N.C. Association of Realtors, reported spending nearly $1 million on lobbying in 2007, according to figures released by watchdog group Democracy North Carolina. The group, which poured money into defeating several public referenda on the land-transfer tax, spent more than $92,000 on compensation for its six lobbyists. See the spending rankings here: lobbyingspending2 Nearly 900 […]
Lisa Sorg
Bio: Lisa Sorg is the editor of INDY Week.Email: [email protected]: http://twitter.com/lisasorg
Posted inNews
INC takes its stand on billboard issue
Thanks to Dependable Erection‘s Barry Ragin for filing this dispatch for the Indy on last night’s INC vote on the billboard issue: Last night’s Inter-Neighborhood Council vote on two competing resolutions regarding billboards in Durham was something of an anti-climax. The first resolution urges city and county planners to make no changes to the current […]
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Forty hopefuls vie for a chance to sing before the Carolina Mudcats’ baseball games
Video by Lisa Sorg If you cannot see the video, download Apple Quicktime Spring was just a day old, and perfect for hitting. A brisk northerly breeze charged toward right field, and if you were a batter at home plate and a hanging curve ball happened to come your way, dangling deliciously over the outside […]
Posted inArt
Forty hopefuls vie for a chance to sing before the Carolina Mudcats’ baseball games
Video by Lisa Sorg If you cannot see the video, download Apple Quicktime Spring was just a day old, and perfect for hitting. A brisk northerly breeze charged toward right field, and if you were a batter at home plate and a hanging curve ball happened to come your way, dangling deliciously over the outside […]
Posted inNews
Organic cotton: soft and chemical-free
Those $150 jeans you’re wearing (or used to wear, pre-recession) come with extras, and it’s not just the additional stitching: Three-quarters of a pound of toxic chemicalspesticides, herbicides, etc.were used to produce the cotton used in those designer duds. Even cheap clothes carry a chemical burden: It takes about a third of a pound of […]
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Billboard lawyers continue INC infiltration
Durham’s Inter-Neighborhood Council is scheduled to vote on the billboard issue tonight at 7, according to Bull City Rising. So it’s not a coincidence that Patrick Byker, a lawyer for K&L Gates, the firm representing the billboard company seeking significant changes to the city’s billboard ordinance, apparently is looking to get (re)involved in the INC. […]
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A Duke student’s quest to free his father from a Qatari prison
It was a steamy August evening when Nick Downs pulled up to his family’s concrete block home in Doha, Qatar, to find several black Land Cruisers and Range Rovers parked in front. Nick entered the iron gate and strode through a brick and grass courtyard to the front door, which stood open. Inside, Qatari police […]
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Orange County Manager resigns
Laura Blackmon is leaving her post as Orange County manager, WCHL reports. She is moving to Tennessee; her resignation is effective June 30. She has been county manager for more than two years. In a somber letter to the Board of Commissioners, she addressed the financial difficulties facing the county. Things are not looking good […]
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287(g) program disorganized, flawed says Government Accountability Office
Immigrants’ rights groups have long complained that some local law enforcement agencies in the U.S. are improperly using the 287 (g) program to detain undocumented immigrants on minor offenses, not felonies, and now government testimony supports that claim. Read the GAO report here. According to testimony released today from the Government Accountability Office, the investigative […]
