Cindy Lee Talisman admits she didn’t think this through. In July, following the petition of the local historical societyas well as the national outcry following the murders of nine African-Americans in South Carolina at the hands of a white supremacistthe Hillsborough Board of Commissioners reluctantly agreed to remove the words “Confederate memorial” from the town-owned […]
Billy Ball
Bio: Billy Ball is an INDY Week staff writer.Email: [email protected]: http://twitter.com/billy_k_ball
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North Carolina’s dark money trail goes national
Whenever North Carolina politics winds up in the New York Times, it’s a good thing, right? Ugh. Here’s a fascinating read in the op-ed pages of today’s Times. The piece, written by the Center for Responsive Politics‘ Robert Maguire, questions how the IRS will respond to a recent tax filing from Carolina Rising, a 501(c)(4) […]
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Judge denies North Carolina’s motion to dismiss the case against voter ID
A pivotal legal challenge to North Carolina’s much-criticized Voter ID law has cleared its last hurdle for trial. U.S. District Court Judge Thomas D. Schroeder on Friday denied the state’s motion to dismiss the case, which has been led by civil rights activists such as the N.C. NAACP and the Advancement Project, a coalition of […]
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U.S. District Court rejects Duke Energy’s motion to dismiss a pending coal ash case
The N.C. Department of Environmental Quality, formerly the DENR, may have settled their legal battle with Duke Energy over coal ash contamination—to quite a bit of consternation, might I add—but the fight goes on with citizen groups. Yesterday, U.S. District Court Judge Loretta Biggs issued a key ruling in one citizen case against the billion-dollar […]
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For magistrate recusal, abortion waiting times and the death penalty, the ACLU flunks the N.C. General Assembly in session report card
It’s been a few weeks since the N.C. General Assembly cobbled together a budget compromise and finally adjourned 2015’s marathon session. Enough time for the ACLU of N.C. to assemble its session report card, released today, which pans state lawmakers for their adoption of handful of hotly-contested bills this year. That includes Senate Bill 2, […]
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Sierra Club endorses the incumbents in Chapel Hill, plus Michael Parker
Here’s a key, late-breaking endorsement from last week in Chapel Hill’s oh-so-contested race for the Town Council and the mayor’s spot. The Sierra Club of N.C. is siding mostly with the incumbents—Lee Storrow, Donna Bell and Jim Ward—in addition to town Planning Commission member Michael Parker, in the race for four seats on the Town […]
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Hillsborough moves to acquire the foundering Colonial Inn
After more than a decade of wrangling over Hillsborough’s dilapidated Colonial Inn, town officials have moved this week to begin the process of acquiring the West King Street historic structure through the process of eminent domain. The Town Board of Commissioners voted Monday to start the process, which could eventually end with the town paying […]
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With the rise of CHALT, Chapel Hill’s never seen an election quite like this
David Schwartz and I are driving through Little Ridgefield, Schwartz’s wooded, quaint neighborhood on the northern edge of Chapel Hill, directly across the street from Ephesus-Fordham, a 190-acre swath of low-slung, somewhat dingy shopping centers bound for a town-pushed makeover in the next decade. Campaign signs, most of them for candidates supported by the organization […]
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Environment N.C. report to slam Duke Energy on solar power
To quote the Friends theme, Duke Energy, “it hasn’t been your day, your week, your month or even your year.” Sorry, the entire show’s on Netflix these days. Environment N.C., an environmental advocacy nonprofit, says it will release a report Thursday detailing the national “network of billionaires, utilities and fossil fuel front groups” fighting solar […]
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Chapel Hill mayoral candidate Gary Kahn calls Indy profile on him a “great work of fiction.”
I don’t normally do this (I know, great way to begin any conversation), but I felt compelled. On Oct. 3, Chapel Hill mayoral candidate Gary Kahn stated in the N&O that our September profile on the candidate, in which he used the words “ching, ching, ching” to describe the sound of Asians speaking, was a […]
