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News Story
Weekend reads: COVID’s rise, a big departure on the NC Board of Education, and more trees – please!
Faculty members at UNC-Chapel Hill are among a large group at southeastern campuses who are concerned about conservative attack on academic freedom. Photo: Clayton Henkel
1. Lawmakers condemn anti-Asian remarks from principal following UNC-Chapel Hill shooting
By Joe Killian
The North Carolina Asian American Pacific Islander Legislative Caucus condemned racist and xenophobic remarks from a Wayne County high school principal Wednesday in the wake of last week’s fatal shooting at UNC-Chapel Hill.
Wendy Waters, principal of Spring Creek High School in Seven Springs, took to her personal Facebook page after UNC-Chapel Hill graduate student Tailei Qi was identified as the alleged shooter of Zijie Yan, an associate professor in the university’s Department of Applied Physical Sciences.
“What?” Waters wrote. “He only came to our country in 2022 from the UNIVERSITY OF WUHAN!!! My bet is he’s a Chinese Nationalist as a ‘visiting student’ stealing our intellectual property working for the [Chinese Communist Party]!!” [Read more...]
2. With COVID hospitalizations rising, Duke experts urge people who are eligible to get the next COVID booster
By: Lynn Bonner
The rise in hospitalizations and the report that First Lady Jill Biden tested positive for COVID-19 is a reminder that the virus is still with us, though not wreaking the kind of havoc it did in the first two years of the pandemic.
A daily average of 501 patients with COVID were hospitalized in North Carolina for the week that ended on Sept. 2, according to the state Department of Health and Human Services. That’s up from the daily average of 165 people hospitalized with COVID in a week in mid-June, but far from the pandemic peak of January 2022, when more than 5,000 people in North Carolina were hospitalized with COVID, according to New York Times data. [Read more...]
3. James Ford resigns State Board of Education post to focus on equity work
James E. Ford, one of the state’s leading voices for diversity, inclusion and equity, has resigned his post as a member of the State Board of Education.
Ford said he intends to devote more time to his nonprofit, the Charlotte-based Center for Racial Equity in Education (CREED), which focuses on race and education issues in North Carolina.
“I think five years is enough, so I’m going to take this time to focus on myself, focus on my family,” Ford said. “I have a lot of irons in the fire and now I think is my moment to take a little bit of a rest but you’ll see me as I continue doing this work [at CREED].” [Read more...]
4. As NC lawmakers push new election laws, here’s how to make your voting experience run smoothly
They say the third time is the charm, and that was the case last week when I decided to get the official state photo voter identification card. My first attempt was scuttled by work. The second by the inclement weather Tropical Storm Idalia swept in. My third attempt on a Friday proved to be perfect.
By now everyone should know that voters will be asked to present a photo ID in this fall’s municipal elections and indeed all elections for the foreseeable future.
For most that will mean just showing a North Carolina driver’s license, but on this day the Wake County Board of Elections office in Raleigh was happy to help me get an official identification card bearing the state seal. [Read more...]
5. Over the past decade, Wake County lost 11,120 acres of trees — equivalent to 2,700 Walmart stores
On the northern edge of downtown Raleigh, Capital Boulevard is a parched and treeless hellscape where the sun wilts all who dare to cut through its parking lots.
New Bern Avenue, east of WakeMed toward Knightdale, is an endless steppe of pavement where people waiting for the No.15 bus crowd under mangy crepe myrtles, seeking relief from the heat.
Now visit Forest (formerly Cameron) Park, a historic neighborhood near N.C. State: The oaks are old, their crowns wide, and at summer’s peak, their shade drops the air temperature by about five degrees. [Read more.…]
6. State Board of Education reclaims charter school authority with new policy
The State Board of Education on Thursday reclaimed authority over charter schools, approving a new policy that requires the Charter School Review Board to submit approved applications to the state board for funding consideration.
The state board approved the policy on an 8-3 vote, with Republicans Olivia Oxendine, Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson and State Treasurer Dale Folwell voting no.
Superintendent Catherine Truitt, also a Republican, strongly opposed the policy but is a non-voting member of the state board. [Read more...]
7. The dumbest political attack of the year in a big roomful of contenders (commentary)
As with all previous presidencies, there are undoubtedly some legitimate criticisms that can be leveled at the Biden-Harris administration for its performance over its first 31 months in office.
While the decision to face reality and end the United States’s hopelessly futile occupation of Afghanistan proved correct, the process and communication surrounding it could have been handled better.
The failure to pursue the reversal of hateful Trump-era immigration policies more aggressively has been disappointing. [Read more…]
8. Appeals court rules father’s parental rights can’t be terminated because of his parole conditions
By Kelan Lyons
The North Carolina Court of Appeals issued a ruling Tuesday that a man should not lose his parental rights because of strict parole conditions imposed by another state.
In 2014, the father, who is not named in the opinion, was convicted of two felonies involving sexual conduct with a 14-year-old in Indiana. He spent three years in prison before being paroled in 2017. One of the conditions of his supervision was he couldn’t have any form of communication with a minor child, including his biological daughter, whom the opinion refers to as Crystal.
But the Court of Appeals found that the trial court was wrong in ruling that the father had “willfully abandoned” Crystal. [Read more...]
9. More than half North Carolina’s students rated proficient on state exams
Four-year graduation rate steady, at 86.4%
A little more than half of North Carolina’s K-12 student test takers were proficient on the recent round of state exams, according to school accountability data shared by the NC Department of Public Instruction.
The 53.6% proficiency rate for the 2021-22 school year is a slight improvement over the 51.2% recorded the previous year.
However, testing data show that the state’s stubborn achievement gap persists. White students continue to outperform children of color and poor children by large margins. [Read more...]
10. Job growth exceeds economists’ expectations as unemployment inches up
The labor market is stable and healthy, economists and policy experts say, although the unemployment rate ticked up in the month of August.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ report released Friday showed that unemployment rose to 3.8% in August from 3.5% in July. Meanwhile the economy added 187,000 jobs, above expectations of 170,000 jobs from economists polled by Reuters. In July, 157,000 jobs were added. [ Read more...]
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