Efforts to repair five streets in a rural subdivision off N.C. 43 have been delayed because too few contractors submitted bids for the project, Pitt County’s planning director said.

Instead of holding a public hearing on the project at today’s 6 p.m. meeting, the Pitt County Board of…

Secure front entry corridor designs and a 2018-19 interim budget resolution will be among the many topics discussed at today’s Pitt County Board of Education work session. 

Matt Johnson, executive director of operations, will present the designs for the secure corridors which will be…

Today

Blood drive

The American Red Cross Eastern N.C. Donation Center, 700 Cromwell Drive, will hold a blood drive from 6:30 a.m to 2:30 p.m. Call 1-800-448-3543 for more information.

Birthday bash

The Pitt County AIDS Service Organization (PiCASO) will host its 27th annual Birthday Bash from 5-8 p.…

The NCHSAA track and field state championship weekend held at North Carolina A&T State came to a close Sunday and J.H. Rose sophomore Jordan Sales provided some highlights for Pitt County on the final day of competition.

Sales took the silver medal in the 200-meter dash with a time of 24.66…

Taylor Black began her Jr. NBA skills competition journey in February at South Greenville Recreation Center and she has earned an all-expense paid trip to New York for the national finals in June while the NBA draft will be conducted at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, N.Y.…

The fluidity of who is headed to the NFL and who is being recruited to join the team can have a major effect at a program like Clemson football. It’s a process that left former J.H. Rose High School star Cornell Powell often on the sideline during his first two college seasons.

Powell had a…

So the Democratic arm, the N.C. Association of Educators, wants to return to the glory days of Gov. Bev Perdue. Someone close to me taught during the Perdue administration. It was four years without a pay increase. Perdue actually broke the state contract with the teachers and withheld part of…

I am shocked and ashamed that our government supports the current murderous regime of Israel. I don't understand how we, as American citizens, can stand by and calmly observe the unwarranted murder of more than 50 Palestinians and the wounding and maiming of hundreds more by the Israeli…

To its credit, North Carolina was a national leader in saying no to the payday lending that takes advantage of people who struggle to get by from paycheck to paycheck.

Payday lending has been illegal here since the General Assembly passed a law banning such businesses in 2001.

So why would members…

GET A GRIP, GIRLS

Dear Short Answers: There is a woman in town who is a stay-at-home mom with three children. Every year (actually, three times a year), she throws the most lavish birthday parties for her kids. It makes the rest of us moms look like slackers. Every year, our own kids ask why…

SERVICES

■ Burning Bush United Holy Church, 610 N.C. 43 North, Vanceboro, will have quarterly meeting at 11 a.m. Sunday.

■ Carson Memorial Pentecostal Holiness Church, 1710 Pactolus Highway, will have its annual homecoming service at 11 a.m. Sunday. The group Unshackled will be musical guests.…

Capsules of movies playing locally. New releases are indicated with an asterisk.

AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR — The Avengers and their allies must be willing to sacrifice all in an attempt to defeat the powerful Thanos before his blitz of devastation and ruin puts an end to the universe. (2…

We are fully mobile — as in “auto-mobile” — now that our twins have turned 16 and are licensed drivers. It’s a development that is both wonderful and terrifying, and one that is requiring us to test-drive a lot of used cars.

Since we tend to drive our vehicles into the…

Former state senate leader Marc Basnight’s restaurant near Manteo evokes two of my favorite things: politics and people coming together for good food.

Working on a follow-up to my book, “North Carolina’s Roadside Eateries,” I am gathering material about local, family-owned…

I could make a case that no one has ever been more persistently argumentative than me.

Now I’m reaping what I’ve sowed, right there in the exact same weedy, thorny field known as Facebook. Yes, a troll is lurking, determined to exact a toll in the form of my agreement with his theories.…