Skip to main content

Arts in the Park: Grifton Arts in the Park will be held from 2-6 p.m. on Sunday at Contentnea Overlook Park, 437 Creekshore Drive. The event will feature live music, fun and fellowship, vendors, food and more. The Historic Museum and Indian Village of Grifton also will open 1-5 p.m.

‘You’re A Good Man Charlie Brown’: The Music Department of Pitt Community College will present “You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown” at 7 p.m. today and 3 p.m. Sunday in the Goess Student Center’s Davenport Multipurpose Room, 169 Bulldog Run, Winterville. Performances are free, but a $10 donation is suggested.

Local Events

Right after a 28-year-old shot six people to death at a small Christian school, Rep. Tim Burchett, a Tennessee Republican, emoted on camera. “Three precious little kids lost their lives,” he said with sad resignation, “and I believe three adults.”

China’s Xi Jinping traveled to Moscow this week to commune with Vladimir Putin, cementing the new axis against the U.S. Compare that scene to President Biden’s proposed fiscal 2024 defense budget, which isn’t serious about matching American military power to growing threats.

Liberals have been outraged, and rightly so, over the war on free speech and thought launched by right-wing activists. As I wrote recently, “a nationwide movement is gathering steam to ban books” featuring characters that are not straight white male Christians.

Former President Donald Trump does not usually play the national anthem when he appears at rallies around the country. Trump enters the arena to the strains of Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA.” He walks around the stage, soaking up his fans’ enthusiasm and support, and begins his remarks …

The world’s leading role-playing game — Dungeons & Dragons (or D&D, for short) — was invented by two geeks back in 1974, setting off the modern role-playing game industry. Designed as a fantasy tabletop war game, D&D greatly influenced today’s video games.

Q I was diagnosed with depression in grad school, and I’ve been dealing with it ever since. I take medication and see a therapist. It helps, but I still struggle. I read about a new study that says depression has to do with your gut and with what you eat. I’d like to know more about that.

State AP Stories

  • Updated

States are doling out more cash than ever to lure multibillion-dollar microchip, electric vehicle and battery factories, inspiring ever-more competition as they dig deeper into their pockets to attract big employers and capitalize on a wave of huge new projects. Georgia, Kansas, Michigan, New York, North Carolina, Ohio and Texas have made billion-dollar pledges for a microchip or EV plant, with more state-subsidized plant announcements by profitable automakers and semiconductor giants surely to come. The projects come at a transformative time for the industries, with automakers investing heavily in electrification and chipmakers expanding production in the U.S. following pandemic-related supply chain disruptions that raised economic and national security concerns.

  • Updated

The military says the service members who died in a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter crash ranged in age from 23 to 36 and were from seven states. A military news release Friday says the service members came from Florida, Texas, Missouri, California, North Carolina, Alabama and New Jersey. Two HH-60 Black Hawk helicopters crashed near Fort Campbell on Wednesday night during a medical evacuation training exercise, killing all nine soldiers aboard the two aircrafts. The crash occurred in Trigg County, Kentucky, about 30 miles northwest of the Army post that is home to the 101st Airborne Division.

STATESVILLE, N.C. (AP) — As Len Strozier of Omega Mapping Services makes his way through the Green Street Cemetery to map it out in a ground-penetrating radar survey, the orange flags he places where there aren’t just signs of where someone is buried. He says it’s much more than that.

  • Updated

Donald Trump is the first former president ever to be indicted, but he’s not the first politician who will have a mug shot taken. Lawmakers arrested on past criminal charges have taken different approaches to their mug shots. While some are somber, others see them as an opportunity to rally supporters who believe the cases against them are politically motivated. New York law discourages the release of mug shots in most cases, though they have leaked in the past. Less clear is whether Trump would seek to have the picture released himself, for political or other reasons.

California and three other states are joining a federal lawsuit against JetBlue over its proposed $3.8 billion purchase of Spirit Airlines. New Jersey, Maryland and North Carolina also joined the case on Friday. The Biden administration argues that the deal will reduce competition and drive up prices by eliminating Spirit, which is known for low fares. The original lawsuit against JetBlue was filed in early March by the U.S. Justice Department, Massachusetts, New York and the District of Columbia. A federal judge has scheduled a trial to begin Oct. 16 in Boston.

  • Updated

North Carolina state government budgets usually include policy or spending directives that give any sitting governor heartburn, and this year will be no exception. But those provisions will take on new importance given a budget must be passed for the coming year before Medicaid expansion in a law signed this week by Gov. Roy Cooper can be carried out. A House budget proposal debated Thursday contains provisions restricting the Democratic governor or his administration on environmmental policy, oversight of the State Bureau of Investigation and election administration. The competing Senate budget likely will have additional provisions that will give Cooper pause.

  • Updated

Carl Lentz, the ousted pastor of Hillsong New York City, has landed on staff at Transformation Church. It is a predominantly Black, nondenominational megachurch in Tulsa, Oklahoma, that is led by pastor, author and popular YouTuber Michael Todd. Transformation is a juggernaut in a town replete with megachurches. The church has confirmed that Lentz, who was fired from Hillsong in 2020 when an extramarital affair came to light, has joined its staff. Lentz, 44, was once labeled a “hypepriest” by GQ Magazine for his fashionable attire and ministry to NBA players and celebrities such as Justin Bieber. He has been mostly silent since his firing.

  • Updated

A funeral will be held this weekend for former Democratic U.S. Rep. Nick Galifianakis, who represented central North Carolina for several years before two unsuccessful Senate bids. An obituary from a funeral home said Galifianakis died on Monday at age 94. A family spokesman told a newspaper that Galifianakis died at a Raleigh retirement community. He served in the General Assembly and in Congress for over a decade. He unseated the Democratic incumbent in the 1972 Democratic primary but lost to archconservative Jesse Helms in the general election. Galifianakis also lost in the 1974 U.S. Senate primary to then-Attorney General Robert Morgan.

National & World AP Stories

  • Updated

LUSAKA, Zambia (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris on Saturday traveled down a dirt road to tour a farm outside Zambia's capital that’s using new techniques and technology to boost its vegetable crop as she highlighted ways to secure food supplies in an age of global warming.

  • Updated

Storms that dropped possibly dozens of tornadoes killed at least 21 people in small towns and big cities across the South and Midwest. The tore a path through the Arkansas capital and collapsed the roof of a packed concert venue in Illinois. People throughout the region were stunned with the damage’s scope. Confirmed or suspected tornadoes in at least eight states destroyed homes and businesses, splintered trees, and lay waste to neighborhoods across a broad swath of the country. The dead included seven in one Tennessee county, four in the small town of Wynne, Arkansas, four in Illinois, and three in nearby Sullivan, Indiana. Other deaths were reported in Alabama and Mississippi, along with one near Little Rock, Arkansas.

A Kyiv court has ordered a leading priest to be put under house arrest. Ukraine’s top security agency said he was suspected of justifying Russian aggression, a criminal offense. It was the latest move in a bitter dispute over a famed Orthodox monastery. Metropolitan Pavel is the abbot of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra monastery, Ukraine’s most revered Orthodox site. He has denied the charges and has resisted the authorities’ order to vacate the complex. After the court’s ruling Saturday, a monitoring bracelet was placed around his ankle. The monks in the monastery belong to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which has been accused of having links to Russia. The dispute surrounding the property is part of a wider religious conflict that has unfolded in parallel with the war.

  • Updated

Shaka Smart has packed an entire career's worth of experiences into 14 years as a college head coach. He led VCU to an improbable Final Four as a 30-something wunderkind in 2011, guided mighty Texas to a Big 12 Tournament title during six otherwise tepid years in Austin, and now has turned M…

  • Updated

Kaley Cuoco is flying high after giving birth to her first child. The star of “The Flight Attendant” and “The Big Bang Theory” said on Instagram Saturday that she and fellow actor Tom Pelphrey now have a daughter named Matilda Carmine Richie Pelphrey. Cuoco said the baby born Thursday is the “new light of our lives.” Cuoco and Pelphrey, an actor from the soaps “Guiding Light” and “As The World Turns,” began dating last year and announced in October that they were expecting a child together.

  • Updated

The NBA will have labor peace for years to come. The league and its players came to an agreement early Saturday on a new seven-year collective bargaining agreement. The deal will begin this summer and will last at least through the 2028-29 season. Either side can opt out then; otherwise, the new deal will last through 2029-30.

A local teenager and an Atlanta woman won the overall men’s and women’s divisions at a footrace across the longest of 42 highway bridges over water in the Florida Keys. Vaclav “Vance” Bursa finished first overall Saturday in the annual 7 Mile Bridge Run, posting a time of 41 minutes, 1 second and also claiming the top spot in the men’s division. Bursa, who placed third in the 2022 race, is a student at Marathon High School. Joanna Stephens completed the course in 41:12 to win the women’s division title and place second overall in the race. The race drew competitors from 41 U.S. states and other countries including Canada, the U.K. and Switzerland.