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.
A robotic delivery service is being rolled out at ECU to bring food from campus dining locations to students, faculty and staff.
Newcomers Club: The Newcomers Club of Greenville will meet at 11:30 a.m. Feb. 8 beginning with a social time and lunch at noon at the Greenville Country Club, 216 Country Club Lane. A fashion show will be presented by My Sister’s Closet. The cost will be $20 payable at the door. Reservations should be made on or before Sunday, Feb. 5.
The Pitt County Council on Aging announced the following classes and programs for February at the Pitt County Senior Wellness Center, 4551 County Home Road.
A Farmville woman was arrested by Pitt County authorities after she hit her boyfriend with a car, hospitalizing him, on Saturday morning.
WINTERVILLE — Placing four blessing boxes at strategic locations in town more than two years ago was relatively simple.
Madison Parkerson of Pinetops has been named Distinguished Young Woman of North Carolina.
The first of two Biscuitville stores coming to Greenville is set to open on Feb. 8, the family-owned, Greensboro-based chain announced on Friday.
Pitt County’s chief public defender was recognized recently by N.C. Chief Justice Paul Newby during an event held in partnership with the North Carolina State Bar and North Carolina Bar Association.
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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.
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 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…
HAVELOCK — A handful of area grapplers competed at the first-ever NCHSAA Eastern Regional for girls’ wrestling Thursday night at Havelock High School.
Former East Carolina women’s basketball great Rosie Thompson was one of 15 individuals chosen earlier this week to be inducted into the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame as part of the 2023 class.
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…
North Carolina Superintendent of Public Instruction Catherine Truitt seems more concerned with appeasing the Republican partisans who rule the state legislature than making sure every school child has access to a quality public education and their schools and teachers have the resources need…
Give it guidelines
Brett Kavanaugh was sworn in as a justice of the Supreme Court more than four years ago, on Oct. 6, 2018. His oath followed perhaps the ugliest Supreme Court Senate confirmation process in history — and that, given the previous examples of Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas, is saying something…
Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) quickly became a global punchline when his multiple, contradictory misrepresentations of his background were revealed after he was elected in November. But there’s nothing funny about Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s refusal to call on Santos to resign, as a few other Rep…
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.
White shirt, jacket and tie, any time you attend church. When I was a kid, this was the dress code expected of every male from 6 years old to when you’re the guest of honor at the funeral.
Q I had just started a new job when the pandemic happened. On top of the lockdowns and home-schooling our kids, I was diagnosed with IBS. My husband read there’s research that it’s caused by stress, and that makes a lot of sense to me. Can you please talk about that research?
A few days ago I was up at the herbarium here at USC; they let me come in now and then and putter around, helping to prepare and file away specimens.
State AP Stories
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 a Democrat is 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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National & World AP Stories
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has wrapped up a two-day visit to Israel and the occupied West Bank with no visible signs of progress toward halting one of the deadliest outbreaks of Israeli-Palestinian violence in years. The anemic outcome from the visit that ended Tuesday highlights what appears to be the limited influence the Biden administration has over Israel’s new government, which is dominated by hard-line nationalists who oppose concessions toward the Palestinians. But it also reflects a years-long process that has turned the U.S. into little more than a conflict manager — drawing Palestinian accusations that Washington is a dishonest broker with a bias toward Israel.
PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — Pakistani authorities scrambled on Tuesday to determine how a suicide bomber was able to carry out one of the country’s deadliest militant attacks in years, unleashing an explosion in a crowded mosque inside a highly secured police compound in the city of Peshawar. …
Boeing bids farewell to an icon on Tuesday: It's delivering 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, with two engines instead of the 747's four. The final plane is the 1,574th built by Boeing in the Puget Sound region of Washington state. It's being delivered to cargo carrier Atlas Air.
PARIS (AP) — French authorities say that an estimated 1.27 million people joined in Tuesday's nationwide protests against the government's planned pension reforms.
Ukraine has won support from Baltic nations and Poland for its weekslong quest to obtain Western fighter jets. That ambition follows pledges by some larger nations last week to send Kyiv sophisticated modern tanks to help it beat back Russia’s invasion force after almost a year of fighting. Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Reinsalu urged “all Western community countries” to speed up military help for Kyiv, including fighter jets. Poland, Slovakia and the Baltic countries on NATO’s eastern flank feel especially threatened by Russia. Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov held talks with his French counterpart, saying they did not discuss specific fighter jets but did talk about aviation “platforms” to help Ukraine’s ground-to-air defense.
Winter weather is bringing ice to a wide swath of the United States, causing the cancellation of more than 1,600 flights nationwide and knocking out power to thousands of Texans. Numerous auto collisions were reported in Austin, Texas, with at least one fatality reported. Tracking service FlightAware says more than 700 flights to or from Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport and more than 250 to or from Dallas Love Field were canceled or delayed Tuesday. The storm began Monday as part of an expected several rounds of wintry precipitation through Wednesday across Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Tennessee. A winter weather advisory is in place into much of Kentucky, West Virginia and southern parts of Indiana and Ohio.
Wall Street is closing a strong January with more gains. The S&P 500 was 0.8% higher Tuesday ahead of what many investors hope will be one of the Federal Reserve’s last economy-shaking hikes to interest rates for a while. Markets got a boost after a report showed that growth for U.S. workers’ pay and benefits slowed during the end of 2022. While that’s frustrating for people trying to keep up with soaring prices at the register, markets see it as an encouraging sign of easing pressure on inflation. The Fed is set to announce its latest rate hike on Wednesday.
The family of Tyre Nichols plans to speak about the latest developments in the case, including the suspension of two officers and the firing of three emergency responders. The family will gather Tuesday evening with the Rev. Al Sharpton and attorney Ben Crump at the historic Mason Temple in Memphis. That's where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his final speech. Five Black officers have already been fired and charged with second-degree murder and other offenses. Six officers belonged to a now-disbanded unit that focused on high-crime areas. Crump says other Memphis residents who say they also were “brutalized” by officers in the unit will speak.
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