Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018 -- A round up of opinion, commentary and analysis on: Confusing laws often keep military spouses from voting, the case against Marsy’s Law, gentrification in Durham, troops with 82nd Airborne to deploy to US-Mexico border, school metal detectors aren’t the answer, opioid makers have raised insurance costs, the scariest holiday and more.
Other WRAL Top Stories
CAMPAIGN 2018
TYLER DUKES: With one week to go, ad spending nears $22 million (WRAL-TV reports) — With less than a week to go before Election Day, political campaigns and groups have now spent almost $21.9 million dollars to air ads over NC airwaves.
COLIN CAMPBELL Campaign fundraising (The Insider reports) -- Democrats led at least 10 Republican incumbent legislators in fundraising during the third quarter reporting period, while GOP candidates had a cash advantage in some competitive rural districts.
JIM MORRILL: Caravans and Kavanaugh: NC campaign ads hit on national hot-buttons. Will they work? (Charlotte Observer reports) -- Central American migrants. Billionaire George Soros. Brett Kavanaugh. Those are images from attack ads not in North Carolina's congressional races but in contests for the state legislature. Candidates, particularly Republicans, have turned increasingly to hot-button national issues in the days before next week's mid-term election.
TAFT WIREBACK: Nonprofit leaders slam anti-Manning ad (Greensboro News & Record reports) -- An attack ad against Democratic congressional candidate Kathy Manning drew condemnation from two dozen current and former leaders of the Community Foundation of Greater Greensboro. The ad by the National Republican Congressional Committee erroneously claims that under Manning’s leadership the foundation lost millions of dollars. It began airing on TV stations across the region last week.
TRAVIS FAIN: Lindberg, NC GOP, Causey: Complaint alleges campaign finance violations (WRAL-TV reports) — The NC Republican Party's biggest donation to a political candidate over the last three months didn't go to any of the General Assembly members fighting to keep their GOP majority in the House and the Senate.
SARAH HARRIS: Frequent Moves and Confusing Laws Often Keep Military Spouses From Voting (WUNC reports) — A new study suggests military spouses vote much less than servicemembers, and they may not be getting the help they need to cast their votes.
LEIGH TAUSS: Follow the Money: Who Is the California Billionaire Behind Marsy’s Law? (INDY Week reports) — The person pushing it, California billionaire Henry Nicholas III, has spent more than a decade advocating for victims. Twice, however, he’s found himself on the other side of the law—as a defendant facing felony charges
LEIGH TAUSS: The Case Against Marsy’s Law: The Proposed Victims’ Rights Amendment Is More Complicated Than You’ve Been Led to Believe (INDY Week) — Marsy Nicholas was one of 2,640 homicide victims in California in 1983. Most of their names have faded from memory, data points from a comparatively violent era. But thirty-five years later, Marsy’s lives on, adorning a wave of criminal justice reforms sweeping the country—including, potentially, NC.
Greensboro Transit Authority to offer free rides on Election Day (Greensboro News & Record reports) — Greensboro Transit Authority voted last week to offer free fares system-wide on Election Day. On Nov. 6, fare-free rides will be available on GTA and HEAT fixed-route services, as well as on SCAT On-Demand services for people with disabilities.
GARY ROBERTSON: N.C. amendments could cement GOP agenda in place (AP reports) - N.C. Democrats hope to win enough state legislative seats to strip Republicans of their veto-proof majorities and give Gov. Roy Cooper leverage to block the GOP's right-leaning agenda. But that agenda could be imprinted on the state for decades, if voters next week also approve as many as six Republican-sponsored constitutional referendums.
State Rep. Andy Dulin up for re-election accused of DUI in Ohio (Charlotte Observer reports) – Republican state Rep. Andy Dulin, running for re-election, will stand trial on a charge of driving under the influence in Ohio.
For Congress, Frank McNeill (Southern Pines Pilot) -- Congress is a mess and not just because of what’s going on in Washington these days. A federal court has again ruled North Carolina’s 13 districts to be an unconstitutional gerrymandering and ordered their redrawing — but not until after this election.
RASHAAN AYESH: NC’s third-party candidates might not win this election, but they’ve got plans (Durham Herald-Sun) -- Third parties are on the rise in North Carolina and see this election season as a tool for the future. Robyn Pegram and Erik Raudsep are among Libertarian candidates and Robert Corriher is among the Green Party candidates.
POLICY & POLITICS
NANCY MCLAUGHLIN: Overflow, interfaith crowd gathers for Greensboro rally in wake of Pittsburgh synagogue killings (Greensboro News & Record reports) — Rabbi Fred Guttman stood at the pulpit and looked at the back of the synagogue where hundreds stood against the walls of the city's largest Jewish place of worship.
DEBORAH SOLOMON: Unity Affirmed, Peace Sought at Foxfire Temple Service (Southern Pines Pilot reports) -- On a glorious late autumn Sunday afternoon, Rabbi Kenneth Brickman stood at the door of Temple Beth Shalom, welcoming nearly 100 attendees to a service expressing unity with Tree of Life congregation in Pittsburgh, scene of a massacre by an anti-Semitic gunman.
Muslim advocacy group seeks investigation into mosque threat (AP reports) — The Council on American-Islamic Relations said in a news release it would like the alleged incident investigated as a hate crime. Police said someone called in a bomb threat to Muhammad Mosque 36 in Charlotte last Sunday.
ALAN BLONDIN: What the pipe bomb suspect was like as a Myrtle Beach stripper (Charlotte Observer reports) — Long before Cesar Sayoc became the most wanted man in America, he was working as a male stripper in Myrtle Beach. The man who hired Sayoc about 20 years ago to work with him at the Chippendale Room in the Masters Gentlemen’s Club said at that time Sayoc was nonpolitical and polite in his presence.
DAWN BAUMGARTNER & CARLI BROSSEAU: Gentrification in Durham: The ‘it’ city’s downtown rise hasn’t led to a black-owned boom (Durham-Herald Sun reports) — Construction cranes have peppered the city skyline in the past few years since revitalization took hold. But some are concerned that the prosperity of new Durham is not shared by everyone or reflective of the city’s legacy, especially Black Wall Street. It is not reflective of the city’s population, either. Durham is 40 percent African American.
GILBERT BAEZ: Troops with 82nd Airborne to deploy to US-Mexico border (WRAL-TV reports) -- Members of the 82nd Airborne Division's Combat Aviation Brigade will deploy to the U.S.-Mexico border.
Fort Bragg soldiers among 5,200 headed to US-Mexico border (WRAL reports) — Officials at Fort Bragg told WRAL News Wednesday that the 16th Military Police Brigade will support Operation Faithful Guardian, deploying soldiers, equipment and resources to assist Department of Homeland Security along the southwest border as migrants head toward U.S. ports of entry.
DEBRA MORGAN: National hotline receives hundreds of fraud reports in the wake of Hurricane Florence (WRAL-TV reports) -- Hundreds of people are calling a national hotline to complain about being scammed as they rebuild after the recent hurricanes.
Former Buncombe County official pleads guilty to accepting kickbacks (AP reports) -- A former Buncombe County official has pleaded guilty to conspiring to defraud the federal government by accepting bribes in exchange for government contracts. Former Buncombe County Assistant Manager Jon Creighton entered the plea part of an agreement. Former County Manager Wanda Greene and Assistant Manager Mandy Stone also are charged in the scheme and have pleaded not guilty.
CHANTAL ALLAM: Fight for equality at work for women is far from over a year after #MeToo erupted (WRAL-TV/TechWire column) -- How do I get a seat at the C-Suite table? Sadly, it’s an all-too-familiar question for many women and people of color rising through today’s corporate ranks, still struggling to get recognized.
DAVE NYCZEPIR: How N.C. Kept 911 Up During Hurricane Florence (Route 50 reports) -- The Federal Communications Commission has since documented the effort's success.
Let’s get Vertex site on track for new, viable jobs (Wilmington Star-News) — It looks like it’s the end of the line for Vertex. We hope, however, it’s not a dead end for the Raleigh Street site the railcar company has been leasing since 2014. And it definitely should not be the end of efforts to recruit clean, good-paying manufacturing jobs to Wilmington and the region.
EDUCATION
JOE MARUSAK: CMS superintendent defends response to fatal shooting at Butler High School (Charlotte Observer reports) — At Tuesday night’s Board of Education meeting, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools Superintendent Clayton Wilcox said the school’s principal “made a brave decision” — and the correct one — to send students to their “second hour” of classes and not home on buses.
MICHAEL GORDON & THEODEN JANES: Video that appears to capture Butler High shooting surfaces on Instagram (Charlotte Observer reports) — A 15-second video circulating on social media apparently captures Monday’s fatal school shooting of a Butler High student, with a gun appearing five seconds into a hallway fight. A gunshot rings out. Two male students, believed to be Jatwan Cuffie and Bobby McKeithen, both 16, continue to fight as their classmates back away.
Despite Butler High tragedy, metal detectors aren’t the answer (Charlotte Observer) — CMS has a gun problem. The district has accounted for 20 percent of the guns reported on school grounds in NC despite having just 10 percent of the state’s total enrollment.
Terror in the hallway (Fayetteville Observer) — It wasn’t an act of terror as we’d typically define it in this month of deadly shootings and bomb deliveries. But for the students in Butler High School — and for their parents, families, friends, neighbors and the entire community of Matthews, really — Monday was a day of terror, an explosion of the same fears felt over and over across our country, most recently in Pittsburgh.
JESSIE POUNDS: Guilford County Schools trying new partnership to improve student attendance (Greensboro News & Record reports) — Guilford County Schools is looking far away — and close to home — for help cutting down on student absences. The school system recently signed a contract with Attendance Works, a San Francisco-based nonprofit, to study root causes of chronic absenteeism in the school system and make plans to tackle them.
HEALTH
TAYLOR KNOPF: Should all N.C. inmates be screened and treated for Hepatitis C? A federal court will decide (NC Health News reports) — A federal court judge in Durham took up a lawsuit against NC’s Department of Public Safety for its policies dealing with Hepatitis C. The infectious disease is on the rise due to the increase in heroin use, which is widespread among America’s incarcerated population.
ANTIONETTE KERR: House Committee Questions Rise in Pregnancy-Related Deaths (Public News Service reports) — Instances of pregnancy-related deaths in NC have declined steadily since 2012, but overall, the U.S. is one of the few countries where the number is on the rise. The House Ways and Means Committee wants answers from the country's largest hospital systems, and have given a November 15 deadline.
ZACHERY EANES: Opioid makers have raised insurance costs for North Carolinians, lawsuit claims (Charlotte Observer reports) — A NC man has filed a lawsuit against more than a dozen pharmaceutical companies, alleging that their targeted marketing and distribution of prescription opioids has directly led to higher insurance costs for North Carolinians.
WILLIAM WEST: DHHS official outlines opioid crisis to Currituck gathering (Elizabeth City Daily Advance reports) — A state health expert stunned a civic club gathering here recently with extensive data and stories outlining the extent of the opioid crisis in NC. Ricky Langley, a medical consultant with the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services, made his point with a presentation that included an "overdose pyramid" to illustrate how pervasive the crisis has become.
ENERGY & ENVIRONMENT
TRISTA TALTON: Topsail Towns Discuss Florence’s Lessons (Coastal Review Online reports) — Left in the wake of Hurricane Florence in Topsail Island’s three towns are mangled and destroyed public walkways and dunes, shoreline erosion, the fields of debris washed ashore that had to be collected and carted away, hundreds of damaged homes and lost revenue from rental closures.
MIKAYA THURMOND: Lucama residents fed up with murky, smelly water (WRAL reports) — From house to house and faucet to faucet, Lucama residents are frustrated with what's in the water. Tiffany Fragoso is one of the town’s 1,100 residents, and she said that for decades tap water has been murky brown or reeking of chemicals as crews flush the pipes.
SARAH WILLETS: Smithfield Foods Says It Will Cover Its Lagoons. Critics Say That’s Just Lipstick on a Pig (INDY Week reports) — So long as Smithfield’s farms persist with an anachronistic lagoon-to-spray-field method of waste disposal, they argue, the threats to water contamination and public health will continue.
ADAM WAGNER: Why CFPUA warned customers they could lose water during Florence (Wilmington Star-News reports) — As floodwaters shut Wilmington off from the outside world last month, the Cape Fear Public Utility Authority (CFPUA) issued a startling warning.
JESSICA CANNON: Don’t fall for GOP water-quality claims (Wilmington Star-News column) — While I respect Duke professor Dr. Lee Ferguson’s work to enhance our knowledge of industrial pollution in North Carolina’s waterways, his recent opinion piece, “Legislature’s visionary effort to safeguard drinking water” (Oct. 21 OpEd), completely misrepresents the unfortunate politics surrounding the Republican response to the GenX crisis.
AND MORE…
JEFF HAMPTON: NC's oldest house on the way to becoming a historic destination (Virginian-Pilot reports) — The owner donated the 300-year-old home to the Penelope Barker Foundation here. The Edenton Historical Commission will manage it for the public to view and for historians to study.
The scariest holiday (Winston-Salem Journal) — The people ringing your doorbell this evening aren’t likely to be election canvassers or foreign invaders. Relax, it’s just Halloween, when the neighborhood kids dress up as their favorite heroes or villains and go begging for sugary treats.