RALEIGH — A legislative subcommittee is considering changes to the state’s occupational licensing boards. Backers of the changes say they would enhance opportunities for potential entrepreneurs while protecting consumer health and safety. Opponents lodged safety concerns if occupations went unregulated and suggested potential damage to existing business owners.
WINSTON-SALEM — Under the state’s Map Act law, when the N.C. Department of Transportation files a highway corridor map with local governments, those governments aren’t allowed to issue building permits within the corridor. The moratorium on development is supposed to end three years after the map is filed, but it can extend almost indefinitely.
RALEIGH — Gov. Pat McCrory announced Friday that the state would contribute $100,000 toward developing a traveling exhibit honoring and memorializing the Persian Gulf War, which began 25 years ago. McCrory said 75,000 people from North Carolina’s military bases were sent to Kuwait and the surrounding region to support the war effort.
RALEIGH — Last year, the General Assembly followed Gov. Pat McCrory’s recommendation to move attractions formerly housed in DENR to what was then called the Department of Cultural Resources, Those included state aquariums, state parks and recreational areas, science and nature museums, and the North Carolina Zoo in Asheboro. The move reported went well.
RALEIGH – U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., is trying to push through criminal justice reforms in Congress modeled on measures he helped shepherd through the North Carolina General Assembly when he was speaker of the House. The bipartisan federal Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act includes several concepts that were inspired by North Carolina’s 2011 Justice Reinvestment Act.
RALEIGH — “When I’m president of the United States next year, we won’t just have a president that goes around saying America is the greatest country in the world, we’re going to have a president that acts like America is the greatest country in the world,” said Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., to a Saturday rally in Raleigh.
RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK — Gov. Pat McCrory on Wednesday hinted that after voters decide the fate of a $2 billion bond referendum on March 15, he might push for more bond money, this time for roads. McCrory called for more than $! billion in borrowing for transportation in his initial bond proposal Lawmakers opted not to include any money for transportation in the bond package voters will consider.
RALEIGH — Hundreds of supporters of the $2 billion bond referendum on the March 15 ballot gathered Tuesday on N.C. State University’s Centennial Campus to kick off a campaign they say is essential for a growing North Carolina. More than half the funding would go to UNC campuses.
RALEIGH — An attorney and two Wake County voters have filed a lawsuit challenging the state’s new law calling for retention referendums for justices of the N.C. Supreme Court, claiming that the referendum, passed this year by the General Assembly, does not meet the definition of an election specified in the state constitution.
RALEIGH — North Carolina recently became the ninth state to cross the 10 million population threshold, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The Census Bureau said that as of July 1, North Carolina had 10,042,802 residents.
RALEIGH — The N.C. Supreme Court on Friday reaffirmed its earlier ruling that congressional and legislative redistricting maps drawn by the Republican-controlled General Assembly in 2011 are constitutional. The plaintiffs, led by the state Democratic Party and N.C. NAACP, plan an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
