Tues., Feb. 11

  • The CHAPEL HILL-CARRBORO SCHOOL BOARD ended a two-year professional development contract it had never approved but the school system had dropped $342,000 on anyway, thanks to administrators who found a way around the normal approval mechanism. 
  • According to a new report from LIVEITUP! HILLSBOROUGH STREET, food and beverage sales in the corridor surrounding N.C. State grew almost 9 percent from 2018 to 2019.
  • In November, ethics watchdog BOB HALL filed a complaint against Senate leader Phil Berger over a house he owned in Raleigh and rented to his campaign. A month later, Berger sold the house to a lobbyist. Last Tuesday, Hall filed another ethics complaint.

Wed., Feb. 12

  • Orange County Superior Court Judge ALLEN BADDOUR, who signed off on the secretly negotiated settlement between the North Carolina division of the Sons of Confederate veterans and the UNC System in November, vacated that agreement, ruling that the SCV never had grounds to sue in the first place—which, no shit, Sherlock, the SCV said as much two months ago. 

Thur., Feb. 13

  • MCCLATCHY CO., the parent company of The News & Observer and The Durham Herald-Sun, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. If a judge accepts its reorganization plan, McClatchy will be taken over by the hedge fund that owns American Media Inc., the parent company of, among other publications, The National Enquirer. 
  • New rankings showed that North Carolina’s MARK MEADOWS, a leading Trump sycophant, is the most conservative member of the U.S. House of Representatives.
  • The North Carolina Democratic Party filed an ethics complaint against SENATOR THOM TILLIS, saying that a fundraising email he sent asking for donations to a “Presidential Protection Fund” while he was a juror in Donald Trump’s impeachment trial violated the law. Nothing is likely to come of it. 
  • On the first day of early voting, former New York City mayor MIKE BLOOMBERG came to Raleigh to pitch people on the idea that he could beat Trump. He did not address the recently surfaced video of him defending stop-and-frisk by saying that young black men all look alike or video of him saying that the end of redlining caused the housing crisis. 

Fri., Feb. 14

  • The first six of more than 280 families who were evacuated from MCDOUGALD TERRACE in the wake of the public housing complex’s carbon monoxide crisis returned home.   
  • BERNIE SANDERS, now leading in polls in North Carolina, brought about 700 people to the Durham Convention Center for a rally featuring, appropriately enough, Bull Durham actor Susan Sarandon. 

Mon., Feb. 17

  • JOHN BOLTON, a neocon who has never met a war he didn’t like—and who could have testified to Congress about his firsthand knowledge of Trump’s quid pro quo but chose to sell his book instead—gave a talk to a sold-out audience at Duke. 

Contact editor in chief Jeffrey C. Billman at jbillman@indyweek.com. 

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