FRED ESHELMAN SUES TO RECOVER $2.5 MILLION DONATED TO TRUMP "VOTE FRAUD" EFFORT: North Carolina investor Fred Eshelman donated $2.5 million to Houston-based True the Vote to help the organization challenge election results in seven battleground states, according to a lawsuit filed Wednesday in a Texas federal court. The organization said it needed over $7.3 million for its Validate the Vote 2020 project. Eshelman, a donor to President Donald Trump and former pharmaceutical executive, created the Eshelman Institute for Innovation at the University of North Carolina’s School of Pharmacy, which also is named for him. Eshelman wants True the Vote to return his donation so the funds can be used in other efforts to challenge the results of the election.
https://www.newsobserver.com/news/nation-world/national/article247456965.html

NC STATE EMPLOYEE IN SPOTLIGHT OVER PROUD BOY CONNECTION: N.C. State University is investigating the online behavior of an employee who is alleged to be a member of the Proud Boys, a right-wing group that is proudly anti-feminist, pro-Western civilization and has sometimes been involved in street violence. The Proud Boys are designated as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. The employee, Chadwick Jason Seagraves, told the News & Observer in a statement Wednesday that he is not a member of the Proud Boys and “to paint me as a racist and fascist is heinous slander.” Olivia Katbi Smith, co-chair of the Portland chapter of Democratic Socialists of America, filed a lawsuit against Seagraves in Oregon for invasion of privacy last week, the alternative weekly newspaper Willamette Week reported. She alleges that Seagraves shared the address of her and her family as part of a data dump of thousands of files with photos and activists’ personal information.
https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/education/article247422330.html

SALTWATER INTRUSION FROM RISING SEA LEVELS IS DESTROYING COASTAL HABITATS: The cascading consequences of saltwater intrusion were starkly revealed in interviews with more than 100 researchers, planners and coastal residents, along with soil testing, drone footage and analyses of well-sample data conducted by the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism. “Ghost forests” of dead and dying trees are spreading along coastlines from New Jersey to the Gulf of Mexico as saltwater pummels from above and seeps in from beneath. In North Carolina along the Albemarle-Pamlico Peninsula, roughly 15% of a 65-square-mile area has changed recently from healthy forest into ghost forest, according to newly published research by Lindsey Smart, a research associate at North Carolina State’s Center for Geospatial Analytics.
https://www.wral.com/coastal-harm-from-invading-saltwater-happening-right-now/19398562/

JOSH STEIN: HARD WORK MADE NC ELECTIONS "BUSINESS AS USUAL" IN VERY UNUSUAL TIME: When historians reflect on 2020, there will be plenty to characterize as unprecedented, out of the ordinary, and extreme. The North Carolina State Board of Elections’ approach to handling the election during a pandemic – despite histrionic partisan claims to the contrary – will not fall into that category. The board was charged with administering an election amid circumstances unlike any we’ve ever experienced. We take for granted just how complicated and miraculous a safe, fair, and free election where every legal vote is counted really is – even during a normal year. But pulling that off in the midst of the deadliest pandemic in a century? It was quite a tall order. When you look at the facts, you see that in the 2020 election, five and a half million North Carolinians, 75 percent of those registered, voted – the highest voter turnout percentage in over a century. It is as remarkable as it is boring – against all odds, exactly what is supposed to happen in an election happened. The process was fair, and the people spoke. I believe history will judge it the same way.
https://www.wral.com/coronavirus/josh-stein-hard-work-made-n-c-elections-business-as-usual-in-very-u...

JOE BIDEN OFFICIALLY DECLARED WINNER OF GEORGIA: Joe Biden has won Georgia and its 16 electoral votes, an extraordinary victory for Democrats who pushed to expand their electoral map through the Sun Belt. The win by Biden pads his Electoral College margin of victory over President Donald Trump. Biden was declared the winner of the presidential election on Nov. 7 after flipping Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin to the Democrats’ column. Biden now has 306 electoral votes to Trump’s 232. Trump won Georgia by 5 percentage points in 2016 over Democrat Hillary Clinton. Georgia hadn’t voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since Bill Clinton in 1992.
https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/national-politics/article247305899.html