It’s Monday, May 13.
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Good morning, readers.
It was graduation weekend across the Triangle, and while there was some on-campus commotion at UNC and Duke related to anti-war protests, events mostly carried on as normal.
At UNC, protesters defaced South Building with hand prints covered in red paint hours before the university’s commencement ceremony. “UNC has blood on its hands,” read a sign that the protesters left at the site.
In a speech at Kenan Stadium, UNC interim chancellor Lee Roberts reminded some 6,700 graduating students of the university’s origins and of past struggles.
“Carolina was born in a moment of upheaval,” Roberts said. “And it has seen plenty more since. This university was created in the early days of the American experiment. When the arguments over the foundational ideas of this nation were just getting started. Those arguments have never stopped.”
Astronaut and UNC alumna Zena Cardman followed Roberts as the keynote speaker.
And at Duke, which did not host pro-Palestinian encampments on campus unlike UNC, around 100 students got up and walked out as the actor and comedian Jerry Seinfeld, the university’s commencement speaker, took to the stage at Wallace Wade Stadium. Seinfeld has publicly supported Israel in the months since the outbreak of the war in Gaza.
Student organizers distributed flyers ahead of the ceremony outlining the demands of the walk-out, including that Duke disclose its investments in Israel, divest from holdings profiting off of the war in Gaza, boycott academic partnerships with universities in Israel, and speak on an immediate ceasefire, the Chronicle reports.
The protesting students walked from the stadium to the Languages Building on campus and conducted their own commencement ceremony there.
Have a good Monday.
—Jane
Durham
A rally calling for higher pay for childcare workers is planned for Forest Hills Park this evening.
Ten people were shot in Durham last week and two suspects were charged in connection with the shootings. [Paywalled]
Wake
The Raleigh philanthropist Assad Meymandi, who supported the fine arts in the city, died at age 89.
Orange
Cates Creek Park in Hillsborough is getting a new skate park.
North Carolina
The NC Court of Appeals ordered resentencing for a man who was convicted of murder as a teen.
Today’s weather
Partly cloudy with a high of 81 degrees.
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