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

WHY DID UNC GIVE MILLIONS TO A NEO-CONFEDERATE GROUP?: After years of protest, Silent Sam was pulled off its pedestal during a rally in August 2018. Since then, the university has hidden the statue in a secret location. The Daughters of the Confederacy recently handed over ownership to the North Carolina Sons of Confederate Veterans, which made clear that it intended to sue the university for control of the statue. Before it could, several members of the university system’s board, each appointed by the conservative state legislature, announced that not only would the group get the statue, but it would also get access to $2.5 million to be placed in a trust for the “care and preservation of the monument.” The board, and the university, claim that the settlement avoids a nasty legal battle and ensures that Silent Sam will no longer sit on school grounds. But legal details aside, how do you make a deal with a group that valorizes something so morally abhorrent as the Confederacy?
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/03/opinion/unc-silent-sam.html

CHRISTMAS PARADES AND CONFEDERATE FLAGS DON'T MIX: On Wednesday, Wake Forest became the second Wake County town in a week to cancel its Christmas parade over safety fears. Santa Claus was planning to come to town on Dec. 14, but Wake Forest officials canceled the parade for what is though to be the first time since it started more than 71 years ago. Town officials said they had received credible information that “extremist” groups on both sides of the issue of how — and whether — to preserve and interpret symbols of the Confederacy were making plans online to attend the parade. Crabtree said no one from either side made any threats, but the fear was that that dozens of people from the different groups would clash at the parade and that the situation could get out of hand. Because the town is a sponsor of the Christmas parade, Crabtree said, it can’t shut out a particular group from participating. In the future, he said, turning over the parade entirely to a private organization or a nonprofit community group would allow for closer scrutiny of who is allowed to join the parade.
https://www.newsobserver.com/news/state/north-carolina/article238067469.html