All in Opinion
With the end of the state’s fiscal year just three weeks away, the N.C. House and Senate have reached a deal for the next budget. After weeks of closed negotiations, N.C. Senate and House leaders have agreed to a top-line spending number of $25.7 billion in the first year and $26.7 in the second year. That’s a spending increase of 3.45% in the first year of the biennium and 3.65% in year two.
Speaking to a sold-out N.C. Republican Party Convention fundraiser, former President Donald Trump made an early endorsement in the 2022 primary for U.S. Senate, choosing 13th District Congressman Ted Budd over former Congressman Mark Walker and former Gov. Pat McCrory.
North Carolinians are closely divided when it comes to party preference. Our state has long been one of America’s key political battlegrounds. But when it comes to managing the state’s finances, the conservatives in charge of the state legislature are in tune with prevailing public sentiment.
A Durham County Superior Court judge has dismissed a New Bern eye surgeon’s lawsuit challenging the state’s certificate-of-need law.
The state House has voted to make North Carolina the 26th state to withdraw from the Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation program, which provides an extra $300-a-week in jobless benefits to the unemployed because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
North Carolina relies on a single pipeline for its natural gas, making it uniquely vulnerable to disruptions, shortages, and even more nefarious problems.
Plenty of politicians, planners, and business folks think they know what North Carolina’s post-pandemic economy will look like. But few seem entirely sure. They are noticeably hedging their predictions, which I consider to be a wise precaution. They ought to be hedging their bets, as well.
A bill temporarily shortening the length of time required for a driving learner’s permit was signed by Gov. Roy Cooper this week. Republican bill sponsors proposed Senate Bill 69 in response to the growing waiting list of new drivers seeking a spot in mandatory driver’s education classes after the state Division of Motor Vehicles and driving schools were shut down during COVID.
In its latest hearing into the N.C. High School Athletic Association, the private nonprofit that governs and manages most aspects of High School Sports, prominent education leaders said they have many of the same concerns as legislators.
Surry County commissioners are pushing back against major corporations for what they describe as a “bigoted, left-wing divisive political agenda.”
Personal income tax rates would be slashed and the corporate tax rate entirely eliminated by 2028 under a proposal rolled out on Tuesday, May 25, by N.C. Senate Republicans.
A bill that would open disciplinary records of government employees is crawling through the Senate, and employee unions and Democrats are determined to kill it.
A bill sponsored by Democrats in the N.C. House would pump billions of additional dollars into public education over the next few years toward meeting the requirements of a new remedial agreement in the ongoing Leandro lawsuit.
Could an obscure historical discovery force Wingate University and the town to change names? That question is roiling Wingate, a small Union County town 30 miles southeast of Charlotte.
An executive order issued by Gov. Roy Cooper on Friday, May 21, requires recipients of unemployment benefits to prove they are searching for work to continue receiving benefits. The move makes North Carolina part of a growing number of states to reimplement the work-search requirement.
In a few weeks, New York Times reporter Nikole Hannah-Jones will join the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Hussman School of Journalism and Media, as the Knight Chair in Race and Investigative Journalism. She accepted a five-year contract as a professor of the practice, with the possibility of receiving tenure at a later date.
Gov. Roy Cooper, citing falling COVID infections and increased vaccinations, this month reopened the state, albeit not totally free and completely. Enough so, though, that fall festivals can start booking, and music clubs, opened with limited capacity since March, can again start making money.
North Carolina remains vulnerable to fuel shortages because it’s too reliant on a pair of pipelines for gas and energy, industry leaders and experts told lawmakers.
