CHERIE BERRY'S LONG HISTORY OF IGNORING WORKPLACE HAZARDS: The North Carolina Justice Center, in a report to be released in coming days, has now traced how rarely Berry’s OSH has hit its business partners, even after fatalities, with its stiffest penalty – for those that willfully, or knowingly, put workers in harm’s way. OSH inspections after the deaths led to 13 citations for willful violations against nine employers, each carrying a maximum penalty of $70,000, said the report made available to McClatchy. But nine of the citations against five companies were later dropped. In other words, only four employers faced the harshest penalty out of more than 240 firms with fatalities, the group said. In separate studies, the AFL-CIO found that the average fatality-related fines assessed to North Carolina employers in fiscal years 2017 and 2018 were 25.3% and 38.4% of the national average. McClatchy gathered details about some of these incidents as part of a six-month investigation into the ways the state enforces laws designed to safeguard about 4 million workers. Even in some of the state’s deadliest workplace disasters — incidents that could have been averted with modest corrective actions — employers have been spared severe financial penalties, interviews and documents show.
https://www.newsobserver.com/news/business/article238339603.html

BLOOMBERG OPENS CAMPAIGN HEADQUARTERS IN CHARLOTTE: “It’s one of those states that nobody else goes to,” he said of North Carolina. Other candidates, he added, “are all focused on the early four (states) . . . You’re going to have to win the whole country to get the opportunity to take on Donald Trump.” A CBS News poll Sunday showed Bloomberg in fifth place among Democratic candidates behind former Vice President Joe Biden, Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders and South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg. The former New York mayor drew nearly 200 people to the opening on North Tryon Street. The crowd included U.S. Rep. Alma Adams as well as as state lawmakers, members of Charlotte’s city council and Columbia Mayor Steve Benjamin, a national co-chair of the presidential campaign. Bloomberg was welcomed by council member James Mitchell, his North Carolina campaign director, and Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles.
https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article238346973.html

UNC STUDENTS STEP FORWARD IN SILENT SHAM LAWSUIT: “The Board of Governors’ secret negotiations, lack of transparency and false statements to the court, UNC students and the public is unacceptable,” De’Ivyion Drew, a sophomore at UNC-CH and one of the interveners, said in a statement. “These actions violate the Board of Governor’s duties to me as a student of this university and undermine UNC’s mission. The University’s agreement to give $2.5 million to the Sons of Confederate Veterans will help that group and other neo-Confederates continue to perpetuate the ahistorical and dangerous “Lost Cause” ideology. That ideology is a major obstacle to racial equity and reparative measures in our country.”
https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/education/article238276838.html

MCCRORY VS, FOREST IN GUBERNATORIAL PRIMARY A POSSIBILITY: With a poll showing him with a double-digit lead in a Republican primary, former North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory suggested Wednesday that he’s keeping the door open to running for his old seat. “This is a decision for me and my family,” he told listeners of his morning radio show. McCrory was reacting to a new Civitas Poll that showed him leading Lt. Gov. Dan Forest 42% to 31% among likely GOP primary voters. State Rep. Holly Grange had 3% and 25% were undecided. Forest had $1 million on hand at the end of June, according to a report filed with the State Board of Elections. McCrory’s campaign account showed $69,000. Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper, who narrowly defeated McCrory in 2016, had $5.6 million on hand.
https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/election/article238267243.html

AS NC RURAL POPULATIONS DWINDLE, CONGRESSIONAL REDISTRICTING WILL RADICALLY CHANGE: But as the biggest cities boom, 43 counties — mostly in rural areas — actually shrank between 2010 and 2018, according to census data. Many mid-sized cities are also struggling. The Rocky Mount area has been hardest-hit, losing several thousand people. And the home counties of places like Goldsboro, Wilson, Asheboro, Shelby, Wilkesboro and Morganton have experienced below-average population growth. But all of those population changes of the last decade — the urban booms and the rural losses — have been ignored when lawmakers have redrawn the political maps after the lawsuits in recent years. The law required that even the new congressional maps drawn just last month had to use population data from 2010. So the maps drawn in 2021 with new data could represent a sudden political jolt, in places large and small.
https://www.newsobserver.com/news/state/north-carolina/article237546444.html