North State Journal — Vol. 2 , Issue 29

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VOLUME 2 ISSUE 29

www.NSJONLINE.com |

Wednesday, July 19, 2017

Inside 2017 Open Championship Preview Sports

CHRISTINE T. NGUYEN | NORTH STATE JOURNAL

Elizabeth Johnson, 22, calls out an order at Bitty & Beau’s Coffee in Wilmington, N.C.

the Wednesday

News BRIEFing

NC had record tourism in 2016 Raleigh Visitors to N.C. spent a record $22.9 billion in 2016, a nearly 5 percent jump over the previous year. According to the N.C. Department of Commerce Secretary Tony Copeland, the state’s 50 million visitors last year supported 218,340 tourism jobs and more than 45,000 businesses. The recordbreaking year came despite concerns that 2016’s H.B. 2 controversy would dissuade travelers to the state.

Wilmington leaders “frustrated” with state leadership over GenX Wilmington Wilmington Mayor Bill Saffo held a press conference Monday, angry about the lack of state help and communication on the risks of a chemical called GenX and the state’s recent tests looking for it in the Cape Fear River. The amount of the chemical, which is released as a byproduct from the nearby Chemours plant, appears to be declining in the tests, but Gov. Roy Cooper called on Monday for the federal Environmental Protection Agency to issue warnings and standards on it quickly.

Hagan released from hospital Atlanta Former Sen. Kay Hagan (D-N.C.) has reportedly been released from an Atlanta rehabilitation center where she was recovering since January from a tickborne illness. Hagan, 63, developed a sudden swelling of the brain in December 2016 and was hospitalized.

She was later diagnosed as suffering from Powassan virus, which is spread by ticks.

She reportedly continues to recover through outpatient therapy in Georgia where she is working to build her strength and regain motor skills.

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JOURNaL ELEVATE THE CONVERSATION

Hotly debated school vouchers gaining momentum Trump administration, courts bolster case for school choice

By Mollie Young North State Journal ASHEVILLE — With Republicans in control of both state and federal coffers, school choice advocates are having a banner year in North Carolina. And for low-income families with disabled children, that means their kids have access to private schools that would traditionally be out of reach.

Amanda Caudill is a single mom from Raeford who has watched her two sons, Justin, 11, and Aiden, 6, struggle to get the personalized attention they needed to remain focused throughout the school day.

Justin has ADHD and anxiety, and Rockfish Elementary in Hope Mills had recommended that Aiden be held back to repeat kindergarten this year. But options were limited for the Caudills.

“Education is the essential and vital survival skill in today’s world, and as a parent, if you don’t have the money to help your child, you feel helpless,” said Amanda, who also has a 16-month-old daughter, Mercedes, with special needs.

She was tipped off about the state Opportunity Scholarship Program last year, and applied for both Justin and Aiden.

“I just wanted to know what my options were to help them succeed in education,” she said.

Both of her sons were accepted into the program that has been championed by free-market Republicans. State budgets over the last several years have steadily increased support for the private school vouchers. By the 2019-2020 school year, the program will have $54.8 million for 13,100 scholarships.

Justin now qualifies for the new Education Savings Account Program established this summer to direct scholarships to children with special needs. The ESA provides up to $9,000 a year to offset the cost of educational expenses, and eligible students with the highest need may stack that on See VOUCHERS, page A2

“I just wanted to know what my options were to help them succeed in education.”

— Amanda Caudill, mother of three

NC Democrats seek ‘Unity’ at annual dinner Featuring former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder as keynote speaker, Democrats are re-energized for unification while old hands feel that effort must include moderate voters

By Jeff Moore North State Journal RALEIGH — Former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder was the keynote speaker at the N.C. Democratic Party’s annual Unity Dinner on Saturday night. Labeled for years as the Jefferson-Jackson dinner, this year’s change in theme reflects a new focus by Democrats in the Old North State to come together in an effort to chip away at Republican legislative supermajorities.

As chairman of the National Democratic Party Redistricting

Committee, Holder emphasized the importance of unification to achieving electoral victories that would allow Democrats more influence in the drawing of congressional and district lines across the country.

Nowhere is the presumptive partisan advantage that comes from drawing electoral maps more center stage than in North Carolina, where courts have ruled against the legality of the latest maps drawn

by Republican majorities, but seasoned political consultants think the N.C. Democratic Party needs much more than a unity-themed dinner to win at the ballot box in 2018.

Brad Crone, president of Campaign Connections, a Raleigh-based political consulting firm, thinks the Unity Dinner is a step in the right direction and may provide some positive energy for See UNITY DINNER, page A3

Cheerwine featured at the White House as Trump tackles NAFTA renegotiations Made in America Week is the backdrop as Trump details how to “level the playing field” for American businesses

By Donna King North State Journal WASHINGTON, D.C. — North Carolina’s own Cheerwine was honored at the White House on Monday as part of Made in America Week. The cherry-flavored soda celebrates 100 years in business this summer and was chosen to represent North Carolina as one of 50 products made in each

state of the union.

“We’ve made Cheerwine in the Carolinas for the last 100 years, and this recognition is a nod to the generations of hardworking North Carolinians who’ve been part of our team, helping to build Cheerwine into the company it is today,” said Joy Harper, director of marketing for Cheerwine and fifth generation family member.

Before signing a proclamation making this Made in America Week, President Donald Trump promised on Monday he would take more legal and regulatory steps to protect American manSee CHEERWINE, page A2

photo courtesy of cheerwine

Cheerwine, a soft drink made in North Carolina, was part of Made in America Week at the White House in Washington, D.C.

North State Journal for Wednesday, July 19, 2017

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States watch health care debate closely as opioid crisis grows Rooting out fraud and tighter reporting play key roles in the fight against addiction

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By Donna King North State Journal PROVIDENCE, R.I. — North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper was among Democrat and Republican governors to urge Congress to consider the opioid drug addiction crisis when contemplating changes to Medicaid in the health care debate.

Governors meeting in Rhode Island warned that many residents of their states were relying on Medicaid to get treatment for opioid addiction, which grips an estimated 3 million Americans and killed 33,000 people in the United States in 2015, according to federal data.

On Monday night the health care replacement bill proposed

by Senate Republicans last week, called the Better Care Reconciliation Act, failed to be scheduled for a vote as four Republican senators said they could no support its phase out of Medicaid expansion. The bill included more than $45 billion for fighting the opioid addiction epidemic, which would have been distributed directly to states in the form of grants for addiction treatment programs along with addiction and pain research.

The proposal gradually scaled back federal funding for Medicaid expansion found in the Affordable Care Act (ACA), commonly called Obamacare. It also changes Medicaid from an open-ended entitlement program to a fixed, per-head amount paid to states with states retaining more control over how it is spent. Now, with no Senate plan on the table, Senate leadership say they will push to repeal Obamacare now and replace it later.

The governors meeting in Providence warned that as lawmakers plan to tackle a soaring federal

deficit ($440 billion in the 2018 fiscal year) and escalating entitlement costs ($2.5 trillion in the 2018 fiscal year) that opioid addiction treatment in many states flows through Medicaid. In N.C. more than 21 percent of prescriptions for buprenorphine, an addiction recovery medication, are paid for by Medicaid.

“We’re kidding ourselves if we don’t think what’s happening with health care in Congress right now is affecting this issue,” Cooper told his counterparts at a meeting of the National Governors Association. “We cannot have millions of Americans lose their health coverage and still effectively attack this crisis. We can’t significantly reduce Medicaid spending and still be successful in fighting opioid addiction.”

At least one Republican governor at the meeting, Chris Sununu of New Hampshire, shared Cooper’s concerns, saying lawmakers should get local buy-in on how states will be affected by any proposed changes to Medicaid.

“The first version made very severe cuts to Medicaid and some other programs that would have had a very significant impact to our state. It’s one of the main reasons I came out against it,” Sununu said in a brief interview.

“They have to solicit the input from those of us governors, mayors, county commissioners, all the way down,” he added. “Those of us who are implementing these programs are the ones that really understand the impact.”

In N.C. total Medicaid spending is growing, now at more than $12 billion. Medicaid accounts for approximately $3.4 billion, or 16 percent, of the total state budget.

The most recent budget, vetoed

by Cooper in June but overridden by the General Assembly, also includes $2 million for an opioid treatment pilot program and $100,000 for naloxone kits, an overdose reversal drug, for law enforcement officers.

However, according to state lawmakers and N.C. Attorney

BRIAN SNYDER | REUTERS

Left to right, North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper, Rhode Island Governor Gina Raimondo and Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker take part in the “Curbing the Opioid Epidemic” session at the National Governors Association summer meeting in Providence, Rhode Island.

33,000 Americans killed due to opioid addiction in 2015

3 million estimated number of Americans addicted to opioids in 2015

$10 million in the N.C. budget for an opioid treatment program General Josh Stein, it’s going to take more than just money to fight opioid addiction, which kills three people a day in N.C. The STOP Act, passed unanimously by the General Assembly, signed by Cooper and supported

by Stein, restricts opioid prescriptions to no more than a five-day supply. The restriction would not apply to cancer patients or those suffering from chronic pain. It also requires providers to participate in a statewide reporting system to prevent patients from “doctor shopping” for more pain killers.

Federal and state government is also cracking down on Medicaid

CHEERWINE from page A1

VOUCHERS from page A1

ufacturers, lashing out against trade deals and trade practices he said have hurt U.S. companies.

He told manufacturers that his stance on trade was one of the primary reasons he was elected.

“You construct and harvest the products that fill our homes, defend our nation and enrich our lives. I want to make a promise to each and every one of you that no longer are we going to allow other countries to break the rules, steal our jobs and drain our wealth,” Trump said to applause from manufacturing representatives in the audience.

With cases of Cheerwine stacked by his side, Trump pledged an intensive six-month focus on the challenges facing American manufacturers. Trump also climbed into an American-made fire truck parked behind the White House, took a swing with a baseball bat in the Blue Room, and briefly donned a customized Stetson cowboy hat in front of cheering manufacturing company executives from all 50 states gathered to hear him praise their products.

Trump’s remarks came as his administration laid out a tough negotiating strategy for revising the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with Canada and Mexico. Trump is also reviewing options to restrict steel imports.

“Once again we will celebrate craftsman producers, innovators, like the incredible men and women in this room today,” said Trump. “We will protect our workers, promote our industries and be proud of our history. We will put America first again. We will meet in this same room in a year and in two years and we will see what happened.”

In a much-anticipated document sent to lawmakers ahead of talks expected next month, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said the Trump administration aimed to reduce the U.S. trade deficit by improving access for U.S. goods exported to Canada and Mexico, the two countries in NAFTA besides the United States.

The 17-page summary lists among the priorities elimination of a trade dispute mechanism that has largely prohibited the United

the existing Children with Disabilities Grant that awards up to $8,000.

When Justin received the opportunity to be tested at Huntington Learning Center, Amanda recalled how much the individual learning experience boosted his confidence.

“I went to pick my child back up after the first testing day and he tells me, ‘Mommy, I want to go here. They helped me so much, I love it here. I feel like I can do anything, they were so proud of the things I did know,’” recalled Amanda. “And it broke my heart because you get what you pay for, and that place is so expensive that there was no way a single mother could afford that.”

Meanwhile, Democrats have fought to keep the millions of dollars in the public school system rather than give vouchers for private schools that often have religious affiliations.

“The budget siphons taxpayer dollars away from public schools and into private school vouchers with little accountability,” said Gov. Roy Cooper during a press conference announcing that he’d veto the Republican-led budget last month.

“It’s a steady erosion of public education.”

In February, eight African-American state legislators, all Democrats, broke rank with their party and the NAACP to support charter schools and the voucher programs.

But the voucher battle in North Carolina finds itself part of a much larger debate across the country, with powerful allies within President Donald Trump’s administration and recent moves by the U.S. court system shaping the conversation.

Betsy DeVos, Trump’s Education secretary, is a prominent school-choice advocate who has argued that giving more money to public schools has failed to produce better outcomes.

“We must shift the paradigm to think about education funding as investments made in individual children, not in institutions or buildings,” DeVos said in her first public address at the Brookings Institution in

CARLOS BARRIA | REUTERS

President Donald Trump sits on a firefighter truck as he participates in a “Made in America” products showcase at the White House in Washington.

“For decades Washington has allowed other countries to wipe out American jobs through unfair trade practices. Wait until you see what’s up for you, you will be so happy.”

— President Donald Trump

States from pursuing anti-dumping and anti-subsidy cases against Canadian and Mexican firms.

It also plans to eliminate a range of nontariff barriers to U.S. agricultural exports to Canada and Mexico. These include subsidies and unfair pricing structures.

USTR said it would seek to strengthen NAFTA’s rules of origin to ensure that the pact’s benefits do not go to outside countries and to “incentivize” the sourcing of U.S. goods. It offered no details on such incentives and did not specify how much of a product’s

components must originate from within North America.

Lighthizer said the negotiations would begin no earlier than Aug. 16, 2017.

Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO, an umbrella organization of unions representing 12.5 million workers, said NAFTA had been an “unequivocal failure” and should be completely renegotiated.

“We will do everything we can to make this a good agreement and to hold the president at his word and make sure we get a renegotiation,” Trumka told a conference call with reporters. “If it comes out that it is not a good deal, no deal is better than a bad deal.”

NAFTA has quadrupled trade among the three countries, surpassing $1 trillion in 2015. Over a decade to 2010, however, the U.S. lost nearly 6 million manufacturing jobs. The U.S. trade balance with Mexico also swung from a small surplus in 1994 to deficits that have exceeded $60 billion for most of the past decade.

Trump told the manufacturers gathered Monday at the White House that he was working for a “level playing field” for their wares.

“But if the playing field were slanted like a little bit toward us, I’d accept that also,” Trump said.

fraud as a way to stem escalating costs. On Thursday the U.S. Justice Department announced that more than 400 people, including doctors and nurses, have been charged with defrauding Medicaid, Medicare and other federal health care programs of $1.3 billion, with many accused of illegally distributing opioids and other narcotics. The federal Department of Health and Human Services and N.C.’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit assisted in the investigations.

A total of 412 people, including more than 100 doctors, nurses and other medical professionals, have been charged in the sweeping enforcement action, the biggest ever by the multiagency Medicare Strike Force, the Justice Department said in a statement.

“Health care fraud is not only a criminal act that costs billions of taxpayer dollars, it is an affront to all Americans who rely on our national health care programs for access to critical health care services and a violation of trust,” said DHHS Secretary Tom Price.

In many cases, health care providers paid cash kickbacks to patients and others in exchange for medical data that would allow them to file fraudulent bills to Medicare, the Justice Department said.

Since its inception in March 2007, the Medicare Fraud Strike Force has charged more than 3,500 defendants who collectively have falsely billed the Medicare program for more than $12.5 billion.

late March.

In late June, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 7-2 vote, sided with Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Mo., which sued after being denied access to a state grant program that helps nonprofit groups buy rubber playground surfaces made from recycled tires.

The ruling effectively buttressed the case for using publicly funded vouchers to send children to religious schools when one day later the top court threw out two private school-related lower court rulings in Colorado and New Mexico.

As far as why the debate has become so fierce between education advocates, DeVos says it’s simply a classic case of challenging the norm.

“Just as the traditional taxi system revolted against ride-sharing, so too does the education establishment feel threatened by the rise of school choice,” DeVos said. “In both cases, the entrenched status quo has resisted models that empower individuals.”

Studies on established voucher programs in Indiana and Louisiana first reported back declines in reading and math scores for children who attended private schools after transferring from the public school system, but as researchers expanded their scope to include performance after three years, results flipped. Essentially, the longer the students stayed in private school, the better they did.

In Indiana, voucher kids were surpassing their public school peers in English after four years.

For Amanda Caudill, whose boys will attend Rockfish Christian Academy this fall, those results mean her children will gain something that is more valuable than anything she can’t afford.

“Situations in life can rob a person of a lot of things, but one thing that you can never take away from a person is their education and wisdom,” she said.

“I’m really grateful and blessed for the opportunity to see my kids grow and do their best.”

Reuters News Service contributed to this article.

North State Journal for Wednesday, July 19, 2017

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Fed to allow 15,000 more seasonal work visas NC employs the thirdhighest number of H-2B visa workers in the nation, behind Texas and Colorado

Tillis to lift hold on Cissna nomination for Immigration Services director

By Donna King North State Journal WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. government is allowing 15,000 additional H-2B visas for temporary seasonal workers to help American businesses in danger of suffering “irreparable harm” because of a shortage of such labor, the Department of Homeland Security said on Monday.

In a document submitted to the Federal Register, U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly found after consulting with Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta that there were not enough qualified and willing American workers available to perform temporary nonagricultural work, the department said in a statement.

“As a demonstration of the administration’s commitment to supporting American businesses, DHS is providing this one-time increase to the congressionally set annual cap,” Kelly said in a statement.

Temporary workers at seasonal resorts, landscaping, seafood harvesting and processing are among those eligible, the government said.

Previously the number of nonagriculture, low-skill H-2B visas had been capped at 66,000 new workers annually, 33,000 for each half of the fiscal year, plus retention of the workers who’ve received the seasonal visas for the last two years.

However, that cap was reached on March 13 of this year.

Congress gave Kelly permission to authorize an additional 70,000 visas earlier this year, and he said in May he planned to grant at least some of them. However he also

MADELINE GRAY | NORTH STATE JOURNAL

expressed concerns in public comments to the Senate Appropriations Committee over stagnant wages of blue-collar American workers and reports of H-2B visa workers being exploited.

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) has been advocating for the release of the additional visas for months, saying that small businesses rely on the seasonal workers to keep their doors open. To push the issue, last week Tillis put a “hold” on the nomination of President Donald Trump’s nominee for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services director, Lee Francis Cissna, until action on more H-2B visas was taken. Under Senate rules a senator is allowed to place a hold on a bill or nominee to delay action.

Tillis’ office told North State Journal on Monday that after reviewing the new rules he plans to lift the hold on Cissna’s nomination.

Roy Beck, president of NumbersUSA, a group that favors reduced immigration levels, said in a statement the decision “threatens to reverse the trend of reports emerging around the country of employers working harder and raising pay to

successfully recruit more unemployed Americans for lower-skilled jobs.

“Congress gave Kelly the authority to put around 70,000 more of those jobs out of the reach of Americans; at least Kelly limited the damage to keeping just 15,000 more Americans out of the labor market,” Beck added. “Nonetheless, this is yet another example of the administration and Congress failing to keep the Trump campaign promise of putting American workers first.”

For employers to qualify for the additional visas, DHS says “the petitioner must submit an attestation in which the petitioner affirms, under penalty of perjury ... that if they do not receive all of the workers under the cap increase, they are likely to suffer irreparable harm, that is, permanent and severe financial loss.” The rules filing said they must attest that the loss could affect employment or wages of American citizens and other downstream impacts in their industry or community. They also must attest that the job “not adversely affect the wages or working conditions of similarly

Senate Democratic Leader Dan Blue questions the motives for cutting the North Carolina attorney general’s budget during debate as the North Carolina Senate votes for the third time to pass the budget compromise at the Legislative Building in Raleigh.

EAMON QUEENEY | NORTH STATE JOURNAL

Democrats, Republicans spar over impact of tax cuts Sen. Dan Blue (D-Wake) publicized a fiscal analysis that suggests tax cuts will lead to revenue shortfalls, but Republicans point to surpluses and dynamic economic growth as result of ongoing tax and budgeting reforms

By Jeff Moore North State Journal RALEIGH — During final deliberations on the $23 billion state budget last month, Sen. Dan Blue (D-Wake) requested a fiscal impact analysis of Republican-sponsored tax cuts being considered as part of the larger budgeting process.

Though the budget has been enacted as law, Fiscal Research staff recently provided Blue’s office with a five-year impact statement he requested that suggests the tax cuts will lead to revenue shortfalls in the final three years of the five-year period.

Gov. Roy Cooper reacted to the news on Twitter, reiterating his belief that the Republican-passed budget, tax cuts included, is “fiscally irresponsible.” Cooper vetoed the budget, but was overridden by a supermajority vote in the legislature.

In response to the revenue deficit alarms, spokeswoman for Senate Republicans Amy Auth countered that the Democrats “erroneously presume we plan to spend at unsustainable levels like they used to.”

Blue’s communications director Leslie Rudd in an email to press revealed that “Staff estimates a $1.2 billion shortfall by 2020 and outlined options to offset those losses.”

Those options were to reverse

recent personal and corporate tax cuts and increase sales taxes, among other budgeting transfers, to address the projected shortfall.

The analysis projects the revenue shortfall increasing to approximately $1.4 billion for fiscal year 2021-2022, representing a revenues versus expenditures gap of about 5.5 percent.

“Although these are significant amounts,” the letter from Fiscal Research analyst Evan Rodewald reads, “the General Assembly could address this imbalance by reducing expenditures, increasing revenues, or some combination of the two approaches.”

However, initial fiscal projections from the nonpartisan staff at the legislature’s Fiscal Research Division in recent years have not exactly been accurate indicators of where revenue totals ultimately end up.

Senate Republicans pointed to that fact in their response to the latest projections, while also describing key assumptions in the model used

by Fiscal Research that discount actual budgeting patterns practiced by the majority party.

That model assumes state government spending will grow between 4 and 5 percent annually, but the recent budgets passed by Republican supermajorities in the General Assembly have limited that

spending growth to match that of population and inflation which has yielded increases between 2 and 3 percent.

“Our nonpartisan fiscal research staff projects state revenue to grow more than $3.5 billion over the next five years, even with major tax cuts to the middle class,” said Auth on behalf of Senate Republicans. “We have out-performed projections for three years in a row, and only Democrats would consider $3.5 billion in additional taxpayer dollars a ‘cut’ to state government.”

While Cooper and leading Democrat lawmakers have consistently maligned tax cuts as favoring the rich at the expense of the poor and vital government programs, Republicans have held firm to continued tax reforms arguing that lower taxes boost the economy and let individual taxpayers across the income spectrum keep more of their hardearned money. They say recent economic leadership by the Old North State and a string of budget surpluses prove the merit of their policies.

A report from George Mason University released Tuesday ranking the budget solvency of the states seems to support the Republicans’ fiscal management policies as well.

The report finds North Carolina to be among the top five states for budget solvency, as well as improving six spots since last year to secure the 15th spot in overall fiscal condition.

The report measures states’ ability to pay bills, meet long-term spending needs and pension costs, and avoid budget deficits.

Last month, top credit rating agency Fitch awarded North Carolina an ‘A AA’ bond rating, citing its “low liabilities, conservative financial operations and long-term prospects for continued economic expansion and diversification.”

employed U.S. workers.”

The rule says employers do not have to present evidence of the potential “irreparable harm” to their business, but must have it available if DHS or the Department of Labor investigates. DHS also said the government has also created a new tip line to report any abuse of the visas or employer violations.

North Carolina has the third-highest usage of H-2B visa workers in the nation behind Texas and Colorado, primarily because of tourism, landscaping and construction. Approximately 4,300 workers a year in N.C. are on an H-2B seasonal work visa, and Tillis’ office said he regularly hears from small employers across the state who say they still cannot find enough people to keep their business afloat.

“Moving forward, it’s important that the debate over H-2B is rooted in hard facts and the real-world experiences of small businesses owners doing everything they can make ends meet, not the misleading opinions of political pundits based in New York City and Washington who have never had to make payroll,” said Tillis.

Above, the Cape Fear River waterfront in Wilmington is under construction.

UNITY DINNER from page A1 the party. However, Crone said unity is a minimum requirement to address political realities on the ground.

“The political reality is this: Until Democrats get a message that unaffiliated voters feel comfortable with, you’re going to continue to lose elections in the state of North Carolina,” said Crone in an interview. “The party is becoming more liberal as a result of the activists playing a larger role in the work and the energy that’s in the party right now.”

Crone said while he believes the unity message is a positive result of re-energized party activists, the party apparatus itself only touches about 10 percent of active voters.

“What you’ve got to understand is the party apparatus is run by liberal Democrats,” said Crone.

“That doesn’t necessarily translate into how an unaffiliated voter in Johnston County thinks. They don’t care about the party apparatus; they’re not paying attention to whether Eric Holder came and spoke or not. They’re worried about their health care premiums; they’re worried about affording daycare; they’re worried about school choice.”

Though having Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, in the mansion on Blount Street does represent a campaign advantage for Democrats in 2018, said Crone, the reach of the governor in certain pockets of the state is limited.

“Simply because Cooper has the platform to raise money [that will] put them in a position to compete,’ said Crone. “But don’t think you’re going into House District 6 with a liberal agenda and win the district, so the recruitment process and the message has to be much more centralized, much more centrist in scope.”

Veteran political analyst and consultant John Davis gave similar advice to N.C. Democrats preceding the annual dinner via his monthly political report, in which he argued that although Democrats are stronger than they think, they still have more work to do to appeal to the middle of the political spectrum.

“I would say that Democrats are stronger than they think because they have local and statewide leaders in place who are appealing to the state’s fastest-growing constituencies of urban voters, young voters, women and minority voters,” wrote Davis. However, “If the Democratic base in North Carolina is 42 percent of the electorate,

“All Democrats must accept the fact that Gov. Cooper’s win is not a sign of resurgent Democratic strength in North Carolina.

The state remains a swing state where neither party has a built-in advantage among the voters.”

— John Davis, political consultant which certainly includes all the liberals and most of the left-ofcenter moderates, how are they going to grow to 50 percent of the voters without appealing to centrist independents who couldn’t care less about political parties?”

Davis stated that the most liberal 20 percent of Democrats has taken over the party recently, hindering efforts to find unity and balance with leaders and issues that will make centrist Democrats and moderate independents feel welcomed.

“It is a cohort of angry liberals obsessed with labeling the motives of anyone who disagrees with them as racist, sexist, homophobic, misogynistic (hates women) and Islamophobic,” wrote Davis before offering a tongue-incheek hypothetical. “What if Nikki Haley is the GOP nominee for president in 2020? You know, the former Republican governor of South Carolina and current ambassador to the United Nations.

Will it be fair for Democratic men who choose not to support her to be labeled sexists?”

So as N.C. Democrats unite in anticipation of turning the tide in 2018, they face a challenge also confronted by Republicans in recent years in that their success, according to hardened political advisers, may be determined by how well their ideas accord with those of a fast-growing cohort of unaffiliated or moderate voters.

To the degree that either political party fails to do so, a third way may open up, according to Crone.

“I think we’re witnessing the demise of our party structures, both Republican and Democrat, and that there’s going to be an opportunity, it may not be in the near future, but in the medium- to long-range future, I think you’re going to see a viable third party develop.”

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FBI warns parents of privacy risks associated with internet-connected toys Washington, D.C. The FBI on Monday warned parents of privacy and safety risks from children’s toys connected to the internet. In an advisory the Federal Bureau of Investigation said that such toys may contain parts or capabilities such as microphones, cameras, GPS, data storage and speech recognition that may disclose personal information.

U.S. officials: Marijuana shipment disguised as spare tires in new cars Kent, Ohio About $1 million worth of smuggled marijuana was discovered last week in the spare tire compartments of newly assembled Ford Fusion sedans imported into the United States from Mexico, U.S. officials said on Monday. The smuggling was uncovered last Wednesday when workers at a Ford dealer in Kent, Ohio, found the marijuana in a new Fusion.

U.S. ending laptop ban on Middle Eastern airlines Washington, D.C. The U.S. Transportation Security Administration said on Monday it was lifting a ban on passengers on Saudi Arabian Airlines carrying large electronics like laptops onboard U.S.-bound flights, the last carrier under the restrictions.

In March, U.S. officials imposed restrictions on passengers carrying laptops and other large electronic gear in cabins on nine airlines, most of which were Middle Eastern carriers, to address the potential threat of hidden explosives.

London police charge man in connection with acid attack London British police said on Monday they had charged a 19-yearold man in connection with an investigation into a noxious substance attack on a man and a woman on July 4.

Mustafa Ahmed was charged with grievous bodily harm and attempting wounding with intent to do grievous bodily harm, the London’s Metropolitan Police said in a statement.

U.S. FDA approves Puma Biotech’s breast cancer treatment The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Monday approved Puma Biotechnology’s experimental breast cancer drug that lowers the risk of the disease returning after initial treatment. Shares of Los Angeles-based Puma Biotech jumped 9.7 percent to $94.45 in after-hours trading.

At a snail’s pace, Larry lands world snail racing title Congham, England “Ready, steady, slow,” was the cry as Team Uslime Bolt and their rivals got underway at the World Snail Racing championships in the English village of Congham. More than 150 snails took part in Saturday’s championships, held on a damp cloth on a table top in a field, vying to become the latest winner of an event which dates back to the 1960s.

North State Journal for Wednesday, July 19, 2017

Nation & WORLD GOP’s efforts at health care reform fail again Replacement efforts nixed Monday, McConnell’s outright repeal attempts quickly denied Tuesday

By Susan Cornwell Reuters WASHINGTON, D.C. — Efforts by Senate Republicans to replace or outright repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA) sputtered Monday and Tuesday, clouding the path forward for President Donald Trump’s other domestic policy goals and rattling financial markets.

After two Republicans said they would not back the latest rollback bill, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) threw in the towel and was weighing a vote on simply repealing the 2010 health care law, known as Obamacare, with no replacement.

But those efforts also fell short when three Republican senators quickly came out Tuesday against the repeal option.

As the ACA rollback collapsed in the Senate, counterparts in the House of Representatives unveiled a budget plan putting a proposed tax code overhaul on the same partisan procedural path that led to the anti-Obamacare initiative’s chaotic downfall late on Monday.

Sens. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) joined colleagues Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.) in opposing the legislation to dismantle ACA, passed under Democratic former president Barack Obama. McConnell said in a statement, “Regretfully, it is now apparent that the effort to repeal and immediately replace the failure of Obamacare will not be successful.”

Sens. Richard Burr and Thom Tillis, both Republicans from North Carolina, have called for the repeal and replacement of Obamacare, but Burr has been seemingly undecided on recent efforts, while Tillis has been more supportive.

In a Tuesday morning Twitter message, Trump said, “We were let down by all of the Democrats and a few Republicans. Most Republicans were loyal, terrific & worked really hard. We will return!”

In the face of full opposition

aaron p. bernstein | NORTH STATE JOURNAL

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell speaks to the media about plans to repeal and replace Obamacare on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C.

from Democrats, Monday’s defections left McConnell without enough votes to pass the bill in the 100-member Senate.

Trump also urged an outright repeal, even as other Republicans sought a shift toward bipartisanship with Democrats, but those efforts were quickly shot down Tuesday afternoon when Collins was joined by Sens. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) in saying they would oppose that course of action.

Democrats have remained united against Republican efforts to undo Obama’s signature domestic achievement that aimed to reduce the number of people without health insurance and help lower costs, even as they acknowledged changes were needed.

Late Monday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) urged Republicans to start over and work with Democrats.

Some Republican and Democratic governors, who help oversee the joint federal-state Medicaid program for the poor as well as private health insurers, have

balked at Republican lawmakers’ efforts to undo a law that expanded Medicaid in some states and reduced the number of uninsured people.

Virginia’s Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat who heads the National Governors Association, on Tuesday told CNN that a repeal-only measure “will only bring more uncertainty. Uncertainty is crushing this market because the insurance companies don’t know what to do.”

Shelving the current bill means that insurers once again face uncertainty about whether the administration will cut off funding for the subsidies used to make Obamacare individual plans affordable, putting 2018 coverage and long-term planning at risk.

For hospitals, the move relieves the near-term pressure of massive Medicaid reform, but the long-term plan for federal spending for states’ Medicaid expansion is now murky.

Republicans in Congress had hoped to finish with health care before an upcoming August recess so they could tackle a wide-ranging rewrite of the U.S.

tax code in September. Separate talks on taxes appear unlikely to reach Trump’s pledged 15 percent corporate rate.

But their failure exposed the sharp divide within their own ranks between moderates concerned about Medicaid cuts and conservatives who back them and want even more dramatic changes.

A similar version of the Senate bill passed the House in May but legislation must pass both chambers for Trump to sign into law.

“I’m worried that Obamacare will stand and the law will continue to collapse and people will get hurt in the process,” House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said on Tuesday.

Rep. G.K. Butterfield (D-N.C.), who has been critical of Republicans’ efforts to repeal Obamacare, in a tweet Monday night called for the GOP to work across the aisle with Democrats on new health care legislation. "#Trumpcare is dead- for now.

Time for GOP to throw in the towel and work with Dems to lower premiums and improve care for all.”

Appeals court calls Rowan County officials’ prayer unconstitutional Case could be headed to the U.S. Supreme Court

By Donna King North State Journal RICHMOND, Va. — A divided federal appeals court said Rowan County, approximately 40 miles northeast of Charlotte, violated the U.S. Constitution by limiting delivery of prayer at the beginning of their meetings to members of the county commission and asking audience members to participate.

Friday’s 10-5 decision by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., overturned a ruling by a three-judge panel of the same court that upheld the practice. The case is likely headed to the U.S. Supreme Court, where Justice Neil Gorsuch recently filled the ninth seat.

“Ninety percent of folks here are appalled so they want to go forward to the Supreme Court,” said N.C. Rep. Carl Ford (R-Rowan) in an interview on Monday. “No one was told to pray. These prayers were 30 seconds or less of asking for God’s guidance. Churches and other groups, inside and outside the state, have offered to step up and donate to help fight this.”

Three residents had challenged the Rowan County Board of Commissioners’ practice of opening meetings with prayers composed by members of the board of County Commissioners, and asking those in attendance to stand and pray together. The plaintiffs said they felt pressured to pray and that their business before the county commissioners could be dismissed

if they did not. The American Civil Liberties Union brought the suit on behalf of the plaintiffs, who locals say were recruited by the ACLU specifically for this case.

“I’ve never missed a county commissioners meeting in six years and I’ve never seen any of those folks at any meeting,” said Ford.

Still, the judges said that because 97 percent of 143 prayers in a recent five-and-a-half-year period were Christian, mentioning “Jesus” or “Christ,” the elected officials “identify the government with Christianity and risked conveying to citizens of minority faiths a message of exclusion,” wrote Circuit Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson in the majority opinion.

Wilkinson also said the prayers occasionally asked God for others’ acceptance of Jesus Christ as savior, crossing into what he said was proselytizing Christianity by a government official.

Wilkinson said it was not “inherently unconstitutional” for lawmakers to deliver invocations, but Rowan County violated the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause by focusing on a single, preferred faith.

“Indeed, if elected representatives invite their constituents to participate in prayers invoking a single faith for meeting upon meeting, year after year, it is difficult to imagine constitutional limits to sectarian prayer practice,” he wrote.

Wilkinson distinguished prior Supreme Court decisions letting Nebraska’s legislature and the upstate New York town of Greece open sessions with prayer led by either hired or invited clergy, rath-

CHRISTINE T. NGUYEN | NORTH STATE JOURNAL

Rep. Carl Ford (R-Rowan) says the U.S. Supreme Court could hear the case on Rowan County Commissioners’ prayer before public meetings.

er than elected officials.

Circuit Judge Paul Niemeyer dissented, saying the majority effectively sought “to outlaw most prayer given in governmental assemblies, even though such prayer has always been an important part of the fabric of our democracy and civic life.”

In a separate dissent, Circuit Judge G. Steven Agee said the ruling goes against established precendent.

“Lawmaker-led prayer finds contemporary validation in the federal government as well,” he wrote. “Both houses of Congress allow members to deliver an opening invocation. The congressional record is replete with examples of legislators commencing legislative business with a prayer.”

The Rowan County Commissioners said its policy does not violate the Establishment Clause of the Constitution because those in attendance were never required to pray and were free to remain seated or leave the room until official business began. They also said that the content of the prayers was never edited or reviewed but de-

termined solely by those delivering the prayers.

Greg Edds, the Rowan County board chairman, said in an email: “While the decision is certainly disappointing, it is not surprising.

[We] will be reviewing it over the next several weeks with our legal team to decide where we go from here.”

First Liberty Institute, a nonprofit group that works to defend religious liberties, is representing the county commissioners in the case. They are also representing Jackson County, Michigan, against a similar lawsuit.

“While we are disappointed in the 4th Circuit’s decision to ban invocations before legislative meetings contrary to Supreme Court precedent, we are encouraged that the split in the vote on the 4th Circuit demonstrates the need for the Supreme Court review on this issue,” said Mike Berry, deputy general counsel for First Liberty Institute.

If Rowan County decides to take the case to Washington, it could appear before the high court as early as October 2017.

North State Journal for Wednesday, July 19, 2017

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ERIC VIDAL | REUTERS

The European Union’s chief Brexit negotiator Michael Barnier, right, welcomes Britain’s Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union David Davis at the European Commission ahead of their first day of talks in Brussels.

Deal or no deal, Britain is out of the EU by March 2019 Stakes are high as closed-door Brexit talks get underway; progress to be presented Thursday

By Alastair Macdonald Reuters BRUSSELS — Dozens of British officials and their EU counterparts got the first full round of Brexit negotiations underway on Monday, bringing a quiet buzz to the European Commission’s Brussels headquarters.

After a brief handshake and sit-down for the cameras between Brexit Secretary David Davis and chief EU negotiator Michel Barnier, the pair left the real work of the week to teams of civil servants divided into groups by topic.

Davis returned to London but will be back on Thursday, officials said, in the hope that he and Barnier can give their political endorsement to a first set of partial agreements.

Barnier’s team is known as the Article 50 Task Force after the provision of the EU treaty under which Britain has opted to quit the European Union. Numbering about 40, most are involved in the talks in the EU executive’s Berlay-

mont headquarters.

Officials described a bustle as negotiators and staff moved among meeting rooms scattered along carpeted corridors and up and down lifts over nearly half of the cross-shaped building’s 13 floors.

The meeting between Davis and Barnier featured just two aides each; the absence of notes in front of the British trio, compared to stacks of papers on the EU side, sparked scathing jibes from critics in Britain who see Prime Minister Theresa’s May’s government as divided and badly unprepared.

Other meetings involved up to 10 officials on each side, getting “down to work” as Davis said, and well aware that a pressing March 2019 deadline may crimp their summer holidays.

“They have coffee,” one source said. “And cookies, too.”

The first objective is to show enough progress on a divorce package so that the EU will agree to open talks on a future free trade deal.

The three priorities are commonly referred to as citizens’ rights, financial settlement and borders with Ireland. There are also a host of other loose ends that both sides want to see tied up legally to avoid a chaotic limbo on

“It is incredibly important we now make good progress.”

David Davis, Britain Brexit secretary Brexit Day in March 2019.

London and Brussels agree that some 4.5 million expatriates who live on either side of a new EUUK border, two-thirds of them in Britain, should not lose rights they have as EU citizens.

Britain has balked, however, at EU demands that extend to their relatives, and at having those rights guaranteed by EU judges.

The EU also wants London to accept a bill to cover its share of EU spending commitments made while Britain was a member. The commission has spoken of 60 billion euros ($70 billion), though Barnier says that for now he just wants an agreement on how to calculate it. May has said only that Britain will pay if it owes something but left open the possibility that it might be the EU that pays London.

Rights and finance are being

THIERRY CHARLIER | REUTERS

European Union’s chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier and his delegation and Britain’s Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union David Davis and his delegation attend a first full round of talks on Britain’s divorce terms from the European Union, in Brussels.

dealt with two working groups. A third is dealing with assorted issues such as what happens to outstanding EU court cases involving Britain.

Barnier and Davis’s deputies, Sabine Weyand and Oliver Robbins, are personally directing efforts to limit disruption to peace in Northern Ireland from the creation of a new EU border.

The EU timetable, which Britain has broadly consented to after failing in a bid to start trade talks immediately in parallel, sees discussions on a deep free trade pact starting by early next year and

being agreed in broad outline by around October 2018 — when the withdrawal treaty could be done and dusted.

That would give time to ratify the divorce package before Britain is out on March 30, 2019, and arrange a transition to avoid trade falling off a “cliff edge” before a full treaty to keep markets mutually open can be concluded by, say, 2021.

For now, though, the ambition is just to get through four days of closed-door talks with enough progress to show the public on Thursday.

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North State Journal for Wednesday, July 19, 2017

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North State Journal for Wednesday, July 19, 2017

Murphy to Manteo Forsyth

Jones & Blount jonesandblount.com @JonesandBlount

Wake

Guilford

Trump nominates Burr, Tillis recommendations to U.S. courts

Transylvania

By Jeff Moore North State Journal

Caldwell

Pitt

Buncombe Mecklenburg

Onslow New Hanover

west Man charged with slashing tires of county vehicles

PIEDMONT

Dozens report fireball over western N.C.

Caldwell County Carlton Brandon Couto, 23, of Lenoir, allegedly slashed the tires of 35 county vehicles and 12 personal vehicles, according to a police report. Couto was found outside a nearby building with marijuana and drug paraphernalia in his possession according to police.

Couto was charged with 47 counts of injury to personal property, simple possession of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia, and he is being held under $70,000 bond in the Caldwell County Detention Center.

Buncombe County The American Meteor Society said it received 50 reports of a fireball flying across the sky on Thursday night, followed by a boom. The calls came from towns across western N.C., Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky and Virginia. Scientists at AMS said it was likely a meteor breaking up in the atmosphere. While thousands of meteors of fireball magnitude occur in the Earth’s atmosphere each day, viewing one across a wide area at night is rare, AMS said.

Six Asheville restaurants make statewide list

Gorges State Park preps for the solar eclipse

Buncombe County Roving restaurant critic Bill Addison made his way across the Old North State and found six restaurants in Asheville to be “Must-Visit” restaurants in the state. He also found Knife & Fork, in Spruce Pine, about an hour northeast of Asheville, to be a destination-worthy restaurant. The top Asheville restaurants on the list were Biscuit Head, Cucina 24, Table, Nightbell, Rhubarb and Cúrate (which was featured in the May 24, 2017, issue of NSJ).

Transylvania County Staff at Gorges State Park and the nonprofit Friends of Gorges State Park are planning a huge free public viewing party for the Aug. 21 solar eclipse. The eclipse will cast a 70-mileband of dark across 14 states. Gorges is the only state park that is expected to be in total darkness and is listed as one of the top 10 places to view the once-a-century event. Park officials are expecting 1,500-2,000 cars and at least 6,000 people.

Asheville Citizen-Times

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Chick-fil-A testing new menu in Greensboro Guilford County Chick-fil-A customers in Greensboro, Phoenix and San Antonio will be the first in the country to test out a new way to share Chick-fil-A meals and a few new side items as the restaurant chain began testing “Family Style Meals” in three cities this week through Nov. 18. The Family Style Meals include one entrée, two sides and eight mini rolls to serve four people, with the option to add additional entrees, shareable sides and beverages. Side options include: bacon baked beans, fruit cup, mac & cheese, side salad and the Superfood Side. The Family Style Meal starts at $29.99.

UNC Charlotte professor wins literary awards

American Legion state baseball tournament returns this weekend

Wake County On Tuesday, a state Court of Appeals ruled unanimously that Jonathan Broyhill received a fair trial in which he was convicted of the 2013 stabbing death of 29-year-old Jamie Hahn. Broyhill’s lawyers had claimed he was suffering from mental illness and testimony from a prison psychiatrist wasn’t allowed to be heard. Hahn was a well-known strategist in the N.C. Democratic Party.

Broyhill killed her after she confronted him about missing money from a campaign account.

Pitt County The 2017 North Carolina American Legion Baseball state tournament gets underway this weekend at Pitt Community College in Winterville. Twotime defending state champion Post 342 of Rowan County was national runner-up in 2016 to Texarkana, Ark., and enters the tournament with a tournament-best record of 31-3. Post 45 from Randolph County joins Rowan County from Area III. Garner Post 232 and Pitt County Post 39 represent Area I, Wilmington Post 10 and Hope Mills represent Area II, and Cherryville Post 100 and Shelby Post 82 represent Area IV.

Forsyth welcomes 17 new principals Forsyth County Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools has 17 new principals getting ready for the first day of school this year. Seven of the open positions were due to retirements and the others were due to promotions or principals taking positions in other districts. Just one Triangle Business Journal Publication: job. reportedly left for an out-of-state IO #: replacesNone Typically the school system JUN 28, 2017 Issue: a year. fewer than a dozen principals

Mecklenburg County “Steeplejack,” the young adult fantasy novel by Andrew Hartley, was named the 2017 “Best Young Adult Novel” by the International Thriller Writers.

Hartley also took home the 2017 Manly Wade Wellman Award for North Carolina Science Fiction and Fantasy given by the North Carolina Speculative Fiction Foundation.

“Steeplejack” is a fantasy/mystery set in Glover Park Group - 427547-06 Client: an imaginary world inspired by 19thProject: is United century South Africa. Hartley the Health Group 2017ofUHG - HCWH NC Robinson Distinguished Campaign: Professor Shakespeare at UNC Charlotte.

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Broyhill murder conviction upheld

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Marine dies from lightning strike Onslow County A Marine from the New River Marine Corps Air Station died after being struck by lightning while performing maintenance on a MV-22 Osprey on July 11. Cpl. Skyler James and another Marine were struck at Marine Corps Air Station New TheBusiness otherJournal ShipRiver.

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ECU a finalist for national award Pitt County The Association of Public and Land-grant Universities announced Monday the selection of East Carolina University as a regional winner of the 2017 W.K. Kellogg Foundation Community Engagement Scholarship Award. The award recognizes programs that demonstrate how colleges and universities have redesigned their learning, discovery and engagement missions to become even more involved with their communities.

As a regional winner, ECU will compete for the national C. Peter Magrath Community Engagement Scholarship Award, which will be announced in Washington, D.C., in November, Other regional winners are the University of New Hampshire, Oklahoma State University and Purdue University.

Project Grace could give Wilmington a facelift New Hanover County The New Hanover County Board of Commissioners is considering plans to renovate an entire block of downtown Wilmington, between Second and Third streets and Chestnut and Grace streets.

Project Grace would cost $120 million and include renovations to the library and parking deck, along with new hotels and retail space. The project is intended to bring more development to the area and would be funded by private investment, parking fees and ad revenue. It would be completed in 2021.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Late last week President Donald Trump announced nominations for U.S. Attorney and U.S. District Court Judge openings in North Carolina, acting on the recommendations of Republican Sens. Richard Burr and Thom Tillis.

Trump announced his intention to nominate Bobby Higdon to serve as U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of North Carolina.

“Mr. Higdon is an excellent choice to serve as the U.S. attorney for North Carolina’s Eastern District,” said Burr. “He has extensive legal expertise, having served as an assistant United States attorney in both the Western and Eastern Districts of North Carolina, and will provide fair and experienced leadership in this role.”

Tillis said of Higdon that he is “an incredibly qualified choice for U.S. attorney, holding decades of prosecutorial experience,” adding that, “Eastern North Carolina will benefit from Bobby’s leadership.”

Higdon sports a decorated career as a federal prosecutor, handling high-profile cases. He also has significant management experience as former criminal chief in the Eastern District of North Carolina. Higdon

earned his law degree from the Wake Forest School of Law and is currently a partner at Williams Mullen. He lives in Cary.

Trump also announced his nomination of Thomas Farr to fill the United States District Court vacancy for the Eastern District of North Carolina.

Farr has tried cases in federal and state courts in N.C. and has handled appeals at all levels of the N.C. appellate courts, the 4th and 6th Circuit Courts of Appeal, and the Supreme Court.

“Thomas Farr is widely respected as one of the best legal minds in North Carolina,” said Tillis. “He is impeccably qualified, and I am confident he will be an independentminded judge committed to fairness and will faithfully apply the law.”

In 2006, Farr was nominated by President George W. Bush to fill the very same vacancy on the U.S. District Court, and the American Bar Association rated him as unanimously well-qualified.

“I am pleased once again to support Thomas Farr for district judge of the Eastern District of North Carolina,” said Burr. “Mr. Farr was previously nominated for this judgeship in 2006. His wealth of experience will serve North Carolina well.”

Farr received his bachelor’s degree from Hillsdale College, received his law degree from Emory University and holds a master’s of law degree from Georgetown University.

NC Superintendent and legislature win control of Department of Education

By Mollie Young North State Journal RALEIGH — State Superintendent Mark Johnson will soon have more control over the agency that manages North Carolina public schools after a three-judge panel ruled on Friday in favor of a law passed by the Republican-led General Assembly in December.

The State Board of Education, chaired

by Bill Cobey, challenged the law that transferred power over high-level hiring, daily operations and spending at the Department of Public Instruction away from the board to the newly elected Johnson, a 33-year-old Republican from WinstonSalem.

Wake County Superior Court Justices Forrest Bridges, Martin McGee and James Ammons Jr. said the board had failed to prove that any part of the law was unconstitutional.

“For too long, the lack of clarity about DPI leadership has fostered a system of nonaccountability,” said Johnson in a statement.

“While this system is great for shifting

blame and avoiding responsibility, nonaccountability at DPI hurts North Carolina students,” he added. “Last December, the General Assembly addressed this problem by clarifying the parameters set forth in the N.C. Constitution. Their efforts offered greater transparency to educators and parents across the state seeking to engage with DPI and greater accountability at DPI.” Johnson also said he looks forward to working for “more and better change at DPI.” Sen. Leader Phil Berger (R-Rockingham), who helped usher in the expansion of Johnson’s powers, felt the panel validated the General Assembly’s actions.

“Voters elected Superintendent Mark Johnson based on his platform of strengthening our state’s public schools, and I’m pleased the court recognized the constitutionality of the law and that our superintendent should be able to execute the platform voters elected him to do,” said Berger.

Anticipating an appeal, the judges placed a 60-day hold on any decisions related to the ruling.

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Across North Carolina, UnitedHealth Group is partnering to improve health care. By working with employers to offer better care at a lower cost. Helping rural families access affordable care through technology. Improving care for seniors by providing convenient, innovative in-home services. And, partnering with nonprofits that serve the children of our military families. To all those with a passion to improve health care, our question is: How can we help?

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For the second year in a row, North Carolina is No. 5 among the nation’s top states for business, according to CNBC’s First in Business Worldwide ranking.

The 2017 result is the same as North Carolina’s ranking in 2016, when the state jumped four spots to become the nation’s fifth-best state for business. To determine the latest rankings, CNBC scored each state on 66 different measures of competitiveness. Those metrics and scores were then separated into 10 different categories.

North Carolina finished among the Top 10 states in six of the categories: cost of doing business, workforce, technology and innovation, business friendliness, cost of living and access to capital.

“The Tar Heel State’s best category is technology and innovation, moving up one spot this year to No. 6 from No. 7,” CNBC said. In 2017, North Carolina also moved up two notches to No. 7 in the workforce category of the nationwide study.

North Carolina received an overall score of 1,568 out of a possible 2,500 across all categories.

The state of Washington ranked No. 1 in the 2017 survey (scoring 1,621 overall).

Where can you experience the beauty of folk dancing from faraway places like Argentina, India and the Netherlands without stamping your passport or even leaving the state? Point your toes toward the public power town of Waynesville, North Carolina, for the Folkmoot Festival, July 20-30. Our state’s official international folklife festival is in its 34th year!

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CHRISTINE T. NGUYEN | NORTH STATE JOURNAL

Mike Crossman, 22, makes a drink at Bitty and Beau’s Coffee.

Filling your cup with more than coffee Wilmington-based shop offers disabled employees business and life skills, garnering community support and a national spotlight

By Laura Ashley Lamm North State Journal WILMINGTON — Walking inside Bitty and Beau’s Coffee, the open-air space and smell of beans invites you in. You’ll come for the coffee and stay for the people.

There you’ll find new friends in Matt, who shares newly developed smoothie recipes; Elizabeth, who calls your order and gives a hug; and Mike, who skillfully makes the perfect frappe.

“This place brings people into our world and helps them get to know that we are more alike than different,” said owner Amy Wright.

Bitty and Beau’s Coffee employs people with intellectual and developmental disabilities offering them the opportunity work, make a difference and earn an income.

All the while, giving customers a chance to engage with people they might not have otherwise.

“Eighty-five percent of people with intellectual disabilities are unemployed. The school systems

“The coffee shop gives people a tangible way to lean more, interact and become comfortable with people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.”

— Amy Wright will support them until the age of 22, but after that, many fall off the cliff,” said Wright.

In the beginning of 2016, she opened the doors of Beau’s Coffee in a 500-sq. ft. building. Six months later she moved the business into an old Hummer dealership and added Bitty’s name to the shop.

A mom of four, Beau, 12, and Bitty, 7, are her two youngest children, both of whom were born with Down Syndrome.

“They don’t need jobs now, but 10 years from now they will. “Many individuals with intellectual disabilities participate in activities and volunteer, but there is nothing like having a job which gives you a sense of purpose and identity,” said Wright.

Wright knew nothing about cof-

fee or running a retail store when she began. Instead, she had an idea brewing, a drive to accomplish it and a lot of passion about it.

“I simply wanted to change the way people felt about people with intellectual and developmental disabilities and help employ those in our community,” said Wright.

She employs 40 people with intellectual and developmental disabilities and has two managers working with the team. Employees are given jobs that best fit their talents whether it’s taking orders, making beverages, selling merchandise, restocking supplies, or greeting customers.

“We want them to feel confident in their task,” said Wright.

“People are scared of the unknown. I was before I had Beau,” she added. “The coffee shop gives people a tangible way to lean more, interact and become comfortable with people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. They have just as much value as anybody else.”

The coffee shop continues to grow in popularity and now welcomes 2,000 people a week.

“It’s 5,000-sq. ft. of awesomeness,” said Matt Dean, 27, of Wilmington.

Dean has a book of ideas for

Along with amazing performances during the festival’s 11 days, be sure to catch: • Thursday, July 20 Gala on the Green, 7 p.m.

• Saturday, July 22 Folkmoot Parade of Nations, 10 a.m.

Many Cultures Kids Day, 11 a.m.

• Saturday, July 29 International Festival Day, Meet the World on Main Street, 10 a.m.

• Sunday, July 30 Candlelight Closing, 7 p.m.

Learn more and view the full schedule at folkmoot.org.

Folk dancing or not, Waynesville is worth the trip. The vibrant, friendly small town nestled in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park has magnificent mountain views of the Blue Ridge Parkway. Artistic and historic, with trophy-winning trout streams nearby, Waynesville is the heart of Appalachian culture and heritage. Learn more at visitncsmokies.com/ waynesville.

See BITTY AND BEAU’S, page A9

Prescient opens second manufacturing facility, moves headquarters to NC Construction technology company expands manufacturing capabilities to supplement Colorado plant and better serve East Coast markets

By Emily Roberson North State Journal Mebane — Prescient, a fully integrated and patented design, engineering, manufacturing and installation solution for the construction industry, is moving the company’s headquarters from Arvada, Colorado to Durham, North Carolina and opening a second manufacturing facility in nearby Mebane.

The North Carolina facility will serve clients east of the Mississippi River, while the Colorado

facility will continue to serve clients in the western U.S. The company hosted a grand opening for the new Mebane facility last week with Gov. Roy Cooper.

Prescient’s Mebane plant began production in May and expects to eventually employ more than 200 designers, architects, project managers, installers and other employees. The Mebane facility doubles the company’s total annual capacity to nearly 11 million square feet.

The headquarters move allows Prescient to bring design, manufacturing and other business operations to the North Carolina Commerce Park, a 1,200-acre business property developed collaboratively by Alamance County with the towns of Graham and Mebane.

“We are witnessing significant growth, having doubled our reve-

nue each year since 2013. Relocating our headquarters will allow us to expand our national footprint and better accommodate customers along the East Coast, from Maine to Miami,” said Satyen Patel, chairman and former CEO of Prescient. “While our expanded 120,000-square-foot facility in Colorado will continue to serve customers west of the Mississippi River, we believe that North Carolina, with its commitment to growing a knowledge-based, innovation-driven economy, is a perfect fit with Prescient’s mission.”

The company provides the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) industry with an integrated process from design to the finished product.

Prescient’s design platform seeks to offer a faster, greener and more cost-effective alternative than conventional building structures

Gov. Roy Cooper and Prescient officials at the grand opening of the company’s new headquarters in Mebane, N.C.

Photo Courtesy of MARK EAST PHOTOGRAPHY

and is ideally suited for multiunit mid-rise projects, including apartments, student housing, hotels and senior living. The company has projects completed or underway throughout the country in Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, Nebraska, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma and Texas.

“I am proud to welcome Prescient to North Carolina.

Prescient joins a growing list of innovative companies attracted to

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our state’s exceptional talent and business climate,” said North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper.

“North Carolina is a thriving place to live and do business thanks to our skilled workforce, outstanding universities and community colleges, and strong leadership in technology and manufacturing.”

The first project coming out of the new Alamance County facility will be Northgate, an eight-level, 177,267 square-foot student housing facility in College Station, Texas.

North State Journal for Wednesday, July 19, 2017

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the BRIEF Wells Fargo trims auto loans, relocates employees to Raleigh

AARON P. BERNSTEIN | REUTERS

Rep. Todd Rokita (R-IN) announces the 2018 budget blueprint during a press conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C.

Dollar drops as Trump agenda flails; House lays out tax reform blueprint

By David Morgan and Lewis Krauskopf Reuters NEW YORK — The dollar stumbled on Tuesday and U.S. Treasury yields fell on a fresh setback to U.S. President Donald Trump’s domestic agenda, while U.S. and European stock indexes struggled after a heavy batch of earnings reports.

The collapse of his fellow Republicans’ push to repeal and replace Obamacare with their own healthcare bill in the U.S. Senate again raised doubts in financial markets about Trump’s ability to enact tax cuts and infrastructure spending.

The dollar fell 0.51 percent against a basket of key currencies, setting a 10-month low and extending its 2017 decline to more than 7 percent.

“It pushes out the rest of the agenda. It’s hard to do a tax reform in the style that it was campaigned on,” said Art Hogan, chief market strategist at Wunderlich Securities in New York. “The healthcare hurdle pushes everything in Trump’s agenda to 2018.”

“The setback for Trump is a setback for the U.S. dollar,” said Kathy Lien, managing director at BK Asset Management in New York. “I think that really casts doubt on the Trump administration’s broader strategies.”

Aside from the Trump agenda setback, there are increasing doubts about further near-term rate hikes by the Federal Reserve.

Expectations for the Fed hiking interest rates this year have been pushed back to the fourth quarter, the latest Reuters poll of economists showed. A poll conducted last month predicted the Fed would raise rates by September.

Sterling fell against the dollar and euro on Tuesday, after data

AARON P. BERNSTEIN | REUTERS

Speaker of the House Paul Ryan speaks with reporters about the forthcoming 2018 budget at the Republican National Committee in Washington.

Trump agenda suffers blow after healthcare bill collapse Dollar slips, YTD losses over 7 percent; U.S. yields slide Mixed earnings weigh on U.S., European stock markets House budget plan aims to move from deficit to surplus by 2027 showed British inflation unexpectedly slowing for the first time since October last year, lowering expectations of an interest rate increase this year.

U.S. Treasury yields fell after the latest political drama in Washington, while more data pointed to benign inflation with a drop in import prices for a second

straight month.

Benchmark 10-year notes last rose 12/32 in price to yield 2.2678 percent, from 2.309 percent late on Monday.

Yields across the globe rose sharply after Trump won the U.S. election in November on promises for tax reforms and infrastructure investment that were expected to boost growth and inflation in the world’s largest economy, and Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives released a fiscal 2018 budget plan on Tuesday that could pose a major new political test for Trump’s legislative agenda by combining tax reform with controversial spending cuts.

The $4 trillion blueprint would allow an overhaul of the U.S. tax code to pass Congress without support from Democrats, along with a partial repeal of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform law and $203 billion in savings from mandatory federal programs including food stamps over the next decade.

Those changes and others would be combined in a single piece of legislation.

The prospect of reduced benefits for the poor and major tax cuts for businesses and individuals is already a source of infighting between House Republican conservatives who want larger spending reductions and moderates who oppose them.

In the Senate, a similar Republican battle over the repeal of Obamacare taxes on the wealthy and reduced health insurance benefits for lower-income Americans has helped sink healthcare legislation.

The spending plan, which covers the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1, aims to move the government from a $472 billion deficit in 2018 to a $9 billion budget surplus in 2027.

The change is based in part on a House Budget Committee forecast of U.S. economic growth of 2.6 percent annually that assumes future changes in tax, healthcare and financial laws, as well as deregulation. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has forecast economic growth of 1.9 percent from 2017 to 2027.

The House budget plan would include $621.5 billion in defense spending and $511 billion on nondefense discretionary spending in 2018.

The House Budget Committee is expected to approve the plan later this week and send it to the House floor for a full vote.

The plan is vital to Republican aims of overhauling the U.S. tax code while avoiding a Democratic filibuster in the Senate.

The plan instructs 11 House committees to find savings from programs and policies they oversee, including taxes, financial regulation, food stamps and federal pensions.

The instructions would allow final legislation to pass the Senate with a simple majority through a parliamentary process know as reconciliation. Republicans control the Senate by a 52-48 margin. Without reconciliation, tax reform would require 60 Senate votes.

Matt Dean, 27, bumps fists with customer Garrett Magette of Ahoskie, N.C. Dean helps to invent new drinks – like the strawberry sunrise smoothie, which is not on the menu.

BITTY AND BEAU’S from page A8 drinks and is credited with been the visionary behind the Strawberry Sunrise, a strawberry and mango smoothie (It’s not on the menu, so be sure to ask for it.) as well as the Wonder Woman in celebration of the comic book character.

“We had a celebration of the movie and sold the drink. It is raspberry flavored with whip cream and blue sprinkles,” said Dean.

Dean takes your orders at the register and is also the Director of First Impressions, frequently answering questions from visitors and groups on field trips.

“I get to help out and see so many wonderful customers,” he said. “I work five days a week and love coming here. I even visit when I’m not working. We have great customers, staff, boss lady and atmosphere.”

Dean will introduce you to his good friend, Elizabeth Johnson.

“I love seeing her cheerful smile. We call her ‘Hugs’ – it’s her nickname,” he said.

Johnson, 22, of Wilmington, gives our hugs and enjoys dancing to Justin Timberlake’s “Can’t Stop the Feeling” during their morning dance party at the shop.

“I call out the cards,” said Johnson. “The King of Hearts is my favorite.”

Customers are given a card from the deck when their order is placed. Johnson has the matching card and will call out the suit and number when the orders are ready.

CHRISTINE T. NGUYEN | NORTH STATE JOURNAL

Employees are given a free drink at the end of their shift.

Johnson always chooses the Cookies and Cream Frappe made by another friend, Mike Crossman.

“I make the frappes, smoothies and lattes,” said Crossman, 22, of Wilmington. “I’ve made new friends here. Everyone is very kind, sweet and helpful.”

Frappes are popular. In addition to cookies and cream, there’s caramel, cotton candy and java chip.

“Getting paid for my job makes me feel awesome,” said Crossman.

“Getting my paycheck, I feel accomplished. I’m going to get my

Amy Wright, Co-founder, Bitty and Beau’s Coffee

driver’s license and am saving up for a car.”

Bitty and Beau’s Coffee has felt the love from within and around the world. There’s a wall of post-it notes employees where they write positive messages to each other

and a map where customers and pin where they are from. The coffee shop is expanding to add a second location in Charleston, South Carolina and they are the official coffee of the Rachel Ray Show.

“We are appreciative people support what we are doing in finding a tangible way to support people with intellectual and developmental disabilities,” said Wright.

As their slogan goes, “It’s more than a cup of coffee.”

It’s a cup of joy, a cup of love, a cup of friendship, a cup of wonder, a cup of hugs and a cup of friendship.

Raleigh Wells Fargo & Co is scaling back and remolding its auto lending business in response to growing stress in the market, as well as a bank-wide push for more centralized risk controls. The No. 2 U.S. provider of auto loans less than a year ago, Wells has already cut quarterly originations by nearly 30 percent over the nine months leading into March 31, according to a May 11 company presentation.

It has also begun consolidating the collections operation in a move that people familiar with the business say could eliminate hundreds of jobs, after a new head of auto finance took the reins in April. The bank recently began the process of moving collections staff from 57 locations across the country to three central hubs in Raleigh, North Carolina, Irving, Texas and Chandler, Arizona, according to an internal memo. People with knowledge of the business say hundreds of positions will likely be eliminated; however, bank spokeswoman declined to say how many jobs might be lost.

U.S. lawmaker calls for hearing on Amazon’s Whole Foods deal Washington/New York The top Democrat on the U.S. House of Representatives’ antitrust subcommittee has voiced concerns about Amazon.com Inc’s $13.7 billion plan to buy Whole Foods Market Inc and is pushing for a hearing to look into the deal’s impact on consumers. The deal announced in June marks the biggest acquisition for the world’s largest online retailer. Amazon has not said what it would do with Whole Foods’ stores and other assets, but analysts and investors worry the deal could upend the landscape for grocers, food delivery services and meal-kit companies. U.S. Representative David Cicilline requested the hearing on Thursday in a letter to the chair of the House Judiciary Committee and the subcommittee chairman. “Amazon’s proposed purchase of Whole Foods could impact neighborhood grocery stores and hardworking consumers across America,” the Rhode Island Democrat said in a statement.

“Congress has a responsibility to fully scrutinize this merger before it goes ahead.”

Behind the scenes, companies fight Trump on US steel tariffs Washington American manufacturers, energy companies and retailers reliant on cheap steel are quietly lobbying against President Donald Trump’s desire to impose tariffs on steel imports ahead of possible decision by the U.S. Commerce Department this week. Honoring a promise made in the 2016 election campaign, in April this year Trump initiated a “Section 232” review of the steel industry, a provision in the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 allowing for the imposition of tariffs or quotas on imports if they threaten national security. The provision has only been used to review imports twice before. Steel producers in the U.S., like U.S. Steel Corp and AK Steel stand to benefit from protectionist tariffs which would enable them to raise their prices. But U.S. manufacturers and energy companies who use steel want to keep their costs down and say tariffs could costs jobs in their industries, while retailers need cheap steel for many facets of their business including shelving in their stores and warehouses, and to sell to consumers.

Bank of America profit rises as consumer bank hits profit “milestone” Charlotte Bank of America Corp reported a higher-than-expected quarterly profit on strength in its consumer bank and cost cuts that are beginning to bear fruit after years of branch closures, staff cuts and efforts to reduce technology and paper-related expenses.

Chief Executive Officer Brian Moynihan spoke glowingly of a broad turnaround in the consumer business that began in 2009, calling its $2 billion in quarterly profit a “milestone” on Tuesday.

The business recently has been benefiting from the cost cuts as well as improved technology, growth in deposits and a focus on higherquality borrowers, Moynihan said.

North State Journal for Wednesday, July 19, 2017

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north STATEment Neal Robbins, publisher | Drew Elliot, opinion editor | Ray Nothstine, deputy opinion editor

Visual Voices

LETters

EDITORIAL | Drew Elliot

A duty to hope

E.U. benefits U.K. through free trade

There is no need to catalog the domestic distractions, the political gridlock and gamesmanship, the cultural confrontations, and the faltering familial structure that is America today.

We see it all around us. We know it in our hearts.

Is there any solution?

When it is possible to peer through the clamorous battle-fog of our own problems, over the ramparts we see only more trouble on the surrounding plain. Religious zealots, dictators and tyrants, slavers and pirates, madmen with missiles. Nearsuicidal foreign democracies are but dimming lights in a darkening world.

Is there any hope?

Time and Many of you say no. In countless ways I hear again, the you say that things are too far gone to bring back.

American The other side, most say, is bent on a path of spirit pulled destruction. Greedy for power and incapable of reason the enemy is. Worthy of nothing but scorn, the country ridicule, and — most importantly — any and out of the all means of resistance. The certainty of utterly depths and destructive means, justified by the prospect of into a better incrementally better ends.

A few see the problem not on the other side, place. Not but on the sides themselves. The wings are a perfect cumbersome, they say. Too heavy to lift the place, but a scrawny center, too busy with fractious fighting to better place. elevate.

To be sure, we have been here before, or somewhere like it. First, a too-weak confederation of self-interested states. Then a devastating war between regional interests, all for a resolution that was at least half as bad as the status quo ante. Two world wars to settle the question of whether war is a glorious calling or a total tragedy. Cultural upheaval that produced as many problems as it solved. A half-century “war” that caused us so to fear our own obliteration that we chose to let innocents on the other side of the curtain die by the millions rather than act.

But we came through. Time and again, the American spirit pulled the country out of the depths and into a better place. Not a perfect place, but a better place.

In a famous speech in 1980, Ronald Reagan quoted John Wayne: “Just give the American people a good cause, and there’s nothing they can’t lick.”

To that we should add another president’s thoughts. “There is nothing wrong with America,” Bill Clinton said in his first inaugural address, “that cannot be cured by what is right with America.”

In these two declarations lie the tools and the temperament to solve our problems. They told us the answer, but can anyone hear?

There is no hope, many of you say — don’t you agree?

But I can’t. I can’t believe this time — right now — is where the shining City on a Hill begins to dim.

My disbelief is not based on political calculations, public opinion polls, or even a bedrock belief in the spirit of America. It is based on something different.

I have a duty to hope.

I first bore this duty eight years ago, when my wife and I decided to have a child. God gave us twins, and our concern for their future will brook no despair.

We teach them to be courageous and kind, to follow the Golden Rule and to pray. We teach them that America is the land of the free and the home of the brave, and that those words have meaning. We do not teach them that these principles and ideas lead inexorably to a particular ideology, policy choice, or political party. I doubt they even know what a political party is.

We teach them that the world is not to be absorbed, but discerned. We do not teach them that people or groups with different ideas for solving America’s problems are evil, stupid, or insane. We tell them to give the benefit of the doubt to others until reasonable doubt is gone.

We try to live up to those rules ourselves. We fail. They fail. But we all go on, as America must.

Americans have a duty to hope, and a responsibility to leave behind us what every generation since 1776 has left: a better country and world than we found.

EDITORIAL | Ray Nothstine

The pastor who condemned prayer for politics Hate for President Donald Trump is now running so deep it is even infecting members of the clergy. The Rev. William Barber II, who has taken his familiar “prophetic” shtick national, is incensed at Evangelical leaders laying hands on and praying for the president in the Oval Office.

Barber called the actions “theological malpractice bordering on heresy.”

“When you can p-r-a-y for a president and others while they are p-r-e-y, preying on the most vulnerable, you’re violating the most sacred principles of religions, Barber told host Joy Reid of MSNBC on Saturday. He then loosely paraphrased Amos While most 2, which has harsh words Barber’s for rulers who subjugate the poor. For him, that antics deserve less was enough to support overturning the plain and less teaching of Scripture and attention, words of Christ and the Apostle Paul in favor of this clear political partisanship. unbiblical While most Barber’s blathering antics deserve less and merits a less attention, this clear unbiblical blathering response. merits a response. One of the first mistakes Barber makes, and one he has been making his entire public career, is to confuse prudential and non-prudential arguments. While helping the poor is clearly a biblical command, Christians can respectfully agree to disagree about what is the best method to achieve those results in

the public square. Even many proponents of more government and social safety nets would agree; a one-size-fits-all government program approach is not beneficial to everybody in need of help.

Of course, Barber takes umbrage to any tweaks to the floundering Affordable Care Act. He staged an arrest on Capitol Hill outside of Sen. Mitch McConnell’s office, acting under the authority of president of Repairers of the Breach — the “breach” supposedly represents anything that threatens more government programs.

Rather amusingly, another minister adjacent to Barber spouted off against the worship of capitalism, seemingly ignorant that the replacement bill offered by GOP leadership is a far cry from being a pro freemarket piece of legislation.

But Barber’s oddest denouncement was the chiding of praying for a leader placed over the civil authority, at least for anybody who has a passing familiarity with Scripture and the teachings of Christ. If Barber is convinced that Trump is indeed the enemy, he should heed the command of Christ in Matthew who says, “But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” Furthermore, the Apostle Paul clearly teaches in his first letter to Timothy to pray for those in governmental leadership. “I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people — for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness,” writes Paul.

In many churches and denominations, the Christian liturgy prompts parishioners to pray for the nation’s president despite the political partisan leanings or personal moral failings of whoever is placed over us. These prayers, for good reason, remain uninterrupted and unchanged regardless of who holds power over the nation.

The prophet Daniel reminds us: “He changes times and seasons; he removes kings and sets up kings; he gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding.” In comparison, Barber’s small view of God’s sovereignty and purposes inevitably turns him into an ever increasingly petty guardian of government largess.

The disciple Judas too suffered from this narrow and shortsighted view of God’s plan.

In the Gospel of John, Judas lectured Mary Magdalene for washing the feet of Christ with expensive perfume, admonishing her to give the money to the poor. Christ in return admonishes Judas for his own selfish greed and not understanding the true purpose of the perfume, which was to anoint him for his sacrificial death and burial.

Remarkably, but perhaps not surprisingly, Barber’s agenda has blinded him to the plain meaning of Scripture. While Barber’s antics reinforce that he has outgrown North Carolina, his “prophetic” voice on the national scene is already diminishing.

Drew Elliot’s “Transatlantic Bureaucracies” editorial on July 12 takes a dim view of the European Union, but in pointing out nuisance regulations that the left is so fond of and mentioning the debate over access to social welfare benefits — both valid complaints — Elliot neglects to give credit to the E.U. for great success in achieving its primary objective — free trade. Island nations are prone to bouts of isolationism, protectionism, and xenophobia, and concerns over unfettered immigration due to E.U. policies are legitimate, but the benefit of free trade seems to get little play in the current debate, which is the most important issue of all.

It’s no coincidence that free-trade stalwart Germany has the best economy in Europe. They also run a trade surplus every year, are currently enjoying a budget surplus, and tax cuts may be on the agenda next year.

Britain seems to think they should be able to pick and choose which E.U. regulations they like and get the benefit of free trade with none of the obligations. I’m sure the Greeks wish the same thing, but that is just not realistic.

Britain has benefited tremendously from E.U. membership, and the Britain of today is a far cry from the stagnant, nationalized economy of the 1970s. Give Maggie Thatcher credit for a lot of that, but her reforms would have had much less impact if not for the E.U’s free trade agenda. The E.U. is a cumbersome bureaucracy, and perhaps a bit of English resolve could help reform that, but even as currently constructed it is well worth putting up with. Britain is at its best when it views the world as its oyster, as it did for 350 years before the second World War. If it wants to be that nation again, it needs to believe in itself, not fear the hound at the door.

John R. Fisher Winston-Salem

BE IN TOUCH Letters addressed to the editor may be sent to letters@nsjonline.com or 819 W. Hargett St. Raleigh, N.C. 27603. Letters must be signed; include the writer’s phone number, city and state; and be no longer than 300 words. Letters may be edited for style, length or clarity when necessary. Ideas for op-eds should be sent to opinion@nsjonline.com.

North State Journal for Wednesday, July 19, 2017

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Guest Opinion | CLARENCE HENDERSON

Are N.C. Republicans bad for black families?

The best weapon against black child poverty in North Carolina is strong black marriages.

In a recent op-ed in another newspaper (“The NC GOP have failed to address racial issues in the state,” June 29) UNC Chapel Hill professor Gene Nichol displays the usual condescending hysteria of white elites who claim to care deeply about African Americans. He portrays the entire black citizenry of North Carolina as impoverished, poorly educated serfs being viciously subjected to “systemic racial subordination” by their evil Republican overlords.

In the same breath, Nichol lauds Rev. William Barber — a bombastic advocate for public school monopolies, coercive wealth redistribution and abortion on demand — as “the nation’s paramount rising civil rights leader.” Like so many whites in positions of power, Nichol assumes that blacks — unlike whites — are unable to hold diverse opinions about these controversial issues.

I am a lifelong resident of North Carolina who survived the “terror-enforced Jim Crow” that Nichol speculates Republicans might not remember, and I participated in the 1960 Woolworth sit-in in Greensboro. (I also remember such atrocities occurred under Democratic rule in the statehouse and governorship, a fact Nichol conveniently forgets to mention.) While I share Nichol’s concern for our most vulnerable citizens, I do not share his conviction that the North Carolina Republican Party is the villain in this story. In fact, I think several Republican policies hold the key for the improvement of black lives in our state and our nation as a whole.

Let’s take one of Nichol’s concerns that I share: “Black children attend high-poverty, troubled schools very, very disproportionately.” We are to believe that Republicans have failed to respond to this tragic reality when in fact it is North Carolina Republicans who have been fighting tirelessly for school choice.

Only the legislative freedom for all parents — regardless of income — to choose the school their children attend will liberate them from being forced to attend failing public schools simply because such schools serve the neighborhoods where their parents can afford a home.

Yet such measures have been consistently opposed by Democrats and men like Barber, the “hero” Nichol exalts.

Nichol mourns that “Almost 40 percent of black kids are poor, compared to 12 percent of white ones.” True enough. Yet he fails to note that black children with married parents fare almost identically to white children.

In 2009, 40.6 percent of single-parent families with children in North Carolina lived in poverty, while only 7.2 percent of married couples with children were poor.

Seventy-two percent of black children in North Carolina are born to single mothers, compared to 26.5 percent of white children. The best weapon against black child poverty in North Carolina is strong black marriages.

The issues Nichol raises around criminal justice reform are very complicated, and I cannot do them full justice in this short response. But it is worth pointing out that a third of the murderers who have used The Racial Justice Act to challenge the death penalty were white. Because the law is so ambiguously written, white men, convicted by white juries, have been able to log-jam the justice system by arguing that they were victims of discrimination, based on minute differences between themselves and their jurors. So clearly the “systemic racial subordination” Nichol feels Republicans promote is a little more complicated than he is letting on.

Republicans gained control of both houses of the North Carolina legislature in 2010 for the first time since 1896.

Would Nichol really have us believe that life for blacks in North Carolina was a blissful paradise before the evil Republicans began oppressing them? Or perhaps he feels we would be better off back in the hands of the party that subjected us to Jim Crow?

Democrats have long been professionals at rehearsing grievances and acting like they care. The black citizens of North Carolina don’t need the pity of academics. They need policy changes that will strengthen black marriages and families, encourage economic growth, and allow them to choose the schools their children attend.

Clarence Henderson is chairman of the N.C. Martin Luther King, Jr. Commission, president of the Frederick Douglass Foundation of North Carolina, and a Republican. He lives in High Point.

Wearing red neckties, state Senate leader Phil Berger, right, and House Speaker Tim Moore, left, answer questions from the news media in June 2017.

CAL THOMAS

Here’s Ronnie! he more things change, the more they stay the same.”

“T (French proverb.)

While scanning YouTube videos, I came across an appearance by Ronald Reagan on “The Tonight Show,” hosted by Johnny Carson. The year was 1975 and Reagan was “between jobs,” having left office as governor of California, where he served for eight years, but not yet president. He would challenge Gerald Ford for the Republican nomination in 1976, barely losing at the nominating convention, but setting himself up for what would be a successful run in 1980.

What fascinates about Reagan’s appearance with Carson is how little has changed in the intervening 42 years, except some things are worse.

The questions Carson asked Reagan and his responses sound like recent campaigns.

Here’s one of Reagan’s comments on taxes: “I still say the answers to our problems in this country ... is to have a law that says there is a percentage limit of the people’s earnings that government cannot go beyond without the consent of the people.”

Later he noted that when he and Carson were boys, “governments, whether federal, state, or local, were only taking about 15 cents out of every dollar earned. Today they’re taking almost half...”

It’s gotten worse. Depending on where you live, the combined total of government taxes can exceed 50 percent, including income, sales and hidden taxes. According to the Tax Foundation, the nation’s leading independent tax policy nonprofit, Americans this year will pay $3.5 trillion in federal taxes and $1.6 trillion in state and local taxes, for a total of $5.1 trillion, or 31 percent of the nation’s income. Still, governments never have enough of our money. The feds borrow from other governments and the national debt approaches $20 trillion.

What fascinates about Reagan’s appearance with Carson is how little has changed in the intervening 42 years, except some things are worse.

eamon queeney | NORTH STATE JOURNAL

column | CLARENCE PAGE

How to be a proper ‘elitist’ in the age of Trump

Attacking “elites” in colleges, the courts, and news media certainly paid off well enough for Trump.

“Elitist,” as Time magazine culture critic William A. Henry observed in his 1994 book “In Defense of Elitism,” has begun to rival if not outstrip “racist” as the “foremost catchall pejorative of our times.”

The latest evidence of decline in our regard for the upper crust pops up like cinnamon toast in a new Pew Research Center poll.

More than half — 58 percent — of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents in the poll say colleges and universities have had a “negative impact” on the country. Only two years ago that attitude was expressed by only 37 percent of Republicans.

But that group grew a year ago to 45 percent and by this year became a majority.

At the same time, more than 70 percent of Democrats and leftleaning independents remained largely unchanged in their view that colleges and universities have a positive effect on the country.

What explains this new wave of anti-intellectualism on the right?

In some ways, it is nothing new.

“The mind of this country, taught to aim at low objects, eats upon itself,” Ralph Waldo Emerson sniffed in 1837. But much of it also is quite new and not entirely limited to the political right. Many, particularly students, on the left also have corrupted the free exchange of ideas that is the life’s blood of intellectual growth.

Part of the distemper on the right may be a backlash to news reports of campus unrest. The shouted-down or

otherwise shut out for controversially conservative views included Milo Yiannopoulos at Berkeley, Charles Murray at Middlebury College, Heather Mac Donald at UCLA and Claremont and Ann Coulter at Berkeley.

Indeed, colleges teach the wrong lessons when they allow students to use the heckler’s veto to muzzle speech they don’t like instead of learning better debate and argumentation skills.

But strains of anti-intellectualism mostly on the right have infected American politics for decades, at least since the 1950s era of anti-communist witch hunts by Wisconsin Republican Sen. Joseph McCarthy.

Coincidentally, his notoriously ruthless lawyer Roy Cohn became a mentor to now-President Donald Trump, whose presidential campaign and crusade against “political correctness” also coincided with the sharp rise of anti-college attitudes among GOP voters — and probably helped to fuel it.

Attacking “elites” in colleges, the courts, and news media certainly paid off well enough for Trump. Antielitism also helps him to galvanize his seemingly rock-hard political base and tap into his supporters’ resentments of liberal elites.

But isn’t the deep-pocketed, well-connected celebrity Trump an elite, too? Sure, but he deflected and re-shaped that image by portraying himself as a knowledgeable New York insider who has come to save the rest of us from a system that’s

been rigged against us. “Nobody knows the system better than me,” he famously declared, “which is why I alone can fix it.”

Sure, a lot of his own voters could hear the malarkey in that pitch.

But compared to the other GOP candidates and his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, at least he was expressing what was on their minds. Whether he can deliver or not, his base enjoys watching him attack their mutual foes in the fashion of a WWE wrestler, whether the show is rigged or not.

Yet the theatrics of media-driven politics overlook the underlying source of modern class grievances: a disruption of upward mobility that has left today’s working class kids of all races with fewer opportunities to move up the economic ladder — or even stay employed.

When I was growing up, the “elites” of our community were those who commanded the most respect.

This usually came through their line of work, whether they were business owners or high-ranking politicians or leading schoolteachers, firefighters, police, artists, clergy, or other admirable role models.

But when those who win success for themselves and their families appear to be turning their backs on those left behind, they invite a new level of class warfare that can only divide our polarized political landscape even more.

Clarence Page is a syndicated columnist and a member of The Chicago Tribune’s editorial board.

In one of his many clever turns of phrases, Reagan told Carson: “We live in a country where it takes more brains to figure out your income tax than it does to earn the income.”

Then came a line he would use to great benefit when he ran for president in 1980: ”...people keep looking to government for the answer and government is the problem. ...

There’s very little government can do as efficiently and economically as the people can do themselves...”

Reagan added, “The biggest problem is that we have built a permanent structure of government -- federal, state and local — they’re permanent employees. And they’ve come to the place where they actually determine policy in this country more than does the Congress...”

At the time, Reagan said there were 14.5 million public employees in the U.S. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, as of 2015, there were nearly 22 million government workers. Can anyone claim governments are more efficient and cost-effective because there are more government workers?

Reagan bemoaned the deficit, which then was about $53 billion. Last Friday, the White House said faltering tax revenues will cause the budget deficit to rise to $702 billion this year, $99 billion higher than was predicted in late May. When Carson asked for his solution, Reagan cracked, “I think balancing the budget is like protecting your virtue. You have to learn to say ‘no.’”

Politicians can’t say no to themselves or to petitioners for our tax dollars. They buy loyalty and votes to protect their careers. As Reagan noted and would mention again, people become addicted to government handouts and once addicted embrace the notion of entitlement, losing the virtue of personal responsibility and coming to see government as a first resource, not a last resort.

As the 1975 Reagan interview demonstrates, the problems haven’t changed because the solutions have not been embraced. Contemporary Republicans should learn lessons from Reagan, but many of them appear too eager to tread water while we sink deeper and deeper into debt and slowly lose our freedoms.

Cal Thomas is a nationally syndicated columnist.

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North State Journal for Wednesday, July 19, 2017

NEWS IN IMAGES

PHILLIPPE WOJAZER | REUTERS

The U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds fly over the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel during the traditional Bastille Day military parade in Paris.

SUSANA VERA | REUTERS

A wild cow leaps over revelers following the last running of the bulls at the San Fermin festival in Pamplona, northern Spain.

david w. cerny | REUTERS STEFAN WERMUTH | REUTERS

Aleisha Braven of New Zealand dives into the water at the 2017 FINA World Championships held in Budapest, Hungary, for the Women’s Solo free preliminary.

A child looks at fish as he stands inside an underwater tunnel at the botanical and freshwater exposition “Live Water” in the village of Modra, Czech Republic.

PRESENTS THE UWHARRIE

Performances at the Stanly County Agri – Civic Center Albemarle, North Carolina July 28 and 29 @ 7:30 PM July 30@ 3:00PM and August 4 and 5 @ 7:30PM August 6 @3:00 PM

PLAYERS IN

Tickets may be purchased prior to the show at: UWharrie Players.org Starnes Jewelers B & D Bookstore Or at the Box Office

Kids 12 and under, come dressed as your favorite Mary Poppins character.

Prizes will be awarded for winners.

This project was supported by the N.C. Arts Council, a division of the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 19, 2017

Who’s got next?

Florida State Seminoles head coach Jimbo Fisher, Clemson Tigers head coach Dabo Swinney and Miami Hurricanes head coach Mark Richt speaks to the media during the ACC Kickoff at the Westin Charlotte on July 14.

the Wednesday SIDELINE REPORT

SPORTS

NFL

Panthers could consider ex-GM Hurney as interim The Carolina Panthers have just a single week before training camp to try and find a replacement general manager for Dave Gettleman, who was fired on Monday afternoon.

Bill Voth of Panthers.com believes the team will very much consider adding an interim general manager while continuing to seach for a permanent replacement, while Joseph Person of the Charlotte Observer reported Monday afternoon that Marty Hurney, the previous GM in Carolina before Gettleman, could be in consideration for the position of interim GM. Hurney knows the franchise well and has continued to work in radio in Charlotte following his dismissal during the 2012 season. He drafted Thomas Davis and traded for Greg Olsen, both of whom are facing contract situations ahead of the 2017 season.

Forward Paul Pierce signed a one-day contract with the Boston Celtics on Monday in a move that allows him to retire as a member of the franchise.

A 10-time All-Star, Pierce spent the first 15 years of his career with the Celtics, helping the club to the NBA title in 2008. “It’s an honor to have this opportunity to once again call myself a Boston Celtic,” the 39-year-old Pierce said a statement. “The organization and city took me in and made me one of their own, and I couldn’t imagine ending my career any other way. I’m a Celtic for life.” Co-owner Wyc Grousbeck said Pierce’s No. 34 will soon hang in the rafters at TD Garden. “We’re honored that Paul has chosen to retire as a Celtic. He is among the very best Celtics — a champion on and off the court,” Grousbeck said in a statement. “We congratulate Paul on a Hall of Fame career, and look forward to seeing his number raised to the rafters of TD Garden.”

COLLEGE

Greensboro to host 2018 USA Gymnastics event The NCAA announced on Tuesday the 2018 USA Gymnastics Championships would take place in Greensboro, N.C. from July 3-8, returning to the city that last hosted the event in 2015.

The championships feature “1,800 of the nation’s best gymnasts” performing at both the Junior Olympic and elite levels in multiple avenues.

FSU, Miami top ACC football poll, state schools in familiar spots

By Brett Friedlander North State Journal

NBA

Pierce signs one-day deal with Celtics to retire

PHOTOS BY JEREMY BREVARD | USA TODAY SPORTS IMAGES

KIRBY LEE | USA TODAY SPORTS IMAGES

Carolina Panthers general manager Dave Gettleman reacts during the Pac-12 championship between the Washington Huskies and the Colorado Buffaloes at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif. on Dec. 2.

Panthers cut ties with GM Dave Gettleman General manager was relieved of his duties a week before training camp

By Shawn Krest North State Journal IN A SURPRISING MOVE, the Carolina Panthers relieved general manager Dave Gettleman of his duties, just over a week before training camp opens.

Gettleman took over as general manager of the team in 2013. Carolina won the NFC South and made the playoffs each of his first three seasons, culminating with a trip to Super Bowl 50 in February, 2016.

The team slipped to 6-10 last year.

Despite the on-field success, the Panthers struggled to retain popular veterans under Gettleman. The team parted with 13-year veteran Steve Smith in 2014. Last year, Gettleman was unable to come to a contract agreement with franchise player cornerback Josh Norman.

The team eventually removed the tag and lost him as an unrestricted free agent, shortly before the draft.

Entering training camp this year, Gettleman appeared to be taking a hard-line approach with two more popular veterans—linebacker Thomas Davis and tight end Greg Olsen. The two Pro Bowlers are both looking for new contracts.

Olsen, quarterback Cam New-

ton’s favorite target, has threatened a training camp holdout if he doesn’t receive a new deal. Davis, who has returned from multiple knee constructions to be one of the team’s on-field leaders on defense, is entering the final year of his contract.

Owner Jerry Richardson apparently wasn’t comfortable with Gettleman handling the negotiations.

“After much thought and a long evaluation of our football operations, I have decided to relieve Dave Gettleman of his duties as general manager,” Richardson said in a statement from the team. “I want to thank Dave for the role he played in our success over the past four seasons. While the timing of this decision is not ideal, a change is needed.”

According to research by ESPN, this is the latest in the offseason that a team has cut ties with a general manager in at least five years.

The change comes two months after Brandon Beane, the team’s assistant GM and an expected successor to Gettleman, left to take over as general manager of the Buffalo Bills.

Until a successor is named, director of player personnel Mark Koncz and director of pro personnel Matt Allen are the highest-ranking members of the team’s front office.

Both were moved into their current positions in May, following Beane’s departure.

CHARLOTTE — FLORIDA STATE and Miami were placed in opposite divisions when the ACC was divided into the Atlantic and Coastal in 2005, theoretically so that the league’s two highest profile programs could play each other in the conference championship game every December.

Twelve years later, it still has yet to happen.

But that hasn’t stopped those covering the ACC from picking the Seminoles and Hurricanes to win their divisions and finally have that anticipated title showdown.

They did it again this year, overwhelmingly establishing Florida State as the favorite in the Atlantic Division and Miami as the team to beat in the Coastal in a vote last week at the ACC’s Football Kickoff in Charlotte.

The Seminoles got 121 first place votes and 1,108 points to easily outdistance defending national champion Clemson (with 37 first place votes and 1,007 points) and Louisville (9, 842) in the Atlantic. Coach Jimbo Fisher’s team, one of only seven in the league with a returning quarterback, was also the pick to win the overall ACC title on Dec. 2 in Charlotte.

The Hurricanes picked up 103 first-place votes and 1,065 points, beating out second place Virginia Tech (40, 932) in a division that saw five of the six teams get at least one first place vote.

Among the state teams, NC State was picked to finish fourth in the Atlantic, just ahead of Wake Forest in fifth. North Carolina and Duke, each of which got four first place votes, were tabbed fifth and sixth in the Coastal.

Individually, reigning Heisman Trophy winner Lamar Jackson of Louisville was the choice as this year’s preseason ACC Player of the Year.

This is the third time since the start of divisional play — and the fourth time overall — that Florida State and Miami have been selected as

NC State was picked to finish fourth in the Atlantic Division, just ahead of Wake Forest in fifth. North Carolina and Duke, each of which got four firstplace votes, were tabbed fifth and sixth in the Coastal

See POLL, page B4

INSIDE

JEREMY BREVARD | USA TODAY SPORTS

Although other conferences may get more attention few are in as good of shape as the Atlantic Coast Conference. Having good football teams helps: with the reigning Heisman Trophy winner and reigning College Football Playoff champion coming from the ACC, John Swofford had reason to be enthusiastic at the ACC Kickoff recently. Brett Friedlander takes a deep dive on the biggest takeaways from Swofford’s state of the union. B5

North State Journal for Wednesday, July 19, 2017

B2 WEDNESDAY

07.19.17

TRENDING

Michael Oher: Panthers offensive tackle and subject of “The Blind Side” books took to Instagram after GM Dave Gettleman was fired and noted he and Gettleman always had a good relationship, adding that “Karma” could be an issue for the “people who were happy and had something to do with it downstairs” indicating he believes players helped get Gettleman fired.

Ezekiel Elliott: Cowboys running back was reportedly involved in an incident at a Dallas bar late on Sunday night. Police were called to the bar, where one man was reportedly physically assaulted, but no arrests were made and Elliott’s name was not found on a police report. Elliott is currently under investigation for a 2016 domestic violence incident.

Bill Snyder: Kansas State football coach says he will continue coaching “as long as I’m having a favorable impact on the lives of young people, as long as my health is in order and if it’s something my family wants me to do.”

Carlos Beltran: Houston Astros outfielder and designated hitter had not played in the field since May 16, prompting his teammates to take a procession into the outfield this week and perform a funeral for Beltran’s glove prior to Monday’s game.

Zach Sinor: The Oklahoma State punter has started up his campaign for this year’s Heisman Trophy, saying he thinks he will win the award because he “likes cool dogs”, and has launched a #Sinor4Heisman movement on Twitter.

beyond the box score POTENT QUOTABLES

MILITARY

The N.C. National Guard hosted a run to honor the 100 years of service the 30th Infantry Division, nicknamed Old Hickory after President Andrew Jackson, provided to the state and nation. Tuesday morning at 7:30am Current Commander of the 30th, Colonel Rob Bumgardner, led more than 60 citizen soldiers on the three-mile birthday run.

JASON GETZ | USA TODAY SPORTS IMAGES

“First thing we’ve got to get Colin to do is cut his hair.”

Former NFL quarterback Michael Vick talking about current NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick and pointing out that Kaepernick, who remains unemployed, needs to cut his hair in order to get a job.

Vick was once sentenced to jail time for animal cruelty.

PHOTO COURTESY OF NORTH CAROLINA NATIONAL GUARD

NBA

NBA

GEOFF BURKE | USA TODAY SPORTS IMAGES

“It was closer than people would think.”

Redskins quarterback Kirk Cousins addressed his contractual issues with the team on 106.7 the Fan’s “Grant and Danny,” saying he felt it was best to let the Redskins make an offer and if they did, make a counter.

NFL

5 Years since a general manager of an NFL team has been fired this late in the season. Dave Gettleman was relieved of his duties by the Carolina Panthers on July 17, just eight days before Carolina began training camp. He was also the fourth GM to be fired this offseason, including Scot McCloughan (WAS), Doug Whaley (BUF) and John Dorsey (KC).

SOOBUM IM | USA TODAY SPORTS IMAGES

COURTESY OF NIKE

Nike revealed the Golden State Warriors “Association” jersey this week, part of a four-kit rotation all NBA teams will be allowed to wear starting next season. Teams also get Icon (team color), Community (locally inspired) and Athlete Mindset options.

San Antonio Spurs guard Manu Ginobili is reportedly expected to return for the 2017-18 season, according to a report from ESPN. Ginobili, who will turn 40 years old on July 28, is reportedly working on terms of a contract with the Spurs.

NFL

There were many vocal critics of former Panthers general manager Dave Gettleman when he was fired on Monday, including multiple former Carolina players. Josh Norman issued some cryptic emojis, while former running back DeAngelo Williams called Gettleman a “snake” on Twitter and said he would be willing to play for the Panthers again now. Steve Smith, who had an awkward departure as it gets, let his feelings be known on Twitter too.

VIA TWITTER | @89STEVESMITH

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North State Journal for Wednesday, July 19, 2017

B3

BRITISH OPEN PREVIEW

HANNAH MCKAY | USA TODAY SPORTS IMAGES

USA’s Rickie Fowler watches his tee shot during a practice round at the 146th Open Championship at Royal Birkdale in Southport, Britain on July 17.

Royal Birkdale presents Six sleeper golfers to watch at Royal Birkdale firm but fair challenge for 146th Open Adam Scott

By Tom LaMarre The Sports XChange When the 146th Open Championship is contested this week at Royal Birkdale Golf Club, it will be only the 10th time it is played on the links course in Southport, England.

Although Royal Birkdale is a favorite of the players, it seems the course is a bit underrated when compared to St. Andrews, Muirfield and Turnberry.

“Royal Birkdale is one of my favorite courses, especially my favorite links, because we deem it a little fairer, the fairways are a little flatter but the sand dunes are fantastic and very demanding,” said three-time Open champion Nick Faldo, who captured his first big victory on the course in the 1982 British PGA Championship.

“I’ve been watching the weather forecast. It’s only been in the 60s and a lot of rain. So winds. I think the premium is going to be on tee-to-green. The golf course is going to play very long, very difficult. And it’s a challenging golf course. It’s a great course.

Great venue.”

Faldo won the Open Championship once at St. Andrews and twice at Muirfield, but a tie for eighth in 1983 was his best result in the Open at Royal Birkdale.

The winners of seven of the nine Claret Jugs handed out on the Southport links are members of the World Golf Hall of Fame, with Ian Baker-Finch of Australia (1991) and Padraig Harrington of Ireland (2008) the exceptions.

Peter Thomson of Australia captured the first of his three in a row in 1954 at Royal Birkdale by one stroke over Bobby Locke of South Africa, Dai Rees of Wales and Syd Scott of England. Thomson returned to Southport and won his fifth and last Open by two strokes over Christy O’Connor of Ireland and Brian Huggett of Wales in 1965.

Arnold Palmer claimed the first of two Open titles by one stroke over Rees in 1961. Tom Watson won for the fifth and final tile by one stroke over Andy Bean and Hale Irwin in 1983, and Johnny Miller pulled away in the final round to win by six strokes over Seve Ballesteros of Spain and Jack Nicklaus in 1976.

“I’m excited to go back there and sort of see if my memory resurrects,” said Miller, whose other major crown came when he closed with a record 63 in the 1973 U.S. Open at Oakmont.

“I’m looking forward to seeing the course and getting my feelings. I believe it’s an accuracy course. I called it the British Open back then because it was the British Open then (and) I

played it like Nick Faldo (that year). I wish I had enough brains to play more majors that way. Basically let my irons do the talking.

I hit the 1-iron off the tee and let my irons do the talking.

“So Jack Nicklaus didn’t have a real great Open Championship, and Seve just had the bad last round.”

Other Open winners at Royal Birkdale were Lee Trevino, by one stroke over Lu Liang-Huan of China in 1971, and Mark O’Meara, in a playoff over Brian Watts in 1998.

Most recently, Harrington won by four strokes over Ian Poulter of England in 2008, successfully defending the title he won the year before over Sergio Garcia in a playoff at Carnoustie.

“It’s always the most exciting when you win your first major, but Royal Birkdale was very satisfying,” said Harrington, the three-time major winner who was battling a wrist injury when he showed up at Royal Birkdale.

“I knew I was injured going into it, but I was one of the best players in the world. I played great that week; there were no messups.

“Every time you tee it up in the Open, it’s a special occasion, it really is. There’s something about an Open Championship, the heritage, traditions of it. There’s an excitement about being there.”

The 60-year-old O’Meara also will be there, playing in the Open for the 19th time.

In 1998, he closed with a 2-under-par 68 and won a four-hole aggregate playoff against Watts, 17 strokes to 19, to cap the best season of his career. He claimed his only two major titles that year, winning the Masters in April.

“When you come back to a place (where you won), it makes it even more special,” said O’Meara, who plays on the PGA Tour Champions. “Having the Open back at Royal Birkdale is going to be really cool.

“I always dreamed of winning the Open as a young man. The chance to hoist the Claret Jug and be the Champion Golfer of the Year, all those things come into play when you come and play in this great championship. If I only had one major, this would’ve been the one that I’d have wanted.”

Birkdale Golf Club was established in 1889 and moved to its current site in 1894, with the course designed by Frederick G. Hawtree and English legend J.H. Taylor, who won the Open five times. The “Royal” status came in 1951.

For some reason, it took the R&A until 1954 to realize that Taylor knew how to design a course made for the Open Championship.

The lanky Australian has not been playing the best golf of his career over the last month, but he is no stranger to playing at a high level during the Open Championship. Prior to last year’s T-43 finish, Scott reeled off an impressive run of four consecutive top-10 finishes at the Open Championship, with three of those ending up as top-five finishes. Scott did miss the cut at the U.S. Open this year, which serves as a red flag, but certainly has the talent to secure the Claret Jug. Worth noting too: he did not finish high on the leaderboard the last time the Open was at Royal Birkdale, but he did fire an opening round 70. He is comfortable on the course.

Louis Oosthuizen A former Open Championship winner in 2010, Oosthuizen has flown under the radar when it comes to major performances lately after a strong run of high finishes. He has yet to secure anything higher than the T-15 result he accomplished at the Masters in 2016 over the past two years, but he has a history of playing well at this major. There is the win in 2010, clearly, and a T2 in 2015 as well, along with a T-19 in 2012. All told he has three top 25’s in 10 attempts playing the Open Championship, and it is quite possible that Royal Birkdale will require the mental fortitude of a veteran who has succeed in this position before.

Marc Leishman The last two major seasons have not been exceptional for Leishman, who looked primed for a breakthrough after playing so well at the Open Championship in 2014 and 2015. He finished T-5 in 2014 and T-2 in 2015, the latter of which involved Leishman losing a playoff battle to eventual champion Zach Johnson at St. Andrews.

Leishman has the putting prowess to score well at Royal Birkdale and has more than enough experience playing nasty conditions to overcome what is almost certainly expected to be some nasty conditions out on the course through the weekend.

Ian Poulter Players who spent time at the Scottish Open prior to joining the field at the Open Championship have fared well in recent years, and that includes Poulter. Even though his finish to the event was a little disappointing, thanks to a final round 74 that kept him from contending, Poulter still finished T-9. What makes him really interesting is that he needed to advance through actual qualifying to make the field at Royal Birkdale, the site of a second-place finish for him in 2008. Asked how it would feel to have to watch this event at home, Poulter said “pretty s---.” He is highly motivated to try and capture some magic and redemption.

Brandt Snedeker There has been a nice little string of success for Americans overseas when it comes to the Open Championship, with Zach Johnson winning in 2015 and Phil Mickelson capturing the title in 2013 (and coming oh-so-close to winning in 2016 were it not for Stenson’s performance). Snedeker is hardly the sexiest name that you will see on the leaderboard and is not given great odds to win, but his game could match the course here. He is a very accurate player who putts the ball very well (31st in putting strokes gained) and will not have the high expectations that come when he suits up to play in the Masters.

Paul Casey Very quietly Casey has been putting up some impressive numbers at majors over the past two or three years.

That includes three top-10 finishes in a row at the Masters, a top-10 finish at the 2016 PGA Championship and a 26th place finish at this year’s U.S. Open. He has, rather oddly, not played well at the Open Championship in recent years, although the second-highest finish of his career came in 2008, when the tournament was last played at Royal Birkdale. Casey is coming into the Open on a serious hot streak, finishing T-5, 26, T-10, T-22, T12, 6 and T-9 in his last seven tournaments.

Odds to win the Open Championship (via Las Vegas Westgate) Player (Odds)

Player (Odds)

Dustin Johnson (12-1)

Louis Oosthuizen (40-1)

Jordan Spieth (12-1)

Thomas Pieters (40-1)

Sergio Garcia (15-1)

Alex Noren (40-1)

Rickie Fowler (15-1)

Branden Grace (50-1)

Jon Rahm (15-1)

Marc Leishman (50-1)

Justin Rose (20-1)

Shane Lowry (60-1)

Rory McIlroy (20-1)

Matt Kuchar (60-1)

Tommy Fleetwood (20-1)

Brandt Snedeker (60-1)

Henrik Stenson (25-1)

Lee Westwood (60-1)

Jason Day (25-1)

Lee Westwood (60-1)

Adam Scott (30-1)

Patrick Reed (60-1)

Brooks Koepka (30-1)

Rafael Cabrera Bello (60-1)

Phil Mickelson (30-1)

Ian Poulter (60-1)

Paul Casey (30-1)

Daniel Berger (60-1)

Justin Thomas (40-1)

Padraig Harrington (60-1)

B4

North State Journal for Wednesday, July 19, 2017

Sideline behavior a focus for ACC officials Coaches will be penalized for entering field to argue calls

By Shawn Krest North State Journal COACHES WILL need to be on their best behavior this season, because sideline antics could cost their team field position.

At the ACC Kickoff’s officiating forum on Thursday, ACC supervisor of officials Dennis Hennigan highlighted the rules changes for the upcoming season.

Sideline behavior JEREMY BREVARD | USA TODAY SPORTS IMAGES

ACC commissioner John Swofford speaks with the media during the ACC Kickoff at the Westin Charlotte on July 13.

No longer on the defensive, Swofford revels in ACC success Coming off a year in which the ACC took home honors in college football and basketball, commissioner John Swofford has plenty to crow about these days

By Brett Friedlander North State Journal CHARLOTTE — The Heisman Trophy, the national championship trophy and several other pieces of college football hardware are prominently displayed in the lobby of the Westin Hotel for the ACC’s Football Kickoff media event this week.

But all the major awards won by conference players and teams last season aren’t the most outward sign of how things have changed for the league over the past few years.

Rather, it was delivered by John Swofford in his annual Commissioner’s Forum address.

There was once a time in which the majority of his remarks were spent defending a conference many considered to be the redheaded stepchild of the Power Five.

That’s no longer necessary.

Coming off a year in which the ACC took home both the top team and individual honors in college football — along with the national title in men’s basketball — Swofford has plenty to crow about these days.

And he did so Thursday, with gusto.

“Specifically related to football, this event provides the opportunity to celebrate the collective efforts of our teams and one thing I’ve learned in college athletics over the years is that when you have the opportunity to celebrate those kinds of successes, you should do it,” Swofford said.

“But it’s really not about one year. It’s not just about last year or even the last couple of years. Our conference schools, programs, coaches, and players have built a strong foundation for the future.”

It’s a process that began nearly a decade ago when Swofford and his league presidents had the foresight to stay ahead of the curve on conference expansion, then guar-

anteed the stability of the league amid further realignment with a grant of rights that locked current members into their affiliation through 2036.

But for all that success, the ACC always seemed to lag behind on the football field, especially in comparison to the SEC, Big Ten, Big 12 and Pac 12.

“I know that in some years of the BCS we didn’t perform very well in those BCS games,” Swofford said. “And it was there for the world to see.”

It’s a reality Swofford was anxious to change. So he issued a challenge to his coaches when he met with them at the ACC’s annual spring meetings at Amelia Island, Fla., a few years ago, starting with an upgrade to their nonconference schedules. “(We talked) to our coaches at Amelia Island about the importance of us stepping up program-wise and talking with our athletic directors about the importance of that, that we had to make a better showing going forward,” Swofford recalled. “They stepped up and by they, I’m talking about everybody in our league.”

Swofford related an anecdote from that meeting in which Clemson coach Dabo Swinney stood up and told his colleagues that they needed to “take a look in the mirror, because if you play the right people and you develop your program enough to win enough of the right games, there’s no reason we shouldn’t be in the playoff every year.”

The ACC has had a team in each of the first two years of the current playoff system.

Although extending that streak this season might be difficult given the number of key offensive players conference teams lost to graduation and the NFL, Swofford is confident that the depth and coaching talent throughout the league will help the ACC continue its recent momentum.

Among the other subjects the commissioner addressed during his hour-long media session were: • ACC Network: Despite the recent trend of cord cutting, declining ratings and sweeping layoffs at ESPN over the past few months, Swofford remains confident that the conference’s upcoming linear

television network will be ready to launch as scheduled in 2019.

“There’s a lot of activity currently underway and that activity is on our 15 campuses,” Swofford said.

“It’s at our offices in Greensboro.

It’s at ESPN campuses in Bristol (Conn.), as well as here in Charlotte as we prepare for the launch in just 24 months.

“Preparing to produce and distribute over 1,500 events between the linear and digital networks requires a lot of planning and preparation and obviously some lead time to do it right and launch it in the way we want to launch it. ACC and ESPN teams are diligently working to complete the multiple tasks that are required for the launch and we’re extremely pleased with the progress.”

• Notre Dame’s ACC football future: Part of the agreement that allowed the Irish to become a full league member in all sports but football is that if they ever decide to join a conference, it will be the ACC. But despite rumblings earlier this year to the contrary, Swofford said he doesn’t see that happening anytime soon.

“When Notre Dame came into the ACC, it was fully understood that they were coming on the agreement that we came to — five games on average against ACC schools each year in football in full membership and all the other sports,” he said. “From a conference perspective, and I think Notre Dame would say the same thing, this has met every expectation that we had. I think it’s been positive for Notre Dame. I think it’s been positive for the ACC. That’s what we thought it would be. That’s what it is.”

• Divisional disparity: Swofford said there are no current plans to reshuffle a lineup that has the ACC’s top two programs, Clemson and Florida State, both playing in the same division.

“We haven’t really talked about divisions in several years now,” he said. “So I think right now where we are, things have settled in both in terms of how we schedule and in terms of the divisions.

“Surprisingly to some, if you look at over the years the head-tohead competition with the Atlantic and Coastal, it’s very close to .500. It’s not imbalanced.”

NBA ROUNDUP

Smith Jr ends successful summer league debut

By Brett Friedlander North State Journal Smith finishes summer league on high note Dennis Smith Jr. bounced back from a disappointing quarterfinal performance to score a team-high 21 points for the Dallas Mavericks against the Los Angeles Lakers in Sunday’s NBA Las Vegas Summer League semifinal.

It still wasn’t enough to lift his team into the championship game.

Smith made seven of his 13 field goal attempts and handed out six assists while leading a comeback that saw the Mavericks nearly erase an 18-point halftime deficit.

He also recorded three rebounds and two steals to put an exclamation point on a spectacular professional debut in the tournament.

Smith, the final player with state college ties left in the event, finished the week averaging 17.3 points and 4.8 assists in six games to solidify his stature as an upand-coming star in the NBA. Meeks takes advantage of playing time Of all the players with state college ties at the event, no one took better advantage of that final opportunity than North Carolina big man Kennedy Meeks.

Seeing his most extensive playing time of the tournament — 27 minutes — the former Tar Heel put up 18 points and nine rebounds, along with three assists for the Toronto Raptors in their 78-75 overtime loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers. He even made a pair of 3-pointers, shots that would like-

ly have made college coach Roy Williams cringe had he attempted them while still in Chapel Hill.

Meeks leaves Vegas having scored in double figures in three of his four summer league games and making a positive impression on Raptors coach Patrick Mutombo.

“He works hard,” Mutombo told Raptors.com. “He pays attention to detail. He’s smart and he has a good feel for the game.”

Lakers’ Ball exits summer league semifinal with tight calf Lakers rookie guard Lonzo Ball exited Los Angeles’ summer league semifinal against the Dallas Mavericks on Sunday due to right calf tightness.

Before leaving the game for good midway through the third quarter, Ball piled up 16 points and 10 assists, helping the Lakers advance to the final with a 10898 win. Los Angeles will play the Portland Trail Blazers for the title on Monday.

According to ESPN.com, Ball was available to play late in the game Sunday, but he was held out.

The most significant change is a new rule aimed at keeping coaches off the field.

Any coach—head coach or assistant—who enters the playing field to argue a call with an official will receive an immediate 15-yard penalty for unsportsmanlike conduct.

Unlike in previous years, there will be no warnings or attempts to “walk the coach back” to the sideline. If a coach picks up two unsportsmanlike penalties in a game, it will result in his ejection.

Coaches have been assured that they will not be penalized for leaving the sideline to call plays or signal for a time out.

Length of games Shortening the length of games will also be an emphasis this season, although there were no rules changes implemented to help accomplish this.

Instead, officials will pay closer attention to make sure games start on time and that halftime doesn’t extend past the 20 minutes mandated by rule. Officials will be instructed to start the 20-minute halftime clock immediately, instead of waiting for the field

POLL from page A1 the league’s preseason top two teams in the preseason media poll.

NC State’s fourth-place prediction is also familiar. It’s the third straight year the Wolfpack has earned the honor of “best of the rest” in the tough Atlantic Division. There are some, however, who believe that coach Dave Doeren’s team, with impact players returning on both sides of the ball, could potentially be the ACC’s sleeper this year.

“You want expectations and you have to earn them,” Doeren said before the vote was taken in Charlotte on Thursday. “That’s the one thing I told our guys, be proud of people talking nicely about you, but also understand that changes quickly when you don’t live up to those things. So the bottom line for me and our program is we don’t look at where you want us to end up. We all want to be champions in college football.”

UNC’s Larry Fedora is no exception. Only this year, after winning the Coastal Division in 2016 and being picked to finish first a season ago, his Tar Heels aren’t being given much of a chance at playing for a title.

And that’s fine with him.

“I know probably out there a lot of people don’t think we’re going to do much this year,” Fedora said, playing the underdog card to the hilt. “I think that’s a good thing. So pick us low. I would much rather prefer that.

I think that will be a good thing for our program.”

Duke coach David Cutcliffe isn’t as concerned about where his team was picked in the preseason poll as Fedora, though he’s just as optimistic about his team’s chances in 2017 -- maybe even moreso -- after missing out on the postseason for the first time in four years last season.

“I don’t think anyone is more excited that it’s the 2017 season than we are at Duke,” Cutcliffe said. “We have a squad that has the most depth that we’ve had.

We do have some areas of concern that we’ve got to continue to work with, as most teams do, but we’re excited about the opportunity this team has.”

Wake Forest is also brimming with confidence after its first winning season since 2008. But the Deacons still

to clear.

Officials will also take control of restarting the game following commercial breaks, rather than leaving that in the hands of network producers and on-field production assistants. The change may result in fans watching at home missing a few plays coming back from breaks.

Player safety Two minor changes were implemented to help with player safety. It’s now illegal for defensive players to “hurdle” the offensive line at the snap, in an effort to block a field goal or extra point attempt.

Also, the definition of a horse-collar tackle was expanded to include grabbing a ball-carrier by the name-plate area on the back of his jersey.

2016 statistics Hennigan also highlighted some statistics from the 2016 season to show the way the game is evolving.

There were 183 plays per game last season, up from 178 the year before. Several games topped the 200-play barrier.

Once again, false start was the most-often flagged penalty, with 20 percent of all penalties being for that infraction.

Offensive holding produced 14 percent of flags and defensive pass interference 11.

ACC officials called 18 targeting penalties, including two which were initiated by replay officials after review. Nationally, there was a targeting call once every six games. Replay review upheld 71 percent of the calls, down slightly from 74 percent in 2015.

For the first time in memory, ACC road teams won more often than home teams. The home team won just 47 percent of conference games. Overall, the home team won 60 percent of the time in all games.

have some work left to do to convince others to have the same kind of confidence in them.

“People doubt us a lot,” senior defensive end Wendell Dunn said. “When we talk about beating the top teams, people look at you like you’re crazy and the thing about us right now is we embrace that.

That’s our motivation. We want the other teams to doubt us. We want them to think, oh, it’s just Wake Forest we’re playing, so when we get out there and we punch them in the mouth and come off that field with that win.”

Here are the results of the ACC’s preseason poll: ACC Championship 1. Florida State - 118 2. Clemson - 35 3. Louisville - 7 4-t. Virginia Tech – 3 4-t. Miami – 3 6. Duke – 1 Atlantic Division (First place votes in parenthesis) 1. Florida State (121) – 1,108 2. Clemson (37) – 1,007 3. Louisville (9) - 843 4. NC State - 658 5. Wake Forest – 415 6. Syracuse - 362 7. Boston College - 283 Coastal Division (First place votes in parenthesis) 1. Miami (103) – 1,065 2. Virginia Tech (40) – 932 3. Georgia Tech (9) – 708 4. Pitt (7) – 673 5. North Carolina (4) - 606 6. Duke (4) -473 7. Virginia -219 ACC Player of the Year 1. Lamar Jackson, QB, Louisville - 113 2. Deondre Francois, QB, Florida State - 23 3. Christian Wilkins, DT, Clemson - 11 4. Harold Landry, DE, Boston College - 8 5. Jaylen Samuels, AP, NC State - 7 6. Eric Dungey, QB, Syracuse - 2 7-t. Shaquille Quarterman, LB, Miami - 1 7-t. Ahmmon Richards, WR, Miami - 1 7-t. Daniel Jones, QB, Duke -1

North State Journal for Wednesday, July 19, 2017

Federer offers no promises about future Tennis star says “there’s never a guarantee” that he will be back to defend his eighth Wimbledon title

By Toby Davis The Sports XChange LONDON — Having reclaimed his place on Wimbledon’s throne and indelibly etched his name in the tournament’s record books, Roger Federer dangled the unpalatable possibility that he may never grace its fabled lawns again.

Fourteen years after a pony-tailed Swiss starlet first soared into the tennis ether at The All England Club, Federer returned on Sunday as a 35-year-old veteran to confirm his place as the greatest man ever to play the grasscourt slam with a record eighth title.

The 6-3 6-1 6-4 victory over Marin Cilic was a brutal demolition job, as the Croat’s blistered feet rendered him easy pickings.

Yet, having delivered a 19th major title for his army of fans on Centre Court, Federer admitted that his advancing age and last year’s injury issues meant he could not say for certain that he would be back to defend his crown next year.

“I hope that I’m back, but there’s never a guarantee, especially not at 35,” he told reporters.

Federer’s resurgence to the

SUSAN MULLANE | REUTERS

Roger Federer (SUI) poses with the trophy at the trophy presentation after the men’s final match against Marin Cilic (CRO) on day 13 at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club in London on July 16.

game’s summit will go down as one of sport’s most remarkable comeback tales.

When he exited Wimbledon last year, he spent six months out of tennis through injury. Even the great man himself had doubts as to whether he could ever rekindle the magic that had delivered his last major title in 2012.

However, after the doubts were swept away by a sensational victory

at the Australian Open in January, Federer made a game-changing career move to skip the claycourt season and focus on his favourite surface.

And few calls have ever been vindicated with such a resounding affirmation.

“I guess you would have laughed if I told you I was going to win two slams this year,” he said. “I also didn’t believe that I was going to

win two.

“But, it’s incredible. I don’t know how much longer it’s going to last...

But I have just got to always remind myself that health comes first at this point. If I do that, maybe things are actually possible I didn’t think were.”

A lot has changed in the years since Federer clinched his first grand slam trophy at Wimbledon.

The long hair has gone and the fresh face that snatched the title in 2003 has been replaced by the filled-out features of a tour veteran.

Yet, as he marched to this year’s crown without dropping a set, it was clear that the dazzling array of shots and sheer, balletic brilliance of tennis’s greatest male player are all still in evidence.

Having surpassed Pete Sampras and William Renshaw, who both had seven titles, Federer has earned his place in the record books at a tournament whose history is so important to him.

“Wimbledon was always my favorite tournament, will always be my favorite tournament,” he said.

“My heroes walked the grounds here and walked the courts here.

Because of them, I think I became a better player.

“To make history here at Wimbledon really means a lot to me just because of all of that really. It’s that simple.”

Hurricanes' past, present, future collide Justin Williams’ return to Carolina, ownership rumors making for busy offseason

By Cory Lavalette North State Journal RALEIGH — Justin Williams made his first appearance in Raleigh Monday since returning to the Carolina Hurricanes at the opening of free agency July 1, and he continued to promise much of what he did right after signing a two-year contract worth $9 million.

“It’s a fun time, I think, to be a Carolina Hurricane,” Williams said to reporters in the Hurricanes’ locker room at PNC Arena.

“And I want to be part of something good. I’ve been on some successful teams, so I’m going to try and do the same, do my best here to make sure that happens.”

In doing that, Williams sounded exactly like the kind of leader the Hurricanes need in the locker room and on the ice. Does that include wearing the captain’s C on his sweater? Williams wasn’t biting.

“That’s something I don’t really want to talk about at all,” he said, shaking his head. “As I said, I’m coming here to be me and that’s not something I really want to talk about.”

How about the players to watch on the young Hurricanes teams he’s played in recent years?

“I don’t want to single out anybody,” Williams said. “Just I know, just by playing against them, they’re high-end talents and it will be a pleasure to play with any of them.”

Oh, and that ownership thing that came up last week — you know, the one that sees former Texas Rangers co-owner Chuck Greenberg buying the team from Peter Karmanos Jr., the only NHL CEO the Carolinas have ever known, for half a billion dollars?

“I’m not privvy to any information,” Williams said. “All I know is where I’m going to be playing next year, and that’s here. I don’t know anything else.”

The truth is, not many seem to know where things stand with the Hurricanes’ ownership situation.

The Hurricanes released what amounted to a nonstatement last Thursday, one that made it seem like Karmanos needs to weight the benefits of selling the team he bought for $47.5 million in 1994 for a cool $500 million just 23 years later.

“Since an offer has been made to purchase the team, Mr. Karmanos intends to evaluate that offer and also will continue to evaluate his other options, including retaining his ownership of the team,” the statement said.

Rest assured if the price is right — and the rumored proposal is — Karmanos will be willing to ride off into the sunset with a Stanley Cup ring and induction into the Hockey Hall of Fame on his ownership epitaph.

Greenberg — who made his fortune as a sports industry attorney, including helping Mario

CORY LAVALETTE | NORTH STATE JOURNAL

Justin Williams talks to the media July 17 about his return to the Carolina Hurricanes at PNC Arena.

“This is, first and foremost, a team that is on the rise, and a team that we’re going to surprise a lot of people with this year.”

— Justin Williams Lemieux buy and keep the Penguins in Pittsburgh in 1999 — is also keeping quiet, opting not to comment on the offer, though he did let out a hint something is cooking.

“Kind of a hectic Thursday on this end. How about you? Solid way to unwind tonight at the Choctaw Lazy River @RidersBaseball,” he said on Twitter the day the news broke, tweeting from Texas at a Frisco RoughRiders game — one of three minor league baseball teams he owns, including the three-hour-drivefrom-Raleigh Myrtle Beach (S.C.) Pelicans.

While his forays into sports ownership have previously been in baseball, Greenberg has also been a supporter of the Dallas

Stars and was approved by the NHL as a potential bidder for the team when it was in bankruptcy in 2011. He opted not to make a run at purchasing the team.

By all accounts, Greenberg is the type of owner who could pull the Hurricanes from its doldrums: he’s reportedly committed to the fan experience while also being competitive.

Would Greenberg, like Terry Pegula in Buffalo, be willing to spend closer to the cap ceiling than its floor? Perhaps, especially if he was joined by fellow deep-pocketed co-ownership.

Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban was rumored to be part of Greenberg’s considered bid for the Stars, and the NBA owner’s latest first-round draft pick,

Dennis Smith Jr., could offer Cuban insight into both the Triangle and PNC Arena — where Smith Jr. played college ball at NC State.

That sort of “what if” is miles in the distance, and similar to what Williams tried to dodge Monday regarding the team on the ice.

“It’ll be fun, and the best thing is to let the play do the speaking for itself,” Williams said. “You don’t want to come here and spout off and make guarantees and say all that. You just want to let the play speak for itself.”

There’s no guarantees for the Hurricanes in 2017-18: no guaranteed better attendance; no guaranteed playoffs; no guaranteed new ownership committed to keeping the team in Raleigh.

“You never know where it’s going to go, and that’s the good thing about the NHL,” Williams added. “You can can get on a roll, you can start to feel good and mentally you feel great and then anything’s possible.

“It’s an exciting time for the city and the team and especially for me, personally.”

B5

Cousins set to play 2017 on $23.9M tag The Redskins and Cousins could not reach an agreement on a contract before Monday’s deadline

By NSJ Staff KIRK COUSINS of the Washington Redskins will become the first quarterback to play under the franchise tag for a second consecutive season after failing to sign a long-term deal on Monday.

Cousins will make $23.9 million this season and the Redskins can’t negotiate a long-term deal until the season ends by virtue of being unable to come to an agreement by Monday’s deadline.

“Our goal was to sign Kirk to a long-term contract with the final objective of having him finish his career with the Redskins,” team president Bruce Allen said in a statement.

Allen said the Redskins made Cousins an offer on May 2 “that included the highest fully guaranteed amount upon signing for a quarterback in NFL history ($53 million) and guaranteed a total of $72 million for injury.”

The statement from Allen indicates that the Redskins were willing to give Cousins a lot of money. But it largely ignores the reality of the situation in Washington. Cousins is set to make $23.9 million this year on the franchise tag. If the Redskins use the transition tag on him for 2018, the bare minimum he will be guaranteed over the next two years is approximately $52.7 million. If he agreed to a five-year deal with Washington that featured $53 million in guaranteed money, he would be accepting a contract that essentially gave him an additional $300,000 in exchange for giving the Redskins control over him for an additional three years.

Allen said the deal would have made Cousins at least the second highest-paid player by average per year in NFL history.

“But despite our repeated attempts, we have not received any offer from Kirk’s agent this year,” Allen continued. “Kirk has made it clear that he prefers to play on a year-to-year basis. While we would have liked to work out a long-term contract before this season, we accept his decision.”

Allen is referencing an offer that came before Derek Carr and the Raiders worked out a fiveyear, $125 million contract this offseason. The 28-year-old is open to working out a deal with the Redskins after this season, a source familiar with the situation told ESPN’s Adam Schefter.

Cousins himself said on 106.7 the Fan in D.C. that he was not offended by the Redskins’ statement.

Two of Cousins’ former offensive coordinators are in situations that bear monitoring as far as the quarterback position goes.

Kyle Shanahan is now the 49ers head coach, with only Brian Hoyer as his quarterback. Sean McVay is the Rams coach, although Los Angeles used the No. 1 pick on Jared Goff in the 2016 NFL Draft.

Cousins threw for 4,917 yards with 25 touchdowns and 12 interceptions in 2016 and also posted a 97.2 passer rating last season. Cousins’ 12,113 yards in five seasons with Washington ranks sixth on the franchise’s all-time passing yards list. He is 239 yards behind Billy Kilmer for fifth.

GEOFF BURKE | USA TODAY SPORTS IMAGES

Washington Redskins quarterback Kirk Cousins (8) throws the ball during drills as part of Redskins OTAs at Redskins Park in Washington, D.C. on May 24.

WEDNESDAY

07.19.17

NORTH

STATE

JOURNaL

play list

the good life IN A NORTH STATE OF MIND

at home with | Beaufort

July 21-23 North Carolina Watermelon Festival Fair Bluff The North Carolina Watermelon Festival is a family fun event where you can enjoy the best Carolina watermelons by the slice, participate in the festival parade, dances, contests and annual pageant.

July 21-22 WNC BBQ Festival 2017 - Smokin’ In The Valley Maggie Valley With up to 40 cookers, this is a Barbecue (BBQ) Cooking Competition & Kansas City BBQ Society-sanctioned event.

On Friday night, there is a local restaurant competition where you can be the judge. Saturday afternoon, visit the Tastin’ Tent to sample competitors’ entries. Daily events include arts & crafts, a kids corner and entertainment.

ZACK FRANK | ADOBE STOCK

July 21-22 N.C. Polynesian Festival Jacksonville Held at Onslow Pines Park, the event is a great family festival that offers games, food, rides, face painting and vendors.

Guests will enjoy the very best in entertainment featuring Hawaiian, Samoan, Tahitian and fire dancers.

July 22 Lumber River Day Festival 2017 Orrum This festival on the Lumber River features canoe rides and races, booths and exhibits by the park, local craftsmen, children’s fishing and casting contests, bluegrass and country music, and other activities. Food vendors will be present or you can bring a picnic for you and your family.

July 25-30 92nd Annual Blowing Rock Charity Horse Show Blowing Rock A Blowing Rock tradition since 1923, the Blowing Rock Charity Horse Show is a US Equestrian Federation Heritage Competition and is one of the oldest horse show events in the country. Enjoy the spectacle and excitement of amateur and high-performance competitors: Saddlebred, HunterJumper I, and Hunter-Jumper II division shows.

Source: North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources

Author Kristy Woodson Harvey recommends the best spots in Beaufort.

A city with pizazz

By Laura Ashley Lamm North State Journal KINSTON — With roots in Salisbury, Kinston and Beaufort, author Kristy Woodson Harvey has done her share of exploring the diverse regions of North Carolina.

“One of the best things about being a North Carolinian is that, in a matter of hours, we can daytrip anywhere from the mountains to the coast, eating the best food and meeting the nicest people that this state has to offer,” said Harvey.

Harvey used her home state and the small Southern towns that raised her as inspiration for her first two novels, “Dear Carolina” and “Lies and Other Acts of Love.” For her recently launched third novel, “Slightly South of Simple,” she was asked to write about the fictional town of Peachtree Bluff in Georgia. However, readers will find quite a few similarities between Peachtree and North Carolina’s very own gem of a coastal town, Beaufort.

“From the parades to the pirates, the salt to the sand, I drew quite a bit of the inspiration for my fictional town from one of my favorite real-life North Carolina haunts,” she added.

To celebrate all the fun and memories one can make in this quaint town on the water, we asked Harvey to make a list of her favorite Beaufort spots one should find this summer. Enjoy her recommendations below!

“If you’re looking for a fun day or weekend trip this summer, take a page from my protago-

nists, Ansley, Caroline, Emerson and Sloane, and pick a few of my favorite ‘Slightly South of Simple’ activities in Beaufort. You might just find that a weekend isn’t enough time!” she said.

1. Take an Island Ferry Adventures cruise Catch a ferry or rent a boat and spend a day on Carrot Island. The fictional “Starlite Island,” where my protagonist Ansley and her three daughters, Caroline, Emerson and Sloane, spend so much time, is based on this gorgeous speck of sand right across from my own house.

Whether you hike the Rachel Carson preserve or simply spend the day lounging, make sure to keep your eyes peeled for wild horses!

2. Catch a cocktail at Front Street Grill at Stillwater’s Rhum Bar My “Slightly South” girls love a good rosé at the end of the day, and why not? It’s almost summer, after all! With its laid-back music, screened windows and spectacular view, the Rhum Bar is as close as you’ll get to the islands without leaving N.C. Sit on the lower deck at night for stars so bright you won’t soon forget them. Ask about Tim Becker’s fresh squeezed cocktail of the day. Actually, don’t ask — just order it. You’ll thank me!

3. Sip coffee at Beaufort Coffee Shop Unfortunately, Beaufort doesn’t have an actual “Coffee Kyle” that spends his days making coffee rounds to the locals.

(Well, not to my knowledge, anyway), but Cru Bar features a variety of delicious morning beverages from macchiatos to matcha lattes. The cinnamon rolls aren’t so bad either! Or, for a stellar view, enjoy your morning brew with the locals at the Dock House.

4. Take a sunset Lookout Cruise One of the best parts about Peachtree Bluff — and Beaufort — is the boating! Whether you arrive in Beaufort aboard your own vessel or not, don’t miss a Lookout Cruise sailing excursion. The sunset is the best around.

5. Grab lunch at Beaufort Grocery Company The girls of Peachtree Bluff aren’t particularly ladies who lunch as the book opens. (When you read, you’ll understand why!)

But this author’s favorite lunch spot — and the site of many an afternoon writing session — is one of Beaufort’s most popular dining establishments, headed by culinary greats Charles and Wendy Park. Start with the fruit and cheese board, order the special for your entrée and treat yourself to some of the best desserts anywhere to round out your meal. Trust me on this. I’ve done the leg work. (The dinner is divine too! There’s no rule saying you can’t eat there twice!)

6. Paddleboard One of the best things about Beaufort’s Taylor’s Creek location is that it’s the perfect spot for paddleboarding, something

that my Peachtree Bluff ladies and I absolutely love. If you ask me, it’s the best way to see the sites from the water.

7. Treat yourself to a Double-Decker Bus tour One of the things that makes Beaufort so special — and Peachtree Bluff, for that matter — is the history. Grab a Double-Decker Bus tour from the Beaufort Historical Site to bone up on your knowledge of Blackbeard the Pirate and Beaufort’s other infamous characters while learning a little more about the historic homes that lend Beaufort its charm.

8. Spend some time at Beaufort Linen Company For the true “Slightly South of Simple” experience, a visit to Beaufort Linen Company is absolutely essential. It’s the closest you’ll ever get to Ansley Murphy’s waterfront design shop, Sloane Emerson. From fine linens to baby gifts, home décor to copies of, well, “Slightly South of Simple,” you’ll find more than a few mementos to remember your fabulous trip. Have Christina Baker, the store’s owner, or one of the lovely ladies give me a call and I’ll come sign your books for you!

If you’re sticking around longer, make sure to grab a bite at Blue Moon, Aqua or The Spouter Inn, and don’t miss The Cedar Inn’s biscuits for breakfast. The Maritime Museum and Harvey Smith Watercraft Center are also totally one of a kind. OK, forget the day trip — you’re going to have to stay all week!

history marked July 19, 1937 Country music star George Hamilton IV was born in Winston-Salem While a student at UNC, young George Hamilton recorded “A Rose and a Baby Ruth” at the independent Chapel Hill label, Colonial Records. The song eventually became a gold record.

Hamilton left Chapel Hill for Nashville to pursue a career in country music and was invited to join the Grand Ole Opry in 1960. Later that year he signed a record contract with RCA.

July 20, 1863 Rocky Mount Mills burned

by Union troops

July 21, 1788 Hillsborough Convention fails to ratify Constitution

July 21, 1930 Duke University Hospital opens after 3 years of construction

Union cavalry led by Gen. Edward Potter torched Rocky Mount Mills, the second cotton mill in North Carolina after the short-lived Schenck-Warlick Mill in Lincoln County. Manufacturing began in Rocky Mount in 1818 on a 20-acre tract at the falls of the Tar River. The mills were initially operated by Joel Battle and after the Civil War he rebuilt the mills on the original foundation. The new four-story mill burned in 1869 and Battle again rebuilt the mills. When Rocky Mount Mills closed in 1996, it was believed to be the oldest operating cotton mill in the South.

It now comprises a local historic district and is undergoing redevelopment.

Two-hundred seventy delegates convened in Hillsborough for what would become a two-week debate on ratifying the national Constitution that had been drafted in Philadelphia in 1787. The Anti-Federalist delegates outnumbered their Federalist colleagues by a margin of two-to-one.

The Anti-Federalists were suspicious of the federal government and did not want self-rule to come under fire from a government that could intrude on state and individual rights. The debate resulted in the delegates voting 184 to 84 to neither ratify nor reject the Constitution, and North Carolina was not part of the Union until the 1789 Fayetteville Convention.

The idea for Duke University Hospital can be traced back to 1925, when industrialist James B. Duke made a $4 million bequest to establish a medical school, nursing school and hospital to help improve health care in the Carolinas. Duke’s dream was to create the best medical institution between Baltimore and New Orleans.

On the hospital’s first day, 17 patients were registered. The number continued to grow, and by 1932 more than 10,000 patients had been treated. While it began as a regional hospital, today the Duke University Medical Center is recognized as one of top health care organizations in the country, known for its commitment to education, research and innovation.

SOURCE: NORTH CAROLINA DEPARTMENT OF CULTURAL AND NATURAL RESOURCES

MADELINE GRAY | NORTH STATE JOURNAL

Rocky Mount Mills

North State Journal for Wednesday, July 19, 2017

ENTERTAINMENT

B7

Quentin Tarantino eyeing Charles Manson film “Pulp Fiction” director reveals plans for next movie

By Piya Sinha-Roy Reuters

GREG PRYZBY | VIA FLICKR

Disney World in Florida plans to open Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge in 2019.

‘Star Wars’ hotel, Epcot upgrades coming to Disney theme parks

By Owen Gleiberman Reuters

New features will take you to the “Galaxy’s Edge”

ANAHEIM, Calif. — An immersive “Star Wars” hotel, a new “Ratatouille” attraction and the first Mickey Mouse ride are just some of the high-profile features coming soon to Walt Disney’s theme parks revealed on Saturday.

Walt Disney World Resort in Florida will house the hotel where guests can live out a multiday adventure within the intergalactic universe of the “Star Wars” film franchise, parks and resorts chairman Bob Chapek said at Disney’s annual D23 fan convention in Southern California.

Two new “Star Wars” themed lands coming to the Disney parks in Anaheim, Calif., and Orlando, Fla., will be called “Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge,” he said.

A model concept of the expansive new lands was unveiled on Thursday, showing pavilions set in rough, rocky terrain and uneven buildings that will house attractions. The lands will include a Millennium Falcon ride.

Disney plans to open a “Star Wars” land first in its California park and then in Florida in 2019. At 14 acres each, they will be the largest-ever single-themed land expansions, Disney said.

Theme parks, Disney’s second-largest division, posted $1.9 billion in operating income for the six months ended April 1, according to its latest earnings report.

Disney has been investing in new attractions at its theme parks as it faces competition from Comcast’s Universal Studios.

In May, Disney opened a land based on the movie “Avatar” at the Animal Kingdom park in Orlando and a ride based on Marvel’s “Guardians of the Galaxy” at California Adventure in Anaheim.

Ahead of Walt Disney World’s 50th anniversary in 2021, Chapek announced new upgrades to Disney’s futuristic Epcot park in Florida that will include a new “Guardians of the Galaxy” attraction and a “Ratatouille” ride, based on the popular one at Disneyland Paris. A new theme restaurant will offer views of outer space.

Florida’s Walt Disney World will introduce the first ride starring company mascot, Mickey Mouse. “Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railroad” will allow guests to enter an animated adventure with the characters.

A high-speed “Tron” ride is coming to the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World, the world’s most popular theme park with about 20.4 million visitors in 2016, according to the Themed Entertainment Association.

Chapek also said a new “Pixar Pier” attraction would replace “Paradise Pier” at Disney’s California Adventure, a new home for Pixar’s animated characters.

LOS ANGELES — It happens often enough. A great filmmaker announces his next project and you feel a frisson of electricity, a little charge of “Oh, man, that sounds amazing.” I felt it when I heard that Damien Chazelle would follow “La La Land” with an epic drama about Neil Armstrong and the Apollo missions (call it “The Right Stuff Shoots the Moon”).

Or when it was revealed, earlier this week, that Barry Jenkins, coming off “Moonlight,” would realize his long-gestating dream of adapting James Baldwin’s 1974 Harlem-set novel “If Beale Street Could Talk.” But it isn’t often — it’s almost never — that the mere announcement of a director’s upcoming film carries a jolt of meaning.

On Wednesday, it was revealed that Quentin Tarantino’s next movie would ANDREA RAFFIN | EDK.TV be a dramatization of the events surrounding the Manson family murders, Actor Quentin Tarantino attends the Closing Night premiere during the 67th Venice in the summer of 1969. To me, that Film Festival in 2010. sounds like the first Tarantino film in a long while that has the makings of something revolutionary. Tarantino through their music, especially that feel differently (and I’m sorry, but I has never before made a film based on proto-punk bad-vibe apocalypse “Hel- think “Jackie Brown” is a bit boring), actual events (unless you count World ter Skelter.” There is also the whole yet with “Reservoir Dogs” and “Pulp War II — and even there he changed race thing: Charlie’s fetishization of Fiction,” Tarantino made movies that the ending). But it’s not only the docu- what he saw as the insurrectionary were extravagant jukebox operas of drama aspect that’s novel, it’s that a force of black culture, which finds desperado passion that kept touchmovie about Charles Manson and his an echo in Tarantino’s. The fact that ing down in reality. And that’s what “family” of unhinged hippie wastrels Manson’s most famous victim, Sharon people loved about them — that they almost needs to be a fever dream root- Tate, was the wife of Roman Polanski, struck that balance, that they took ed in the real world. And that’s a place director of creepy nightmare thrillers, place in criminal counter-worlds that that Tarantino’s pop-is-all/all-is-pop only added — however speciously — to never stopped mirroring our own.

I felt the first ashy, depressing esthetic has come to have an increas- the media karma of his crimes.

In the articles, thus far, about strains of Tarantino burnout when I ingly tenuous relationship with.

Anyone who has bothered to think Tarantino’s film, there has been the saw “The Hateful Eight,” a convolutmuch about Charles Manson probably usual frantic, and weakly sourced, ed conundrum of a movie that with falls into one of two camps. Either you speculation about big-name actors its single set photographed in 70mm, believe that Manson and his follow- being offered this or that role — like played like the world’s most lavishers were depraved sick puppies whose the rumor (completely unconfirmed) ly overblown episode of “Gunsmoke” violence was too gruesome to be con- that one highly popular actress might crossed with “Ten Little Indians.” It nected to anything but its own insani- be offered the role of Sharon Tate, or was full of tricks and gambits and rety, and that’s all there was to it; or you that Brad Pitt is being talked about to versals, yet on some fundamental level think that the Manson murders, un- play prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi. Yet it was a Tarantino film that was more speakable as they were, created a stag- apart from the casting of Charlie him- about itself — and nothing but itself gering mythology of American evil self, my first question wouldn’t even be — than any Tarantino movie ever had that has only grown with the decades. about Sharon Tate or Vincent Bugli- been. It was joyless and misanthropic The Manson murders are always osi. It would be: Who’s going to play and oppressive. It signaled, to me, that talked about, along with Altamont, Susan Atkins? Who’s going to show Quentin might be starting to run on as the shock wave that crashed down the audience how a “normal” 21-year- empty.

To a lot of people, a Manson family on the ’60s. At this point, though, old middle-class woman descends into who gives a rat’s behind about the savagery as a twisted expression of the drama may not sound much more “humane,” yet Tarantino, by the descripimplosion of the counterculture? The “if it feels good do it!” era?

Of course, the person who’s got tion his own representatives put out, Manson murders were about the destruction of something much larger to show us that — if the film is going wants to tell a story about how the age than the 1960s; they were about the to work — is Tarantino himself. And of free love morphed into something destruction of empathy. As in: How my point is that, if he brings that off, horrific — a transformation that still could “Charlie’s girls” have done it? it will mark a seismic change in the has disturbing implications today.

How could they have wielded those kind of movie he’s been making. In Will he play it straight or Tarantiknives? In that way? How could even 25 years, Quentin Tarantino has di- no-ize it? My instinct (or maybe it’s the craziest cult thinking and wildest rected just nine features (according to just a hope) is that Tarantino can’t binges have led them to go over that him, it’s eight — the difference being reduce the Manson story to another whether you count “Kill Bill: Volume of his concoctions. I mean, he can, of edge?

There are many aspects of the Man- 1” and “Kill Bill: Volume 2” as one film course, but it wouldn’t feel right, and son saga that place it right in Taranti- or two), and while I consider myself it wouldn’t be inspiring cinema.

And who will play Charlie? There no’s wheelhouse. The most obvious is a fan of almost every one of them, I’d its ultraviolence. One of the reasons we be a dishonest critic, if I denied that is already an actor who has done it have films as hypnotic in their sadistic even as a QT believer, there’s a part brilliantly, and I’m not talking about flamboyance as “A Clockwork Orange” of me that rejects the trajectory of his Steve Railsback in the 1976 TV version or “Pulp Fiction” is that Charles Man- career: the evolution from the close- of “Helter Skelter,” though he (and the son singed that level of mayhem into to-the-bone humanistic pop drama of movie) are famously good. I’m referour consciousness. Yet the key overlap “Reservoir Dogs” and “Pulp Fiction” to ring to Jeremy Davies in the scandalmay be that Manson himself became the more grandiose, stylized quality of ously underpraised 2004 TV remake a part of pop culture. With his dere- almost everything that has come af- of “Helter Skelter.” He’s the one actor who has captured Manson’s danger, lict snarl and demon hypnotist’s stare, terward.

For the record: I adore some of his wackadoo hipster snake-charmer and a swastika carved into his forehead (an act that Tarantino mimicked those films. “Death Proof” is a mes- charisma. Davies seethed like a wasp in “Inglourious Basterds”), Manson merizing action allegory that charts, with a broken stinger, playing Manson fashioned himself into a larger-than- and celebrates, the rise of a new kind as just who he was: the first rock star life figure — a hippie-Christ garbage of feminine power in the universe, and of homicide. That’s what the Manson “Inglourious Basterds,” which to me story is really about — how in a society devil, a messiah of hate.

From the outset, he longed to fuse is Tarantino’s greatest achievement of debased celebrity, a Satanic guru with pop culture, to magnify his rage post-“Pulp,” is a movie that cross- with a death wish could rule. If Quenin its sound waves. And that’s just breeds the narrative magic of Old tin Tarantino, on the 50th anniversawhat he did — through his friend- Hollywood with an outrageous and ry of the Manson cataclysm (the film ship with Dennis Wilson of the Beach voluble yarn-spinning joy. It may trash starts shooting next year, for what will Boys, which led the group to record history, but part of its joke is: Which be a 2019 or end-of-2018 release), can uncork the full madness of that time, one of Manson’s songs (Guns N’ Roses “classic” WWII movie didn’t?

And yet, when I look back over and why it still speaks to us, he may did one, too, releasing it as an unlisted track on 1993’s “The Spaghetti Inci- Quentin’s career, there’s a little voice liberate himself as an artist, replacing dent”), or through his infamous psy- inside me that has never stopped mur- the more calculated audacity of his chotic belief that the Beatles were call- muring: Why are his first two movies recent work with the true audacity he ing out to him, sending him messages his best two? I know a lot of people owes himself.

North State Journal for Wednesday, July 19, 2017

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