February 25, 2009
RALEIGH — North Carolina should continue to put more than $1.36 million a year into marketing the semiannual furniture trade show in High Point despite the sour economy, Market Authority President Brian Casey told legislators Tuesday afternoon. “We......
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North Carolina would add a prohibition on gay marriage to the state constitution under legislation filed this week and met with great fanfare Tuesday by religious and social conservative activists. However, the fate of the bill filed by Sen. Jim Forrester...
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February 23, 2009
If Sens. Kay Hagan, a Greensboro Democrat, and Richard Burr, a Winston-Salem Republican, needed to write one of those "what I did on vacation" papers popular in elementary classroom, they could claim help from dozens of ghost writers. Last week's Presiden...
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February 18, 2009
The House Local Government II Committee this morning passed a measure that would return protest petitions to Greensboro by a unanimous voice vote. "The citizens of Greensboro want this," said Rep. Pricey Harrison, a Greensboro Democrat. She claims support...
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February 17, 2009
When U.S. Sen. Kay Hagan was in the state Senate, the appellation “business-friendly” was applied to the Greensboro Democrat with regularity. A lawyer with a banking background, she fit the mold. That’s one of the many reasons business groups are tu...
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February 15, 2009
RALEIGH - Sex education as taught in most of North Carolina's public schools isn't working, says Rep. Alma Adams. The Greensboro Democrat is one of the primary sponsors of a measure that would give parents the choice between two sex-education curriculums...
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RALEIGH - Women's volleyball isn't the first thing that comes to mind in the discussion of big-time college athletics and full-ride scholarships. But for UNCG, it's one of the sports that may be caught up in an argument over whether taxpayers should subsi...
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February 14, 2009
RALEIGH - State leaders trying to decipher the federal fiscal stimulus bill Friday were a bit like parents confronted on Christmas Eve with a box of parts and more than 1,000 pages of instructions written in the most obtuse of all languages: that of the W...
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February 11, 2009
RALEIGH — Sending a text message or e-mail while driving would be illegal under bills filed in the state House and Senate that proponents say will save lives by keeping drivers focused on the road. Violators would be subject to a $100 fine and have to p...
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February 10, 2009
RALEIGH - Sending a text message or e-mail while driving would be illegal under bills filed in the House and Senate that proponents say will save lives by keeping drivers focused on the road. Violators would be subject to a $100 fine and have to pay court...
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If and when the Senate finally passes the economic stimulus package - that's the bill numbered H.R. 1 on your scorecards, kids - Sen. Kay Hagan will be able to lay claim to shaping a little piece of the bill. Hagan said Monday she planned to vote for the...
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February 9, 2009
If and when the Senate finally passes the economic stimulus package -- that's the bill numbered H.R. 1 on your scorecards, kids -- Sen. Kay Hagan will be able to lay claim to shaping a little piece of the bill. Hagan said today that she planned to vote...
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Who should supervise the police chief? Who should punish police officers when they misbehave? Those issues could be up for discussion tonight as City Council members weigh in on a roiling police department debate. Council members Mike Barber and Trudy Wad...
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RALEIGH - Voters would be asked to extend legislators' terms from two years to four years under a bill that nearly 60 members of the House co-sponsored last week. The measure raises an issue in perennial discussion over the past decade, with backers sayin...
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February 5, 2009
Sen. Katie Dorsett, a Greensboro Democrat, has filed a bill that would prevent a business from obtaining a new ABC permit if they're located within 1,000 feet of a school or church. The measure, SB 68, was filed in response to a Greensboro case earlier th...
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RALEIGH - Bills to restore protest petition rights to Greensboro residents were filed in both the House and Senate this week. Protest petitions are tools used by neighbors of property involved in rezoning cases, legal proceedings that change what can...
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February 3, 2009
Sen. Richard Burr has been called out by liberal bloggers as one of the senators who might be holding up confirmation of Rep. Hilda Solis as President Barack Obama's labor secretary. Solis, a California Democrat, is not a favorite of GOP senators, accordi...
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January 30, 2009
RALEIGH — A proposal to ban smoking in restaurants, offices and virtually any other workplace promises to be the focus of a bruising battle between health advocates, tobacco companies and allies with either side. Similar bills have been introduced in ea...
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January 29, 2009
RALEIGH - Gov. Bev Perdue is unhappy with a list of $634.2 million in possible spending cuts proposed by state agencies, telling Cabinet secretaries to go back and look again for more significant changes. Some budget cutting will be needed to bridge what......
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January 28, 2009
RALEIGH - Sen. Don Vaughan was on his way to his first day in the General Assembly when ... CHUNK. The elevator carrying him to the second floor stopped. "We were very scared. It fell about a foot or so at first before it caught," Vaughan said. Five other...
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January 27, 2009
RALEIGH - When President Barack Obama ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to reconsider rules that block states from adopting their own car emissions standards, environmental advocates in North Carolina began revving their engines. The federal rul...
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RALEIGH — Gov. Bev Perdue attempted to establish exactly where the buck stops within the state’s public education bureaucracy Monday by naming the same person to two key jobs. William “Bill” Harrison, Cumberland County’s schools superintendent......
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January 26, 2009
Rep. Brad Miller, a Raleigh Democrat who represents parts of Greensboro and Rockingham County, is taking another swing at his mortgage modification legislation. The bill, he says, may do more than the much-ballyhooed financial industry bailout to keep peo...
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January 25, 2009
RALEIGH - When the snow started falling last week, Sen. Marc Basnight left his office here hoping to escape the inclement weather at his home in Manteo . "The further I went east, the deeper it got," said the longtime Democratic leader who is once again...
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Gov. Bev Perdue recently named Keith Crisco of Asheboro her commerce secretary. Before joining her administration earlier this month, Crisco was president of Asheboro Elastics, a company Crisco says has the mission of holding up your underwear. Crisco ser...
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