News Stories
A shortage of foster care providers in Pasquotank County is forcing the agency to place some children in faraway counties and even in neighboring states.
Elizabeth City’s ministry for the homeless will soon have a new permanent home of its own.
The dinner boat that Harbor Towns, Inc. plans to begin operating on area waterways later this spring won’t just be an entertainment vessel.
It is projected that by the year 2040 the world will need 75% to 100% more food to feed its population, says Zane Hedgecock.
CURRITUCK — Currituck officials have issued a boil water advisory for parts of the Sligo area following a leak to a water distribution line earlier today.
Local Events
The Northeastern girls’ basketball team kept their undefeated season rolling on Friday night at home.
HAVELOCK — Area high school wrestlers competed at the NCHSAA Women’s East Regional invitational at Havelock High School on Thursday.
The Elizabeth City State women’s basketball team fell behind early Thursday after a cold start in their home game against Virginia Union and after briefly tying it in the second quarter, they once again needed to find another gear.
Two area high school wrestling teams will be competing in this year’s NCHSAA dual team state playoffs.
There are a few things this week worth mentioning, none more so than Jeff Charles having broadcast his 1,000th ECU basketball game the other day.
The Northeastern boys’ basketball team escaped with a narrow 51-45 home win over John A. Holmes on Tuesday night.
Opinion
Your headline from a October 2021 news article sums up the city of Elizabeth City’s speed hump fiasco: “Council halts speed bump project authorized without their OK.”
During the middle of the 14th century people who believed they had displeased God beat themselves with sticks as penance for bringing on the bubonic plague.
The N.C. Local Government Commission revoked the charter of of the town of East Laurinburg. This effectively dissolved the town’s government because it had been unable to maintain adequate accounting controls, and the town had become financially insolvent. Scotland County was forced to assum…
Brett Kavanaugh was sworn in as a justice of the Supreme Court more than four years ago, on Oct. 6, 2018. His oath followed perhaps the ugliest Supreme Court Senate confirmation process in history — and that, given the previous examples of Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas, is saying something. But when it was all over, Kavanaugh settled in to the court, where he has, by all accounts, performed admirably ever since.
Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) quickly became a global punchline when his multiple, contradictory misrepresentations of his background were revealed after he was elected in November. But there’s nothing funny about Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s refusal to call on Santos to resign, as a few other Republicans have.
North Carolina faces many challenges. You and I may disagree with how to rank those challenges, or what to do about them, but we share a belief that our state could be in a better place than it is today.
Features
So you may have seen or heard that country star Chris Stapleton will be singing the national anthem at Super Bowl LVII.
Museum of the Albemarle, Elizabeth City State University, and the Pasquotank County Library have been hard at work planning a number of educational events for Black History Month 2023.
Tiana Cortazzo likes to stay busy. Which is good, because she stays pretty busy.
“Forever, O Lord, Your word is settled in heaven.”
There are Ukrainian soldiers who pull triggers and launch missiles. There are soldiers who drive trucks, tanks and armored vehicles. There are soldiers who provide medical care. And there are soldiers who carry the dead. And, they are busy.
Pasquotank County 4-H partnered earlier this week with the Elizabeth City-Pasquotank Public Schools for the 10th annual 5th grade districtwide Science Fair.
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State AP Stories
As mass shootings are again drawing public attention, states across the U.S. seem to be deepening their political divide on gun policies. A series of recent mass shootings in California come after a third straight year in which U.S. states recorded more than 600 mass shootings involving at least four deaths or injuries. Democratic-led states that already have restrictive gun laws have responded to home-state tragedies by enacting or proposing even more limits on guns. Many states with Republican-led legislatures appear unlikely to adopt any new gun policies after last year's local mass shootings. They're pinning the problem on violent individuals, not their weapons.
The families of five passengers killed in a plane crash off the North Carolina coast have settled wrongful death lawsuits for $15 million. Their attorneys told the court the companies that owned the plane and employed the pilot paid the money. The suits claimed the pilot failed to properly fly the single-engine plane in weather conditions with limited visibility. All eight people aboard died off the Outer Banks. The passengers included four teenagers and two adults, returning from a hunting trip. The founder of the company that owned the plane was killed, and his family wasn't involved in the lawsuits.
A man who caused evacuations and an hourslong standoff with police on Capitol Hill when he claimed he had a bomb in his pickup truck outside the Library of Congress has pleaded guilty to a charge of threatening to use an explosive. Floyd Ray Roseberry, of Grover, North Carolina, pleaded guilty to the felony charge in Washington federal court. He faces up to 10 years behind bars and is scheduled to be sentenced in June. An email seeking comment was sent to his attorney on Friday. Roseberry drove a black pickup truck onto the sidewalk outside the Library of Congress in August 2021 and began shouting to people in the street that he had a bomb.
North Carolina Democrats have introduced legislation to codify abortion protections into state law as Republicans are discussing early prospects for further restrictions. Their legislation, filed Wednesday in both chambers, would prohibit the state from imposing barriers that might restrict a patient’s ability to choose whether to terminate a pregnancy before fetal viability, which typically falls between 24 and 28 weeks of pregnancy. Current state law bans nearly all abortions after 20 weeks, with narrow exceptions for urgent medical emergencies that do not include rape or incest. House Speaker Tim Moore told reporters he didn’t expect the Democrats’ bill to get considered.
Supporters of abortion rights have filed separate lawsuits challenging abortion pill restrictions in North Carolina and West Virginia. The lawsuits were filed Wednesday. They are the opening salvo in what’s expected to a be a protracted legal battle over access to the medications. The lawsuits argue that state limits on the drugs run afoul of the federal authority of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The agency has approved the abortion pill as a safe and effective method for ending pregnancy. More than half of U.S. abortions are now done with pills rather than surgery.
The University of Wisconsin System has joined a number of universities across the country in banning the popular social media app TikTok on school devicies. UW System officials made the announcement Tuesday. A number of other universities have banned TikTok in recent weeks, including Auburn, Arkansas State and Oklahoma. Nearly half the states have banned the app on state-owned devices, including Wisconsin, North Carolina, Mississippi, Louisiana and South Dakota. Congress also recently banned TikTok from most U.S. government-issued devices over bipartisan concerns about security. TikTok is owned by ByteDance, a Chinese company that moved its headquarters to Singapore in 2020. Critics say the Chinese government could access user data.
North Carolina’s elected state auditor has apologized for leaving the scene of a Raleigh accident last month after she drove her state-issued vehicle into a parked car. Monday's statement by Democratic Auditor Beth Wood is her first comment about charges against her that were made public last week. Wood called her decision “a serious mistake” and says she will continue serving as auditor. Wood was first elected to the job in 2008. Raleigh police cited Wood for a misdemeanor hit-and-run and another traffic-related charge. Her court date is later this week. Wood says the collision happened after she left a holiday gathering Dec. 8.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says it will study whether to toughen regulation of large livestock farms that pollute waterways. The agency hasn't revised its rules dealing with the nation's largest hog, poultry and cattle operations since 2008. Farm manure and fertilizer runoff fouls lakes and streams. It's a leading cause of harmful algae blooms. EPA says it reconsidered its intention to leave existing rules in place after an environmental group filed a lawsuit. The agency says it will gather information on how bad the pollution is and what new methods might bring improvements.
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National & World AP Stories
As mass shootings are again drawing public attention, states across the U.S. seem to be deepening their political divide on gun policies. A series of recent mass shootings in California come after a third straight year in which U.S. states recorded more than 600 mass shootings involving at least four deaths or injuries. Democratic-led states that already have restrictive gun laws have responded to home-state tragedies by enacting or proposing even more limits on guns. Many states with Republican-led legislatures appear unlikely to adopt any new gun policies after last year's local mass shootings. They're pinning the problem on violent individuals, not their weapons.
Authorities in Memphis have released video showing Black motorist Tyre Nichols being beaten by five police officers who held him down and repeatedly struck him with fists, batons and boots. The footage released Friday also shows the Black officers pummeling the 29-year-old and leaving him propped against a squad car as they fist-bump and celebrate their actions. The officers have been charged with murder in the assault that the Nichols family legal team likened to the infamous 1991 police beating of Los Angeles motorist Rodney King. The chilling images of another Black man dying at the hands of police provoked tough questions about the nation’s policing culture.
Israeli authorities say a 13-year-old Palestinian has opened fire and wounded at least two people in east Jerusalem. The shooting on Saturday occurred less than a day after another attacker killed seven people outside a synagogue there in the deadliest attack in the city since 2008. The surge in violence marks the latest major escalation in one of the bloodiest months in Israel and the occupied West Bank in years. Earlier this week, the Israeli military killed nine Palestinians in a West Bank raid. The events, just a day before U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrives in the region, pose a pivotal test for Israel’s new far-right government.
When Pope Francis arrives in Congo and South Sudan next week, thousands of people will take special note of a gesture more grounded than the sign of the cross. Watching from their wheelchairs, they will relate to the way he uses his. The pope began using a wheelchair last year. He is visiting two countries where years of conflict have disabled many. And yet Congo and South Sudan are among the world’s most difficult places to find accessibility and understanding. Among wheelchair users, his visit is heartening Catholics and non-Catholics alike. “He’s close to us,” one South Sudanese says.
A mobile app for migrants to seek asylum in the United States has been overwhelmed since it was introduced this month in one of several major changes to the government’s response to unprecedented migration flows. New appointments are made available daily. But migrants are increasingly frustrated by a variety of error messages. Many can’t log in. Others are hopeful when they get a date, only to be deflated when the screen freezes at final confirmation. The daily ritual resembles a race for concert tickets when online sales begin for a major act.
A Japanese whaling operator, after struggling for years to promote its products amid protests from conservationists, has found a new way to cultivate clientele: whale meat vending machines. The Kujira (Whale) Store, an unmanned outlet that recently opened in the port town of Yokohama near Tokyo, houses three vending machines for whale sashimi, whale bacon, whale skin and whale steak, as well as canned whale meat. Prices range from $7.70 to $23. Japan resumed commercial whaling in 2019 after withdrawing from the International Whaling Commission. Conservationists say whale meat is no longer part of the daily diet in Japan, especially for younger generations.
President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are both condemning the Memphis police beating of Tyre Nichols that ended in his death. The president said in a statement that he was “outraged and deeply pained to see the horrific video” of the beating and said people who see it will be “justifiably outraged.” But he’s also urging protesters to avoid any violence. Harris issued a statement that said: “Yet, once again, America mourns the life of a son and father brutally cut short at the hands of those sworn to protect and serve.” She said the video images will “open wounds that will never fully heal.”
Tyre Nichols was brutally attacked by police in Memphis after they pulled him over Jan. 7. Video of the deadly beating was released to the public on Friday. Family and friends remember Nichols as a generous, lovable man who worked hard to be a good father to his 4-year-old son. He was passionate about photography. He was an avid skateboarder and hailed from Sacramento, California. He got stuck in Memphis during the coronavirus pandemic, but didn't mind because he was with his mother. They were close, and she says she's still in shock he won't walk through her door anymore.
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