Standing beneath Liberty Warehouse’s familiar yellow-and-black marquee, the only sound is the hum of passing traffic and the snare drum clap of a skateboard on concrete. It seems a humble funeral dirge for Liberty Warehouse, Durham’s last standing tobacco auction warehouse. Barring the unexpected, Liberty will be gone by the end of spring. Chapel Hill-based […]
Billy Ball
Bio: Billy Ball is an INDY Week staff writer.Email: [email protected]: http://twitter.com/billy_k_ball
Posted inGuides
One mother’s attempt to stop gun violence
On Dec. 14, 2012, Kaaren Haldeman watched the grim news pour in. More than two-dozen dead, most of them children, in Newtown, Conn. A lone shooter had taken his own life as police converged. The mother of a first grader, Haldeman cried on her kitchen floor. “I knew intimately what these parents had lost,” she […]
Posted inGuides
Farmworker Advocacy Network’s battle for dignity
There is a bright orange mural that members of the Farmworker Advocacy Network carry around. It depicts field hands laboring at their grueling work. In the lower left corner, dark-skinned arms, chained at the wrist, reach upward. Nadeen Bir-Zaslow, a member of the group that handles communications for the North Carolina activists, says, “We have […]
Posted inNews
Liberty Warehouse developers roll out plans
Roughly 150 or so Durham residents craned forward to look Thursday night as Liberty Warehouse’s prospective developers unveiled their site plan at the Durham County Public Library. The verdict? Not much surprise and a somewhat mixed reaction. During a community meeting convened by Preservation Durham, builders from Chapel Hill-based East West Partners explained their intentions […]
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Chapel Hill leaders question gun law; proponents threaten to sue
“A child is shot in this country every 30 minutes.” Kaaren Haldeman, leader of the North Carolina chapter of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense, is addressing an unusually reticent Chapel Hill Town Council. “While we’ve been sitting here, a child has been shot and killed,” says Haldeman, whose group advocates for tighter gun control […]
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Mining commission finalizes chemical disclosure rules for fracking
Mining and Energy Commission Chairman Jim Womack “Our objective is to get as full a disclosure as we can, in consideration of trade secret laws. That means we’ll probably lean more to the most expansive set of standards that we can find in any other state.” That was Jim Womack, chairman of the N.C. Mining […]
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Spence’s farm: no oversight
Spence’s Farm is under fire from parents and former staffers for potentially endangering children, but complaints about the outdoor kids’ camp may not fall under the jurisdiction of state and local child protection services. Nancy Coston, social services director in Orange County, declined to comment on the specifics of the allegations—which, as reported in the […]
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Starkweather bows out of state House bid
As it turns out, Jeff Starkweather, a civil rights attorney and former newspaper publisher from Pittsboro, will not be seeking the Democratic party nomination for the vacant District 54 seat in the N.C. House of Representatives. As reported in INDY Week last week, party leaders had indicated Starkweather would be seeking to replace Deb McManus, […]
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Dems to meet to replace McManus in House 54
Area Democrats hope to put an embarrassing embezzlement scandal for one of their own behind them. Rep. Deb McManus, who until last month represented House District 54, resigned after she was arrested and charged with embezzlement. Democratic Party executive committee members in that district, which includes Chatham and Lee counties, will meet Friday, Jan. 24, […]
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What’s next for Camelot Village?
AFTER A FLOOD seven months ago that displaced dozens of residents from Camelot Village on South Estes Drive in Chapel Hill, roughly one-third of the development’s damaged condos are occupied and the rest are on the market for potential renters. That’s according to Don Wilhoit, a former Orange County commissioner who owns six of the […]
