A new survey from the nonprofit organization National School Choice Week shows that 52% of parents said they were considering — or considered in the past year — choosing a new or different school for their children. Education quality and pandemic disruptions were the topic reasons cited for finding another school: 36% of parents wanted...
Gov. Roy Cooper signed an executive order Friday, Jan. 7, that aims to reduce greenhouse gases to net-zero by 2050. Cooper also wants to transition all state vehicles to electric and to enhance goals for drivers to switch to electric and other zero-emission vehicles. Cooper, in a news release, said the action will help create...
North Carolina continues to wait and see if the state Supreme Court will address a trial judge’s $1.7 billion education funding order. The state Appeals Court threw out that order, but the case could head to North Carolina’s highest court in the weeks ahead. State Treasurer Dale Folwell said the waiting should be a moot...
N.C. Attorney General Josh Stein is using Gov. Roy Cooper’s never-ending state of emergency in encouraging residents to report so-called price gouging related to the coronavirus pandemic. Stein, in a news release, says his office has heard, albeit anecdotally, that price gouging may be occurring when people look to buy at-home COVID tests. “Filing a...
The city of Durham is set to give monthly checks worth $500 to 115 formerly incarcerated people. The move is part of a nationwide basic income experiment, primarily bankrolled by Twitter co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey. Applications for the program open on Wednesday, Jan. 5, and checks will be sent throughout the year. Recipients...
Gov. Roy Cooper on Tuesday, Jan. 4, said health experts, doctors, and scientists are learning more about COVID-19, and state officials and politicians are using that knowledge to keep schools open and to avoid more onerous shutdowns and suppressions. In a news briefing, Cooper said people have to start learning to live with the virus,...
Dr. Mandy Cohen, alongside Gov. Roy Cooper, on Tuesday, Dec. 14, gave what will likely be her last briefing on the coronavirus. Cohen’s message carried similar themes expressed since the vaccines became available, first to health care workers, exactly one year ago. “Vaccines and boosters protect you,” she said. North Carolina has since administered 12...
Republicans lawmakers in North Carolina scored well in the 2021 “How They Voted” report card released by the N.C. Chamber of Commerce on Monday, Dec. 13. How They Voted, the report says, “presents a straightforward, objective accounting of who stepped up — and who did not — when given the chance to support job creators...
The Tar Heel State’s budget for the new biennium includes $100 million in supplemental pay for public school teachers in some of the state’s smallest, poorest counties. The supplemental pay is valued at up to $4,250 per teacher but the exact value differs significantly across counties. The state’s larger, wealthier counties — including Wake, Mecklenburg,...
Hank Bauer is the new chairman of the N.C. Alcoholic Beverage Commission. He replaces A.D. Zander Guy Jr., who abruptly resigned in September. Terrance Merriweather, deputy commissioner, oversaw daily operations for the agency in the interim. Bauer, a news release says, is former general manager at Empire Distributors, where he also served as the director...
Gov. Roy Cooper and state health secretary Dr. Mandy Cohen addressed the nascent Omicron variant Tuesday, Nov. 30, but they were reticent to raise alarms, in contrast to local media reports over the past couple of days. Rather, they pushed vaccines. Cohen, in one of her last COVID-19 briefings alongside Cooper, even offered a novel...
