North State Journal Vol. 7, Issue 33

NC-based Texas Pete maker facing lawsuit over name Winston-Salem

A California man is suing North Carolina-based hot sauce manufacturer T.W. Garner Food Co. for false advertising.

As first reported by USA

Today, California resident Philip White bought a bottle of Texas Pete in September 2021 but now says he would not have done so had it not led him to believe it was created in Texas.

Texas Pete is a hot sauce created back in 1929 in Winston-Salem. The sauce’s creator came up with the name because Texas had a reputation for spicy cuisine and his son’s nickname was Pete.

White and his lawyers say the company “has cheated its way to a market-leading position” in the hot sauce industry by fooling customers into buying an inauthentic Texas sauce.

Ada Fisher, influential black Republican in NC, dies at 74

Salisbury

Dr. Ada Fisher, a retired physician who was one of North Carolina’s members on the Republican National Committee for over a decade, has died at age 74.

Fisher also was known for her no-nonsense conservative views and her early support for former President Donald Trump.

A Durham native who earned advanced degrees from the University of Wisconsin and Johns Hopkins University, Fisher entered politics after a career as a practicing physician in both family practice and corporate settings.

State GOP activists elected Fisher as an RNC committeewoman in 2008 and she remained in the position until 2020.

“Dr. Ada Fisher was an incredible woman and an NCGOP institution who fought harder than anyone to support the party and advance conservative principles,” U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., said of the news.

Former U.S. Rep., presidential candidate Gabbard leaves Democratic Party

Honolulu

Tulsi Gabbard, a former four-term congresswoman from Hawaii and 2020 presidential candidate, announced she left the Democratic Party on Tuesday.

“I can no longer remain in today’s Democratic Party that is now under the complete control of an elitist cabal of warmongers driven by cowardly wokeness, who divide us by racializing every issue & stoke anti-white racism, demonize the police, believe in open borders, and weaponize the national security state to go after political opponents,” Gabbard wrote on Twitter.

NSJ STAFF

Seller exploits gun buyback loophole with help of 3D printer

Albany, N.Y.

New York’s attorney general has changed the rules of a state gun buyback program after a participant exploited the system by using a 3D printer to make firearm parts in bulk that he then turned in for $21,000 in gift cards.

The seller, who identified himself by a pseudonym, said he traveled from West Virginia to a gun buyback Aug. 27 in Utica, New York, to take advantage of a loophole in the program — and to demonstrate that buybacks are futile in an era of printable weapons.

Panthers punt Rhule after 1-4 start

Polls show Republicans hold lead in top judicial races ahead of midterms

RALEIGH — Recent opinion polls in North Carolina show vot ers are more likely to vote for Re publican candidates than Dem ocrats for two state Supreme Court seats this year.

Annual College Free Speech Rankings show majority of students hesitant to speak up

Only 3 NC schools made the top 25

RALEIGH — The College Pulse and the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) have released the latest College Free Speech rankings for institutions across the United States.

College Pulse describes itself as a survey research and analyt ics company dedicated to under standing the attitudes, preferenc es and behaviors of today’s college students.

FIRE is a nonpartisan, non profit organization that does work “defending and sustaining the in dividual rights of all Americans to free speech and free thought.”

“More than three in five stu dents (63%) expressed worry about damaging their reputation because of someone misunder standing what they have said or done, and just over one in five (21%) reported that they feel a lot of pressure to avoid discussing controversial topics in their class es. Twenty-two percent reported

that they often self-censor,” ac cording to the report’s highlights.

Additionally, roughly threein-five students reported they wouldn’t feel comfortable pub licly disagreeing with a professor about a controversial topic or ex pressing an unpopular opinion to their peers on a social media ac count using their real name.

In its conclusion, the report noted that “at least 40% of stu dents identified important soci etal topics — including abortion, COVID-19 vaccine mandates and mask mandates, gun control, po lice misconduct, racial inequality, and transgender issues — as dif ficult topics to have an open and honest conversation about.”

According to this year’s report, for the second time in three years, the University of Chicago was the top-ranked school. Kansas State University, Purdue Univer sity, Mississippi State University and Oklahoma State University rounded out the top five.

Columbia University was the lowest-scoring school with a Speech Climate rating of “Abys mal.” The University of Pennsyl vania, Rensselaer Polytechnic

A poll of likely voters from Sept. 24-26 was conducted by the national polling group Cyg nal on behalf of the Civitas Insti tute and John Locke Foundation.

Republican Richard Dietz leads Democrat Lucy Inman 44.5% to 40.5%. Both Dietz and Inman currently sit on the N.C. Court of Appeals and are run ning for Seat 3 on the state’s high court. That seat is being vacated by Associate Justice Robin Hud son, who faces mandatory retire ment.

Inman — along with former Chief Justice Cheri Beasley, who is now running for U.S. Sen

ate — was criticized for film ing campaign ads in judicial chambers while courts around the state were shut down due to COVID-19 restrictions imposed by Beasley in 2020.

Similarly, 38.9% said they’d vote for Seat 5 incumbent Dem ocrat Sam Ervin IV while 46% would vote for Republican Trey Allen.

Allen is the general counsel for the Administrative Office of the Courts. Ervin was elected in 2014 and previously served as a state appellate judge.

A SurveyUSA poll of North Carolina registered voters con ducted on behalf of WRAL News also shows the Republicans with leads over Democrats in the N.C. Supreme Court races. That poll has Dietz up 37% to Inman’s 32%, and Allen with 39% to Er vin’s 37%.

Third-party absentee ballot mailers hit NC ahead of midterms

808,220 vote-by-mail applications and 607,931 voter registration applications have gone out to N.C. citizens

RALEIGH — Mailings relat ed to obtaining absentee ballots from third-party organizations have been showing up again in North Carolina ahead of the No vember midterm elections.

The mailings come from the Voter Participation Center (VPC), a sister group of the Center for Voter Information (CVI).

According to its website, the “Center for Voter Information is a nonprofit, non-partisan partner organization to Voter Participa tion Center, both founded to pro vide resources and tools to help voting-eligible citizens register and vote in upcoming elections.”

The VPC mailings appear in some cases to be targeting indi viduals who are either no longer on North Carolina voter rolls or have inactive voter registration. One citizen who shared a mail ing they received said it was ad dressed to a family member who hasn’t lived in the state for almost a decade.

North State Journal reached out to VPC to see how many mailers went out in North Car olina and to which counties. A response was received from Jim Popkin, a former NBC News in

vestigative journalist and founder of Seven Oaks Media Group.

Seven Oaks Media Group de scribes itself as “a select group of former reporters and produc

True religion is a business of the greatest importance. The soul, which is the more noble and divine part, is concerned in it; and, as we act our part here—so we shall be forever happy—or miserable. The advice of Solomon in this case is most seasonable: “Whatever your hand finds to do—do it with all your might, for in the grave, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom.” Ecclesiastes 9:10. The business of true religion, requires our utmost zeal and intensity, Matthew 11:12.

Sometimes the work we are to do for heaven is set out by striving. Luke 13:24, “Strive to enter in at the strait gate.” Sometimes the work is compared to wrestling. Ephesians 6:12, “We wrestle not against flesh and blood—but against principalities and powers.”

Sometimes the life of a Christian is compared to fighting. 1 Timothy 6:12, “Fight the good fight of faith.”

Sometimes a Christian’s work for heaven is compared to the running of a race; so in the text, “Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain.” In which words the Apostle seems to allude either to the Olympic games, which were kept every fifth year in honor of Jupiter, or to the Isthmian games celebrated near Corinth in the honor of Neptune, in which games they put forth all their strength to win the prize. Just so, said the Apostle, run the race of Christianity which is set before you with a winged swiftness that you may obtain the prize of salvation!

The words fall into two general parts: There is a race to be run, “so run” and at the end of running, “that you may obtain.” The observations out of the text are these two: Christianity is a race and wise Christians should labor so to run as to win the prize: “that you may obtain.”

Christianity is a race. The life of a Christian is a race. Hebrews 12:1, “Let us run with patience the race that is set before us.” We must be travelers, before we are possessors. Heaven is a place of rest. Hebrews 4:9, “There remains a rest for the people of God.” No more

wrestling there, for then we have overcome the enemy. The saints in glory are set forth with palms in their hands, Revelation 7:9, in tokens of victory. No more running there for the prize being obtained, the saints have thrones to sit and rest themselves upon, Revelation 3:21. But this present life is a race, and it must be run—so run.

Thomas Watson (1620-1686) was an English preacher and author.

The SurveyUSA poll has an un usually elevated level of undecided voters in its results; 31% and 24%, respectively. The Cygnal poll had just 15% of voters responding as undecided in both races.

The results of the polls may highlight that judicial races are on the minds of voters after the Democrat majority on the N.C. Supreme Court overturned state constitutional amendments on Voter ID and tax caps passed in by voters in 2018, essentially nullify ing millions of votes. Cases involv ing redistricting voting maps and the long-running Leandro educa tion funding case have also drawn headlines in recent months.

Both the Supreme Court and Court of Appeals are statewide races, meaning all North Carolin ians will get to vote on those can didates.

The N.C. Court of Appeals has four seats on the ballot this cycle; seats 8, 9, 10 and 11.

Court of Appeals incumbents

Chief Judge Donna Stroud (Seat

ers from the nation’s top print and broadcast news organizations who

understand the news.”

Popkin’s response first asked for more information about North State Journal’s story before provid ing a “reporter toolkit” about VPC along with a press release-style document about VPC and CVI’s current activities in North Caroli na.

The toolkit says the groups have reached 5.8 million voters since 2003 and describes CVI and VPC as “the nation’s largest nonparti san, non-profit organizations work ing to ensure the New American Majority (NAM) — people of col or, young people, and unmarried women — participate in democracy equal to their presence in society.”

The reporter toolkit also pres ents a series of “facts” to counter “disinformation and misinforma tion” about the group’s work such as receiving letters with incorrect information, confusing voters who are already registered, and stating their mailings are a “legitimate” way for citizens to register to vote.

Under the section addressing whether or not VPC and CVI use incorrect data, the document says, “Unfortunately, no state makes available a list of individuals who are unregistered or ineligible. As a result, VPC and CVI must use com

9) and Judge John Tyson (Seat 10) are both seeking reelection. Both are Republicans.

Stroud has served on the Court

mercially available residential data bases and match them to the state’s voter file to determine who is un registered and otherwise eligible.”

According to the press release sent by Popkin, more than 1.4 mil lion North Carolinians have been sent mailings from VPC and CVI as “part of an ambitious effort to build enthusiasm around North Caro lina’s general election on Tuesday, Nov. 8.

“The nonpartisan and nonprofit Voter Participation Center (VPC) and the Center for Voter Infor mation (CVI) are mailing 607,931 voter registration applications and 808,220 vote-by-mail applications to 1,147,545 eligible North Carolina citizens this month to encourage participation in our democracy.”

In response to an inquiry from North State Journal, N.C. State Board of Elections (NCSBE) Com munications Director Patrick Gannon said they are aware of the mailings “as they send mailings just about every year.”

“They routinely ask us to review them prior to mailing them to en sure they are lawful and that any recent state law or court orders are reflected accurately in their lan guage,” Gannon said in an email re sponse. “We have had relatively few complaints about these mailings at the State Board of Elections so far this year.”

Gannon also said there are

of Appeals since 2006 and was ap pointed chief judge of the court in 2021. She will face Democratic Su perior Court Judge Brad Salmon.

Tyson is an appeals court vet eran, having served for nearly 20 combined years. He was last re elected in 2014. He faces Demo crat Gale Adams.

Two other Republicans, Julee Flood and Michael Stading, are also seeking spots on the court of appeals.

Flood is seeking Seat 8. That seat is currently held by Inman who is running for Supreme Court and whose current term expires this year.

Flood lives in Wake County and is a graduate of the University of Florida (BS, MS), the University of Maine (MPA), the University of New Hampshire (JD) and the Uni versity of Tennessee (Ph.D.). She works as an attorney at the Court of Appeals and was a visiting fel low at Elon Law with clerkships in federal and state appellate courts in Maine, New Hampshire, Ten nessee and North Carolina.

On the Democrat side of the aisle, Carolyn Thompson is Flood’s opponent for Seat 8. Both candi dates were unopposed during the primary election. Thompson is an

attorney who served as an N.C. District Court judge from 2009 to 2018. She was later appointed to the N.C. Superior Court in the 9th Judicial District.

Stading is running for Seat 11 against Democrat Darren Jack son.

Jackson, a former legislator who spent 12 years in the N.C. House, currently holds the seat after being appointed by the governor in De cember 2020. Jackson practiced law with his firm, Gay, Jackson & McNally law firm for 24 years.

Michael Stading is a District Court judge in Mecklenburg Coun ty and was elected to the bench in 2018. He also serves as a JAG Officer in the U.S. Air Force. Sta ding was a special assistant U.S. attorney and previously worked as an assistant district attorney in Mecklenburg County.

Republican judicial candidates banded together earlier this year to run as a slate as they had suc cessfully done during the 2020 election. Republican judges won all five seats on the ballot for the N.C. Court of Appeals that year.

“many groups that conduct voter outreach campaigns, especially in important election years like 2022. Obviously, this is one of the larger ones.”

As far back a decade, North Car olinians have received similar VPC mailings that have been criticized for being misleading, confusing or inaccurate, but also for sometimes including preprinted absentee bal lot applications along with prepaid return postage envelopes.

The mailers currently showing up across the Tar Heel State also appear to include applications and pre-paid envelopes.

According to a past report by news outlet ABC 11, around 1.8 mil lion of the same type of absentee ballot request mailers were sent to citizens in North Carolina during the 2020 election by CVI and VPC. Similar mailings also went out to voters in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Georgia that year.

The State Board of Elections is sued a statement during the 2020 cycle about election-related mailers in response to questions from con cerned citizens. The statement said, “These efforts typically are legal, but they can be confusing or frus trating for voters and erode confi dence in elections, especially when they are unsolicited.”

While both CVI and VPC claim to be “non-government, nonprof it and nonpartisan 501(c)3,” their

funding, staff affiliations and po litical spending appear to be tied to left-leaning and Democrat-tied organizations.

CVI and VPC are helmed by the same person, Democratic strategist Tom Lopach. The board members for each organization are slightly different, but staff lists are identical.

The founder, as well as board chair of CVI, is Page Gardner. Like Lopach, she is a longtime Demo cratic strategist with a track record that began with Sen. Ted Kennedy’s (D-MA) 1980 bid for president and included former President Bill Clin ton’s 1992 presidential campaign.

Over time, Gardner became involved in voter outreach and formed CVI, VPC and Women’s Voices Women Vote in 2003. Both VPC and Women’s Voices Women’s vote share CVI’s nonprofit tax ID number.

John Podesta, a constant figure in both Bill and Hillary Clinton’s political campaigns and careers, was a founding board member of Women’s Voices Women Vote. In early September of this year, Pres ident Joe Biden appointed Podes ta as a senior adviser to Biden for clean energy innovation and im plementation.

Women’s Voices Women Vote came under fire in 2008 for being behind allegedly illegal automated robocalls that targeted black fe

male voters in multiple states in cluding North Carolina, according to an NPR report.

In terms of funding, CVI is awash in cash. IRS filings show CVI took in $49,138,867 in 2020 and $3,853,228 in 2019.

Tax filings also show billionaire George Soros’ Tides Foundation along with other left-leaning orga nizations like the Sierra Club and Green Advocacy Project have giv en financial support to CVI over the years.

A 2020 filing for the Tides Foundation revealed $5,375,000 to CVI. In 2019, Tides gave CVI $50,000.

The National Redistricting Ac tion Fund, which is the 501(c)(4) affiliate of the National Democrat ic Redistricting Committee run by former Obama administration At torney General Eric Holder, gave CVI $58,050 according to 2018 IRS filings.

During the 2020 election, CVI spent $533,820 in support of Joe Biden’s bid for president but ap parently didn’t spend a dime on any other candidates, according to Influence Watch, a project of the Capitol Research Center that tracks dark money in politics. In the previous two major election cy cles of 2018 and 2016, CVI appar ently spent hundreds of thousands backing Democratic candidates while opposing Republican ones.

“Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain.”

Blackburn touts pro-family issues at GOP forum

In exclusive conversation, Tennessee senator discusses variety of issues

RALEIGH — Republican U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennes see spoke to an enthusiastic crowd of Republican activists on Oct. 6 at the North Carolina Republican Party headquarters in Raleigh. Her appearance was part of the party’s “Family First Forum” series, which has brought national figures such as RNC chairwoman Ronna McDan iel and others to the state.

North Carolina Republican Par ty Chairman Michael Whatley in troduced Blackburn, saying there was no better champion in the U.S. Senate for family values.

Whatley also laid out what he said was the difference between Democrats and Republicans going into the final stretch of the 2022 midterms.

“Republicans are talking about issues voters care about — gas, gro ceries, inflation, safety and educa tion. Democrats are talking about issues Democrats care about,” he said.

Stepping to the podium, Black burn shared stories she has heard from families, saying inflation was the Nos. 1, 2 and 3 most important issue. She recounted a story about a mother in Memphis, saying it was important that families have a say in politics, in education, and that “mamas will protect their children.”

Blackburn also touched on gas prices in her speech.

“On Jan. 20, 2021, President (Joe) Biden declared war on the oil and gas industry in this country,” she said, noting the most recent releases of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve following a pro duction cut announcement from OPEC.

The SPR is already at a genera tional low, with Reuters reporting that the current levels are the lowest since 1984.

Blackburn also said the ripple effects of inflation amount to tak ing $7,800 from the budget of each family, and that inflation is also hurting food banks and farmers while noting many of the same in dustries in Tennessee affect North Carolinians — agriculture and manufacturing.

Following her speech, North

State Journal sat down exclusively with Blackburn to discuss her re cent trip to Taiwan and the latest from Washington.

In late August she completed a tour of several Pacific Island na tions including Taiwan, Fiji, the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea.

Blackburn noted Taiwan is sim ilar to the United States in many ways, saying the country has a con stitution, a founding father, a presi dent, a parliament, a military, and “They want us to recognize that they have fought very hard to main tain their independence.”

Upon returning from her trip, Blackburn said she was pleased the White House agreed to a $1.1 billion sale of defensive mechanisms and artillery the country needed.

Blackburn said North Carolina specifically could play a large part in ensuring that Taiwan’s technolo gy companies can continue to grow and compete.

“One thing I do think is signifi cant when you look at the work that is done here in North Carolina and you look at this part of the state and you look at the importance of tech nology, what we don’t want to do is have everything end up in China. We need to continue to work with Taiwan to grow their industrial base,” she said. “We know that Tai wan looks to Japan, New Zealand, Australia and us as preferred part ners.”

Blackburn also said that if Chi na is successful in bullying Taiwan, there would be a domino effect across the Indo-Pacific.

Another topic Blackburn ad dressed was illegal immigration and the ongoing crisis at the south ern border.

“We need to work with Border Patrol to give them what they need,” she said. “For 30 years they’ve been saying, ‘We need a barrier to secure the border where we can’t get a bar rier. We need technology and we need more officers and agents.’” Blackburn noted that 3.6 million

people have come across the border since Biden took office, along with nearly a million “got-aways” on top of that number. She said lawless ness has driven drug and crime problems and made it a national security issue.

“Security is an enormous issue. Security moms are not happy right now with what they’re seeing out of Washington,” said Blackburn. “And so those are all things that would begin to have an impact on reining in this administration and their overreach.”

Blackburn also talked about edu cation post-COVID and how it was a “silver lining” of sorts to see par ents becoming more involved.

Earlier in her forum speech, she alluded to parental rights and how taking on teachers unions and en trenched bureaucratic interests was part of Republicans’ family-first values.

She took aim at the Justice De partment, saying the Biden admin istration decided parents needed to be investigated for attending school board meetings, but not known criminals.

“Parents need to continue to speak out,” she said in the inter view. “Last weekend I talked to two women. One’s a grandmom, one is a mom, they have decided to run for school board. Yesterday in Memphis, I talked to one dad and two moms that are out there run ning for school board because they have decided that if you’re going to change the policy, you have to change the people.”

Blackburn added there “are a lot of great teachers out there, but we have teachers unions that are not holding the education of children as their first priority.”

Ending the interview, Blackburn responded to a question about one her more famous constituents, sing er Taylor Swift. In a Netflix docu mentary, she expressed her support for Democrats and, in particular, former Tennessee Gov. Phil Bre desen, whom Blackburn defeated in the 2018 race.

“You know what, I am perfect ly happy with Taylor Swift. She is a talented young lady,” Blackburn said. “I am thrilled that she has Nashville as her home, her musical home, her work is done out of Nash ville. Taylor was given bad informa tion and I think if she and I had the opportunity to sit down and visit, she probably would figure out she was given bad information.”

Chief Justice Newby completes 100-county courthouse tour

North State Journal

RALEIGH — Chief Justice Paul Newby and his wife, Macon, completed an historic 100-county courthouse tour last week with two stops in eastern North Carolina. Newby visited the Chowan and Dare county court houses last week with Dare being No. 100.

In announcing the tour in May 2021, New by said his goal was to visit every courthouse — something, he said at the time had never been done by a sitting chief justice.

“I embarked on this tour to express thanks to local judges, clerks, and courthouse per sonnel and to gain a better understanding of the unique challenges faced by each court house,” Newby said in a statement. “This tour has been instrumental in learning how we can best support local judicial leadership to further our mission and to meet our Consti tutional mandate to deliver justice without favor, denial, or delay, especially in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Newby was adamant about talking to judges and staff at each of the courthouses to thank them for their hard work in fulfill ing the Judicial Branch’s constitutional “open courts” mandate to provide equal justice to all in a timely manner.

The tour kicked off in true “Murphy to Manteo” fashion — beginning at the Chero kee County courthouse and ending in Dare County.

The final visits culminated a busy stretch for the state’s Supreme Court.

Earlier in October, the Supreme Court held two days of arguments in Edenton at the his toric 1767 Chowan County courthouse.

Guilford $1.7B school bond approved by Local Government Commission

Almost $780 million in general obligations bonds among the items passed

RALEIGH — A $1.7 billion Guilford County schools bond pre viously tabled by the state’s Local Government Commission (LGC) was revisited and approved at an Oct. 4 meeting.

Guilford’s bond request was held up after LGC members had concerns about repayment of the debt and falling enrollment in the district. The LGC asked county officials to give them enrollment numbers within 10 days following the commission’s last meeting on Sept. 22.

State Treasurer Dale Folwell, who chairs the LGC, abstained from the vote over concerns about the timing of Guilford County’s application as well as the county’s delaying necessary capital im

provement projects. “We are now in a period in which interest rates are higher than they have been in decades, construction costs exceed any thing we’ve seen for decades, and taxpayers are going to be hit with higher property taxes to pay for this massive bond,” Folwell said in a press release. “That dispro portionately affects lower-income residents and people on fixed in comes.”

Guilford’s requested approval for a $1.7 billion school bond pack age was passed by voters during the May primary election. While voters passed the measure, they rejected a related referendum to raise sales taxes, resulting in property taxes being used to pay the bond back. Guilford County officials expect no tax increase to cover the financing.

School officials said schools in some areas are overcrowded and badly deteriorating, and the bond funds would be used for building three new schools while demol

ishing and rebuilding 19 others. Additionally, 12 schools need ren ovations and $363 million is ear marked for safety and technology upgrades.

At the Oct. 4 meeting, gener al obligation bonds for various counties were approved, including $520.2 million for Durham, $167.1 million for Union County, $32 million for Watauga County and $75 million for the city of Gastonia in Gaston County.

An $8.3 million special obli gation bond was also approved for North Topsail Beach (Onslow County) for maintaining the town’s beachline, which was damaged by Hurricanes Florence (2018) and Dorian (2019). A special obliga tion bond is payable from a pledge of future revenues other than lo cally levied taxes — in this case, Federal Emergency Management Agency grants — according to the press release from the treasurer’s office.

Revenue bonds approved in cluded three bonds totaling $76.6

million for the Gastonia Housing Authority for multifamily hous ing projects, $17 million to Char lotte’s Housing Authority Inliv ian for affordable housing units, and $310,000 to Johnston Coun ty for water and sewer upgrades.

The Johnston application will be paired with a related grant of $840,000 from the U.S. Depart ment of Agriculture.

Other approved items includ ed:

• $26.5 million loan to Pittsboro (Chatham County) to build a new pump station and add other infrastructure to the Wastewater Treatment Plant

• $18.7 million in financing to Laurinburg (Scotland County) for two sewer projects.

• $3.6 million for Dunn (Harnett County) for various infrastructure and equipment improvements at its Black River Wastewater Treatment Plant.

• $1.2 million for Conover (Catawba County) will replace various components of its Northeast Wastewater Treatment Facility.

• $764,000 for Louisburg (Franklin County) to replace aging infrastructure with new water lines.

• $6.9 million for Kings Mountain’s (Cleveland and Gaston counties) installment contract for a new electric substation and transmission lines, and natural gas infrastructure improvements.

• $6.6 million for Knightdale (Wake County) to build a new fire station to increase fire coverage and public safety.

• $1.5 million to the town of Woodfin (Buncombe County) to build parks, recreation facilities and greenways through a private rather than public sale.

Institute, Georgetown University and Skidmore College are also ranked in the bottom five.

Institutions in North Carolina that made the top 25 include the University of North Carolina at Greensboro (ranked seventh), NC State University (ninth), and the University of North Carolina at Charlotte (13th).

North Carolina school rank ings beyond the top 25 placed University of North Carolina Chapel Hill at 26th, Duke Univer sity at 109th, Davidson College at

116th and Wake Forest University at 131st.

In 2021, Duke University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and NC State Univer sity ranked in the top 25 for over all free speech. In FIRE’s 2020 re port, Davidson College was given a red light in 2020 but improved to yellow in the 2021 rankings.

Overall school scores can range from 0-100 and are creat ed from a composite score of 10 sub-components: Comfort Ex pressing Ideas, Tolerance for Lib eral Speakers, Tolerance for Con servative Speakers, Acceptability

of Disruptive Conduct, Adminis trative Support for Free Expres sion, and Openness to Discussion of Specific Political Topics.

Additional areas examined in clude scholars supported by the administration during a free ex pression controversy from 2019 to present, scholars sanctioned during a free expression contro versy from 2019 to present, suc cessful disinvitations from 2019 to present, and FIRE’s rating of the school’s speech code policies.

The rankings are based on re sponses from 44,847 students currently enrolled students at

more than 200 colleges. Liberal students eclipsed all other politi cal affiliations, making up around 53% of all respondents.

Changes made to this year’s re port included the incorporation of new sub-components such as Mean Tolerance (the average of Tolerance for Liberal Speakers and Tolerance for Conservative Speakers), and Tolerance Differ ence, which is calculated by sub tracting Tolerance for Conserva tive Speakers from Tolerance for Liberal Speakers and then taking the absolute value.

Another change was the stan

dardization of rankings to make the average 50 with a standard deviation of 10.

The report also included data from Fire’s S cholars Under Fire database and Campus Disinvi tation database t o expand the measurement of administrative behavior.

A report from FIRE released at the end of August showed the Scholars Under Fire database had documented “426 attempts to pe nalize collegiate scholars for their expression since 2015” and that “an alarming 74% of the attempts were successful.”

“This tour has been instrumental in learning how we can best support local judicial leadership to further our mission and to meet our Constitutional mandate to deliver justice without favor, denial, or delay, especially in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Chief Justice Paul Newby

“Security moms are not happy right now with what they’re seeing out of Washington.”

U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn

Murphy to Manteo

2022 NC State Fair continues themed event days

The 2022 North Carolina State Fair will continue to offer several special days that fairgoers have come to love each year. Unique access and discounts on gate admission tickets are part of the fun for the fair that runs Oct. 13-23 at the State Fairgrounds in Raleigh.

“We hope fairgoers will mark their calendars for these four special days at the N.C. State Fair,” said fair manager Kent Yelverton. “The distinct programs and opportunities offered set apart each day, and each one is an opportunity to recognize and honor many North Carolinians as well as give back to the people of our state.”

With “Primetime with the Pack” scheduled on opening day, Thursday, Oct. 13, students with an NC State ID will get admission for $8 that day. The discounted rate offers an incentive for students to enjoy the fair on Thursday, before heading to PNC Arena for NC State University’s “Primetime with the Pack” — the annual preseason event for men’s and women’s basketball.

The popular accessABILITY Day makes its return Sunday, Oct. 16. Presented by Bandwidth, the day offers visitors a calmer fair experience from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Rides, games and vendors will operate without lights or music. There will also be a “Bandwidth Chill Out Zone,” inclusive competitions and noise-canceling headphones available.

Senior Citizens’ Day is Tuesday, Oct. 18, when anyone aged 65 and up gets free admission. Breakfast biscuits will be available at Dorton Arena at 9 a.m., along with a program including music and comments from Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler at 10 a.m. at the Waterfall Stage.

Military Appreciation Day follows on Wednesday, Oct. 19. A special tractor parade kicks off at 10 a.m. followed by a program honoring the military on the Waterfall Stage at 10:45 a.m. Music from the 440th Army Band will continue throughout the day on the stage.

In addition to Military Day, active-duty service members, reservists, retirees, guardsmen and their dependents (ages 13-64) receive a daily military discount of 38% on gate admission, making admission $8.

Smithfield Foods Hunger Relief Day is Thursday, Oct. 20. Fairgoers who bring six cans of food to any gate will get in free. Since 1993, donations have added up to more than 5.8 million pounds of food for the Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina.

WEST PIEDMONT EAST

Record-setting house listed at nearly $30M

Avery County A house in the mountains is up for sale at a listed price of $29.75 million, which makes it the most expensive residential real estate listing in the history of North Carolina. The current record in the state is around $10 million. The house has five bedrooms and 8,750 square feet of space on 5.9 acres. The property includes a fitness center and party house. The main house has a wine cellar, great room with 25-foot ceilings and a collection of art.

MANSION GLOBAL

Asheville workers demand better parking

Buncombe County Thousands of workers in downtown Asheville signed a petition demanding free or reducedrate parking. Some workers are paying hundreds of dollars a month to park, while others park in residential areas and walk more than a mile. And many risk tickets by using paid parking spots that require them to add minutes via a phone app throughout the day.

The county commissioners are now surveying the community to determine how to help with the issue. They also plan to make a parking deck available for $40 a month.

SPECTRUM

Two area organizations get six-figure grants

Transylvania County

The North Carolina Science Museums Grant Program distributed $6.3 million to 55 science centers around the state to help enhance STEM education opportunities for the public. Among the organizations receiving grants were two in Transylvania County. The Cradle of Forestry Heritage Site received $117,770, while the Pisgah Astronomical Research Institute got $106,789.

NC MUSEUM GRANT

Suspect detained in deaths of 2 teens

Orange County A sheriff says a 17-year-old suspect in the deaths of two teenagers found shot last month has been detained. Orange County Sheriff Charles Blackwood announced last month that a juvenile petition was filed against the 17-yearold for two counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of 18-year-old Devin Clark and 14-year-old Lyric Woods, but authorities were still searching for the suspect. Blackwood announced that the juvenile suspect had been detained, but he said officials couldn’t release any further details on the case, including when and where the suspect was detained.

Two “most wanted” arrested

Rowan County The Rowan County Sheriff’s Office’s new Warrant Squad announced that two fugitives on the state’s “most wanted” list were arrested. The department, known as the Criminal Apprehension Team, arrested Crystal Ann Bare, 34, of Kannapolis and Josh Michael Jones, 31, of Salisbury. Bare had 15 warrants for various fraud-related offenses. Jones had 12 for similar offenses.

County names Industry of Year award winner

Traffic stop leads to drug arrest

Robinson establishes Energy Innovation Committee

RALEIGH — North Carolina

Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson has established an Energy Innovation Committee as part of the Energy Policy Council he chairs.

According to a press release by Robinson’s office, the new committee will “work to inform the Energy Policy Council about new, and emerging energy technology” and will be chaired by Dr. John Hardin.

“With the establishment of this new committee we can work to find energy solutions for our state,” Robinson said in the release. “We have seen how detrimental it can be when we wait for a disaster to happen and not know how to respond when it comes to our energy needs. This committee will serve to ensure that North Carolina will have reliable, and affordable energy that will secure our future.”

The N.C. Energy Policy Council resides under the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality and, per its website, “advises the governor and General Assembly on legislation and rulemaking that addresses domestic energy exploration, protects the environment and

encourages economic development.”

Committee members will include Jenny Kelvington, a deputy energy policy advisor with the N.C. Department of Energy and Natural Resources, and Brian LiVecchi, the chief of staff to the lieutenant governor’s office.

Robinson also thanked the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality and the State Energy Office for providing staff support for the committee.

“In a time of energy uncertainty and transition throughout the world, the Energy Innovation Committee will tap into North Carolina’s proven research and hi-tech resources to identify and develop new and emerging energy technology that will keep North Carolina on the cutting edge and allow us to be a leading example for the nation in the development of safe, reliable, sustainable energy,” LiVecchi said.

“I’m honored to be a part of the Energy Innovation Committee,” said Kelvington. “Today’s ideas and emerging technologies must be cultivated to inform the policy of tomorrow — this committee will be at the forefront of that work.”

David Lee, judge who oversaw school funding case, dies at 72

WBTV

Pitt County Pitt County officials announced the winner of the county’s Industry of the Year award for 2022. Package Craft accepted the honor, which has been given out for 30 years to a manufacturer or distributor that best represents the community. Package Craft employs 47 people, up 15% from last year. It makes corrugated boxes which the county said was a vital part of the supply chain.

Gates County Police arrested a man on drug charges following a traffic stop. The Gates County Sheriff’s Office made the stop on Eure and 13 South and found Cecil Ward III in possession of cocaine and drug paraphernalia. Ward was placed under arrest and charged with a felony for possession of a controlled substance.

WAVY

Groundbreaking held for new industrial park

Henderson County L ast Thursday, officials held an official groundbreaking for the new industrial park that will be built in Henderson County. The Blue Ridge Commerce Center will include four buildings and more than 650,000 square feet of industrial warehouse space on 65 acres. It will cost an estimated $80 million, and full construction is expected to begin in late summer 2023.

AP Court: Students can seek COVID semester reimbursement

Wake County

WLOS

An appeals court determined a lawsuit filed by University of North Carolina students seeking reimbursement of student fees for in-person fall 2020 classes canceled due to COVID-19 can continue. A three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals decided a judge correctly refused to dismiss litigation by two students against the Board of Governors. The plaintiffs were students at UNC Chapel Hill and NC State University when in-person classes were moved online. They allege a breach of contract occurred when they paid fees for services and benefits that didn’t occur.

Downtown marchers take steps against plan

Surry County Marchers took what they hope are key steps in convincing Mount Airy governmental leaders to revisit a downtown master plan, recently approved in a controversial 3-2 vote, by holding a protest walk along North Main Street. Holding signs with messages such as “Save Our Main Street” and “Downtown: Let it Be,” about 60 people strolled through the central business district Sunday afternoon, trailed by more than 10 vehicles also participating, according to city police estimates. They included downtown merchants and leaders. Two Mayberry squad car replicas also were part of that procession, featuring many wearing light-blue T-shirts promoting their cause of preventing the historic and general character of downtown Mount Airy from being harmed by the new plan.

Board of Education names superintendent

WITN

Tyrrell County The Tyrrell County Board of Education hired a new superintendent for the district. Dr. Karen Roseboro was introduced at a recent meeting and will begin work on Oct. 17. She is currently chief of Choice and Magnet School for Winston-Salem Forsyth County Schools. Prior to that, she was area superintendent of School Turnaround in Forsyth County for five years.

Judge suspends sheriff taped disparaging black employees

The Associated Press

MONROE — A memorial service will be held this month for Judge David Lee, who presided for several years over a far-reaching North Carolina school funding case and ordered last year that taxpayer money be spent on student inequities.

the state — in particular, the legislature — had failed repeatedly to comply with major court rulings stemming from the 1994 lawsuit.

WITN

Columbus County A judge suspended a sheriff who was recorded calling black employees derogatory names and saying they should be fired. The suspension of Columbus County Sheriff Jody Greene on Tuesday comes after District Attorney Jon David sought his removal alleging Greene engaged in racial profiling of employees. Superior Court Judge Douglas B. Sasser suspended Greene until a hearing on a petition for removal. David wrote that Greene “committed willful misconduct and maladministration in office.” Greene said the recording of a 2019 phone call was altered, but he didn’t deny being on the call or making the statements.

Lee died Oct. 4 at his Monroe home of complications from cancer at age 72, according to an obituary posted online by Gordon Funeral Service & Crematory. The funeral home confirmed his death Monday.

Lee, a Superior Court judge, oversaw litigation called “Leandro” since late 2016. In March, Chief Justice Paul Newby assigned another judge to hear the next portion of the case. Lee had reached the mandatory retirement age for judges in January.

A state Court of Appeals panel blocked the transfer, and Lee’s successor in the case lowered the necessary amount to $785 million. The state Supreme Court heard oral arguments in August over whether the judiciary had the power to make such a unilateral spending decision. The justices have yet to rule.

Lee, a South Carolina native who grew up in Unionville, attended Western Carolina University and Wake Forest law school. He had been a longtime civil litigation attorney before first being appointed to the bench in 2003. He served as president of local Jaycees and Rotary Club groups.

AP

In November, Lee directed that $1.75 billion be moved from state coffers to government agencies to fund a remedial spending plan to help provide a constitutionally mandated “opportunity for a sound basic education” for at-risk children and those in poor regions. The judge found that he had the authority to transfer taxpayer funds in part because

Lee said last year that he had been diagnosed with a rare form of cancer — a tumor had been found in his liver in 2019.

The memorial service is scheduled for Oct. 22 at First Baptist Church in Monroe, where he was a longtime member. Survivors include his wife, three children and three grandchildren.

AP

north STATEment

A long strange budget trip

IN A 1987 AD about drug abuse, a man holds up an egg and says, “This is your brain.” He cracks the egg and drops it into a hot pan which then sizzled and popped in hot grease. “This is your brain on drugs. Any questions?”

American fiscal and budget policy looks like it has been run by people whose brains were scrambled by LSD and hallucinogenic drugs during the ’60s as they followed the Grateful Dead concert circuit ― and never recovered.

What a long, strange trip it has been.

U.S. federal debt passed $31 trillion recently ― after passing $30 trillion a mere nine months ago.

“Perfection” in politics is the mortal enemy of the good-togreat results for our nation.

That’s the good news. The Congressional Budget Office expects that federal debt held by the public will go up by well over $1 trillion for each of the next 10 years, expanding by an astronomical $2.253 trillion in FY 2032 alone. Federal debt held by the public is on track to be $40 trillion a decade from now.

Put another way, federal debt is expected to go up as much in gross dollar amounts annually as the entire U.S. economy is expected to expand until 2029. After that, federal debt will expand much faster than the whole U.S. economy in gross dollar terms ― if it is still functioning, that is.

In past decades, such unconscionable profligacy on the part of Congress and the president would have been unthinkable and politically dangerous. However, with another biennial congressional election upon us, barely a peep is heard from either party about how we are going to come together and work out a deal to arrest mountains more of debt accumulation.

It is not that hard to balance the federal budget. First and foremost, Congress has to clamp down on spending. Second, they have to clamp down on spending. Third, clamp down on spending. Forever.

Perhaps the budget hasn’t been balanced because we have not elected any real leaders in the past 20 years. Real leaders recognize the dangers of what lies ahead and shape public policy to head off problems before they become too enormous to handle.

By 1982, Social Security was headed for financial insolvency. By 1986, the U.S. tax code had become so jumbled up that it too had to be reformed and simplified, all of which took real political leadership.

In his book about James Baker, “The Man Who Ran Washington”, political reporter and author Peter Baker (no relation) accurately recounts the steps taken by real leaders such as President Ronald Reagan and House Speaker Tip O’Neill to solve these pressing national issues. First, Baker helped Reagan and O’Neill identify the problem at hand; second, explain why a solution had to be found; third, set priorities for both sides to achieve during negotiations; and then, fourth, communicate, cooperate and compromise to produce a workable solution that everyone can live with.

Notice how the goal was to produce a “workable solution everyone can live with.” President Reagan, while a man of deep political convictions, was also a pragmatist, which is why he hired James Baker to be his chief of staff and then his Treasury secretary. Reagan famously told Baker and congressional liaison staff, “I’d rather get 80% of what I want than go over the cliff with my flags

flying,” which he did repeatedly during his two terms in office.

The Greenspan Commission was established in 1982 and Social Security was “saved” for the next 40 years ― although it is in severe need of another round of reformation. The Tax Reform Act of 1986 simplified the tax code for 4 million Americans ― it simply took them off income tax rolls completely. The tax code needs another round of simplification by taking everyone off income tax rolls and replacing it with a consumption tax ― but the leadership necessary to pull that off may be beyond human comprehension.

Neither one of those deals was “perfect.” “Perfection” in politics is the mortal enemy of the good-to-great results for our nation. Perfect adherence to political ideology means nothing gets done for the good of the nation.

The $31 trillion of national debt ― and still counting ― proves it.

Mainstream media rides to Democrats’ rescue over crime concerns

CRIME HAS CONSISTENTLY been a top issue for voters over the last couple of years, with many polls showing it ranking in the top five.

For instance, an April 2022 Gallup poll indicated “worry about crime in [the] U.S. at [the] highest level since 2016.” A more recent one from Rasmussen Reports noted “83% of voters see crime as [an] important issue as [the] election nears.”

State-level polls also show crime as a major issue, especially in places such as New York where a violent crime surge has been ongoing since controversial bail reforms pushed by Democrat state legislators and signed into law by then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) went into effect in January 2020.

The crime issue hurts Democrats big time and the MSM is hoping to convince people it’s really not that big a deal.

But according to some in the mainstream media, crime is largely a nonissue that is being turned into one by Fox News.

Washington Post national columnist Philip Bump, who up until recently was listed as a nonpartisan “correspondent” for the newspaper, wrote a piece last week titled “Crime is surging (in Fox News coverage).”

In it, he took issue with the emphasis Fox News put on violent crime as we draw closer to the 2022 midterm elections, where Democrats are not polling well, especially on crime-related matters.

“Fox News contributor Gianno Caldwell caught up with Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) outside an elevator in the Capitol,” Bump wrote. “His focus was simple: ‘We just want to talk about the crime crisis in America.’ Nadler, who’d suggested that Caldwell contact his office, didn’t reply.”

Actually, I watched the video, and at no point did Nadler “suggest that Caldwell contact his office.” Caldwell was the one who repeatedly requested comment and/ or a sit-down interview.

Nadler, the House Judiciary chairman, was evasive and cagey as he frantically searched for an elevator door that would open, telling Caldwell — whose younger brother Christian was killed in a Chicago drive-by shooting incident in June — at one point that he was “in a rush” and at another point stating he was “pretty busy” when Caldwell asked for a meeting at a later time.

In the very next paragraph of Bump’s column, he debunked himself.

“Perhaps Nadler was stymied by the framing,” Bump continued. “Which ‘crime

crisis’ is that, exactly? In Nadler’s hometown of New York City, murder and shooting incidents are down relative to last year, though violent crime in general is up. Last year, the city saw lower crime across the board than two or three decades ago, though, again, it’s now up relative to 2020.”

So “violent crime, in general, is up” and crime “across the board … is now up relative to 2020,” but there is no “crime crisis,” according to Bump?

Bump spent the rest of his piece trying to back up his point by referencing FBI crime stats and Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), which give a rough overall picture though, as even he noted, there are inconsistencies in how they are reported which means they cannot always be relied upon for broad analyses of crime trends.

“The national measure compiled by the FBI has seen declining participation (thanks in part to a change in what it collects) even as it operates at a substantial delay,” Bump reported.

Why would one reference official crime stats that even they admit are not reliable in an effort to debunk the narrative supposedly being spun by Fox News about crime?

There’s only one explanation: The crime issue hurts Democrats big time, and as a result, Bump — like a smattering of others in the MSM — is hoping to convince people it’s really not that big a deal while also hoping readers won’t notice that he repeatedly undercut his own arguments.

Do not be fooled. Crime is indeed up, especially in Democrat-led cities, and voters have every right to want to make fighting it a priority.

North Carolina native Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym Sister Toldjah and is a media analyst and regular contributor to RedState and Legal Insurrection.

It’s a hinge year in history — for Russia and China

The Chinese Communist Party will not celebrate its centenary in power in 2049.

WILL 2022 TURNOUT be a hinge year, as a moment when long-standing trends in geopolitics suddenly shifted in a different direction? This week, two important writers — one a long-established and prolific historian, the other a provocative presence on the internet — have argued persuasively that the answer is yes. But there’s one other interesting point in common: Neither sees the United States as having played a decisive role in the sudden shift.

Over the years, Niall Ferguson has written admiringly about the 19th century’s Rothschilds and the 20th century’s Henry Kissinger and has highlighted the positive achievements of Britain’s empire and America’s internationalist foreign policy. Over the past dozen years, he argues in his latest Bloomberg column, the world has “entered a new and more dangerous era, in which a superpower rivalry is likely to be associated with economic crisis, a ‘democratic recession’ ... and increased conflict.”

This sort of thing has happened before. Just as the World War I settlement was opposed by 20th-century revisionist powers (Germany’s Adolf Hitler, Italy’s Benito Mussolini, Japan’s military), so America’s 21st-century vision of a rule-based, democratic-dominated world order has been challenged by today’s revisionists: Russia’s Vladimir Putin, China’s Xi Jinping, Iran’s mullahs.

Revisionists gained ground through daring and luck in the 1930s and, in the awful years of 1940 and 1941, seemed on the brink of world domination. Twenty-first century revisionists seem to have made serious blunders and to have run out of luck in 2022.

Ferguson has backed U.S. aid to Ukraine and has called for more. He is pleased that “Putin has shrunk in stature on the international stage” as his plans to annex Ukraine have dissolved in pathetic failure. “A leader I have long defined as a Mafia godfather is looking less and less like Michael Corleone and more and more like Tony Montana in the last scenes of ‘Scarface.’”

And China, which many thought was heading toward economic superiority over the U.S. and strategic dominance in Asia, suddenly seems in sharp decline. “The stifling effect of Xi’s COVID policy on the Chinese economy is real,” notes Ferguson, “as are the dire demographic trends and the latent financial crisis within the real estate sector.”

He doesn’t predict Putin’s or Xi’s quick overthrow. But he predicts “the Chinese Communist Party will not celebrate its centenary in power” in 2049.

Unlike Ferguson, Richard Hanania, an academic and relative newcomer (2018) to Twitter, advocates something like an isolationist foreign policy for America. But like Ferguson, he has been pleasantly surprised by Putin’s debacle in Ukraine.

In a Substack essay, he argues events in 2022 have vindicated Francis Fukuyama’s 1989 “end of history” thesis, that after the vanquishing of communism, “there would be no serious alternatives to liberal democracy.”

Both the Russian and Chinese alternatives, in his view, are now discredited. Putin’s Russia has proved “to be fundamentally incompetent and lacking in appeal even to Russians themselves that live outside its borders.” A skeptic about U.S. aid to Ukraine, Hanania seems content that “Russia is certain to remain a poor, backward country indefinitely into the future, regardless of whether it adds a few million more pensioners in the Donbas.”

Hanania quotes tech billionaire Peter Thiel’s observation that China is “a weirdly autistic country.” He calls Xi’s zero-COVID program “an insane policy choice,” given that even China’s vaccine mostly prevents deadly illness in the nonelderly. China’s rigid lockdowns have choked off economic growth and personal initiative in ways that seem difficult to overcome.

“I used to think that China could be the kind of autist that builds SpaceX,” Hanania writes. “Instead, it’s the kind that is afraid to look strangers in the eye and stays up all night playing with his train collection.” If “Russia was too risk-acceptant, and intoxicated with masculine dreams of conquest,” then “China has been too risk-averse, and shown itself to be too neurotic to be able to respond to threats in a measured way.”

Both American political parties, as Hanania notes, have supported Ukraine against Russia and have signaled support for Taiwan against invasion by China. U.S. aid, doled out sparingly by the Biden administration, has at least marginally helped Ukraine, and U.S. support may be deterring China from invading Taiwan.

But the bulk of damage to Russian and Chinese revisionist ambitions has been selfinflicted and serious enough to make 2022 look like a hinge year in history. And maybe for the U.S., too — a subject for a later column.

Michael Barone is a senior political analyst for the Washington Examiner, resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and longtime coauthor of The Almanac of American Politics.

The unequal justice of immigration law

A just immigration ethos looks like one where every city and county is treated equally,

IN DAYS OF OLD, the law was suborned to the wishes of kings and nobility — regular people would petition for redress or favors, and if they liked you, you might get something like justice.

The unfairness inherent in such a system was part of what spurred the American Revolution — one of the key beliefs of our founding fathers was that our nation should be ruled by law, not the arbitrary whims of powerful men. It was a revolutionary idea that is now common sense; everyone should have equal protections under impartial and fair laws.

Sadly, this is looking more and more like an antiquated notion. In 2022 America, your rights and protections often depend on your ability to petition elites. This disparity between the connected and everyone else has been thrown into stark relief with the recent immigration battles, as Govs. Greg Abbott of Texas and Ron DeSantis of Florida transported illegal immigrants who had crossed the border directly to liberal cities, causing a hysterical reaction from media and elites.

In Martha’s Vineyard, a place where the residents voted to declare themselves a sanctuary city, and thus by their own stated belief no laws were broken, in under 24 hours the National Guard was deployed by the governor to move all of the illegal immigrants to a Cape Cod Joint Base.

Contrast this with the Greensboro school that the DHS has purchased and is turning into a center for unaccompanied immigrant children: The federal government ignored requests for information from the dulyelected representatives of the state to provide information on how the facility would be managed.

They arguably misled these very same officials by stating that they had no plans to open a facility, a little over a year before they announced they would actually settle people in Greensboro, as Rep. Rocahrd Hudson and others pointed out in an open letter: “The decision to now resettle … in Greensboro directly contradicts what you said

previously and comes as a complete surprise to us and our constituencies.”

They failed to inform local officials of pertinent details, whether that be the cost, how the center will be securely and safely operated, etc. As a Guilford County spokesperson remarked, “Since it’s all federally run, our knowledge is fairly limited here in the County Manager’s Office.”

The problem is the ideology underpinning big government liberalism. By outsourcing crucial decisions to appointed officials and career bureaucrats, virtue value-laden political judgments are inevitably made by people. Extremely fallible people who are susceptible to lobbying and special petitions by their friends, political allies or, often, donors. Having the right connections and access to the right levers of power is the biggest factor in determining whether the government goes out of its way to engage with your concerns, or whether it’s ignored in favor of its own plans.

In the case of immigration policy, for far too long the real policy of the federal government has been to ignore concerns from border towns and states, call them closet racists for being concerned about the thousands of deaths happening with illegal border crossings, and implicitly keeping immigrants far away from the towns and lives of the rich politicos.

That’s not equal treatment under the law.

A just immigration ethos looks like one where every city and county is treated equally, whether they are on the border or not, and whether or not they are known for being a retreat for the rich and famous.

This type of common-sense federal immigration policy that admits immigrants based on merit, coupled with actual enforcement of our existing immigration laws across the board, would go a long way to reestablishing the principle that, as John Adams said, we have a government of laws, not men.

Ben Goldhaber is a North Carolinian entrepreneur and small business owner.

A Republican path forward

UNDER DEMOCRATS’ one-party control of Washington, our economy is in the gutter; the cost of groceries, gasoline and everyday services has skyrocketed; crime is surging; and the southern border is wide open. House Republicans have a bold, conservative agenda to reverse President Joe Biden’s self-inflicted crises and get our nation back on track.

President Biden’s reckless spending has caused inflation to skyrocket from 1.4% to a record 8.3% in less than two years. As a result, millions of hardworking American families are suffering under 40-year record-high inflation — and the average family is spending $717 more each month to buy the same goods and services as last year.

House Republicans will build an economy that is strong. That means reducing wasteful government spending, cutting taxes and unleashing American innovation. Our plan would also require the Biden administration to embrace an all-of-the-above energy approach to reduce our dependency on foreign nations and power our economy with American-made energy. Reestablishing American energy independence will go a long way to improve access to secure, reliable energy and lower costs for American families.

Democrats’ soft-on-crime policies have caused violent crime to surge across America. This year, homicide rates have increased by roughly 50%, and aggravated assaults have increased by 39% since 2019. What’s worse, the “defund the police” movement has put our brave law enforcement officers in danger — and intentional killings of police officers are at a 20-year high.

Our Commitment to America will fund 200,000 new police officers to protect our streets and crack down on weak district attorneys and prosecutors who refuse to hold criminals accountable. Importantly, Republicans will make securing the southern border a top priority to stop the unmitigated flow of deadly fentanyl which is poisoning American children and adults.

Government lockdowns and mandates have set our children back and caused undo harm to parents and families across the nation. Just one year ago, Attorney General Merrick Garland issued a memo equating parents to “domestic terrorists,” and he allowed union bosses to dictate school reopenings. By passing the Parents’ Bill of Rights, House Republicans will put parents in the driver’s seat and allow families to make their own decisions about their children’s education. It’s also vital that we secure our constitutional liberties, including free speech protections on university campuses, and confront big tech censorship.

Freedom in medicine is another essential pillar. Instead of a governmentmandated, socialized health care system, Republicans are committed to lowering health care costs through transparency and competition and improving access to life-saving cures and medicine.

As a member of the Healthy Futures Task Force, I’ve been proud to develop solutions that modernize health care, safeguard telehealth access, crack down on fraud, waste and abuse, and expand access to patient-centered technologies.

The Biden administration has leveraged its political power to enact a far-left radical agenda at the expense of the American people. So far, this administration has not been held accountable for any of its self-inflicted disasters, from the horrific Afghanistan withdrawal to the unprecedented border crisis. When Republicans take control in January, we will exercise congressional oversight to restore the people’s voice and give Americans answers about the origins of COVID-19, the politicization of the DOJ and FBI, and so much more.

The Biden administration is a selfserving bureaucracy whereby extreme ideologies and a quest for power have left the American people in the dust. The Republican Commitment to America shows a better path forward in which the federal government works for Americans, not against them. Starting on day one of a Republican majority, we will work tirelessly to deliver an economy that’s strong, a country that’s safe, a future that’s built on freedom, and a government that’s accountable — that’s our Commitment to America.

Dr. Greg Murphy represents North Carolina’s 3rd Congressional District.

Letters addressed to the editor may be sent to letters@nsjonline.com or 1201 Edwards Mill Rd., Suite 300, Raleigh, NC 27607 Letters must be signed; include the writer’s phone number, city and state; and be no longer than 300 words. Letters may be edited for style, length or clarity when necessary. Ideas for op-eds should be sent to opinion@nsjonline.com.

2022 North Carolina Debutantes

Amanda Walker Ramseur**, Raleigh

Emerson Folger Cashion*, Davidson

Margaret Scott Dees*, Salisbury

Ellen Parks Hornthal*, Elizabeth City

Caroline Carson Redding*, Charlotte

Caroline Hagen Smith*, Goldsboro

Isabella Purifoy Spruill*, Windsor

Kathryn Elizabeth White*, Winston-Salem

Katherine Alexis Albright, Wilson

Ann McAllister Alexander, Chapel Hill

Cabell Best Anderson, Raleigh

Emma Curry Anderson, Greenville

Carolyn Westbrook Baker, Wilmington

Caroline Grace Barnhill, Raleigh

Maloy Taylor Basinger, Wilmington

McKinley Exum Bassett, Winston-Salem

Caroline Bruton Beaver, Morehead City

Eleanor Shelgren Becker, Raleigh

Riley Alexandra Bensen, Raleigh

Anna Grace Black, Pinehurst

Lucy Wooten Bland, Goldsboro

Betsy Richardson Boney, Raleigh

Avery Elizabeth Bossong, Winston-Salem

Anna Kathryn Bowersox, Cary Alice Fisher Bragg, Davidson Frances Catherine Bragg, Davidson

Nancy Lorraine Brewer, Raleigh

Louise Leclaire Brinley, Raleigh

Kathryn Jessica Brody, Cary

Emory Elizabeth Brooks, Greenville

Hannah Susan Brown, Cary Chase McKeague Browne, Charlotte Elizabeth Craven Bryant, Concord Caroline Grace Bull, Raleigh Pearce Victoria Burlington, Raleigh Mary Thorn Campbell, Charlotte Mae Bryant Cates, Raleigh

Lillian Thayer Chase, Winston-Salem

Addison Yates Cheek, New Bern

Lillian Holloway Chiavetta, Wilmington

Anna Leggett Payne Church, Raleigh

Emma Katherine Xinjie Clarke, Raleigh Mary Margaret Collett, Morganton Mary Elizabeth Combs, Cornelius Ava Josephine Cook, Raleigh Margaret Thomas Corsmeier, Raleigh Janie Margaret Covington, Wilson Mary-Edith Lillie Cox, Rocky Mount Jane Isabel Crowley, Winston-Salem Eleanor Grace Crowther, Raleigh Alexandra Waverly Cunningham, Lexington

Ashley Elizabeth Daniel, Morehead City Sarah Marie Davenport, Wake Forest Virginia Lyne Dempster, Raleigh Arabella Benbury Dixon, Edenton Tatum Harrelson Duke, Greenville Spencer Anne Dunthorn, Hampstead Elizabeth Kirkland Ellerbe, Raleigh Emerson Laine Evans, Salisbury Hannah Webber Faison, Charlotte Polly Kirk Ferrell, Raleigh Camdyn Grace Fickes, Roxboro Murphy McKeand Fisher, Greenville Lily Gray Flournoy, Raleigh Carson Anna Bella Foreman, Edenton Caitlin Chandler Fountain, Raleigh

Celia Louise Funderburk, Greensboro Katherine Ava Galbo, Raleigh

Vail Webb Gaylord, Charlotte

Sallie Morrison Gliarmis, Wilson Ella Conger Glover, Raleigh

Beasley Stewart Gordon, Charlotte Lilly Callaway Gornto, Raleigh Catherine Hollister Green, Hendersonville

Lauren Elizabeth Grice, Wilmington Mary Braxton Growney, Raleigh

Georgia Louise Gurley, Goldsboro

Carolyn Ruth Hale, Greensboro Ann Truluck Ham, Raleigh

Ava Franklin Anne Hanvey, Raleigh Whitfield Katie May Hanvey, Raleigh Catharine Davis Hill, Wilson Louisa Maggie Holding, Raleigh Jennie Sherrill Holland, Durham Anna Elizabeth Holmes, Raleigh Mary Emma Holscher, Washington Sarah Riley Holt, Fayetteville Caroline Kelly Hopkins, Charlotte Carter Colvin Howard, Wilmington Georgia Gilmer Howard, Raleigh Elizabeth Roswell Hunter, Charlotte Janie Carol Irons, Greenville Madelyn Hayes Jenkins, Rocky Mount Lillian Turner Jester, Chapel Hill Alexandra Barr Johnson, Wilmington Kendall Middleton Jobnson, Raleigh Mary Whitaker Jones, Rocky Mount Anna Claire Joshi, Raleigh Kathryn Wells Katzenbach, Raleigh Margaret Covington Keith, Wake Forest Elizabeth Deming Kelley, Durham Olivia Lloyd Kelly, Sanford Carlyle Robinson Kennedy, Raleigh Eva Renfrow Kerr, Raleigh Nettie Margaret Kline, Raleigh Caroine Batchelor Koonce, Raleigh Mary Bellamy Monroe Koonce, Wilmington Ann Finley Lefevers, Hickory Caroline Grace Lloyd, Wilmington Lilly Frances Tayloe Lobos, Washington Elizabeth Hanan Marshall, Winston-Salem

Lyndan Elizabeth Massey, Farmville Morgan Heaton Mayson, Blowing Rock Virginia Dunn McCall, Cary Sarah Curtis McClatchey, Raleigh Jayna Louise McCotter, Wilmington Avery Nicole McGuirt, Winston-Salem Victoria Elizabeth McGuirt, Winston-Salem

Julia Elizabeth McNamara, Raleigh Katherine Stockton Moore, Greensboro Elizabeth Crawford Moorman, Raleigh Mary Isabel Moran, Raleigh Adele Price Morris, Charlotte Anne Mackenzie Morris, Wilmington Mary Maxwell Morrison, Concord Mary Ellen Seabrook Mosley, Raleigh Ella Ashe Mountcastle, Charlotte Ann Louise Newcomb, Chapel Hill Meredith Elaine Newman, Raleigh Virginia Grey Newton, Wilson Grayson Peal Norwood, Greenville

Christina Marie Oelhafen, Raleigh

Lucy Grace Ogle, Greenville

Lucy Catherine Olmert, Manson

Mary Lois Outland, Rich Square

Ava Lauren Pace, Raleigh

Jane Anne Pannill, Cary

Josephine Paxton Parker, Wilson Lucy Catherine Peacock, New Bern

Lila Williams Peden, Raleigh Sophie Park Penn, Raleigh Ryann Katherine Perkins, Sanford Mary Charles Phelps, Greenville

Emory Loys Pittman, Rocky Mount Virginia Bladen Pitts, Charlotte

Rachel Springs Plageman, Swansboro

Lillian Bowman Propst, Raleigh Caroline Ruth Pyle, Lexington Caroline deRosset Rainosek, Greensboro

Elisabeth Joyner Rascoe, Windsor Megan Elizabeth Reda, Wrightsville Beach

Lucy Walker Redwine, Raleigh Martha Isabelle Reeves, Greenville

Emerson Leigh Replogle, Raleigh Avery Sage Risinger, Raleigh Carole Sims Roberson, Raleigh Mary Spencer Roberson, Williamston

Molly Elizabeth Roberts, Raleigh Trevlyn McKenzie Anne Roberts, Raleigh

Abigail Ford Robertson, Raleigh Virginia Moye Robertson, Salisbury Abigail Gray Samet, Greensboro

Emma Stuart Satterfield, Winston-Salem

Hayden Elizabeth Savery, Raleigh Berkeley Erwin Scharf, Wilmington

Clara Coleman Scruggs, Davidson Emma Caroline Scruggs, Davidson Julia Katharine Scruggs, Davidson Susanna Laura Segrave, Morehead City Harper Bedell Shepherd, Greensboro

Lillian Banks Sherman, Raleigh Lucy Hardin Sigmon, Raleigh Peyton Elease Smith, Durham Grayson Elizabeth Spruill, Washington Venice Olivia Sturges, Louisburg Hallie Elizabeth Tant, Raleigh

Elizabeth Glaser Thomas, Raleigh Mary Davis Thompson, Wilmington

Weatherly Grace Tierney, Raleigh Bettye Grace Tish, Charlotte Paige Kenlee Ward, Battleboro Charlotte Lane Waughtel, Manteo Katherine McCrary White, Winston-Salem

Molly Clara Williams, Farmville Blanche Robertson Williamson, Raleigh Elizabeth Winsor, Tarboro

Hurricanes start quest for Cup, B4

Coaching change, QB injury have Panthers starting over

CHARLOTTE — Welcome to square one.

NBA Hornets’ Ball leaves preseason game with sprained ankle

Charlotte Hornets All Star point guard LaMelo Ball sprained his left ankle in the third quarter of Monday’s preseason game against the Wizards when he got his foot stepped on while driving to the basket. He did not return to the game.

Ball was driving the lane when Washington’s Anthony Gill stepped on Ball’s foot, causing the Charlotte star’s ankle to twist awkwardly. Ball remained on the floor for several minutes before getting to his feet and gingerly walking to the free throw line. He shot two free throws then checked out of the game and headed to the locker room. Ball, who averaged 20.1 points, 7.6 assists and 6.7 rebounds per game last season, was expected to undergo more tests on Tuesday.

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Wake leapfrogs NC State in latest AP football poll

New York Wake Forest and NC State flipped spots the The Associated Press college football released Sunday. The Demon Deacons (5 1), coming off a 45 10 win over Army on Saturday, moved up to No. 14 for their highest ranking of the season. Wake Forest is off this week and next plays Oct. 22 when Boston College visits Winston Salem. The Wolfpack (5 1) survived both an injury to starting quarterback Devin Leary and Florida State, winning 19 17 at home Saturday night, but slipped one spot to No. 15. It won’t get easier for NC State this week when the team travels to Central New York to face unbeaten and 18th ranked Syracuse. The Wolfpack might have to do it without Leary, who coach Dave Doeren said Monday was day to day with a shoulder injury. UNC fell just shy of reaching the Top 25, earning 98 votes to get the 26th most in this week’s poll.

Bell gets must-win at Roval to advance

Defending champion

CONCORD — It was a race of desperation.

It was for Christopher Bell, who had to win Sunday to stave off elim ination from NASCAR’s Cup Series playoffs.

It was for reigning NASCAR champion Kyle Larson, who hit the wall and suddenly found his chanc es of racing for a second consecutive Cup title in serious jeopardy.

It was for Track house Racing, the feelgood upstart young team hoping to cele brate its 100th start by advancing both its driv ers into the third round of the postseason.

And it was for Stew art-Haas Racing, which is now under NASCAR investigation for potential race ma nipulation.

When the checkered flag finally flew, only Bell was celebrating.

His victory in overtime on the one-of-a-kind Roval at Charlotte Motor Speedway moved him into the round of eight and possibly made him a true title contender.

His Joe Gibbs Racing team used the first natural caution of the race — it came with five laps remaining — to bring Bell in for new tires on his Toyota. The fresh Goodyears

gave Bell the advantage to drive through the field for his second win of the season and third of his career.

“The task was simple. We knew we had to win,” said Bell, who was the most consistent driver in the first round of the playoffs but found himself 11th in the standings as NASCAR prepared to cut the field from 12 to eight.

“Man, you’ve just got to be there at the end of these things. I keep watching all these races where the fastest car doesn’t always win. We were just there at the right time. We obviously weren’t in position to win, we rolled the dice, gambled, it paid off for us.”

Larson, meanwhile, was elimi nated from the playoffs one year after winning a Cup Series-high 10 rac es and racking up wins all across the country in sprint cars. He has just two wins this season and finished 35th on Sunday, five laps down, and was bumped out of the playoffs by two points.

“I made way too many mistakes this whole year. You can’t win a championship like that,” said Larson. “No surprise that I made another mistake today and took us out of contention. Just extremely mad at myself. We’ll keep fighting. We’ll come back stronger. I’ll definitely come back stronger and smarter, make better moves out there. Just mad at myself.”

Trackhouse nearly lost both Dan iel Suarez and Ross Chastain from the playoff field when Suarez lost

Five games into the 2022 NFL season, the Carolina Panthers lost their head coach and quar terback in the blackest of Mon days.

Baker Mayfield joined Sam Darnold on the injury report af ter suffering an ankle sprain in Sunday’s loss to San Francisco, leaving the stadium in a walking boot. A Monday MRI ruled him out for an unspecified number of games. Darnold is already on injured reserve with an ankle sprain and was reportedly “not close” to a return when the last status update was given a week ago. That gives the Panthers two quarterbacks taken in the top three picks of the 2018 NFL Draft, and neither will be taking the field in the foreseeable future.

Backup PJ Walker is currently the only healthy quarterback on the Panthers roster. The team will likely bring someone in be fore the next game.

The team also parted ways with head coach Matt Rhule, after two-plus unsuccessful sea sons on the job.

The last straw for Rhule was Sunday’s 37-15 loss to the 49ers, which dropped Carolina to 1-4 on the season despite having four home games in the first five weeks. Sunday’s loss at Bank of America Stadium came in front of a crowd that may have fea tured more red 49ers jerseys and blue empty seats than hometown fans clad in Panthers colors.

There were still enough Pan thers fans in the building to boo loudly when Rhule opted for a field goal with the team down 30-12 in the fourth quarter.

In a contentious press confer ence on Monday, nominally to explain the reasons for the Rhule firing, Panthers owner David Tepper denied that a lack of fan interest was a factor behind the move.

“I have respect for the fans,” he said, “but fans can’t be the reason you make a change like this.”

Tepper did point out later in the press conference, “We had 63,000 butts in seats, unfortu nately, there were too many red butts in seats.”

Tepper also spoke harshly about the Panthers team he in herited and has spent the last several seasons rebuilding.

“We need to figure out how to get a culture of winning,” he said.

“We haven’t had that in a long time in this city. We’ve never had two winning seasons (in a row), and I don’t think we’ve ever had a real culture of winning.”

Tepper, who appeared to take issue with several questions at the press conference, also claimed that the city of Char

lotte had “no live music” until he bought the team and stadium.

What’s next?

For the Panthers, former de fensive coordinator and Arizo na Cardinals head coach Steve Wilks will take over as interim coach.

Wilks is a Charlotte native who went to West Charlotte High School and played at App State. He also played for the Charlotte Rage minor league football team in 1993 and spent several seasons on Ron Rivera’s Panthers staff as defensive backs coach, includ ing the team’s trip to the Super Bowl following the 2015 season. He became the team’s defensive coordinator in 2017, then left the following season to spend one year as Cardinals coach, go ing 3-13. Since then, he’s served as defensive coordinator for the Browns and University of Mis souri before returning to Caro lina on Rhule’s staff this season.

“Steve loves this area,” Tepper said. “He loves Charlotte. Obvi ously, he’s going to be excited.”

Wilks’ first move was to fire defensive coordinator Phil Snow.

“The head coach gets to choose his coaching staff,” Tepper said of the move.

Tepper refused to answer questions on the search for a permanent replacement, saying, “We have a lot of season left. I’d rather talk about the season left. Right now, Steve Wilks is the coach.”

As for whether Wilks would be considered for the job, he said, “We’ll see how the season goes. He’s in position to be consid ered.”

The team is currently in line to choose first in next spring’s NFL Draft. Tepper said that tanking in order to use that pick on a potential franchise quarterback was not an option, saying, “We always have the expectation to win. That’s never changing.”

Still, the temptation will be there to deal some of the high-value pieces on the current roster — running back Chris tian McCaffrey jumps out as an obvious target — to accrue draft capital.

Tepper didn’t mention McCaf frey when he discussed what he called the “foundation pieces” of a good team which he thought were in place. He brought up the defense and the offensive line.

He also declined to answer questions on the team’s plans for the upcoming trade deadline, al though he did say several times that it would be important to have patience as the team tries to turn things around.

“It’s a funny thing, patience,” he said. “If you ask the average fan, they’ll think I was ridicu lously patient.”

“Things take time,” he said. “As a former fan, I don’t want to hear that.”

Kyle Larson was among the four drivers eliminated from the playoffs

“The task was simple. We knew we had to win.” Christopher Bell

TRENDING

Russell Wilson:

The Broncos quarterback received an injection on Friday to alleviate discomfort near his throwing shoulder, according to reports. NFL Network said Saturday that the former NC State star received a platelet‑rich plasma injection to treat a strained latissimus dorsi. Dallas quarterback Dak Prescott had a similar injury that sidelined him for most of the Cowboys’ training camp last year. The Broncos, who lost 12‑9 in overtime to the Colts last Thursday, don’t play again until Oct. 17.

Aroldis Chapman:

The Yankees reliever has been ruled out for the AL Division Series after he skipped a mandatory workout, leading to a fine and likely ending the All‑Star’s tenure in the Bronx. The 34‑year‑old probably would not have been on the 26‑man roster for the best‑of‑five series against Cleveland that started Tuesday night. Chapman had been scheduled to pitch batting practice Friday at Yankee Stadium but instead was in Miami.

Bronny James: The son of Lakers superstar LeBron James is one of five high school and college basketball players who have signed endorsement deals with Nike. The name, image and likeness deals are permissible in college sports and at the high school level in a growing number of states. The others signing with Nike are JuJu Watkins, who like the younger James attends Sierra Canyon High in Los Angeles; DJ Wagner from Camden High in New Jersey; Caitlan Clark of Iowa; and Haley Jones of Stanford.

Beyond the box score

GOLF

30.9M

Combined attendance for minor league baseball teams in 2022, down from 41.5 million in 2019, the last season before the COVID‑19 pandemic.

Draymond Green will be away from defending champion Golden State, a move coach Steve Kerr called a “mutual decision” after the star forward punched teammate Jordan Poole in the face last Wednesday. Green said he is unsure of his status or how long he will be away from the team. Poole wasn’t injured in the fight.

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The Lightning suspended defenseman Ian Cole pending an investigation into allegations made on social media that he sexually abused a woman when she was a minor. The 33‑year‑old Cole, who played for the Hurricanes last season, denied the allegations in a statement. He signed a one‑year, $3 million deal with Tampa Bay in the offseason.

The start of Saturday night’s ACC game between NC State and Florida State was delayed due to a problem with Carter‑Finley Stadium’s lights. The game, a 19‑17 Wolfpack win, was set to kick off around 8:10 p.m. but was delayed after only the ribbon and scoreboard lights illuminated the field.

“He has more than lived up to his billing.”

Greg Norman, CEO of LIV Golf, on Dustin Johnson, who clinched the new tour’s inaugural individual championship.

“I just don’t want to see it be like 2001.”

Cup Series driver Kevin Harvick on discussions with NASCAR about making the Next Gen car safer.

QB matchup highlights Duke-Carolina rivalry game

standing quarterback last week in Miami’s Tyler Van Dyke. This week, Brown, Maye and the Tar Heels face Riley Leonard of Duke, another promising passer.

FOOTBALL EXPERTS will tell you not to look at the ball when you break down game film. The key to success is in the individual battles — on the line and in coverage. Fans that focus on the guy with the ball in his hand are missing out on the areas where games are truly won and lost.

Of course, some experts will tell you that the ball is pretty import ant too.

“If you don’t have a quarter back,” said UNC coach Mack Brown, “you don’t have a chance to win.”

UNC certainly has a quarter back in Drake Maye, who has tak en the ACC by storm, winning four ACC Rookie of the Week awards and two ACC Quarterback of the Week awards in six games this season. He outdueled another out

“It seems that everybody’s got a good quarterback now,” Brown said. “That wasn’t the case.”

Brown credits the proliferation of passing camps and quarterback gurus with the rise of the ACC quarterback. He also said that the transfer portal plays a role in making sure that everyone gets a chance to find a place to start.

“Everyone’s got a quarterback,” he repeated. “That’s why so many games are close now. Before, if you didn’t have a good quarterback, you were probably going to get beat. Especially in modern football with so many points being scored, if you can’t score at a high level, you’re probably not going to win.”

So as Brown prepares his Tar Heels for their rivalry game with the Blue Devils and to match wits with Mike Elko — the fifth differ ent Duke head coach he’s faced while at Carolina — he’s spending a great deal of attention on the

quarterback position.

Leonard has eight touchdowns on the year, one more than last year’s starter, Gunnar Holmberg, had all season. He’s thrown for 1,312 yards and also rushed for 290 and four scores, making him Duke’s second-leading rusher.

“Duke’s got a guy that’s playing at such a high level,” Brown said of Leonard. “That’s one reason Duke’s so competitive and confident. They’ve got a quarterback that can run and throw it. … He’s big. He’s fast. He’s confident. He can run. When you can do that — nobody (on defense) is responsible for the quarterback unless you have some one shadow him, and then you have to completely change your de fense and take someone way, and now you’re defending with 10.”

For a UNC defense that has struggled at times this season, that’s a daunting challenge.

“I think he’s got a great feel for the game,” Carolina defensive coordinator Gene Chizik said of Leonard. “I think when you look at quarterbacks that hurt you with their feet, they just have this

sixth sense when they’re back in the pocket and him being able to see windows to escape. … And in the run game, all the different ways that they use him to run the football — quarterback designed, quarterback draws — let every body get into pass coverage. And it’s kind of delayed quarterback draw, (and he is) really good with that.”

Over in Durham, Elko is look ing at a way to solve a very similar defensive puzzle.

“I’ve got a lot of respect for what they are doing over there in Chapel Hill,” he said. “Offensively they are one of the most potent offenses in the country.”

Faced with the prospect of re placing the best quarterback in UNC history — Sam Howell — Maye has responded by topping him in yards per attempt, com pletion percentage and yards per game in his first half-season as starter. With 308 yards on the ground and three scores, he’s also UNC’s second-leading rusher.

“We’ve got to find a way to get stops,” Elko said. “That is going

of trip to Syracuse

The NC State quarterback was knocked out of last week’s win over Florida State with a shoulder injury

No. 15 NC State will hit the road to take on undefeated No. 18 Syr acuse. What the Wolfpack doesn’t know is whether quarterback Devin Leary will be on the field with them for their latest critical ACC matchup Saturday afternoon.

“The good news is his shoulder is good,” NC State coach Dave Do eren said Monday of Leary’s sta tus. “All the images were positive. It’s a rehab-able injury, and that starts immediately and is a dayto-day thing.

“There isn’t a timeline. It could be this week; it could be six weeks. It really is going to come down to how he recovers.”

Leary was injured in the third quarter of NC State’s 19-17 home win over Florida State last Satur day night.

Also of concern is the opponent: The Orange will be the second un beaten team the Wolfpack have faced in conference play.

“We’re getting ready for Syra cuse,” Doeren said. “Undefeated, ranked in the top 20, very bal anced on offense. Robert Anae, the offensive coordinator they hired, is a really good football coach and he’s made a difference in their of fense.”

If Leary cannot go for NC State, Doeren will turn to graduate quar terback Jack Chambers.

“Jack’s had 400-yard pass ing games before if you go back through his career,” Doeren said of the transfer from FCS Charleston Southern. “He can throw the foot ball. If we’re going to have to get into a game and chuck it around,

we feel great about him.”

But Chambers attempted just a single pass in Saturday’s win, one that hit the ground short of its intended receiver. After that, it was just run, run, run, calling into question just how much the coaching staff will trust him with the playbook.

And if the Wolfpack intend to roll out — more specifically, run out — that same game plan in Syr acuse, they may be in for a rough afternoon.

The Orange have the sec ond-best run defense in the ACC behind only Clemson, allowing just 95 rushing yards per game.

Syracuse also has the top pass ing defense in the ACC — 176.6 yards per game allowed — and has given up 14 points per game, the fewest in the conference.

“Defensively, they’re similar to us, 3-3-5,” Doeren said. “Different

in their approach. They’re small er, body types are very quick, they angle and loop and stunt a lot with their front. Their backers have been there a long time and they’re really good players. They make a lot of plays. Their corners are productive. They do a nice job dis guising zone coverages and man coverages.

“They lead the ACC in almost every category on defense, and so it’s going to be a great challenge for us offensively.”

The bottom line is that the trip up north will not be an easy one, especially if NC State is down to its backup quarterback.

to involve containing [Maye] and not allowing him to get outside the pocket and create plays with his feet. I think he can do both. When he gets outside the pocket it is not necessarily just the run. I think the first thing is to try to find someone and hit a big pass play. And then if that breaks down, he is able to get out and run the football. We have to find a good plan to contain him and limit his explosives.”

Normally, coaches and players will downplay a compelling quar terback matchup, saying that the two passers don’t actually go up against each other. Elko went in a different direction, however.

“We’ve been through this before with two really good quarterbacks in a game,” he said. “Riley is going to have a little bit of onus on him to kind of match, and he is going to have to do that Saturday and have to play a really good football game for us to have success.”

Regardless of which quarter back has the advantage in the ri valry game, one thing is certain: You won’t want to take your eyes off the ball.

For the Wolfpack to be success ful, it may again come down to the defense.

NC State shut down Florida State in the second half last week end, suffocating the Seminoles and forcing two interceptions to help the Wolfpack overcome a 17-3 deficit.

“We tackled well,” Doeren said of his defense’s performance against FSU. “We only missed five tackles, we won the line of scrim mage, and we were in the backfield a lot. We disrupted a really good run game. I thought the guys re ally screwed up the timing of a lot of their plays. There were a lot of guys out there on the D-line just grinding. The second-half shutout was impressive, and the two inter ceptions were critical.”

The defense will have its hands full with Syracuse’s top weapons.

Sophomore running back Sean Tucker is second in the ACC in rushing with 546 yards, and ju nior quarterback Garrett Shrad er has thrown for 1,224 yards, 10 touchdowns and an interception while rushing for 219 yards and five scores.

“Their quarterback, who last year I think struggled throwing the football, has a 70% completion rate,” Doeren said. “He’s playing really well. He was a dynamic run ner last year and still is, and he’s a North Carolina native. I know this will be a big game for him.”

The Wolfpack did get some good news on the injury front when Doeren reported that both junior receiver Devin Carter and sophomore running back De mie Sumo-Karngbaye should be good to go against Syracuse, and that sophomore nickel Tyler Bak er-Williams and redshirt junior tight end Trent Pennix each have a chance to return either this week or next.

“We look forward to another great week and another great and competitive game against a really good team that’s well coached,” Doeren said.

“It really is going to come down to how he recovers.”

NC State coach Dave Doeren on quarterback Devin Leary

Hurricanes’ silver anniversary brings championship hopes

Carolina enters the 2022-23 season as one of the NHL’s Stanley Cup favorites

RALEIGH — It took until the eighth game at PNC Arena for the Carolina Hurricanes to lose on home ice in last year’s play offs.

It also marked the end of their season.

The Hurricanes dispatched in Bruins in seven games in the first round, winning all four games in Raleigh to advance past an opponent that had given them postseason fits.

Then came a second round series with the Rangers. Caroli na and New York split the first six games, with the home team coming out on top in each, set ting up Game 7 in Raleigh.

The Hurricanes fell flat, losing 6-2 in front of the home crowd to end their season well short of the goal of winning a Stanley Cup.

On Wednesday, coach Rod Brind’Amour’s team gets to start over, and the Hurricanes will do it where last season ended — at PNC Arena when they face the Columbus Blue Jackets.

Carolina’s best players return for another crack at claiming Lord Stanley’s chalice, but the Hurricanes added more fire power — on both offense and defense — and appear, on paper, deeper than ever.

Here are a few things to watch as Carolina opens its 25th sea son since relocating to the Old North State.

“A Burns for All Seasons”

I might as well get the first Montgomery Burns/“The Simp sons” joke out of the way before Carolina’s season officially be gins. Brent Burns is the shiny new Gummi Venus de Milo on the Hurricanes’ roster.

The 6-foot-5, 230-pound de fenseman has made himself at home both in the locker room and alongside Jaccob Slavin on the top defensive pair.

The 37-year-old Burns can’t be expected to still be the player who three times scored 20 goals in a season and won the Norris Trophy as the league’s top defenseman in 2017. But make no mistake, he’s an upgrade over Tony DeAngelo (traded to Philadelphia in the off season) and is no run-of-the-mill aging blueliner.

Both Brind’Amour and strength coach Bill Burniston have raved about Burns’ conditioning and work ethic, and anyone playing alongside Slavin is sure to boost anyone’s play.

As Springfield’s oldest resident would say: “Excellent.”

Time to turn the corner

Brind’Amour’s top three lines have been pretty consistent throughout the preseason. Teuvo Teravainen and Seth Jarvis flank star center Sebastian Aho on the top line, while captain Jordan Staal is in the middle of Jesper Fast and newcomer Paul Stastny — replacing the departed Nino Niederreiter — on the team’s shut down line.

And then there’s the trio of Andrei Svechnikov, Jesperi Kot kaniemi and Martin Necas.

Svechnikov, coming off his first 30-goal season, looks even stron ger and faster this year, and he seems poised to lift off into su perstardom.

Then there are his two running mates. Kotkaniemi takes over for Vincent Trocheck — who exit ed Carolina after the loss to the Rangers only to sign with New York — a year removed from the offer sheet that brought him to Raleigh from Montreal.

He played just over 12 minutes a game a season ago, and adding about 50% more ice time and high-end talents on his wings set him up for a breakout season.

Necas is coming off a difficult season but looks revitalized. He’s bigger without losing his top-lev el speed and seems to have re gained the confidence he lost during a tough contract year.

The duo combined for 69 points last season. If they can get to 100 or so this year, it will be a success.

Not out of their depth

Jack Drury learned quickly what competition for ice time will be like in Carolina. Expected to be the team’s fourth line center, the rookie instead found himself reassigned to the AHL’s Chicago Wolves after a mediocre camp.

Brind’Amour said Monday that Drury still “has a bright future,” but the move made a statement: A spot in Raleigh will be earned, not given.

Defenseman Calvin de Haan and Derek Stepan both did just that, getting contracts after com ing to camp on professional try outs, and journeyman Stefan No esen went from leading the AHL in goals with the Wolves a year ago to a spot on the opening roster with the Hurricanes.

Meanwhile, Jordan Martinook was sent through waivers in a cap move, but it still showed the team was still willing to risk losing one of its alternate captains because

of the other options on hand. That team is glad No. 48 is still around, but he too will have to scratch and claw for a spot on the ice each night.

New addition Ondrej Kase, if he can stay healthy, could make his way into the top nine, even the top six, if he thrives or anyone fal ters.

On defense, returning players Ethan Bear and Jalen Chatfield will need to fight past both de Haan and newcomer Dylan Cogh lan for time on the third pair.

It makes for a lot of decisions for the coaching staff.

“We’re gonna have extra play ers, and they’re all not gonna play,” Brind’Amour said Monday, “and that’s where it gets tough. … It’s a good problem to have. If we’re healthy, that’s gonna be an issue probably all year.”

And if the Hurricanes can end their season with a win on PNC Arena ice, those issues will all be forgotten.

The Big Dumper leads NC’s representation in MLB postseason

Cal Raleigh is providing October drama for Seattle

OCTOBER IS FAMOUS for crowning new cult heroes during baseball’s postseason, and this year has already found a prime candi date to join them: The Big Dumper.

Cal Raleigh’s nickname — which celebrates the Seattle catcher’s gen erous backside — is enough to at tract the spotlight, but as his Mar iners advance through their first trip to the postseason in two de cades, he’s stepped up as the team’s man in the clutch. He clinched Seattle’s postseason berth with a pinch-hit walk-off home run at the end of the regular season, then helped the Mariners dispatch the Blue Jays in the Wild Card Series, leading the team by hitting .500 with three RBIs and a 1.556 OPS.

As his surname might imply, Raleigh has North Carolina roots. The Cullowhee native attended Smoky Mountain High in Sylva before heading to Florida State to continue his baseball career.

Raleigh isn’t the only player whose path to MLB’s Division Se ries ran through North Carolina.

One of his teammates, Mari ners starting pitcher George Kirby, played for Elon from 2017 to 2019 before Seattle selected him in the first round of the 2019 draft. Af ter going 8-5 for the Mariners this year, he earned a save in the decid ing game of the Wild Card Series.

Two other products of colleges in the state are competing in the second round of this year’s post season, both for the Dodgers, who finished the regular season with the best record in MLB.

Trea Turner will be playing shortstop for the Dodgers and hunting his second World Series ring — he won with Washington in 2019. The former NC State star led MLB in at-bats this year and hit .298 with a career-high 100 RBIs to go with 21 homers and 27 steals.

Reliever Evan Phillips will be a key member of the Los Angeles bullpen. Phillips played at UNC Wilmington out of Clayton High and was drafted by the Braves in 2015. In addition to playing here

for high school and college, Phillips also followed the other common path through the state — playing here for one of North Carolina’s several minor league teams. He was a member of last season’s Tri ple-A champion Durham Bulls.

Phillips is one of 12 former Bulls in the Division Series, including at least one on seven of the eight re maining teams. Phillips is joined on the Dodgers by David Price (2008, ’09). The Braves feature Guillermo Heredia (2019), Jake Odorizzi (2013) and Kirby Yates (2012-15). Atlanta also features a former Bull in the dugout in man ager Brian Snitker.

Ryne Stanek (2016-18) is on the Astros. Diego Castillo (2017-18) is

on the Mariners. Luke Maile (201516) is a member of the Guardians.

The Phillies have two ex-Bulls in Jose Alvarado (2017-19) and Da vid Robertson (2021). Robertson pulled a double trip through the state. He also played for the inde pendent High Point Rockers last season.

The Padres have three former Bulls in Jake Cronenworth (201819), Blake Snell (2015-17) and Wil Myers (2013). Like Evan Phillips, Myers has deep roots in the state. He’s originally from Thomasville and played at High Point’s Wes leyan Christian Academy. After he was drafted by the Royals, he began his pro career with a trip to Burlington, which used to be the home to their low Class A team.

Durham isn’t the only team rep resented in the postseason. The Greensboro Grasshoppers have 10 players in action: Philadelphia’s J.T. Realmuto (2011), Atlanta’s Dylan Lee (2017) and Marcell Ozu na (2010-11), Austin Barnes and Andrew Heaney (both 2012) of the Dodgers, Austin Nola (2012) of the Padres, Seattle’s Luis Castillo (2015), Giancarlo Stanton (2008) and Domingo German (2014) of the Yankees, and Cleveland’s Josh Naylor (2016),

The Astros have had a presence in North Carolina, with farm teams in Buies Creek a few years ago, and now Fayetteville. Eleven members of the team have played for one or both of those teams on their way up to the bigs: Chas McCormick, Jeremy Pena, Jake Meyers, Fram ber Valdez, Cristian Javier, Bryan

Abreu, Luis Garcia, Jose Urquidy, Yordan Alvarez, Kyle Tucker and David Hensley. Former Astro Myl es Straw, now on Cleveland, also went through Buies Creek.

The Hickory Crawdads are the next most represented team with seven players still in action: The Yankees’ Jose Trevino (2015) and Isiah Kiner-Falefa (2014-15), Se attle’s Dylan Moore (2015-16), San Diego’s Nick Martinez (2012) and Jurickson Profar (2011, 2015) and the Dodgers’ Hanser Alberto (2012) and Joey Gallo (2013).

The White Sox didn’t make the postseason, but their farm teams in Charlotte, Winston-Salem and Kannapolis have some repre sentation in the Dodgers’ Trayce Thompson, Yency Almonte and Tommy Kahnle, and the Yankees’ Frankie Montas.

Four former Carolina Mudcats are playing: Atlanta’s A.J. Minter (2016), San Diego’s Trent Grisham (2017) and Mike Clevinger (2014). The Yankees’ Aroldis Chapman (2011) also played for the Mudcats but was left off New York’s roster after missing a mandatory work out.

Rounding out the state’s minor league products are Atlanta’s Tyler Matzek (Asheville Tourists), Los Angeles’ Tyler Anderson (Ashe ville), Cleveland’s Emmanuel Clase (Down East) and Seattle’s Carlos Santana (Kinston).

Regardless of which teams ad vance, fans in the state will have someone to root for throughout October---and it all starts with the Big Dumper.

I have never felt like this in my life.

his power steering and Chastain hit the wall to break a part on his Chevrolet. Chastain squeezed his way into the next round despite finishing 37th, while Suarez was eliminated from the field with his 36th-place finish.

His car was a monster to drive once the power steering failed and it caused Suarez to hit Corey LaJoie on the track. LaJoie later retaliated and the two were jawing at each other on the walk from pit road through the garage after the race.

At one point, Suarez pushed his fin ger into LaJoie’s chest.

“I gotta tell you something: I’m the only driver in the field who could have finished the race the way my car was,” Suarez said. “Like, my arms are completely destroyed.

My shoulder is very bad, my hands are destroyed. It was tough, it was very, very tough.

“There were a couple times, more than a couple times, that I was just screaming. I just needed to get it out. It was for sure the most diffi cult race I have had in my life, but I wasn’t going to give up.”

A race void of any cautions sud denly flipped with five laps to go when a sponsorship sign flew off the speedway wall and landed on the track.

At last, NASCAR called a cau tion, Chase Elliott’s march to what seemed a certain career-high sixth win of the season was halted, and the entire playoff picture changed.

Bell pitted for the new tires and began charging his way through the field when the race restarted

with three laps to go.

Then came the chaos.

AJ Allmendinger, winner of the Xfinity Series race on Satur day, passed Elliott for the lead. Then Kevin Harvick pushed All mendinger off the track to take the lead and Bell kept making up ground. Elliott was pushed off track by Tyler Reddick and cars were spinning all through the field.

Another caution for a spin and a broken patch of curbing brought out yet another yellow and sent the race to overtime — giving Bell a legitimate shot at passing Harvick for the win. He completed the pass at the start of the two-lap overtime sprint, leaving all the drama in his rearview mirror.

Chase Briscoe and Daytona 500 winner Austin Cindric were jockey ing both desperately trying to pick

up finishing positions and snatch the eighth and final playoff spot. Cindric was spun in overtime, but Briscoe was relentless and got a boost from his Stewart-Haas Rac ing teammate Cole Custer, who used his Ford to hold up traffic to help Briscoe gain another spot and finish ninth.

“What a wild day. I told my guys before we took the initial green in the race, there’s a difference be tween thinking we could move on and knowing we could move on,” Briscoe said. “This team never gives up. I told them I was never going to give up. It took every bit of it there at the end.”

The assist from Custer got Briscoe into the next round but also put SHR in NASCAR’s crosshairs for potential race manipulation.

“NASCAR is reviewing data, vid

eo and radio transmissions from (Custer’s car) following its inci dent on the backstretch during the final lap,” NASCAR said in a post-race statement. “NASCAR will communicate the results of the review early this week. Any potential penalties would not af fect the Round of 8 field.”

Advancing to the Round of 8 were Bell, Briscoe, Elliott, Wil liam Byron, Denny Hamlin, Joey Logano, Ross Chastain and Ryan Blaney.

Eliminated were Suarez, Cin dric, Larson and Alex Bowman, who missed his second consecu tive race Sunday with a concus sion.

The opening race of the Round of 8 is Sunday at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Denny Hamlin is the defending race winner.

gas prices.

For 99 straight days, the White House highlighted declining pric es after their peak in June. But they started ticking up last month, and they have shot up more since OPEC and its partners announced severe production cuts Wednesday.

The U.S. national average is now $3.91 a gallon, according to AAA. That’s below the June high of $5.02, but higher than a month ago ($3.74) and a year ago ($3.27).

At the end of March, Biden or dered the release 1 million barrels of oil a day for six months from the U.S. strategic reserve to help lower pric es. The White House now says the administration is weighing further releases to offset the OPEC cuts. It has also tried to shame oil compa nies into increasing production and cutting their profit margins.

Meanwhile, the Fed expects that bringing inflation closer to the cen tral bank’s target of no more than 2% a year — it was 8.3% higher in September than a year earlier — will require a contraction in the la bor market that could put at least a million people out of work.

Fed officials indicated last month that the unemployment rate would climb next year to 4.4% — up nearly a full percentage point — if inflation were to fall below 3%. The hiring Biden that cheered on Friday might soon give way to losses.

OPEC’s production cut could mean that it will be even harder to lower inflation, with more expen sive gas requiring the Fed to take more drastic measures to bring down prices, costing even more jobs.

Investment bank Goldman Sachs on Thursday suggested that oil prices will reach $110 a barrel to ward the end of this year, compared with its prior forecast of $100 a bar rel. That would translate into high er prices at the pump and has given Republicans more evidence to say he’s put the economy at risk.

“The president is in denial that America is experiencing a dan gerous wage-price spiral that will drive high inflation for years, that we are in stagflation, and that we are either in, or on the verge of, a harsh recession — all that he cre ated by bungling the recovery,” said Texas Rep. Kevin Brady, the top Republican on the tax-writ ing House Ways and Means Com mittee.

Hospital chain attack part of ongoing cybersecurity concerns

The Associated Press

CHICAGO — Diverted am bulances. Cancer treatment de layed. Electronic health records offline. These are just some of ripple effects of an apparent cy berattack on a major nonprofit health system that disrupted op erations throughout the U.S.

While CommonSpirit Health confirmed it experienced an “IT security issue” earlier this week, the company has remained mum when pressed for more details about the scope of the attack. The health system giant has 140 hos pitals in 21 states. As of Thurs day, it’s still unknown how many of its 1,000 care sites that serve 20 million Americans were af fected.

Despite the lingering ques tions, the incident underscores the growing concerns surround ing ransomware attacks on health care systems with patient care at stake.

In Tacoma, Washington, Mark Kellogg told KING-TV that his wife, Kathy, had been scheduled to get a cancerous tumor on her tongue removed on Monday, but the procedure was put off sever al days because of the cyberat tack. Virginia Mason Franciscan Health’s parent company is Com

monSpirit Health.

“Everything we do today is all on a computer, and without it you’re back to the stone age writ ing on a tablet,” Kellogg said.

In Iowa, the Des Moines Reg ister reported that the incident forced the diversion of five am bulances from the emergency de partment of the city’s MercyOne Medical Center to other medical facilities.

The incident forced both Mer cyOne and VMFH to take cer tain IT systems offline — includ ing patients’ electronic health records — as a precaution.

Brett Callow, a threat analyst with cybersecurity provider Em sisoft, said the incident could be “the most significant attack on the health care sector to date” if all CommonSpirit hospitals and other facilities were affected.

Emsisoft has tracked at least 15 health care systems in the U.S. affected by ransomware this year, which manage more than 60 hospitals. Callow said data was stolen in 12 of the 15 instanc es, adding that those are almost surely undercounts as some ran somware attacks aren’t widely reported.

Callow said one of the largest known attacks within health care came in September 2020 when a ransomware attack struck all 250 health care facilities owned by Universal Health Services.

CommonSpirit’s incident could exceed that, depending on how many of its facilities were hit. That could mean the compa ny faces large financial costs to get through the incident and re cover.

Callow cited the loss of more than $100 million reported by Scripps Health tied to a 2021 ransomware attack that affected its five hospitals in California as an example.

Asked for more information

on the incident and its effects on Thursday, a spokesperson for CommonSpirit said the health system could not provide more details.

The most worrying effect of any substantial attack on health care is on patients, Callow said.

“I’ve seen reports that at least one of the impacted hospitals had to divert ambulances to oth er facilities and that delay in get ting people the care they need could obviously represent a risk to the lives of patients,” he said. “Beyond that, these incidents can have a long-term impact on pa tient outcomes — delaying treat ments, for example.”

In 2020, the FBI and oth er federal agencies warned that they had credible information that cybercriminals could un leash a wave of data-scrambling extortion attempts against U.S. hospitals and health care provid ers.

That’s because ransomware criminals are increasingly steal ing data from their targets before encrypting networks, using it for extortion. They often sow the malware weeks before activat ing it, waiting for moments when they believe they can extract the highest payments.

Health care is classified by the U.S. government as one of 16 critical infrastructure sectors Health care providers are seen as ripe targets for hackers.

If patient data is accessed, health care providers are re quired by law to notify the De partment of Health and Human Services.

IMF dims outlook for 2023 global economy amid Ukraine war

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The International Monetary Fund is downgrading its outlook for the world economy for 2023, citing a long list of threats that include Russia’s war against Ukraine, chronic inflation pressures, pun ishing interest rates and the lin gering consequences of the glob al pandemic.

The 190-country lending agen cy forecast Tuesday that the glob al economy would eke out growth of just 2.7% next year, down from the 2.9% it had estimated in July. The IMF left unchanged its fore cast for international growth this year — a modest 3.2%, a sharp deceleration from last year’s 6% expansion.

The bleaker forecast was no surprise. IMF Managing Direc tor Kristalina Georgieva, not ing the grim backdrop to this week’s fall meetings of the IMF and the World Bank in Washing ton, warned that the “risks of re cession are rising’’ around the world and that the global econo my is facing a “period of histor ic fragility.’’

In its latest estimates, the IMF slashed its outlook for growth in the United States to 1.6% this year, down from a July forecast of 2.3%. It expects meager 1% U.S. growth next year.

The fund foresees China’s economy growing just 3.2% this year, down drastically from 8.1% last year. Beijing has instituted draconian zero-COVID policy and has cracked down on exces sive real estate lending, disrupt ing business activity. China’s growth is forecast to accelerate to 4.4% next year, still tepid by Chinese standards.

In the IMF’s view, the collec tive economy of the 19 Europe an countries that share the euro currency, reeling from crushing ly high energy prices caused by

Russia’s attack on Ukraine and Western sanctions against Mos cow, will grow just 0.5% in 2023.

The world economy has en dured a wild ride since COVID-19 hit in early 2020.

First, the pan demic and the lockdowns it gen erated brought the world econ omy to a standstill in the spring of 2020. Then, vast infusions of government spending and ul tra-low borrowing rates engi neered by the Federal Reserve and other central banks fu eled an unexpectedly strong and speedy recovery from the pan demic recession.

But the stimulus came at a high cost. Factories, ports and freight yards were overwhelmed

by powerful consumer demand for manufactured goods, espe cially in the United States, re sulting in delays, shortages and higher prices. (The IMF expects worldwide consumer prices to rise 8.8% this year, up from 4.7% in 2021.)

In response, the Fed and oth er central banks have reversed course and begun raising rates dramatically, risking a sharp slowdown and potentially a re cession. The Fed has raised its benchmark short-term rate five times this year. Higher rates in the United States have lured in vestment away from other coun tries and strengthened the value of the dollar against other cur

rencies. Outside the United States, the higher dollar makes imports that are sold in the American curren cy, including oil, more expensive and therefore heightens glob al inflationary pressures. It also forces foreign countries to raise their own rates — and burden their economies with higher bor rowing costs — to defend their currencies.

Maurice Obstfeld, a former IMF chief economist who now teaches at the University of Cali fornia, Berkeley, has warned that an overly aggressive Fed could “drive the world economy into an unnecessarily harsh contrac tion.’’

“I’ve seen reports that at least one of the impacted hospitals had to divert ambulances to other facilities

that, these incidents can have a long-term impact on patient outcomes — delaying treatments, for example.”

Brett Callow, cybersecurity expert

2023 Jeep Grand Wagoneer L

There’s a new full-size SUV king

Move aside Escalade and Navigator

BOZEMAN, Mont. — For years, the full-size luxury SUV market has been dominated by the Lincoln Navigator and the Cadillac Escalade.

There were ebbs and flows as to which of those was better, but the black car of choice in Man hattan (the actual test of the lux ury SUV) has been one of those two for years.

But Jeep, which has been ab sent from this particular conflict, has joined with a vengeance with the new Wagoneer, a new family of full-size SUVs to compete with everything from the Chevy Tahoe and GMC Yukon to the afore mentioned Navi and Caddy.

Confusingly, there are four dif ferent flavors of full-size Jeep SUV: Wagoneer, Grand Wag oneer, Wagoneer L, and Grand Wagoneer L.

You would think Wagoneer versus Grand Wagoneer would denote the Tahoe-sized vs. Sub urban-sized SUV, but it does not. Instead, the Wagoneer is the Tahoe/Expedition mainstream spec, while the Grand Wagoneer is the Navi/Escalade luxury spec. Adding the L stretches the truck an additional 12 inches, dedicat ed mainly to storage behind the third row.

And large is the operative word. These SUVs are massive,

even when parked next to the competition. Climb in and you have a dominant seating posi tion, spacious storage, and tech and luxury features for days.

A fully-equipped Grand Wag oneer L has four enormous screens across the front cabin, a dash cluster for the driver, two touchscreens in the center stack for infotainment, climate, and vehicle controls, and a fourth touchscreen in passenger dash where they can watch streaming content via Amazon Fire TV as you drive along.

That, combined with the two screens on the back seats, which can also stream Netflix or You

Tube or whatever, makes the Grand Wagoneer the ultimate road trip SUV. Gorgeous wood trim, quilted leather, and beauti ful stitching are everywhere you look, and it easily competes with Navigator and Escalade. The Tu pelo Honey leather interior op tion is a sublime tan that was borrowed from corporate cousin Ferrari.

A pair of new, next-generation 3.0-liter turbocharged V6 “Hur ricane” engines power the big SUVs, a standard version making 420 horsepower in the Wagoneer and a high-output option making 510 horsepower that comes in the Grand Wagoneer. Having driv

en both, I can tell you that the high-output motor is entirely un necessary. The standard engine, which makes 468 lb-ft of torque, turns the massive Wagoneer into a rocket ship, especially on the 50-to-70 (or 80 or 90) mph pass ing sprint.

The Grand Wagoneer’s high-output engine makes 500 lb-ft of torque thanks to several tweaked components and a pre mium fuel-only requirement.

The engines are a bit more effi cient, speaking of fuel, but basi cally only on the highway.

The big SUV handles far bet ter than you’d expect, even on the hilly, twisty roads around Boze

man. There’s surprisingly little body roll, especially compared to an Expedition I was following down a backroad.

Perhaps my favorite feature is the McIntosh stereo system, the first implementation in an auto mobile. It sounds tremendous, but first, you must get your music into it appropriately. I use Apple Music, which has a higher-qual ity lossless audio option — how ever, if you’re using Bluetooth (or wireless CarPlay), the quality is substantially reduced. To get the higher quality, you need to plug in your iPhone to USB.

It makes a difference. I test ed Taylor Swift’s “The 1” from the Folklore album, and the quali ty between Bluetooth and USB was immediately noticeable. The warmth of Taylor’s voice and the individual notes of the piano were easily distinguished with the lossless USB iPhone plugged in.

I love listening to music on long road trips, and the Wag oneer makes any expedition ef fortlessly relaxing between the tunes and the massaging seats. You can also sling audio from any of the three screens playing Am azon Fire TV streaming apps to the stereo in the car, so your pas senger can watch a Taylor Tom linson comedy special on Net flix, and both of you can listen through the McIntosh stereo.

Between the impressive audio, the buttery smooth turbocharged “Hurricane” engines, the cav ernous and endless storage, the dominating and impressive exte rior design (it really is massive), and the seating for 7 (or 8!), the Grand Wagoneer L is well up to the task of challenging Lincoln and Cadillac for full-size luxury SUV dominance.

WHAT’S

Stanly County Extension and Community Association announces Watson scholarship winners

The Stanly County Extension and Community Association has finally announced the winners of its 2022 Betty Watson scholarships. The scholarship was established in 1979 in memory of the work of Betty Watson, who was a home economist and extension agent.

Meredith Simpson of New London and Gabriel Burleson of Albemarle will both receive $1,000 to help further their education. Simpson is a student at NC State University, where she studies Animal Science and Poultry Science. She recently did an internship at the NC Extension Office at the AgCenter in Albemarle. Burleson is a 2022 graduate of North Stanly High School and is currently attending Sandhills Community College. He plans on majoring in landscaping and gardening and hopes to maintain an active role in the community with a landscaping business in the future.

Stanly Arts Guild to offer Halloween Painting class this weekend

The Stanly Arts Guild and Gift Store in Albemarle will be offering a Halloween painting class this upcoming Saturday, October 15. The event, which will take place from 10 am until 2 pm, will be taught by Sharon Matteson, who is a member of the arts guild and holds a Master Elite Director Degree from Dewberry U. All of the supplies needed are included with the class fee, but registration is limited due to space. If you provide your own pumpkins and embellishments, a discount will be applied. To register or to find out more details, please contact Sharon Matteson at smatteson@ carolina.rr.com or call the Stanly Arts Guild and Gift Store at (704) 983-4287.

Board of Education approves School Improvement Plans

2023-24 school year to have Early Start Calendar

ALBEMARLE — The Stan ly County Board of Education met Tuesday, October 4, to approve the 2022-23 School Improvement Plans and an Early Start Calendar for the 2023-24 school year.

The board approved the 20222023 School Improvement Plans for the district.

“The Curriculum and Instruc tion team held professional devel opment sessions with our principals in May and again in August to assist our principals in identifying areas of improvement and aligning those areas with required identifiers set forth by the State of North Caroli na,” said Assistant Superintendent Dr. Amy Blake-Lewis. “While stu dent growth and achievement con tinues to be an ongoing goal for all of our schools, many of our schools are including time to review their vision and mission statements. This coincides with the district’s strate gic plan, which is being updated for the 2023-2028 cycle.”

Some of the key focuses on the SIPs were the implementation of Bridges Math Tier 2 Intervention in elementary schools, which is de signed to help strengthen math

skills; corrective and Xtreme read ing in middle and high schools to boost literacy levels; the multitiered system of support process, so schools are focusing on align ing available resources to support the best practice and interventions for students; and, finally, a focus on professional learning communi ties as an integral part of school im provement.

The board also approved a 20232024 Early Start School Calendar. With the new calendar, the student start date would be August 9, 2023. The staff start date would be Au gust 2, 2023, and the first semester would end December 15, 2023. The last day of school would be May 22, 2024.

“When I joined the school board, and even before I joined, this con cept of an early start calendar was a big deal,” said board member An thony Graves. “It has a direct im pact on students’ abilities to pass the test, but more importantly, it gives teachers the ability to teach without having to do extra work af ter the Christmas break to make sure that these kids are going to be able to score well. That’s how the schools are rated, and it’s been an unfair barrier that’s been put on all the kids inside of Stanly Coun ty and across the state, so I’m glad we’re finally able to do something about it.”

The board was also given a few

updates from their various com mittees, with the first update being from the Facilities committee.

“It seems like that with the grant funds that the State has given, that new construction has been fund ed ahead of improving a facility or things such as that,” said board member Dr. Rufus Lefler. “We as a committee have been discuss ing this for about nine months now about the additions we were going to make at East Albemarle, Endy and West Stanly, and West Stanly Middle. But before we can have any new facilities to think about, we know the State grant will not build a whole new school, so we will have to get some input from the Coun ty Commissioners about how they might help us fund that, say with a bond or USDA grant or such as that.”

Vice Chair Carla Poplin also gave an update from the Market ing, Community Engagement, and Safety committee, saying that they

Miss Stanly County 2023 crowned

Shelby Sides was officially crowned Miss Stanly County 2023 this past Saturday. Sides, who was Miss Stanly County Outstanding Teen in 2020 and 2021, was crowned by Miss North Carolina Karolyn Martin and Miss Stanly 2022 Kate White. She is also a graduate of Stanly County Community College, where she recently earned an associate’s degree in business administration.

NORWOOD — One week after the Norwood Police Department announced that a rodeo bull had escaped from a local stockyard, the current location of the runaway an imal is still unknown.

The department confirmed to SCJ on Oct. 10 that it hasn’t re ceived any reported sightings or updates on the bull despite a con tinued search effort.

The athletic mascot name for Norwood’s South Stanly High School — the Rebel Bulls — has never appeared more fitting.

According to authorities, the 700-pound bull broke through the walls of its enclosure at the Stanly

County Livestock Market, located at 13215 Indian Mound Road, on the morning of Oct. 5 and took off from its pen in an unknown direc tion.

“We have received information that a rodeo bull has escaped from the stockyard on Indian Mound Road,” the Norwood Police Depart ment alerted the public in a social media post. “This bull is chocolate in color and is extremely aggres sive. If you see this bull, please call 911 immediately, and under no cir cumstances should you approach the animal, as he will chase you.”

Those with knowledge of the bull’s location can also call the Norwood Police Department di rectly at 704-474-3716.

In an attempt to corral the

bull, cowboys from Mooresville, along with professionals with dogs trained to track cattle, were called in to mount a search for the stock yard escapee, but it has not been spotted as of yet.

The narrative around the bull’s escape and unknown whereabouts quickly became a social media sen sation as many national publica tions picked up the story, leading

have submitted a few SRO grants and are waiting on those to come in.

The board voted to approve 13 policies but specifically pulled out two – Policies 3200 and 3210, which were recommended by the State – as the board didn’t think that they aligned with Stanly Coun ty Schools’ current goals.

“The policies that we asked to have pulled, several board mem bers, if not all, had been contacted over the last month about two pol icies, 3200 and 3210,” said Graves.

“These had to do with parental review of potentially objectionable materials and other policies relat ing to those. There were some sig nificant concerns that we wanted to take a further look into with those policies and potentially rewrite them. That’s why we pulled those two policies.”

The board then approved mem bers Glenda Gibson, Vicky Wat son, Dustin Lisk, and Poplin as the Stanly County voting delegates for the North Carolina School Board Association, with Lefler serving as an alternate.

Finally, the board was given an update on some 2022-2023 Capital Budget Request Increases.

The improvements request ed were for the construction of an awning at the entrance and the re placement of the DH unit at East Albemarle Elementary, as well as the replacement of the roof at Aquadale Elementary.

These requests totaled to $320,000 in increased spending and were approved by the board as they were deemed necessary ex penses.

The Stanly County Board of Ed ucation will next meet November 1.

to many jokes and memes address ing the situation. The Norwood Po lice Department even joined in by reposting a Facebook meme por traying a crowd in the street run ning away from a charging bull.

“On a side note… our hibachi steak is extra fresh this weekend,” Lantern Sushi, a Japanese restau rant in Norwood, wrote on the post.

“This is a trick, isn’t it? What they aren’t telling us is this is the newest contest for the Norwood Fall Festival. First person to grab the bull’s tail and counts to ten gets a free steak dinner,” one social me dia user added.

“Someone let Spain know Nor wood is the new location for the running of the bulls,” another user commented.

The Norwood-based Stanly County Livestock Market is cur rently gearing up for its Fall Cow Sale on October 22, where it is aiming to sell 200 bred cows, cow/ calf pairs, and bred heifers. More information can be found at www. norwoodstockyard.com.

“When I joined the school board... this concept of an early start calendar was a big deal.” Anthony Graves

“If you see this animal, please call 911 immediately…”

Norwood Police Department

‘Extremely aggressive’ rodeo bull still on the loose in Norwood

♦ HOUSE, QUENTIN TERRILL (B /M/32), RESISTING PUBLIC OFFICER, 10/10/2022, Stanly County Sheriff`S Office

HATHCOCK, WHITNEY NICHOLE (W /F/33), SECOND DEGREE TRESPASS, 10/08/2022, Stanly County Sheriff`S Office

♦ STEELE, JUSTICE TIERRIA (B /F/19), MAL CONDUCT BY PRISONER/THROW, 10/08/2022, Stanly County Sheriff`S Office

♦ CAMPBELL, BRANDON TYLER (W /M/27), RESISTING PUBLIC OFFICER, 10/06/2022, Stanly County Sheriff`S Office

♦ HAGLER, MICHAEL WAYNE (W /M/49), FAIL REGISTER SEX OFFENDER(F), 10/05/2022, Stanly County Sheriff`S Office

SHEPHERD, JEFFREY ARIAN (W /M/54), PWISD COCAINE, 10/05/2022, Stanly County Sheriff`S Office

♦ WATKINS, DORANTAY ALVIN (B /M/29), INTOXICATED AND DISRUPTIVE, 10/05/2022, Stanly County Sheriff`S Office

WHITE, HAKEEM RASHAD (B /M/33), COMMON LAW ROBBERY, 10/05/2022, Stanly County Sheriff`S Office

WHITLEY, JESSE DAN (W /M/35), POSSESSION OF STOLEN FIREARM, 10/05/2022, Stanly County Sheriff`S Office

HALSTEAD, ASHLEY NICOLE (W /F/38), FELONY POSSESSION OF COCAINE, 10/04/2022, Stanly County Sheriff`S

JUAN PINON, an electrical en gineer in McAllen, Texas, strug gled with credit card debt for years. It wasn’t until he confided in his sister that he began to turn things around.

“It just so happened that one day I opened up to my sister, and she confessed to me that she had debt issues and was able to get out through professional help,” Pinon says.

Getting a vetted referral to a nonprofit credit counseling agency and encouragement from someone he trusted convinced him to take action. Pinon enrolled in the agen cy’s debt management program and paid off about $50,000 in less than three years.

It’s difficult to watch people we care about struggle with debt. Debt can disrupt their financial and personal lives, as well as the lives of those around them. As a close friend or family member, your influence can be powerful enough to spark change. How can you help others avoid falling fur ther into debt, especially as the ex pensive holiday season inches clos er? Here’s what you can do to help a loved one deal with debt.

Proceed with caution

Unlike Pinon, people with debt won’t always raise the issue them

selves. Bringing up someone else’s personal financial matters can feel like overstepping a boundary. If you think it’s important to inter vene, be strategic about setting the right tone.

The first step should be asking if they’re open to the conversation, says Kathryn Ellywicz, a market ing and communications special ist and former counselor at Green Path, a nonprofit credit counseling agency. Giving them a choice may prevent them from feeling am bushed.

If they’re willing to discuss their debt situation, speak kindly and withhold judgment. “A lot of times, our family members feel shame around financial debt. So it’s a con versation that needs to be entered into very carefully,” says Bran dy Baxter, an accredited finan cial counselor in Dallas. “It needs to have a lot of grace, and it needs to be in an environment where the person feels relaxed.”

If you’ve been in a similar po sition, consider telling your loved one. Drawing on your own expe rience with debt and acknowledg ing the emotions involved can help you come at it from an empathet ic place.

Respect their refusal for help

Your friend or family member might shut the conversation down. That’s OK.

“Debt can be addictive, just like

any other addiction. The person that’s in the cycle may not see any thing wrong, and so they may not be ready for help,” Baxter says.

Ultimately, you have to accept that it’s their life and their decision. Let your friend or relative know you respect their choice and you’ll be ready to help if they change their mind.

Baxter says you can also use this as an opportunity to reset bound aries. If you’ve been providing fi nancial support for them and no longer feel comfortable doing so, explain the circumstances and ask them to respect your decision in re turn.

Share knowledge and resources

If your loved one is ready to dig out of debt, help them take the next step. You can talk to them about the emotions that might be influ encing their spending behavior, ex

plore different debt payoff methods or look over their expenses.

“Maybe you come together and say, ‘OK, here’s how I do my bud get. Let’s work on how you do your budget. Or here’s how I’ve set up my spending plan. Let’s work on setting your spending plan,’” Bax ter says.

But not everyone feels comfort able letting their friends and fami ly dig into the nitty-gritty details of their financial lives. Besides, not all of us have the necessary expertise to take a do-it-yourself approach.

“Of course, there’s always the professionals available to help,” El lywicz says. “Sometimes, even just giving a referral is a lot of help to a family member.”

Come prepared with a list of trustworthy resources, such as on line tools, nonprofit organizations and financial counselors. (Non profits, such as credit counseling agencies, typically offer lower-cost or free services and meet certifi cation requirements for quality and ethical standards.) Then, pass along your recommendations.

Set holiday expectations

As the holiday season approach es, your loved one may feel in creased pressure to splurge. Do your part to not add to their exist ing debt and discuss keeping plans simple.

Baxter suggests looking for al ternatives to gift-giving that will “lessen the financial burden,” such as volunteering to host a special dinner or exchanging gift cards with a set dollar amount.

Keep the momentum going and check in with them throughout the year. Debt payoff is a journey, and the journey may be a little easier with you by their side.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Army plans to increase its invest ment in marketing and is expected to expand a new program for strug gling recruits, but leaders on Mon day offered few new details on how they’ll fill the ranks after falling far short of recruiting goals this year.

Army Secretary Christine Wor muth told reporters that a new re cruiting task force is coming up with ideas. But any new plans would have to gel quickly in order to reverse the dramatically low en listment numbers over the past year.

For the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, the Army enlisted just 75% of its goal — falling 15,000 soldiers short of the 60,000 target.

It was the only service to miss its recruiting goal, but all of the oth ers had to dig deep into their pools of delayed entry applicants, which will put them behind as they begin the next recruiting year on Satur day.

Asked if there is any sense the Army will be able to meet its goal this year, Wormuth said it is too early to speculate.

Wormuth and Gen. James Mc Conville, chief of staff of the Army, said that a new program that helps low-performing recruits meet ac ademic and fitness standards is showing promise. But they said there is still no decision on expand ing it to three other locations in the country. Wormuth said it will de pend on the results over the next month or two.

McConville added: “We want to make sure that there is the amount of recruits that can do that. ... The initial results that we’re seeing is this may fundamentally change the way that we do recruiting.”

During a trip to see the program at Fort Jackson, S.C., in August, McConville had said that the pro gram could get set up at three other Army training bases. Commanders had suggested they could put up to 10,000 potential recruits through the classes.

The program provides up to 90 days of academic or fitness instruc tion to help recruits improve to the point where they can meet military standards.

Wormuth and McConville spoke to reporters on the first day of the annual meeting of the Association

of the United States Army.

On other issues, Wormuth said that so far she is comfortable with the amount of ammunition and weapons systems that the U.S. is taking from Pentagon stocks and sending to Ukraine. There have been persistent questions about how much the U.S. can send with out affecting the combat readiness of American forces or their ability to train.

The U.S. has been sending hun dreds of thousands of rounds of ammunition to Ukraine to help in its fight against Russia and thou sands of weapons, ranging from Javelins and Howitzers to lon ger range systems such as the High-Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS.)

For example, a recent package of aid contained 75,000 rounds for the Howitzer.

“We obviously do have a finite supply of those systems and that is exactly why we have put so much emphasis working with our indus try partners on trying to increase the production lines for these kinds of systems,” said Wormuth.

“Debt can be addictive, just like any other addiction. The person that’s in the cycle may not see anything wrong, and so they may not be ready for help.”

Brandy Baxter

OPINION

A government that’s accountable

Amendment, have repeatedly come under fire under the Democrats.

Your rights, protected by the First and Second Amendment, have repeatedly come under fire under the Democrats.

WHEN THE FOUNDING FATHERS ratified our Constitution in 1788, they set into motion a system of government the world had rarely seen – a country where true authority rests with the people. This is illustrated in the very first line of our constitution – “We the People.” Our system was and continues to be unique compared to most of the world and demands certain obligations for those in posi tions of power. First, those in government have the primary duty to secure your rights and liberties. In tandem with this, the federal gov ernment has the responsibility to be transparent and accountable to you.

Unfortunately, under one-party rule in Washington, our govern ment has failed to fulfill this most basic obligation.

Due to policy missteps by both Congressional Democrats and President Joe Biden, inflation continues to be sky-high, our border is in crisis, and our national security is in peril.

On top of this, Congressional Democrats have failed to provide proper oversight for the actions of the federal government. One of Congress’ key roles is to keep an eye on federal agencies in order to ensure they are operating in your best interest. However, Washing ton Democrats have largely neglected this role, as Speaker Nancy Pe losi and her associates have yet to hold any hearings on consequential issues such as the origins of COVID-19, the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the Biden administration’s labeling parents as “do mestic terrorists.” In some cases, Congressional Democrats have flat out resisted efforts to provide congressional oversight.

For example, last month, I called on Congress to get answers from the Biden administration on issues like the origins of COVID-19 and an explanation of how billions of your tax dollars have been spent to expand broadband access. Yet Democrats blocked these inquires from moving forward.

In addition to dropping the ball on government oversight, those at the head of government have also failed to defend your God-given, constitutional rights. Your rights, protected by the First and Second

Government has become too big, too unaccountable, and too outof-touch with the will and priorities of the American people. Howev er, Republicans have a plan to fix this.

Our “Commitment to America” plan will work to build a govern ment that fulfills its responsibility to be accountable to you and your family. We will work to provide oversight over the Biden administra tion and to serve as a check against federal abuses. This commitment also means standing up against progressive overreach to safeguard your God-given rights.

Under one-party rule in Washington, our government has strayed away from its duty to put you and your family first. I will work to change that and help reestablish a Congress that serves the people rather than itself.

In our community that’s home to Fort Bragg and the fastest grow ing veteran population in the country, we understand what that kind of public service looks like. That’s why nominating high school stu dents to U.S. service academies each year is among my highest hon ors. This year, the deadline to apply for a U.S. service academy con gressional nomination is Wednesday, October 12th, by 5 p.m. For more information, visit Hudson.house.gov or contact my office in Concord at 704-786-1612.

The students who apply each year and are willing to serve in uni form remind me that the future of our nation is bright. It’s our job to keep it that way by building a government that’s accountable to you and fulfilling our commitment to America.

Richard Hudson is serving his fifth term representing North Carolina’s 8th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives. He currently serves on the Energy and Commerce Committee and in House leadership as the Republican Conference Secretary.

The new global virus is runaway government spending and debt

WHEN NEW BRITISH PRIME MINISTER Liz Truss suggested lowering the United Kingdom’s highest tax rate from 45% to 40%, along with a 1% reduction in the income tax rate for all taxpayers, the bond markets and the central bankers around the world went stark raving mad.

The academic pinheads at the International Monetary Fund trashed the tax cut as irresponsible. The bond vigilantes started selling Britain’s bonds. And the Bank of England, which had also savaged the tax cut idea, stepped in to buy bonds to stop the bleeding.

panic — or else the world has gone stark raving mad. The real reason that the U.K. is in this economic rut is that former Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the Bank of England kept spending money and printing money at such a reckless pace.

Let’s just say Modern Monetary Theory can be thrown in the trash bin.

The tragedy here is that Truss had the right idea. In an economic calamity as Britain has suffered for the past three years, cutting tax rates to increase investment and production in England is a way to reduce inflation and stave off a recession. It was the same “supply-side” strategy that President Ronald Reagan and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher used in the early 1980s to end the stagflation and economic malaise from the 1970s. The “supply-side economics” worked and helped launch a multidecade economic revival in both countries.

The Left protested that “tax cuts for the rich” would cause even worse debt problems. But this was a fable. The explosion of government debt in the United States, Britain, and almost every other developed country across the planet was not caused by tax cuts. There were two reasons debt exploded.

First, central governments catastrophically shut down their economies and businesses during COVID — even though the health benefits were de minimis. With businesses shut down and workers off the job, tax payments fell off a cliff, thus raising debt levels to unheard-of levels.

Next, the governments of the world compensated for the shutdown of their private sectors by massively increasing government spending on giveaway programs. In the U.S., government spending since COVID has risen by $6 trillion to $7 trillion — above the normal already obese $5 trillion-a-year budget. Across the planet, government “stimulus” spending in 2020 and 2021 is estimated at — are you sitting down? — $21 trillion. Trillions more have been borrowed and spent and paid for with money printing this year.

Government spending in many countries, including the U.S., exceeded 50% of the entire national gross domestic product. In other words, we fought a war against COVID, and socialism won.

Now compare the magnitude of this $21 trillion spending spree with the Truss proposal to cut taxes, which politicos are now saying caused the bond market to go haywire.

The total Truss plan had a price tag of about $40 billion. Only about $2 billion of that was the expected revenue loss from the reduction in the top tax rate. In other words, the tax cut was 0.01% of the amount that was spent and borrowed by all of the countries in the world.

It is inconceivable that a tax cut this tiny could cause a financial

The U.S. is in the same dangerous place that the Brits are in as the world economy teeters on the verge of a sharp and painful economic collapse. President Joe Biden has spent and borrowed $4.1 trillion since he came into office roughly 20 months ago. No president in modern times, and maybe ever, has been as fiscally reckless as Biden. (Alas, Republicans voted for much of this spending, too, and don’t forget that in the last days of the Trump administration, Congress added another trillion dollars of spending.) Our government in the U.S. at all levels is still spending almost 40% of our GDP. This is close to the level of socialist European nations like France.

Incidentally, in the U.S., there is no revenue problem whatsoever. Taxes as a share of our economy are, according to the Congressional Budget Office, at a near-record high. In the current course, tax receipts are expected to continue to rise.

The virus that threatens the world today in almost every nation is runaway government spending and debt. It is the match that has lit the forest fire of runaway inflation. It doesn’t matter how much Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell raises interest rates (which he must do to tame inflation). The stagflation of high inflation and slow growth won’t end until politicians start taking a chainsaw to their out-of-control budgets.

Government spending has not stimulated anything except more government and less private enterprise. The public sector has to go on a SlimFast diet — and for a long, long time to drain the excess spending out of the global economy.

What is all sadly ironic is that many of the nations of the world are now practicing Modern Monetary Theory. This is the radical idea that governments like the U.S. can spend and borrow increasing amounts of money at almost no cost because of low interest rates. Whoops. Interest rates in the U.S. have risen on the 10-year bond from less than 1% to more than 3% in just the last 24 months. The 30-year mortgage rate has risen from 2.85% at the end of 2020 to nearly 7% today. Let’s just say Modern Monetary Theory can be thrown in the trash bin.

Political leaders across the globe seem to be suffering from a severe case of economic amnesia. Reagan said it best, and it is more appropriate today than ever before: “Government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem.” Truer today than ever.

Stephen Moore is a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation and an economist with FreedomWorks.

His latest book is “Govzilla: How the Relentless Growth of Government is Devouring our Economy.”

SIDELINE REPORT

SOCCER

NWSL players call for owner to sell Chicago franchise

Chicago Players for the National Women’s Soccer League’s Chicago Red Stars players are calling for owner Arnim Whisler to sell the team a week after former acting U.S. Attorney General Sally Q. Yates released a report into allegations of abuse in the league. Alaska Airline says it’s diverting Thorns and Timbers sponsorship dollars this quarter to an NWSL Players Association emergency fund to protect players. The NWSL has also dismissed the coach of the Orlando Pride and an assistant following an investigation into retaliatory behavior.

COLLEGE BASKETBALL

Gamecocks coach Staley earns leadership award

New York South Carolina women’s basketball coach Dawn Staley was set to receive the Billie Jean King Leadership Award at the Women’s Sports Foundation’s annual dinner on Wednesday in New York. Staley, 52, recently guided the U.S. women’s basketball team to its seventh straight gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics. A 5-foot-6 floor general at Virginia and six-time WNBA All-Star, Staley won three Olympic golds during her playing career. Among the highest-paid coaches in women’s basketball, the Hall of Famer enters her 15th season leading the Gamecocks.

MLB Phillies lift interim tag from manager Thomson Philadelphia After guiding the Philadelphia Phillies to their first playoff series victory since 2010, manager Rob Thomson had the interim removed from his title. The Phillies have signed Thomson to a two-year contract to remain as their manager through 2024, rewarding him for a turnaround that earned Philadelphia a wildcard berth. The 59-year-old Thomson took over on June 3 when Joe Girardi was fired with the Phillies mired at 2229. Philadelphia went 6546 the rest of the way. The Phillies then knocked off St. Louis in the wild-card round to advance to the NL Division Series against the Braves.

COLLEGE FOOTBALL

Captain for No. 6 Tennessee charged with aggravated assault Knoxville, Tenn. Tennessee starting safety and captain Jaylen McCollough has been arrested for aggravated felony assault, putting his status for Saturday’s game against No. 3 Alabama in question for the sixth-ranked Volunteers. Coach Josh Heupel said the team learned about McCollough’s arrest on Sunday night. According to an arrest warrant obtained by Knox News, a man reported that he went inside the wrong apartment after drinking with friends, and a man followed him out and punched him, causing him to fall down stairs and knocking him unconscious. Police said McCollough had blood seeping through a bandage on his hand, declined to answer questions and was arrested.

NASCAR teams call revenue model ‘broken,’ warn of layoffs

Even successful teams like Hendrick Motorsports are losing money

CHARLOTTE — The most pow erful teams in NASCAR warned Friday that the venerable stock car racing series has a “broken” eco nomic model that is unfair and has little to no chance of long-term sta bility, a stunning announcement that added to a growing list of woes.

With just four races left in the championship chase, teams went public with their yearlong fight with NASCAR over equitable reve nue distribution.

“The economic model is real ly broken for the teams,” said Cur tis Polk, who as Michael Jordan’s longtime business manager now holds an ownership stake in both the Charlotte Hornets and the twocar 23XI Racing team Jordan and Denny Hamlin field in the Cup Se ries.

“We’ve gotten to the point where teams realize the sustainability

in the sport is not very long term,” Polk said. “This is not a fair system.”

The Race Team Alliance (RTA) was formed in 2014 to give teams a unified voice in negotiations with the sanctioning body. A four-mem ber subcommittee outlined their concerns at a Charlotte hotel, with Polk joined by Jeff Gordon, the four-time NASCAR champion and vice chairman of Hendrick Mo torsports, RFK Racing President Steve Newmark, and Dave Alpern, the president of Joe Gibbs Racing.

Hendrick and Gibbs have won six of last seven Cup Series champi onships dating to 2015, but Gordon said the four-car Hendrick lineup, the most powerful in the industry, has not had a profitable season in years. It will again lose money this season despite NASCAR’s cost-cut ting Next Gen car.

“I have a lot of fears that sustain ability is going to be a real chal lenge,” Gordon said.

NASCAR issued a statement ac knowledging “the challenges cur rently facing race teams.

“A key focus moving forward is an extension to the charter agree ment, one that will further increase

revenue and help lower team ex penses,” NASCAR said. “Collec tively, the goal is a strong, healthy sport, and we will accomplish that together.”

Led by Polk, whose role with the Hornets brings familiarity with the NBA’s franchise model, the RTA in June presented NASCAR with a seven-point plan on a new reve nue sharing model. The proposal “sat there for months and we told NASCAR we’d like a counteroffer,” Polk said.

He did not disclose the seven points other than noting that team sustainability and longevity were priorities. The committee said they are open to all ideas, including a spending cap like that in Formula One.

“We are amenable to whatever gets us to a conceptual new struc ture,” Newmark said.

NASCAR’s counteroffer offered “a minimal increase in revenue and emphasis on cost-cutting,” Polk said.

The team alliance was unani mous in that the only place left to cut costs is layoffs.

“We’ve already had substantial

cuts. We are doing more with less than we ever have in 30 years,” Alp ern said.

The battle over costs has sim mered for years. In 2016, NASCAR adopted a charter system for 36 cars that is as close to a franchise model as possible in a sport that was founded by and independent ly owned by the France family. The charters at least gave the teams something of value to hold — or sell — and protect their investment in the sport.

The team business model is still heavily dependant on sponsorship, which the teams must individually secure. Newmark said sponsorship covers between 60% to 80% of the budgets for all 16 chartered organi zations.

Because sponsorship is so vi tal, teams are desperate for finan cial relief elsewhere and have asked NASCAR for “distribution from the league to cover our baseline costs,” Newmark said.

NASCAR said Friday that teams receive about 40% of industry-wide generated revenue.

The financial split from the $8.2 billion media rights deal signed ahead of the 2015 season sends 65% to the tracks, 25% to the teams and 10% to NASCAR, according to the series. There are two major track operators, NASCAR and Speed way Motorsports; NASCAR owns 11 venues on the Cup Series sched ule, including the crown jewel Day tona International Speedway.

ACC coaches counting on beefed-up staffs to steer programs

UNC and NC State among the schools spending big bucks on added help

NATRONE MEANS first ar rived at UNC to play for Mack Brown as a promising running back, then went on to an NFL career that included a touch down-scoring appearance in the Super Bowl.

More than three decades later, he’s again working to help Brown’s Tar Heels, though now in the kind of supporting role expanding across the Atlantic Coast Confer ence and the sport.

Titles vary. Analyst. Quali ty-control coordinator. Even the vaguely defined “special assistant” and “senior adviser.” But the direc tive is the same: Adding more eyes, hands and experience to meet the rising demands of running a pow er-conference program.

“If that takes some things off of (coaches’) plate and they can fo cus more on that week’s opponent then obviously we feel like we’ve done our job well,” said Means, now an analyst for UNC’s offense.

Means hopes to grow his own coaching career that includes stints in Division II and the high school level, calling this “valuable experience I could not pass up.”

It’s valuable for programs, too, il lustrated by how they have ex

panded staff sizes in the past de cade.

These positions aren’t permit ted to directly coach players in games or practices like assistant coaches or graduate assistants. Instead, they work behind the scenes. Some review film or dig for statistical trends. Others scout fu ture opponents beyond the focus of that week’s game.

They range from former head coaches to up-and-comers forging their own paths.

A look at public records data offers glimpses of investments by ACC schools:

• In 2015, Clemson had four

staffers — two in “player develop ment” and two as analysts — cost ing more than $218,000 in sal aries. Now there are 13 staffers — seven in offensive or defensive player development — approach ing $1.5 million in salaries.

• UNC had two quality-con trol staffers as temporary hour ly employees in 2015. There are now seven additional positions — including former South Caro lina and Appalachian State head coach Sparky Woods as a senior adviser to Brown — costing more than $520,000 in salaries.

• NC State had three quality control coordinators and two play

er personnel staffers in recruiting for a combined cost of $228,500 in 2015. Those positions remain today, though there are three ad ditional recruiting staffers along with former East Carolina head coach Ruffin McNeill as a special assistant to head coach Dave Do eren, driving that budget to near ly $766,000.

For some, personal connections and timing create the right fit.

McNeill, with nearly four de cades in college coaching, took the NC State job in 2020 based on his long relationship with Doeren, who he met when Doeren was a Southern California graduate as sistant and McNeill was a Fresno State assistant. For Doeren, it gave him “somebody that’s been in my seat that I trust and will tell me the truth.”

There was also the pull for Mc Neill to returning to North Caro lina to tend to family needs such as caring for his ailing father in his hometown of Lumberton, about 100 miles from the Wolfpack’s Ra leigh campus.

How does the man affectionate ly known as “Coach Ruff” view his role?

“Be the extra eyes and ears, and be here for Dave in any way that he may need me,” McNeill said, pointing to anything from shar ing a practice observation to han dling a speaking engagement for the program.

As he put it: “You can’t buy that time.”

Watson back with Browns; can attend meetings, not practice

with our guys, which is great for him and for us to have him back with his teammates.”

The Associated Press

CLEVELAND — Deshaun Wat son was back among his team mates, doing things he may once have taken for granted.

Cleveland’s franchise quarter back is still almost two months away from playing for the Browns, but he took a major step Monday.

Watson returned to the team’s training facility for the first time since August, when he began serv ing his 11-game NFL suspension for violating the league’s personal con duct policy following sexual mis conduct allegations.

He’d been banned since Aug. 30 after agreeing to a settlement with the league over accusations of lewd actions during massage therapy sessions made by two dozen women in Texas when he played for Hous ton.

The three-time Pro Bowler can now attend team meetings, inter act with coaches and participate in Cleveland’s game planning. He’s also free to work out in the weight room, but he’s not eligible to prac tice until Nov. 14.

“We’ll work through what we’re allowed to do with him for the fore seeable future,” said Browns coach Kevin Stefanski, who spent a few minutes with Watson upon his re turn. “He’s in the meeting rooms

Following months of legal ma neuvering, Watson agreed to the suspension, a $5 million fine and to undergo counseling and treatment as part of his settlement with the league on Aug. 18.

If he fulfills the outlined provi sions, Watson will be eligible for full reinstatement on Nov. 28 and can play in his first game on Dec. 4 against the Texans, who drafted him in 2017 and then traded him in March to the Browns amid his le gal troubles.

Watson stayed in touch with teammates while he was away, but until Monday he wasn’t allowed to have any contact with Browns coaches or any other members of the organization.

Stefanski described Watson as being “in a good spot” when asked about the progress he made during his absence.

“I think he worked real hard, was working locally, making sure he was staying on top of it physically,” Stefanski said. “So now he’s just got to catch up a little bit in the meet ing room.”

During the first half of his sus pension, Watson worked out in Cleveland with personal quarter back coach Quincy Avery.

Watson didn’t play last season with the Texans, so by the time he’s eligible to return to the field, it will have been 700 days since his

last appearance in a regular season game.

The Browns were aware of Wat son’s legal issues when they traded three first-round draft picks to the Texans in March and signed him to a fully guaranteed $240 million contract over five years.

Watson settled all but one of 24 civil lawsuits filed against him. Two separate grand juries declined to pursue criminal charges against Watson, who has maintained he didn’t force himself on any of the women or harass them.

An independent arbiter appoint ed by the league and player’s union called Watson’s behavior “egre gious” and “predatory” while giv ing him a six-game suspension that was appealed by the NFL before the sides settled.

The 27-year-old Watson was in training camp with the Browns, working exclusively as their No. 1 quarterback while the team await ed his fate. He played briefly in Cleveland’s exhibition opener in Jacksonville on Aug. 12, completing 1 of 5 passes for 7 yards.

Before that game, he offered his first apology to any women he im pacted with his behavior.

During Watson’s suspension, Jacoby Brissett has started for the Browns (2-3), who lost 30-28 on Sunday to the Los Angeles Char gers. Brissett has played well, but threw a costly interception late in the fourth quarter for the second week in a row.

Albemarle shuts out South Stanly 62-0 in historic homecoming matchup

The Bulldogs football program is now 100 years old

EXACTLY 100 YEARS to the day of its first appearance in a high school football game, Albe marle celebrated its centennial with a 62-0 home rout of winless South Stanly on Friday.

Stuck in rebuilding mode for the past few seasons, the fivetime NCHSAA state champion football program put on a show for its 100-year birthday — as well as its homecoming night — against its fellow Yadkin Valley Conference opponent.

Running back Kaine McClen don put the Bulldogs (2-5, 1-1) on the board early with a 7-yard touchdown run in the first quar ter.

It was all downhill from there for the struggling Rebel Bulls (07, 0-2) as Albemarle scored 55 points in the first three quarters before adding a score in the final quarter.

Bulldogs quarterback Dre Da vis recorded 130 passing yards in the game, and his top target was wide receiver Ja’zyion Geiger, who had 77 yards and a touch down.

Albemarle spread the offense around in its running game with six different ball carriers total ing 223 yards on 23 carries (9.7 yards per rush). Sophomore Wil liam Browne tallied a team-high 73 yards, while junior Malik Wat kins racked up three rushing touchdowns from his eight car ries.

The Bulldogs will now travel to Mount Pleasant on Friday to face the surging Tigers (5-2, 2-0) as South Stanly looks to snap its three-game shutout streak with a trip to North Stanly (4-3, 1-1).

Robinson 42, North Stanly 6

The North Stanly Comets’ (4-3, 1-1) attempt to knock off a YVC heavyweight from its throne landed flat on Friday as the Rob inson Bulldogs (6-1, 2-0) cruised to a 42-6 home win.

R iding the momentum of three straight wins, the Comets couldn’t withstand a Bulldogs of fense that engineered 28 points in the second quarter alone. North’s only points in the game came on a 68-yard touchdown run from running back Cam Smith in the fourth quarter.

Smith finished 188 yards on 16 carries, providing the bulk of the Comets’ 258 total offensive yards.

The Comets will look to re bound with an upcoming home game against winless South Stanly.

Parkwood 39, West Stanly 28

West Stanly’s Jekyll and Hyde season continued with a 39-28 loss to Parkwood on Friday.

In a contest between two Rocky River Conference pro grams, the Wolf Pack (4-4, 1-1) edged its way to a 20-12 half time lead before adding on 19 more points in the second half of play.

Despite the loss, the Colts (34, 0-1) found offensive success in both the passing and running game.

West quarterback Jett Thom as completed 8 of 13 passes for 133 yards, two touchdowns and an interception. Wide receiv er J.T. Barbee had 53 receiv ing yards and two touchdowns while running backs Matthew Parker, Shane Mecimore and Rene Salazar combined for more than 200 rushing yards.

The season isn’t about to get any easier for the Colts as they are set to host the undefeated Forest Hills (7-0, 2-0) this week.

Referee

Press

INTAE HWANG wanted to play basketball. His parents wouldn’t allow it.

He reached the NBA anyway.

Hwang took the ultimate leap of faith nearly three years ago: Move his family halfway across the world, from their native South Ko rea to a new home in New Jersey, to follow his dream of becoming an NBA referee. He’s getting clos er to making that a reality, after working some preseason games

this month — including Monday’s Washington-Charlotte contest — and is expected to get some as signments as a non-staff official during the regular season.

“The NBA was just my dream,” Hwang said in an interview with The Associated Press. “I watched it on TV, right? That’s it. I never, ever tried to get into the NBA by myself.”

Instead, the NBA found him.

Hwang has been an official for nearly 20 years, and it wasn’t al ways easy; he got head-butted by a coach in 2014, and he said that left him evaluating his future. But he stayed in the game and was select ed by FIBA — the sport’s interna tional governing body — to be part of the referee corps for the 2016

Rio de Janeiro Olympics. Much in the same way that NBA teams scout internationally for player tal ent, the NBA also scouts all over the globe for refereeing talent.

And from those Rio Games came an invitation from the NBA to come to Las Vegas for Sum mer League in 2017. With that, Hwang’s journey really began. The league continued following his ca reer after he returned to South Ko rea, building a relationship, and he eventually had a decision to make.

“Intae showed an enormous amount of capacity for quick learning, quick application,” said Monty McCutchen, the NBA’s se nior vice president overseeing ref erees. “He had a dream to be a part of our program. He came over here

and was part of our referee devel opment program, which we used as a way in which he could learn language and culture. He entered our pipeline through merit, not with any promise. He moved over here without any promise.”

Hwang and his family moved to the U.S. in January 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic struck weeks later. Hwang, who exudes opti mism, looked at that as an op portunity — and during all those months without basketball stud ied the G League and NBA games, plus continued working on his command of English.

He’s been a G League official, now has some NBA preseason ex perience, and that trajectory has him on a path toward becoming a

full-fledged NBA ref.

“All he did was put in the work, day in and day out,” McCutchen said.

Referees have to make split-sec ond decisions. That’s why, once the invitation from the NBA came, Hwang didn’t need long to make up his mind.

“I just worried about my fami ly, my wife and my son and daugh ter,” Hwang said. “My wife sac rificed a lot because she couldn’t speak English at all. Now she can (say) ‘thank you, hi,’ those kinds of things.”

But his family loves it here. He’s thankful for the chance. And even though his dream of becoming a basketball player never material ized — both his parents were ath letes and they wanted more from their son — he’s found his way into the top league in the world any way.

“I love basketball,” he said.

one referee, path from Korea to the NBA wasn’t easy

Cooper favors decriminalizing small amounts of marijuana

RALEIGH — North Carolina’s two top Democratic state officials are urging the Republican-led legislature to decriminalize the possession of small amounts of marijuana in light of President Joe Biden’s pardon last week of thousands of Americans convict ed of “simple possession” under federal law.

Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper and Attorney General Josh Stein, the state’s top lawyer who is widely expected to run for gover nor in 2024, shared their support for the president’s decision at a Friday task force meeting on ra cial equity and criminal justice.

Established by Cooper in June 2020 after George Floyd’s mur der, the 24-member panel of law enforcement officers, attor neys, civil rights advocates and state officials had recommended in a 2020 report that state law makers replace the misdemean or charge for possessing up to 1.5 ounces of marijuana with a civ il offense on par with a traffic in fraction.

The General Assembly did not act on this recommendation.

“Conviction of simple posses sion can mar people’s records for life and maybe even prevent them from getting a job,” Cooper told the task force Friday. “The Gen eral Assembly didn’t pass your recommendations on this last session, but I believe they should. North Carolina should take steps to end this stigma.”

Acknowledging that drug charging practices dispropor

tionately impact people of color, Biden called on governors Thurs day to issue similar pardons for those convicted of state marijua na offenses, which reflect the vast majority of possession cases. Al though no one is currently in fed eral prison solely for “simple pos session” of the drug, according to the White House, Biden said the pardon could help thousands overcome obstacles to renting a home or finding work. His par don excludes those convicted of possessing marijuana with intent to distribute.

Cooper, who is term-limit ed and cannot seek reelection

in 2024, said he has asked law yers to examine state law and de termine whether North Caroli na can and should take further action to pardon these convic tions. The clemency provision of the state constitution grants the governor near-absolute pardon

ing power.

While federal law still clas sifies cannabis as a Schedule I drug, 19 states and the District of Columbia have legalized its rec reational use, and 37 states and the District of Columbia have le galized its medical use, accord ing to the National Conference of State Legislatures. North Caroli na, however, has been slow to fol low suit.

The Republican-led state Sen ate passed a bill earlier this year with strong bipartisan support that would have legalized mari juana for medical use with a phy sician’s prescription, if purchased

All eyes on Nebraska Gov. Ricketts to replace Sen. Sasse

OMAHA, Neb. — With Ben Sasse apparently ready to resign his Nebraska U.S. Senate seat to become president of the Universi ty of Florida, speculation is ram pant that his temporary replace ment could be Gov. Pete Ricketts.

Ricketts, who like Sasse is a Re publican, would otherwise be out of a political job due to term limits at the end of the year.

Scenarios of how Ricketts would ascend to the U.S. Sen ate run the gamut from his pre sumptive successor naming him as Nebraska’s newest U.S. senator to Ricketts appointing himself to fill the seat. However, Ricketts is sued a statement Friday afternoon appearing to rule out appointing himself.

“If I choose to pursue the ap pointment, I will leave the ap pointment decision to the next governor and will follow the pro cess established for all interested candidates,” Ricketts said in the statement.

The question is whether Rick etts wants the job.

“I think the obvious candidate is Pete Ricketts, and if he wants to be a U.S. senator, then it’s his to take,” said Mark Fahleson, a for mer chairman of the Nebraska Re publican Party.

Dan Welch, who was the state GOP chairman until he was unex pectedly voted out during a shake up at the state party’s convention in July, agreed that all eyes are on Ricketts to fill the seat.

“I haven’t talked to him, so I don’t know what his plans are,” Welch said. “This probably took him by surprise, too.”

Ricketts on Friday confirmed

that the news of Sasse’s departure caught him off guard.

“The first I learned about Sen. Sasse’s plan to resign from the United States Senate was yester day, when he called to notify me,” Ricketts said, adding that the job of governor “is the greatest job in the world, and it will remain my number one focus for the remain der of my term.”

The University of Florida con firmed Thursday that Sasse is the sole finalist to become the presi dent of the school, and Sasse has indicated he will take the job. Fah leson, an attorney who is a long time close friend of Sasse, said Friday that given the university’s process for hiring its next presi dent, “the earliest he’ll step down is in early December.”

The school said in a statement that its presidential search com mittee had unanimously recom mended Sasse, a decision that will

have to be voted on by the school’s board of trustees and then con firmed by the board of governors.

In a statement released by the school, Sasse said he was “thrilled about the opportunity to work alongside one of the nation’s most outstanding faculties.”

Sasse was president of Midland University, a Christian school in eastern Nebraska, before he ran for the Senate.

Sasse’s replacement would serve

until 2024, the next opportunity for a special election for the seat. The winner of that election would then have to run again in 2026, when Sasse’s term expires.

Ricketts could still appoint a successor if Sasse resigns before Jan. 3, and the governor’s state ment Friday didn’t address what he would do if Sasse resigns be fore Ricketts’ term is up. The gov ernor’s office did not immediately return a message seeking clarifi cation.

If Sasse were to leave the Senate after that, when Ricketts leaves office, the newly-elected gover nor would appoint Sasse’s replace ment. Republican Jim Pillen — who has been heavily supported by Ricketts to be his successor — is favored to win the governor’s race in November.

The Nebraska Secretary of State’s office confirmed that there is nothing in Nebraska law that would keep a sitting governor from appointing himself. And most Democrats, according to Ne braska Democratic Party Chair woman Jane Kleeb, had expected him to do so.

“Ricketts is power hungry and will do anything to either send himself or someone who will an swer to him,” Kleeb said Friday. “Nebraskans are tied of the re volving door, musical chairs and one-party rule.”

While some political insiders feared Ricketts appointing him self to the seat would reek too much of self-dealing, others with in the state’s Republican Party were unfazed by that possibility.

“It’s not self-dealing if he’s the obvious candidate for the job,” Fahleson said. “And there’s no one out there who’s on his level. He has not contemporaries.”

through dozens of tightly regu lated dispensaries.

But the bill idled in the House, where many Republicans held reservations about legalizing cannabis in any form. Opponents of the bill warned the health ben efits remain uncertain and may not outweigh the health risks.

House Speaker Tim Moore said in June that the chamber would wait until 2023 to recon sider legalizing medical marijua na.

Current state law makes pos session of more than 0.5 ounc es punishable by up to 45 days in jail and up to $1,000 in fines, without exemptions for medical use. Possession of more than 1.5 ounces is classified as a felony.

“People should not have a fed eral criminal record for some thing that is legal in an increas ing number of states,” Stein said Thursday. “Let’s act, and let’s get it right. That means decriminal izing adult use, expunging past convictions for simple posses sion, and including strong pro tections for kids, no advertising, state controlled sales and putting N.C. farmers first.”

Although black and white North Carolina residents use marijuana at approximately the same rate, the task force alleges that people of color make up a disproportionate percentage of those convicted of simple posses sion, paralleling nationwide con cerns of racial bias. Roughly 60% of North Carolinians convicted for possessing up to half an ounce of marijuana in 2019 were nonwhite, according to the most re cent report.

Fahleson said that, despite the questions about how the seat will be filled, there’s no question which party will control it.

“Nebraska is a solidly Republi can state, and whoever makes that appointment will be a Republi can,” he said.

Sasse is a second-term senator who has had a complicated rela tionship with Republicans in his own state after his outspoken crit icism of Trump. He was one of sev en Republican senators to vote to convict the former president of “incitement of insurrection” after the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack.

Nebraska’s other senator, Deb Fischer, is up for re-election in 2024, so Nebraska would have two Senate seats to vote on that year.

Of the seven GOP senators who voted to convict Trump during his second impeachment in 2021, two others are retiring. In the House, eight of the ten Republicans who voted for impeachment are either retiring or lost their primaries.

Sasse, who has degrees from Harvard and Yale, worked in the Justice Department and as an as sistant secretary of Health and Human Services under President George W. Bush before he became president of Midland Universi ty. Midland is a small university based in Fremont, Nebraska, that has just over 1,600 students.

Rahul Patel, chair of the Flori da search committee that is rec ommending Sasse for the job, said he “brings intellectual curiosity, a belief in the power and potential of American universities and an un matched track record of leadership spanning higher education, gov ernment and the private sector.”

Gov. Ricketts wished Sasse luck in a statement after the school’s announcement.

Sasse “has one of the most con servative voting records in the Senate, and we need more conser vative voices in our universities,” Ricketts said.

“I think the obvious candidate is Pete Ricketts, and if he wants to be a U.S. senator, then it’s his to take.”

Mark Fahleson

“North Carolina should take steps to end this stigma.”

Gov. Roy Cooper

Kathleen Owens

September 24, 1961 ~ October 3, 2022

Doris Kathleen Owens 61 of Albemarle died Monday Evening, October 3, 2022 at her home.

Kathleen was born September 24, 1961 in Stanly County to the late Melvin Lee Owens and Betty Mae Ussery Owens. She had worked as a security guard and was a member of New London Baptist Church.

Kathleen was a loving and outgoing person, she loved the beach and enjoying life.

She is survived by her son, Christopher Jay Leonard (Lynn) of Albemarle. One daughter, Kristy Nicole Hornsbee of Florida. An adopted son, Charles Stephens III. one brother Buddy Owens and two sisters, Stella Thomas and Denise Wilson (Ken) and 10 grandchildren.

obituaries

Ray Kimrey

April 13, 1933 ~ October 7, 2022

Ray Hugh Kimrey 89 of Norwood died Friday Afternoon, October 7, 2022 at his home.

Mr. Kimrey was born April 13,1933 in Stanly County to the late Hugh and Lida Aldridge Kimrey. He had served in the North Carolina National Guard and was a member of Norwood First Baptist Church. He spent most of his career as a woodworker in the furniture industry with Page’s Furniture and Arrowood. He later retired as a custodian with South Stanly High School.

He is survived by his wife of 67 years Jane Lowry Kimrey of the home. One son, Tony Kimrey and wife Debbie of Norwood. Two daughters, Betty Kimrey of Albemarle ad Della Kimrey Robbins and husband Gil of Belhaven. One sister, Nona Aldridge of Norwood. Four grandchildren, Lauren Andrews and husband Bo, Ryan Kimrey, John “Sonny” Robbins Jr. and Cecelia Swindell and husband Damian. Four great-grandchildren, Jordan Rae Andrew, Anduin Robbins, Alaric Robbins and Melody Mae Swindell.

He was preceded in death by two brothers, Alfred Kimrey and Johnny Kimrey.

Arnette Baldwin Rush

November 6, 1951 ~ October 1, 2022

Arnette Baldwin Rush, age 70, went home to be with Our Lord and Savior, Saturday, October 1, 2022, while a patient at Oaks of Forsyth, Winston-Salem, North Carolina. She was the daughter of the late Lacy Sr. and Willie Mae Tyson Baldwin. Arnette was kind, generous and endearing to everyone she met. She offered words of wisdom and possessed an unforgettable quick wit that left a lasting impression.

She has entered Heaven’s Gate and there to welcome her home were her parents: Lacy and Willie Mae Baldwin; and her brother, Lacy Baldwin Jr.

Gone from our home, but never from our hearts, our dear Arnette will be remembered and loved by her son, Dwone W. Baldwin; daughters: Sonja F. White and Shonti (James) Rush Wright; grandchildren: Joseph Baldwin, Joseph White, Keenan Rush, Kayla Pettigrew, Lauren Sherrod, and Arianna Baldwin; great-grandchildren; Baldwin brothers: Eddie James, Johnny (Mary), Larry (Teresa), Ronald (Desiree’), Arris (Sonya), Henry (Linda), Charles, Barry, and Anthony (April); sisters: Marjorie Baldwin and April Baldwin; sister-in-law, Annie Baldwin; a host of nieces, nephews, other relatives, and friends.

Madie Marie (Whitley) Little

December 29, 1927 ~ October 9, 2022

Madie Marie Little, 94, of Oakboro, passed away Sunday, October 9, 2022, at Bethany Woods Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Albemarle.

Mrs. Little was born December 29, 1927, in Stanly County to the late Marcus Dewey Whitley and the late Ida Rose Whitley. In addition to her parents, she was also preceded in death by her husband, Ralph Henry Little, an infant daughter, Henrietta Marie Little, daughter, Bonnie Little Boone Treece, great-granddaughter, Brandi Nicole Boone, brothers, Clyde Whitley, Barney Whitley, Bruce Whitley and sister, Dorothea Whitley Morton.

Survivors include son, Alan (Carolyn) Little of Oakboro, daughter, Beverly (Donald) Hyatt of Marshville, son-in-law, Keith Treece of Locust, nine grandchildren; Jeff Boone, Shari (Mike) Dunn, Mike (Michelle) Boone, Dina (Greg) Pace, Danna (Micheal) Patrick, Matt (Nikki) Boone, Dustin (Jessica) Boone, Sabrina (Dustin) Smith, and David (Melissa) Hyatt; 14 great grandchildren; Jeffrey(Ashley) Boone, Jr., Alaina (Wesley) Hammill, Haylee Dunn, Kali Boone, Keri Pressley, Brittney Thompson, Makayla Boone, Lyndsee Dunn, Kristen Pressley, Colton Boone, Kameron Smith, Kyle Smith, Kaden Smith and Kipp Smith, and 6 greatgreat grandchildren; Lindsae, Haley, and Rylee Boone, and Owen, Brooks and Claire Hammill.

William Bradley Floyd

May 28, 1979 ~ October 2, 2022

William Bradley Floyd, 43, of Locust, passed away on Sunday, October, 2, 2022.

Mr. Floyd was born May 28, 1979, to Jerry William Floyd and Teresa Eudy Grace. He was also preceded in death by his grandmothers, Virginia Lee Floyd and Nancy Kluttz Harrison.

Brad was a graduate from Appalachian State University. He enjoyed exploring the mountains, rock climbing, waterfalls, and spending time with his dog, Stacy. Brad also liked to ride his four wheeler on the trails of his mountain property and occasionally fishing. Brad had an artistic soul and loved to play his guitar daily. He will be remembered as a loving son, brother, uncle and friend.

Survivors include mother, Teresa Eudy Grace and husband John; father, Jerry Floyd and wife, Patsy; sisters, Ashley Floyd, Jan Snider, Gerrianne Holland; beloved niece, Kailynn Horton; niece, Emily Gales; nephews, Patrick, Joseph and William Moore and numerous cousins.

Cheryl Ann (Potter) Farr

August 8, 1957 ~ October 2, 2022

Cheryl Ann Farr, 65, of Albemarle, passed away peacefully at home, Sunday, October 2, 2022.

Cheryl was born August 8, 1957 in Michigan to the late George Franklin Potter and Eleanor Marie Andrews Potter .

She was also preceded in death by daughter, Anna Grasso.

Cheryl loved dogs and cats and was an avid seamstress. She liked flowers and was loved by all who knew her. She enjoyed her job at Tractor Supply in Midland, NC and was loved by all her customers. She will be missed by all who knew her, especially her family and her motherin-law, Shirley Leek with whom she had a special bond.

Survivors include husband, Charles Farr of Albemarle, NC; mother, Eleanor Potter; son, David (Sarah) Grasso of Pineville; daughters, Moe (Zach) Browning, Myat Win, Thet Win; grandchildren, Eli and Emily; brothers, David Potter, George Potter, and Mike Potter; sister Linda (Dan) Potter Lint.

Kathy Davis Brown

August 24, 1956 - October 2, 2022

Kathy Davis Brown, 66, of Yadkinville passed away on Sunday, October 2, 2022 in Forsyth Medical Center in Winston Salem.

Born August 24, 1956 in Stanly County, NC she was the daughter of Frances Coley Davis of Albemarle and the late Jennings Bryon Davis. She worked for many years as a housekeeper. She loved her children and grandchildren who lovingly called her “Mama.” Kathy enjoyed being in nature and was an avid gardener who had a green thumb. She was also an animal lover.

In addition to her mother, she is survived by her children Christopher Bryon Carter of New London, Jeremy Chad Lemly of Salisbury, Daniel Patrick Lemly of Salisbury, Laura Elizabeth Lloyd of Yadkinville, and Timothy Michael Lloyd of East Bend, NC, a sister Elizabeth Lynn McCormack of New London, and 8 grandchildren Cleo Jane Carter, Payton Lemly, Lexie Lemly, Ethan Hodgson, Brandon Lloyd, Justin Hodgson, Evan Minor, and EmmaLee Minor. She was preceded in death by a sister Pamela Davis Blalock and a son Jonathan Scott Carter.

Memorials may be made to the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation at www.komen.org.

Jerry Lionell Burkett

January 22, 1941

Jerry Lionell Burkett, 81, of Mt. Pleasant, NC, passed away on Tuesday, October 4, 2022 at his home.

He was born January 22, 1941, in Rowan County, NC to the Charlie Reeves Burkett and Hala Vanilla Brown Burkett. He retired from Coca Cola in Charlotte. Jerry was a member of Full Gospel Mission Church. He was a former Drag Racer, Go-kart Racer, and a fisherman. Mr. Burkett loved traveling, camping, photographing and he was a prayer worrier.

Jerry is survived by his wife, Millie Goodwin Burkett. He is also survived by a daughter, Suzi Burkett Waters of China Grove, NC; two stepsons, David Pennell (Laura) of China Grove, NC and Darryl Pennell of Gold Hill, NC; a sister, Nancy Duckworth (Paul) of Kannapolis, NC; four grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.

Memorials may be made to: Full Gospel Mission Church, C/O Rev. Mitchell Cook, 29133 Nelson Mountain Road, Albemarle, NC 28001 or to Victory Temple, PO Box 797, Concord, NC 28026.

STATE & NATION

Small business group files suit over Biden student loan plan

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A small-business advocacy group has filed a new lawsuit seeking to block the Biden administration’s efforts to forgive student loan debt for tens of millions of Amer icans — the latest legal challenge to the program.

The suit, filed Monday by the Job Creators Network Founda tion, argues the Biden admin istration violated federal proce dures by failing to seek public input on the program. It’s one of a handful of suits that have been filed by conservative business groups, attorneys and Republi can lawmakers in recent weeks as the Biden administration tries to push forward with its plan to cancel billions in debt before No vember’s midterm elections.

Elaine Parker, president of Job Creators Network Foundation, slammed the program as execu tive overreach and complained that it does nothing to address the root cause of rising debt: the “outrageous increase in college tuition that outpaces inflation ev ery single year.”

“This bailout is going to affect everyone in this country because of the mass size of the program,” she said. “And everyone should have the opportunity to provide

their views to the government.”

She added: “These universities need to be held accountable for this student debt crisis.”

The Job Creators Network has previously sued to try to block the Biden administration’s COVID vaccine mandate on businesses.

It also sued Major League Base ball in 2001 for moving the AllStar game out of Atlanta over ob jections to changes to Georgia’s

voting laws. The suit, which cit ed losses to local businesses, was later dropped.

The new suit is one of a grow ing number of legal challenges against the proposal laid out by President Joe Biden in late Au gust to cancel up to $20,000 in debt for certain borrowers.

Six Republican-led states filed suit late last month, accus ing the Biden administration of

overstepping its executive pow ers. And the Pacific Legal Foun dation, a Sacramento, California, legal advocacy group, filed suit in federal court in Indiana, calling the plan an illegal overreach that would increase state tax burdens for some Americans who get their debt forgiven.

Meanwhile, a federal judge in Wisconsin last week dismissed a lawsuit from a local taxpayers group, the Brown County Tax payers Association, that sought to block the program, ruling that the group didn’t have standing to bring the lawsuit. The group had argued that Biden’s order un lawfully circumvented Congress’ power over spending and said the plan was discriminatory because it sought to give particular help to borrowers of color.

The latest lawsuit, filed in the District Court for the Northern District of Texas against the U.S. Education Department and its secretary, Miguel Cardona, takes issue with how the plan was de veloped. It alleges the Biden ad ministration violated the Ad ministrative Procedure Act’s notice-and-comment proce dures. It also challenges the ad ministration’s legal justification for the program.

The suit includes two plain tiffs: one who does not qualify for debt forgiveness because the plan excludes commercially held loans that are not in default, and one who did not receive a Pell grant and is therefore entitled to less debt forgiveness under the plan.

“Behind closed doors, the De partment promulgated a new Debt Forgiveness Program that will affect tens of millions of

Americans and cost hundreds of billions of dollars,” the suit reads. “Instead of providing notice and seeking comment from the pub lic, the Department hammered out the critical details of the Pro gram in secret and with an eye toward securing debt forgiveness in time for the November elec tion.”

It also alleges the department “made numerous arbitrary deci sions about the Program, includ ing which individuals will receive debt forgiveness, how much of their debt will be forgiven, and which types of debt will qualify for the Program.”

“The result of this arbitrari ness is predictable: some will benefit handsomely, some will be shortchanged, and others will be left out entirely,” it reads.

The Biden debt forgiveness program will cancel $10,000 in student loan debt for individuals making less than $125,000 a year or households making less than $250,000. Pell grant recipients, who typically demonstrate more financial need, will be eligible for an additional $10,000.

The Biden administration used an act passed after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks as legal justifi cation for the program. The law gives the administration “sweep ing authority” to reduce or elimi nate student debt during times of national emergency, the Justice Department said in an August le gal opinion. The administration cited the COVID-19 pandemic as its emergency.

The Congressional Budget Of fice estimates the program will cost taxpayers $400 billion over the next three decades.

Herschel Walker centers pitch to Republicans on ‘wokeness’

The Associated Press

EMERSON, Ga. — Herschel Walker pitches himself as a politi cian who can bridge America’s ra cial and cultural divides because he loves everyone and overlooks differences.

“I don’t care what color you are,” Georgia’s Republican Sen ate nominee, who is Black, told an overwhelmingly white crowd recently in Bartow County, north of Atlanta. The United States, he said, “is a good place,” adding that “a way we make it better is by coming together.”

Yet the former football star who calls all Georgians “my fami ly” has staked out familiar conser vative ground on America’s most glaring societal fissures.

Walker says those who do not share his vision of the country can leave. He says his opponent, Sen. Raphael Warnock, and the Demo cratic Party are the real purveyors of division. He insists that their “wokeness” on race, transgender rights and other issues threatens U.S. power and identity.

“Sen. Warnock believes Amer ica is a bad country full of racist people,” Walker says in one ad, making a claim based on the fact that Warnock, who is also black, has acknowledged institution al racism during his sermons as a Baptist minister. “I believe we’re a great country full of generous people,” Walker concludes.

That approach is not surprising in a state controlled for most of its history by white cultural conser

vatives, and it aligns Walker with many high-profile Republicans, including former President Don ald Trump.

The strategy will face its fierc est test in the closing weeks of the campaign as Walker vehement ly denies reports from The Dai ly Beast that he encouraged and paid for a woman’s 2009 abor tion and later fathered a child with her.

The New York Times re ported Friday that he urged her to have a second abortion, a request

that she refused. The Daily Beast also published new details pro vided by the woman about Walk er’s lack of involvement with their child.

Such developments would typ ically sink a Republican candi date. Walker, however, is betting that the conservative ground he has staked out will win over vot ers singularly focused on retaking the Senate majority.

His advisers believe Walker’s rhetoric reflects the views of many

Georgians, at least most who will vote this fall. The outcome could turn on how Walker’s pitch lands in an electorate younger, more ur ban, less white, and less native to Georgia than when Walker, 60, and Warnock, 53, grew up in the state.

Warnock, as minister of At lanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, where Martin Luther King Jr. preached, has long linked the civil rights icon’s vision of a “be loved community” to 21st cen tury discussions of diversity and justice, including religious plu ralism, LGBTQ rights, ballot ac cess, racial equity, law enforce ment and other issues. But in his paid advertising, the pastor-pol itician casts himself mostly as a hardworking senator who has de livered results and federal money for Georgia.

Walker saves his hottest rhet oric for campaign events, where crowds are measured in the doz ens or hundreds, rather than the thousands and millions watching carefully cultivated ads.

In one such ad, a smiling Walk er talks of unity after a string of Democrats — Warnock, Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and Georgia’s Democratic guber natorial candidate Stacey Abrams — are heard discussing racism.

Addressing fellow Republicans, Walker maintains the smile but goes harder at the left, especially on transgender rights.

“They’re bringing wokeness in our military,” Walker said in Cumming. It was an apparent ref erence to the Pentagon allowing

transgender persons to serve and have access to medical care.

“The greatest fighting force ever assembled before God (and) they’re talking about pronouns,” Walker said. “Are you serious? How do you identify? I can prom ise you right now China ain’t talking about how you can identi fy. They’re talking about war.”

Walker sometimes presents his mores as humor. “Y’all see it. They telling you what is a woman. Think about it,” he said in Bartow County, drawing laughter from voters. “That’s right,” he contin ued with a broad smile. “They’re telling you a man can get preg nant. Hey, I’m gone tell you right now, a man can’t get pregnant.”

Warnock, Walker says, “wants men in women’s sports.” His cam paign aides point separately to a Senate vote on a Republican amendment that would have lim ited federal money for any edu cational institutions “that permit any student whose biological sex is male to participate in an athlet ic program or activity designated for women or girls.” The amend ment failed on a party-line vote.

“That’s sort of like saying you want Herschel Walker to compete against your daughters,” Walk er said in Norcross, eliciting more laughs.

Warnock seems reluctant to answer Walker’s broadsides di rectly. “My job is to represent all the people of Georgia across ra cial and ethnic and religious line, and all corner of this state,” he told reporters last week.

pen & paper pursuits

sudoku

Randolph record

COUNTY NEWS

Downtown Asheboro officially added to National Register of Historic Places

Earlier this year, the city of Asheboro was officially added to the National Register of Historic Places. The district includes a total of 78 contributing structures and residential buildings that date back to 1903. The National Register of Historical Places recognizes districts, buildings, structures, objects, and sites for their significance in American history, archeology, engineering, or culture and identifies them as worthy of preservation.

Downtown Asheboro’s listing was awarded for the district’s important historical characteristics and embodiment of construction methods used from the early 1900s until the 1970s. Inclusion on the National Register comes with potential tax benefits, including a 20% federal income investment tax credit claimed against the costs of a qualified rehabilitation of a building.

Asheboro to switch water disinfection treatments this November

As of Tuesday, November 1, the City of Asheboro will officially be switching its primary water disinfection treatment to free chlorine. This change in treatment, according to the city, is necessary to ensure optimum water quality throughout the distribution of water mains in Asheboro. Recipients of the city’s water can expect a slight increase in chlorine taste and smell as the switchover process takes begins next month. The change in treatment is expected to last several weeks.

If you or someone you know uses city drinking water for particular purposes, such as kidney dialysis, you may need to make adjustments because the chlorine disinfection process will change some characteristics of the water.

Public encouraged to express views on air quality

Megasite project results in requests for change in classification

LIBERTY — With such a ma jor project involving the Greens boro-Randolph megasite, there are bound to be new topics that might create attention in the re gion.

One of them is air quality.

The North Carolina Depart ment of Environmental Quality’s Division of Air Quality is seek ing public comment on a draft air quality permit modification for the Toyota Battery Manufacturing fa cility.

“We want to solicit public com ment before we make any deci sion,” said Shawn Taylor, a public information officer with the de

Copies of the draft permit, draft permit review, permit application, and draft environmental justice report are available through the DAQ.

partment. “We’re really hoping to hear from the people, both pro and con.”

A change of classification is re quested. Public comments will be accepted until Nov. 3.

This requested change in clas sification might not be common to many residents, so Taylor said this serves as an information window for the public as well.

The facility is permitted by DAQ as a minor source to operate four hybrid-vehicle battery pro

duction lines. In July 2022, Toyo ta applied to DAQ to modify its air permit to add seven electric-vehi cle battery production lines and supporting equipment. This pro posed modification would reclas sify the facility as a major source under Title V of the Clean Air Act.

Toyota proposes to use wet and dry scrubbers to control and col lect dust and organic compounds used in the manufacturing pro cess, which is needed to keep the facility clean enough for battery production. The facility would also be subject to federal emissions standards, recordkeeping require ments, and regular inspections.

The facility’s emissions must comply with state and federal health-based standards. Toyota is expected to remain a minor source of hazardous air pollutants. A re view of the facility’s toxic air pol lutants showed none would exceed the state’s Toxic Permitting Emis

Asheboro City Council approves 44-unit subdivision design

Council approves professional design study for Bicentennial Park

ASHEBORO — The City of Asheboro council met Thursday with a proposal for a new subdivi sion as well as updates on various parks on the agenda.

The first action the council took was to accept a withdrawal of a variance request from the Wind crest Acres subdivision public hear ing that was held and continued at last month’s meeting.

“The city received a written re quest from the Windcrest Acres, Section 4, withdrawing the vari ance request that was seeking to re move curb and gutter as a require ment for the development.”

The council was then present

ed with a presentation recogniz ing downtown Asheboro making it on the National Register of Histor ic Places.

“It’s quite an achievement that Asheboro has made landing its downtown on the National Reg ister of Historic Places,” said Res toration Specialist Brett Sturm of the State Historic Preservation Of fice. “There were several existing properties in Asheboro on the Na tional Register already, but what this district has achieved, which encompasses the core of historic downtown, links and actually links several existing mill properties that were already listed on the Register. This is the first time in my tenure that I’ve seen a core downtown be listed on the National Register.”

The council also approved a building reuse grant application as part of an economic development project with UpStyled Goods and Salon, LLC.

“UpStyled Goods and Salon is located just down the road at 122 South Church Street, and they sell re-textiled branded goods produced at Trotter Sewing Company as well as upcycled goods from other pro ducers,” said President of the Ran dolph County Economic Develop ment Corporation, Kevin Franklin.

“The building will also continue to house the salon, although that will be separated from the retail space.”

The council held a legislative hearing for an application to amend R10 (CZ) zoning on the proper ty at 1223 Crestview Church Road, which is located on the west side of Zoo Parkway, in order to allow a new residential planned unit de velopment, including a subdivision sketch design.

“The rezoning request is to an amended R-10 conditional zon ing to allow a planned unit devel

sion Rates.

The division will consider pub lic comments before making a fi nal decision on the proposed per mit. Taylor said this is a general procedure regarding such a proj ect, though this is in the latter stages of this process.

Engineers have drafted what they believe to be the most prac tical permit, Taylor said. The Toy ota Battery Manufacturing plant is expected to be in operation in 2025.

Copies of the draft permit, draft permit review, permit application, and draft environmental justice report are available through the DAQ.

Comments or requests for a public hearing will be accepted through 5 p.m. Nov. 3. Comments can be emailed to daq.publiccom ments@ncdenr.gov with “Toyo ta 22B” in the subject line. Voice mail comments can be left by call ing (919) 707-8714. Comments can also be mailed to: NCDEQ Divi sion of Air Quality, 1641 Mail Ser vice Center, Raleigh, NC 276991641.

Because of the Spanish-speak ing population in the region, Tay lor said that an effort has been made to produce as much infor mation in bilingual formats.

OPINION

A government that’s accountable

Your rights, protected by the First and Second Amendment, have repeatedly come under fire under the Democrats.

WHEN THE FOUNDING FATHERS ratified our Constitution in 1788, they set into motion a system of government the world had rarely seen – a country where true authority rests with the people. This is illustrated in the very first line of our constitution – “We the People.” Our system was and continues to be unique compared to most of the world and demands certain obligations for those in positions of power. First, those in government have the primary duty to secure your rights and liberties. In tandem with this, the federal government has the responsibility to be transparent and accountable to you.

Unfortunately, under one-party rule in Washington, our government has failed to fulfill this most basic obligation.

Due to policy missteps by both Congressional Democrats and President Joe Biden, inflation continues to be sky-high, our border is in crisis, and our national security is in peril.

On top of this, Congressional Democrats have failed to provide proper oversight for the actions of the federal government. One of Congress’ key roles is to keep an eye on federal agencies in order to ensure they are operating in your best interest. However, Washington Democrats have largely neglected this role, as Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her associates have yet to hold any hearings on consequential issues such as the origins of COVID-19, the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the Biden administration’s labeling parents as “domestic terrorists.” In some cases, Congressional Democrats have flat out resisted efforts to provide congressional oversight.

For example, last month, I called on Congress to get answers from the Biden administration on issues like the origins of COVID-19 and an explanation of how billions of your tax dollars have been spent to expand broadband access. Yet Democrats blocked these inquires from moving forward.

In addition to dropping the ball on government oversight, those at the head of government have also failed to defend your God-given,

constitutional rights. Your rights, protected by the First and Second Amendment, have repeatedly come under fire under the Democrats.

Government has become too big, too unaccountable, and too out-of-touch with the will and priorities of the American people. However, Republicans have a plan to fix this.

Our “Commitment to America” plan will work to build a government that fulfills its responsibility to be accountable to you and your family. We will work to provide oversight over the Biden administration and to serve as a check against federal abuses. This commitment also means standing up against progressive overreach to safeguard your God-given rights.

Under one-party rule in Washington, our government has strayed away from its duty to put you and your family first. I will work to change that and help reestablish a Congress that serves the people rather than itself.

In our community that’s home to Fort Bragg and the fastest growing veteran population in the country, we understand what that kind of public service looks like. That’s why nominating high school students to U.S. service academies each year is among my highest honors. This year, the deadline to apply for a U.S. service academy congressional nomination is Wednesday, October 12th, by 5 p.m. For more information, visit Hudson.house.gov or contact my office in Concord at 704-786-1612.

The students who apply each year and are willing to serve in uniform remind me that the future of our nation is bright. It’s our job to keep it that way by building a government that’s accountable to you and fulfilling our commitment to America.

Richard Hudson is serving his fifth term representing North Carolina’s 8th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives. He currently serves on the Energy and Commerce Committee and in House leadership as the Republican Conference Secretary.

The new global virus is runaway government spending and debt

WHEN NEW BRITISH PRIME MINISTER Liz Truss suggested lowering the United Kingdom’s highest tax rate from 45% to 40%, along with a 1% reduction in the income tax rate for all taxpayers, the bond markets and the central bankers around the world went stark raving mad.

Let’s just say Modern Monetary Theory can be thrown in the trash bin.

The academic pinheads at the International Monetary Fund trashed the tax cut as irresponsible. The bond vigilantes started selling Britain’s bonds. And the Bank of England, which had also savaged the tax cut idea, stepped in to buy bonds to stop the bleeding.

The tragedy here is that Truss had the right idea. In an economic calamity as Britain has suffered for the past three years, cutting tax rates to increase investment and production in England is a way to reduce inflation and stave off a recession. It was the same “supplyside” strategy that President Ronald Reagan and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher used in the early 1980s to end the stagflation and economic malaise from the 1970s. The “supply-side economics” worked and helped launch a multidecade economic revival in both countries.

The Left protested that “tax cuts for the rich” would cause even worse debt problems. But this was a fable. The explosion of government debt in the United States, Britain, and almost every other developed country across the planet was not caused by tax cuts. There were two reasons debt exploded.

First, central governments catastrophically shut down their economies and businesses during COVID — even though the health benefits were de minimis. With businesses shut down and workers off the job, tax payments fell off a cliff, thus raising debt levels to unheard-of levels.

Next, the governments of the world compensated for the shutdown of their private sectors by massively increasing government spending on giveaway programs. In the U.S., government spending since COVID has risen by $6 trillion to $7 trillion — above the normal already obese $5 trillion-a-year budget. Across the planet, government “stimulus” spending in 2020 and 2021 is estimated at — are you sitting down? — $21 trillion. Trillions more have been borrowed and spent and paid for with money printing this year.

Government spending in many countries, including the U.S., exceeded 50% of the entire national gross domestic product. In other words, we fought a war against COVID, and socialism won.

Now compare the magnitude of this $21 trillion spending spree with the Truss proposal to cut taxes, which politicos are now saying caused the bond market to go haywire. The total Truss plan had a price tag of about $40 billion. Only about $2 billion of that was the expected revenue loss from the reduction in the top tax rate. In other words, the tax cut was 0.01% of the amount that was spent and borrowed by all of the countries in the world.

It is inconceivable that a tax cut this tiny could cause a financial panic — or else the world has gone stark raving mad. The real reason that the U.K. is in this economic rut is that former Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the Bank of England kept spending money and printing money at such a reckless pace.

The U.S. is in the same dangerous place that the Brits are in as the world economy teeters on the verge of a sharp and painful economic collapse. President Joe Biden has spent and borrowed $4.1 trillion since he came into office roughly 20 months ago. No president in modern times, and maybe ever, has been as fiscally reckless as Biden. (Alas, Republicans voted for much of this spending, too, and don’t forget that in the last days of the Trump administration, Congress added another trillion dollars of spending.) Our government in the U.S. at all levels is still spending almost 40% of our GDP. This is close to the level of socialist European nations like France.

Incidentally, in the U.S., there is no revenue problem whatsoever. Taxes as a share of our economy are, according to the Congressional Budget Office, at a near-record high. In the current course, tax receipts are expected to continue to rise.

The virus that threatens the world today in almost every nation is runaway government spending and debt. It is the match that has lit the forest fire of runaway inflation. It doesn’t matter how much Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell raises interest rates (which he must do to tame inflation). The stagflation of high inflation and slow growth won’t end until politicians start taking a chainsaw to their out-of-control budgets.

Government spending has not stimulated anything except more government and less private enterprise. The public sector has to go on a SlimFast diet — and for a long, long time to drain the excess spending out of the global economy.

What is all sadly ironic is that many of the nations of the world are now practicing Modern Monetary Theory. This is the radical idea that governments like the U.S. can spend and borrow increasing amounts of money at almost no cost because of low interest rates. Whoops. Interest rates in the U.S. have risen on the 10-year bond from less than 1% to more than 3% in just the last 24 months. The 30-year mortgage rate has risen from 2.85% at the end of 2020 to nearly 7% today. Let’s just say Modern Monetary Theory can be thrown in the trash bin.

Political leaders across the globe seem to be suffering from a severe case of economic amnesia. Reagan said it best, and it is more appropriate today than ever before: “Government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem.” Truer today than ever.

Stephen Moore is a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation and an economist with FreedomWorks.

His latest book is “Govzilla: How the Relentless Growth of Government is Devouring our Economy.”

SIDELINE REPORT

SOCCER

NWSL players call for owner to sell Chicago franchise

Chicago Players for the National Women’s Soccer League’s Chicago Red Stars players are calling for owner Arnim Whisler to sell the team a week after former acting U.S. Attorney General Sally Q. Yates released a report into allegations of abuse in the league. Alaska Airline says it’s diverting Thorns and Timbers sponsorship dollars this quarter to an NWSL Players Association emergency fund to protect players. The NWSL has also dismissed the coach of the Orlando Pride and an assistant following an investigation into retaliatory behavior.

COLLEGE BASKETBALL

Gamecocks coach Staley earns leadership award

New York South Carolina women’s basketball coach Dawn Staley was set to receive the Billie Jean King Leadership Award at the Women’s Sports Foundation’s annual dinner on Wednesday in New York. Staley, 52, recently guided the U.S. women’s basketball team to its seventh straight gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics. A 5-foot-6 floor general at Virginia and six-time WNBA All-Star, Staley won three Olympic golds during her playing career. Among the highest-paid coaches in women’s basketball, the Hall of Famer enters her 15th season leading the Gamecocks.

MLB Phillies lift interim tag from manager Thomson Philadelphia After guiding the Philadelphia Phillies to their first playoff series victory since 2010, manager Rob Thomson had the interim removed from his title. The Phillies have signed Thomson to a two-year contract to remain as their manager through 2024, rewarding him for a turnaround that earned Philadelphia a wildcard berth. The 59-year-old Thomson took over on June 3 when Joe Girardi was fired with the Phillies mired at 2229. Philadelphia went 6546 the rest of the way. The Phillies then knocked off St. Louis in the wild-card round to advance to the NL Division Series against the Braves.

COLLEGE FOOTBALL

Captain for No. 6 Tennessee charged with aggravated assault Knoxville, Tenn. Tennessee starting safety and captain Jaylen McCollough has been arrested for aggravated felony assault, putting his status for Saturday’s game against No. 3 Alabama in question for the sixth-ranked Volunteers. Coach Josh Heupel said the team learned about McCollough’s arrest on Sunday night. According to an arrest warrant obtained by Knox News, a man reported that he went inside the wrong apartment after drinking with friends, and a man followed him out and punched him, causing him to fall down stairs and knocking him unconscious. Police said McCollough had blood seeping through a bandage on his hand, declined to answer questions and was arrested.

NASCAR teams call revenue model ‘broken,’ warn of layoffs

Even successful teams like Hendrick Motorsports are losing money

CHARLOTTE — The most pow erful teams in NASCAR warned Friday that the venerable stock car racing series has a “broken” eco nomic model that is unfair and has little to no chance of long-term sta bility, a stunning announcement that added to a growing list of woes.

With just four races left in the championship chase, teams went public with their yearlong fight with NASCAR over equitable reve nue distribution.

“The economic model is real ly broken for the teams,” said Cur tis Polk, who as Michael Jordan’s longtime business manager now holds an ownership stake in both the Charlotte Hornets and the twocar 23XI Racing team Jordan and Denny Hamlin field in the Cup Se ries.

“We’ve gotten to the point where teams realize the sustainability

in the sport is not very long term,” Polk said. “This is not a fair system.”

The Race Team Alliance (RTA) was formed in 2014 to give teams a unified voice in negotiations with the sanctioning body. A four-mem ber subcommittee outlined their concerns at a Charlotte hotel, with Polk joined by Jeff Gordon, the four-time NASCAR champion and vice chairman of Hendrick Mo torsports, RFK Racing President Steve Newmark, and Dave Alpern, the president of Joe Gibbs Racing.

Hendrick and Gibbs have won six of last seven Cup Series champi onships dating to 2015, but Gordon said the four-car Hendrick lineup, the most powerful in the industry, has not had a profitable season in years. It will again lose money this season despite NASCAR’s cost-cut ting Next Gen car.

“I have a lot of fears that sustain ability is going to be a real chal lenge,” Gordon said.

NASCAR issued a statement ac knowledging “the challenges cur rently facing race teams.

“A key focus moving forward is an extension to the charter agree ment, one that will further increase

revenue and help lower team ex penses,” NASCAR said. “Collec tively, the goal is a strong, healthy sport, and we will accomplish that together.”

Led by Polk, whose role with the Hornets brings familiarity with the NBA’s franchise model, the RTA in June presented NASCAR with a seven-point plan on a new reve nue sharing model. The proposal “sat there for months and we told NASCAR we’d like a counteroffer,” Polk said.

He did not disclose the seven points other than noting that team sustainability and longevity were priorities. The committee said they are open to all ideas, including a spending cap like that in Formula One.

“We are amenable to whatever gets us to a conceptual new struc ture,” Newmark said.

NASCAR’s counteroffer offered “a minimal increase in revenue and emphasis on cost-cutting,” Polk said.

The team alliance was unani mous in that the only place left to cut costs is layoffs.

“We’ve already had substantial

cuts. We are doing more with less than we ever have in 30 years,” Alp ern said.

The battle over costs has sim mered for years. In 2016, NASCAR adopted a charter system for 36 cars that is as close to a franchise model as possible in a sport that was founded by and independent ly owned by the France family. The charters at least gave the teams something of value to hold — or sell — and protect their investment in the sport.

The team business model is still heavily dependant on sponsorship, which the teams must individually secure. Newmark said sponsorship covers between 60% to 80% of the budgets for all 16 chartered organi zations.

Because sponsorship is so vi tal, teams are desperate for finan cial relief elsewhere and have asked NASCAR for “distribution from the league to cover our baseline costs,” Newmark said.

NASCAR said Friday that teams receive about 40% of industry-wide generated revenue.

The financial split from the $8.2 billion media rights deal signed ahead of the 2015 season sends 65% to the tracks, 25% to the teams and 10% to NASCAR, according to the series. There are two major track operators, NASCAR and Speed way Motorsports; NASCAR owns 11 venues on the Cup Series sched ule, including the crown jewel Day tona International Speedway.

ACC coaches counting on beefed-up staffs to steer programs

UNC and NC State among the schools spending big bucks on added help

NATRONE MEANS first ar rived at UNC to play for Mack Brown as a promising running back, then went on to an NFL career that included a touch down-scoring appearance in the Super Bowl.

More than three decades later, he’s again working to help Brown’s Tar Heels, though now in the kind of supporting role expanding across the Atlantic Coast Confer ence and the sport.

Titles vary. Analyst. Quali ty-control coordinator. Even the vaguely defined “special assistant” and “senior adviser.” But the direc tive is the same: Adding more eyes, hands and experience to meet the rising demands of running a pow er-conference program.

“If that takes some things off of (coaches’) plate and they can fo cus more on that week’s opponent then obviously we feel like we’ve done our job well,” said Means, now an analyst for UNC’s offense.

Means hopes to grow his own coaching career that includes stints in Division II and the high school level, calling this “valuable experience I could not pass up.” It’s valuable for programs, too, il lustrated by how they have ex

panded staff sizes in the past de cade.

These positions aren’t permit ted to directly coach players in games or practices like assistant coaches or graduate assistants. Instead, they work behind the scenes. Some review film or dig for statistical trends. Others scout fu ture opponents beyond the focus of that week’s game.

They range from former head coaches to up-and-comers forging their own paths.

A look at public records data offers glimpses of investments by ACC schools:

• In 2015, Clemson had four

staffers — two in “player develop ment” and two as analysts — cost ing more than $218,000 in sal aries. Now there are 13 staffers — seven in offensive or defensive player development — approach ing $1.5 million in salaries.

• UNC had two quality-con trol staffers as temporary hour ly employees in 2015. There are now seven additional positions — including former South Caro lina and Appalachian State head coach Sparky Woods as a senior adviser to Brown — costing more than $520,000 in salaries.

• NC State had three quality control coordinators and two play

er personnel staffers in recruiting for a combined cost of $228,500 in 2015. Those positions remain today, though there are three ad ditional recruiting staffers along with former East Carolina head coach Ruffin McNeill as a special assistant to head coach Dave Do eren, driving that budget to near ly $766,000.

For some, personal connections and timing create the right fit.

McNeill, with nearly four de cades in college coaching, took the NC State job in 2020 based on his long relationship with Doeren, who he met when Doeren was a Southern California graduate as sistant and McNeill was a Fresno State assistant. For Doeren, it gave him “somebody that’s been in my seat that I trust and will tell me the truth.”

There was also the pull for Mc Neill to returning to North Caro lina to tend to family needs such as caring for his ailing father in his hometown of Lumberton, about 100 miles from the Wolfpack’s Ra leigh campus.

How does the man affectionate ly known as “Coach Ruff” view his role?

“Be the extra eyes and ears, and be here for Dave in any way that he may need me,” McNeill said, pointing to anything from shar ing a practice observation to han dling a speaking engagement for the program.

As he put it: “You can’t buy that time.”

Tigers topple Providence Grove

Wildcats, Cougars cruise to wins

Randolph Record

CLIMAX — Amarion Moton scored on two fourth-quarter touchdown runs to help Randle man seal a 30-14 road victo ry against Providence Grove in Piedmont Athletic Conference football Friday night.

Randleman’s defense limit ed the often-potent Providence Grove offense to 180 yards.

Randleman never trailed, go ing up in the first quarter on Christian McLeod’s 26-yard field goal. Tyshaun Goldston scored on a 13-yard pass from Christian Long in the second quarter.

James Ellis of Providence Grove scored on a 44-yard pass play before halftime.

Gregory Price’s 40-yard inter ception return gave Randleman a cushion.

Moton, who gained 151 yards on 23 carriers, took care of the rest. Goldston ended up with 106 receiving yards on six catches. He accounted for all except 13 of the team’s receiving yards.

WEEK 9 SCHEDULE Friday’s games

Eastern Randolph at Providence Grove Randleman at Southwestern Randolph Wheatmore at Trinity North Davidson at Asheboro

Providence Grove was 0-for-10 on third-down conversions, while picking up one of three on fourth downs.

Eastern Randolph 55, Trinity 13

At Ramseur, Stratton Barwick threw three touchdown pass es, and Davonte Brooks scored on runs of 35 and 19 as the host

Wildcats rolled in the PAC game.

Lucas Smith (3 yards), Er vodd Cassady (6 yards), and An gel Hernandez (18 yards) also scored on runs for Eastern Ran dolph (6-1, 2-0), which led 35-7 at halftime.

Trinity (4-3, 0-2) received touchdown runs of 60 and 65 yards from Dominic Payne.

Southwestern Randolph 56, Wheatmore 25

At Trinity, Adam Cole scored five touchdowns and a two-point conversion in the PAC road victo ry.

Cole caught three of the four touchdown passes thrown by Easton Clapp. He ran for a touch down and returned a kickoff for a touchdown. Clapp also ran for a touchdown among his 157 rush ing yards.

The Cougars (5-2, 1-1) also scored on Sean Adkins’ catch and Jentzen Cox’s rushing play.

Wheatmore is 1-6, 0-2.

Central Davidson 56, Asheboro 6

At Lexington, the Blue Comets surrendered more than 50 points for the second week in a row in the Mid-Piedmont Conference loss.

The Blue Comets (1-6, 0-2 Mid-Piedmont Conference) failed to reach a double-figure point to tal for the sixth game this season.

Central Davidson is 6-1, 1-1.

Caroline Wright

Dig it Pink

Providence Grove, girls’ golf

Wright secured Player of the Year honors in the Piedmont Athletic Conference.

She was the season-long champion in the conference.

In last week’s final PAC match, Providence Grove emerged as the team champion with a 35-shot edge on runner-up Eastern Randolph at Siler City Country Club. Trinity was the third-place team, followed by Randleman and Wheatmore.

Wright will be among the entrants in next week’s Class 1-A/2-A Central Regional at Stonebridge Golf Club in Monroe.

Wheatmore girls repeat as PAC tennis champs

Randolph Record

WHEATMORE HEADED into the post season with another Piedmont Athletic Con ference championship to its credit in girls’ tennis.

Wheatmore’s lone conference defeat came by 5-4 at Southwestern Randolph. The War riors avenged that loss a few weeks later with a 6-3 victory.

Boys’ soccer

Wheatmore remained undefeated through last week, but nothing much has been solved between the Warriors and rival Trinity.

Those teams tied for the second time this year. Last week’s 2-2 outcome left the teams atop the PAC standings. With two weeks left in the regular season, Wheatmore held a 5-02 league mark and Trinity was next at 4-0-2.

Trinity scored two first-half goals be fore Wheatmore responded with goals from Hayden Hemming and Anakin Leister.

Overall, Wheatmore held an 11-0-2 mark, while Trinity was at 9-3-2.

In the Mid-Piedmont Conference, Ashe boro topped 4-0 in the first meeting of the season between teams as Cristian Cruz scored two goals and Cristian Ortiz and Cal vin Smith had the other goals.

The Blue Comets moved to 14-1 overall and were the lone remaining team with an unbeaten mark in Mid-Piedmont Confer ence play.

Postseason competition has started this week for girls’ tennis and girls’ golf. The volleyball regular season wraps up next week.

Cooper favors decriminalizing small amounts of marijuana

RALEIGH — North Carolina’s two top Democratic state officials are urging the Republican-led leg islature to decriminalize the pos session of small amounts of mar ijuana in light of President Joe Biden’s pardon last week of thou sands of Americans convicted of “simple possession” under feder al law.

Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper and Attorney General Josh Stein, the state’s top lawyer who is wide ly expected to run for governor in 2024, shared their support for the president’s decision at a Friday task force meeting on racial equi ty and criminal justice.

Established by Cooper in June 2020 after George Floyd’s mur der, the 24-member panel of law enforcement officers, attorneys, civil rights advocates and state officials had recommended in a 2020 report that state lawmakers replace the misdemeanor charge for possessing up to 1.5 ounces of

marijuana with a civil offense on par with a traffic infraction.

The General Assembly did not act on this recommendation.

“Conviction of simple posses sion can mar people’s records for life and maybe even prevent them from getting a job,” Cooper told the task force Friday. “The Gener al Assembly didn’t pass your rec ommendations on this last ses sion, but I believe they should. North Carolina should take steps to end this stigma.”

Acknowledging that drug charging practices dispropor tionately impact people of color, Biden called on governors Thurs day to issue similar pardons for those convicted of state marijua na offenses, which reflect the vast majority of possession cases.

Al though no one is currently in fed eral prison solely for “simple pos session” of the drug, according to the White House, Biden said the pardon could help thousands overcome obstacles to renting a home or finding work. His pardon excludes those convicted of pos

sessing marijuana with intent to distribute.

Cooper, who is term-limit ed and cannot seek reelection in 2024, said he has asked lawyers to examine state law and deter mine whether North Carolina can and should take further action to pardon these convictions. The clemency provision of the state constitution grants the governor near-absolute pardoning power.

While federal law still classifies

cannabis as a Schedule I drug, 19 states and the District of Colum bia have legalized its recreation al use, and 37 states and the Dis trict of Columbia have legalized its medical use, according to the National Conference of State Leg islatures. North Carolina, howev er, has been slow to follow suit.

The Republican-led state Sen ate passed a bill earlier this year with strong bipartisan support that would have legalized mari juana for medical use with a phy sician’s prescription, if purchased through dozens of tightly regulat ed dispensaries.

But the bill idled in the House, where many Republicans held reservations about legalizing can nabis in any form. Opponents of the bill warned the health bene fits remain uncertain and may not outweigh the health risks.

House Speaker Tim Moore said in June that the chamber would wait until 2023 to reconsider le galizing medical marijuana.

Current state law makes pos session of more than 0.5 ounces

All eyes on Nebraska Gov. Ricketts to replace Sen. Sasse

OMAHA, Neb. — With Ben Sasse apparently ready to resign his Nebraska U.S. Senate seat to become president of the Universi ty of Florida, speculation is ram pant that his temporary replace ment could be Gov. Pete Ricketts.

Ricketts, who like Sasse is a Republican, would otherwise be out of a political job due to term limits at the end of the year.

Scenarios of how Ricketts would ascend to the U.S. Senate run the gamut from his presump tive successor naming him as Ne braska’s newest U.S. senator to Ricketts appointing himself to fill the seat. However, Ricketts issued a statement Friday after noon appearing to rule out ap pointing himself.

“If I choose to pursue the ap pointment, I will leave the ap pointment decision to the next governor and will follow the pro cess established for all interested candidates,” Ricketts said in the statement.

The question is whether Rick etts wants the job.

“I think the obvious candidate is Pete Ricketts, and if he wants to be a U.S. senator, then it’s his to take,” said Mark Fahleson, a former chairman of the Nebraska Republican Party.

Dan Welch, who was the state GOP chairman until he was un expectedly voted out during a shakeup at the state party’s con vention in July, agreed that all eyes are on Ricketts to fill the seat.

“I haven’t talked to him, so I don’t know what his plans are,” Welch said. “This probably took him by surprise, too.”

Ricketts on Friday confirmed that the news of Sasse’s departure

caught him off guard.

“The first I learned about Sen. Sasse’s plan to resign from the United States Senate was yester day, when he called to notify me,” Ricketts said, adding that the job of governor “is the greatest job in the world, and it will remain my number one focus for the remain der of my term.”

The University of Florida con firmed Thursday that Sasse is the sole finalist to become the presi dent of the school, and Sasse has indicated he will take the job. Fahleson, an attorney who is a longtime close friend of Sasse, said Friday that given the univer sity’s process for hiring its next president, “the earliest he’ll step down is in early December.”

The school said in a statement that its presidential search com mittee had unanimously recom mended Sasse, a decision that will have to be voted on by the school’s board of trustees and

then confirmed by the board of governors.

In a statement released by the school, Sasse said he was “thrilled about the opportunity to work alongside one of the nation’s most outstanding faculties.”

Sasse was president of Midland University, a Christian school in eastern Nebraska, before he ran for the Senate.

Sasse’s replacement would

serve until 2024, the next oppor tunity for a special election for the seat. The winner of that elec tion would then have to run again in 2026, when Sasse’s term ex pires.

Ricketts could still appoint a successor if Sasse resigns before Jan. 3, and the governor’s state ment Friday didn’t address what he would do if Sasse resigns be fore Ricketts’ term is up. The gov ernor’s office did not immediately return a message seeking clarifi cation.

If Sasse were to leave the Sen ate after that, when Ricketts leaves office, the newly-elected governor would appoint Sasse’s replacement. Republican Jim Pil len — who has been heavily sup ported by Ricketts to be his suc cessor — is favored to win the governor’s race in November.

The Nebraska Secretary of State’s office confirmed that there is nothing in Nebraska law that would keep a sitting gov ernor from appointing himself. And most Democrats, according to Nebraska Democratic Party Chairwoman Jane Kleeb, had ex pected him to do so.

“Ricketts is power hungry and will do anything to either send himself or someone who will an swer to him,” Kleeb said Friday. “Nebraskans are tied of the re volving door, musical chairs and one-party rule.”

While some political insiders feared Ricketts appointing him self to the seat would reek too much of self-dealing, others with in the state’s Republican Party were unfazed by that possibility.

“It’s not self-dealing if he’s the obvious candidate for the job,” Fahleson said. “And there’s no one out there who’s on his level. He has not contemporaries.”

Fahleson said that, despite

punishable by up to 45 days in jail and up to $1,000 in fines, without exemptions for medical use. Pos session of more than 1.5 ounces is classified as a felony.

“People should not have a feder al criminal record for something that is legal in an increasing num ber of states,” Stein said Thursday. “Let’s act, and let’s get it right. That means decriminalizing adult use, expunging past convictions for simple possession, and includ ing strong protections for kids, no advertising, state controlled sales and putting N.C. farmers first.”

Although black and white North Carolina residents use marijuana at approximately the same rate, the task force alleges that people of color make up a disproportionate percentage of those convicted of simple posses sion, paralleling nationwide con cerns of racial bias. Roughly 60% of North Carolinians convicted for possessing up to half an ounce of marijuana in 2019 were nonwhite, according to the most re cent report.

the questions about how the seat will be filled, there’s no question which party will control it.

“Nebraska is a solidly Repub lican state, and whoever makes that appointment will be a Re publican,” he said.

Sasse is a second-term sena tor who has had a complicated relationship with Republicans in his own state after his outspoken criticism of Trump. He was one of seven Republican senators to vote to convict the former president of “incitement of insurrection” after the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack.

Nebraska’s other senator, Deb Fischer, is up for re-election in 2024, so Nebraska would have two Senate seats to vote on that year.

Of the seven GOP senators who voted to convict Trump during his second impeachment in 2021, two others are retiring. In the House, eight of the ten Republi cans who voted for impeachment are either retiring or lost their primaries.

Sasse, who has degrees from Harvard and Yale, worked in the Justice Department and as an as sistant secretary of Health and Human Services under President George W. Bush before he became president of Midland Universi ty. Midland is a small university based in Fremont, Nebraska, that has just over 1,600 students.

Rahul Patel, chair of the Flor ida search committee that is rec ommending Sasse for the job, said he “brings intellectual cu riosity, a belief in the power and potential of American universi ties and an unmatched track re cord of leadership spanning high er education, government and the private sector.”

Gov. Ricketts wished Sasse luck in a statement after the school’s announcement.

Sasse “has one of the most con servative voting records in the Senate, and we need more con servative voices in our universi ties,” Ricketts said.

“Conviction of simple possession can mar people’s records for life and maybe even prevent them from getting a job ... North Carolina should take steps to end this stigma.”

Gov. Roy Cooper

“I think the obvious candidate is Pete Ricketts, and if he wants to be a U.S. senator, then it’s his to take.”

Mark Fahleson, a former chairman of the Nebraska Republican Party.

Cecille Waters

March 4, 1949 — October 6, 2022

Cecille Liverman Waters, a loving wife of 53 years to Merrill Waters, and a wonderful mother to daughters, Wendie and Sara, passed away after a long and courageous battle with cancer, on Thursday, October 6, 2022, at Randolph Hospice House.

Mrs. Waters was born at home in Murfreesboro, NC, on March 4, 1949, to the late Hazel F. and Cecil J. Liverman. She graduated from Murfreesboro High School and Chowan College working as a legal secretary for Carlton Cherry and Stuart Curtis before beginning a career with the State Employees Credit Union from which she retired in May 2018. After retirement she assisted her husband with his business and enjoyed working in her yard. She also loved camping at the beach and riding her Harley Trike in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

To cherish her memory, Cecille is survived by her devoted husband E. Merrill Waters of the home; daughters, Wendie W. Emerson (Dan) of Asheboro, NC, and Sara W. Saunders of Madison, NC; three grandchildren, McKenzie and Tallie Emerson, and Fisher Saunders; and a sister, Laura L. Olmstead of Rolesville, NC. She is also survived by a niece, a nephew, cousins, and many friends.

Beth Hall

May 24, 1945 — October 5, 2022

Claudia Elizabeth “Beth” Burnette Hall, age 77, of Greensboro, NC passed away October 5, 2022 at Randolph Hospice House, Asheboro, NC.

She was born May 24,1945 in Laurinburg NC to Allie Carlton and Sarah Evelyn Burnettte. Beth was a member of Central United Methodist Church in Asheboro and retired from Regional Consolidated Services after 20 plus years of service. In addition to her parents, she was preceded in death by her brothers, William, Thomas, Earl and Gene Burnette.

Beth is survived by her son, Aubrey Scott Hall of Greensboro NC; brother, J. C. Burnette of Laurinburg; nieces, Dawn Knowles of Bedford, TX, Joyce Burnette of Smithfield, Pam Bullock of Laurinburg, Sue Ellen Parrish of Laurinburg, Theresa Pope of Lakewood, CA; nephews, Tommy Burnette of Ferris, TX, Terry Burnette of Maypearl Texas.

James Thomas Mosley

August 7, 1946 — October 4, 2022

James Thomas Mosley, age 76 of Asheboro, passed away on Tuesday, October 4, 2022 at the Randolph Hospice House, Asheboro.

James was born August 7, 1946 in Rocky Mount, NC to Oliver Thomas and Rhina Lee Walker Mosley. James loved woodworking and worked in carpentry for a number of years. He enjoyed going to church at Pleasant Hill Primitive Baptist church and traveling. James loved his family and especially his faithful canine companion, Jasper. In addition to his parents, James is preceded in death by his siblings, Stanley Mosley and Ella Dominguez.

James is survived by his daughter, Melissa Lester of Thomasville; son, James Lucas of Killeen, TX; granddaughters, Savannah (Jourdan) Hicks of Asheboro, Makenzie Jo Burnell and Kylar Rae Burnell both of Thomasville; great grandchildren, Braelyn, Jazemyne, Zayn; siblings, Ann Creekmore of Castalia, NC, Ronnie Mosley of Castalia, NC, David (Tess) Mosley of Nashville, NC, Christine (David) Edwards of Spring Hope, NC, Carole (Jerry) Strickland of Nashville, NC; and his half brother, Bill Long of White Level, NC.

Elmo Lou Phillips

October 11, 1932 — October 8, 2022

Elmo Lou Phillips, 89, of Bear Creek passed away Saturday, October 8, 2022 at her home surrounded by her family.

Clarence Don Hodges

May 16, 1938 — October 3, 2022 Clarence Don Hodges, 84, was called home on October 3, 2022 at home surrounded by his family. Clarence was born on May 16, 1938 to George Dillard and Arlon Fain Hodges. He was born and raised in Stewart, VA, where he met his sweetheart, the love of his life, Margaret Cox Hodges.

Clarence and Margaret moved to Randleman where he was a heavy equipment mechanic for over 32 years at Arrow Equipment, where he retired. He also, for a while, served as a volunteer fire fighter at the Level Cross Fire Department. He enjoyed fishing, mechanics, tinkering in his garage, and wearing overalls. In the opinion of his loving family, he was the shining example of what a man should be. He taught them a good work ethic, honesty, loyalty, showed them how to love, and most importantly, not a day went by that he didn’t share his love for God to everyone. His life’s joy was his family and sharing his love for Jesus at Level Cross Baptist Church where he was a member for more than 50 years. He was preceded in death by his parents, and 9 siblings.

Clarence was survived by his sweetheart, wife of over 65 years, Margaret Marie Cox Hodges, his daughter, Peggy Sue Listenberger (Ron), Clarence “Don” Hodges Jr. (Judy), daughter-in love, Jannette Cockram Hall, granddaughters, Christy Redden (David), Sherrie Hodges (Jason), Stephanie Hodges (Steve), grandsons, John Coffer (Darlene), Christopher “Chris” McClain, 15 blessed great grandchildren, and 1 very special great-great granddaughter, and sister Opal Williams. His enthusiastic love for each of them will always be remembered, and never forgotten.

Mrs. Phillips was born in Chatham County on October 11, 1932, the daughter of Nina Phillips and Buford Goins.

Elmo was a member of Fair Promise United Methodist Church, where she held numerous offices and sang in the Church Choir. She worked for Southern Supreme Fruitcake for over 20 years. She enjoyed filling her days with quilting, sewing, cooking and gardening.

Elmo enjoyed going out to eat and taking camping trips. She loved taking care of people and sitting with them during their times of need. In addition to her parents, she was preceded in death by her husband of 71 years, James R. “Bobby” Phillips, son, Cary Phillips, and grandson, James McLaughlin.

She is survived by her children, Joy Barbour and husband Dannie of Shallotte, Landis Phillips and wife Donna of Sanford, Martha Whisnand and husband Jon of the home, and Neal Phillips and wife Brandi of Gilbert, AZ, Daughters in Love, Joyce Phillips of Carthage, and Tracey Phillips of Siler City, grandchildren, Kaycey McLaughlin of Broadway, Jason Phillips and wife Tina of Liberty, Joshua Phillips and wife Cindy of Raleigh, Jonathan McLaughlin and wife Raven of Wilmington, Jeffery McLaughlin and wife Bambi of Boiling Spring Lakes, Nina Keown and husband Daniel of Lake Park, GA, Hannah Hancock and husband Jordan of Valdosta, GA, Nathan Phillips of Carthage, Jacob Phillips and wife Andrada of Cameron, and Samuel Phillips and wife Hannah of Siler City, great grandchildren, Aiden McLaughlin, Reagan Phillips, Cassidy McLaughlin, Jackson McLaughlin, Vernon McGee Phillips, Rebecca Keown, Luke Keown, Caroline Hancock, John Patrick Hancock, Maxwell Phillips, Benson Phillips, Rhys Phillips, Tyler Madison, Kayleigh BarbourBass, sisters in law, Mary Cox and Jeanette Phillips and special friend, Melissa Stuart.

Sam Austin Poe

February 26, 1936 — October 3, 2022

Sam Austin Poe, 86, of Star, passed away on October 3, 2022.

Mr. Poe was born on February 26, 1936 in Montgomery County to Manley Austin and Ola Bowden Poe. He was a retired construction worker and a Marine Corp veteran.

In addition to his parents, he was preceded in death by his sisters, Geneva Griffin, Grace Cox, Doris Haywood and Armac Poe; and twin brother Seth Poe.

He is survived by his daughter Laura Maness (Brian) of Robbins; son Ronald Poe of Troy; sister Katie Bell Windley and many grandchildren and great grandchildren.

Coline Smith Blake

July 26, 1937 — October 4, 2022

Coline Smith Blake, age 85, of Asheboro passed away on Tuesday, October 4, 2022 at Clapp’s Convalescent Nursing Home. Mrs. Blake was born in Montgomery County on July 26, 1937 to Wilbur Auley Smith and Bertha Pauline Britt Smith. Coline was a hard worker, and retired from Russell’s Hosiery Mill in Star where she ran the canteen. In addition to her parents, Coline was preceded in death by her husband, Charles Edward Blake, Jr., daughter, Teresa Faye Blake, and brothers, J.C. Smith, Roy Lee Smith, Carl Wayne Smith, and Richard Smith. Coline was a loving mother, grandmother, great grandmother, and sister. She was a strong-willed, feisty lady who would help anyone in need, and she loved singing.

She is survived by her daughters, Debbie Kinney of Asheboro and Charlene Whatley of Mexico; son, Charles Edward Blake, III (Kirstie Blake) of Asheboro; grandchildren, Jeffrey Blake, Jason Blake, Jennifer May, Tonia Helms, Clifford Kinney, Jr., Kaitlyn Tessier, Charles Blake IV, Timothy Blake, Kassie Blake, Samuel Whatley, and Joshua Whatley; great grandchildren, Deaglan Blake, Scarlett May, and Priscilla Whatley; and sister, Carolyn Bailey of Biscoe.

Winda Williams Cagle

December 31, 1945 — October 8, 2022

Winda Fay Williams Cagle, 76, of Eagle Springs, passed away on October 8, 2022.

Mrs. Cagle was born in Moore County on December 31, 1945 to Madison and Maggie Freeman Williams. She was a CNA and a member of Pine Grove Baptist Church.

In addition to her parents, she was preceded in death by her husband Colon Max Cagle Jr.

She is survived by her daughters, Leslie Schwartz (Richie) of Asheboro; Sherry Brewer ( Danny) of Robbins; sons Max Cagle III (Susan) of Eagle Springs; Bryant Cagle (Krisit) of Troy; sisters Kathleen Brewer (Dewey) of Eagle Springs and Betty Jane Simmons (John) of Eagle Springs. Grandchildren Danny Brewer (Keri), Morgan Ester (Robert), David Brewer, Jeffery Maness (Meagan), Jessica Story (David), Justin Saliga (Eve), Samantha Brown (Shawn), Jake Shuping (Kayla), Hannah Williamson (Ethan), and Josh Shuping. Great grandchildren Kera Shuping, Jonah Shuping, Joshua Brewer, Luke Williamson, Alyssa Williamson and baby Brown (expected in January 2023).

Zona Belle Allred Stuart

August 24, 1926 — October 7, 2022

Zona Belle Allred Stuart, 96, of Liberty passed away Friday, October 7, 2022 at the Randolph Hospice House.

Ms. Stuart was born in Alamance County on August 24, 1926, daughter of the late Daniel and Dora Sheppard Allred. Zona enjoyed painting and clogging. She was a member of Shady Grove Baptist Church in Staley and also retired from Stout Chair Company. In addition to her parents, she was preceded in death by her husband, John Hugh Stuart.

She is survived by her daughter, Lisa Pugh and husband Ken of Liberty; son, Johnny Stuart of McCleansville; grandchildren, Mike Stuart, Angela Stuart Kingery and husband Mike, Tim Stuart, Dylan Pugh, and Adam Pugh and wife Tasia; and great-grandchildren, Kimberly Smith and husband Hunter, Lacie Kingery, and Zack Burkett.

Timothy Paul Schindler

February 2, 1967 — October 5, 2022

Timothy “Timmy” Paul Schindler, of Troy, passed away unexpectedly on October 5, 2022, at the age of 55.

Timothy was the son of George Joseph and Jacqueline Clancy Schindler, born on February 2, 1967 in Norwood Massachusetts. He was preceded in death by his parents and a sister, Susan Marie.

Timmy is survived by his three children, Michael, Jay and Alisha and was a loving father to them. He also was a loving brother to George Schindler (Debra), Thomas Schindler (Dolores), Patricia Crowley (David), Jacqueline Napolitano (Stephen) and Sandra McSharry (Peter Cave), many nieces, nephews and friends who loved him dearly.

Timmy loved his family most, but enjoyed fishing, NASCAR races and the New England Patriots.

STATE & NATION

Small business group files suit over Biden student loan plan

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A small-business advocacy group has filed a new lawsuit seeking to block the Biden administration’s efforts to forgive student loan debt for tens of millions of Amer icans — the latest legal challenge to the program.

The suit, filed Monday by the Job Creators Network Founda tion, argues the Biden admin istration violated federal proce dures by failing to seek public input on the program. It’s one of a handful of suits that have been filed by conservative business groups, attorneys and Republi can lawmakers in recent weeks as the Biden administration tries to push forward with its plan to cancel billions in debt before No vember’s midterm elections.

Elaine Parker, president of Job Creators Network Foundation, slammed the program as execu tive overreach and complained that it does nothing to address the root cause of rising debt: the “outrageous increase in college tuition that outpaces inflation ev ery single year.”

“This bailout is going to affect everyone in this country because of the mass size of the program,” she said. “And everyone should have the opportunity to provide

their views to the government.”

She added: “These universities need to be held accountable for this student debt crisis.”

The Job Creators Network has previously sued to try to block the Biden administration’s COVID vaccine mandate on businesses.

It also sued Major League Base ball in 2001 for moving the AllStar game out of Atlanta over ob jections to changes to Georgia’s

voting laws. The suit, which cit ed losses to local businesses, was later dropped.

The new suit is one of a grow ing number of legal challenges against the proposal laid out by President Joe Biden in late Au gust to cancel up to $20,000 in debt for certain borrowers.

Six Republican-led states filed suit late last month, accus ing the Biden administration of

overstepping its executive pow ers. And the Pacific Legal Foun dation, a Sacramento, California, legal advocacy group, filed suit in federal court in Indiana, calling the plan an illegal overreach that would increase state tax burdens for some Americans who get their debt forgiven.

Meanwhile, a federal judge in Wisconsin last week dismissed a lawsuit from a local taxpayers group, the Brown County Tax payers Association, that sought to block the program, ruling that the group didn’t have standing to bring the lawsuit. The group had argued that Biden’s order un lawfully circumvented Congress’ power over spending and said the plan was discriminatory because it sought to give particular help to borrowers of color.

The latest lawsuit, filed in the District Court for the Northern District of Texas against the U.S. Education Department and its secretary, Miguel Cardona, takes issue with how the plan was de veloped. It alleges the Biden ad ministration violated the Ad ministrative Procedure Act’s notice-and-comment proce dures. It also challenges the ad ministration’s legal justification for the program.

The suit includes two plain tiffs: one who does not qualify for debt forgiveness because the plan excludes commercially held loans that are not in default, and one who did not receive a Pell grant and is therefore entitled to less debt forgiveness under the plan.

“Behind closed doors, the De partment promulgated a new Debt Forgiveness Program that will affect tens of millions of

Americans and cost hundreds of billions of dollars,” the suit reads. “Instead of providing notice and seeking comment from the pub lic, the Department hammered out the critical details of the Pro gram in secret and with an eye toward securing debt forgiveness in time for the November elec tion.”

It also alleges the department “made numerous arbitrary deci sions about the Program, includ ing which individuals will receive debt forgiveness, how much of their debt will be forgiven, and which types of debt will qualify for the Program.”

“The result of this arbitrari ness is predictable: some will benefit handsomely, some will be shortchanged, and others will be left out entirely,” it reads.

The Biden debt forgiveness program will cancel $10,000 in student loan debt for individuals making less than $125,000 a year or households making less than $250,000. Pell grant recipients, who typically demonstrate more financial need, will be eligible for an additional $10,000.

The Biden administration used an act passed after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks as legal justifi cation for the program. The law gives the administration “sweep ing authority” to reduce or elimi nate student debt during times of national emergency, the Justice Department said in an August le gal opinion. The administration cited the COVID-19 pandemic as its emergency.

The Congressional Budget Of fice estimates the program will cost taxpayers $400 billion over the next three decades.

Herschel Walker centers pitch to Republicans on ‘wokeness’

The Associated Press

EMERSON, Ga. — Herschel Walker pitches himself as a politi cian who can bridge America’s ra cial and cultural divides because he loves everyone and overlooks differences.

“I don’t care what color you are,” Georgia’s Republican Sen ate nominee, who is Black, told an overwhelmingly white crowd recently in Bartow County, north of Atlanta. The United States, he said, “is a good place,” adding that “a way we make it better is by coming together.”

Yet the former football star who calls all Georgians “my fami ly” has staked out familiar conser vative ground on America’s most glaring societal fissures.

Walker says those who do not share his vision of the country can leave. He says his opponent, Sen. Raphael Warnock, and the Demo cratic Party are the real purveyors of division. He insists that their “wokeness” on race, transgender rights and other issues threatens U.S. power and identity.

“Sen. Warnock believes Amer ica is a bad country full of racist people,” Walker says in one ad, making a claim based on the fact that Warnock, who is also black, has acknowledged institution al racism during his sermons as a Baptist minister. “I believe we’re a great country full of generous people,” Walker concludes.

That approach is not surprising in a state controlled for most of its history by white cultural conser

vatives, and it aligns Walker with many high-profile Republicans, including former President Don ald Trump.

The strategy will face its fierc est test in the closing weeks of the campaign as Walker vehement ly denies reports from The Dai ly Beast that he encouraged and paid for a woman’s 2009 abor tion and later fathered a child with her.

The New York Times re ported Friday that he urged her to have a second abortion, a request

that she refused. The Daily Beast also published new details pro vided by the woman about Walk er’s lack of involvement with their child.

Such developments would typ ically sink a Republican candi date. Walker, however, is betting that the conservative ground he has staked out will win over vot ers singularly focused on retaking the Senate majority.

His advisers believe Walker’s rhetoric reflects the views of many

Georgians, at least most who will vote this fall. The outcome could turn on how Walker’s pitch lands in an electorate younger, more ur ban, less white, and less native to Georgia than when Walker, 60, and Warnock, 53, grew up in the state.

Warnock, as minister of At lanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, where Martin Luther King Jr. preached, has long linked the civil rights icon’s vision of a “be loved community” to 21st cen tury discussions of diversity and justice, including religious plu ralism, LGBTQ rights, ballot ac cess, racial equity, law enforce ment and other issues. But in his paid advertising, the pastor-pol itician casts himself mostly as a hardworking senator who has de livered results and federal money for Georgia.

Walker saves his hottest rhet oric for campaign events, where crowds are measured in the doz ens or hundreds, rather than the thousands and millions watching carefully cultivated ads.

In one such ad, a smiling Walk er talks of unity after a string of Democrats — Warnock, Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and Georgia’s Democratic guber natorial candidate Stacey Abrams — are heard discussing racism.

Addressing fellow Republicans, Walker maintains the smile but goes harder at the left, especially on transgender rights.

“They’re bringing wokeness in our military,” Walker said in Cumming. It was an apparent ref erence to the Pentagon allowing

transgender persons to serve and have access to medical care.

“The greatest fighting force ever assembled before God (and) they’re talking about pronouns,” Walker said. “Are you serious? How do you identify? I can prom ise you right now China ain’t talking about how you can identi fy. They’re talking about war.”

Walker sometimes presents his mores as humor. “Y’all see it. They telling you what is a woman. Think about it,” he said in Bartow County, drawing laughter from voters. “That’s right,” he contin ued with a broad smile. “They’re telling you a man can get preg nant.

Hey, I’m gone tell you right now, a man can’t get pregnant.”

Warnock, Walker says, “wants men in women’s sports.” His cam paign aides point separately to a Senate vote on a Republican amendment that would have lim ited federal money for any edu cational institutions “that permit any student whose biological sex is male to participate in an athlet ic program or activity designated for women or girls.” The amend ment failed on a party-line vote.

“That’s sort of like saying you want Herschel Walker to compete against your daughters,” Walk er said in Norcross, eliciting more laughs.

Warnock seems reluctant to answer Walker’s broadsides di rectly. “My job is to represent all the people of Georgia across ra cial and ethnic and religious line, and all corner of this state,” he told reporters last week.

HOKE COUNTY

Hoke County football

Ryan Ramirez had one 31-yard field goal and made all four PAT attempts in the Bucks homecoming win over Southern Lee. Ramirez has made 23 of 25 PAT attempts this season and is six for eight in field goal attempts. For more prep sports coverage, please see page 5.

WHAT’S HAPPENING

Hoke man charged with first-degree murder

A Hoke County man has recently been charged with first-degree murder in relation to the death of a Lumber Bridge man. According to the Robeson County Sheriff’s Office, Jordache W. Leach was taken into custody in Virginia Beach following a traffic stop. Leach has been charged with being a fugitive from justice with regard to the death of Michael A. Morgan, a 32-year-old Lumber Bridge man. Morgan was found dead inside his residence by a family member on September 26. Leach is currently being held with no bond and will be extradited back to Robeson County soon. He will be charged with firstdegree murder upon his return. If you or anyone else has any information regarding this incident, please contact the Robeson County Sheriff’s Office at (910) 671-3170.

Raeford man charged with over 20 charges of child sex exploitation

A 21-year-old Raeford man was charged last week with 26 counts of sexual exploitation of a minor. According to the Hoke County Sheriff’s Office, an online tip led investigators to the home of Richard Lynn Sanders III in May. Sanders turned his phone over to the authorities, who, upon reviewing its contents, charged him on October 5 with 16 counts of second-degree sexual exploitation of a minor and ten counts of third-degree sexual exploitation of a minor. Sanders is currently being held at the Hoke County Detention Center under a secured bond of $100,000. If you or anyone else you know has information pertaining to this case, please contact Lt. Sullivan at (910) 875-5111.

Metronet debuts symmetrical, multi-gigabit speeds up to 10 gigabits in Raeford

North State Journal

RAEFORD — Metronet to day announced that residents and businesses in the North Car olina communities of Fayette ville, Greenville, and Raeford, are the first in the state to have ac cess to even faster internet with Metronet’s ultra-high-speed, multi-gigabit service. In addition to Metronet’s current offerings of one gigabit per second, speeds up to two gigabits are now available for residents, and businesses may choose speeds up to ten gigabits.

All Metronet speeds are symmet rical, which is vital for high-qual ity video conferencing, gaming, and online learning.

The updates to multi-gigabit speeds were made with no disrup tion to the current Fayetteville, Greenville, and Raeford infra structure. Those interested in up grading to Metronet’s multi-giga bit speeds may upgrade online at shop.metronet.com.

“Metronet is proud to official ly deploy access to multi-giga bit speeds to our communities in North Carolina,’ said John Cinel li, Metronet CEO. “Multi-giga bit speeds will change the way the communities we serve spend their time online from the office and at home. These communities now have access to the fastest internet speeds available that will improve the quality of internet service and way of life. Fayetteville, Green ville, and Raeford are supported by a future-proof infrastructure that has the ability to scale to even faster speeds, supporting the con tinued growth and economic de velopment of each community for decades.”

As suicides rise, US military seeks to address mental health

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Af ter finishing a tour in Afghanistan in 2013, Dionne Williamson felt emotionally numb. More warn ing signs appeared during several years of subsequent overseas post ings.

“It’s like I lost me somewhere,” said Williamson, a Navy lieu tenant commander who experi enced disorientation, depression, memory loss and chronic exhaus tion. “I went to my captain and said, ‘Sir, I need help. Something’s wrong.’”

As the Pentagon seeks to con front spiraling suicide rates in the military ranks, Williamson’s expe riences shine a light on the reali ties for service members seeking mental health help. For most, sim ply acknowledging their difficul ties can be intimidating. And what comes next can be frustrating and dispiriting.

Williamson, 46, eventually found stability through a month long hospitalization and a thera peutic program that incorporates

horseback riding. But she had to fight for years to get the help she needed. “It’s a wonder how I made it through,” she said.

In March, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced the cre ation of an independent commit tee to review the military’s mental health and suicide prevention pro grams.

According to Defense De partment data, suicides among active-duty service members increased by more than 40% be tween 2015 and 2020. The num bers jumped by 15% in 2020 alone. In longtime suicide hotspot postings such as Alaska – service members and their families con tend with extreme isolation and a harsh climate – the rate has dou bled.

A 2021 study by the Cost of War Project concluded that since 9/11, four times as many service mem bers and veterans have died by suicide as have perished in com bat. The study detailed stress fac tors particular to military life: “high exposure to trauma — men tal, physical, moral, and sexual —

stress and burnout, the influence of the military’s hegemonic mas culine culture, continued access to guns, and the difficulty of reinte grating into civilian life.”

The Pentagon did not respond to repeated requests for comment. But Austin has publicly acknowl edged that the Pentagon’s current mental health offerings — includ ing a Defense Suicide Prevention Office established in 2011 — have proven insufficient.

“It is imperative that we take care of all our teammates and continue to reinforce that mental health and suicide prevention re main a key priority,” Austin wrote in March. “Clearly we have more work to do.”

Last year the Army issued fresh guidelines to its commanders on how to handle mental health issues in the ranks, complete with brief ing slides and a script. But daunt ing long-term challenges remain.

Many soldiers fear the stigma of admitting to mental health issues within the internal military cul ture of self-sufficiency. And those who seek help often find that stig

In the coming months, oth er communities throughout Met ronet’s 16-state service area will join Fayetteville, Greenville, and Raeford with access to multi-giga bit speeds. Those interested in upgrading may visit the afore mentioned website to be notified once their address is available for upgrade internet speeds.

City officials interested in add ing their community to Metronet’s growing list of “Certified Gigabit Cities Powered by Metronet” may visit Metronet.com/gigabit-city or contact Eddie Massengale, Metronet Sr. Director of Busi ness Development at Eddie.Mas sengale@metronetinc.com or at (423) 280-9031.

ma is not only real, but compound ed by bureaucratic obstacles. Much like the issue of food inse curity in military families, a net work of military-adjacent char

“Metronet is proud to officially deploy access to multi-giga-bit speeds to our communities in North Carolina.”

John Cinelli

Reed, Gregory Allen (W/M/43), B&E Misdemeanor, 10/10/2022, Hoke County Sheriff’s Office

Byrd, James Wade (W/M/43), Assault on a Female, 10/10/2022, Hoke County Sheriff’s Office

Oxendine, Michael Christopher (I/M/37), Larceny Felony, 10/10/2022, Hoke County Sheriff’s Office

Thomas, Quinton Irwin (B/M/33), B&E Felony, 10/08/2022, Hoke County Sheriff’s Office

Ketterman, Logan (W/F/25), AssaultSimple, 10/08/2022, Hoke County Sheriff’s Office

Orduno, Gilberto Moises (W/M/44), Malicious Conduct by Prisoner, 10/08/2022, Hoke County Sheriff’s Office

Ewing, Bobby James (W/M/46), Malicious Conduct by Prisoner, 10/08/2022, Hoke County Sheriff’s Office

Baker, Travis Dean (W/M/31), Possession Schedule I CS - Felony, 10/06/2022, Hoke County Sheriff’s Office

Burdette, Richard Matthew (W/M/36), Felony Death by Vehicle, Hit & RunFelony, 10/05/2022, Hoke County Sheriff’s

David Frump

OPINION

Running for a sound, basic education

“Vote for me as I stand for Students

First Parents

Always!”

I AM RUBEN CASTELLON, and I am a current educator at a local community college. This November, I’m running for Board of Education because, for years, our students have been academically neglected, and parents have been sidelined. As a school board member, my mission will be to ensure that all students receive a sound, basic education. This includes making sure they have access to reliable transportation, qualified teachers who are trained and paid competitively, a SAFE learning environment, and someone to be a voice for parents. Schools should be run as a business with the employers in mind, Stakeholders.

Title 20 United State Code Section 3401 states that education is fundamental to the development of individual citizens and the progress of this nation. Parents have the primary responsibility for educating their children, and the states and localities, such as public schools, are responsible for supporting that parental role.

Since the onset of COVID, Hoke County School District has continued to lose qualified teachers to other counties and states for more pay. Currently, our teachers are overworked and underpaid. I will establish better communication with county commissioners to garnish support to provide a needed pay raise for our teachers, including our part-time teachers. Presently, Hoke County does not offer comparable pay to our surrounding areas, and we are thereby not able to retain nor recruit quality educators. To address this, we must also be better stewards and fiscally responsible with our existing funds to prioritize funding for better teacher pay. The path to a sound, basic education means ensuring that we have a solid recruitment process to attract (and keep) qualified teachers, provide reliable transportation (which includes better pay for our bus drivers), and have an adequate school district infrastructure.

I am for creating a new high school on the Eastern side of the county, not merely adding to the current high school. This decision failed to take into consideration the views and opinions of the stakeholders. Adding onto Hoke high school to accommodate a

larger student body is not responsible when there isn’t any control over the present count and our county is continuously growing. Presently, our high school is not equipped with the proper amount of School Resource Officers to ensure student safety either. Smaller high schools are safer because they are easier to manage and control. I have proposed the idea to pathway schools, where one high school can specialize in STEM while the other can specialize in CTE. Another proposed suggestion to me by a parent (this is what happens when you include the community in the planning process; you get different ideas) is to have one high school designated for 9th and 10th, while the second could be for 11th and 12th. This idea would eliminate the fear of two separate high schools in our county marginalizing groups (have’s and have not’s), it would address the need for smaller classroom sizes, and maintain a student body population that is easy to monitor and control safely.

According to the North Carolina Constitution, all citizens are entitled and have the privilege to public school, and now thanks to the Leandro case, we know that all North Carolinians also “deserve” a sound basic education. The path to a sound basic education means ensuring that we have a sound recruitment process to attract qualified teachers, reliable school district transportation, much-needed school district infrastructure, and INCLUDING the most important stakeholder in the education journey of our children, THE PARENTS.

Early voting begins on 20 October to 5 November. On 8 November, vote for me as I stand for Students First Parents Always!

Ruben Castellon is an educator at a local community college. He has a Master’s in Business Administration with a specialty in Criminal Justice Administration, as well as a Master of Science in Criminal Justice. For more information about his platform, please visit www.Castellon.blog and follow him on Facebook.

The new global virus is runaway government spending and debt

WHEN NEW BRITISH PRIME MINISTER Liz Truss suggested lowering the United Kingdom’s highest tax rate from 45% to 40%, along with a 1% reduction in the income tax rate for all taxpayers, the bond markets and the central bankers around the world went stark raving mad.

Let’s just say Modern Monetary Theory can be thrown in the trash bin.

The academic pinheads at the International Monetary Fund trashed the tax cut as irresponsible. The bond vigilantes started selling Britain’s bonds. And the Bank of England, which had also savaged the tax cut idea, stepped in to buy bonds to stop the bleeding.

The tragedy here is that Truss had the right idea. In an economic calamity as Britain has suffered for the past three years, cutting tax rates to increase investment and production in England is a way to reduce inflation and stave off a recession. It was the same “supplyside” strategy that President Ronald Reagan and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher used in the early 1980s to end the stagflation and economic malaise from the 1970s. The “supply-side economics” worked and helped launch a multidecade economic revival in both countries.

The Left protested that “tax cuts for the rich” would cause even worse debt problems. But this was a fable. The explosion of government debt in the United States, Britain, and almost every other developed country across the planet was not caused by tax cuts. There were two reasons debt exploded.

First, central governments catastrophically shut down their economies and businesses during COVID — even though the health benefits were de minimis. With businesses shut down and workers off the job, tax payments fell off a cliff, thus raising debt levels to unheard-of levels.

Next, the governments of the world compensated for the shutdown of their private sectors by massively increasing government spending on giveaway programs. In the U.S., government spending since COVID has risen by $6 trillion to $7 trillion — above the normal already obese $5 trillion-a-year budget. Across the planet, government “stimulus” spending in 2020 and 2021 is estimated at — are you sitting down? — $21 trillion. Trillions more have been borrowed and spent and paid for with money printing this year.

Government spending in many countries, including the U.S., exceeded 50% of the entire national gross domestic product. In other words, we fought a war against COVID, and socialism won.

Now compare the magnitude of this $21 trillion spending spree with the Truss proposal to cut taxes, which politicos are now saying caused the bond market to go haywire. The total Truss plan had a price tag of about $40 billion.

Only about $2 billion of that was the expected revenue loss from the reduction in the top tax rate. In other words, the tax cut was 0.01% of the amount that was spent and borrowed by all of the countries in the world.

It is inconceivable that a tax cut this tiny could cause a financial panic — or else the world has gone stark raving mad. The real reason that the U.K. is in this economic rut is that former Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the Bank of England kept spending money and printing money at such a reckless pace.

The U.S. is in the same dangerous place that the Brits are in as the world economy teeters on the verge of a sharp and painful economic collapse. President Joe Biden has spent and borrowed $4.1 trillion since he came into office roughly 20 months ago. No president in modern times, and maybe ever, has been as fiscally reckless as Biden. (Alas, Republicans voted for much of this spending, too, and don’t forget that in the last days of the Trump administration, Congress added another trillion dollars of spending.) Our government in the U.S. at all levels is still spending almost 40% of our GDP. This is close to the level of socialist European nations like France.

Incidentally, in the U.S., there is no revenue problem whatsoever. Taxes as a share of our economy are, according to the Congressional Budget Office, at a near-record high. In the current course, tax receipts are expected to continue to rise.

The virus that threatens the world today in almost every nation is runaway government spending and debt. It is the match that has lit the forest fire of runaway inflation. It doesn’t matter how much Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell raises interest rates (which he must do to tame inflation). The stagflation of high inflation and slow growth won’t end until politicians start taking a chainsaw to their out-of-control budgets.

Government spending has not stimulated anything except more government and less private enterprise. The public sector has to go on a SlimFast diet — and for a long, long time to drain the excess spending out of the global economy.

What is all sadly ironic is that many of the nations of the world are now practicing Modern Monetary Theory. This is the radical idea that governments like the U.S. can spend and borrow increasing amounts of money at almost no cost because of low interest rates. Whoops. Interest rates in the U.S. have risen on the 10-year bond from less than 1% to more than 3% in just the last 24 months. The 30-year mortgage rate has risen from 2.85% at the end of 2020 to nearly 7% today. Let’s just say Modern Monetary Theory can be thrown in the trash bin.

Political leaders across the globe seem to be suffering from a severe case of economic amnesia. Reagan said it best, and it is more appropriate today than ever before: “Government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem.” Truer today than ever.

Stephen Moore is a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation and an economist with FreedomWorks. His latest book is “Govzilla: How the Relentless Growth of Government is Devouring our Economy.”

SOCCER

NWSL players

franchise

Chicago Players for the National Women’s Soccer League’s Chicago Red Stars players are calling for owner Arnim Whisler to sell the team a week after former acting U.S. Attorney General Sally Q. Yates released a report into allegations of abuse in the league. Alaska Airline says it’s diverting Thorns and Timbers sponsorship dollars this quarter to an NWSL Players Association emergency fund to protect players. The NWSL has also dismissed the coach of the Orlando Pride and an assistant following an investigation into retaliatory behavior.

COLLEGE BASKETBALL

Gamecocks coach Staley earns leadership award

New York

South Carolina women’s basketball coach Dawn Staley was set to receive the Billie Jean King Leadership Award at the Women’s Sports Foundation’s annual dinner on Wednesday in New York. Staley, 52, recently guided the U.S. women’s basketball team to its seventh straight gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics. A 5-foot-6 floor general at Virginia and six-time WNBA All-Star, Staley won three Olympic golds during her playing career. Among the highest-paid coaches in women’s basketball, the Hall of Famer enters her 15th season leading the Gamecocks.

MLB Phillies lift interim tag from manager Thomson Philadelphia

After guiding the Philadelphia Phillies to their first playoff series victory since 2010, manager Rob Thomson had the interim removed from his title. The Phillies have signed Thomson to a two-year contract to remain as their manager through 2024, rewarding him for a turnaround that earned Philadelphia a wild-card berth. The 59-yearold Thomson took over on June 3 when Joe Girardi was fired with the Phillies mired at 2229. Philadelphia went 65-46 the rest of the way. The Phillies then knocked off St. Louis in the wildcard round to advance to the NL Division Series against the Braves.

NASCAR teams call revenue model ‘broken,’ warn of layoffs

Even successful teams like Hendrick Motorsports are losing money

CHARLOTTE — The most powerful teams in NASCAR warned Friday that the venera ble stock car racing series has a “broken” economic model that is unfair and has little to no chance of long-term stability, a stunning announcement that added to a growing list of woes.

With just four races left in the championship chase, teams went public with their yearlong fight with NASCAR over equitable revenue distribution.

“The economic model is really broken for the teams,” said Cur tis Polk, who as Michael Jordan’s longtime business manager now holds an ownership stake in both the Charlotte Hornets and the two-car 23XI Racing team Jor dan and Denny Hamlin field in the Cup Series.

“We’ve gotten to the point where teams realize the sustain ability in the sport is not very

long term,” Polk said. “This is not a fair system.”

The Race Team Alliance (RTA) was formed in 2014 to give teams a unified voice in ne gotiations with the sanctioning body. A four-member subcom mittee outlined their concerns at a Charlotte hotel, with Polk joined by Jeff Gordon, the fourtime NASCAR champion and vice chairman of Hendrick Mo torsports, RFK Racing President Steve Newmark, and Dave Alp ern, the president of Joe Gibbs Racing.

Hendrick and Gibbs have won six of last seven Cup Series cham pionships dating to 2015, but Gordon said the four-car Hen drick lineup, the most power ful in the industry, has not had a profitable season in years. It will again lose money this season de spite NASCAR’s cost-cutting Next Gen car.

“I have a lot of fears that sus tainability is going to be a real challenge,” Gordon said.

NASCAR issued a statement acknowledging “the challenges currently facing race teams.

“A key focus moving forward is an extension to the charter

agreement, one that will further increase revenue and help lower team expenses,” NASCAR said.

“Collectively, the goal is a strong, healthy sport, and we will ac complish that together.”

Led by Polk, whose role with the Hornets brings familiarity with the NBA’s franchise model, the RTA in June presented NA SCAR with a seven-point plan on a new revenue sharing mod el. The proposal “sat there for months and we told NASCAR we’d like a counteroffer,” Polk said.

He did not disclose the sev en points other than noting that team sustainability and longevi ty were priorities. The committee said they are open to all ideas, in cluding a spending cap like that in Formula One.

“We are amenable to whatev er gets us to a conceptual new structure,” Newmark said.

NASCAR’s counteroffer of fered “a minimal increase in rev enue and emphasis on cost-cut ting,” Polk said.

The team alliance was unani mous in that the only place left to cut costs is layoffs.

“We’ve already had substantial

cuts. We are doing more with less than we ever have in 30 years,” Alpern said.

The battle over costs has sim mered for years. In 2016, NA SCAR adopted a charter system for 36 cars that is as close to a franchise model as possible in a sport that was founded by and in dependently owned by the France family. The charters at least gave the teams something of value to hold — or sell — and protect their investment in the sport.

The team business model is still heavily dependant on spon sorship, which the teams must individually secure. Newmark said sponsorship covers between 60% to 80% of the budgets for all 16 chartered organizations.

Because sponsorship is so vi tal, teams are desperate for fi nancial relief elsewhere and have asked NASCAR for “distribu tion from the league to cover our baseline costs,” Newmark said.

NASCAR said Friday that teams receive about 40% of in dustry-wide generated revenue.

The financial split from the $8.2 billion media rights deal signed ahead of the 2015 season sends 65% to the tracks, 25% to the teams and 10% to NASCAR, according to the series. There are two major track operators, NA SCAR and Speedway Motor sports; NASCAR owns 11 venues on the Cup Series schedule, in cluding the crown jewel Daytona International Speedway.

For one referee, path from Korea to the NBA wasn’t easy

ship, and he eventually had a de cision to make.

Hoke prep sports report

IT WAS HOMECOMING at Hoke County High School this past weekend!

Varsity Football

The Hoke County Bucks beat Southern Lee last Friday night in front of a huge crowd for home coming and the NC Fall Festival Turkey Bowl. The final score at Raz Autry Stadium was 31-7. Se nior Warren Avery led the way in scoring with three touchdowns, two receiving, one rushing, and 140 yards total. Running back Ethan Wallace added to his al ready over 1,100 yards rushing on the season, with 174 yards on the ground, ten yards receiving, and a total of 206 all-purpose yards. Wallace is now second in the Sandhills Athletic Confer ence in rushing with 1,305 yards on the ground behind Lee Coun ty Bradley Brown with 1,372 yards rushing. Bucks QB Bran don Saunders was 8-15 in pass ing, with 135 total yards. Ryan Ramirez had four successful point attempts and one 31-yard field goal in the win.

Defensively, Travis Bronson and Darrien Frazier both regis tered one interception each. An thony Morris recovered a fum ble, and Dexter Foster registered nine sacks and two hurries on defense. Emmanuel Bratcher led the defense with eight tackles.

The Bucks remain fifth in the conference, with their 2-2 re cord. The Bucks will play their next conference away game at Union Pines this Friday, Octo ber 14.

Varsity Volleyball

The girls varsity volleyball team played two matches last week. The first match, which took place at Southern Lee, resulted in a 3-1 conference win. Most recent ly, the team lost a home confer ence match against Union Pines at home. The score was 3-1. The team will play its final two games of the season this week as they play at Pinecrest on Tuesday and at Jack Britt on Wednesday. Cur rently, the team has an 8-11 over all record and is fifth in the con

ference.

Boys Varsity Soccer

The boys varsity soccer team also played two games last week, both of which were con ference matchups. The first game took place at Lee Coun ty in Sanford but resulted in an unfortunate 4-1 loss. For tunately, the boys managed to bounce back, winning their sec ond game at home against Rich mond, 3-2. This week, the team kicked off their three-game schedule with a home confer ence 5-3 win against Southern Lee. They will also play Union Pines Wednesday, October 12, and Gray’s Creek on Thurs day, October 13. The team has a winning overall record of 8-7 but is sitting fourth overall in the conference, 4-5.

Associated Press

INTAE HWANG wanted to play basketball. His parents wouldn’t allow it.

He reached the NBA anyway.

Hwang took the ultimate leap of faith nearly three years ago: Move his family halfway across the world, from their na tive South Korea to a new home in New Jersey, to follow his dream of becoming an NBA ref eree. He’s getting closer to mak ing that a reality, after work ing some preseason games this month — including Monday’s Washington-Charlotte contest — and is expected to get some as signments as a non-staff official during the regular season.

“The NBA was just my dream,” Hwang said in an interview with The Associated Press. “I watched it on TV, right? That’s it. I never, ever tried to get into the NBA by myself.”

Instead, the NBA found him.

Hwang has been an official for nearly 20 years, and it wasn’t al ways easy; he got head-butted by a coach in 2014, and he said that left him evaluating his fu ture. But he stayed in the game and was selected by FIBA — the sport’s international governing body — to be part of the referee corps for the 2016 Rio de Janei ro Olympics. Much in the same way that NBA teams scout in ternationally for player talent, the NBA also scouts all over the globe for refereeing talent.

And from those Rio Games came an invitation from the NBA to come to Las Vegas for Sum mer League in 2017. With that, Hwang’s journey really began. The league continued following his career after he returned to South Korea, building a relation

“Intae showed an enormous amount of capacity for quick learning, quick application,” said Monty McCutchen, the NBA’s senior vice president oversee ing referees. “He had a dream to be a part of our program. He came over here and was part of our referee development pro gram, which we used as a way in which he could learn language and culture. He entered our pipe line through merit, not with any promise. He moved over here without any promise.”

Hwang and his family moved to the U.S. in January 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic struck weeks later. Hwang, who exudes optimism, looked at that as an opportunity — and during all those months without basketball studied the G League and NBA games, plus continued working on his command of English.

He’s been a G League official, now has some NBA preseason experience, and that trajectory has him on a path toward becom ing a full-fledged NBA ref.

“All he did was put in the work, day in and day out,” McCutchen said.

Referees have to make split-second decisions. That’s why, once the invitation from the NBA came, Hwang didn’t need long to make up his mind.

“I just worried about my fami ly, my wife and my son and daugh ter,” Hwang said. “My wife sacri ficed a lot because she couldn’t speak English at all. Now she can (say) ‘thank you, hi,’ those kinds of things.”

But his family loves it here. He’s thankful for the chance. And even though his dream of becom ing a basketball player never ma terialized — both his parents were athletes and they wanted more from their son — he’s found his way into the top league in the world anyway.

“I love basketball,” he said.

"I want to be a servant to ALL PEOPLE of Hoke County."

Cooper

RALEIGH — North Carolina’s two top Democratic state officials are urging the Republican-led legislature to decriminalize the possession of small amounts of marijuana in light of President Joe Biden’s pardon last week of thousands of Americans convict ed of “simple possession” under federal law.

Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper and Attorney General Josh Stein, the state’s top lawyer who is widely expected to run for gover nor in 2024, shared their support for the president’s decision at a Friday task force meeting on ra cial equity and criminal justice.

Established by Cooper in June 2020 after George Floyd’s mur der, the 24-member panel of law enforcement officers, attor neys, civil rights advocates and state officials had recommended in a 2020 report that state law makers replace the misdemean or charge for possessing up to 1.5 ounces of marijuana with a civ il offense on par with a traffic in fraction.

The General Assembly did not act on this recommendation.

“Conviction of simple posses sion can mar people’s records for life and maybe even prevent them from getting a job,” Cooper told the task force Friday. “The Gen eral Assembly didn’t pass your recommendations on this last session, but I believe they should. North Carolina should take steps to end this stigma.”

Acknowledging that drug charging practices dispropor

tionately impact people of color, Biden called on governors Thurs day to issue similar pardons for those convicted of state marijua na offenses, which reflect the vast majority of possession cases. Al though no one is currently in fed eral prison solely for “simple pos session” of the drug, according to the White House, Biden said the pardon could help thousands overcome obstacles to renting a home or finding work. His par don excludes those convicted of possessing marijuana with intent to distribute.

Cooper, who is term-limit ed and cannot seek reelection

in 2024, said he has asked law yers to examine state law and de termine whether North Caroli na can and should take further action to pardon these convic tions. The clemency provision of the state constitution grants the governor near-absolute pardon

ing power. While federal law still clas sifies cannabis as a Schedule I drug, 19 states and the District of Columbia have legalized its rec reational use, and 37 states and the District of Columbia have le galized its medical use, accord ing to the National Conference of State Legislatures. North Caroli na, however, has been slow to fol low suit.

The Republican-led state Sen ate passed a bill earlier this year with strong bipartisan support that would have legalized mari juana for medical use with a phy sician’s prescription, if purchased

All eyes on Nebraska Gov. Ricketts to replace Sen. Sasse

OMAHA, Neb. — With Ben Sasse apparently ready to resign his Nebraska U.S. Senate seat to become president of the Universi ty of Florida, speculation is ram pant that his temporary replace ment could be Gov. Pete Ricketts.

Ricketts, who like Sasse is a Re publican, would otherwise be out of a political job due to term lim its at the end of the year.

Scenarios of how Ricketts would ascend to the U.S. Senate run the gamut from his presump tive successor naming him as Ne braska’s newest U.S. senator to Ricketts appointing himself to fill the seat. However, Ricketts issued a statement Friday afternoon ap pearing to rule out appointing himself.

“If I choose to pursue the ap pointment, I will leave the ap pointment decision to the next governor and will follow the pro cess established for all interested candidates,” Ricketts said in the statement.

The question is whether Rick etts wants the job.

“I think the obvious candidate is Pete Ricketts, and if he wants to be a U.S. senator, then it’s his to take,” said Mark Fahleson, a for mer chairman of the Nebraska Republican Party.

Dan Welch, who was the state GOP chairman until he was unex

pectedly voted out during a shake up at the state party’s convention in July, agreed that all eyes are on Ricketts to fill the seat.

“I haven’t talked to him, so I don’t know what his plans are,” Welch said. “This probably took him by surprise, too.”

Ricketts on Friday confirmed that the news of Sasse’s departure caught him off guard.

“The first I learned about Sen. Sasse’s plan to resign from the United States Senate was yester day, when he called to notify me,” Ricketts said, adding that the job of governor “is the greatest job in the world, and it will remain my number one focus for the remain der of my term.”

The University of Florida con firmed Thursday that Sasse is the sole finalist to become the presi dent of the school, and Sasse has indicated he will take the job. Fahleson, an attorney who is a longtime close friend of Sasse, said Friday that given the univer sity’s process for hiring its next president, “the earliest he’ll step down is in early December.”

The school said in a statement that its presidential search com mittee had unanimously recom mended Sasse, a decision that will have to be voted on by the school’s board of trustees and then con firmed by the board of governors.

In a statement released by the school, Sasse said he was “thrilled about the opportunity to work

alongside one of the nation’s most outstanding faculties.”

Sasse was president of Midland University, a Christian school in eastern Nebraska, before he ran for the Senate.

Sasse’s replacement would serve until 2024, the next oppor tunity for a special election for the seat.

The winner of that election would then have to run again in 2026, when Sasse’s term expires.

Ricketts could still appoint a successor if Sasse resigns before Jan. 3, and the governor’s state ment Friday didn’t address what he would do if Sasse resigns be fore Ricketts’ term is up. The gov ernor’s office did not immediately return a message seeking clarifi cation.

If Sasse were to leave the Sen ate after that, when Ricketts leaves office, the newly-elected governor would appoint Sasse’s replacement. Republican Jim Pil len — who has been heavily sup

ported by Ricketts to be his suc cessor — is favored to win the governor’s race in November.

The Nebraska Secretary of State’s office confirmed that there is nothing in Nebraska law that would keep a sitting gov ernor from appointing himself. And most Democrats, according to Nebraska Democratic Party Chairwoman Jane Kleeb, had ex pected him to do so.

“Ricketts is power hungry and will do anything to either send himself or someone who will an swer to him,” Kleeb said Friday. “Nebraskans are tied of the re volving door, musical chairs and one-party rule.”

While some political insiders feared Ricketts appointing him self to the seat would reek too much of self-dealing, others with in the state’s Republican Party were unfazed by that possibility.

“It’s not self-dealing if he’s the obvious candidate for the job,” Fahleson said. “And there’s no one out there who’s on his level. He has not contemporaries.”

Fahleson said that, despite the questions about how the seat will be filled, there’s no question which party will control it.

“Nebraska is a solidly Repub lican state, and whoever makes that appointment will be a Repub lican,” he said.

Sasse is a second-term sena tor who has had a complicated relationship with Republicans in

through dozens of tightly regu lated dispensaries.

But the bill idled in the House, where many Republicans held reservations about legalizing cannabis in any form. Opponents of the bill warned the health ben efits remain uncertain and may not outweigh the health risks.

House Speaker Tim Moore said in June that the chamber would wait until 2023 to recon sider legalizing medical marijua na.

Current state law makes pos session of more than 0.5 ounc es punishable by up to 45 days in jail and up to $1,000 in fines, without exemptions for medical use. Possession of more than 1.5 ounces is classified as a felony.

“People should not have a fed eral criminal record for some thing that is legal in an increas ing number of states,” Stein said Thursday. “Let’s act, and let’s get it right. That means decriminal izing adult use, expunging past convictions for simple posses sion, and including strong pro tections for kids, no advertising, state controlled sales and putting N.C. farmers first.”

Although black and white North Carolina residents use marijuana at approximately the same rate, the task force alleges that people of color make up a disproportionate percentage of those convicted of simple posses sion, paralleling nationwide con cerns of racial bias. Roughly 60% of North Carolinians convicted for possessing up to half an ounce of marijuana in 2019 were nonwhite, according to the most re cent report.

his own state after his outspoken criticism of Trump. He was one of seven Republican senators to vote to convict the former president of “incitement of insurrection” after the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack.

Nebraska’s other senator, Deb Fischer, is up for re-election in 2024, so Nebraska would have two Senate seats to vote on that year.

Of the seven GOP senators who voted to convict Trump during his second impeachment in 2021, two others are retiring. In the House, eight of the ten Republicans who voted for impeachment are either retiring or lost their primaries.

Sasse, who has degrees from Harvard and Yale, worked in the Justice Department and as an as sistant secretary of Health and Human Services under President George W. Bush before he became president of Midland Universi ty. Midland is a small university based in Fremont, Nebraska, that has just over 1,600 students.

Rahul Patel, chair of the Flor ida search committee that is rec ommending Sasse for the job, said he “brings intellectual curiosity, a belief in the power and potential of American universities and an unmatched track record of lead ership spanning higher educa tion, government and the private sector.”

Gov. Ricketts wished Sasse luck in a statement after the school’s announcement.

Sasse “has one of the most con servative voting records in the Senate, and we need more conser vative voices in our universities,” Ricketts said.

“I think the obvious candidate is Pete Ricketts, and if he wants to be a U.S. senator, then it’s his to take.”

Mark Fahleson

“North Carolina should take steps to end this stigma.”

Gov. Roy Cooper

Penny Shultz Hawthorne

September 4, 1932 ~ October 6, 2022

Mrs. Penny Shultz Hawthorne of Southern Pines, formerly of Raeford, NC passed away Thursday, October 6, 2022, at FirstHealth Hospice House surrounded by her family at the age of 90.

Mrs. Hawthorne was born on September 4, 1932, in Johnson City, NY.

She retired from TJ Maxx in Charlotte, NC in 1990. Her hobbies were putting together jigsaw puzzles and reading. She loved her family dearly.

Mrs. Hawthorne is survived by her children, Rob Hawthorne and his wife Susan of Delaware, Susan Rogers, and her husband Mike of Red Springs, Dean Hawthorne and his wife Katherine of Monroe, NC, 6 grandchildren, Joe Hawthorne, Jennifer Hawthorne and her husband Nate Bollig, Brittany McLeod and her husband Joshua, Jake Rogers, Morgan Rogler and her husband David and Nicole Rogers, 5 great-grandchildren, Peyton, Madison, Paul, Emma, and Oliver.

In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to FirstHealth Hospice, PO. Box 5889 Pinehurst, NC 28374.

Terry Jackson Revels

December 13, 1942 ~ October 6, 2022

Mr. Terry Jackson Revels Sr. of Fayetteville, NC passed away on Thursday, October 6, 2022, at his home at age 79.

Mr. Revels was born in Mecklenburg County on December 13, 1942, to the late Obie Jackson Revels and Lula Stamey Revels.

He was preceded in death by his first wife, Camilla Webb Revels, a brother, Gary Revels, and a sister Serita Williamson.

Terry retired from the United States Navy as an air traffic controller, was a member of Excelsior Lodge number 261 AF&AM in Charlotte, North Carolina, and was a Shriner. He had an avid love of flying and traveling in his RV across the United States.

He is survived by his wife, Mary Elizabeth Revels of Fayetteville, NC, two sons, Terry Jackson Revels Jr. and his wife, Lisa of Steadman, NC, Roger Wayne Revels of NC, two stepsons, Jason Ryan Taylor and his wife, Kelly Hampton, and Matthew Trent Taylor of Bessemer City, NC.

Several grandchildren, Jared, Sarah, Jonathan, Trent, and one greatgranddaughter, Isabel, two step grandchildren, Caterina Jones and Kandace Hampton, three nephews, Jeremy Biddy and his son Waylon, David and Jonathan Williamson, a niece Sandy Revels, a sister-in-law, Charlotte Webb of Gastonia, NC, his special friends Ken Gregory, Earlene Harper, and Dustin Gregory of Raeford, NC, and one fur child, his cat, Cheyenne (Dammit Kitty).

Benjamin (Ben) Woodstock Chisum

November 28, 1972 ~ October 3, 2022

Benjamin Woodstock Chisum of Raeford passed away at the age of 49.

Ben was born on November 28, 1972, to the late Ronald Keith Chisum and Doris Barnes Chisum.

How about them cowboys? He was a huge Dallas Cowboys fan. He liked Sci-Fi books and movies, collecting comics, and playing video games. Ben was a proud father and PeePaw.

He is survived by his daughters, Tori Hughes and her husband Trevor of Raeford, and Santana Chisum of Raeford, and his four grandchildren, Lilah, Lanie, Xander, and Gracie.

Ruby Lene Goodman October 15, 1957 ~ October 5, 2022

Ms. Ruby L. Goodman, age 64 transitioned from earth to glory on October 5, 2022. Ms. Goodman was born in Moore county on October 15, 1957 to the late James Leland Goodman and Magdaline Hough Goodman.

She leaves to cherish her loving memories, children: Jessica RossEvans, PHD (Christian), Jeremy Ross (Amanda), Emmanuel Ross; grandchildren: Sonia Ross, Ethan Ross, Zander Evans; sisters: Deborah G. Ross (Jerry), Minister Stephanie Balaam (Minister Tyson); brother, David Hough (Minister Cindy); aunt, Dasiree Hough, along with a host of other family, friends and students whos lives she touched. Ms. Ruby Goodman will be immensely missed.

Theodore Roosevelt Jackson Sr.

February 19, 1941 ~ October 1, 2022

Mr. Theodore R. Jackson Sr., age 81 went home to rest with his heavenly father on October 1, 2022. He was preceded in death by his son Oliver Dwight Jackson.

Theodore leaves to cherish his loving memories his wife, Genell Jackson, children: Phyllissenia(Calvin), Michael Jackson, Larissa(John) Love, Sheila Jackson, Sondra Jackson, Theodore R. Jackson Jr., eight grandchildren, five great grandchildren along with a host of other family and friends.

Celebrate the life of your loved ones. Submit obituaries and death notices to be published in NSJ at obits@northstatejournal.com

Artiffany Davis

August 22, 1983 ~ October 2, 2022

Ms. Artiffany Davis age, 39 went home to be with her heavenly father on October 2, 2022.

She leaves to cherish her loving memories her children: Nazyria Davis, Natavius Davis, Nazir Davis; parents: Anthony Craigmiles, Avis Mix; momma, Shirley Davis, sister, Amie Ross, brother, Ronald Ross Jr., along with a host of other family and friends. Artiffany will be greatly missed.

Richard Davenport December 1, 1941 ~ October 2, 2022

Mr. Richard Davenport age, 80 transitioned from earth to glory on October 2, 2022.

Richard was born in Elizabeth City, NC to the late Essie and George Davenport. He attended P.W Moore High School and received his AA Degree from NC A & T University in photography which was his passion after getting a Brownie camera at the age of seven years old.

As a staff photographer he got to travel to every state except Alaska taking pictures for Burger King Corp. He later started his own business Images by Richard.

Richard was preceded in death by his mother Essie and stepfather Nelson Burgess, father George and stepmother Hallie Davenport, sister Essie Moore.

He is survived by his wife Shirley, son, Sean and granddaughter Jaria, two nieces, four great nieces and one great great grand nephew.

Nathaniel Legrand

February 1, 1959 ~ September 27, 2022

Mr. Nathaniel Legrand age, 63 transitioned from earth to glory on September 27, 2022. He was preceded in death by his parents John and Myra Legrand.

He is survived by his children: Angela Singletary-Talbert, Neshia Nivens, Johnathan Legrand; brother, Peter Sam Townsend, sisters: Angela, Denora, Brenda, Roevenia, Shawn, Tasha, Teresa; along with a host of other family and friends. He will be immensely missed.

STATE & NATION

Small business group files suit over Biden student loan plan

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A small-business advocacy group has filed a new lawsuit seeking to block the Biden administration’s efforts to forgive student loan debt for tens of millions of Americans — the latest legal challenge to the program.

The suit, filed Monday by the Job Creators Network Foundation, argues the Biden administration violated federal procedures by fail ing to seek public input on the pro gram. It’s one of a handful of suits that have been filed by conserva tive business groups, attorneys and Republican lawmakers in recent weeks as the Biden administration tries to push forward with its plan to cancel billions in debt before November’s midterm elections.

Elaine Parker, president of Job Creators Network Foundation, slammed the program as execu

tive overreach and complained that it does nothing to address the root cause of rising debt: the “out rageous increase in college tuition that outpaces inflation every sin gle year.”

“This bailout is going to affect everyone in this country because of the mass size of the program,” she said. “And everyone should have the opportunity to provide their views to the government.” She add ed: “These universities need to be held accountable for this student debt crisis.”

The Job Creators Network has previously sued to try to block the Biden administration’s COVID vaccine mandate on businesses. It also sued Major League Baseball in 2001 for moving the All-Star game out of Atlanta over objections to changes to Georgia’s voting laws. The suit, which cited losses to local businesses, was later dropped.

The new suit is one of a growing number of legal challenges against

the proposal laid out by President Joe Biden in late August to cancel up to $20,000 in debt for certain borrowers.

Six Republican-led states filed suit late last month, accusing the Biden administration of overstep ping its executive powers. And the Pacific Legal Foundation, a Sac ramento, California, legal advoca cy group, filed suit in federal court in Indiana, calling the plan an ille gal overreach that would increase state tax burdens for some Amer icans who get their debt forgiven.

Meanwhile, a federal judge in Wisconsin last week dismissed a lawsuit from a local taxpayers group, the Brown County Tax payers Association, that sought to block the program, ruling that the group didn’t have standing to bring the lawsuit. The group had argued that Biden’s order unlawfully cir cumvented Congress’ power over spending and said the plan was discriminatory because it sought

to give particular help to borrow ers of color.

The latest lawsuit, filed in the District Court for the Northern District of Texas against the U.S. Education Department and its sec retary, Miguel Cardona, takes issue with how the plan was developed.

It alleges the Biden administration violated the Administrative Pro cedure Act’s notice-and-comment procedures. It also challenges the administration’s legal justification for the program.

The suit includes two plaintiffs: one who does not qualify for debt forgiveness because the plan ex cludes commercially held loans that are not in default, and one who did not receive a Pell grant and is therefore entitled to less debt for giveness under the plan.

“Behind closed doors, the De partment promulgated a new Debt Forgiveness Program that will af fect tens of millions of Americans and cost hundreds of billions of dollars,” the suit reads. “Instead of providing notice and seeking comment from the public, the De partment hammered out the criti cal details of the Program in secret and with an eye toward securing debt forgiveness in time for the No vember election.”

It also alleges the department

“made numerous arbitrary de cisions about the Program, in cluding which individuals will re ceive debt forgiveness, how much of their debt will be forgiven, and which types of debt will qualify for the Program.”

“The result of this arbitrariness is predictable: some will benefit handsomely, some will be short changed, and others will be left out entirely,” it reads.

The Biden debt forgiveness pro gram will cancel $10,000 in stu dent loan debt for individuals making less than $125,000 a year or households making less than $250,000. Pell grant recipients, who typically demonstrate more fi nancial need, will be eligible for an additional $10,000.

The Biden administration used an act passed after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks as legal justification for the program. The law gives the administration “sweeping author ity” to reduce or eliminate student debt during times of national emer gency, the Justice Department said in an August legal opinion. The ad ministration cited the COVID-19 pandemic as its emergency.

The Congressional Budget Of fice estimates the program will cost taxpayers $400 billion over the next three decades.

Herschel Walker centers pitch to Republicans on ‘wokeness’

EMERSON, Ga. — Herschel Walker pitches himself as a politi cian who can bridge America’s ra cial and cultural divides because he loves everyone and overlooks differ ences.

“I don’t care what color you are,” Georgia’s Republican Senate nom inee, who is Black, told an over whelmingly white crowd recently in Bartow County, north of Atlan ta. The United States, he said, “is a good place,” adding that “a way we make it better is by coming togeth er.”

Yet the former football star who calls all Georgians “my family” has staked out familiar conservative ground on America’s most glaring societal fissures.

Walker says those who do not share his vision of the country can leave. He says his opponent, Sen. Raphael Warnock, and the Demo cratic Party are the real purveyors of division. He insists that their “wo keness” on race, transgender rights and other issues threatens U.S. power and identity.

“Sen. Warnock believes Ameri ca is a bad country full of racist peo ple,” Walker says in one ad, mak ing a claim based on the fact that

Warnock, who is also black, has acknowledged institutional rac ism during his sermons as a Bap tist minister. “I believe we’re a great country full of generous people,” Walker concludes.

That approach is not surprising in a state controlled for most of its history by white cultural conser vatives, and it aligns Walker with many high-profile Republicans, in cluding former President Donald Trump.

The strategy will face its fiercest test in the closing weeks of the cam paign as Walker vehemently de nies reports from The Daily Beast

that he encouraged and paid for a woman’s 2009 abortion and later fathered a child with her. The New York Times reported Friday that he urged her to have a second abor tion, a request that she refused. The Daily Beast also published new de tails provided by the woman about Walker’s lack of involvement with their child.

Such developments would typi cally sink a Republican candidate. Walker, however, is betting that the conservative ground he has staked out will win over voters singularly focused on retaking the Senate ma jority.

His advisers believe Walker’s rhetoric reflects the views of many Georgians, at least most who will vote this fall. The outcome could turn on how Walker’s pitch lands in an electorate younger, more urban, less white, and less native to Geor gia than when Walker, 60, and War nock, 53, grew up in the state.

Warnock, as minister of Atlan ta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, where Martin Luther King Jr. preached, has long linked the civil rights icon’s vision of a “beloved community” to 21st century discussions of diver sity and justice, including religious pluralism, LGBTQ rights, ballot ac cess, racial equity, law enforcement

and other issues. But in his paid ad vertising, the pastor-politician casts himself mostly as a hardworking senator who has delivered results and federal money for Georgia.

Walker saves his hottest rhetoric for campaign events, where crowds are measured in the dozens or hun dreds, rather than the thousands and millions watching carefully cul tivated ads.

In one such ad, a smiling Walk er talks of unity after a string of Democrats — Warnock, Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and Geor gia’s Democratic gubernatorial can didate Stacey Abrams — are heard discussing racism.

Addressing fellow Republicans, Walker maintains the smile but goes harder at the left, especially on transgender rights.

“They’re bringing wokeness in our military,” Walker said in Cum ming. It was an apparent reference to the Pentagon allowing transgen der persons to serve and have access to medical care.

“The greatest fighting force ever assembled before God (and) they’re talking about pronouns,” Walker said. “Are you serious? How do you identify? I can promise you right now China ain’t talking about how you can identify. They’re talking

about war.”

Walker sometimes presents his mores as humor. “Y’all see it. They telling you what is a woman. Think about it,” he said in Bartow Coun ty, drawing laughter from voters.

“That’s right,” he continued with a broad smile. “They’re telling you a man can get pregnant. Hey, I’m gone tell you right now, a man can’t get pregnant.”

Warnock, Walker says, “wants men in women’s sports.” His cam paign aides point separately to a Senate vote on a Republican amendment that would have limit ed federal money for any education al institutions “that permit any stu dent whose biological sex is male to participate in an athletic program or activity designated for women or girls.” The amendment failed on a party-line vote.

“That’s sort of like saying you want Herschel Walker to compete against your daughters,” Walk er said in Norcross, eliciting more laughs.

Warnock seems reluctant to an swer Walker’s broadsides directly. “My job is to represent all the peo ple of Georgia across racial and eth nic and religious line, and all corner of this state,” he told reporters last week.

organizations has tried to fill the gaps with a variety of pro grams and outreach efforts.

Some are purely recreational, such as an annual fishing tourna ment in Alaska designed to pro vide fresh air and socialization for service members. Others are more focused on self-care, like an Armed Services YMCA program that offers free childcare so that military parents can attend ther apy sessions.

Sgt. Antonio Rivera, an 18-year veteran who completed three tours in Iraq and a year at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, freely acknowledges

that he has serious PTSD.

“I know that I need help. There’s signs and I’ve waited long enough,” said Rivera, 48, who is assigned to Fort Hood in Texas. “I don’t want my children to suffer because of me not going to get help.”

He’s doing yoga, but says he needs more. He’s reluctant to seek help inside the military.

“Personally I’d feel more com fortable being able to talk to some one outside,” he said. “It would al low me to open up a lot more without having to be worried about how it’s going to affect my career.”

Others who speak up say it’s a struggle to get assistance.

Despite the on-base presence of “tons of briefings and brochures on suicide and PTSD,” Williamson said she found herself fighting for years to get time off and therapy.

Eventually, she entered a monthlong in-patient pro gram in Arizona. When she re turned, a therapist recommend ed equine-assisted therapy, which proved to be a breakthrough.

Now Williamson is a regu lar at the Cloverleaf Equine Cen ter in Clifton, Virginia, where rid ing sessions can be combined with a variety of therapeutic practices and exercises. Working with hors es has long been used as a form for therapy for people with physical or

mental disabilities and children diagnosed with autism. But in re cent years, it has been embraced for helping service members with anxiety and PTSD.

“In order to be able to work with horses, you need to be able to reg ulate your emotions. They com municate through body language and energy,” said Shelby Morri son, Cloverleaf’s communications director. “They respond to ener gies around them. They respond to negativity, positivity, anxiety, excitement.”

Military clients, Morrison said, come with “a lot of anxiety, depres sion, PTSD. … We use the horse to get them out of their triggers.”

For Williamson, the regular riding sessions have helped stabi lize her. She still struggles, and she said her long campaign for treat ment has damaged her relation ship with multiple superior offi cers. She’s currently on limited duty and isn’t sure if she’ll retire when she hits her 20-year anni versary in March.

Nevertheless, she says, the equine therapy has helped her feel optimistic for the first time in re cent memory.

“Now even if I can’t get out of bed, I make sure to come here,” she said. “If I didn’t come here, I don’t know where I would even be.”

Tony Santangelo,

No. 15 Wake Forest rushes past Army, 45-10

Wake Forest cheerleaders perform during the first half of an NCAA college football game between Wake Forest and Army in Winston-Salem, on Saturday, Oct. 8, 2022.

WHAT’S HAPPENING

Area organizations receive museum grants

A total of 55 organizations around the state received a total of $6.3 million in grant money from the North Carolina Science Museums Grant Program. The money will be used to help provide science, technology, engineering and math education opportunities to the public, with a focus on lowresource communities.

“The North Carolina Science Museums Grant Program helps fund crucial science education across our state,” said D. Reid Wilson, secretary of the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources. “This investment of federal funds by the legislature and the Governor will increase access to STEM experiences no matter where you live in North Carolina.”

The awards ranged from $70,000 to $185,000 and must be used between 2022 and 2025.

Two Forsyth County organizations were awarded grants. The Kaleideum received $97,148.45, while the Paul J. Ciener Botanical Garden received $84,372.49. The Rowan County Nature Center and Wildlife Adventures also received a grant, for $141,079.25.

“The great work of these museums continues to place our state at the forefront of informal science education nationally and these grants support that endeavor,” said Darrell Stover, head of the North Carolina Science Museums Grant Program at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences.

Board of Education approves revisions to 2016 Bond Project

EC contracts renewed

WINSTON-SALEM — The Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools Board of Education met Tuesday, September 27, with the key item on the agenda the recom mended revisions to the 2016 Bond projects.

The board approved revisions to the 2016 Bond Project in order to address higher costs that have come as the projects progressed.

“To develop the bond, staff has to look at projects that are via ble to move forward and we have to develop that list and scope for each project,” said Director of Con struction and Facilities Nick See ba. “In that process, we apply what we think at the time are appropri ate pricing for those projects. Six years ago was when those evalu ations and determinations were made and we applied the best logic possible to assume what the costs would be as time went by. Through that whole process, we developed that dollar amount and once that is approved and moved through

the Board of Education and For syth County, we are told how we can divvy up the money and proj ects based off of phasing. We don’t get one lump sum, but instead get it in pieces.”

WSFCS administrative staff collected board and communi ty feedback and from that, draft ed two recommendations to move forward with which will help ex pedite other projects and prevent a shortfall from higher than pro jected costs. Both were approved by the board.

Recommendation “A,” was to postpone the Griffith Elementa ry School Addition and Pre-K cen ter, the Ward Elementary School addition and the New Smith Farm Middle School projects and to have the funding for those three proj ects be dispersed to the remain ing projects in the 2016 Bond Pro gram.

“I feel strongly, that having been in this district for many, many years, that the people who have worked in this district, have every good intention,” said board mem ber Elisabeth Motsinger. “I have not worked with anybody whose desire was to withhold anything from any student, from any teach

er, from any parent or from our community. The people that have been in public education and stay in it, move Heaven and Earth on a daily basis to keep things working.”

Recommendation “B,” was to continue with obtaining construc tion pricing for the current design scope of Philo-Hill Magnet Middle School.

“In 2016, there was, in the bond, for the construction and design of Philo-Hill for 550 students,” said board member Malishai Wood bury. “Now it is at 600. Howev er, in 2016 it was $175 per square foot, now it’s $350. So we can see how the numbers have drastically changed as it relates to the design that we voted on.

Along with those projects, four projects will be continued as

planned.

“We have four projects that re main in the bond, I want to be clear about, that they are continu ing as planned,” Seeba said. “Those projects are Ashley Elementary School design, Brunson Elemen tary School replacement, East For syth High School renovation and the land procurement for an ele mentary school in eastern Forsyth County.”

The board approved the proj ect list and budgeted allocation for the 2022-24 2/3 Bond Projects in order to replace equipment or sys tems that are at the end of their lifecycle.

The board approved two ease ments, one for a Bus Stop Shelter Easement at 2500 W Mountain St and an easement for Duke Energy at 1690 Southwest School Road.

The board also approved revi sions to Policy 5131.5 and 5131.6 which updates the Procedures for Student Discipline and Student Behavior – Alcohol and Drugs sec tions in order to ensure alignment to the Codes of Character, Conduct and Support.

Finally, the board approved the renewal of a few annual EC Con tracts. Those contracts were with Communication Access Part ners for interpreting services, SeeMacVision for Teacher of the Visually Impaired and Forsyth County Department of Public Health for comprehensive school nursing services.

The WSFCS Board of Education will next meet October 11.

Fight, sledgehammer attack mar youth football game

Adults brawl at game matching 6-year-olds

Twin City Herald

A FIGHT between groups of adults broke out at a youth foot ball game at Glenn High School on Saturday morning.

Police were called to the school in Kernersville at 11:14 AM af ter the incident broke out during a football game between 6-year olds. An adult man reportedly crossed the field to confront the other team, instigating the fight. There were reports of people with

guns and someone attacking peo ple on the field with a sledgeham mer.

The fight was still in progress when police arrived. One man suf fered a head injury after being hit in the head with the hammer. The sledgehammer was believed to be a prop. Many football teams use sledge hammers, chains and other similar equipment as part of their entrance rituals before games or as motivational sideline items. The victim was taken to the hospi tal and his injuries were believed to be non life-threatening. Sever al other people reported cuts and scrapes during the fighting.

Officers from the Winston-Sa lem Police Department, Kern ersville Police Department and Forsyth County Sheriff’s Office helped separate the combatants and stood by to keep the groups separated during the investiga tion.

No children were involved in the fight or injured during the vi olence.

Winston-Salem/Forsyth Coun ty Schools released a statement reading, “This incident is com pletely and totally unrelated to WS/FCS and Glenn High. We of course do not condone any vio lence or fighting on our proper

ty. It is common that groups rent/ lease our property and if there is something that violates our con tract we would certainly assess the situation as appropriate. Since it is Saturday our team will look into what happened in this case, next week, and make any decisions at that time.”

The schools also terminated their agreement with the football league, who will no longer be al lowed to use district facilities.

Authorities would not release information about any arrests that were made immediately following the incident. They said that the in vestigation was still ongoing.

“I feel strongly that the people who have worked in this district, have every good intention.”

Elisabeth Motsinger

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Isaac Hester Baity Jr., 90, of Winston-Salem, died October 8, 2022.

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Ruby Kathleen “Kat” Bodenheimer, 85, of Davidson County, died October 7, 2022.

♦ Judy Stanley Boyd, 79, of Carthage, died October 6, 2022.

♦ Nick George Chrysson, Jr., M.D., 61, of Winston-Salem, died October 5, 2022.

♦ Angela Lynn Bull Combs, 64, of Winston Salem, died October 8, 2022.

♦ Timothy Dwane Davis, 63, of Surry County, died October 6, 2022.

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Vivian Marie Rush Davis, 81, died October 6, 2022.

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Emory Jackson Dennard III, 71, of Winston-Salem, died October 6, 2022.

♦ Michael William Ferguson, 65, of Forsyth County, died October 5, 2022.

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David Lee Griffin, Jr., 71, of Forsyth County, died October 7, 2022.

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Ellen Brooke Wilder Guyan, 72, died October 6, 2022.

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Pauline Hege Jones, 98, of Winston-Salem, died October 6, 2022.

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Donna M. Kozlowski, 63, died October 6, 2022.

♦ Doris Ruth Kiser Rutledge, 91, of Winston-Salem, died October 8, 2022.

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Leroy Singletary died October 7, 2022.

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Lana Kiser Smith, 79, of Kernersville, died October 8, 2022.

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Frank Stearns, Jr., 78, died October 7, 2022.

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Patricia Ann Gant Thombs, 77, of Winston-Salem, died October 5, 2022.

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The new global virus is runaway government spending and debt

WHEN NEW BRITISH PRIME MINISTER Liz Truss suggested lowering the United Kingdom’s highest tax rate from 45% to 40%, along with a 1% reduction in the income tax rate for all taxpayers, the bond markets and the central bankers around the world went stark raving mad.

The academic pinheads at the International Monetary Fund trashed the tax cut as irresponsible. The bond vigilantes started selling Britain’s bonds. And the Bank of England, which had also savaged the tax cut idea, stepped in to buy bonds to stop the bleeding.

The tragedy here is that Truss had the right idea. In an economic calamity as Britain has suffered for the past three years, cutting tax rates to increase investment and production in England is a way to reduce inflation and stave off a recession. It was the same “supply-side” strategy that President Ronald Reagan and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher used in the early 1980s to end the stagflation and economic malaise from the 1970s. The “supply-side economics” worked and helped launch a multidecade economic revival in both countries.

The Left protested that “tax cuts for the rich” would cause even worse debt problems. But this was a fable. The explosion of government debt in the United States, Britain, and almost every other developed country across the planet was not caused by tax cuts. There were two reasons debt exploded.

First, central governments catastrophically shut down their economies and businesses during COVID — even though the health benefits were de minimis. With businesses shut down and workers off the job, tax payments fell off a cliff, thus raising debt levels to unheard-of levels.

Next, the governments of the world compensated for the shutdown of their private sectors by massively increasing government spending on giveaway programs. In the U.S., government spending since COVID has risen by $6 trillion to $7 trillion — above the normal already obese $5 trilliona-year budget. Across the planet, government “stimulus” spending in 2020 and 2021 is estimated at — are you sitting down? — $21 trillion. Trillions more have been borrowed and spent and paid for with money printing this year.

Government spending in many countries, including the U.S., exceeded 50% of the entire national gross domestic product. In other words, we fought a war against COVID, and socialism won.

Now compare the magnitude of this $21 trillion spending spree with the Truss proposal to cut taxes, which politicos are now saying caused the bond market to go haywire. The total Truss plan had a price tag of about $40 billion. Only about $2 billion of that was the expected revenue loss from the reduction in the top tax rate. In other words, the tax cut was 0.01% of the amount that was spent and borrowed by all of the countries in the world.

WEEKLY CRIME LOG

♦ AGUSTINIANOMARTINEZ, KIMBERLY was arrested on a charge of ASSAULT-SIMPLE at 1832 FLATROCK ST on 10/9/2022

♦ ASHLEY, DAVIS WALKER was arrested on a charge of DRUGS-POSS SCHED I at 3255 ROBINHOOD RD/WHITAKER RIDGE DR on 10/9/2022

♦ Banks, Korey Emmanuel (M/20) Arrest on chrg of 1) Misd Poss Controlled Substance (M) and 2) Bribery Offer (F), at 1115 Brookhill Park Dr, Rural Hall, NC, on 10/7/2022 18:57.

♦ BLAKLEY, YVETTE NICOLE was arrested on a charge of ASSAULTPOINT GUN at 201 N CHURCH ST on 10/9/2022

♦ Bowman, Ronnie Eugene (M/36) Arrest on chrg of Drugs-poss Sched I (F), at 6000 Germanton Rd, Winston-salem, NC, on 10/5/2022 02:01.

♦ Cable, Jake (M/54) Arrest on chrg of 1) Misuse Of 911 System (M) and 2) False Report Motor Vehicle Theft (M), at 5311 Cedar Green Dr, Walkertown, NC, on 10/9/2022 01:43.

♦ Cornell, Jaman (M/22) Cited on Charge of Contrib Delinq Minor (202211585), at N Martin Luther King Jr Dr/e Fifth St, Winstonsalem, on 10/5/2022.

♦ DUKES, MALITTA JENEA was arrested on a charge of EMBEZZLEMENT at 201 N CHURCH ST on 10/8/2022

♦ FOSTER, KIMIKA ROCHELLE was arrested on a charge of FAIL TO REGISTER - SEX OFFENDER REGISTRATION at 3000 BLK GILMER AVE on 10/10/2022

♦ Fuller, Steven Devon (M/35) Arrest on chrg of 1) Weap-poss By Felon (F) and 2) Obstructed Tag (M), at 2700 Claremont Av, Winstonsalem, NC, on 10/7/2022 17:10.

♦ GUNTHER, GREGORY JOSEPH was arrested on a charge of 2ND DEGREE TRESPASS at 2209 CLOVERDALE AV on 10/9/2022

♦ Hall, Rahnard Amund (M/19) Arrest on chrg of 1) Robbery (F) and 2) Robbery (F), at 201 N Church St, Winston-salem, NC, on 10/10/2022 17:57.

♦ HANES, CLARK LINDSAY was arrested on a charge of 2ND DEGREE TRESPASS at 951 SILAS CREEK PW on 10/9/2022

♦ HARRIGAN, JANINE FRANCES was arrested on a charge of VANDREAL PROPERTY at 405 25TH STREET on 10/8/2022

♦ Hernandez, Alejandro Jay (M/31) Arrest on chrg of Vand-real Property, M (M), at 356 Flynnwood Dr, Kernersville, NC, on 10/6/2022 10:01.

Donald Ray Thompson, 61, died October 5, 2022.

♦

It is inconceivable that a tax cut this tiny could cause a financial panic — or else the world has gone stark raving mad. The real reason that the U.K. is in this economic rut is that former Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the Bank of England kept spending money and printing money at such a reckless pace.

The U.S. is in the same dangerous place that the Brits are in as the world economy teeters on the verge of a sharp and painful economic collapse.

President Joe Biden has spent and borrowed $4.1 trillion since he came into office roughly 20 months ago. No president in modern times, and maybe ever, has been as fiscally reckless as Biden. (Alas, Republicans voted for much of this spending, too, and don’t forget that in the last days of the Trump administration, Congress added another trillion dollars of spending.) Our government in the U.S. at all levels is still spending almost 40% of our GDP. This is close to the level of socialist European nations like France.

Incidentally, in the U.S., there is no revenue problem whatsoever. Taxes as a share of our economy are, according to the Congressional Budget Office, at a near-record high. In the current course, tax receipts are expected to continue to rise.

The virus that threatens the world today in almost every nation is runaway government spending and debt. It is the match that has lit the forest fire of runaway inflation. It doesn’t matter how much Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell raises interest rates (which he must do to tame inflation). The stagflation of high inflation and slow growth won’t end until politicians start taking a chainsaw to their out-of-control budgets.

Government spending has not stimulated anything except more government and less private enterprise. The public sector has to go on a SlimFast diet — and for a long, long time to drain the excess spending out of the global economy.

What is all sadly ironic is that many of the nations of the world are now practicing Modern Monetary Theory. This is the radical idea that governments like the U.S. can spend and borrow increasing amounts of money at almost no cost because of low interest rates. Whoops. Interest rates in the U.S. have risen on the 10-year bond from less than 1% to more than 3% in just the last 24 months. The 30-year mortgage rate has risen from 2.85% at the end of 2020 to nearly 7% today. Let’s just say Modern Monetary Theory can be thrown in the trash bin.

Political leaders across the globe seem to be suffering from a severe case of economic amnesia. Reagan said it best, and it is more appropriate today than ever before: “Government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem.” Truer today than ever.

Stephen Moore is a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation and an economist with FreedomWorks. His latest book is “Govzilla: How the Relentless Growth of Government is Devouring our Economy.”

Stephen Moore is a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation and an economist with FreedomWorks. His latest book is “Govzilla: How the Relentless Growth of Government is Devouring our Economy.”

♦ JENIFER, JAMAR EMMANUEL was arrested on a charge of 2ND DEGREE TRESPASS at 301 MEDICAL CENTER BV on 10/10/2022

♦ Little, Brittney Dion (F/32) Arrest on chrg of 1) Concealing Mdse (M), 2) Larceny/misdemeanor (M), and 3) Felony Habitual Larceny (F), at 201 N Church St, Winston-salem, NC, on 10/6/2022 21:21.

♦ MARSH, BRANDON KENNETH was arrested on a charge of DRUGS-POSS SCHED II at 5910 UNIVERSITY PW on 10/9/2022

♦

MARSHALL, WILLIAM ERIC was arrested on a charge of REVENGE PORN at 201 N CHURCH ST on 10/10/2022

♦ Martinez Jimenez, Luciano (M/32) Arrest on chrg of 1) Impaired Driving Dwi (M) and 2) Open Beverage In Possession Of Passenger (M), at 3998 Clemmons Rd/lasater Rd, Clemmons, NC, on 10/8/2022 23:59.

♦

MCCOY, VICTORIA LASABLE was arrested on a charge of VAND-PERSONAL PROP at 5595 SHATTALON DR on 10/9/2022

♦ MCDOWELL, ANDRE GERODE was arrested on a charge of 2ND DEGREE TRESPASS at 134 N SPRUCE ST on 10/9/2022

♦

Justin Waddell, 36, died October 5, 2022.

♦

Angela “Angie” Denise Waller, 46, of Forsyth County, died October 8, 2022.

♦ CROSSON, RAYMOND JAVON was arrested on a charge of ALTER, DESTRUCT, REMOVE SERIAL NUMBER FIREARM; POSS FIREARM at 602 W FOURTEENTH ST on 10/10/2022

♦ Douthit, Turner Antonio (M/39) Arrest on chrg of Assault On Female (M), at 201 N Church St, Winston-salem, NC, on 10/5/2022 13:41.

♦ Hoppis, Lisa Marie (F/58) Arrest on chrg of Assault-simple (M), at 1036 Greenly Dr, Pfafftown, NC, on 10/10/2022 03:14.

♦ ISMAIL, MAZEN FAWZY was arrested on a charge of 2ND DEGREE TRESPASS at 930 N PATTERSON AV on 10/10/2022

MCKNIGHTLEONARD, RONALD EUGENE was arrested on a charge of DRUGS-POSS SCHED II at 2008 S HAWTHORNE RD on 10/10/2022

♦ MOORE, BRADLEY AUSTIN was arrested on a charge of BREAKING/LARC-FELONY at 1016 E SPRAGUE ST on 10/9/2022

♦ OLMEDO, FRANCISCO BALBUENA was arrested on a charge of IMPAIRED DRIVING DWI at 3399

KERNERSVILLE RD/VOGLER DR on 10/8/2022

♦ PEREZ, KRISTIAN GABRIEL REYES was arrested on a charge of STALKING at HANES MALL BV/EB 40 on 10/9/2022

♦ PLATER, JAQUAN MONTE was arrested on a charge of 2ND DEGREE TRESPASS at 4129 SUNFLOWER CR on 10/8/2022

♦ Plemmons, Brooks Janzen (M/37) Arrest on chrg of 1) Communicate Threats (M) and 2) Communicate Threats (M), at 6916 Harpervalley Ln, Clemmons, NC, on 10/10/2022 00:27.

♦ Rice, Jalen Mehki (M/18) Cited on Charge of Ccw (202211633), at 898 Efird St/n Glenn Av, Winstonsalem, NC, on 10/6/2022.

♦ SCOTT, RICHARD EMANUEL was arrested on a charge of ASSAULT ON FEMALE at 2723 ANSONIA ST on 10/9/2022

♦ Smith, Crystal Powers (F/50) Arrest on chrg of 1) Concealing Mdse (M) and 2) Felony Habitual Larceny (F), at 201 N Church St, Winston-salem, NC, on 10/9/2022 13:50.

♦ Warden, Patrick Hudson (M/35) Arrest on chrg of 1) Assault-point Gun (M), 2) Assault-point Gun (M), and 3) Assault On Female (M), at 2534 Olivet Church Rd, Winstonsalem, NC, on 10/10/2022 11:32.

♦ Wesley, Norris Devalle (M/55) Arrest on chrg of Assault On Female (M), at 5295 Shaddowfax Dr, Kernersville, NC, on 10/7/2022 21:21.

♦ Woolum, Keith Allen (M/47) Arrest on chrg of 1) Fail To Appear/compl (M), 2) Fail To Appear/compl (M), 3) Fail To Appear/compl (M), and 4) Fugitive (F), at 200 N Main St, Winston-salem, NC, on 10/6/2022

Let’s just say Modern Monetary Theory can be thrown in the trash bin.

SPORTS

SIDELINE REPORT

SOCCER

NWSL players call for owner to sell Chicago franchise

Chicago Players for the National Women’s Soccer League’s Chicago Red Stars players are calling for owner Arnim Whisler to sell the team a week after former acting U.S. Attorney General Sally Q. Yates released a report into allegations of abuse in the league. Alaska Airline says it’s diverting Thorns and Timbers sponsorship dollars this quarter to an NWSL Players Association emergency fund to protect players. The NWSL has also dismissed the coach of the Orlando Pride and an assistant following an investigation into retaliatory behavior.

COLLEGE BASKETBALL

Gamecocks coach Staley earns leadership award

New York South Carolina women’s basketball coach Dawn Staley was set to receive the Billie Jean King Leadership Award at the Women’s Sports Foundation’s annual dinner on Wednesday in New York. Staley, 52, recently guided the U.S. women’s basketball team to its seventh straight gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics. A 5-foot-6 floor general at Virginia and six-time WNBA All-Star, Staley won three Olympic golds during her playing career. Among the highest-paid coaches in women’s basketball, the Hall of Famer enters her 15th season leading the Gamecocks.

MLB Phillies lift interim tag from manager Thomson Philadelphia

After guiding the Philadelphia Phillies to their first playoff series victory since 2010, manager Rob Thomson had the interim removed from his title. The Phillies have signed Thomson to a two-year contract to remain as their manager through 2024, rewarding him for a turnaround that earned Philadelphia a wildcard berth. The 59-year-old Thomson took over on June 3 when Joe Girardi was fired with the Phillies mired at 2229. Philadelphia went 6546 the rest of the way. The Phillies then knocked off St. Louis in the wild-card round to advance to the NL Division Series against the Braves.

COLLEGE FOOTBALL

Captain for No. 6 Tennessee charged with aggravated assault Knoxville, Tenn. Tennessee starting safety and captain Jaylen McCollough has been arrested for aggravated felony assault, putting his status for Saturday’s game against No. 3 Alabama in question for the sixth-ranked Volunteers. Coach Josh Heupel said the team learned about McCollough’s arrest on Sunday night. According to an arrest warrant obtained by Knox News, a man reported that he went inside the wrong apartment after drinking with friends, and a man followed him out and punched him, causing him to fall down stairs and knocking him unconscious. Police said McCollough had blood seeping through a bandage on his hand, declined to answer questions and was arrested.

NASCAR teams call revenue model ‘broken,’ warn of layoffs

Even successful teams like Hendrick Motorsports are losing money

CHARLOTTE — The most pow erful teams in NASCAR warned Friday that the venerable stock car racing series has a “broken” eco nomic model that is unfair and has little to no chance of long-term sta bility, a stunning announcement that added to a growing list of woes.

With just four races left in the championship chase, teams went public with their yearlong fight with NASCAR over equitable reve nue distribution.

“The economic model is real ly broken for the teams,” said Cur tis Polk, who as Michael Jordan’s longtime business manager now holds an ownership stake in both the Charlotte Hornets and the twocar 23XI Racing team Jordan and Denny Hamlin field in the Cup Se ries.

“We’ve gotten to the point where teams realize the sustainability

in the sport is not very long term,” Polk said. “This is not a fair system.”

The Race Team Alliance (RTA) was formed in 2014 to give teams a unified voice in negotiations with the sanctioning body. A four-mem ber subcommittee outlined their concerns at a Charlotte hotel, with Polk joined by Jeff Gordon, the four-time NASCAR champion and vice chairman of Hendrick Mo torsports, RFK Racing President Steve Newmark, and Dave Alpern, the president of Joe Gibbs Racing.

Hendrick and Gibbs have won six of last seven Cup Series champi onships dating to 2015, but Gordon said the four-car Hendrick lineup, the most powerful in the industry, has not had a profitable season in years. It will again lose money this season despite NASCAR’s cost-cut ting Next Gen car.

“I have a lot of fears that sustain ability is going to be a real chal lenge,” Gordon said.

NASCAR issued a statement ac knowledging “the challenges cur rently facing race teams.

“A key focus moving forward is an extension to the charter agree ment, one that will further increase

revenue and help lower team ex penses,” NASCAR said. “Collec tively, the goal is a strong, healthy sport, and we will accomplish that together.”

Led by Polk, whose role with the Hornets brings familiarity with the NBA’s franchise model, the RTA in June presented NASCAR with a seven-point plan on a new reve nue sharing model. The proposal “sat there for months and we told NASCAR we’d like a counteroffer,” Polk said.

He did not disclose the seven points other than noting that team sustainability and longevity were priorities. The committee said they are open to all ideas, including a spending cap like that in Formula One.

“We are amenable to whatever gets us to a conceptual new struc ture,” Newmark said.

NASCAR’s counteroffer offered “a minimal increase in revenue and emphasis on cost-cutting,” Polk said.

The team alliance was unani mous in that the only place left to cut costs is layoffs.

“We’ve already had substantial

cuts. We are doing more with less than we ever have in 30 years,” Alp ern said.

The battle over costs has sim mered for years. In 2016, NASCAR adopted a charter system for 36 cars that is as close to a franchise model as possible in a sport that was founded by and independent ly owned by the France family. The charters at least gave the teams something of value to hold — or sell — and protect their investment in the sport.

The team business model is still heavily dependant on sponsorship, which the teams must individually secure. Newmark said sponsorship covers between 60% to 80% of the budgets for all 16 chartered organi zations.

Because sponsorship is so vi tal, teams are desperate for finan cial relief elsewhere and have asked NASCAR for “distribution from the league to cover our baseline costs,” Newmark said.

NASCAR said Friday that teams receive about 40% of industry-wide generated revenue.

The financial split from the $8.2 billion media rights deal signed ahead of the 2015 season sends 65% to the tracks, 25% to the teams and 10% to NASCAR, according to the series. There are two major track operators, NASCAR and Speed way Motorsports; NASCAR owns 11 venues on the Cup Series sched ule, including the crown jewel Day tona International Speedway.

ACC coaches counting on beefed-up staffs to steer programs

UNC and NC State among the schools spending big bucks on added help

NATRONE MEANS first ar rived at UNC to play for Mack Brown as a promising running back, then went on to an NFL career that included a touch down-scoring appearance in the Super Bowl.

More than three decades later, he’s again working to help Brown’s Tar Heels, though now in the kind of supporting role expanding across the Atlantic Coast Confer ence and the sport.

Titles vary. Analyst. Quali ty-control coordinator. Even the vaguely defined “special assistant” and “senior adviser.” But the direc tive is the same: Adding more eyes, hands and experience to meet the rising demands of running a pow er-conference program.

“If that takes some things off of (coaches’) plate and they can fo cus more on that week’s opponent then obviously we feel like we’ve done our job well,” said Means, now an analyst for UNC’s offense.

Means hopes to grow his own coaching career that includes stints in Division II and the high school level, calling this “valuable experience I could not pass up.” It’s valuable for programs, too, il lustrated by how they have ex

panded staff sizes in the past de cade.

These positions aren’t permit ted to directly coach players in games or practices like assistant coaches or graduate assistants. Instead, they work behind the scenes. Some review film or dig for statistical trends. Others scout fu ture opponents beyond the focus of that week’s game.

They range from former head coaches to up-and-comers forging their own paths.

A look at public records data offers glimpses of investments by ACC schools:

• In 2015, Clemson had four

staffers — two in “player develop ment” and two as analysts — cost ing more than $218,000 in sal aries. Now there are 13 staffers — seven in offensive or defensive player development — approach ing $1.5 million in salaries.

• UNC had two quality-con trol staffers as temporary hour ly employees in 2015. There are now seven additional positions — including former South Caro lina and Appalachian State head coach Sparky Woods as a senior adviser to Brown — costing more than $520,000 in salaries.

• NC State had three quality control coordinators and two play

er personnel staffers in recruiting for a combined cost of $228,500 in 2015. Those positions remain today, though there are three ad ditional recruiting staffers along with former East Carolina head coach Ruffin McNeill as a special assistant to head coach Dave Do eren, driving that budget to near ly $766,000.

For some, personal connections and timing create the right fit.

McNeill, with nearly four de cades in college coaching, took the NC State job in 2020 based on his long relationship with Doeren, who he met when Doeren was a Southern California graduate as sistant and McNeill was a Fresno State assistant. For Doeren, it gave him “somebody that’s been in my seat that I trust and will tell me the truth.”

There was also the pull for Mc Neill to returning to North Caro lina to tend to family needs such as caring for his ailing father in his hometown of Lumberton, about 100 miles from the Wolfpack’s Ra leigh campus.

How does the man affectionate ly known as “Coach Ruff” view his role?

“Be the extra eyes and ears, and be here for Dave in any way that he may need me,” McNeill said, pointing to anything from shar ing a practice observation to han dling a speaking engagement for the program.

As he put it: “You can’t buy that time.”

STATE & NATION

Small business group files suit over Biden student loan plan

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A small-business advocacy group has filed a new lawsuit seeking to block the Biden administration’s efforts to forgive student loan debt for tens of millions of Amer icans — the latest legal challenge to the program.

The suit, filed Monday by the Job Creators Network Founda tion, argues the Biden admin istration violated federal proce dures by failing to seek public input on the program. It’s one of a handful of suits that have been filed by conservative business groups, attorneys and Republi can lawmakers in recent weeks as the Biden administration tries to push forward with its plan to cancel billions in debt before No vember’s midterm elections.

Elaine Parker, president of Job Creators Network Foundation, slammed the program as execu tive overreach and complained that it does nothing to address the root cause of rising debt: the “outrageous increase in college tuition that outpaces inflation ev ery single year.”

“This bailout is going to affect everyone in this country because of the mass size of the program,” she said. “And everyone should have the opportunity to provide

their views to the government.”

She added: “These universities need to be held accountable for this student debt crisis.”

The Job Creators Network has previously sued to try to block the Biden administration’s COVID vaccine mandate on businesses.

It also sued Major League Base ball in 2001 for moving the AllStar game out of Atlanta over ob jections to changes to Georgia’s

voting laws. The suit, which cit ed losses to local businesses, was later dropped.

The new suit is one of a grow ing number of legal challenges against the proposal laid out by President Joe Biden in late Au gust to cancel up to $20,000 in debt for certain borrowers.

Six Republican-led states filed suit late last month, accus ing the Biden administration of

overstepping its executive pow ers. And the Pacific Legal Foun dation, a Sacramento, California, legal advocacy group, filed suit in federal court in Indiana, calling the plan an illegal overreach that would increase state tax burdens for some Americans who get their debt forgiven.

Meanwhile, a federal judge in Wisconsin last week dismissed a lawsuit from a local taxpayers group, the Brown County Tax payers Association, that sought to block the program, ruling that the group didn’t have standing to bring the lawsuit. The group had argued that Biden’s order un lawfully circumvented Congress’ power over spending and said the plan was discriminatory because it sought to give particular help to borrowers of color.

The latest lawsuit, filed in the District Court for the Northern District of Texas against the U.S. Education Department and its secretary, Miguel Cardona, takes issue with how the plan was de veloped. It alleges the Biden ad ministration violated the Ad ministrative Procedure Act’s notice-and-comment proce dures. It also challenges the ad ministration’s legal justification for the program.

The suit includes two plain tiffs: one who does not qualify for debt forgiveness because the plan excludes commercially held loans that are not in default, and one who did not receive a Pell grant and is therefore entitled to less debt forgiveness under the plan.

“Behind closed doors, the De partment promulgated a new Debt Forgiveness Program that will affect tens of millions of

Americans and cost hundreds of billions of dollars,” the suit reads. “Instead of providing notice and seeking comment from the pub lic, the Department hammered out the critical details of the Pro gram in secret and with an eye toward securing debt forgiveness in time for the November elec tion.”

It also alleges the department “made numerous arbitrary deci sions about the Program, includ ing which individuals will receive debt forgiveness, how much of their debt will be forgiven, and which types of debt will qualify for the Program.”

“The result of this arbitrari ness is predictable: some will benefit handsomely, some will be shortchanged, and others will be left out entirely,” it reads.

The Biden debt forgiveness program will cancel $10,000 in student loan debt for individuals making less than $125,000 a year or households making less than $250,000. Pell grant recipients, who typically demonstrate more financial need, will be eligible for an additional $10,000.

The Biden administration used an act passed after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks as legal justifi cation for the program. The law gives the administration “sweep ing authority” to reduce or elimi nate student debt during times of national emergency, the Justice Department said in an August le gal opinion. The administration cited the COVID-19 pandemic as its emergency.

The Congressional Budget Of fice estimates the program will cost taxpayers $400 billion over the next three decades.

Herschel Walker centers pitch to Republicans on ‘wokeness’

The Associated Press

EMERSON, Ga. — Herschel Walker pitches himself as a politi cian who can bridge America’s ra cial and cultural divides because he loves everyone and overlooks differences.

“I don’t care what color you are,” Georgia’s Republican Sen ate nominee, who is Black, told an overwhelmingly white crowd recently in Bartow County, north of Atlanta. The United States, he said, “is a good place,” adding that “a way we make it better is by coming together.”

Yet the former football star who calls all Georgians “my fami ly” has staked out familiar conser vative ground on America’s most glaring societal fissures.

Walker says those who do not share his vision of the country can leave. He says his opponent, Sen. Raphael Warnock, and the Demo cratic Party are the real purveyors of division. He insists that their “wokeness” on race, transgender rights and other issues threatens U.S. power and identity.

“Sen. Warnock believes Amer ica is a bad country full of racist people,” Walker says in one ad, making a claim based on the fact that Warnock, who is also black, has acknowledged institution al racism during his sermons as a Baptist minister. “I believe we’re a great country full of generous people,” Walker concludes.

That approach is not surprising in a state controlled for most of its history by white cultural conser

vatives, and it aligns Walker with many high-profile Republicans, including former President Don ald Trump.

The strategy will face its fierc est test in the closing weeks of the campaign as Walker vehement ly denies reports from The Dai ly Beast that he encouraged and paid for a woman’s 2009 abor tion and later fathered a child with her.

The New York Times re ported Friday that he urged her to have a second abortion, a request

that she refused. The Daily Beast also published new details pro vided by the woman about Walk er’s lack of involvement with their child.

Such developments would typ ically sink a Republican candi date. Walker, however, is betting that the conservative ground he has staked out will win over vot ers singularly focused on retaking the Senate majority.

His advisers believe Walker’s rhetoric reflects the views of many

Georgians, at least most who will vote this fall. The outcome could turn on how Walker’s pitch lands in an electorate younger, more ur ban, less white, and less native to Georgia than when Walker, 60, and Warnock, 53, grew up in the state.

Warnock, as minister of At lanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, where Martin Luther King Jr. preached, has long linked the civil rights icon’s vision of a “be loved community” to 21st cen tury discussions of diversity and justice, including religious plu ralism, LGBTQ rights, ballot ac cess, racial equity, law enforce ment and other issues. But in his paid advertising, the pastor-pol itician casts himself mostly as a hardworking senator who has de livered results and federal money for Georgia.

Walker saves his hottest rhet oric for campaign events, where crowds are measured in the doz ens or hundreds, rather than the thousands and millions watching carefully cultivated ads.

In one such ad, a smiling Walk er talks of unity after a string of Democrats — Warnock, Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and Georgia’s Democratic guber natorial candidate Stacey Abrams — are heard discussing racism.

Addressing fellow Republicans, Walker maintains the smile but goes harder at the left, especially on transgender rights.

“They’re bringing wokeness in our military,” Walker said in Cumming. It was an apparent ref erence to the Pentagon allowing

transgender persons to serve and have access to medical care.

“The greatest fighting force ever assembled before God (and) they’re talking about pronouns,” Walker said. “Are you serious? How do you identify? I can prom ise you right now China ain’t talking about how you can identi fy. They’re talking about war.”

Walker sometimes presents his mores as humor. “Y’all see it. They telling you what is a woman. Think about it,” he said in Bartow County, drawing laughter from voters. “That’s right,” he contin ued with a broad smile. “They’re telling you a man can get preg nant. Hey, I’m gone tell you right now, a man can’t get pregnant.”

Warnock, Walker says, “wants men in women’s sports.” His cam paign aides point separately to a Senate vote on a Republican amendment that would have lim ited federal money for any edu cational institutions “that permit any student whose biological sex is male to participate in an athlet ic program or activity designated for women or girls.” The amend ment failed on a party-line vote.

“That’s sort of like saying you want Herschel Walker to compete against your daughters,” Walk er said in Norcross, eliciting more laughs.

Warnock seems reluctant to answer Walker’s broadsides di rectly. “My job is to represent all the people of Georgia across ra cial and ethnic and religious line, and all corner of this state,” he told reporters last week.

WHAT’S HAPPENING

New specialty truck shop to open in Moore this weekend

A new 4x4 specialty truck shop, Southern Sinner, is set to open in Aberdeen this weekend. The shop is owned and operated by Joshua Gayheart, who is a USMC veteran and longtime automobile enthusiast. Southern Sinner is expected to specialize in aftermarket parts for trucks, jeeps, and SUVs, covering everything from off-roading builds to basic accessory parts. The grand opening of the new shop is set for October 15, where Gayheart will hold a show competition from 10 am until noon. Southern Sinner is located at 11815 US Hwy 15-501S. For more information about the shop, please contact (260) 416-1772.

Man arrested in Moore County for soliciting minors on dating app

Two weeks ago, a 20-yearold man from Willow Springs was arrested in Moore County on felony charges of soliciting a child by computer, felonious restraint, second-degree kidnapping, and incident liberties with a child.

According to a statement made by Moore County Sheriff Ronnie Fields, Ethan Fenerty was arrested after he was found in his car with two children—ages 12 and 14—at Vass Park by the Vass Police Department.

The Carthage Police Department also assisted in the investigation.

Sheriff’s investigators discovered that Fenerty met the two female juveniles through an online dating app and picked them up near their residence without any knowledge of their parents.

Fenerty is due to appear in court on October 26.

MOORE COUNTY

Sheriff’s Office announces death of beloved K9

The Moore County Sheriff’s Office announced the death of one of their beloved K9s this past Monday morning. According to a Facebook post from the office’s social media account, Roki passed away due to a brief but severe illness. Last month, Roki made headline news in the county after he helped to locate an elderly woman with a cognitive disorder, who had wandered away from her home. The sheriff’s office has asked that you keep Roki’s hander, Deputy Kevin Dean, and other members of the Moore County Sheriff’s Office in your thoughts and prayers

THE CARTHAGE Century Committee recently received a $25,000 Hometown Revitaliza tion Grant from the Duke Ener gy Foundation to support small businesses in downtown Car thage. Recognizing the tremen dous value small businesses across Duke Energy’s North Car olina Service territory bring to creating vibrant downtowns, the Duke Energy Foundation award ed a total of $500,000 to 20 non-profits across the state.

“As a longtime Carthage Century Committee member and board member, I am both pleased and excited we are going to administer this Duke Energy Foundation Hometown Revital ization Grant,” said Pat Jackson, Carthage Century Committee Member. “Our committee was originally created for the sole purpose of supporting econom ic activity in our town, and we’ve worked diligently through the years to keep our downtown vi able. These funds will great ly enhance our commitment to help today’s Carthage down town small businesses grow and prosper. Thank you, Duke Ener gy Foundation, for this opportu nity.”

“This is a great opportunity that will benefit multiple small

North State Journal

PINEHURST — Four of the five seats on the Moore Coun ty Board of Commissioners will be on the ballot this November.

After the election, each of those seats will be held by a different in dividual than those on the board just one year ago when they were sworn into office.

In Moore County, each of the five commissioners must reside in the district in which they repre sent, but the election for each dis trict is countywide. That means Moore County voters will weigh in on all five races.

The race for District I is the most intriguing, with an unusual three-way field vying for the seat: one Republican and two unaffili ated candidates are running. The current District I commissioner, Catherine Graham, announced in

October 2021 that she would not run for reelection.

The Republican nominee is Jim Von Canon, who won the May 17 primary for the seat with 59% of the vote. A Moore County native, Von Canon spent 29 years in the Army before retiring in 2018. He lives in Lakeview.

The two unaffiliated candi dates are John Misiaszek and Phil Vandercook.

Misiaszek is running with the endorsement of the Moore Coun ty Democratic Party and notes on his campaign website he is not ac cepting contributions to his cam paign. Interestingly, he voted in the Republican primary in 2022. He lives in Woodlake.

Vandercook, a registered Re publican, gathered signatures to qualify for the ballot as an unaffil iated candidate. He says he’s run ning as an “independent conser

vative” in the race and is also an Army veteran. According to N.C. State Board of Elections data, he registered to vote in Moore Coun ty on Nov. 16, 2021, and lives in Whispering Pines.

In District II, the other contest ed seat in November, Republican Nick Picerno looks to win the elec tion for the final two years of the term he was appointed to fill ear lier this year. In February, Picerno was chosen to succeed Louis Greg ory, who resigned the seat. He lat er passed away in March.

Picerno is a former two-term commissioner (2008-2016) and commission chairman, and is set to run against Democrat Ariadne DeGarr.

DeGarr, who says she was born in New York City, is running to bring “balance” to the board by advocating for those she says are underrepresented by the current

commissioners.

The District III and District V seats will be on the ballot as well, but each of the candidates in those races faces no opposition.

John L. Ritter, a Republican, is the nominee for District III after winning the May 17 primary with 75% of the vote. Ritter previous ly ran for Lt. Gov. In 2020. Ritter lives in Seagrove and practices law in Seven Lakes.

In District V, Republican Kurt Cook was the only candidate to file for the seat. The founder of Adap tive Recovery Wear, he lives in Ab erdeen.

The League of Women Voters of Moore County and the Moore County NAACP are hosting a county commission candidate fo rum on Tuesday, Oct. 18 at 7:30 p.m. The forum will be held at the Village Assembly Hall located at 395 Magnolia Rd. in Pinehurst.

Two contested seats for Moore County Commission Moore prep sports report

the road at Scotland on Octo ber 12 and Southern Lee on Oc tober 13, before returning home on 10/17 to face Hoke County.

businesses in downtown Car thage,” said Matthew Powers, Chairman of the Carthage Cen tury Committee.

Under the grant, the Carthage Century Committee will admin ister a program to provide fund ing between $500 and $2,500 to eligible small businesses in the Carthage downtown area. In dividual grants can be used by businesses to enhance service or comer opportunities by mod ifying physical space, acquir ing technology to improve on line sales, or expanding capacity for delivery of goods or services. Businesses can also use the funding to expand outdoor ca pacity by purchasing furniture for outdoor seating, constructing takeout windows, making out door seating more accessible, or acquiring fixtures required for compliance with public health issues.

Finally, businesses can enhance the appearance of their storefronts by purchasing exteri or paint, awnings, signage, and planters or implementing tools and programs to support work force needs, such as recruitment or training programs.

Ineligible expenses include payroll, incentive pay, rent, and utilities. Carthage small busi nesses can use grant funding

ROBBINS — North Moore’s football team stayed undefeated with a 42-0 win over Seaforth to move to 7-0 on the season. Carson Brady was four for sev en on passing with 77 yards and two touchdowns. Kolby Ritchie had 17 carries for 151 rushing yards, and Jakarey Gillis had 20 carries for 130 yards. Both had one rushing touchdown each. The Mustangs will play this Fri day, October 14, at home against Cummings at 7:30 pm.

In boys’ soccer, the team won two matches against Cummings on Tuesday October 4 and Bart lett Yancey 6-1. On Monday, the team hosted Seaforth. This week they play at Jordan-Mat thews on October 12 and at home against Graham on the 17th. Their record in the year is 8-1-1.

In volleyball, the girl’s beat Jordan-Matthews in five sets 3-2 on October 4. They lost to Seaforth in three sets 3-0 on October 6. They have a home match against Barlett Yancey on October 11 for their final game of the regular season. They have a record of 11-10.

Cameron

In football, they had a home loss to Richmond 34-23 to move to 2-5 on the season. Emoni Mc Bride passed for 163 yards on 14 of 22 passes. They had a total of 138 rushing yards, of which 122

came from Taye Spencer, who had 19 Carries and two touch downs. They host Hoke County on Friday night at 7:30 pm.

In boys’ soccer, the season record is 8-7-1. Last week they took on Scotland in Laurinburg and came home with a 5-2 win and hosted Grace Christian and won 2-1. On Monday, they host ed Richmond. Their next match is on October 12 at Hoke County and home on October 17 against Southern Lee.

In volleyball, the lady Vikings improved their record to 12-7 and 8-2 in the conference. Last week, they beat Richmond at home in 3 sets 3-0 and traveled to Hoke County and came home with a 4-set win 3-1. Their next game is at home against South ern Lee on October 11, and then their final match of the regular season against Pinecrest on Oc tober 13.

Southern Pines

In football, the Patriots got a big win at Lee County 40-23 im proving their record to 5-2. Ma son Konen led the team with 260 yards passing, completing 11 of 18 passes. Zymire Spen cer led the team with 120 rush ing yards on 15 carries. Their next game is against Scotland at home on October 14 at 7:30 pm.

In boys’ soccer, the team im proved to 7-4-1 and 6-0-1 on the year after their 4-2 win at Rich mond on October 3 and 1-0 win at home against Southern Lee. Their next two matches are on

In volleyball, their win streak reached ten wins, and they lost a total of two sets. Last week the team recorded two wins of 3 sets over Lee County on October 4 and Scotland on October 6. Their next match is next Thurs day, October 13, at Union Pines.

reimburse them for expens

incurred after January 1, 2022, and through December 31, 2021.

“I think this grant is an amaz ing opportunity to support our downtown businesses, many of whom are struggling with the aftershocks of the COVID pan demic,” said Emily Yopp, Car thage Town Manager. “Car thage is a resilient community and has been for over 150 years, and its resiliency is made strong by its people and businesses. I am thankful for the support of the Carthage Century Com mittee and their commitment to our community, specifically its economic health. This grant funding will go a long way to ward helping our businesses weather these struggles, and I am very proud to serve a com munity that is committed to growing stronger together.”

To be eligible for funding un der the program, a Carthage small business must employ less

than 50 employees and have a storefront presence in the downtown area. Non-profits that meet these requirements may also apply if they operate a storefront small business, like a resale store or a café. Govern ment organizations and busi nesses that do not operate a storefront (e.g., offices) are not eligible for funding under this grant program.

Applications will be made available to Carthage small businesses no later than Octo ber 31, 2022, with completed applications due December 1, 2022. Once the application pe riod begins, businesses may ob

tain an application on the Town of Carthage website at www. townofcarthage.org or in per son at the Carthage Town Hall located at 4396 Hwy 15-501.

A selection committee ap pointed by the Carthage Cen tury Committee will review all completed applications, and award announcements will be made by January 15, 2023.

“As the backbone of our econ omy, small businesses account for nearly 70% of all businesses in Moore County. These funds will go directly into the hands of a wonderful array of small busi nesses in Carthage to help them be more successful and contrib ute more to the local economy,” said Natalie Hawkins, Execu tive Director of Moore Coun ty Partners in Progress Econo my Development. “A big thanks goes to longtime Carthage Cen tury Committee member and small business advocate Tom my Philips for identifying and pursuing this grant opportuni ty on behalf of Carthage small businesses.”

moore happening

Here’s a quick look at what’s coming up in Moore County:

Oct. 13

Trivia Thursday at the Brewery 6pm

Come out for Trivia at the Southern Pines Brewery!

Enjoy fun and prizes each Thursday. Southern Pines Brewing Company is located at 565 Air Tool Dr., Southern Pines, NC.

Holly Jolly Halloween Spooktacular Lights

6:30pm

Load up the car and come out for Holly Jolly Halloween Spooktacular Lights, which is located at 135 Fox Run Rd. in Pinehurst. Enjoy the light show and display from your car.

Oct. 14

Pinecrest Patriots Varsity Football

7:30pm

Come out and support the Pinecrest Patriots varsity football team as they take on Scotland at home!

Union Pines Vikings Varsity Football

7:30pm

Come out and support the Union Pines varsity football team as they take on Hoke County at home!

North Moore Varsity Football

7:30pm

Come out and support the North Moore Mustangs varsity football team as they take on Cummings at home!

“I think this grant is an amazing opportunity to support our downtown businesses.”

Emily Yopp

A government that’s accountable

Your rights, protected by the First and Second Amendment, have repeatedly come under fire under the Democrats.

WHEN THE FOUNDING FATHERS ratified our Constitution in 1788, they set into motion a system of government the world had rarely seen – a country where true authority rests with the people. This is illustrated in the very first line of our constitution – “We the People.” Our system was and continues to be unique compared to most of the world and demands certain obligations for those in positions of power. First, those in government have the primary duty to secure your rights and liberties. In tandem with this, the federal government has the responsibility to be transparent and accountable to you.

Unfortunately, under one-party rule in Washington, our government has failed to fulfill this most basic obligation.

Due to policy missteps by both Congressional Democrats and President Joe Biden, inflation continues to be sky-high, our border is in crisis, and our national security is in peril.

On top of this, Congressional Democrats have failed to provide proper oversight for the actions of the federal government. One of Congress’ key roles is to keep an eye on federal agencies in order to ensure they are operating in your best interest. However, Washington Democrats have largely neglected this role, as Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her associates have yet to hold any hearings on consequential issues such as the origins of COVID-19, the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the Biden administration’s labeling parents as “domestic terrorists.” In some cases, Congressional Democrats have flat out resisted efforts to provide congressional oversight.

For example, last month, I called on Congress to get answers from the Biden administration on issues like the origins of COVID-19 and an explanation of how billions of your tax dollars have been spent to expand broadband access. Yet Democrats blocked these inquires from moving forward.

In addition to dropping the ball on government oversight, those at the head of government have also failed to defend your God-given, constitutional rights. Your rights, protected by the First and Second Amendment, have repeatedly come under fire under the Democrats.

Government has become too big, too unaccountable, and too outof-touch with the will and priorities of the American people. However, Republicans have a plan to fix this.

Our “Commitment to America” plan will work to build a government that fulfills its responsibility to be accountable to you and your family. We will work to provide oversight over the Biden administration and to serve as a check against federal abuses. This commitment also means standing up against progressive overreach to safeguard your God-given rights.

Under one-party rule in Washington, our government has strayed away from its duty to put you and your family first. I will work to change that and help reestablish a Congress that serves the people rather than itself.

In our community that’s home to Fort Bragg and the fastest growing veteran population in the country, we understand what that kind of public service looks like. That’s why nominating high school students to U.S. service academies each year is among my highest honors. This year, the deadline to apply for a U.S. service academy congressional nomination is Wednesday, October 12th, by 5 p.m. For more information, visit Hudson.house.gov or contact my office in Concord at 704-786-1612.

The students who apply each year and are willing to serve in uniform remind me that the future of our nation is bright. It’s our job to keep it that way by building a government that’s accountable to you and fulfilling our commitment to America.

Richard Hudson is serving his fifth term representing North Carolina’s 8th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives. He currently serves on the Energy and Commerce Committee and in House leadership as the Republican Conference Secretary.

obituaries

Betty “Joan” Boseman Carter

May 30, 1935 - October 8, 2022

On October 8, 2022 Betty “Joan” Boseman Carter, age irrelevant since a lady never tells, of Seven Lakes, insisted on having her way one final time and surprised everyone by leaving her home here on earth in order to rejoin her sweetheart, Jim.

We can imagine they were thankful to once again share their morning english muffin, though we are sure that discussion ensued about how someone told someone that those green bananas like the ones still in the fridge were indeed a poor investment since, truly, you never knew if you’d be around long enough to eat them.

Joan was born in Nash County, NC to parents Ida Olive and Edward Lee Boseman. They, along with, her husband, James Sidney Carter Jr., and siblings Marjorie Grey, Edward Lee, Jr. and Bobbie Parrish, preceded her in passing. Joan’s two sons, Jim Carter (Ann), of Birmingham, Ala., and Jeff Carter (Caryn Johnson), of Bedford, Mass.; and daughter, Jennifer Nichols, of Salem, Ind., mourn their mother and will be lost without all her helpful “suggestions”. Her pack of sassy granddaughters, Jessica, Jill, Joan and Ann Catherine; her two long legged grandsons, Daniel and Jared; along with her two great- grandchildren will miss everything about their spunky and thrifty Nana, whom they hope was right about the value of that Sun Crunchers cereal box.

Jerry Dean Lefton

June 16, 1939 - October 7, 2022

Colonel (Ret.) Jerry Dean Lefton, USAF, passed away at his home in Pinehurst, NC on October 7, 2022 at the age of 83.

Jerry was born on June 16, 1939 in Williamsport, IN to Ray and Betty (Routzahn) Lefton. He grew up in Attica, IN where he attended high school and played on the varsity football team. He went on to receive his B.S. in 1961 from the United States Air Force Academy, where he was part of the third graduating class. While serving in the Vietnam War, Jerry met his wife-to-be, First Lieutenant Sue Shuler, an RN in the USAF. They married in 1966 and moved from coast to coast as they raised two children together. Jerry continued his education at Indiana University, earning an MBA in 1970. Following thirty honorable years of service to our country, he retired from the United States Air Force in 1991, eventually settling in Pinehurst. Jerry was a loving and supportive husband, father and grandfather, an avid golfer, and a proud member of the Tin Whistles golfing society.

Jerry is survived by his wife Sue of 56 years, his two children: Cynthia (Thomas) Seputis of Arlington Heights, IL and David Lefton of Houston, TX, and his grandson T.J. Interment will be held privately at the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, CO.

Michael John Dellay

April 1, 1947 - October 6, 2022

Michael John Dellay, 75, of Aberdeen passed away peacefully on October 6, 2022 at his home surrounded by his family.

He was born April 1, 1947 in Kingston, NY to the late Romanus and Martha Buzeleski Dellay. Mike grew up in Lexington, KY. He was an avid golfer and also enjoyed fishing. He worked for 32 years with the US Postal Service in Aberdeen and was a member of Aberdeen First Baptist Church. After his retirement from the postal service, Mike worked with Legacy Golf Links in Aberdeen for many years.

He is survived by his wife of 45 years, Susan McKellar Dellay; son David Dellay (Crystal); daughter Kristina (Timothy); grandchildren Lexi and Dylan; sisters Marta Kessinger (Jim) and Laura Farrow (Billy) and many nieces and nephews.

In addition to his parents, he was preceded in death by his sister Andrea Baker and brother Larry Dellay.

Leslie Corrigan

August 12, 1957 - October 6, 2022

Leslie Corrigan of Pinehurst passed away peacefully at home on October 6, 2022, after a year-long battle with metastatic cancer.

Leslie was born in Detroit, Michigan, on August 12, 1957, the second daughter of Gerri and Donald Gallmeyer. She graduated from Rochester Adams High School in 1975 and Michigan State in 1979. She then worked her way through law school at the University of Michigan and received her J.D. degree in 1982.

Following graduation from law school, Leslie moved to Washington, D.C., where she worked for the city government, a law firm, and eventually Citibank. In February 1990, while visiting friends in New York, she met Terry Corrigan. Four months later, the couple were married on Shelter Island in New York.

After her marriage, Leslie transferred to Citibank’s headquarters in New York City, eventually rising to Senior Vice President, Legal, of Citibank’s Global Trade division. In that capacity, she travelled to China as part of the early efforts to normalize trade between the U.S. and China. Later, after the dissolution of the USSR, she was appointed to the U.S. delegation sent to Lithuania to educate business and government leaders about U.S banking practices.

As part of her responsibilities at Citibank, she travelled regularly to the Far East and Europe, frequently with her husband in tow. While living in New York City, Leslie and Terry played golf at most of the public courses in the area, although Leslie’s favorite part of the outings was preparing and eating the elaborate lunches required for weekend six-hour municipal golf rounds.

In 1997, and after the couple moved to Bedford, New York, Leslie began attending classes at Alliance Theological Seminary in Nyack, New York. In 1999, having been Born Again, she decided to pursue her divinity studies full-time. The couple moved to Pinehurst, where Leslie commuted to GordonConwell Theological Seminary in Charlotte several times a month.

There, Leslie learned to read the New Testament in Greek and taught herself Hebrew in order to read the Old Testament in its original language.

In addition to her husband, Terry Corrigan of Pinehurst, Leslie is survived by her sister and brother-in-law, Jill and Dave Maeder of Saginaw, Michigan, sister-in-law and brother-in-law, Maureen and Steve Jochim of Sunset Beach, North Carolina, and aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces,

Judith Suzanne Conway

July 8, 1940 - October 7, 2022

Judith Suzanne (Ralph) Conway, 82 of Whispering Pines, passed on Friday, October, 7 2022 at the FirstHealth Hospice House in Pinehurst.

Mrs. Conway was born July, 8 1940 in Cleveland, OH to the late John Andrew Ralph and Mary Francis (Wilcek) Ralph. Upon graduating high school in Cleveland, Ohio, Judith attended St. Xavier University in Chicago Illinois with a BS in nursing and immediately accepted a position with the Cleveland Clinic. She did not work very long at the Cleveland Clinic when an opportunity to attend the first Nurse Anesthetist program at Duke University brought her to North Carolina. She completed the nursing anesthesia program, became a Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist and remained in North Carolina. Later meeting her husband, Herbert, working and raising their children in Durham, Raleigh, Cary, Ahoskie, and finally settling in Whispering Pines, North Carolina. Judith concluded her career with Carolina Eye and Associates in which she worked for almost twenty years. Judith and Herbert enjoyed their remaining years retired together in Whispering Pines, traveling around the world to many places.

Mrs. Conway was preceded in death by her husband of 53 years, Herbert Ras Conway on April 22 of this year.

She is survived by a daughter, Jennifer Wallace and husband Ronald of Whispering Pines, NC; two sons, Timothy Conway and wife Chasity of Monroe, NC; and John Conway and wife Emily of Whispering Pines, NC; a brother, Arthur Ralph of Avon, OH; eight grandchildren, Benjamin Wallace, Kayla Conway, Wade Smith, Nicholas Conway, Reece Wallace, Molly Conway, Peyton Conway, and Grayson Conway; a niece, Gail Pearson and husband Bob of Ohio; two nephews, Mark Ralph and wife Monica of Ohio and Steve Ralph of Arizona.