News

State of emergency continues with new ways to measure COVID

Gov. Roy Cooper said North Carolina’s state of emergency will continue, despite declining COVID numbers. The announcement came during a news conference Thursday, March 17, announcing new guidelines to measure COVID-19 levels. Cooper has shifted responsibility for dealing with the pandemic to the General Assembly. He explained the move like this: “It’s a legal tool...

Theresa Opeka
News

Berger: No end in sight to ongoing COVID state of emergency

N.C. Senate leader Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, says the governor’s long-running COVID state of emergency is now the “status quo.” “For 730 days,” Berger said in a statement Thursday, March 10, “Gov. Roy Cooper has kept North Carolina in a state of emergency, even as COVID-19 restrictions and guidelines have disappeared.” Emergency declarations are typically reserved...

John Trump
News

Appeals Court considers lawsuit challenging Cooper team’s 2020 racetrack shutdown

Two years after Gov. Roy Cooper’s administration shut down an Alamance County racetrack during the height of the COVID-19 scare, the track’s owners continue a legal fight against the state. A three-judge panel of the N.C. Court of Appeals heard arguments Tuesday in the case. It pits the head of the N.C. Department of Health...

CJ Staff
News

Durham, Orange counties now free from indoor mask mandates

Even if things are still tense after the Tar Heels beat the Blue Devils during Coach K’s final home game this weekend, the counties where UNC Chapel Hill and Duke University respectively reside can come together on one thing: The need for indoor masking is officially over.  As of Monday, March 7, two of the...

David Larson
News

UNC System schools, private universities begin transition to mask-optional policies

Gov. Roy Cooper has recommended schools and local governments transition from mask mandates to a mask-optional policies, and counties and towns across North Carolina are heeding the governor. With the increasing adoption of the mask-optional policy, University of North Carolina System President Peter Hans decided to follow the trend and published a memo on Feb....

Lauri Salovaara

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News

Cooper vetoes bill that would end mandatory masks in schools

Gov. Roy Cooper has vetoed the Free the Smiles Act. The bipartisan measure would have blocked mandatory mask policies in N.C. schools. It’s Cooper’s second veto this year and a record-extending 71st veto since he took office in 2017. “I have encouraged local boards to lift mask mandates, and they are doing it across the...

CJ Staff, Theresa Opeka
News

UPDATE: Wake to end mask mandate Feb 25

UPDATE: Wake County, including the capital city of Raleigh, will end its indoor mask mandate starting Feb. 25. That announcement came on Friday afternoon, February 18, 2022 The Wake County Public School System announced in a letter to parents on its website Friday, Feb. 18, that masks will become optional in their schools “in the...

Theresa Opeka
Opinion

Media ignores study about harmful lockdowns. Color me surprised.

The mainstream media, and apparently academic-types, decided to cower from a study showing lockdowns had little consequence in curbing infections during the ongoing pandemic. Researchers, Carolina Journal reported, found lockdowns “have had little to no public health effects” while imposing “enormous economic and social costs” and should be “rejected as a pandemic policy instrument.”  Neither...

John Trump