The high price of irresponsibility:

UNC-Chapel Hill spokeswoman Kate Luck confirmed late Thursday that the school "is in conversations with the Mellon Foundation, one of our most valued external partners, about their concerns related to the UNC System’s legal settlement regarding the Confederate Monument.”

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation is one of the largest charitable foundations in the world and a key funder of academic research. According to its publicly available database, it awarded UNC-Chapel Hill seven Mellon grants over the last three years, totaling more than $7 million​.

It's likely Republicans won't be that concerned over this, because the bulk of the Mellon grants are targeted to the Humanities, as opposed to medical research. But as a former history major myself, I have been following the UNC Humanities for several years now, and this division has contributed greatly to both the culture of NC via the arts, and a much better understanding of the social fabric holding us together. The last thing we need to do is undermine projects like this:

HOLDING'S NOW BLUE CONGRESSIONAL SEAT HAS DEMS LINING UP: Deborah Ross, a former state director of the ACLU and former state legislator, has filed to run for the seat. Ross, who lost the 2016 Senate race to incumbent Republican Richard Burr, represented parts of Wake County in the statehouse from 2003-13. Andrew Terrell, a former Obama administration official who led a UK trade office in Raleigh, has also filed to run in the race. Terrell, 32, would be the state’s first openly LGBT member of Congress. Monika Johnson-Hostler, executive director of the North Carolina Coalition Against Sexual Assault and a member of the Wake County Board of Education, has filed. Unlike Ross and Terrell, Johnson-Hostler was running before the map was redrawn. Retired Marine Scott Cooper, who raised more than $450,000 for a challenge to Holding, said the new map placed his home in the 4th district, represented by Democrat David Price.
https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/election/article238276858.html

"Innocent until proven guilty" means nothing when you're behind bars:

Two major changes are in store. The first is magistrates, instead of relying on a set list of bond fees correlating with a certain class of crime, will instead decide bond or no-bond with a flow chart that narrows down whether someone should have a secured bond, or should be released on a promise to appear in court, to another person willing to ensure they show up in court or on an unsecured bond.

The second is Beaufort County's District Court will hold a bond hearing every week to ensure that those charged with minor crimes are not sitting in the county jail solely because they cannot afford bail.

Our criminal justice system has many flaws, but this one threatens the core of our democracy. Pre-trial incarceration, especially for those charged with non-violent crimes, is a direct violation of our Constitutional rights. I say "our" rights because Americans are quick to dismiss the rights of others, but become very interested when the situation gets personal. It is a shameful facet of our society, and one we may grow to regret dearly. I'll let the ACLU explain it more deeply: