When a driver for Rochelle Transportation arrived at Mama Dip’s restaurant to pick up three Orange Correctional work-release inmates on June 23, one of them, Dennis Wade, was nowhere to be found. Wade disappeared in the time between his shift ending and the arrival of the van that would take him back to the prison […]
Mosi Secret
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East Durham leaders look to the future
Barbershop owner Samuel Jenkins stood before residents and business owners from his East Durham neighborhood as an example of how one person could use individual and municipal resources to rebuild the blighted community. Jenkins, who has leased the property for his Angier Avenue shop, Samuel & Sons, for the last two years, is in the […]
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Dreams deferred
“Me Against Me” Listen to Derrick Steele read his poem “Me Against Me” and view a slideshow of Derek Anderson’s photos. Early one spring morning in his mother’s three-bedroom house, 36-year-old Derrick Steele wakes up and prepares to go to class for the first time in almost 20 years. He pulls a plaid shirt and […]
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Orange Correctional Center inmates getting taken for a ride
Almost every weekday from January to June, Dennis Wade left the Orange Correctional Center prison gates in Hillsborough to work at Mama Dip’s Restaurant in Chapel Hill. Like all state prisoners with off-site jobs, Wade was a model inmate who earned the right to venture out on his own. He worked at Dip’s full-time for […]
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Getting together
I’ve never really been an activist. I’ve admired activists’ passion and idealism but have never been able to call their agenda my own. I’m too hesitant; my passion follows slow, deductive reasoning. (It’s just a slight exaggeration when I say that I fell in love only after it made sense.) By the time I ponder […]
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Hurricane forecast: Less funding, more work for local officials
In 1996, when Hurricane Fran blasted ashore in Wilmington and then swept inland and up to the Triangle, its 95-mph winds destroyed beachfront communities, closed parts of interstates 85 and 40, and downed electrical lines that left two-thirds of the state in the dark. Three years later, floods from Hurricane Floyd damaged almost 60,000 homes […]
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IRS says Murphys are hogging tax money
Recently filed federal court documents offer a glimpse into the tax avoidance machinations of the super-rich, many of whom go to the greatest lengths to bilk Uncle Sam despite the steadily decreasing tax burden that Washington lawmakers place on them. Wendell Murphy, one of the richest men in North Carolina, former state senator and current […]
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Flacking up
As developments continue in the Duke lacrosse scandal and the media maintains its probing gaze, parties on all sides are flacking up in efforts to put their best faces forward for the cameras, reporters and photographers who have parachuted into Durham over the last six weeks. Media spin is the name of the game. One […]
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Donors help Ann Atwater
In December, the Independent reported that longtime Durham activist Ann Atwater was facing financial trouble (“Racial reconciliation leader is in need,” Dec. 28, www.indyweek.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A25860). But these days, she’s a little better off thanks to the support of Indy readers. Around 30 people responded to the article with more than $2,600 in contributions to the Ann […]
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School construction money at risk
With Gov. Mike Easley already backpedaling on promises not to use money from the upcoming state lottery to replace other state education funding, concerns have arisen on a new front: school construction. Representatives from the N.C. Association of County Commissioners met with the governor last month to express their concern that state money now pledged […]