Skip to main content

News Stories

Local Events

Latest e-Edition

Daily Advance Special Editions

Online Poll

Are you mostly optimistic or pessimistic about the future?

You voted:

Opinion

The California governor has no business “canceling” Walgreens. But I could. The Florida governor has no business punishing Disney for disagreeing with him over his state’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill. But people who agree with Ron DeSantis here can boycott Disney World.

The legislature’s bill to ban limitations on gas stoves is little more than a juvenile exercise in Berkeley-bashing. Following 20 other red states, the General Assembly has peevishly introduced a proposal to preempt our state’s local governments from requiring clean-powered appliances in new homes. Hippies, take that.

Features

State AP Stories

  • Updated

The Republican-controlled North Carolina legislature has given final approval to a Medicaid expansion agreement. Thursday's state House vote reverses longstanding opposition to the measure, which now goes to expansion advocate and Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper for his signature. GOP legislative leaders reached a deal earlier this month, capping years of debate over whether the politically closely divided state should accept the federal government’s coverage for hundreds of thousands of low-income adults. North Carolina was one of 11 states that hadn't yet adopted expansion. The bill contains one caveat: A state budget law must be passed before expansion can be carried out.

  • Updated

North Carolina’s elected auditor has pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor for leaving the scene of a December crash in which she drove her state-owned vehicle into a parked car. Four-term Democratic State Auditor Beth Wood told a Wake County judge on Thursday that she made a “grave mistake” and should have remained at the accident. A judge sentenced Wood to about $300 in court costs and fines in the hit-and-run plea. He pointed out that Wood already had personally paid over $11,000 to cover damages to both cars. Wood said in court that she had drunk two glasses of wine at the party but was not impaired.

  • Updated

Mexico's president says forensic tests have confirmed that a body found in northern Mexico was that of a drug gang leader accused of murdering two Jesuit priests last year. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador did not say Thursday whether the tests involved a DNA match or fingerprints. The sister of accused killer José Noriel Portillo Gil, alias “El Chueco,” or “The Crooked One,” had earlier identified his body by sight.  The murder of the two beloved Jesuit priests in June 2022 had shocked Mexico. The Jesuits said the suspect’s death proves the government can’t catch criminals and has lost control of parts of the country.

  • Updated

Proposals in several states would allow or require schools to deadname transgender students or out them to their parents without consent. Transgender kids and their families say the proposals could eliminate K-12 public schools as one of the last remaining havens to explore their identities. The stated aim of the bills is to give parents greater control over their childrens' education. Some parents and teachers argue they have a right to know. But others warn the proposals could jeopardize children's health and safety. And some teachers say the reporting requirements force educators to betray the trust of their students or risk losing their job.

  • Updated

An agreement to expand Medicaid in North Carolina has reached the cusp of final legislative approval following a state House vote. The House chamber voted 95-21 on Wednesday for legislation that would direct state health officials to accept Medicaid coverage for potentially 600,000 low-income adults. One more affirmative House vote is needed Thursday before it goes to the desk of longtime expansion advocate Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper. The Senate voted last week for the agreement reached between Republican lawmakers three weeks ago. GOP lawmakers had been skeptical for nearly a decade about accepting expansion, which originated from the 2010 federal Affordable Care Act.

  • Updated

North Carolina’s Republican-controlled House has advanced a previously vetoed proposal to restrict how teachers can discuss certain racial topics that some lawmakers equate to “critical race theory.” The House voted 68-49 along party lines Wednesday for legislation banning public school teachers from compelling students to believe they should feel guilty or responsible for past actions committed by people of the same race or sex. House Democrats challenged Republican claims that the bill would reduce discrimination and argued that a comprehensive history education should make students uncomfortable. Republicans are one seat short of a veto-proof supermajority and will likely need some Democratic support for the measure to become law.

  • Updated

Authorities in South Carolina say a former soldier shot and killed three children as they slept in their home while their mother frantically sought help. The ex-soldier then killed himself. Sumter Police Chief Russell Roark says Charles Slacks Jr. also killed an Army solider who worked with the children’s mother and happened to be at the home. Slacks and the woman were divorced, but he still had a key and let himself in around 10 p.m. Tuesday. Slacks shot the co-worker in the backyard, pushed past the mother and shot the children upstairs. They were a 5-year-old, 6-year-old and an 11-year-old.

  • Updated

Conservationists want South Carolina to make the Venus fly trap the state’s official carnivorous plant. Supporters say honoring the Venus fly trap isn’t about one extra thing students see on an elementary school worksheet. Instead, it’s to protect and increase awareness of an interesting species found only in the upper part of the South Carolina coast and a small sliver of southeast North Carolina. In all, South Carolina has about five dozen different official state things, such as the state bird, state opera and even a state snack, which is boiled peanuts.

National & World AP Stories

  • Updated

The specter of missing GoPro camera footage documenting the 2016 ski collision between Gwyneth Paltrow and a retired optometrist has been raised at trial in Park City. The daughter of a man suing Paltrow has testified Thursday that her father Terry Sanderson's health and cognitive function deteriorated after the collision, when he broke his ribs and suffered from a concussion. Paltrow has claimed that Sanderson was actually the culprit for the collision, and her attorneys also questioned the daughter about her father's mentions of Paltrow's wealth and celebrity. Paltrow is likely to be called to testify Friday or early next week.

A Hong Kong department store took down a digital artwork that contained hidden references to jailed dissidents, in an incident the artist says is evidence of erosion of free speech in the semi-autonomous Chinese city. It was unclear whether the government played a role in the decision to remove the artwork, it came just days after a slasher film featuring Winnie the Pooh, a figure often used in playful taunts of China’s President Xi Jinping, was pulled from local cinemas. Patrick Amadon’s “No Rioters” was put on display on a billboard at the SOGO Causeway Bay Store for an exhibition that started last Friday, as the city was promoting its return as a vibrant cultural hub following years of pandemic travel restrictions.

  • Updated

More than a million people have demonstrated across France against unpopular pension reforms, with violence erupting in some places. French unions are calling for nationwide strikes and protests next week, coinciding with King Charles III’s planned visit to France. Violence marred a huge protest march in Paris as well as numerous other demonstrations elsewhere Thursday. The Interior Ministry says the march in Paris drew 119,000 people. That was a record for the capital during the pension protests. Polls say most French oppose President Emmanuel Macron’s bill to increase the retirement age from 62 to 64. He says it's necessary to keep the system afloat.

  • Updated

Utah has become the first state to sign into law legislation that attempts to limit teenagers’ access to social media sites. Republican Gov. Spencer Cox signed a pair of measures Thursday require parental consent before kids can sign up for sites like TikTok and Instagram. The two bills Cox signed into law also prohibit kids under 18 from using social media between the hours of 10:30 p.m. and 6:30 a.m. They also require age verification for anyone who wants to use social media in the state and seek to prevent tech companies from luring kids to their apps using addictive features. Other states, such as Arkansas, Texas, Ohio and Louisiana have similar bills in the works.

  • Updated

The Republican-controlled North Carolina legislature has given final approval to a Medicaid expansion agreement. Thursday's state House vote reverses longstanding opposition to the measure, which now goes to expansion advocate and Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper for his signature. GOP legislative leaders reached a deal earlier this month, capping years of debate over whether the politically closely divided state should accept the federal government’s coverage for hundreds of thousands of low-income adults. North Carolina was one of 11 states that hadn't yet adopted expansion. The bill contains one caveat: A state budget law must be passed before expansion can be carried out.

  • Updated

A federal appeals court has blocked President Joe Biden’s order that federal employees get vaccinated against COVID-19. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans rejected arguments that Biden, as the nation’s chief executive, has the same authority as the CEO of a private corporation to require that employees be vaccinated. The ruling from the full appeals court — 16 judges at the time — reversed an earlier ruling by a three-judge appellate panel that had upheld the vaccination requirement. Opponents of the policy said it was an encroachment on federal workers’ lives that neither the Constitution nor federal statutes authorize.