Elizabeth Edwards, wife of presidential candidate John Edwards, took a bold and welcome step last month when she joined marchers at San Francisco’s annual gay pride parade and voiced her support of marriage equality. “I don’t know why someone else’s marriage has anything to do with me,” Edwards said at a news conference before the parade. “I’m completely comfortable with gay marriage.” Elizabeth Edwards moved beyond her husband, who believes same-sex couples should enjoy the same legal rights as straight couples but stops short of full support for gay marriage.
A $188,824 salary apparently wasn’t enough for James McAllister III, the recently fired director of pharmacy for UNC Hospitals. A special review by state auditor Les Merritt found that McAllister sneaked in almost $5,000 in duplicate travel expenses and telephone charges, some of which didn’t even belong to him but to his son, a UNC pharmacy student. McAllister charged taxpayers for his son’s trip to a Las Vegas pharmacists’ convention, and also submitted his son’s cell phone bills over a nearly two-year period. When the auditor’s office interviewed McAllister about the discrepancies, his version of events contradicted the facts. You were making good money, McAllister. Was it really worth it?
The U.S. Supreme Court’s June 28 decision to limit the use of school districts’ ability to use race to achieve diversity may be a setback for advocates of integrated classrooms. But Wake County Schools could lead the way forward. Seven years ago, Walt Sherlin, a former Wake schools administrator, implemented Wake’s current assignment plan, which caps the number of low-income students at each school rather than assigning students by race. The Wake system has been heralded for achieving diversity without using race-based assignments.
