Opinion Roundup: Smithfield hog waste verdict, weekend vetoes, stopping online plans for 3D-printed guns and more

Saturday, Aug. 4, 2018 -- A round up of opinion, commentary and analysis on: More states sue to stop online plans for 3D-printed guns, legislators working the weekend on Gov. Cooper's vetoes, Asheville to pay pedestrian in police beating $650,000, jury tells pork giant to pay $473.5M in nuisance lawsuit and more.

N.C. General Assembly should let the veto stand (Greensboro News & Record) — -- This morning in Raleigh, members of the General Assembly will gather to consider an override of a veto by Gov. Roy Cooper. That almost certainly will happen. Legislators by our count have rejected all but one of Cooper’s vetoes, no matter whether or not that was the right thing to do.

Legislators working the weekend on vetoes (AP reports) —Lawmakers are working on the weekend to consider overriding two vetoes by Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper on Republican-backed legislation to adjust fall ballot language for proposed constitutional amendments and a top court race.

MARTHA BELLISLE: More states sue to stop online plans for 3D-printed guns (AP reports) -- More states, including N.C., are suing the Trump administration to dissolve a settlement it reached with a company that wants to post instructions online for making 3D-printed firearms that are hard to trace and detect. The states suing are: North Carolina, Washington, Connecticut, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, California, Colorado, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and the District of Columbia.

Asheville to pay pedestrian in police beating $650,000 (Asheville Citizen Times reports) — An unarmed black pedestrian who was beaten, shocked and choked in a highly publicized encounter with police will get more than a half million dollars from the city. In a settlement, the city agreed to pay Johnnie Rush $650,000 following the beating almost a year ago. Officer body camera video of the beating became national news.

DAVID CRABTREE: Tillis: Focused on solutions, not shutdown (WRAL-TV reports) — North Carolina Sen.Thom Tillis, in Raleigh Friday for a Congressional hearing with farmers, said he and his colleagues are focused on sending the president a funding bill that would fund the vast majority of the federal government and not shut it down. He understands that President Trump, however, has a sticking point – border security.

REBECCA WALTER: In deadly year for jails, Special Operations Group forms (Hendersonville Times-News) -- During his decades-long career, Capt. Neal Urch, jail administrator for Henderson County, has seen first-hand the dangers faced by law enforcement both on the streets and behind prison walls.

AMANDA LAMB: Lawyer blames man's ICU stay on forceful traffic stop by Trooper Blake (WRAL-TV reports) -- A Pennsylvania attorney said his client was so severely beaten by N.C. State Trooper Michael Blake in 2016 that he was in intensive care for 10 days.

BRYAN MIMS: Trump's tariffs on imported aluminum hit NC craft beer industry (WRAL-TV reports) -- The Trump administration's tariff on imported aluminum is hitting the North Carolina craft beer industry where it hurts.

Marine accused of Neo-Nazi connections kicked out of Corps (Jacksonville Daily News reports) -- The man who allegedly attacked protesters while marching with Neo-Nazis in Charlottesville last year has officially been booted from the Marine Corps. Lance Cpl. Vasillios Pistolis, a water support technician with Combat Logistics Battalion 8, was discharged from the Marine Corps.

RICHARD PADDOCK: Pompeo Warns Turkey on Detained U.S. Pastor: The Clock Has ‘Run Out’ (New York Times reports) — Declaring that “the clock had run out,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urged Turkey on Friday to free an American pastor imprisoned on espionage charges, in a case that had spurred United States to impose sanctions against two top Turkish government officials.

JAMES HAGERTY: C.D. Spangler Jr. Mixed Business Career With Top Education Job in N.C. (Wall Street Journal reports) -- C.D. Spangler Jr., a billionaire businessman who bought National Gypsum and served as president of N.C.’s university system for more than a decade, has died at age 86.

WILL MICHAELS & JASON DEBRUYN: UNC System Graduation Rates Vary By Institution And Racial Composition (WUNC-FM reports) -- Graduations rates are slowly rising in N.C.'s public universities, but disparities remain among each school and their racial demographics. About 72 percent of freshmen who started at a UNC System school in 2011 got their degrees within six years, but graduation rates are still significantly lower at institutions with more low-income students and people of color. For the incoming class of 2011, six-year graduation rates varied from 93 percent at UNC-Chapel Hill to 40 percent at Fayetteville State University.

SARAH KRUEGER: Jordan High president hopes good can come from video that shows student using racist, sexist language (WRAL reports) — The Jordan High School student body president says she hopes the anger students are feeling after a video surfaced on social media that shows a student using racial slurs and sexist comments can be turned into something positive. Students on social media are fighting back and even encouraging a possible boycott of Jordan High’s lacrosse and football games if the student is allowed to play.

JANE STANCILL: There just aren’t enough academic jobs for these Ph.D.s. NC State tries to help (Charlotte Observer reports) — Prospects for Ph.D. earners are dismal in the academic job market, with stories abounding of people who have doctorates serving lattes at Starbucks. N.C. State University has taken on that conundrum with a new program that leads science, technology, engineering and math doctoral students to careers in industry. Known as A2i, or Accelerate to Industry, the program started last year with 50 students. It’s so popular that NCSU trademarked the curriculum, which is now offered at the University of Florida, the University of Arkansas and soon, at other campuses around the country.

WILLIAM BRANDON: Forced vaccinations and deceiving citizens? Mecklenburg has a colorful public health history (Charlotte Observer column) — The outcry had reached a crescendo when city officials announced that fluoridation could not have caused all those dire outcomes, because they never started the fluoridation machinery. They had just wanted to expose the fervid hype about fluoridation. The Health Department’s deception successfully deflated what had been intense opposition and fluoridation began for city residents in May 1949. Charlotte was the first city in the southeast to add fluoride to the wate

TAMIEKA HOWELL & SCOTT CLAIR: Protect children during National Adolescent Immunization Month (Winston-Salem Journal column) — As we work to get our adolescents ready to return to school and continue raising our teens and pre-teens to hopefully have productive, healthy lives, making sure they are vaccinated isn’t a trivial pursuit. Rather, much like the basics we work to give our children every day, keeping our them immunized is a basic parental responsibility.

VALERIE BAUERLEIN: Smithfield Foods Ordered to Pay North Carolina Residents Near Hog Farm (Wall Street Journal reports) -- A federal jury awarded more than $470 million to six neighbors who live near a hog farm run by a contractor for pork giant Smithfield Foods, the third lawsuit in a row the company has lost for odor and noise created by hog farming.

TRAVIS FAIN: Jury awards $473.5 million to neighbors who sued Smithfield over hog waste (WRAL-TV reports) -- A jury has awarded $473.5 million in damages to neighbors of Smithfield hog farms, the largest verdict to date. North Carolina's cap on damages will limit that to $94 million.

ALEX DEROSIER & EMERY DALESIO: Jury tells pork giant to pay $473.5M in nuisance lawsuit (AP reports) -- A federal jury decided that the world's largest pork producer should pay $473.5 million to neighbors of three industrial-scale hog farms for unreasonable nuisances they suffered from odors, flies and rumbling trucks

LAURA LESLIE & TRAVIS FAIN: Massive hog trial verdict as elected leaders rally for farmers (WRAL-TV reports) — "These nuisance lawsuits are just as harmful to agriculture as any disease we can have any of our industries nationwide," N.C. Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler said.

JOE MARUSAK: Yes, you are seeing more bears this year. Here’s why, experts say (Charlotte Observer reports) — You’re not crazy if you think you’re seeing more bears around homes, cars and trash bins in the NC mountains this summer, experts say. Heavy rains that have flooded parts of the mountains in recent weeks and months may also have delayed berries and other bear food in the wild from ripening, he said.

We have to clean up Greensboro's water (Greensboro News & Record) — On Wednesday we learned that Borchers has measured drinking water from the Mitchell Treatment Plant on Battleground Avenue to be about 14 percent worse than the EPA’s porous standards. That sounded alarms far beyond the scope of health officials, environmentalists and chemists.

Man convicted of killing Jordan's father gets new attorney (AP reports) — One of the men convicted of killing basketball star Michael Jordan's father 25 years ago has a new attorney to pursue his claims that he didn't shoot James Jordan. WRAL-TV reports attorney Chris Mumma will represent Daniel Green, who appeared Friday in Lee County court to request a new trial and a new attorney.

NATALIE MATTHEWS: Watermelon craving leads to Cash 5 jackpot win (WRAL-TV reports) -- A Georgia man says his fiancee's watermelon craving is what led them to winning half of a $223,804 Cash 5 jackpot.

MAGGIE BROWN: Henderson woman has double the luck with $100K Powerball win (WRAL-TV reports) -- Henderson's Tammie Bullock-Perry beat one in 913,129 odds during Wednesday's Powerball drawing.

JEFF HAMPTON: One of greatest rescues in Coast Guard history celebrated in Chicamacomico (Norfolk Virginian-Pilot reports) -- John Allen Midgette and his crew were awarded medals from the U.S. and the King of England for their rescue of the British tanker, the Mirlo in August 1918