the state also must anticipate explosive growth in mail voting, potential delays with the postal service, and a system designed for a much lower volume of mail-in ballots. Concerns about election security rose…
History repeats itself, but with slight variations. The high-rise jeans of today’s Tik Tok teens hit different than the stiff acid-washed denim from the 1980s, but they elicit déjà vu nonetheless. Likewise, the global pandemic of today is a somewhat different monster than the one that ravaged the world more…
