“He’s like a combination of Greg Graffin from Bad Religion, Dave Matthews—and Meatloaf,” my friend Lawrence and I decided over beers at Neptune’s on Tuesday. We were listening to Future Islands “Singles” and talking about Sam Herring, the North Carolina frontman who has exploded after a following a phenomenal dancing performance on David Letterman earlier […]
Aaron Lake Smith
Bio: Aaron Smith is the Raleigh Bureau Chief of INDY Week.Email: [email protected]
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Molotov Mitchell’s plan to move the state senate (farther) right
If you call Molotov Mitchell’s campaign office, a cheery receptionist will answer, The liberation of District 16 is under way! Mitchell, an ultraconservative Internet pundit, is challenging Wake County state Sen. Josh Stein in the general election for District 16, which encompasses Cary, Morrisville and parts of Raleigh including N.C. State University. Mitchell and his […]
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The big money bankrolling the school voucher movement
Darrell Allison, president of Parents for Educational Freedom in North Carolina, believes that a publicly funded program of school vouchers to send low-income, underachieving students to private schools could break the cycle of poverty. “Odds are if you’re a minoritywith 50 or 60 percent of minority homes being single parentthe idea of homeschooling or receiving […]
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Greyhound station moving from downtown Raleigh to make way for development
The three-mile walk from Raleigh’s future Greyhound bus station in a forlorn strip mall on Capital Boulevard to the heart of downtown is probably best made by a seasoned hobo. The pedestrian has to navigate concrete-strewn underpasses, muddy potted back roads and grassy medians before walking along the snarling shoulder of Capital Boulevard, past porno […]
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James Goodnight’s plan to revive Raleigh history
James Goodnight, son of the billionaire SAS founder Jim Goodnight, bought his first building the week that Lehmann Brothers collapsed. It was a crumbling warehouse in downtown Raleigh that has since become Flanders Gallery. He was working in finance at the time, for his dad’s company. “As everyone else got out of real estate, I […]
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Cary man denied bail on terrorism charges
What should the U.S. government do with Basit Sheikh? That was the question last week at the federal courthouse in downtown Raleigh, where Judge Terrence Boyle presided over a hearing about the fate of the 29-year-old Cary man and Pakistani citizen. On Nov. 2, 2013, Sheikh was arrested on charges of attempting to provide material […]
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Government claims state secrets on Cary man accused of trying to join Syrian resistance
On Friday morning at the federal courthouse in downtown Raleigh, Hudge Terrence Boyle presided over a hearing with prosecutors to determine what was to be done with Basit Sheikh. The 29-year-old Cary man, a Pakistani citizen, was ushered into the courtroom in his red-and-white prison garb. Sheikh was indicted on Nov. 5, 2013, while attempting […]
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An urban exploration of Raleigh’s most forgotten waterway (and future river walk)
Earlier this week, I reported that the city of Raleigh and Sasaki Associates both hope their ten-year master “Downtown Plan” will have a “huge water element” like a river walk. Raleigh is one of only three state capitals that was not built along a major body of water; the other two cities are Carson City, […]
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Will Obama’s “Public-private innovation institute” at NCSU make Raleigh the new Silicon Valley?
Explainer video from the Department of Energy about why the “wide bandgap semiconductors” that Raleigh’s new “innovation institute” will produce are important. This morning, as the Triangle lay draped in fog, Obama announced the first of his three new public-private “manufacturing innovation institutes” would be created on NC State’s Centennial Campus with the help of […]
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A vision for downtown Raleigh that includes water
The earliest vision of Raleigh, planned by William Christmas in 1792, was a grid in a territory of forest and floodplains near where early lawmakers liked to drink. Yet, nearly unique among state capitals, Raleigh has no substantial body of water flowing through it. Downtown is abutted by trickling creeks and streams, but there is […]