COVID 19 HEALTH ADVISORIES ARE MISSING SPANISH TRANSLATIONS: For some members of the Hispanic community, getting information about COVID-19 has been difficult. "They think that if they get it, it's instant death. They have no idea what to do or what precautions to take, how to take care of themselves or how to get medicine," Ivan Aguirre, concerned about COVID-19, said. As information comes out, this is the reality for many in the Hispanic community. For Spanish-speaking households, it's difficult to translate the information, leaving for a worried community. "All the information I've seen has been in English, and the information I've seen has been what's going on around social media and most of it just seemed to be panic. Nothing is really straight," Aguirre said. Advocates for the Latin community like "El Pueblo" are working hard to provide helpful information, but it's a team effort.
https://www.wral.com/for-spanish-speakers-coronavirus-information-hard-to-come-by/19010717/

COOPER AND OTHER GOVERNORS FILL TRUMP'S COVID 19 LEADERSHIP VOID: Amid the stumbling, contradictions, inaccuracies and confusion coming from Washington on confronting the coronavirus outbreak, governors offered hope and real action. States, local governments and institutions are acting on their own. North Carolina is the textbook example. Two weeks before Trump acted, Cooper created a special state task force to monitor and when the situation necessitated, coordinate and direct actions to deal with the coronavirus outbreak. They have acted in a timely manner to address the rapidly changing health environment and worked diligently to be open and keep the public informed. Difficult decisions are being made – it seems on an hourly basis. The impacts aren’t being taken lightly since they involve very significant investment, expense for individuals and disruption to long-made plans. It has been the state agencies that have provided the credible information.
https://www.wral.com/editorial-cooper-other-governors-fill-trump-s-covid-19-leadership-void/19011420/

NC IS SLOWLY RAMPING UP TESTING FOR COVID 19: “Our issue and our limitation has been for supplies at our state lab,” said Mandy Cohen, the secretary of the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, in a Thursday afternoon news conference. “Our extraction supplies have been in extremely limited supplies.” It’s not just a North Carolina problem. The agent used to extract genetic material from the virus at the labs has created a nationwide problem, Politico and The New York Times reported. “The main issue appears to be an agent used for extracting the RNA in order to identify the genetic sequence that marks this as the coronavirus,” said state Sen. Jeff Jackson, a Mecklenburg County Democrat. In addition to the state lab, tests are being conducted at LabCorp, Atrium, Duke and UNC, Cohen said. LabCorp, which is based in Burlington, is currently able to perform several thousand tests per day at facilities across the nation, according to its website.
https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article241125181.html

NC REPUBLICANS' OPPOSITION TO MEDICAID EXPANSION RUNS DEEP: The task force report referenced a study published in 2018 that concluded that the infant mortality rate dropped more quickly in states that expanded Medicaid, with the biggest declines among African Americans. The study did not convince Senate Republicans who oppose Medicaid expansion. Sen. Joyce Krawiec, a Kernersville Republican, noted that the steepest drops in death rates in the years referenced in the study were between 2010 and 2014, before states started implementing Medicaid expansion. “It’s misleading to tie it to Medicaid expansion,” she said. Sen. Ralph Hise, a Spruce Pine Republican, asked if “putting someone on Medicaid would make them more healthy.” Zolotor said it’s important for women to be healthy before they get pregnant, but did not have information to show people who have Medicaid are healthier than people who don’t have it.
https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article241066841.html

WHEN REPUBLICAN LG CANDIDATE GAVE GUN SPEECH, HE DIDN'T OWN A GUN YET: “When are you all going to start standing up for the majority?” he asked. “And here’s who the majority is: I’m the majority. I’m a law-abiding citizen who’s never shot anybody, never committed a serious crime, never committed a felony.” A video of his speech was shared by Greensboro-area Republican Rep. Mark Walker and took off, racking up millions of views and attracting national news coverage. Robinson started getting invited to speak at gun rights rallies — including the NRA’s national convention in 2018, where President Donald Trump also spoke. When he gave his now-famous speech about protecting law-abiding gun owners, Robinson didn’t actually own a gun but did have a criminal record. However, his record is relatively minor — nothing violent and no felonies — and mostly consists of traffic offenses. He also filed for bankruptcy three times in the late 1990s and early 2000s, has been taken to court a few times over unpaid debts, and has been the subject of numerous IRS liens for failing to pay thousands of dollars in taxes, as recently as 2012.
https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/election/article240881326.html