East Carolina University is receiving $1.39 million for a collaborative project that aims to improve access to digital technology and literacy, resources and skills training for residents in 29 eastern North Carolina counties, including Pitt and Greene counties.
A year after crowds turned out for Board of Education meetings to debate what Pitt County Schools students are assigned to read, few people have shown interest in serving on a committee that hears challenges to books.
The Board of Education is expected next week to OK spending more than $600,000 as part of an effort to help make school library collections more diverse, but one district official acknowledged that some titles could be viewed as divisive.
North Carolina students of teachers with higher effectiveness ratings fared better during the pandemic in terms of learning loss than students with less effective teachers, according to new research.
Authorities are asking for help identifying three suspects they say stole a Children’s Miracle Network donation box from a gas station on Old Tar Road.
Business After Hours: The Greenville Pitt County Chamber of Commerce will hold its Business After Hours membership networking event 5:30-7 p.m. on Thursday at 5th Street Hardware Restaurant & Taproom, 120 W. Fifth St. Visit a chamber member business and network with other business leaders out of the office and off the clock while enjoying great food and beverages. Register at greenvillenc.org/events. Contact Aileen Peacock or call (252) 752-4101, ext. 2223.
A free annual kids’ dental clinic is set to resume for the first time since before the pandemic, but organizers aren’t certain crowds that once flocked to the event will come back following a two-year absence.
Nearly two weeks after a Farmville Central High School student was arrested on charges of bringing a handgun onto school property, Pitt County Schools is considering increased security measures.
Law enforcement, faith and civil rights leaders who gathered in response to the beating death of a man by police in Memphis, Tennessee, said change and understanding is needed to prevent such violence from claiming more lives.
MONROE — One of North Carolina’s largest school systems has backed off an academic calendar for next year that would have openly defied a state law that directs when classes can start and end.
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East Carolina was ice cold from the floor for long stretches on Tuesday night in Tampa, Fla., particularly in the second half of a 72-48 blowout loss to South Florida.
The D.H. Conley boys’ basketball team, having already won the first two meetings this season against rival J.H. Rose, was making a run in the fourth quarter with an eye on a third victory.
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The Pitt Community College men’s basketball team is riding a season-high four-game winning streak after picking up a pair of wins over the weekend.
The outcome wasn’t going to change by the time the East Carolina men’s basketball team found its footing and made a run at the end of Sunday’s game against Wichita State.
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The East Carolina men’s basketball team found its way into the win column when it snapped a five-game losing skid with a home win over Tulsa on Tuesday. Now, the Pirates are looking to string together back-to-back wins for the first time since non-conference play began when they host Wichita…
BETHEL — Despite leading the entirety of Friday night’s Eastern Plains 2A Conference boys’ basketball clash, North Pitt was never able to pull away from a pesky SouthWest Edgecombe squad.
The cartoon “Family Circus” by Jeff Keane appears in the DR. The cartoon’s charm derives from its depiction of young children responding to their new world. A recent panel shows a little boy entering a room suddenly darkened by his sister at a light switch. He says, “Hey! Who turned on the d…
Even as Black History Month begins, the war on teaching Black history has opened a new front in Florida. That state’s governor, the shamelessly ambitious Ron DeSantis, has banned a proposed high school Advanced Placement (AP) course in African American studies.
In U.S. history there may never have been a time when a sitting president of the United States grossly mishandled or did not properly secure classified documents until President Joe Biden.
Weeks after Elon Musk’s decision to reinstate Donald Trump on Twitter, Meta (the parent company of Facebook and Instagram) announced it will allow Trump back on its platforms too.
A recent letter by one of the normal liberal contributors identifies seven Republican House members viewed as extreme, with no redeeming qualities.
According to the latest-available set of comparable data, North Carolina ranks 33rd in the nation in “deaths of despair” — that is, in the combined rates of suicides, fatal drug overdoses, and alcohol-induced deaths. In 2020 our age-adjusted rate was 55.5 deaths of despair per 100,000 reside…
You’ve seen the TV commercials encouraging you to be vaccinated and boosted. Act now, please. Eating healthy helps your immune system but can’t replace vaccinations.
Q I have shared my home with pets my whole life. I am now a 76-year-old widow, and my menagerie is down to two small dogs. I just saw on the news that pets keep you mentally sharp. Is that true? I’d like to be able to reassure my sons that my furry companions are a boon and not a burden.
It may be the middle of winter and cold outside, but anytime you want to visit the warm, sunny Caribbean, you can head over to the new Simply Caribbean Cuisine at 3150 Evans St., Suite P, in Greenville.
When it comes to flavor, say yes to bone-in, skin-on chicken breasts. Chicken breasts often get a bad rap for their dryness and lack of flavor. Leaving the bones and skin on the breast helps to solve this problem.
Uncle Rich appreciated time. He would especially appreciate a completed time cycle. He collected stopwatches, he wrote music and he was a systems manager with IBM. In leisure and in business, these are the utensils of modern Eastern Standard time.
I ran across some old columns recently from the years when my daughters and my capacity for coming up with column ideas were similarly small.
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North Carolina civil rights advocates have denounced a House rule change that could allow Republicans to override vetoes on contentious bills with little notice, saying it subverts democracy and the will of voters. Republicans pushed through temporary operating rules this month that omitted a longstanding requirement that chamber leaders give at least two days’ notice before holding an override vote. The move could allow Republicans to override Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s vetoes while Democrats are absent, even momentarily. Calling the change “a shameful power grab meant to thwart the will of the people,” Jillian Riley of Planned Parenthood South Atlantic said it undermines the functionality of the General Assembly.
As mass shootings are again drawing public attention, states across the U.S. seem to be deepening their political divide on gun policies. A series of recent mass shootings in California come after a third straight year in which U.S. states recorded more than 600 mass shootings involving at least four deaths or injuries. Democratic-led states that already have restrictive gun laws have responded to home-state tragedies by enacting or proposing even more limits on guns. Many states with Republican-led legislatures appear unlikely to adopt any new gun policies after last year's local mass shootings. They're pinning the problem on violent individuals, not their weapons.
The families of five passengers killed in a plane crash off the North Carolina coast have settled wrongful death lawsuits for $15 million. Their attorneys told the court the companies that owned the plane and employed the pilot paid the money. The suits claimed the pilot failed to properly fly the single-engine plane in weather conditions with limited visibility. All eight people aboard died off the Outer Banks. The passengers included four teenagers and two adults, returning from a hunting trip. The founder of the company that owned the plane was killed, and his family wasn't involved in the lawsuits.
A man who caused evacuations and an hourslong standoff with police on Capitol Hill when he claimed he had a bomb in his pickup truck outside the Library of Congress has pleaded guilty to a charge of threatening to use an explosive. Floyd Ray Roseberry, of Grover, North Carolina, pleaded guilty to the felony charge in Washington federal court. He faces up to 10 years behind bars and is scheduled to be sentenced in June. An email seeking comment was sent to his attorney on Friday. Roseberry drove a black pickup truck onto the sidewalk outside the Library of Congress in August 2021 and began shouting to people in the street that he had a bomb.
North Carolina Democrats have introduced legislation to codify abortion protections into state law as Republicans are discussing early prospects for further restrictions. Their legislation, filed Wednesday in both chambers, would prohibit the state from imposing barriers that might restrict a patient’s ability to choose whether to terminate a pregnancy before fetal viability, which typically falls between 24 and 28 weeks of pregnancy. Current state law bans nearly all abortions after 20 weeks, with narrow exceptions for urgent medical emergencies that do not include rape or incest. House Speaker Tim Moore told reporters he didn’t expect the Democrats’ bill to get considered.
Supporters of abortion rights have filed separate lawsuits challenging abortion pill restrictions in North Carolina and West Virginia. The lawsuits were filed Wednesday. They are the opening salvo in what’s expected to a be a protracted legal battle over access to the medications. The lawsuits argue that state limits on the drugs run afoul of the federal authority of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The agency has approved the abortion pill as a safe and effective method for ending pregnancy. More than half of U.S. abortions are now done with pills rather than surgery.
A lawyer representing the leaders of North Carolina’s state employee health plan has defended its exclusion of gender affirming treatments before a federal appeals court. State Treasurer Dale Folwell and the State Health Plan’s executive administrator are seeking to overturn a trial court order demanding that the plan pay for “medically necessary services,” including hormone therapy and some surgeries, for transgender employees and their children. Attorney John Knepper told a three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday that the plan routinely excludes some medically necessary procedures based on cost, but does not make any of those determinations based on sex or gender.
The University of Wisconsin System has joined a number of universities across the country in banning the popular social media app TikTok on school devicies. UW System officials made the announcement Tuesday. A number of other universities have banned TikTok in recent weeks, including Auburn, Arkansas State and Oklahoma. Nearly half the states have banned the app on state-owned devices, including Wisconsin, North Carolina, Mississippi, Louisiana and South Dakota. Congress also recently banned TikTok from most U.S. government-issued devices over bipartisan concerns about security. TikTok is owned by ByteDance, a Chinese company that moved its headquarters to Singapore in 2020. Critics say the Chinese government could access user data.
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Boeing bid farewell to an icon Tuesday: It delivered its final 747 jumbo jet. Since it debuted in 1969, the 747 has served as a cargo plane, a commercial aircraft capable of carrying nearly 500 passengers, and the Air Force One presidential aircraft. It revolutionized international travel. But over about the past 15 years, Boeing and its European rival Airbus have introduced more profitable and fuel efficient wide-body planes. The final plane is the 1,574th built by Boeing in the Puget Sound region of Washington state. Thousands of current and former Boeing workers gathered for a ceremony marking its delivery to cargo carrier Atlas Air.
The Pakistani city of Peshawar was once known as “the city of flowers” but has borne the brunt of rising militancy in the region for the past decades. Now it's reeling after one of Pakistan’s most devastating militant attacks in years, in which a suicide bomber hit a mosque, killing at least 101 people and wounding 225, mostly police. Analysts say the carnage is the legacy of decades of flawed policies by Pakistan and the United States. In the 1980s, the city became the center of the U.S. and Pakistani program to back the mujahedeen fighting the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, creating a legacy of radicalism and violence that continues until today,
Pope Francis is urging Congo's people to find it in their hearts to forgive those who have harmed them. Francis made the appeal during a Mass Wednesday before an estimated 1 million people. Many spent the night on the vast airfields of Kinshasa’s Ndolo airport and passed the hours before Francis’ arrival singing and dancing. They cheered wildly when Francis began a languid loop around the airfields in his open-sided popemobile. Some ran alongside or waved flags. The Mass is Francis' first big event in Congo and comes on a day dedicated to his call for peace and forgiveness in a country wracked by decades of violence.
The family of Tyre Nichols plans to lay him to rest on Wednesday, three weeks after he died following a brutal beating by Memphis police after a traffic stop. In those three weeks, five officers have been fired and charged with murder, and their specialized unit was disbanded. Two more officers have been suspended. Two Memphis Fire Department emergency medical workers and a lieutenant were also fired. And more discipline could be coming. But Wednesday will be about Nichols, a 29-year-old skateboarder, father, and amateur photographer who worked at FedEx, made friends during morning stops at Starbucks, and always greeted his mother and step-father with a sunny, “Hello, parents!”
Indian finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced several new clean energy initiatives in her annual federal budget speech on Wednesday, saying “green growth” is a top priority for the country. More than $8 billion dollars were announced for projects like mangrove restoration which help suck carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, converting waste into biogas and speeding up renewable energy initiatives. But details of how the funds will be spent are yet to be disclosed. The minister said the injection of 35,000 crore rupees ($4.3 billion) into India’s energy transition and will be channeled through the ministry of petroleum and natural gas to help India reach its goal of net zero emissions by 2070.
Global stocks are higher while Wall Street futures declined ahead of what traders hope will be the last Federal Reserve interest rate hike for some time. London and Frankfurt opened higher. Shanghai, Tokyo and Hong Kong advanced. Oil prices gained. Traders expect the Fed to raise its benchmark lending rate but hope it will be the last increase in a rapid series over the past year. They worry U.S. and European rate hikes to cool inflation might tip the global economy into recession. U.S. government data showed wage growth slowed in late 2022. Traders took that as a sign the Fed might decide its effort to slow economic activity is taking effect.
Authorities in Western Australia have recovered a tiny but dangerous radioactive capsule that fell off a truck while being transported along a 870-mile highway last month. An official says it's like finding the needle in the haystack. The capsule the size of a pea was found south of Newman on the Great Northern Highway. It was detected by a search vehicle travelling at 43 miles per hour when specialist equipment picked up radiation emitting from the capsule. Portable search equipment was then used to locate it 6.5 feet from the side of the road. Search crews had spent six days scouring the entire length of the highway. The capsule emits dangerous amounts of radiation, equivalent of receiving 10 X-rays in an hour.
The longest battle of the war in Ukraine has turned Bakhmut into a ghost city. Despite bombing, shelling and trying to encircle the city since the summer, Russia’s forces have not conquered it. But their scorched-earth tactics made it impossible for civilians to have a life there. A Ukrainian soldier who arrived in the area in August saw Bakhmut gradually turned into a wasteland but says the city “has already become a symbol of Ukrainian invincibility.” Military analysts say the months of close combat have produced heavy casualties on both sides. For now, Bakhmut remains under Ukrainian control, albeit more as a fortress than the place where tourists used to sample sparkling wine.
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