Chief Justice Newby removes Judge Stroud as chief of Appeals Court
By Kelan Lyons
State Supreme Court Justice Paul Newby removed Donna Stroud as chief of the North Carolina Court of Appeals Tuesday, replacing her with Chris Dillon.
Typically the chief judge of the Court of Appeals is the one who has been on that court the longest. Stroud was first elected to Court of Appeals in 2006, six years before Dillon won a seat there.
Newby, Stroud and Dillon are all Republicans, but Stroud has been criticized by Newby’s colleague, Supreme Court Justice Phil Berger, Jr., who supported Stroud’s primary challenger in 2022. [Read more…]
MVP Southgate natural gas pipeline will no longer cross Alamance County
However, the pipeline owner has not yet published a new map of the redesigned route. (Base map: MVP Southgate)
By Lisa Sorg
The controversial MVP Southgate project will be shortened by more than half and no longer pass through Alamance County, according to public filings by Equitrans Midstream, the majority owner and operator of the natural gas pipeline.
Based in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, Equitrans Midstream announced the project’s proposed redesign in its filings to the Securities and Exchange Commission on Dec. 29. The project has not been finalized; nor has the company published a new route map. [Read more...]
An interview with acclaimed civil rights attorney and historian Bryan Stevenson
By Ted Vaden
Bryan Stevenson learned early on about the rule of law. As a young African American boy growing up in a mostly white county in rural Delaware, he started out attending “colored” schools.
That changed after the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision, when civil rights attorneys came into Delaware seeking to force public schools to integrate.
“If you had a vote in this county — which was 80 percent white — about letting kids into public schools, we would have lost the vote,” Stevenson recalled in an interview. [Read more...]
NC Elections Board debates using race as a criterion in signature verification pilot
By Lynn Bonner
Durham is the most populous county that will take part in the ballot signature-matching pilot program for the upcoming primary elections.
The State Board of Elections on Tuesday approved the 10 counties that will participate in the mailed ballot signature-matching pilot as required under a new law.
In addition to Durham, Halifax, Bertie, Wilkes, Montgomery, Rowan, Jones, Pamlico, Henderson, and Cherokee will use signature matching software for the primary. [Read more…]
Respiratory virus season in full swing in North Carolina after holiday gatherings
Consider it a gift that you’d like to return.
Days after Christmas and New Year’s Eve gatherings where people celebrated in close quarters, cases of flu and COVID-19 are on the rise.
Data released Wednesday by the NC Department of Health and Human Services found that more than 22% of the emergency room visits for the last week in December had symptoms of a respiratory virus. [Read more…]
NC Court of Appeals upholds life without parole sentence for man who committed crimes as a minor
By Kelan Lyons
The North Carolina Court of Appeals ruled this week that a young man can spend the rest of his life in prison for killing his parents when he was 17 years old, an opinion handed down by two Republicans over the dissent of a Democratic colleague claiming the decision “diminishes longstanding concerns surrounding the sentencing of juveniles.”
Tristan Noah Borlase was sentenced in 2022 to two consecutive sentences of life without the possibility of parole for killing his parents, Jeff and Tanya, at their home in Boone in 2019. At the time, Tristan was one month away from turning 18…[Read more…]
State education leaders want to reset long-term federal performance goals
State education officials want to lower federal school performance goals, which they are unlikely to meet and contend were set too high.
For the 2022-23 school year, North Carolina districts met only one of 51 progress targets — the graduation rate for Asian students. None of the goals for reading and math in Grades 3-8, high school English II or high school mathematics were met. The Every Student…
Read More: Weekend reads: A GOP court shake-up, signature-matching pilot begins, and new