Tuesday, Oct. 31, 2017 -- A roundup of opinion, commentary and analysis on the state's response to a round of deadly prison attacks, the threats posed to NC forests by climate change, a divided panel on the role of charter schools and more.

POLITICS & POLICY
LAURA LESLIE: DPS chief promises more safety, better work conditions in prisons(WRAL-TV analysis) -- Less than three weeks after two corrections officers were killed, state Secretary of Public Safety Erik Hooks pledged to improve security for people working in North Carolina prisons.

Other WRAL Top Stories

JEFF HAMPTON: 3rd officer dies after attempted escape from Pasquotank prison(Norfolk Virginian-Pilot) -- Wendy Shannon, 49, had been a correctional officer since 2013

GARY ROBERTSON: Republicans object to special master in N.C. remap(AP analysis) -- North Carolina Republican legislative leaders opposed a plan by federal judges to use an outside expert to help them examine and possibly redraw General Assembly district lines, arguing that it's premature to hire one and questioning the expert's impartiality.

ANNE BLYTHE: Is NC lawmakers’ proposal a threat to judges who won’t go along with their agenda?(Durham Herald-Sun analysis) -- NC judges speak out against a proposal to make judges stand for election every two years. Among them is Wake County Judge Donald Stephens, who will retire from the bench on Wednesday.

D.G. MARTIN: Is there any home left for the political middle? (Winston-Salem Journal column) -- Our major parties are forcing out the moderates who are uncomfortable with their parties’ unwillingness to accommodate compromise and less strident approaches.

FARHAD MANJOO & KEVIN ROOSE: How to Fix Facebook? We Asked 9 Experts(New York Times analysis) – Alice Marwick, Assistant professor of communication, UNC-Chapel Hill -- Facebook should allow users to sort their news feed chronologically by default on all platforms, rather than rely on an algorithmically sorted News Feed. This would increase the diversity of items in the News Feed, and would make it more likely that users were exposed to people and information that didn’t support their own confirmation bias.

LIZ SCHLEMMER: UNC Law Professors Urge Chancellor To Remove Silent Sam Statue(WUNC-FM analysis) -- Thirty-four faculty members of the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill School of Law have sent a letter to Chancellor Carol Folt urging the immediate removal of the Silent Sam Confederate monument.

Gen. Lee marker stolen over weekend(Hendersonville Times-News column) -- A monument honoring Confederate General Robert E. Lee and the Dixie Highway was stolen in Henderson County near the South Carolina border. The monument, a bronze plaque, was stolen after being pried out of the large granite boulder it was placed on.

​Mueller produces his initial results(Greensboro News & Record) -- Robert Mueller’s first indictments drew a premature response from President Donald Trump Monday morning.

It’ll take character to head off further Russian election meddling, Schiff says(Durham Herald-Sun) -- The top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee says Russia’s 2016 intervention in the U.S. presidential election may portend worse things to come.

A shameful delay(Winston-Salem Journal) -- They were forcibly sterilized by the state’s rapid timeline, which usually meant that from the time they were targeted until they were rendered barren was a year or less. They were girls and boys then, aging women and men now rightly protesting justice delayed.

Morganton man in Care Bear costume on moped charged with DWI(Hickory Record column) -- A Morganton man dressed in a Care Bear onesie was charged with driving while impaired after an officer spotted him driving his moped without its lights on, according to an arrest report.

ENERGY & ENVIRONMENT
JACK INGELMAN: WNC forests face threat of erratic and extreme weather as climate changes(Carolina Public Press analysis) -- There’s perhaps no other species of plant in North Carolina as recognizable as the Catawba rhododendron. It’s shiny leaves and gorgeous blooms are ubiquitous throughout the North Carolina mountains. Senior geologist for geohazards Rick Wooten of the NC Geological Survey in Asheville said the combination of more dramatic rain events and the expansion of weakly rooted species can destabilize mountain slopes.

VAUGHN HAGERTY: Chemours ordered to stop more wastewater discharges(Wilmington Star-News analysis) -- Less than a week after the state withdrew a threat to suspend Chemours’ discharge permit, regulators announced the company had agreed yet again to stop releasing newly discovered wastewater containing GenX and other fluorochemicals into the Cape Fear River. The move came after results were released from testing done Sept. 18 by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency based on sampling done inside the Fayetteville Works, about 100 miles upriver from Wilmington.

JOHN DOWNEY: Customers at Piedmont, PSNC to see rates change after N.C. regulators act(Charlotte Business Journal analysis) -- The bump in Piedmont Natural Gas' rate comes because it has sold less natural gas this year than expected. Rates will drop at PSNC Energy because its commodity price of natural gas has fallen.

SAM BLAND’S Field Notes: Bats Get A Bum Rap(Coastal Review column) -- They’re the stuff of ghost stories and Halloween scares, but bats are not the blind, blood-sucking demons they’ve been made out to be. However, they are in trouble.

EDUCATION
LIZ BELL: Debate on role of charter schools divides panel(EdNC analysis) -- To Helen Ladd, a public policy and economics professor at Duke University, charter schools should be confined to the “fringe” of the system — with a few schools offering new ideas and sharing them with traditional public schools. “If you limit them that way, you can pay attention to quality assurance,” Ladd said. “You can authorize the best charter school proposals, and then make sure they have the support they need so that they can work well.”

ARNE DUNCAN: NCAA “should not be handcuffed” in academic fraud cases(Durham Herald-Sun) -- Leaders of a national commission on college athletics called for reforms in the wake of the NCAA infraction committee’s decision sparing UNC-Chapel Hill sanctions in the long-running academic scandal.

HEALTH
RAY GRONBERG: Nurse’s lawsuit accuses Duke of religious discrimination(Durham Herald-Sun analysis) -- Duke University is the target of a lawsuit that contends it violated the civil rights of a Catholic nurse who objects to abortion, birth control and vaccines.