North State Journal Vol. 8, Issue 27

Happy Labor Day from NSJ

the BRIEF this week

Hurricane Idalia could reach Florida as Category 3 storm

Tampa, Fla.

Gov. Ron DeSantis is urging people along a wide stretch of Florida’s Gulf Coast to make their nal preparations before Hurricane Idalia makes landfall. The hurricane is now forecast to become an extremely dangerous Category 3 storm, pushing a storm surge of up to 12 feet.

Residents from Tampa Bay north through the Big Bend area have been loading up on sandbags and evacuated from low-lying areas. The National Hurricane Center projects Idalia could power up to 120 mph and strike hard in a state still dealing with lingering damage from last year’s Hurricane Ian. The storm is expected to move through the Carolinas on Thursday.

Scalise diagnosed with blood cancer

Washington, D.C.

The second ranking House Republican says he has been diagnosed with blood cancer.

Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana said Tuesday that he has been diagnosed with multiple myeloma. The 57-year-old says he will continue to serve in the House as he undergoes treatment. He vowed to tackle the treatment with “strength and energy” and described the cancer as “very treatable.” Scalise was among several people wounded in 2017 when a ri e-wielding attacker red on lawmakers on a baseball eld in Alexandria, Virginia, outside Washington. He was shot in the hip and endured lengthy hospitalizations.

Cooper vetoes two more bills, bringing veto total to 91

The governor’s veto video message was described by top lawmakers as “an audition tape” for the Biden administration

By A.P. Dillon North

Journal

State

RALEIGH —Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper vetoed two more bills on Aug. 24, bringing his overall veto total for his two terms in o ce to 91. The four governors preceding Cooper who had veto power only vetoed 35 bills combined.

The two bills vetoed by the governor this time around were Senate Bill 512, Greater Accountability for Boards/Commissions, and Senate Bill 747, Election Law Changes.

Cooper’s veto message of Senate Bill 512 claims the measure will “hurt the e ective and e cient use of taxpayer money by impairing the Governor’s constitutionally required duty to execute the laws passed by the legislature.”

His veto message of the bill claims it “interrupts the critical work of boards and commissions to protect public health, provide clean air and water, recruit new jobs, lower electric bills and more,” and “Fundamentally it violates the separation of powers enshrined in the state Constitution.”

Cooper also called it a “legislative power grab.”

In a statement, Sen. Warren Daniel (R-Burke) refuted Coo-

See

A suspect, Tailei Qi, is accused of killing Zijie Yan

The Associated Press CHAPEL HILL — Police charged a UNC graduate student Tuesday with rst-degree murder in the fatal shooting of a faculty member that caused a campus lockdown amid a search for the gunman.

Tailei Qi, 34, was due in court later Tuesday for an initial hearing in the Monday killing of Zijie Yan inside a science building on the Chapel Hill campus. In addition to the murder count, he is charged with having a gun on educational property.

Yan is listed on the school’s website as an associate professor in the Department of Applied Physical Sciences, while Qi is listed as a graduate student in Yan’s research group.

pect in custody gives us an opportunity to gure out the why and even the how, and also helps us to uncover a motive and really just why this happened today. Why today, why at all?” UNC Police Chief Brian James said. “And we want to learn from this incident, and we will certainly work to do our best to ensure that this never happens again on the UNC campus.”

Brian James, UNC Police

Qi, who lives in Chapel Hill, was arrested during a roughly three-hour lockdown that followed the shooting, authorities said at a Monday news conference.

“To actually have the sus-

Back to college: Do any North Carolina schools still require a COVID-19 shot?

Shaw University in Raleigh appears to still be requiring vaccination proof

By A.P. Dillon North State Journal

RALEIGH — The return of long lines of cars packed with the essentials for life headed to dormitories and apartments on college and university campuses in North Carolina signals a return to normal following the COVID-19 pandemic.

While moving in is on most students’ minds, a recent report about Rutgers University in New Jersey still requiring students to show proof of a COVID-19 vaccination may be on the minds of parents.

A list compiled by the group No College Mandates shows more than 100 colleges nationwide as still requiring students to show proof of a COVID-19 vaccination.

No College Mandates describes itself as “a group of concerned parents, doctors, nurses, professors, students and other

college stakeholders working towards the common goal of ending COVID-19 vaccine mandates.”

On No College Mandates’ list were three schools in North Carolina: Bennett College in Greensboro, Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte, and Shaw University in Raleigh. North State Journal reached out to all three schools to see if the list was accurate or if the schools had changed their position on requiring vaccination proof.

Phanalphie F. Rhue, chief

chief

Campus police received a 911 call reporting shots red at Caudill Labs just after 1 p.m. Monday, James said. An emergency alert was issued and sirens sounded two minutes later, starting a lockdown that led frightened students and faculty to barricade themselves inside dorm rooms, bathrooms, classrooms and other school facilities.

O cers arriving at the lab building found a faculty member who had been fatally shot, James said. Based on witness information, police took the suspect into custody just after 2:30 p.m., according to the chief.

Jones declined to elaborate on the arrest, but TV sta-

See SHOOTING, page A3

global communications and experience o cer for Bennett College wrote in an email response to our inquiry that “Covid 19 vaccinations are no longer required for new or returning students at Bennett College” and that the school’s website “is currently being updated to re ect this.”

Similarly, Marion Jones, the director of health and wellness at Johnson C. Smith University, said the shot was no longer re-

See VACCINES, page A8

“Why today, why at all?”

AP PHOTO

Law enforcement respond to the UNC Chapel Hill campus Monday after the university locked down and warned of an armed person on campus.

Graduate student charged in murder of UNC faculty member

Some Christians are prone to look on the dark side of everything and to dwell more upon the di culties which they have gone through — than upon what God has done for them. Ask for their impression of the Christian life, and they will describe their continual con icts, their deep a ictions, their sad adversities, and the sinfulness of their hearts — yet with scarcely any allusion to the mercy and help that God has granted them.

But a Christian whose soul is in a healthy state will come forward joyously and say, “I will speak not about myself — but to the honor of my God. He has brought me up out of a horrible pit and out of the miry clay. He has set my feet upon a rock and established my goings. He has put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God. The Lord has done great things for me — and I am lled with joy.”

It is true that we endure trials — but it is just as true that we are delivered out of them. It is true that we have our corruptions, and mournfully we know this — but it is quite as true that we have an all-

VETOES from page 1

per’s veto claims. “Our state’s boards and commissions are often overlooked, but their regulatory authority has substantial impacts on our lives,” Daniel said. “Gov. Cooper has taken advantage of his appointment power by choosing members with no regard for the diverse makeup of our state.

“The legislature is the elected body closest to the people of North Carolina and has the ability to recruit a quali ed, diverse roster of appointees. Senate Bill 512 balances appointment power between the legislative and executive branches and brings better representation to North Carolina’s boards and commissions. I look forward to joining my colleagues in overriding Gov. Cooper’s misguided veto.”

In an April press statement on Senate Bill 512, Senate Leader Phil Berger (R-Eden) said, “Appointing members to our boards and commissions should not be limited to one particular person or administration” and that the legislature “needs to have a seat at the table when it comes to our boards and commissions.”

Senate Bill 512 amends the makeup of and how appointments are made to various boards and commissions. The bill would give some appointments to certain boards or commissions to the legislature that are currently only made by the governor.

The commissions and boards included in the bill are the Utilities Commission, Environmental Management Commission, Commission for Public Health, Board of Transportation, Coastal Resources Commission, Wildlife Resources Commission, N.C. Railroad Board of Directors and the UNC Health Care Board of Directors.

The bill also establishes an Economic Investment Committee with members including the secretary of Commerce, secretary of Revenue, director of the O ce of State Budget Management, the speaker of the House or his designee, the president pro tem of the Senate or his designee, and one appointment each by the House speaker and president pro tem of the Senate.

Cooper’s second veto was of Senate Bill 747. In his veto message, he accused Republicans of a power grab and discrimination against certain groups of voters when it came to early and absentee voting. He also accused the bill of “encouraging intimidation at the polls by election deniers and conspiracy believers.”

Under current law, absentee ballots can be received as late as 5 p.m. on the third day after Election Day. Under Senate Bill 747, the deadline is moved to 7:30 p.m. on Election Day regardless of postmark. Military and overseas voters would be the exception to that requirement.

Senate Bill 747 is around 42

su cient Savior who overcomes these corruptions and delivers us from their dominion.

The deeper our troubles — the louder our thanks to God who has led us through them and preserved us.

Our griefs cannot mar the melody of our praise; we reckon them to be the bass part of our life’s song: “The Lord has done great things for us—

and we are lled with joy!”

Charles Spurgeon (1834-1892) is one of the most widely read preachers in history and is known by many as the Prince of Preachers. Spurgeon was pastor of the New Park Street Chapel (later the Metropolitan Tabernacle) in London. His works are now in the public domain.

denier Cleta Mitchell, who was on the call trying to help him overturn the election in Georgia,” Cooper said in the video.

The governor also claimed, “If you’re a young person, Republicans really don’t want you to vote,” and “If you’re black or brown. Republicans really don’t want you to vote.”

Through his press account on X, Senate Leader Phil Berger (R-Eden) blasted Cooper’s video message.

people from voting.”

Senate Bill 747’s provisions on poll observers consolidate the statutes for those roles and contain no language about “stacking” observers by political party. Poll observers have always been a part of the voting process, and the bill would allow for no more than three at a time from the same political party to be in the voting areas.

pages long and makes several changes to conform with state and federal laws as well as a wide range of election law topics, including closing loopholes in same-day voter registration, removing foreign citizens from voter rolls, and challenges to ballots and registrations, as well as polling place issues, such as polling place judges and rules related to poll observers.

The bill requires the N.C. State Board of Elections to include a bar code or a unique identi er on each container-return envelope for mail-in absentee ballots for tracking purposes. Additionally, one-stop absentee voting would be renamed to “early voting.”

The governor’s o cial veto was preceded by a video message posted to X, formerly known as Twitter, in which he made similar claims about the bill as his veto message.

“Right now, legislative Republicans in North Carolina are pushing an all-out assault on the right to vote using the advice of Trump’s handpicked election

“Gov. Cooper is embarrassing himself and his o ce with this blatant audition tape for the Biden-Harris administration,” Berger’s Press Shop account said. “Instead of lying about the bill and belittling North Carolinians who want to observe what is happening in their polling places, he should work with us to improve election security.”

House Speaker Tim Moore (R-Kings Mountain) also responded to the governor.

“Gov. Cooper is mischaracterizing a bill that simply strengthens election integrity in North Carolina,” Moore said in a statement. “It’s unfortunate that he would rather score political points by crying ‘racism’ than be honest about the balanced, common-sense election reforms passed in the House and Senate.”

Moore also said, “I anticipate the House will swiftly override his veto.”

Some of Cooper’s video statements went as far as to claim Republicans “want to intimidate you by stacking the polling place with Republican ‘poll observers’ who will be watching you vote and can hear your conversations with election o cials.”

The governor then went a step further, adding, “Many of them will be election-denying conspiracy believers trying to disrupt the process and prevent certain

The rst to respond to Cooper’s video message was Daniel, who focused mainly on the governor’s poll observer claims.

“When North Carolina voters vote, democracy wins. That’s why we are creating a secure election system that makes it easy to vote and protects election integrity,” Daniel said. “But Gov. Cooper wants his handpicked partisans running our elections and he apparently feels threatened by North Carolinians observing what happens in their polling places.

“North Carolina is not a thirdworld dictatorship, no matter how hard Gov. Cooper tries to make it one. We have an open democracy. By overriding this veto, we’ll guarantee every citizen’s right to vote with condence in the security of our elections.”

Daniel’s statement also refuted the governor’s complaints about the absentee ballot acceptance deadline moving from three days after the election to election night.

The Burke County lawmaker pointed to the 30 other states that have an acceptance deadline on or before Election Day, per data published by the National Conference of State Legislatures. Daniel also referenced an April 2022 SurveyUSA/WRAL poll showing that 56% of citizens in North Carolina support Election Day as the deadline for mail-in ballots.

“The Lord has done great things for us — and we are lled with joy!” Psalm

The Swing” is an 18th-century oil painting by Jean-Honoré Fragonard in the Wallace Collection in London.

AP PHOTO

North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper vetoed two more bills last week, growing his total to a record 91.

Audit: Town of Farmville improperly administered $520K in block grants

By A.P. Dillon North State Journal

RALEIGH

— The N.C. State Auditor’s O ce has issued an audit report stating the Town of Farmville improperly administered Community Development Block Grant Neighborhood Revitalization (CBDG-NR) grant funds.

The Town of Farmville is located in Pitt County and has around 4,450 residents.

“The Town of Farmville (Town) improperly administered $520,000 in Community Development Block Grant Neighborhood Revitalization (Grant) funds by not following the selection process outlined in the Town’s application to the North Carolina Department of

Commerce (Commerce) for the funding,” according to the audit report. “As a result, homeowners did not have an equal opportunity to be selected for these Grant funds.”

The audit says the town could be required to repay grant funds that were not spent in accordance with the grant agreement.

Other ndings in the audit include the town’s board “failed to ensure the Town received full and fair consideration for a property exchange related to the Town’s re station,” as well as failing to make sure the town paid a “reasonable monthly rent for its temporary library.”

According to the audit, the board exchanged an existing re station for property in June 2019 in order to build a new re

4,450

Approximate population of Farmville

station. The existing station was appraised at $485,000, but the audit claims the town manager “judgmentally valued the existing re station at $325,000.”

A retrospective appraisal in May 2023 valued the existing re station property at $332,000.

“The new property was not appraised, but the Town Manager

estimated its value at $250,000 as part of the exchange. A retrospective appraisal valued the property at $142,000 at the time of the exchange,” the audit states. “Based on the original appraisal and retrospective appraisals, it is estimated that the Town likely incurred an economic loss of at least $108,000 and up to $268,000.”

The Town of Farmville rented a depot for the equivalent of more than $18,000 per month to serve as a temporary library.

The audit claims that was an “unreasonable amount in rent” given that a similar property was available for $6,000 per month, which the audit says could have saved the town “approximately $12,000 per month.”

Additionally, the town appar-

ently exceeded the maximum allowable amount when transferring money from its electric fund to its general fund by $54,794.

In its response, the Town of Farmville noted it received $750,000 in CBDG-NR block grants and had hired McDavid Associates to manage grant activities following procurement processes.

The town agreed some of the fund uses were “not consistent” with the grant program’s guidelines and would work “more closely” with the town’s consultant for those grants in the future.

Concerning the re stations, the town agreed it should have sought outside expert real estate advice but said nding a suitable site had taken considerable time and the site chosen was “far superior” and the seller had agreed to demolish the current building on the site at their own expense.

The town defended its choice of the depot building for its temporary library and stated the town “paid no rent for the use of the depot building.”

Reps. Torbett, Cotham honored Charter Schools Award

By A.P. Dillon North State Journal

RALEIGH — Two of the House K-12 Education Committee co-chairs responsible for legislation advancing school choice and charter school access were given the 2023 Champion for Charter Schools Award last month.

Reps. John Torbett (R-Gaston) and Tricia Cotham (R-Mecklenburg) were two of the 19 state and local lawmakers given the award by the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools (NAPCS). The recipients were recognized for their commitment to “seeing public education and charter schools thrive and expand in their state,” according to a press release by NAPCS.

“This bipartisan group of lawmakers has fought for students, families, and high-quality public education options in their states,” Nina Rees, president and CEO of the NAPCS, said in the press release. “We celebrate and commend their work in state capitols and city halls, and for putting the interests of students and families rst. The ability for public charter schools to innovate and serve more families and communities is possible due to the sound policy put forth by lawmakers like our 2023 Champions.”

“I am humbled and heartened by the honor of being named a Charter Champion,” Cotham said in the NAPCS press release. “It is extremely rewarding to see so many North Carolinians working toward the common goal of putting children rst, and to be recognized for being a part of that process is just incredible.

“As a single mother and former teacher/principal, I know rsthand that we need real solutions for the current state of our education system. It takes individual lawmakers working together and having meaningful dialogue to solve those problems that actually need to be solved. I am proud of the innovative work our charters do across North Carolina and the nation. I look forward to watching charter school students, faculty and sta continue their paths to progress and achievement as my colleagues and I move forward in the Legisla-

SHOOTING from page 1 tion WRAL reported that it took place in a residential neighborhood near campus.

The lockdown was lifted around 4:15 p.m. No other injuries were reported.

“This loss is devastating, and the shooting damages the trust and safety that we so often take for granted in our campus community,” Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz said.

Yan led the Yan Research Group, which Qi joined last year, according to the group’s UNC webpage. Yan earned his doctorate in materials engineer-

ture.”

The Mecklenburg lawmaker has spearheaded several school choice bills this legislative session, including one of the largest expansions of school choice in the state; House Bill 823, titled, “Choose your school, choose your future.” Under the bill, all families in the state would have some level of access to the Opportunity Scholarship Program which supplies funding for families to send their child to the private school of their choice.

“First let me say how honored I am to receive the recognition as a Charter Champion,” Torbett said in the press release. “Three years ago, I started o on a Fix Our Education System campaign. Over that time, we have won the battle on many issues needing to be corrected to better our public education system.

“I remain comforted by the educational opportunities offered to our students through our Public Charter Schools. Their approach to educating

ing from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York and previously worked as an assistant professor at Clarkson University. He joined the Chapel Hill faculty in 2019.

Qi is a graduate student in the department of applied physical sciences who studies nanopartical synthesis and light-matter interaction. He moved to the U.S. from China after earning a bachelor’s degree in physics at Wuhan University, according to the UNC webpage for the Yan Research Group. The shooting sparked fear at the university just a week after students returned for the start

children is the example to follow to better our children’s educational outcomes. I look forward to our charter schools’ growth and continued success in educating North Carolina’s next generation of leaders.”

Torbett was the primary sponsor of over a dozen education-related bills this session as well as being a strong supporter of multiple charter school bills, including House Bill 219 and House Bill 618, which converted the current Charter Schools Advisory Board into the Charter Schools Review Board. House Bill 618, now law due to a veto override, gives the new review board the authority to approve charters, a role previously held by the State Board of Education.

Cotham was presented with her Champion for Charter Schools Award on July 10 at the North Carolina Association for Public Charter Schools (NCAPCS) 2023 Annual Conference in Cherokee.

“Representative Cotham lters legislative decisions

of the fall semester.

Clayton Ulm, 23, a graduate student, said he was in a class of about 50 to 70 people when they were told to go into lockdown.

The alarm system had gone o , but screens in the classroom had also glared with the lockdown order.

“Then there was quite a bit of panic as students were trying to gure out what to do,” Ulm said in a LinkedIn message while still in the classroom, heading into his third hour of lockdown.

“Then we all started hiding beneath our chairs and under desks. Some students went and locked the doors.”

through her motto of ‘Kids

First,’” said NCAPCS Executive Director Rhonda Dillingham in her nomination of Cotham to the National Alliance. “Being the mother of two and a former schoolteacher shapes her perspective. A true Changemaker, Representative Cotham is a erce defender of parental choice and North Carolina’s public charter schools.”

In her acceptance speech at the NCAPCS Conference reception, Cotham said, “This is personal to me with education. I am a mom of two boys. Education is not one-size- ts-all. It’s absolutely not.

“It’s standing on those principles and again, about putting kids rst,” said Cotham. ”That’s what you do every day. That’s why you’re here, that is your passion. For all the educators, for all the sta , thank you so much for what you do for children all around North Carolina and in this country.”

On Aug. 15, Dillingham presented Torbett with his award

at a private ceremony in his Legislative O ce.

“Rep. Torbett, as chairman of the House K-12 Education Committee, your sponsorship and defense of the Charter School Omnibus bill is evidence of your continued support of North Carolina’s public charter schools,” said Dillingham.

“In addition, we appreciate your stewardship of pro-charter causes through your roles as chairman of the House Appropriations Committee on Education and vice chair of the Joint Legislative Education Oversight Committee.”

Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper had vetoed House Bill 219, the Charter School Omnibus bill. The veto was one of six overridden by the General Assembly on Aug. 16 and the bill is now law. “I am both honored and humbled to be selected for this award,” Torbett said when receiving the award, adding he was sorry to have missed the festivities in Cherokee and that legislative matters kept him in Raleigh.

“This Charter School award is very special to me as it comes at a critical juncture in education where we as parents and grandparents of our school-aged children are asking for change in our education system,” said Torbett. “My focus is and will continue to be on our children succeeding and allowing parents a choice in their children’s education.”

In 2011, the cap on the number of public charter schools was lifted, and the number of charter schools has more than doubled since then, going from 100 schools in 2011 to 206 as of the 2022-23 school year.

According to a presentation given to the State Board of Education this past April, as of Dec. 1, 2022, there were more than 137,500 students enrolled in one of North Carolina’s public charter schools. That gure represents just over 9% of the K-12 student population.

Self-reported data from the state’s public charter schools showed that 85% of those schools had a waitlist totaling more than 77,000 students.

The report also showed charter schools had surpassed local districts in the percentage of black students enrolled 26.24% to 24.61%, respectively.

said.

Students started listening to police scanners to try to get information about where the shooter was, Ulm said. The panic eventually subsided. And people were allowed to use the nearby restrooms. Still, he called it “surreal seeing the mass panic.”

About two hours after the rst alert went out, o cers were still arriving in droves, with about 50 police vehicles at the scene and helicopters circling over the school.

It took about an hour and a half to lift the lockdown after the arrest because authorities were making sure they had the right suspect in custody, James

Police also had received calls around campus about other potential victims and gunshots that needed to be checked out, he said.

“We had to ensure that the entire campus was safe,” James said.

James said the weapon has not been found.

“We are looking for a rearm. It is too early to determine if the rearm was legally obtained,” he said.

The university, with about 20,000 undergraduate students and 12,000 graduate students, canceled Tuesday classes.

AP PHOTO

State Rep. John Torbett (R-Gaston), pictured in March, was one of two legislators given the 2023 Champion for Charter Schools Award last month.

OPINION

Neal Robbins, publisher | Frank Hill, senior opinion editor

On Trump, other GOP candidates and accountability

Trump’s a grown man who has been in this rodeo many times before, and he undoubtedly pays his surrogates, senior sta ers and legal team very well to get whatever the message is on any given day out on his behalf.

ONE THING both his critics and defenders would agree on about former President Donald Trump is that he has no problem whatsoever speaking up for himself and bringing the re to his foes in the media, in politics and beyond.

So with that in mind, it’s been frustrating to see the other Republican presidential candidates routinely being asked to answer questions regarding his legal woes, which stem from the four indictments the current GOP frontrunner has been hit with over the last ve months.

I get questioning the others on things like, “Would you consider pardoning Trump if you’re elected president?” and “Do you agree with Trump that these indictments constitute election interference?”

But beyond that, the other GOP candidates have their campaigns to run and shouldn’t be put on the hook for comment every time news breaks about Trump, which these days is pretty often.

And yet that’s exactly what happened Thursday to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis during a trip he, his wife and three young children made to Iowa to the iconic site of the famous 1989 lm “Field of Dreams.”

DeSantis, a big baseball fan who was captain of the baseball team during his time at Yale, was asked by a reporter about what they described as the “split screen” of DeSantis and his family having a good time while campaigning in Iowa while Trump was getting booked, complete with a now-viral mugshot, in Georgia on that same day.

Instead of taking the bait, DeSantis simply responded by saying, “Well, I’m glad I’m at the Field of Dreams. I’m happy to be here.”

Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), also a presidential contender, was more direct in pointing out how persistent questions related to Trump’s most recent indictment are “a tremendous distraction from what the average person and the average household is facing.”

But it was DeSantis who felt the heat from MAGA Inc. in the aftermath of his response, with some Trump campaign surrogates expressing outrage

EDITORIAL | MARK TWAIN

The art of writing

I believed that the trio had done work enough and were entitled to a permanent rest.

THERE HAS NEVER BEEN a time in the past thirty- ve years when my literary shipyard hadn’t two or more half- nished ships on the ways, neglected and baking in the sun; generally, there have been three or four; at present there are ve.

This has an unbusinesslike look, but it was not purposeless ― it was intentional. As long as a book would write itself, I was a faithful and interested amanuensis, and my industry did not ag; but the minute that the book tried to shift to my head the labor of contriving its situations, inventing its adventures and conducting its conversations, I put it away and dropped it out of my mind. Then I examined my un nished properties to see if among them there might not be one whose interest in itself had revived, through a couple of years’ restful idleness, and was ready to take me on again as its amanuensis.

It was by accident that I found out that a book is pretty sure to get tired, along about the middle, and refuse to go on with its work until its powers and its interest should have been refreshed by a rest and its depleted stock of raw materials reinforced by lapse of time.

It was when I had reached the middle of “Tom Sawyer” that I made this invaluable nd. At page 400 of my manuscript, the story made a sudden and determined halt and refused to proceed another step. Day after day it still refused. I was disappointed, distressed, and immeasurably astonished, for I knew quite well that the tale was not nished, and I could not understand why I was not able to go on with it.

The reason was very simple — my tank had run dry; it was empty; the stock of materials in it was exhausted; the story could not go on without materials; it could not be wrought out of nothing. When the manuscript had lain in a pigeon-hole two years, I took it out one day, and read the last chapter that I had written. It was then that I made the great discovery that when the tank runs dry you’ve only to leave it alone and it will ll up again, in time, while you are asleep — also while you are at work at other things, and are quite unaware that this unconscious and pro table cerebration is going on. There was plenty of material now, and the book went on and nished itself without any trouble.

Ever since then, when I have been writing a book, I have pigeon-holed it without misgivings when its tank ran dry, well knowing that it would ll up again without any of my help within the next two or three years, and that then the work of completing it would be simple and easy. “The Prince and the Pauper” struck work in the middle, because the tank was dry, and I did not touch it again for two years. A dry interval of two years occurred in “The Connecticut Yankee at the Court of King Arthur.” A like interval has occurred in the middle of other books of mine.

Two similar intervals have occurred in a story of mine called “Which Was It?” In fact, the second interval has gone considerably over time, for it is now four years since that second one intruded itself. I am sure that the tank is full again now, and that I could take up that book and write the other

that DeSantis refused to make Trump’s situation the sole focus of his campaign.

“Imagine thinking it’s a good idea to go do a family photo op at the ‘Field of Dreams’ on the same day Trump is having his mugshot taken as a symbol of the complete weaponization of the American justice system,” former Trump Deputy Director of National Intelligence Cli Sims wrote on Twitter.

“Totally oblivious to the moment & out of touch with the national mood,” Sims also wrote.

Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr. piggybacked o Sims’ post with a similar message.

“Either [DeSantis] simply doesn’t know what time it is or he’s allowing his establishment never-Trump consultants, who are making millions o of his failing campaign, to control his every move!” Trump Jr. alleged.

Here’s a thought: Why not let Trump and his Very Online defenders be accountable for what happens to Trump and not every other GOP candidate out there on the campaign trail? After all, Trump doesn’t get questions often about his rivals and their campaign issues precisely because their issues are not his issues.

The reverse is also true for his Republican opponents.

Enough already. Trump’s a grown man who has been in this rodeo many times before, and he undoubtedly pays his surrogates, senior sta ers, and legal team very well to get whatever the message is on any given day out on his behalf.

It’s time for the mainstream media and the Trump presidential campaign to stop trying to make every other candidate answerable for his legal issues. North Carolina native Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym Sister Toldjah and is a media analyst and regular contributor to RedState and Legal Insurrection.

half of it without a break or any lapse of interest — but I shan’t do it. The pen is irksome to me. I was born lazy, and dictating has spoiled me. I am quite sure I shall never touch a pen again; therefore, that book will remain un nished — a pity, too, for the idea of it is (actually) new and would spring a handsome surprise upon the reader, at the end.

There is another un nished book, which I should probably entitle “The Refuge of The Derelicts”. It is half- nished, and will remain so. There is still another one, entitled “The Adventures of a Microbe During Three Thousand Years ― By a Microbe”. It is half- nished and will remain so. There is yet another ― “The Mysterious Stranger”. It is more than halfnished. I would dearly like to nish it, and it causes me a real pang to re ect that it is not to be. These several tanks are full now, and those books would go gaily along and complete themselves if I would hold the pen, but I am tired of the pen.

There was another of these half- nished stories. I carried it as far thirtyeight thousand words four years ago, then destroyed it for fear I might someday nish it. Huck Finn was the teller of the story and of course, Tom Sawyer and Jim were the heroes of it. But I believed that the trio had done work enough and were entitled to a permanent rest.

In Rouen, in ’93, I destroyed fteen thousand dollars’ worth of manuscript, and in Paris, in the beginning of ’94, I destroyed ten thousand dollars’ worth — I mean, estimated as magazine stu . I was afraid to keep those piles of manuscripts on hand, lest I be tempted to sell them, for I was fairly well-persuaded that they were not up to standard.

Ordinarily there would have been no temptation present, and I would not think of publishing doubtful stu — but I was heavily in debt then, and the temptation to mend my condition was so strong I burnt the manuscripts to get rid of it. My wife not only made no objection, but encouraged me to do it, for she cared more for my reputation than other concern of ours. About that time, she helped me put another temptation behind me. It was an o er of sixteen thousand dollars a year, for ve years, to let my name be used as editor of a humorous periodical.

I praise her for furnishing her help in that temptation, for it is her due. There was no temptation about it, in fact, but she would have o ered her help, just the same, if there had been one. I can conceive of many wild and extravagant things when my imagination is in good repair, but I can conceive of nothing quite so wild and extravagant as the idea of my accepting the editorship of a humorous periodical. I should regard that as the saddest (for me) of all occupations.

If l should undertake it, I should have to add to it the occupation of undertaker, to relieve it in some degree of its cheerlessness. I could edit a serious periodical with relish and a strong interest, but I have never cared enough about humor to qualify me to edit it or sit in judgment upon it.

Aug. 30, 1906, entry — Autobiography of Mark Twain Part Two

EDITORIAL | STACEY MATTHEWS

Blahous’ laws of politics

Article rst appeared in the July 25, 2023 edition of Discourse magazine published by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University

7th Law: Political attacks often reveal more about the attacker than the attacked.

Sometimes, politicians are deservedly on the receiving end of erce criticism. No one has a right to public o ce, and those who do wrong — however unintentionally — are appropriately subject to questions regarding their tness to serve.

Nevertheless, it is not the attacked who chooses whether a political attack takes place but rather the attacker. The critic chooses both whether and how to criticize, a decision that usually re ects how the attacker wishes to position themselves relative to their target. Thus, as a general rule, whenever you read of how one political actor has castigated another one, you are usually learning more about the attacker than you are about the target. The applications of this principle are so myriad that any selection of examples seems preferential. Republican attacks on President Joe Biden over lax border security re ect the political emphasis that Republicans, not Democrats, wish to place on illegal immigration. Democratic attacks on Republicans over environmental policy re ect the higher priority that Democratic voters assign to climate change and other environmental concerns. The list goes on ad in nitum. Citizens should always bear in mind that attackers choose the subject of attacks, and that these choices generally promote the attackers’ political or policy agendas.

A corollary to this principle is that whenever you set out to grossly caricature a political opponent, you more often caricature yourself. The more extreme your descriptions of people on the other side of the aisle, the more extreme you reveal yourself to be.

8th Law: Political advice nearly always tracks the adviser’s policy preferences.

I rst realized this principle back in 2009-10 when, at the same time that survey after survey indicated that Americans opposed the passage of the A ordable Care Act as introduced, Democratic political consultants were telling members that the most bene cial thing they could do politically was to pass the bill swiftly into law. There seemed to be virtually no evidence supporting this advice, and indeed, passage of the ACA ultimately led Democrats to one of the worst election performances in modern history in 2010. These signals were loudly communicated

in advance by voters in multiple surveys long before the ACA was passed. I couldn’t help but wonder how it could be that professional political strategists were urging Congress to do something that was obviously bad politics and would later cost many of them their seats.

The truth only became clear after subsequent observation of the behavior of political strategists on all sides: Political strategists aren’t actually in the business of giving objective, accurate political advice. Instead, they represent a particular political vantage point, and they work to advance it. The strategists who urged passage of the ACA did so not because survey data really said this would be politically advantageous but because they believed the law would do good things and that voters would come to appreciate that once it was passed. In short, their strategic advice followed from their policy views and their political loyalties.

The story of the ACA is just one example. Democratic strategists will usually argue that enacting Democratic legislation is good politics; Republican strategists will argue that advancing Republican priorities is good politics. And both sides might well be correct because in modern politics politicians bene t primarily from pleasing their party base. But the self-promoting behavior goes further than that. There are populist analysts on the right who persistently argue that America First populism is good politics; protraditional family activists who argue that family-friendly policies make good politics; market conservative analysts who argue that Republicans should back away from culture wars and focus on economic freedom; progressive analysts who argue that enacting sweeping progressive legislation is the best political strategy; and moderate Democratic analysts who argue that their party should turn away from identity politics to focus on kitchentable economic concerns. In short, pretty much every commentator you see on TV is arguing that the policies he or she personally supports are politically bene cial.

The rule of thumb is: Only pay serious attention to a political analyst when they acknowledge that the position they personally favor is not a political winner. It’s rare for any of them to say this, but if one ever says: “I personally favor X, but voters do not,” that’s when you should take note. Otherwise, their analysis should be heavily discounted.

Charles Blahous is the J. Fish and Lillian F. Smith chair and senior research strategist at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University.

Why won’t COVID lockdown artists admit they were wrong?

COVID mania just won’t go away. The deadly strains of the virus have been gone for two years now, and yet the recent outbreak of a mild u-like variant is again stoking panic on the Left.

Nearly 100 universities are requiring masks this fall.

Lionsgate movie studios in Los Angeles and Atlanta-based Morris Brown College this week stated they are reinstating not just mask mandates but social distancing measures and contact tracing.

CNN, which led the panic in 2020 and 2021 — causing manic school, restaurant and business shutdowns and vaccine mandates — recently put out a headline on its website that encouraged its readers not to go outside without a mask on. Really? The latest evidence nds this is less dangerous than a normal u virus, and tracking data suggest that the wave has already peaked.

What’s even more disturbing here is that the leftist medical community and the media aren’t renouncing their calls for mitigation strategies that were catastrophically wrong in the panic era of 2020 and 2021 — but instead calling for more of these assaults on freedom in the future.

It is one thing for well-meaning medical experts to have disagreed about how to best combat a once-in-a-halfcentury deadly virus. We didn’t know exactly what we were dealing with. But now we know with concrete scienti c evidence that most mandates and lockdowns had a small impact on the spread of the virus and fatalities. It turns out there was almost no di erence in death rates in states with strict lockdowns and no lockdowns at all. The same is true of cross-country evidence.

Healthy children were never at risk from COVID (something we knew early on), so shutting down schools for one or two years was a sop to the teachers unions but a disaster for this generation of kids. Test scores are the worst in 30 years.

AS STUDENTS ACROS S the nation prepare to go back to school, one can’t help but note that the typically routine milestone must feel a bit different for North Carolinians this time around. The term “school choice” has been in heavy rotation during the current legislative session. Now, as lawmakers shift focus toward the state budget, it behooves us to remember that many families are shifting their focus toward the educational choices that lie ahead for their children in the 2023-24 school year and beyond.

Charter schools have been an avenue for N.C. families for more than 25 years, and this fall over 140,000 students will be enrolled in the state’s 211 charter schools. Charters are free, public and open to all. Their lottery-based admissions processes transcend not only ZIP codes but also socioeconomic level, race, faith, gender, disability status and political affiliation. Any North Carolina parent can enter their child in the enrollment lottery for any North Carolina charter school. That is true school choice.

N.C. public charters were fifth in the nation in enrollment growth during the first two years of the pandemic, with a 19% average enrollment increase statewide. Now more than 77,000 N.C. students are on charter school waiting lists. These numbers, along with numerous studies and polls, show that families in this state want more choices when it comes to the education of their children.

Because charter schools play a critical role in the parent choice ecosystem, key policymakers in the General Assembly have been working diligently toward pro-charter initiatives to accommodate that demand. This has indeed been a golden era of charter-related legislation for our General Assembly, and charter advocates have much to celebrate. Out of 19 state and local lawmakers honored with the Champion for Charter Schools Award from the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools in 2023, two of them were North Carolina’s own: Reps. Tricia Cotham and John Torbett.

What does pro-charter legislation look like?

BE IN TOUCH

Fair funding, opportunities for the expansion of successful charters and amenable environs for new charters to be established in communities that do not currently have that kind of choice. The founding purpose of charter schools has always been to use the same per-pupil funding as district schools but use it in a different way — one that will ideally produce new and improved outcomes while still adhering to the principles of public accountability and the fundamental respect of students’ constitutionally protected rights. Perhaps this is why the word most often associated with charter schools is “innovative.” They are, by design, a different means to the same end that their district counterparts strive toward: A success story for public education made manifest in each student that walks through their doors.

I have taught in district schools, founded charter schools and had children in both. As the leader of North Carolina’s Charter Support Organization, my mission is to advocate for charters within the broader realm of parent choice. It is worthwhile to acknowledge that what is being done at the state level these days is being done to expand that realm — to include more options under that parent choice umbrella.

Because they have been amplifying educational options for years, charter schools are a logical starting point in a broad movement that will continue to grow. I look forward to seeing them flourish in this legislative epoch and beyond; but what I most celebrate this season is the increase in choices and rights — not selective privileges — that North Carolina’s parents will have this year and in the years to come. My best wishes to every single child heading back to school this fall — and to the parents, caregivers, educators and administrators who are working so hard to get them where they each need to be.

Before the pandemic, only 15% of public school students were chronically absent — more than 18 or more days a year.

Stanford University education professor Thomas Dee’s data shows an estimated 6.5 million additional students are now chronically absent. In Connecticut and Massachusetts, chronic absenteeism remains double its prepandemic rate.

But polls show that Democrats — even those that are highly educated — generally still support the lockdowns that were mandated. These are the same people who lecture about “following the science.” The most comprehensive study by experts at Johns Hopkins University found death rates from lockdowns were reduced by 0.1%. But how many people died from the isolation of lockdowns, delayed health screening for cancer and the increase in drug overdoses?

Biden’s vaccine mandates only made Americans more resistant to getting pricked. They back red.

Worst of all, Anthony Fauci, who remains a hero of the Left, recently not only refused to admit the errors of his advice but said the “lockdown was absolutely justi ed.”

Why does this bizarre rewrite of recent history matter? Because the fearmongering Left can’t wait to install new lockdowns every time we have a new u virus and health scare. They’ve even started putting out feelers for occasional climate change economic shutdowns. Those who love freedom must strenuously resist this coming tyranny. Stephen Moore is a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation and chief economist at FreedomWorks.

Letters addressed to the editor may be sent to letters@nsjonline.com or 1201 Edwards Mill Rd., Suite 300, Raleigh, NC 27607. 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.

Rhonda Dillingham is the executive director of the North Carolina Association for Public Charter Schools.

COLUMN

| RHONDA DILLINGHAM

Back to school: forward for charters, choice

Meadows says Georgia election actions part of his o cial duties

The former U.S. congressman from N.C. and White House chief of sta was indicted last week

The Associated Press

ATLANTA — Mark Meadows testi ed in court Monday that actions detailed in a sweeping indictment that accuses him of participating in an illegal conspiracy to overturn then-President Donald Trump’s 2020 election loss were all part of his job as White House chief of sta . Meadows made the claim as part of his argument that the case should be moved from a state court to federal court. U.S. District Judge Steve Jones did not immediately rule.

As Trump was consumed by claims of widespread election fraud in the weeks after his 2020 loss, Meadows said, it was di cult to focus on the things they needed to be doing to wind down the presidency. As a result, Meadows said, he took actions to determine whether the allegations were true, including actions prosecutors allege were improper. Meadows — a former U.S. congressman from North Carolina — said he didn’t believe he did anything that was “outside my scope as chief of sta .”

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who used Georgia’s racketeering law to bring the case, alleges that Trump, Meadows and 17 others participated in a wide-ranging conspiracy to try to keep the Republican president in power illegally even after his election loss to Democrat Joe Biden. Willis’ team argued that Meadows’ actions were political in nature and not performed as part of his o cial duties.

It’s just one of four criminal cases Trump is currently facing. In Washington on Monday, a judge overseeing a federal case over charges that Trump sought to illegally subvert the results of the 2020 election set a trial date for March 4, 2024, right in the heart of the presidential primary calendar.

During the Georgia hearing, Meadows attorney George J. Terwilliger III called his client to the stand and asked him about his duties as Trump’s chief of sta . The lawyer then walked him through the acts alleged in the indictment to ask if he had done those as part of his job. For most of the acts listed, Meadows said he had performed them as part of his o cial duties.

In the cross-examination, prosecutor Anna Cross ticked through the same acts to ask Meadows what federal policy was being advanced in each of them. He said repeatedly that the federal interest was in ensuring accurate and fair elections, but she accused him several times of not answering her question.

Meadows spent nearly four hours on the stand, sometimes struggling to remember details of the events that unfolded over about two months following the election. But he remained upbeat, indulging in self-deprecation with a quip about how he sometimes forgets to take out the trash, smiling frequently and laughing at the judge’s jokes.

Prosecutor Donald Wakeford told the judge during his closing argument that the law that

allows a case to be moved from a state court to federal court is meant to protect federal authority. But he argued that there is no federal authority to protect in this case because Meadows’ actions were explicitly political and meant to keep Trump in power, making them illegal under the Hatch Act, which restricts partisan political activity by federal employees. Terwilliger contended that the state cannot use an indictment to a ect what a chief of sta does in his job. Even a mistake on Meadows’ part wouldn’t be grounds to keep from moving the case to federal court “unless it was malicious and done willfully,” he said.

The allegations against Meadows include participating, along with Trump and others, in meetings or communications with state lawmakers that were meant to advance the alleged illegal scheme to keep Trump in power; traveling to Atlanta’s suburbs, where a ballot envelope signature audit was happening; arranging a phone call between Trump and a Georgia secretary of state investigator; and participating in a January 2021 phone call between Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Ra ensperger during

which Trump suggested Ra ensperger could help “ nd 11,780 votes” needed for him to win Georgia.

Called as a witness by prosecutors, Ra ensperger said in response to the e orts by Trump and his allies in the weeks following the election that “outreach to this extent was extraordinary.”

But under questioning by Meadows’ attorney Michael Francisco, he said Meadows himself did not ask him to do anything he thought was inappropriate.

The judge said that he would try to rule as quickly as possible but that there isn’t a lot of relative case law and he needs to give the matter “thorough consideration.” In the meantime, the case continues to progress in Fulton County Superior Court, and the judge said Meadows will have to honor a Sept. 6 arraignment if he hasn’t ruled by then.

If Meadows succeeds in moving his case to federal court, it would mean a jury pool that includes a broader area than just overwhelmingly Democratic Fulton County. It would also mean a trial that would not be photographed or televised, as cameras are not allowed inside. But it does not open the door for Trump, if he’s reelected in 2024, or another president to pardon anyone because any convictions would still happen under state law.

At least four others charged in the indictment are also seeking to move their cases to federal court, and there is speculation that Trump will try to do the same. Trump attorneys Steve Sadow and Jennifer Little listened attentively in the courtroom to the Meadows hearing Monday, along with lawyers for some of the other defendants.

During his testimony, Meadows denied two of the allegations made against him in the indictment. He testi ed that he never asked White House personnel o cer John McEntee to draft a memo to Vice President Mike Pence on how to delay certi cation of the election.

“When this came out in the indictment, it was the biggest surprise for me,” Meadows said. He later said, “Me asking Johnny McEntee for this kind of a memo just didn’t happen.”

He also said he did not text the Georgia secretary of state’s o ce chief investigator, Frances Watson, as the indictment alleged. Rather, he said, he believes that text was sent to Jordan Fuchs, the deputy secretary of state.

Ukrainians move to North Dakota for oil eld jobs to help families facing war back home

The Associated Press

DICKINSON, N.D. — Maksym Bunchukov remembers hearing rockets explode in Zaporizhzhia as the war in Ukraine began.

“It was terrible,” he said. He and his wife sent their adult daughter west to Lviv for safety and joined her later with their pets.

Now, about 18 months after the war broke out, Bunchukov is in North Dakota, like thousands of Ukrainians who came over a century ago.

He is one of nearly 30 new arrivals who are part of a trade group’s pilot e ort through the Uniting for Ukraine humanitarian program to recruit refugees and migrants during a workforce shortage.

Some workers want to bring their families to North Dakota while others hope to return to Ukraine.

“I will try to invite my wife, invite my daughter, invite my cat

VACCINES from page 1

quired at their institution.

“As a campus community, we continue to take every precaution we can to keep everyone safe,” Jones said in an emailed statement to North State Journal. “Because we have moved away from requiring a previously taken negative COVID-19 test to return to campus and considering recent medical guidance from the Centers for Disease

and invite my dog,” Bunchukov told The Associated Press a week after his arrival.

The Bakken program has humanitarian and workforce missions, said Project Manager Brent Sanford, a former lieutenant governor who watched the Bakken oil rush unfold during his time as mayor of boomtown Watford City from 2010 to 2016.

The oil boom initially was met by an “organic workforce” of western North Dakotans with experience in oil eld jobs elsewhere. But as the economy reeled from the Great Recession, thousands of people ocked to the Bakken oil eld from other states and even other countries to ll high-wage jobs, Sanford said.

Technological advances for combining horizontal drilling and fracking — injecting high-pressure mixtures of water, sand and chemicals into rocks — made capturing the oil locked deep underground possible.

“People came by planes, trains and automobiles, every

Control and Prevention and our partners at Atrium Health, we have decided to end (at least for the foreseeable future) the University’s COVID-19 vaccination and booster shot mandate for the 2023-24 academic year.

“While we strongly encourage our campus community to manage their personal health by obtaining an initial COVID-19 shot and subsequent boosters, neither will be a requirement nor will anyone be penalized for not

way possible from everywhere for the opportunity for work,” Council President Ron Ness said. “They were upside down on their mortgage, their life or whatever, and they could reset in North Dakota.”

But the 2015 downturn, coronavirus pandemic and other recent shocks probably led workers back to their home states, especially if moving meant returning to warmer and bigger cities, Sanford said. Workforce issues have become “very acute” in the last 10 months, Ness said.

Ness estimated there are roughly 2,500 jobs available in an oil eld producing about 1.1 million barrels per day. Employers don’t advertise for every individual job opening, but post once or twice for many open positions, he said.

An immigration law rm told Ness that Uniting for Ukraine would t well for North Dakota given its Ukrainian heritage, similar climate and agrarian people, he said.

doing so. We still remain mask optional. With the new variants that have come out, we encourage our students to continue to practice social distancing, wash their hands, use hand sanitizer and wear a mask if they are sick.”

Jones also said the school has various supplies available for students such as at-home test kits, masks and hand sanitizer, and the university will continue to publish and maintain its COVID-19 dashboard.

UN experts say Islamic State group almost doubled the territory they control in Mali in under a year United Nations Islamic State extremists have almost doubled the territory they control in Mali in less than a year, and their al-Qaida-linked rivals are capitalizing on the deadlock and perceived weakness of armed groups that signed a 2015 peace agreement, United Nations experts said in a new report.

The stalled implementation of the peace deal and sustained attacks on communities have o ered the IS group and al-Qaida a liates a chance “to reenact the 2012 scenario,” they said.

That’s the year when a military coup took place in the West African country and rebels in the north formed an Islamic state two months later. The extremist rebels were forced from power in the north with the help of a French-led military operation, but they moved from the arid north to more populated central Mali in 2015 and remain active.

In August 2020, Mali’s president was overthrown in a coup that included an army colonel who carried out a second coup and was sworn in as president in June 2021. He developed ties to Russia’s military and Russia’s Wagner mercenary group whose head, Yevgeny Prigozhin, was reportedly killed in a plane crash on a ight from Moscow last week.

The panel of experts said in the report circulated Friday that the impasse in implementing the 2015 agreement — especially the disarmament, demobilization and reintegration of combatants into society — is empowering al-Qaidalinked Jama’a Nusrat ulIslam wa al-Muslimin, known as JNIM, to vie for leadership in northern Mali.

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich appeals extension of pretrial detention in Russia

The program’s sponsors, including company owners, managers and employees, agree to help Ukrainians nd work, health care, schools for their children and safe and a ordable housing.

About 160 Ukrainians have arrived in North Dakota, the majority in Bismarck, as part of Uniting for Ukraine, according to State Refugee Coordinator Holly Triska-Dally.

Applications from prospective sponsors from around the state have “gone up considerably” in recent months, likely due to more awareness but also Ukrainians who are “working and beginning to thrive” and ling to support their families, she said.

The Bakken program aims to recruit 100 workers by the end of 2023 and 400 after one year. Those 400 may not all be Ukrainians. Some will drive, start in shops or build roads, pads and fences, “everything from there up to well site operations,” Ness said.

Shaw University did not respond by publication time, but as of Aug. 28, the school’s “Student Health Center“ page displays a mandate for proof of a COVID-19 vaccination.

The Student Health Center website was last updated in August 2022, however, it still currently states that “all new and transfer students must submit proof of vaccination.”

The website also says all students have to upload a negative

New York City Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich has appealed a Moscow court’s decision to extend his pretrial detention in Russia until the end of November, according to documents on the court’s website.

The American journalist was arrested in March during a work trip to the city of Yekaterinburg, almost 1,200 miles east of Moscow. He is the rst U.S. journalist since the Soviet era to be held on espionage charges in Russia.

An order that authorized keeping Gershkovich in jail before trial was set to expire on Aug. 30. The Moscow City Court extended the custody order by three months, drawing objections from U.S. government o cials and the Journal.

The Wall Street Journal released a statement referencing Gershkovich’s “improper” detention “for doing his job as a journalist.”

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

PCR test result unless they have a medical or religious exemption, and the school “will not provide housing options for students unless they present a negative test result before check-in.”

The public colleges and universities that are part of the University of North Carolina System did not require vaccination and, per an April 2021 letter, deferred to the N.C. Commission on Public Health as the arbiter of such a mandate.

AP PHOTO

White House chief of sta Mark Meadows speaks with reporters at the White House in 2020. Meadows testi ed during a hearing Monday in Atlanta.

US, China agree to discuss export controls as commerce secretary visits

$2,507,049,424

$113,651,020

$178,080,402

$125,000,000 Unreserved

$6,489,112,082

$0

TAXES from page A9

le. Tim Hugo, executive director of the Free File Alliance, said Friday in an email to the AP that his organization “does not lobby, does not hire lobbyists, has not hired lobbyists in the past, and has never had a PAC.”

And David D. Ransom, counsel for the American Coalition for Taxpayer Rights, said by email that the new IRS free le program will not be free and easy to implement and that the U.S. tax code is too complex for the planned free le program to be successful.

“Proponents of Direct File often suggest that we ought to have tax administration systems that are like those in Denmark or Estonia,” he said. “We deliver social bene ts through our tax code; most European countries do not.”

In July, a group of congressional Democrats, including Warren and Porter, released a report that outlined how three large tax preparation rms — H&R Block, TaxAct and TaxSlayer — sent “extraordinarily sensitive” information on tens of millions of taxpayers to Facebook parent company Meta and Google over the course of at least two years. TaxAct and H&R Block said protecting client privacy is a top priority, and TaxSlayer said the report contained false or misleading statements. Meta said it was clear in its policies that advertisers “should not send sensitive information about people through our Business Tools.”

In a letter to the heads of the IRS, the Department of Justice, the Federal Trade Commission and the IRS watchdog, the lawmakers said their ndings “reveal a shocking breach of taxpayer privacy by tax prep companies and by Big Tech rms” — and cited the report as an argument for the creation of a government-run free le system.

“Tax prep companies simply cannot be trusted with taxpayers’ sensitive personal and nancial information,” states the Thursday letter to H&R Block CEO Je Jones.

The IRS was tasked with looking into how to create a “direct le” system as part of the funding it received from the In ation Reduction Act, Democrats’ agship climate and health care measure, which President Joe Biden signed last summer. It gave the IRS nine months and $15 million to report on how such a program would be implemented.

The report’s initial cost analysis shows an option run by the IRS “could cost less than $10 per return to provide, and of course would be free to taxpayers — by comparison, simple electronic ling options currently available to taxpayers are around $40.”

The study estimates that annual costs of direct le may range, depending on the program’s usage and scope, from $64 million for 5 million users to $249 million for 25 million users.

The Associated Press BEIJING — Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said she and her Chinese counterpart agreed Monday to exchange information on U.S. export controls that frustrate Beijing and set up a group to discuss other commercial issues, but neither side appeared ready to make concessions on disputes that have plunged relations to their lowest level in decades.

Raimondo joined American o cials including Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen in July who have visited China in hopes of reviving chilly relations. They expressed optimism about improving communication but no progress on con icts over technology, security, human rights and a lingering tari war.

For its part, Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s government wants to revive foreign investor interest in China as it tries to reverse a deepening economic slump.

Raimondo said she and Commerce Minister Wang Wentao agreed during a fourhour meeting to launch an “information exchange” on export controls. She said they also will set up a “working group” of o cials and private sector representatives to “seek solutions on trade and investment issues.”

A key Chinese complaint is limits on access to processor chips and other U.S. technology on security grounds that threaten to hamper the ruling Communist Party’s ambition to develop arti cial intelligence and other industries. The curbs crippled the smartphone business of Huawei

Technologies Ltd., China’s rst global tech brand.

Raimondo said the information exchange will hold its rst meeting Tuesday. “The United States is committed to being transparent about our export control enforcement strategy,” Raimondo told reporters at Ambassador Nicholas Burns’s o cial residence.

“We are not compromising or negotiating in matters of national security,” she said. “But this is meant to be a dialogue where we increase transparency.”

Earlier, Wang told Raimondo that Beijing is ready to work together to “foster a more favorable policy environment for stronger cooperation” and “bolster bilateral trade and investment.” Wang gave no details of possible initiatives.

Beijing broke o dialogues with Washington on military, climate and other issues in August 2022 in retaliation for a visit to Taiwan by then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi of the House of Representatives. The Communist Party claims the self-ruled island democracy as part of its territory and objects to foreign governments having contact with it.

The visits take place under an agreement made by Xi and President Joe Biden during a meeting last November in Indonesia. The Chinese state press has given them positive coverage, but Beijing has given no indication it might change trade, strategic, market access and other policies that irk Washington and its Asian neighbors.

In June, Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Xi for

30 minutes during a visit that was postponed from February after a Chinese surveillance balloon entered U.S. airspace. The Chinese leader called on Washington to change policies on Taiwan and other issues and rebu ed a request to resume military-to-military cooperation.

Last week, on the day Raimondo’s visit to Beijing was announced, Washington removed 27 Chinese companies from a blacklist that limits access to U.S. technology.

The decision “may have helped grease the wheels for Raimondo’s trip,” said Anna Ashton and Kylie Milliken of Eurasia Group in a report.

It suggests Washington “is making modest but measurable progress with Beijing in re-establishing limited government-to-government communication,” Ashton and Milliken wrote. “Raimondo’s visit could produce additional progress.”

Meeting with Wang, Raimondo defended the Biden administration’s “de-risking” strategy of trying to increase domestic U.S. production of semiconductors and other high-tech goods and to create additional sources of supply to reduce chances of disruption.

Beijing has criticized that as an attempt to isolate China and hamper its development.

“It is not intended to hinder China’s economic progress. We believe a strong Chinese economy is a good thing,” Raimondo told the Chinese minister. “We seek healthy competition with China. A growing Chinese economy that plays by the rules is in both of our interests.”

Nvidia’s rising star gets even brighter with another stellar quarter propelled by sales of AI chips

The Associated Press SAN FRANCISCO — Computer chip maker Nvidia has rocketed into the constellation of Big Tech’s brightest stars while riding the arti cial intelligence craze that’s fueling redhot demand for its technology.

The latest evidence of Nvidia’s ascendance emerged with Wednesday’s release of the company’s quarterly earnings report. The results covering the May-July period exceeded Nvidia’s projections for astronomical sales growth propelled by the company’s specialized chips — key components that help power di erent forms of arti cial intelligence, such as Open AI’s popular ChatGPT and Google’s Bard chatbots.

“This is a new computing platform, if you will, a new computing transition that is happening,” Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said Wednesday during a conference call with analysts.

Nvidia’s revenue for its scal second quarter doubled from the same time last year to $13.51 billion, culminating in a pro t of $6.2 billion, or $2.48 per share, more than nine times more than the company made a year ago. Both gures were well above the projections of analysts polled by FactSet Research.

And the momentum is still building. The Santa Clara, California, company predicted its revenue for its August-October quarter will total $16 billion, nearly tripling its sales from the same time last year. Analysts had been anticipating $12.6 billion in revenue for that period encompassing Nvidia’s scal third quarter, according to FactSet.

Nvidia’s stock price surged 6% in extended trading after the numbers came out. The shares already have more than tripled so far this year, a runup that has boosted Nvidia’s market value to $1.2 trillion — a threshold that thrust the company into the tech industry’s elite. If stock rises similarly during Thursday’s regular trading session, it will mark yet

another record high for Nvidia’s shares and boost the company’s market value by another $75 billion or so.

Other stalwarts that are currently or have been recently valued at $1 trillion or above are Apple, Microsoft, Amazon and Google’s corporate parent Alphabet.

Now all those tech giants as well as a long line of other rms are snapping up Nvidia chips as they wade deeper into AI — a movement that’s enabling cars to drive by themselves, and automating the creation of stories, art and music.

Nvidia has carved out an early lead in the hardware and software needed in the AI-focused shift, partly because Huang began to nudge the company into what was then seen as a still half-baked technology more than a decade ago. While others were still debating the merits of AI, Huang already was looking at ways that Nvidia chipsets known as graphics processing units might be tweaked for AI-related applications to ex-

pand beyond their early inroads in video gaming. By 2018, Huang was convinced that AI would trigger a tectonic shift in technology similar to Apple’s 2007 introduction of the iPhone igniting a mobile computing revolution.

That conclusion led Huang into what resulted in what he calls a “bet-the-company moment.” At the time Huang doubled down on AI, Nvidia’s market value stood at about $120 billion.

“I think it’s safe to say it was worth it to bet the company” on AI, Huang, 60, said during a presentation earlier this month.

Huang’s foresight gave Nvidia a head start in designing software to complement its chips tailored for AI applications, creating “a moat” that other major chipmakers such as Intel and AMD are having trouble getting around during a period of intense demand that is expected to continue into next year, said Bernstein analyst Stacy Rasgon. Nvidia is increasingly pitching a Lego-like combination of GPUs, memory

chips and more conventional processing chips enclosed in a big package. In a demonstration earlier this month, Huang showed one such room-sized structure, joking about how it might look if delivered to a doorstep by Amazon.

“Everybody else is trying to catch them now that they see the opportunity is there.” Rasgon said.

Huang’s vision has prompted Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives to hail him as “the Godfather of AI,” and established him as one of the world’s wealthiest people with an estimated fortune of $42 billion.

While Ives still sees plenty of upside in Nvidia’s future growth and stock price, other market observers believe investors are getting carried away.

“This level of hype is dangerous as it could lead investors to assume that these stocks are a silver bullet to build long-term wealth — and they are not, at least not on their own,” warned Nigel Green, CEO of deVere Group.

AP PHOTO

U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, second right, speaks during a meeting with Chinese Minister of Commerce Wang Wentao, second left, at the Ministry of Commerce in Beijing, Monday, Aug. 28, 2023.

AP PHOTO

The Nvidia o ce building is shown in Santa Clara, Calif., on May 31, 2023.

Starbucks’ Pumpkin Spice Latte turns 20, whether you like it or not

The Associated Press

THE SEASONAL drink that made pumpkin spice a star is turning 20. And unlike the autumn days it celebrates, there seems to be no chill in customer demand.

Starbucks’ Pumpkin Spice

Latte goes on sale Thursday in the U.S. and Canada, as it does each year when the nights start getting longer and the fall winds gather. It’s the co ee giant’s most popular seasonal beverage, with hundreds of millions sold since its launch in 2003. And it has produced a huge — and growing — industry of imitators ecked with cinnamon, nutmeg and clove.

In the year ending July 29, U.S. sales of pumpkin- avored products reached $802.5 million, according to Nielsen. That’s up 42% from the same period in 2019. There are pumpkin spice Oreos, protein drinks, craft beers, cereals and even Spam. A search of “pumpkin spice” on Walmart’s website brings up more than 1,000 products. A thousand products that smell or taste like, well, pumpkin pie.

For better — and, some might say, for worse — the phenomenon has moved be -

yond co ee shops and groceries and into the larger world.

Great Wolf Lodge is featuring a Pumpkin Spice Suite at ve of its resorts this fall, decked out with potpourri, pumpkin throw pillows and bottomless pumpkin spice lattes. It has also spawned a vocal group of detractors — and become an easy target for parodies. Comedian John Oliver once called pumpkin spice lattes “the co ee that tastes like

a candle.” There’s a Facebook group called “I Hate Pumpkin Spice” and T-shirts with slogans like “Ain’t no pumpkin spice in my mug.”

Canned pumpkin and pie spices were relegated to the baking aisle when Starbucks began experimenting with an autumn drink that would replicate the success of the Peppermint Mocha, which took the winter holidays by storm in 2002. Customer surveys sug-

gested chocolate or caramel drinks, but Starbucks noticed that pumpkin scored high for “uniqueness.” That would turn out to be prescient.

In the spring of 2003, a team gathered in a lab in Starbucks’ Seattle headquarters, bringing fall decorations to set the mood. They sipped espresso between bites of pumpkin pie, guring out which spices most complemented the co ee. After three months, they o ered taste tests; pumpkin spice beat out chocolate and caramel drinks.

Starbucks tested the Pumpkin Spice Latte in 100 stores in Washington, D.C., and Vancouver, British Columbia, that fall. The company quickly realized it had a winner and rolled it out across the United States and Canada the following fall. And in 2015, a watershed: The company added real pumpkin to the recipe.

These days, Starbucks’ Pumpkin Spice Latte has its own handle on X — formerly known as Twitter — with 82,000 followers, and a Facebook fan group called the Leaf Rakers Society with 43,000 members. And it has fans like Jon McBrine, who drinks black iced co ee for most of the year

but eagerly awaits the latte’s return each fall.

“I love the avor and I love the subculture that has evolved from this huge marketing campaign,” says McBrine, a graphic designer and aspiring author who lives in the Dallas area.

It’s hot through the end of October where he lives, so McBrine typically orders his with ice. But at least once a year, he gets a hot latte, savoring memories of the autumns of his childhood in Delaware.

“It’s part of getting into the season,” he says. “It’s almost like a ritual, even if you’re just waiting in the drive-thru.”

Pumpkin spice doesn’t conjure happy memories for everyone. Kari-Jane Roze, who lives in Fredericton, Canada, loves many things about autumn, including back-to-school routines, changing leaves and hockey. But she’s not a fan of pumpkin pie or pumpkin bread — and she has a particular dislike for pumpkin spice lattes.

“The arti cial avor is disgusting,” says Roze, who works at New Brunswick Community College. “The only thing I do not like about fall is seeing everyone obsess over PSLs. Makes me want to shut o social media for a month.”

She won’t have to deal with those “PSLs” for long. The limited-time nature of the product is another thing that keeps customers hooked, marketing experts say. Last year, Starbucks’ holiday-themed drinks arrived on Nov. 3. And then, for devoted fans, the wait begins anew.

Shein and Forever 21 team up in hopes of expanding reach of both fast-fashion retailers

The Associated Press

NEW YORK — Fast fashion retailers Shein and Forever 21 are going into business together. Under a partnership agreement announced Thursday, the Chinese-founded Shein will acquire about one-third interest in Sparc Group, Forever 21’s operator. Sparc will also become a minority shareholder in Shein.

The deal is expected to expand Forever 21’s distribution on Shein’s global e-commerce platform, which has attracted 150 million online users. In turn, the partnership “also o ers the opportunity to test” Shein product sales and returns in physical Forever 21 stores across the U.S., the companies said in a joint release. Forever 21 has more than

540 locations worldwide and online. The announcement did not disclose nancial details of the deal.

The Wall Street Journal rst reported the deal between Shein and Sparc Thursday.

Sparc is a joint venture that includes brand development company Authentic Brands Group and mall operator Simon Property Group. Beyond the U.S.-based Forever 21 — which was bought out of bankruptcy just three years ago — Sparc also makes and distributes apparel for brands like Aéropostale, Eddie Bauer and Reebook.

Shein, meanwhile, has had a meteoric rise in the U.S. by o ering low-cost apparel and items. Its primary audience is younger women, which it caters to on social media through partnerships with online in u-

encers and celebrities.

Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData Retail, says that the new partnership “makes sense for both parties” — noting that Forever 21, which still struggles some in the fast-fashion world, could see fast growth on Shein’s sizeable online platform and that Shein “will also hope that the addition of a well-known American name will help to lessen focus on its manufacturing practices, which have come under scrutiny.”

Shein and Forever 21 have both faced strong criticism around the environmental impact of their fast fashion production and allegations of unethical labor practices. Earlier this year, Shein was notably accused of copyright infringement. There’s also been ongoing concerns among some law-

makers and advocacy groups about its supply chains.

In May, a bipartisan group of two dozen lawmakers asked the Securities and Exchange Commission to put the brakes on an initial public o ering by Shein until it veri ed that it does not use forced labor from the country’s predominantly Muslim Uyghur population. A June Congressional report also unloaded a blistering critique of Shein and another Chinese fashion retailer, Temu — which sued Shein last month, accusing its rival of violating U.S. antitrust law by preventing garment makers from working with it.

Lawmakers have also been trying to crack down on a century-old trade rule — known as de minimis — that bene ts both Shein and Temu. Under the provision, imported pack-

ages valued under $800 receive tax exemptions and less oversight from U.S. customs.

In June, Shein said that the company’s “policy is to comply with the customs and import laws of the countries in which we operate.” It also said it has “zero tolerance” for forced labor and has implemented a robust system to ensure compliance with U.S. law.

Shein, which is now headquarted in Singapore, has also tried to distance itself from China in recent years. According to The Journal, Shein doesn’t sell goods in China and denies sourcing cotton from the country.

While both Shein and Forever 21 are expected to benet from the newly-announced partnership, Shein still “has an advantage as it is operating from a position of strength and is already taking share away from Forever 21, and others,” Saunders said. “This is something of an admission by Forever 21 that it is not able to engineer growth in its own business in the way that it would like. There is an element of ‘if you can’t beat them, join them.’”

AP PHOTO

A Pumpkin Spice Latte drink rests on a table at a Starbucks.

AP PHOTO

A page from the Shein website is shown in this photo, in New York, Friday, June 23, 2023.

New dog, new tricks?

By Jordan Golson North State Journal

FORD IS REACHING into its bag of truck tricks with the 2024 F-150 Lightning Platinum Black Edition. It’s a fully loaded electric pickup, limited to just 2,000 units for just under $100,000.

But this isn’t just about a higher price tag. The arrival of a limited edition with custom aesthetics, rather than improved performance, could signify a subtle but seismic shift in Ford’s strategy. The company previously announced plans to scale F-150 Lightning production to

150,000 units per year, but could the Platinum Black Edition be a move to invigorate demand?

In the early days of electric trucks, ownership itself was a badge of novelty and exclusivity. With tens of thousands of these on the road — plus hundreds of thousands more EVs from other carmakers — Ford may need something more unique to attract a more discerning consumer who’s less impressed with the fact that it’s electric and is look-

ing for something unique.

Historically, truck buyers could walk into a dealership and have their pick of the lot, and special editions were a staple — countless truckmakers have offered various “Texas Editions,” among many other things. With electric trucks, that hasn’t been the case. This Platinum Black F-150 harks back to a time-honored tradition in truck sales — enticing buyers with exclusive packages and reviving a sales

strategy that seemed to wane with COVID-era supply chain shortages.

So, is this a new dog performing old tricks or an old dog learning new ones? Either way, Ford’s limited-edition F-150 Lightning could very well be a bellwether for how electric trucks will be marketed and sold in the future. The message seems clear: as more electric trucks arrive on the scene, don’t expect one-sizets-all.

Bob Barker, dapper ‘Price Is Right’ host, dies at 99

The Associated Press

BOB BARKER, the enduring, dapper game show host who became a household name over a half century of hosting “Truth or Consequences” and “The Price Is Right,” has died. He was 99.

Barker — also a longtime animal rights activist — died Saturday morning at his home in Los Angeles, publicist Roger Neal said.

“I am so proud of the trailblazing work Barker and I did together to expose the cruelty to animals in the entertainment industry and including working to improve the plight of abused and exploited animals in the United States and internationally,” said Nancy Burnet, his longtime friend and co-executor of his estate, in a statement.

Barker retired in June 2007, telling his studio audience: “I thank you, thank you, thank you for inviting me into your home for more than 50 years.”

Barker was working in radio in 1956 when producer Ralph Edwards invited him to audition as the new host of “Truth or Consequences,” a game show in which audience members had to do wacky stunts — the “consequence” — if they failed to answer a question — the “truth,” which was always the silly punchline to a riddle no one was ever meant to furnish.

(Q: What did one eye say to another? A: Just between us, something smells.)

In a 1996 interview with The Associated Press, Barker recalled receiving the news that he had been hired: “I know exactly where I was, I know exactly how I felt: I hung up the phone and said to my wife, ‘Dorothy Jo, I got it!’”

Barker stayed with “Truth or Consequences” for 18 years — including several years in a syndicated version.

Meanwhile, he began hosting a resurrected version of “The Price Is Right” on CBS in 1972. (The original host in the

1950s and ‘60s was Bill Cullen.) It would become TV’s longest-running game show and the last on a broadcast network of what in TV’s early days had numbered dozens.

“I have grown old in your service,” the silver-haired, perennially tanned Barker joked on a prime-time television retrospective in the mid-’90s.

CBS said in a statement that daytime television has lost one of its “most iconic stars.

“We lost a beloved member of the CBS family today with the passing of Bob Barker,” the network said, noting that he had “made countless people’s dreams come true and everyone feel like a winner when they were called to ‘come on down.’”

In all, he taped more than 5,000 shows in his career. He said he was retiring because “I’m just reaching the age where the constant e ort to be there and do the show physically is a lot for me. ... Better (to leave) a year too soon than a

year too late.” Comedian Drew Carey was chosen to replace him.

“There hasn’t been a day on set that I didn’t think of Bob Barker and thank him. I will carry his memory in my heart forever,” Carey wrote in a post on X, the site formerly known as Twitter.

Barker well understood the attraction of “The Price Is Right,” in which audience members — invited to “Come on down!” to the stage — competed for prizes by trying to guess their retail value.

“Everyone can identify with prices, even the president of the United States. Viewers at home become involved because they all have an opinion on the bids,” Barker once said. His own appeal was clear: Barker played it straight — warm, gracious and witty — refusing to mock the game show format or his contestants.

“I want the contestants to feel as though they’re guests in my home,” he said in 1996.

“Perhaps my feeling of respect for them comes across to viewers, and that may be one of the reasons why I’ve lasted.”

As a TV personality, Barker retained a touch of the old school — for instance, no wireless microphone for him. Like the mic itself, the mic cord served him well as a prop, insouciantly icked and nessed. His career longevity, he said, was the result of being content. “I had the opportunity to do this type of show and I discovered I enjoyed it ... People who do something that they thoroughly enjoy and they started doing it when they’re very young, I don’t think they want to stop.”

Born in Darrington, Washington, in 1923, Barker spent part of his childhood on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota, where his widowed mother had taken a teaching job. The family later moved to Spring eld, Mo., where he attended high school. He served in the Navy in World War II.

He married Dorothy Jo Gideon, his high school sweetheart; she died in 1981 after 37 years of marriage.

PHOTO BY JORDAN GOLSON | NORTH STATE JOURNAL

Legendary game show host Bob Barker, 83, waves goodbye as he tapes his nal episode of “The Price Is Right,” in Los Angeles on Wednesday, June 6, 2007.

TENNIS

Baez tops Lehecka in straight sets to win Winston-Salem Open

Winston-Salem

Sixth-seeded Sebastian

Baez cruised to a straight set victory Saturday to win the Winston-Salem Open, beating Jiri Lehecka 6 - 4, 6 -3 to earn his second straight tournament victory. The Argentine needed just 94 minutes to dispatch Lehecka, surviving four breaks points to close out the rst set and overcoming an early break in the second to earn his third title of the season. The victory in Winston-Salem moved Baez up to No. 32 in the world heading into the U.S. Open. Baez was scheduled to face Borna Coric in the opening round at Flushing Meadows on Tuesday. Baez defeated the top-seeded Coric 3- 6, 7-5 (4), 7- 6 (2) in a semi nal match at the Winston-Salem Open last Friday. Americans Nathaniel Lammons and Jackson Withrow won the doubles title at Wake Forest University.

MLS

Ar eld’s 1st career goal lifts Charlotte FC over Los Angeles FC

Charlotte Scott Ar eld scored his rst career goal late in the second half to help Charlotte FC rally for a 2-1 victory over Los Angeles FC on Saturday night. Charlotte (7-9 -8) improved to 7-1-5 in its last 12 matches at home. Charlotte grabbed a 1- 0 lead on Ashley Westwood’s second goal of the season — unassisted in the 29th minute. Mario González netted the equalizer in the 67th minute for LAFC (11-7-7), using an assist from Dénis Bouanga to score his rst career goal in his second appearance. Ar eld delivered the match-winner in the 75th minute, scoring unassisted in his third start and fourth appearance. Kristijan Kahlina saved ve shots for Charlotte, which snapped a streak of three straight draws at home and improved to 2- 0 -3 in its last ve home matches. Charlotte hosts Orlando City on Wednesday.

Tar Heels prepare for pivotal opener in Charlotte

UNC’s showdown with South Carolina will set the course for the team’s season

Last year’s team nearly gave back the entire lead before escaping with a 63-61 win.

“That hurt us last year,” Brown said. “It tarnished our defense.”

at the defense. If we can’t run it, I’m mad at the o ense.”

is clear: Do better.

By Shawn Krest North State Journal CHAPEL HILL — The message to UNC

As the Tar Heels prepare to open the 2023 season, Mack Brown’s fth in his second stint as Tar Heels coach, the near misses and if onlys of past years will not be good enough this time around.

“The message since spring has been: ‘How do you get from good to great?’” Brown said at the start of game week for UNC’s opener in Charlotte against South Carolina. “When you’ve got a 40-21 lead on App State in the fourth quarter, how do you nish the game?”

That was far from the only black mark the Tar Heels head coach found, however.

“You’re sitting there, and you’ve got a 17-point lead on Georgia Tech, and you get beat,” he said. “You can’t do that and get where you want to go. You lose to your rival, NC State, on a last-second eld goal. You have a 10-point lead on Oregon and you can’t hold it.”

The Tar Heels will get a chance to wipe away that tarnish by opening with a high-prole skirmish with an SEC rival. “We’ve got a great challenge in South Carolina,” Brown said. “They had a lot of momentum at the end of the season.”

The Gamecocks are led by

Shane Beamer, a name familiar to ACC fans after his father, Frank, dominated the Coastal Division for years at Virginia Tech. South Carolina also has a potential star at quarterback in Spencer Rattler, a former Heisman dark horse at Oklahoma. The duo blew out Tennessee and upset Clemson to close out the regular season last year, then very nearly knocked o Notre Dame in a bowl game.

It’s the type of challenge Brown came back to Chapel Hill to face, and the kind his team has fallen just short in time and again.

This team, however, has the chance to be as good as the Tar Heels’ squad that went to the Orange Bowl three seasons ago.

“In preseason practice, people ask how the team looks. You can’t tell,” Brown said. “One part looks good, the other bad. If we run the ball well, I’m mad

It appears he won’t be mad at the defense quite as much as last year once the games start. The Heels should be improved on that side of the ball as coordinator Gene Chizik rebuilt the secondary with a busy transfer portal in both directions. Gone are Storm Duck and Tony Grimes, who had their share of big plays but also struggled at times as the Tar Heels nished last in the ACC in total defense and scoring defense.

In their place are newcomers Alijah Huzzie from ETSU, Armani Chatman from Virginia Tech and Stick Lane from Georgia State. They’ve also added DJ Jones, who changed position from running back to safety, which Brown called “one of the most unsel sh moves” he’s seen in his career.

The front seven should be strong as well, with linebackers Cedric Gray and Power Echols complementing a deep, experienced line that gets back Tomari Fox, who missed last season due to suspension.

“I think overall, defensively,

See UNC, page B3

Panthers nal roster cuts take team in new direction

Carolina cut ties with its Rhule era picks and o season free agent signees

By Shawn Krest North State Journal

THE CAROLINA PANTHERS took another step away from the Matt Rhule era on roster cutdown day. From Saturday to Tuesday, the Panthers trimmed their roster from 90 players to 53. In the process, they cut ve players who were drafted by Rhule, the former Carolina coach who was red midway through last season after a rocky two-plus seasons in Charlotte.

The Panthers parted ways with receiver Shi Smith, a sixthround pick in 2021 who had 28 catches in two years, as well as an o season handgun arrest last year. While Carolina is looking for depth at the position behind free agent signees Adam Thielen and DJ Chark, rookie Jonathan Mingo and currently injured Terrace Marshall, the team decided Smith wasn’t the answer, instead trading for Kansas City’s Ihmir Smith-Marsette, who has split time between practice squad and active roster for three NFL

teams in the last three seasons. Smith-Marsette was second in the NFL in receiving yards during the preseason. The Panthers opted for him over inhouse options Javon Wims, CJ Saunders, Gary Jennings, Josh Vann and Smith, all cut.

The Panthers also cut linebacker Brandon Smith, a fourth-round pick last year who appeared in 12 games before getting injured. Smith was in the running for the backup spot behind Frankie Luvu and Shaq Thompson. The team also

brought in former Pro Bowl linebacker to compete for the job, but he was cut as well in favor of Kamu Grugier-Hill, who won the job with an impressive preseason performance.

Two cornerbacks drafted by Rhule were also cut. Stantley Thomas-Oliver was chosen in the seventh round in 2020, while Keith Taylor was a fth-rounder in 2021. Thomas-Oliver battled injury and played in just 25 games over his three years in the league, including an abbreviated three-

game season last year. Taylor had plenty of playing time but didn’t show the production to keep the job. The last straw may have been a 70-yard touchdown by the Lions in the nal preseason game on which Taylor was one of the defenders beaten on the score. CJ Henderson, who performed well in the preseason to earn the primary backup job, and Greg Mabin, a journeyman signed after a June tryout, was a surprise choice over the two draft picks to earn the nal roster spot.

The Panthers also resolved their right guard position, and 2021 sixth-rounder Deonte Brown was one of the odd men out. Chandler Zavala, a fourth-rounder this year, appears likely to start, at least until Austin Corbett — who was placed on the physically unable to perform list to start the season — is ready to play. Zavala started the last two preseason games following an injury to veteran Cade Mays. Other candidates for the job included veteran Michael Jordan, who played in 22 games for the Panthers over the last two seasons, starting 10. Jordan was cut, along with 31-year-old Justin McCray, signed as a free agent

See PANTHERS, page B4

Duke ready to take another step forward, B3

RUSTY JONES | AP PHOTO

Linebacker Brandon Smith, a fourth-round pick by Carolina in 2022, was among the players cut by the team on Tuesday.

AP PHOTO

UNC linebackers Cedric Gray (33) and Power Echols (23) both return to a Tar Heels defense that hopes to be dramatically improved in 2023.

TRENDING

Bronny James:

The Southern Cal freshman and son of LeBron James has a congenital heart defect that caused last month’s cardiac arrest, a spokesperson for the LeBron James Family Foundation said in a statement. The 18-year-old has a “signi cant” congenital heart defect which will be treated. The family is con dent that Bronny will make a full recovery and return to basketball “in the very near future.”

Luis Rubiales:

The Spanish soccer federation president was suspended from o ce by FIFA while his conduct at the Women’s World Cup nal is investigated. Rubiales was criticized after kissing player Jenni Hermoso on the lips after Spain’s victory over England. FIFA says Rubiales is removed from soccer duties for at least 90 days.

Simone Biles:

The gymnastics star won her record eighth U.S. Championship a decade after she rst ascended to the top of her sport. Biles, now 26, posted an all-around two-day total of 118.40, well clear of Shilese Jones in second and Leanne Wong in third. Biles will next compete at the world championships in Belgium this fall, where she will look to add to her record total of 25 medals at the meet.

Beyond the box score

POTENT QUOTABLES NBA

The Hornets have agreed to a three-year contract worth $48 million with starting forward P.J. Washington, according to reports. The 25-year-old Washington was a restricted free agent and the deal prevents him from hitting the unrestricted free agent market next year. Washington averaged a career-high 15.7 points per game with 4.9 rebounds and 2.4 assists last season for Charlotte.

Navy coach Brian Newberry on former Wake Forest and current Notre Dame quarterback Sam Hartman after the Irish’s 42-3 rout over the Midshipmen on Saturday in Dublin.

Former Panthers coach Matt Rhule on his new job leading the Nebraska Cornhuskers.

PRIME NUMBER

14

Number worn by star quarterback Armanti Edwards at Appalachian State in the mid-2000s, which will be retired at halftime of the Mountaineers’ home game against Georgia Southern on Nov. 25. Edwards led App State to two national championships and its historic win on the road at Michigan in 2007.

Former Panthers starter Sam Darnold beat out Trey Lance, above, for the backup job with the 49ers, leading to the 2021 third overall pick being traded to Dallas for a fourth-round pick. With Brock Purdy entrenched as the starter, the 49ers decided to cut ties with the 23-year-old who made just four starts with San Francisco.

Kurt Busch, the 2004 Cup Series champion, o cially retired on Saturday. The 45-year-old stepped away from racing last season following a signi cant concussion and made his retirement o cial at Daytona. Busch said he’s dealt with arthritis and gout while trying to recover from an accident at Pocono last summer.

John Isner, who has more aces than any men’s player in history, announced the U.S. Open will be his nal tournament.

The 38-year-old from Greensboro also played in the longest match in the history of the sport — an 11-hour, 5-minute epic win over Nicolas Mahut in 2010 at Wimbledon that ended at 70-68 in the fth set. Isner reached No. 8 in the world in 2018 and won 16 singles titles.

NFL NASCAR

SANTIAGO MEJIA | AP PHOTO PHELAN M. EBENHACK | AP PHOTO

“I’m having the time of my life, I really am.”

DARRON CUMMINGS | AP PHOTO

“(He’s like) a coach out on the eld.”

CHARLES REX ARBOGAST | AP PHOTO

MATT KELLEY | AP PHOTO

TENNIS

ASANKA BRENDON RATNAYAKE | AP PHOTO

Duke prepares for ‘The Last Dance’ in Elko’s year two

A large number of players chose to return to Durham for one more go-round

By Shawn Krest North State Journal

DURHAM — In their rst games as Blue Devils, Jalon Calhoun and Jacob Monk were in the starting lineup.

It was August 31, 2019, in Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium. The opponent was Alabama — a chance for Duke to measure its program against one of the nation’s best.

The measuring stick delivered bad news to Duke. After a scoreless rst quarter, Bama cruised to a 42-3 victory. Calhoun had three passes come his way. He caught one of them, for two yards. Monk got called for a false start penalty.

Four years and 94 combined games later, Monk and Calhoun are still Blue Devils, still in the starting lineup. They’re joined by defensive tackle DeWayne Carter, o ensive lineman Graham Barton and defensive tackle Ja’Mion Franklin. Including the year about to start, they’ll have a combined 25 seasons of college football experience. Including the opener, they’ll have played in 196 college games.

The group of seniors all could have gone elsewhere, taking their Duke degrees to the next stop in their journeys. But all opted to return — all except Barton will be using their extra COVID season in 2023.

“A lot of people chose to come back to this program for this season,” Blue Devils coach Mike Elko said. “They understand that, if they play up to their capabilities, they have a chance of doing something special this year.”

Elko, a relative Duke toddler in just his second year with the Blue Devils, listed the ve elder statesmen as examples.

“Even (quarterback) Riley Leonard, in this day and age,” he added, putting the rising junior at the end of his list. “There are a lot of kids that had opportunities to go to the NFL or to other schools.”

Instead, the group all came back to try to build on last season, which saw Duke improve from three wins to nine in one of college football’s biggest improvements.

“There’s a purpose about our locker room,” Elko said.

Overall, Duke returns nine starters on o ense, eight on defense, as well as its punter and kicker. Everyone will be in their second year in Elko’s system.

“We’re operating, functioning at a much higher level than we did last year,” Elko said. “I don’t think that’s debatable. Now, can you do that well enough for over 60 minutes on the eld?”

Elko, the Blue Devils and the rest of college football will nd out on Monday when Duke once again has a chance to measure its program against one of the best in the nation. The Clemson Tigers, ranked No. 9 in the

preseason top 25, will travel to Durham for a Monday night matchup that the rest of the football world will be watching.

It promises to be the most signi cant Duke opener since that Alabama game and perhaps one of the most signi cant in the program’s history.

“We don’t acknowledge it in the way you’re saying it,” Elko said when presented with the above statement. “We certainly don’t talk like that. It’s one opportunity out of 12. No matter what happens, we still have 11 more on the schedule. They’re certainly not going to cancel the schedule one way or the other, no matter how this game turns out.”

Still, it’s tempting to think about the possibilities the game

presents. A win would give Elko a high-pro le notch on his belt and thrust Duke forward both as a contender in the ACC and a factor on a national level. It would also mean that there would be a good chance Duke would be 4-0 when Notre Dame comes to Durham on Sept. 30.

While Elko is well aware of the talent level Clemson will be bringing to town, he sounds con dent that his team is up to the task.

“Openers are lost a lot more than they’re won,” he said. “Regardless of the talent level, you never know what you’re going to get. They’re always unpredictable. You’ve got to play clean football, limit penalties, limit operational issues, protect the football. If you do those things

and don’t make rst-game mistakes, you’ve given yourself a chance, no matter who you’re playing.”

And he likes his team’s chance of doing everything on his list.

“You think you know what it’s going to look like, but you never really do,” he said. “But, amongst all that uncertainty, experience helps. Guys coming back helps. Being in year two helps. Having coaches back on your sta helps. All those things are certainly positives.”

There’s a big but waiting at the end of Elko’s statement.

“At the end of the day,” he continued, “you still have to go out next Monday and play the game.”

“We’ll nd out, Monday.”

New video board, sound system ready to debut at Carter-Finley

NC State’s new additions should improve the stadium’s game day experience

By Ryan Henkel North State Journal

RALEIGH — Game day ex-

perience is becoming a bigger and bigger draw for college football fans, and NC State is pushing to be one of the best in the nation.

Last season, brand new LED lights were installed above Carter-Finley Stadium with the ability to bathe the eld in red. And when the Wolfpack take the eld for its rst home game of the season on Sept. 9 against Notre Dame, it will be a totally new experience.

“Our fans want this experience, and we’re excited to give them an updated and upgraded atmosphere here at Carter-Finley Stadium,” said associate athletic director Justin Stoll, who has overseen the installation of a new video board and sound system at the home of the Wolfpack. “It’s going to be a completely new experience, we feel, coming to a game here from what it was in the past.”

According to Stoll, these two speci c upgrades were a long time coming, especially from a fan point of view.

“We do postgame surveys after every single game that we host at Carter-Finley Stadium, and usually the No. 1 complaints were about the video board and the audio system,” Stoll said. “We at NC State took that to heart and really wanted to work on our game day atmosphere, game day experience and so took it upon ourselves to

UNC from page B1

we’ll be a much better unit than we were,” Chizik said. “I feel good about us being a more consistent defense. You have a list of things you want to do — limit explosive plays, stop the run, those things — but in the end, we just have to be more consistent.”

The o ense is led by Drake

really blow something out of the water and do something big for all of our fans, our team and our overall game day experience.”

While construction of the new video board didn’t take place until the spring, the process for the $15 million project had started more than a year earlier with planning and design. However, the deconstruction and installation process couldn’t begin to take place until a few other obligations were taken care of.

“We had a little event here in February called the Stadium Series,” Stoll said of the Carolina Hurricanes hosting an outdoor game at Carter-Finley.

Maye at quarterback, but the leader on the coaching sta has changed, with Chip Lindsey replacing Phil Longo as o ensive coordinator.

The Heels return four starters on the o ensive line as well as several other players who saw time last season. There’s a rotation of running backs who have experience but are not big names, and the receiving corps

“We had to provide a board, and so we were a good partner with the NHL doing what we could with the existing video board in there.

“Then essentially as soon as that game ended and deconstruction of the ice and all of the elements of the Stadium Series game were occurring, we were getting all of our equipment and everything lined up for us to be able to disassemble the old board and start the process of putting up the new one.”

In place of the decade-old, 88-by-34-foot video board that had graced the north end of Carter Finley Stadium, is now a behemoth, state-of-the-art,

is deep and promising and could still get better. Carolina is hopeful that Tez Walker, a big-play receiver who transferred from Kent State, will get clearance to play from the NCAA at some point before kicko on Saturday.

“What we’ve got to do is have two game plans,” Brown said. “We’ve got to have one game plan with Tez and one without him.”

166-by-43-foot display.

Produced by Daktronics, NC State’s new video board is more than 7,100 square feet and features over 6.6 million pixels. According to Daktronics, the display also features 10-millimeter pixel spacing and incorporates industry-leading environmental protections.

To support the new board, two new pylons were installed down to bedrock, bringing the total number of supports up to six, as well as two steel beams which raised both the height and the width of the structure.

In addition to the video board, NC State went another step further and overhauled its

Whichever plan the Tar Heels end up using, it will need to be executed to perfection against a South Carolina team that upset the Tar Heels in the Duke’s Mayo Bowl in 2021, part of the current three-year bowl losing streak under Brown.

While the opener is as far removed from a postseason game as you can get, it’s still circled on the UNC schedule. Get past

sound systems.

“It is a point-source system, so it’s all originating from on top of the video board instead of a distributed system which would be throughout,” Stoll said. “This allows us to really have a lot of oomph and impact across the entire eld. We zoned it out. There’s a speaker dedicated to the eld, there’s a speaker dedicated to each side of the stadium, short throw, long throw, and there are speakers that are tilted down for Tu y’s Terrace in the North end zone.

“We’ve also added concourse audio and speakers so we can continue the game day experience out there for radio or PA announcements. Gate speakers for all of our entry points to notify patrons of what’s coming in and what’s going on, ‘Have your tickets downloaded,’ ‘Welcome to Carter-Finley Stadium,’ all that type of messaging. So we’ve done a full stadium audio upgrade.”

Each project has aimed to build a bigger and better overall experience for the fans, and NC State hopes the improvements will translate to bigger and longer turnouts.

“Last year, they added these lights that turn on and o and go red and all this that was pretty cool for the players and the fans,” said NC State coach Dave Doeren. “Now we also have the largest jumbotron in the league with a new sound system, which is going to add even more to the game day environment which I know will re our fans up. We love the Wolfpack fanbase and we continue to ask them to be in the stands for four quarters and try to make life hell on the opponents.”

the Gamecocks and a 5-0 start is potentially in the cards for the Tar Heels. Looking at the schedule, a 10-0 run heading into Clemson is not out of the realm of possibility. The key is a simple one. Just do better.

“We’re jumping in with both feet,” he said. “We lost respect at the end of last year. We’re trying to get that respect back.”

TERRANCE WILLIAMS | AP PHOTO

Duke o ensive lineman Jacob Monk returned for a fth season in Durham to try and help the Blue Devils improve on their surprising 9-4 record in 2023 under rst-year coach Mike Elko.

PHOTO COURTESY NC STATE ATHLETICS

NC State’s new video board, coupled with a new sound system, is expected to improve the football game day experience at Carter-Finley Stadium.

Buescher, Byron enter Cup Series playo s as surprise favorites

One has claimed ve wins while the other won three of the regular season’s nal ve races

The Associated Press

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Chris Buescher and William Byron have this in common: Neither wants to declare himself the favorite heading into the NASCAR Cup Series playo s.

Both have a strong case, though.

Buescher won three of the last ve regular season races, including the nale Saturday night at Daytona International Speedway. Byron, meanwhile, has a series-leading ve victories and is tied for the points lead with Martin Truex Jr. as the postseason begins at Darlington Raceway next Sunday.

Buescher and Byron have diverse resumes and de nitive momentum.

“I think we’re a contender,” Buescher said after leading RFK Racing to its rst 1-2 nish in more than nine years. “We still have work to do. I don’t think we’re under the illusion that it has to go through us and us only right now. We’ve got tracks we still need to be better at. We’ve

PANTHERS from page B1

in the o season.

Another veteran free agent signing over the o season was cut without playing in a regular season game for the Panthers when the team set its safety position. Eric Rowe, a 30-year-old who can also play cornerback, got the ax as the team kept 2023 fth-rounder Jammie Robinson. That leaves the team with the following position breakdowns — keep in mind that surviving cut-down day doesn’t guarantee an opening day roster spot. The team is likely to make more moves while shopping other team’s cuts on the waiver wire.

Quarterback: As expected, the team will go with starter Bryce Young, along with veteran Andy Dalton and former draft pick Matt Corral as backups.

Running back: Miles Sanders has battled injury in the preseason but is expected to be ready to go. He’s joined by holdover Chuba Hubbard and Raheem Blackshear, who impressed in the preseason. Spencer Brown, who had a good preseason, was cut.

Receiver: Chark and Marshall are battling injury, so the unit is still full of question marks behind Thielen, Mingo, Smith-Marsette and Laviska Shenault.

Tight end: Hayden Hurst is the No. 1, followed by Ian Thomas and Tommy Tremble.

O ensive line: It didn’t have a stellar preseason, but the group of Bradley Bozeman, Brady Christensen, Ikem Ekwonu, Taylor Moton and Zavala will make up the rst team. Mays, Cameron Erving and Nash Jenson provide depth. This is an area where the team may still make a move.

Defensive line: Some surprises here — Derrick Brown, Shy Tuttle and DeShawn Williams made the team, as expected, but Raequan Williams — an NFL vet and former Panthers practice squadder — did not. Henry Anderson was placed on IR, opening a spot for former Patriot and USFL player LaBryan Ray. This is another area where the team may continue to shop.

Linebacker: Luvu and Thompson will start, backed up by Grugier-Hill and Chandler Wooten. The team kept this spot thin to keep extra pass rushers.

Outside linebacker/Edge rusher: Brian Burns is a star. Yetur Gross-Matos had a strong preseason to win the job opposite him. The team also signed Justin Houston late in camp and kept Marquis Haynes. DJ Johnson, a 2023 draft pick, and 2022 draft pick Amare Barno remain. Signings at other positions in upcoming days may put Barno or Haynes in jeopardy, however.

got work to do as a group and as a team to get in the hunt.

“I surely feel con dent about our ability to drive through the playo s and feel like we can certainly be a contender in this thing.”

But he stopped short of calling the No. 17 Ford anything more, even after winning for the third time in the span of a month.

“I feel like I’m not able to get up here and quite say that, ‘Yeah, this is ours; it’s in the bag,’” he

Cornerback: Jaycee Horn and Donte Jackson are the starters, but both have had injury scares in the past, so depth is key. Henderson, Mabin and Troy Hill provide depth.

Safety: Jeremy Chinn, Vonn Bell, Sam Franklin and Xavier Woods give the team a deep, reliable group, joined by rookie Robinson.

Specialists: No surprises here as kicker Eddy Pineiro, punter Johnny Hekker and snapper JJ Jansen all return.of the most unsel sh moves” he’s seen in his career.

The front seven should be strong as well, with linebackers Cedric Gray and Power Echols complementing a deep, experienced line that gets back Tomari Fox, who missed last season due to suspension.

“I think overall, defensively, we’ll be a much better unit than we were,” Chizik said. “I feel good about us being a more consistent defense. You have a list of things you want to do — limit explosive plays, stop the run, those things — but in the end, we just have to be more consistent.”

The o ense is led by Drake Maye at quarterback, but the leader on the coaching sta has changed, with Chip Lindsey replacing Phil Longo as o ensive coordinator.

The Heels return four starters on the o ensive line as well as several other players who saw time last season. There’s a rotation of running backs who have experience but are not big names, and the receiving corps is deep and promising and could still get better. Carolina is hopeful that Tez Walker, a big-play receiver who transferred from Kent State, will get clearance to play from the NCAA at some point before kicko on Saturday.

“What we’ve got to do is have two game plans,” Brown said. “We’ve got to have one game plan with Tez and one without him.”

Whichever plan the Tar Heels end up using, it will need to be executed to perfection against a South Carolina team that upset the Tar Heels in the Duke’s Mayo Bowl in 2021, part of the current three-year bowl losing streak under Brown.

While the opener is as far removed from a postseason game as you can get, it’s still circled on the UNC schedule. Get past the Gamecocks and a 5-0 start is potentially in the cards for the Tar Heels. Looking at the schedule, a 10-0 run heading into Clemson is not out of the realm of possibility. The key is a simple one. Just do better.

“We’re jumping in with both feet,” he said. “We lost respect at the end of last year. We’re trying to get that respect back.”

“It’s just part of the ebbs and ows of the season,” Byron said. “You want to be on kill for 38 (weeks), but it’s really hard to just be good every single week.

“I think it naturally was kind of a little bit of a reset for us as we try to get ready for the playo s.”

The 25-year-old Byron is in the playo s for the fth consecutive year, coming o a career-best sixth in 2022. But his ve wins this season are more than he managed in the previous ve years combined.

Buescher eked out a postseason spot by winning a fog-shortened race at Pocono Raceway.

That one was surprising. His return to the playo s is far from uky considering he’s won at a superspeedway and at a short track.

“We’re building something that’s going to be special for a long time,” said teammate and co-team owner Brad Keselowski. “That’s a big goal of mine. I’m proud of everybody in the team, certainly Chris for his e orts.

“The bigger picture is to have a sustainable race team that can win championships for years to come, be a perennial championship contender. Today was good progress for that.”

Winning again in the playo s could take Buescher and RFK to another level. Of course, the stakes — and pressure — mount weekly. And there’s no shortage of competition.

said. “There’s been de nitely several teams that have been very stout this season.” No one has been better than Byron’s No. 24 Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports. Byron won three of the rst 13 races this season and added a fourth in early July. A six-week summer swoon followed, but he made it back to Victory Lane with a dominant performance at Watkins Glen in the penultimate race of the regular season.

“I think we’ve always known William had the talent. It was just about getting the experience as a young driver racing at this level, getting him with somebody that believes in him and is providing the car and now the pit crew is crushing it,” said four-time NASCAR champion Je Gordon, vice chairman at Hendrick. “They just seem like a complete team.

“I don’t want to jinx it because it’s a long season and it’s all about you’ve got to keep that momentum going all the way through the playo s.”

The 30-year-old Buescher is returning to the playo s for the rst time since 2016. He nished last among the 16 contenders that season with Front Row Motorsports, which maintained an alliance with Roush Fenway Racing.

Denny Hamlin and former series champions Truex, Joey Logano, Kyle Larson, Kyle Busch and Kevin Harvick are in the playo s. So are a number of drivers with one win and multiple top- ve nishes. Bubba Wallace grabbed the 16th and nal playo berth on points thanks to Buescher’s win at Daytona that also eliminated fan favorite Chase Elliott.

This much is certain: The postseason will be unpredictable, even if there appears to be two clear favorites for now.

“I really don’t think there’s one team to beat or anything like that,” playo participant Tyler Reddick said. “Some teams have just taken advantage of their situations a little bit better and not made mistakes. It can be anybody, I think.”

Americans know it’s been 20 years since Andy Roddick’s US Open title

North Carolina native John Isner will be playing in his nal tournament before retiring

The Associated Press

NEW YORK — They were 10 words, 10 simple and factual and essentially harmless words — “It’s 20 years since Andy Roddick won the singles here ...” — yet as soon as that phrase hung in the air at Frances Tiafoe’s pre-U.S. Open news conference, and before the question could be completed, the 25-year-old from Maryland rolled his eyes.

And then, in case that wasn’t enough to convey how he felt, Tiafoe rolled his whole head, too, and shook it. Then he smiled that wide smile he so often displays and chuckled a bit before pointing out: “I knew that was what you’re going to say.”

Once the query was resumed, it became about Roddick’s legacy as the last man from the United States to win a major singles title, taking a roundabout approach to a topic Tiafoe is so used to hearing about. With play underway, that record-long gap for the country is, without a doubt, one of the top storylines.

“I don’t really have a memory of Roddick winning, but I de nitely remember which year he won because I’m asked about it in every interview,” Tiafoe who was seminalist last year at Flushing

Meadows, told The Associated Press recently. “I was close to changing that narrative last year. So, we’ll see. I think it’s de nitely coming for us — and I hope it does pretty soon.”

After a long period of not being all that relevant in the game — something due in part, at least, to the dominance of Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic — the nation that produced Bill Tilden, John McEnroe, Jimmy Connors, Andre Agassi, Pete Sampras, Jim Courier and others is starting to matter again.

Tiafoe knocked out 22time major champion Nadal in the fourth round a year ago in New York before losing to eventual champion Carlos Alcaraz. Tommy Paul made it two major semi nal appearances in a row for the U.S. men by getting there at the Australian Open in January before bowing out against eventual champion Djokovic.

What would it mean if No. 10 Tiafoe or No. 14 Paul or any of the ve total seeded Americans in the men’s bracket, the most since 2004 — a group that includes No. 9 Taylor Fritz, No. 28 Chris Eubanks and No. 31 Sebastian Korda — were to have that sort of breakthrough?

“It would change the whole scope of it,” Tiafoe told the AP. “ Now we’ve got a new guy to look at. The drought is over. It would be a huge day in America. People would be super excited. It would be sweet. You’re in that realm

with those guys, legends like Johnny Mac, Jim Courier. All those guys. Agassi. Sampras. It would be a huge day, and hopefully all those guys would be there. It would change the whole narrative, for sure.”

Women from the U.S. don’t have to go back nearly as far to nd a champ, of course.

Serena Williams won 17 of her 23 Slam trophies in singles after Roddick’s triumph; Venus Williams claimed three of her seven in that span. There also are two more recent successes: Sloane Stephens at the 2017 U.S. Open and So a Kenin at the 2020 Australian Open.

Plus, an American woman made it to a major nal just last year: Coco Gau was the French Open runner-up against Iga Swiatek. No American man has gotten that far since Roddick lost to Federer in the title match at Wimbledon in 2009.

Did that weigh on those who have played in the time since?

“Maybe a little bit. It has been a long time. It’s the longest stretch this country’s ever had, for sure,” said John Isner, a Wimbledon semi nalist in 2018 and for many years the top American man, who has announced that he will retire after this U.S. Open.

“We’ll see. I think American men’s tennis is in a very good spot right now,” Isner said. “I mean, who knows?

Like, that could keep going because the No. 1 player (Alcaraz) is pretty good and very young.”

Tommy Paul is among the Americans hoping to end the country’s 20-year drought at the U.S. Open.

ALBERTO PEZZALI | AP PHOTO

MATT KELLEY | AP PHOTO

William Byron (24) and Kevin Harvick (4) lead a pack of cars to a restart during the May race at Darlington. Both drivers will compete in the Cup Series playo s that begin this weekend at the track.

Broadband subsidy program that millions use will expire next year if Congress doesn’t act

The Associated Press

LOS ANGELES — One of the features that President Joe Biden cited in his plan to bring internet to every home and business in the United States by 2030 was a ordability. But an important federal program established to keep broadband costs down for low-income households is set to expire next year.

The A ordable Connectivity Program has not reached everyone who is eligible. According to an Associated Press analysis of enrollment and census data, less than than 40% of eligible households have utilized the program, which provides monthly subsidies of $30, and in some cases, up to $75, to help pay for internet connections.

Still, the program has been a lifeline for Kimberlyn Barton-Reyes, who is paraplegic and visually impaired. Barton-Reyes did not have to wait for an in-person appointment when a seizure-alert system disconnected from her electric wheelchair in November. The company that services her chair assessed the problem remotely, ordered the parts she needed and got the chair xed quickly.

“Most people are like ‘Internet is not a basic need,’” said Barton-Reyes, who lives in Austin, Texas. “It absolutely is for me.”

But the program’s future is uncertain. Its primary source of funding, a $14.2 billion allocation, is projected to run out by the middle of 2024. That could end access to a ordable broadband for millions of people and hinder the Biden administration’s push to bring connectivity to the people who need it most.

“ACP is the best tool we’ve ever had to help people a ord broadband,” said Drew Garner, broadband policy advisor for Common Sense Media.

Enrollment in approximately 30 states lags behind the nation-

al average. Louisiana and Ohio have enrolled more than half of all eligible households.

“There’s probably nowhere in the state, no matter how populated the location is, where someone is not receiving a benet from the ACP program,” said Veneeth Iyengar, executive director of Louisiana’s broadband program.

Ryan Collins, the broadband program manager of the Buckeye Hills Regional Council in Appalachian Ohio, said the ACP provides crucial assistance.

“If it were a matter of a ording groceries or a ording the internet, they chose groceries and

so they would cancel their subscription,” Collins said.

The program emerged from a pandemic-era bene t and began with some 9 million households nationally. Participation has increased every month since, and

today it serves approximately 20.4 million households.

“If the funding drops, all of that momentum will be lost,” said Khotan Harmon, senior program o cer for the city of Austin.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said the program has already proved itself.

“The A ordable Connectivity Program, the popularity of it, I think, is the kind of thing that will create the political-level support necessary for Congress to see that this is, at the end of the day, an appropriate utilization of resources,” Vilsack said on a recent media call announc-

ing new grants to bolster rural broadband.

Advocates say letting the program expire could damage the already tenuous relationship between consumers and internet service providers just as the nation embarks on an ambitious plan to expand access nationally.

“That will have longer-term breakdowns in our e ort to close the digital divide if people are not believing the programs that we’re o ering them will be around for a while,” said Joe Kane, director of broadband policy at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation.

emissions were attributed to the people producing them, the richest 1% will be responsible for around 16% of emissions by 2030. “It makes a lot of sense for these activists to be calling out this toxic behavior.”

The Associated Press

BARCELONA, Spain — Climate activists have spraypainted a superyacht, blocked private jets from taking o and plugged holes in golf courses this summer as part of an intensifying campaign against the emissions-spewing lifestyles of the ultrawealthy.

Climate activism has intensi ed in the past few years as the planet warms to dangerous levels, igniting more extreme heat, oods, storms and wildres around the world. Tactics have been getting more radical, with some protesters gluing themselves to roads, disrupting high-pro le sporting events like golf and tennis and even splashing famous pieces of artwork with paint or soup.

They’re now turning their attention to the wealthy, after long targeting some of the world’s most pro table companies – oil and gas conglomerates, banks and insurance rms that continue to invest in fossil fuels.

“We do not point the nger at the people but at their lifestyle, the injustice it represents,” said Karen Killeen, an Extinction Rebellion activist who was involved in protests in Ibiza, Spain, a favorite summer spot for the wealthy. She said the group is protesting unnecessary emissions such as superrich individuals going to pick up a pizza by boat. “In a climate emergency, it’s an atrocity,” she said.

Killeen and others from climate activist group Futuro Vegetal — or Vegetable Future — spraypainted a $300 million superyacht belonging to Walmart heir Nancy Walton Laurie. Protesters held up a sign that read, “You consume, others su er.”

In Switzerland, some 100 activists disrupted Europe’s biggest private jet sales fair

in Geneva when they chained themselves to aircraft gangways and the exhibition entrance. In Germany, climate group Letzte Generation — which translates to Last Generation — spraypainted a private jet in the resort island of Sylt, in the North Sea. In Spain, activists plugged holes in golf courses to protest the sport’s heavy water needs

during hot dry spells.

In the U.S., Abigail Disney, the grand-niece of Walt Disney, was arrested at East Hampton Town Airport, New York, in July along with 13 other protesters for blocking cars from entering or exiting the parking lot. It was the rst of up to eight actions carried out in the exclusive Hamptons area. Activ-

ists also crashed a golf course, disrupted a museum gala and demonstrated outside some private luxury homes. “Luxury practices are disproportionately contributing to the climate crisis at this point,” said American University social scientist Dana Fisher. According to a 2021 report by nonpro t Oxfam, if all planet-warming

Richard Wilk, an economic anthropologist at Indiana University, said luxury travel is “the real culprit” in the emissions of the ultrawealthy.

He published estimates of top billionaires’ annual emissions in 2021 and found that a superyacht — with permanent crew, helicopter pad, submarines and pools — emits about 7,020 tons of carbon dioxide a year, over 1,500 times higher than a typical family car. And private aircraft in Europe alone last year caused more than 3 million tons of carbon pollution, equivalent to the average annual CO2 emissions of over half a million EU residents, according to the nonpro t Greenpeace.

But University of Pennsylvania climate scientist Michael Mann warned that attention away from the fossil fuel companies — which are responsible for at least 70% of all emissions — and toward the rich could be “playing right into the hands of the fossil fuel industry and the ‘de ection campaign’ they’ve used to divert attention from regulation by emphasizing individual carbon footprints over the much larger footprint of polluters.”

“The solution is to get everyone to use less carbon-based energy,” whether wealthy or lower-income people, he said.

David Gitman, president of Monarch Air Group, a Florida private air charter provider, encouraged activists to think twice about whether they’re taking the right approach.

“If their activism goes toward some sort of actual assistance to real programs to make real change like sustainable aviation fuel, like carbon o sets, I think that this kind of activism can help achieve those results,” said Gitman. “Now, if they go out and they spray-paint a private jet in an airport in Europe, is that going to get those results? In my opinion, no.”

Climate activists target jets, yachts and golf in a string of global protests against luxury

“ACP is the best tool we’ve ever had to help people a ord broadband.”

Drew Garner, Common Sense Media

AP PHOTO

Kimberlyn Barton-Reyes, who is paraplegic and visually impaired, poses for a photo at a rehabilitation center, Wednesday, Aug. 23, 2023, in Austin, Texas. For Barton-Reyes, the A ordable Connectivity Program is a lifeline and its one-time allocation of $14.2 billion is projected to run out by the middle of 2024. That could end access to a ordable broadband for her and more than 20 million households.

AP PHOTO

Environmental activists of Stay Grounded and Greenpeace demonstrate while handcu ng themselves to a plane during the European Business Aviation Convention and Exhibition (EBACE), at the Geneve Aeroport in Geneva, Switzerland, May 23, 2023. Climate activists have spraypainted a superyacht,

Kyle Petty to share stories and music in Sunset Series

By Emmie Brooks North State Journal

ASHEBORO — Kyle Petty has long been known as part of NASCAR’s rst family, but his fans may be excited to hear that the racing legend has a musical side as well.

Petty grew up in Randolph County and went to school at Randleman High School where he played baseball and lacrosse. Even after traveling to some of the biggest cities in America, Petty still believes there is nowhere better to be than North Carolina.

“Being in the business that I am in, we go from Miami to LA to New York to New Hampshire, just all over,” Petty said. “There is not another place on Earth you would rather be than North Carolina.”

Petty found inspiration in country music from a young age. He recalls times growing up when all he can remember is his family listening to the radio.

“When we traveled, all we listened to was music,” Petty said. “When we were at home, even with only two channels, we had a stereo that we would stack about six or seven albums on and just let it play all day.”

Now the third-generation racer is bringing his love for music back to his home state. On Sept. 3, Asheboro will host a free event highlighting the stories and musical interests of the 63-year-old Petty. The community event, the Sunset Series, began in 2018 in Asheboro. Each year, the town congregates to enjoy the show from a prominent speaker or entertainer.

“When I was 12 years old, there was

Trans-Siberian Orchestra will return with a heavy metal holiday tour, ‘The Ghosts of Christmas Eve’

The Associated Press

LOS ANGELES — Trans-Siberian Orchestra — the heavy metal, classical music, theater production, pyrotechnics and laser lightshow hybrid — will return this winter.

a guy that drove race cars and was also an incredible country artist, Marty Robbins was his name,” Petty said. “Marty would drive cars against my Dad and he would sit around and play. He was one of the rst guys that I saw playing guitar in person.”

Petty nds musical inspiration in artists such as Merle Haggard, Conway Twitty, Willie Nelson, James Taylor and Patsy Cline. His personal music stays close to his country roots.

“A lot of kids went o to Kiss and Aerosmith and stu like that, I stayed in that country, singer/songwriter genre,” Petty said.

Petty’s grandfather Lee and father Richard — known as “The King” of stock car racing — are both in the NASCAR Hall of Fame. Petty’s oldest son Adam also followed in the family footsteps but was killed in an accident during practice for a second-tier NASCAR race in 2000 at age 19.

Despite the ups and downs of a life in racing, Kyle Petty still remembers his roots.

“To be able to come back and to do something, anything in that community is special to me,” Petty said. “These are the events that epitomize and really draw attention to the community. That is what Randolph County has always been.”

The event is sponsored by the Heart of North Carolina Visitors Bureau, the City of Asheboro and the Friends of the Randolph County Public Libraries.

“Randolph County is always going to be where my heart is, it’s where I’m from,” Petty said. “You can travel wherever you want to, but home is home.”

“The Ghosts of Christmas Eve — the Best of TSO & More,” will hit 62 cities and deliver 104 performances in both matinee and evening sets. It kicks o on Nov. 15 at the Resch Center in Green Bay, Wisconsin, and runs through Dec. 30, concluding at the Xcel Energy Center in Saint Paul, Minnesota.

Al Pitrelli, TSO’s guitarist and music director, says that since the band started 28 years ago, their winter tours have become a tradition for loyal fans and their families.

“I call them repeat o enders,” he jokes.

Pitrelli estimates that nearly half the attendees have been “coming to us since the jump.”

Fans can expect a memorable performance that references the band’s 1999

“The Ghosts of Christmas Eve” television lm and album. The story follows a young girl who runs away from home on Christmas Eve; she’s alone, visions come to her, and eventually she makes her way back to her family at midnight, just in time for the Christmas holiday. Singers represent di erent characters, woven into a narrative by the late founder Paul O’Neill.

Pitrelli believes the reason TSO performances continue to draw people in is found in the story.

“Everybody misses somebody, especially on Christmas,” he says. The show provides an arena for people to feel less alone, “wrapped up in the world’s biggest rock and roll production,” he adds.

The numbers don’t lie: As of July 2022, Pollstar put Trans-Siberian Orchestra’s box o ce gross at $769 million.

Tickets for the 2023 holiday tour will go on sale on Friday, Sept. 15, at 10 a.m. local time. Limited $39 tickets will be available for purchase within the rst week, or while supplies last. A dollar from each ticket sold will be donated to charity.

Notice to Creditors

PHOTO COURTESY FACEBOOK

AP PHOTO

Members of Trans-Siberian Orchestra perform on Nov. 11, 2022 during a rehearsal for their 2022 Winter Tour at Mid-America Center in Council Blu s, Iowa.

Kyle Petty, left, pictured with his father Richard Petty in this July 2023 photo.

pen & paper pursuits

LAST WEEK

A public substation in Albemarle.

COUNTY NEWS

SCC announces

$750,000 donation from Gene Haas Foundation

Albemarle

Last week, Stanly Community College (SCC) announced a substantial donation from the Gene Haas Foundation, earmarked for the naming of the state-of-the-art machining lab that will be housed in the school’s new Trades Facility. The donation from the foundation totals is for $750,000.

This donation from the Gene Haas Foundation is intended to strengthen SCC’s capacity to attract and educate the next generation of machinists and meet growing workforce needs. The machining lab will also bear the name “Gene Haas Machining Innovation Center,” symbolizing the collaboration between the foundation and the school to further elevate the standards of education and training in the eld.

Stanly Community College’s machining program has a longstanding history of producing graduates who are well-equipped to meet the demands of the evolving manufacturing landscaping. It is the goal of the school and the Gene Haas Foundation to continue this tradition of excellence.

The Gene Haas Foundation was founded in 1999 by Gene Haas, owner of Haas Automation, Inc., America’s leading builder of CNC Machine Tools. Part of the foundation’s mission is to help expand the availability of high-quality manufacturing technology training worldwide.

City of Albemarle receives multiple Public Power Award of Excellence

North State Journal

ElectriCities of North Carolina, Inc. presented 15 North Carolina communities with Public Power Awards of Excellence at ElectriCities’ 2023 Annual Conference in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, last week. Among the recipients of several categories of awards was the City Albemarle. The city was given the following awards:

Future-Focus Award - recognizes communities that develop a future-focused mindset;

Strengthen Public Power Award – celebrates communi-

ties that build public and political support for public power; People Award – recognizes cities and towns that leverage their people as their greatest asset.

“This is a tremendous value in public power, and this year’s Public Power Awards of Excellence recipients are going above and beyond to demonstrate that value and move public power’s future forward,” said ElectriCities CEO Roy Jones. “I’m honored to recognize these communities and the public power employees who put in the hard work each day to power their

neighborhoods.” This year’s award winners span the state, from Boone to New Bern, and represent some of the state’s smallest and largest public power communities.

Nearly 1.3 million people in more than 70 cities and towns across North Carolina get their electricity from public power providers. Since these public power communities own their electric system, they maintain local control and decision-making over their operations, providing reliability, local jobs and support for their local economies.

Clayton Supply announces upcoming facility in New London

By Jesse Deal North State Journal

NEW LONDON — The national home-building company Clayton Supply is set to invest $46.6 million into Stanly County with a new facility that is slated to add 263 jobs to the local job market.

Gov. Roy Cooper and the N.C. Department of Commerce announced in an Aug. 22 press release that Clayton Supply — a division of Tennessee-based Clayton Home Building Group — has selected New London as the location of its next facility.

“Manufacturers trust North Carolina because they know we’ve earned our reputation for having the best advanced-manufacturing workforce in the nation,” said Gov. Cooper. “From our central, east coast location that makes it easy to reach customers, to our world-class transportation infrastructure and workforce training systems, North Carolina o ers everything these companies need to succeed.”

Per the o cial announcement out of Raleigh, the Department of Commerce anchored support for Clayton Supply during the site evaluation and decision-making process, indicating con dence in the home-building company that was acquired by Warren Bu ett’s Berkshire Hathaway for $1.7 billion in 2003.

Clayton Home Building Group is currently the largest U.S. builder of modular and manufactured homes.

“A quality company like Clayton Supply is a welcome addition to Stanly County,” N.C. Sen. Carl Ford (R-District 33) said in the press release from the governor’s o ce. “We’re the perfect location for leading industries, and I’m con dent the company will nd the people and the support they need to thrive and grow in our community.”

Clayton Supply’s upcoming facility in New London will expand the company’s ability to support the growing market demand within the attainable housing industry and add to an existing portfolio that incorpo -

rates a range of o -site and sitebuilt housing.

State Rep. Wayne Sasser (R-District 67) also addressed the announcement of the new project.

“It’s great to see Clayton Supply choose Stanly County for the next phase of their company’s growth. We welcome these new jobs and this signi cant investment, which will lift our region to a welcome new level of prosperity,” Sasser said.

According to the estimated nancial gures, the average salary for the new positions at Clayton Supply’s New London facility will be $59,388 — nearly $20,000 more than the current average wage of a Stanly County worker ($41,612).

With an estimated state economy growth of $649 million, the upcoming project will be partially facilitated by a Job Development Investment Grant (JDIG) with a 12-year term that was recently approved by the state’s Economic Investment Committee. Incorporating the tax reve -

“I’m honored to recognize these communities and the public power employees who put in the hard work each day to power their neighborhoods.”

Roy Jones, CEO of ElectriCities

nues from the 263 new jobs and a capital investment of $46.6 million, the JDIG agreement authorizes the potential reimbursement to the company of up to $2,063,700 across 12 years.

Along with the state’s Department of Commerce and the Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina, the facilitation of the new Clayton Supply project was assisted by the N.C. General Assembly, the N.C. Community College System, the N.C. Department of Revenue, Stanly County, the Town of New London, and the Stanly County Economic Development Commission.

“North Carolina is the number one manufacturing state in the Southeast United States,” Commerce Secretary Machelle Baker Sanders said. “This leadership depends on a strong, well-trained workforce. As our First in Talent strategic plan makes clear, investing in our people and educational systems creates economic opportunities for everyone.”

THE STANLY COUNTY EDITION OF THE NORTH STATE JOURNAL

“Join

Annual Stanly County visitor impact report shows 12.4% increase

By Matt Mercer North State Journal

ALBEMARLE — Domestic and international visitors to and within Stanly County spent $103.93 million in 2022, an increase of 12.4% from 2021, according to new data.

The spending report comes from an annual study commissioned by Visit North Carolina, a unit of the Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina.

State tax revenue generated in Stanly County totaled around $4.3 million through state sales and excise taxes, as well as taxes on personal and corporate income. About $3.4 million in local taxes were generated from

sales and property tax revenue from travel-generated and travel-supported businesses. Statewide, North Carolina set a record for visitor spending in 2022. As previously reported in May, travel statewide rose 15.2%, an increase following a 2021 turnaround from the pandemic’s 2020 peak, which brought a devastating drop of 32% in visitor spending.

“As we celebrate a record $33.3 billion in visitor spending statewide, we’re pleased that counties that rely on business travel, as well as leisure trips, are doing well,” said N.C. Commerce Secretary Machelle Baker Sanders. The travel and tourism industry directly employs around

640 people in Stanly County, according to the report.

The study was prepared for Visit North Carolina by Tourism Economics in collaboration with the U.S. Travel Association.

“Tourism is more than an essential industry for the state,” said Wit Tuttell, executive director of Visit NC. “It’s an economic development force in all 100 of our counties, the places where travelers experience our scenic beauty and adventure, our cuisine and unique culture, our history and the dynamic forces that create our enduring appeal. We look forward to continued success in welcoming people to experience places they won’t nd anywhere else.”

As we celebrate a record $33.3 billion in visitor spending statewide, we’re pleased that counties that rely on business travel, as well as leisure trips, are doing well.”

CRIME LOG

BILES, JONATHAN WILLIAM (W /M/35),POSSESSION OF CONTROLLED SUB PRISON/ JAIL,08/29/2023,Stanly County Sheriff`S Office, BROWN, THOMAS ANTHONY (W /M/43),FELONY POSSESSION SCH II CS,08/29/2023,Stanly County Sheriff`S Office, LAWING, CRYSTAL MARIE (W /F/42),FELONY POSSESSION SCH II CS,08/29/2023,Stanly County Sheriff`S Office, MORSE, JOHN WAYNE (W /M/33),OBTAIN PROPERTY FALSE PRE-

TENSE,08/29/2023,Stanly County Sheriff`S Office, HARRIS, CARL ANTHONY (B /M/21),ASSAULT INFLICT SERIOUS INJ (M),08/28/2023,Stanly County Sheriff`S Office, HURLEY, TIMOTHY WAYNE (W /M/59),SIMPLE POSSESS SCH IV CS (M),08/28/2023,Stanly County Sheriff`S Office, MCMILLAN, BERNARD (B /M/54),TRAFFICKING,OPIUM OR HEROIN,08/26/2023,Stanly County Sheriff`S Office, BARRINGER, KELAND XAVIER (O /M/20),SIMPLE AS-

SAULT,08/25/2023,Stanly County Sheriff`S Office, BENTON, TONYA LYNETTE (W /F/48),PWIMSD SCH II CS,08/25/2023,Stanly County Sheriff`S Office, FOSTER, JAMES EVERETTE (W /M/40),OBTAIN PROPERTY FALSE PRETENSE,08/25/2023,Stanly County Sheriff`S Office, RATLIFF, RICKEY DARNELL (B /M/64),HABITUAL LARCENY,08/25/2023,Stanly County Sheriff`S Office, KASMINOFF, MICHAEL STEVEN (W /M/51),FIRST DEGREE

MURDER,08/24/2023,Stanly County Sheriff`S Office, HIATT, JORDAN REECE (W /M/31),TRAFFICKING IN METHAMPHETAMINE,08/23/2023,Stanly County Sheriff`S Office, SANDIFER, CHARLA MICHELLE (W /F/37),TRAFFICKING IN METHAMPHETAMINE,08/23/2023,Stanly County Sheriff`S Office, HATHCOCK, JOHN HENRY (W /M/52),FAIL REGISTER SEX OFFENDER(F),08/22/2023,Stanly County Sheriff`S Office,

Uber raises minimum age for most California drivers to 25, saying insurance costs are too high

The Associated Press

SAN FRANCISCO — Uber raised the minimum age requirement for most of its new drivers in California to 25 on Thursday under rules the company said are necessary because of the rising costs of commercial auto insurance in the state.

The new rule applies only to drivers signing up to transport passengers with Uber’s ride-hailing platform, and not for those delivering food with Uber Eats. Previously, people as young as 21 could sign up to drive customers, and the age limit for deliveries was 19.

Those under 25 who activated their accounts prior to Wednesday can continue to drive for Uber, the company said.

Insurance rates for Uber’s California drivers are signi cantly higher than for personal vehicles or taxi drivers, according to a company statement announcing the change.

“As a result of these lopsided requirements, personal injury attorneys have created a cottage industry specializing in suing rideshare platforms like ours, pushing Uber’s California state-mandated commercial insurance costs to rise by more than 65% in just two years,” the company said. “By increasing the age requirement for new drivers to 25, we hope to mitigate the growth of those costs.”

All 50 states require commercial insurance for drivers to earn money with a ride-hailing service.

Uber maintains commercial auto insurance for drivers — including at least $1 million of liability coverage once a ride is accepted.

Personal auto insurance typically doesn’t cover activity on ride-hailing apps. The minimum age is already

25 for those driving for Lyft, Uber’s main competitor.

Starting Thursday, drivers under 25 trying to sign up with Uber will receive an email explaining the new policy and providing a link to more information.

The new restriction coincides with a resurgence in passengers following a deep downturn due to the pandemic.

Uber is now handling more rides than it did in 2019, raising the company’s hopes that it may nally realize its long-term of goal of becoming consistently pro table.

Realizing that objective has sharpened management’s focus on cost control, a factor that may have contributed to the decision to drop 25-and-under drivers.

Uber’s food delivery service, which will continue to let that demographic work as drivers, accounts for one-third of the company’s revenue.

Uber hopes to work with state lawmakers and industry experts “to discuss legislative and regulatory changes that will improve the experience for all California drivers,” according to its statement.

Ill., Monday, May 22, 2023.

NC Commerce Secretary Machelle Baker Sanders

Neal Robbins, publisher | Frank Hill, senior opinion editor

Joe Biden Is a narcissist, not an empath

If this were an isolated incident, we could chalk it up to Biden’s encroaching senility. But it isn’t.

PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN, we keep hearing, is a deeply empathetic man. It is that empathy that brought him to the presidency — his deep and abiding capacity to connect with others. In “What It Takes,” Richard Ben Cramer’s detailed blowby-blow of the 1988 election cycle, Ben Cramer describes Biden’s ability to “connect” as his greatest supposed skill. This has been the pitch for Biden for decades: not much in the way of brains, not a tremendously resourceful politician, awkward on his feet — but he cares. In the words of Mark Gitenstein, Biden’s 1988 speechwriter and a four-decade adviser, “His ability to communicate with people in pain is maybe his most powerful strength.”

Or maybe, just maybe, Biden was never an empathetic man. Maybe he simply tra cked in ersatz empathy, all the while feeding his own narcissism.

That story certainly looks more plausible these days.

Last week, Biden visited Maui. He did so nearly two weeks after the worst wild re in modern American history killed hundreds of Americans. Meanwhile, Biden vacationed in Delaware on the beach, telling reporters he had “no comment” on the situation; he then jet-set o to Lake Tahoe before nally heading to Lahaina. Once he reached Hawaii, he proceeded to explain that he felt the pain of those whose family members had been incinerated. After all, he said, one time he experienced a small kitchen re. “I don’t want to compare di culties, but we have a little sense, Jill and I, of what it was like to lose a home,” he jabbered. “Years ago, now, 15 years, I was in Washington doing ‘Meet the press’... Lightning struck at home on a little lake outside the home, not a lake a big pond. It hit the wire and came up underneath our home, into the... air condition ducts. To make a long story short, I almost lost my wife, my ‘67 Corvette and my cat.”

COLUMN | MICHAEL BARONE

In reality, back in 2004, lightning caused a kitchen re in Biden’s home that was put out in 20 minutes with no other damage.

If this were an isolated incident, we could chalk it up to Biden’s encroaching senility. But it isn’t. After presiding over the botched pullout from Afghanistan that resulted in the return of the Taliban, the murder of 13 American servicemembers, the abandonment of hundreds of American citizens and thousands of American green card holders, and the subjugation of some tens of millions of women, Biden essentially shrugged. Then, when faced with the families of wounded and killed American soldiers, he attempted to “feel their pain” by invoking the death of his son, Beau. According to Cheryl Rex, whose son died in the Abbey Gate bombing of Aug. 26, 2021, “His words to me were, ‘My wife, Jill, and I know how you feel. We lost our son as well and brought him home in a ag-draped co n.’”

Biden has cited Beau in similar instances multiple times.

In the Jewish community, death of a loved one is followed by shiva, a seven-day period of mourning. During shiva, mourners don’t leave their homes; they are instead cared for by the community, provided with food and communal prayer. Members of the community visit the shiva house to provide comfort.

The rst rule of visiting a shiva house: Don’t talk about your own experiences with death or pain. It’s gauche and irrelevant and trivializing.

Yet this is Biden’s rst move.

Empathy is the quality of putting yourself in the place of others. But Biden isn’t an empath. He’s someone who believes that everyone else’s pain is merely a re ection of his own.

Ben Shapiro, 39, is a graduate of UCLA and Harvard Law School, host of “The Ben Shapiro Show,” and co-founder of Daily Wire+.

Republican debate: Whatever happened in the debate, fundamentals could still matter

The fundamentals in this case are that majorities of voters are inclined to reject each of the two most recent incumbent presidents, even though they register hefty majorities in polls of their party’s primary voters.

HAVING COMPLETED the rst presidential debate of the 2024 campaign cycle, it’s tempting to focus on minor but perhaps momentarily decisive details, such as whether Ron DeSaantis was wise to outsource strategy to a committee that he’s legally barred from communicating with or whether it was wise for Trump campaign spokesmen to not be allowed in the Fox News spin room.

Reporters have an incentive to focus on such things. Being the rst to spot a change in course -- leading the pack -- is a source of professional pride. But the fundamentals remain potentially dispositive.

Jimmy Carter’s astute advisers were able to keep his campaign above water for months in the 1980 cycle. But when the election returns came in, his low job rating on most issues was re ected in his 41% share of the vote, enough to carry only six states.

One lesson of that campaign, and of many others, is that voters seek in presidential candidates qualities that they nd lacking in the current president.

Voters in 1960, accustomed to what were then considered elderly incumbents (every president for the preceding 18 years was in his 60s, and Dwight Eisenhower turned 70 three weeks before Election Day), opted for the outwardly vigorous 43-year-old John F. Kennedy.

The fundamentals in this case are that majorities of voters are inclined to reject each of the two most recent incumbent presidents, even though they register hefty majorities in polls of their party’s primary voters, 64% for Joe Biden and 55% for Donald Trump.

Majority rejection of the 45th and 46th presidents is not a momentary phenomenon. In the 91 months since

Trump was inaugurated, incumbent presidents have enjoyed majority approval in only seven months and have fallen short in 84 months.

That’s 92% of the time over the last seven years and seven months, an even higher percentage than during the seven years leading up to the 1980 election, during the presidencies of Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter.

It’s not hard to think of reasons why: Trump’s uncouth insults and vacillating policies, Biden’s visible aging and extreme policies, both men’s penchant for transparent untruths (or, in the opposition party’s parlance, lies).

Their support in primary polling seems to re ect a sincere inability on the part of their co-partisans, in a time of sharp partisanship, to understand why most of their fellow citizens do not appreciate their performance.

But not all partisans are blind to the views of others. In the early caucus and primary states, where candidates have been most active and voters most engaged, Trump has been polling below 50%, signi cantly below his national average -43% in Iowa, 44% in New Hampshire and 46% in South Carolina.

The Des Moines Register/NBC poll, conducted by the astonishingly good pollster J. Ann Selzer, showed Trump leading DeSantis by a 42%-19% margin. That sounds like a whopping lead, and in a general election poll, where most voters tend to support their party’s candidates, it would be.

But in primaries, and especially the Iowa caucuses, preferences are more uid. As the veteran poll analyst Nate Silver points out, since 2004, only one of the Republican or Democratic candidates leading in Iowa polling at this stage of the

cycle has won the Iowa caucuses, and that candidate (Hillary Clinton in 2016) won by only 1%.

“The Selzer poll is good for Trump, but it’s not consistent with the view that his nomination is more-or-less inevitable,” Silver wrote. “Trump is ‘only’ 68% at prediction markets, which to me seems low, but lotta folks here are treating him at ~99%, which is de nitely too high.”

That suggests that Silver puts a Trump opponent’s chances of winning the Republican nomination somewhere around 29%, which his Fivethirtyeight. com estimated as Trump’s chance of winning the 2016 general election.

The problem Trump’s current opponents face is akin to the classic tension between the need to go right (or left) to win the party nomination and then go to the center to win the general election. To be Trumplike enough to win the nomination and to present, for the general election, a contrast with the untruthfulness and aging which, to varying degrees, a ict Trump and Biden.

That’s a di cult but not impossible task. Upsets or even surprisingly strong second-place nishes in early contests can, as in the past, change millions of votes in ensuing primaries. And a potential Republican nominee without Trump’s weaknesses could lead to ructions among Democrats suddenly terri ed that Biden could lose.

This week’s debates could change the course of the presidential contest. But so could the fundamentals.

Michael Barone is a senior political analyst for the Washington Examiner, resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and longtime co-author of The Almanac of American Politics.

COLUMN | BEN SHAPIRO

SIDELINE REPORT

COLLEGE FOOTBALL

Arizona State imposes 1-year bowl ban Tempe, Ariz. Arizona State has issued a self-imposed one-year bowl ban amid an NCAA investigation for possible infractions incurred under former football coach Herm Edwards. The ban is a preemptive step as the NCAA investigates the Sun Devils for alleged recruiting violations during the COVID-19 pandemic. The NCAA has been investigating the program since 2021. It’s looking into allegations that the Sun Devils hosted recruits during the NCAAimposed ban on in-person recruiting during the pandemic. Arizona State red Edwards three games into last season and gave him a $4.4 million buyout instead of ring him for cause.

MLS Messi violates MLS media rules by not speaking with reporters

Harrison, N.J.

Lionel Messi did not speak with reporters after his Major League Soccer debut, a violation of the league’s media rules. Messi scored in the 89th minute of Inter Miami’s 2-0 win over the New York Red Bulls. Miami spokeswoman Molly Dreska said after the match that Messi was not being made available to reporters. Dan Courtemanche, MLS’s executive vice president of communications, said before the game that Messi, like all players, was required to be available to media after all games.

NHL Rangers hire Hall of Fame women’s star Ruggiero

New York

The New York Rangers have hired Hockey Hall of Famer Angela Ruggiero as a hockey operations adviser. The team announced the addition of Ruggiero along with several front o ce changes. Ruggiero won four Olympic medals as a defenseman for the U.S. including helping the country win gold in 1998 in Nagano in the rst Games with women’s hockey. The Rangers also promoted former NHL forward Ryane Clowe to cosenior adviser to president and general manager Chris Drury and hired Andy Hosler as head athletic trainer.

TENNIS

Ymer announces abrupt retirement over doping ban

London

Swedish tennis player Mikael Ymer abruptly announced his retirement at the age of 24 after an unsuccessful attempt to overturn an antidoping suspension. Ymer was charged in January 2022 for missing three outof-competition tests in a 12-month period. He initially fought the charges and said he had been cleared by an independent tribunal in June 2022. But the ITF appealed the decision and Ymer was handed an 18-month suspension. Ymer was ranked as high as 50 in the world in April and represented Sweden in the Davis Cup along with his older brother Elias.

Notre Dame thinking big after Hartman’s impressive debut

The former Wake Forest star threw for four touchdowns in his Irish debut

The Associated Press NO. 13 NOTRE DAME can forget about game-managing quarterbacks.

It has a new star in Sam Hartman. He lived up to the billing on Saturday by going 19 of 23 with 251 yards while tying a school record for a debut with four TD passes, leading the Fighting Irish to a 42-3 rout over rival Navy. He celebrated the nearly perfect performance by putting his hands on a shillelagh.

“It’s kind of our new tradition, we’re going to get a new one each game,” Hartman said of the club after delivering Notre Dame’s most lopsided opening win in 11 years. “It’s used as a weapon, but

I won’t be using it. I’ll be tucking it away.”

The victory was hardly a surprise.

After going 9-4 with Tyler Buchner and Drew Pyne splitting the job last season, second-year coach Marcus Freeman searched for a dynamic quarterback to lead the o ense. The answer was Hartman, who transferred from Wake Forest to Notre Dame and encouraged reporters to include teammates Jaden Greathouse and Marist Liufau at the postgame news conference.

“You’ve got to ask these guys questions, too,” he said.

Hartman understands, though, that the spotlight always shines on the Notre Dame quarterback — especially when you’re one of college football’s most proli c passers at one of the sports’ most storied programs.

“You feel it when you travel,”

Former Notre Dame star quarterback Joe Montana on new Irish starter Sam Hartman

Hartman said. He is an unusual quarterback, too, the kind Notre Dame has been chasing since at least the end of the Ian Book era in 2020, maybe the Tommy Rees era in 2013 or perhaps the Jimmy Clausen era in 2009.

Hartman came to South Bend after compiling an ACC career-record 110 TD passes and 12,967 yards. If he tops 4,100 yards for the second time in three seasons, he’ll be second alltime on the FBS list. Case Kee-

Preece gets medical clearance to return to NC after terrifying crash at Daytona

The Stewart-Haas Racing driver’s car ipped about a dozen times on Saturday night

The Associated Press

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Cup Series driver Ryan Preece, whose car rolled about a dozen times during a terrifying crash at Daytona International Speedway, was on his way home about 12 hours later after being discharged from a hospital Sunday.

Stewart-Haas Racing said Preece was headed back to North Carolina after getting clearance from doctors at Halifax Health Medical Center. The team earlier said Preece was “awake, alert and mobile” and “had been communicating with family and friends.”

The 32-year-old Preece was able to climb out of his mangled No. 41 Ford on Saturday night with help before emergency workers put him on a gurney and into an ambulance. He initially went to the track’s in eld care center before being transported to Halifax Health for overnight observation.

Preece tweeted about two

hours after the race, posting: “If you want to be a race car driver, you better be tough. ... I’m coming back.”

Preece and SHR teammate Chase Briscoe made contact coming out of Turn 4, and Preece’s car turned hard left and then went into an uncontrollable barrel roll as soon as it slid from

the asphalt to the in eld grass.

The car came to a halt on all four tires with some minor damage to the roll cage.

Preece being able to climb out with help was a testament to NASCAR’s Next Gen car, which is considered the safest iteration in its 75-year history.

The car was roundly criti-

num had a record 19,217 yards with Houston from 2007-2011.

But with Notre Dame, it’s always about more than numbers.

“There’s no substitution for experience. None,” Freeman said. “I don’t care if you’re the head coach or a quarterback.”

Over the previous two years, Hartman threw for more than 300 yards per game, scored 89 total TDs and completed more passes of 20 yards or more than anyone else in the FBS.

“This moment isn’t too big. It’s about him going out there and just executing,” Freeman said. “What I really, really thought he did a great job was putting our o ense in good positions to execute plays.”

Hartman has been humbled by joining a small, prominent Notre Dame fraternity that includes familiar names such as the late John Lujack Jr., Joe Theismann, Brady Quinn, Tony Rice and Joe Montana.

And now Hartman’s rst game even has one of those guys raving.

“It’s been great watching him,” Montana said during the telecast. “I think it’s great for Notre Dame and he brings a little something — some juice to the o ense.”

cized following its debut in 2022 because rear-impact collisions wreaked havoc on drivers. Kurt Busch of 23XI Racing su ered a life-changing concussion during a qualifying crash at Pocono Raceway last summer, and Hendrick Motorsports driver Alex Bowman missed ve races because of a concussion.

Other drivers complained about the violence felt during what they considered routine hits and wondered if they too had su ered head trauma.

NASCAR spent much of last year and the o season testing and tweaking its car to try to limit the G-forces delivered to drivers. The changes were welcomed, resulting in considerably fewer missed races and no reported concussions in 2023.

Busch, meanwhile, formally retired from the Cup Series Saturday at Daytona. The 45-yearold Busch held back tears as he called it quits, saying his “body is just having a battle with Father Time.”

Busch added that he’s dealt with arthritis and gout while trying to shake lingering e ects of a brain injury that rocked stock car racing a year ago.

Preece’s accident harkened memories of Ryan Newman’s harrowing wreck in the 2020 Daytona 500. Newman was able to walk out of the hospital days later, another testament to NASCAR safety improvements made since Dale Earnhardt’s death on the nal lap of the 2001 Daytona 500.

“He brings a little something — some juice to the o ense.”

AP PHOTO

Notre Dame quarterback Sam Hartman throws against Navy during the Irish’s 42-3 win Saturday in Dublin.

AP PHOTO

Ryan Preece barrel rolls along the back stretch during Saturday night’s Cup Series race at Daytona.

South Stanly snaps winless streak with victory over South Rowan

Three Stanly County teams picked up wins on Friday

By Jesse Deal North State Journal

THE SOUTH STANLY varsity football team did something it hadn’t done in nearly two years on Friday: It won.

The Rebel Bulls used pairs of touchdowns from quarterback Drew Gaddy and running back I’key Holt to beat South Rowan 27-19 in Norwood, ending a 12game losing streak and winning for the rst time since Oct. 29, 2021.

Roman Huneycutt for a touchdown. The Cougars fell to 0-2 on the season.

The Colts next head to Albemarle to face the 0-2 Bulldogs.

North Stanly 37, East Rowan 31

Two games under new coach Chad Little have now resulted in a pair of hard-fought wins for North Stanly.

While the Comets (2-0) let a 20-point halftime lead dwindle to six in the third quarter against East Rowan (0-2), they used their rushing attack to stay ahead in the back-and-forth offensive action for the rest of the game.

Hovland

wins FedEx Cup with record nish

Golf’s hottest player picked up an $18 million payout

The Associated Press ATLANTA — Viktor Hovland knew he was playing the best golf of his life. Staked to a six-shot lead Sunday in the Tour Championship, he gured a steady diet of fairways and greens and plenty of pars would be the safest route to winning the FedEx Cup.

Xander Schau ele made him change his plans.

And then the 25-year-old Norwegian star performed even better.

Hovland didn’t inch under a relentless challenge from Schau ele, matching birdies at East Lake from start to nish until he capped o the best two weeks of his career with his biggest trophy — a FedEx Cup title and the $18 million bonus.

He closed with a 7-under 63,

the lowest score by the winner in Tour Championship history, and won the Tour Championship by ve shots over Schau ele.

“The game plan was to try to play as boring as possible — play it like Tiger back in the day when he would post a 69 or 70 in a major championship and walk away with the victory,” Hovland said.

This was anything but boring golf — Hovland with a 63, Schau ele with a 62. A six-shot lead was cut to three shots on the back nine until Hovland poured in a 25-foot par putt on the 14th hole that made an already steep hill all but impossible for Schauffele to scale.

“What he was doing today was very special,” Hovland said. “It made this day more stressful than it should have been.”

So ended a season when Hovland won for the rst time in the United States at the Memorial, had a multiple-win season, and then capped it o with two

weeks of such sublime golf that he won the BMW Championship at Olympia Fields and the Tour Championship at 36-under par.

“It’s pretty surreal to be standing here right now,” Hovland said after receiving the silver FedEx Cup trophy. “I played basically my best golf the last two weeks and it couldn’t have happened at a better moment.”

Schau ele made him work for that $18 million, ring at ags from the opening hole. He got to within three shots with seven holes to play and had momentum on his side. And then Hovland ended the suspense with that 25-foot par putt on the 14th hole, and he put Schau ele away with a 10-foot birdie putt on the 16th.

Schau ele and Hovland put on a superb show. Playing in the last group, on a day that was delayed nearly two hours by thunderstorms, they had the best scores of the day. The next best score was a 65 from players who never had a chance at winning.

“I thought 62 would have let me get close to him,” Schauffele said. “He played unbelievably well. He made important putts and he’s just played like a champ.”

Defensively, the Bulls were able to stop the run but struggled with Raiders quarterback Brooks Overcash, who had three touchdown passes.

New South Stanly coach

Terry Shankle earned his rst win with the school in his second game leading the team as it evened its record at 1-1. South Rowan dropped to 1-1 on the season. The Bulls will travel this Friday to face Lexington (1-1), which is coming o a 32-16 road win over Carver.

West Stanly 28, Carson 20 (OT)

West Stanly moved to a 2-0 record for the fth consecutive year as it defeated Carson 28-20 in overtime at home on Friday.

Running back Caleb Bumgarner scored the goahead touchdown for the Colts and defensive back Jahmere

Blyden sealed the win with a game-ending interception.

Much like last week, the Colts found success early and often running the ball as Breyden Lambert, Rene Salazar and Jacob Starnes combined for 216 yards on 35 carries. Lambert had two touchdown runs in the rst half, while quarterback Jett Thomas connected with wide receiver

US learning to roll with hits at Basketball World Cup

The Americans are expecting the tournament to be physical

The Associated Press MANILA, Philippines — It was late in the rst quarter of the U.S. team’s opener at the FIBA World Cup. Austin Reaves was in transition and tossed a lob to Cam Johnson, who got sandwiched in midair by two New Zealand defenders and took a hard fall.

Steve Kerr expected such plays to happen.

The U.S. coach knows that every opponent awaiting the Americans in this tournament

will likely be very aggressive, hoping that tactic works to derail the only team in the World Cup with a roster composed entirely of NBA players. New Zealand tried; the U.S. shook o a slow start to win 99-72 and now faces Greece on Monday.

“I know everybody walked in this morning a little frustrated,” Kerr said Sunday as the Americans got loose for practice. “But we won by 27 points. And so, that’s the lesson. In FIBA, it’s so physical. Everybody is going to try to beat the crap out of us because that’s their best chance to beat us.”

It’s an adjustment for the Americans, but so far, so good.

“We understood that this

would be part of the process,” Johnson said.

It wasn’t quite like that in the ve exhibition games the Americans played on their way to the World Cup because, well, they were just exhibitions. A game against Spain earlier this month against the reigning World Cup winners and FIBA’s No. 1-ranked team — the U.S. is ranked No. 2 — got physical at times, but that was to be expected and nothing got out of hand. But in the World Cup, the stakes are higher and so is the intensity. Johnson, the former UNC forward, stayed down for a few seconds after the big hit, then made his way to his feet uninjured. He said Sunday that he

was ne and didn’t show any aftere ects.

“That’s their way of playing, that’s their way of trying to stay in the game and whatnot,” Johnson said. “It’s de nitely di erent than how we’ve been playing, but we’re all capable of adjusting and guring it out. I think the thing that’s important for us to keep in mind is what’s the legal limit of our physicality. You can go out there and ght and throw punches and all that all game, but if you get three, four quick fouls, your game is basically over.”

Kerr — as Gregg Popovich did before him as the U.S. coach and as Mike Krzyzewski did before that — nds himself reminding

Running back Jay Jackson rushed for 253 yards on 24 carries with a pair of touchdowns, and quarterback Chance Blake was 8 of 14 for 119 yards passing.

Blake also connected with wideout Jordan Stewart in the end zone for a second straight week.

North will travel to Western Alamance to challenge the Warriors (1-1) on Friday.

Trinity 29, Albemarle 19

In a battle of the Bulldogs, Albemarle su ered a 29-19 road loss to Trinity to fall to 0-2 on the season.

Senior quarterback Ander Artis was 13 of 24 for 196 yards — including 85 yards and a touchdown to wide receiver Jason Wall — while junior Ja’Zyion Geiger had 64 receiving yards and a score.

It was a modest night rushing the ball as Albemarle running backs Kaine McLendon and Malik Watkins combined for 68 yards on 15 carries.

The Bulldogs will hold their home opener and look for a win on Friday when they host West Stanly. Last season, the Colts came away with an 18-6 home win in a matchup between the two teams.

his team often about how the FIBA game isn’t the NBA game. It’s called di erently and defenders can be much more aggressive.

Kerr explains it to players like this: In the NBA, rules lean toward helping scoring, while in FIBA it’s the opposite. The solution, he says, is to weather the storms, rely on depth and keep cool.

So far, it’s working.

“Our threat is that we have 12 guys who are ready to make a great four- or ve-minute push,” Kerr said. “And we keep coming with another wave and another wave, another wave. So, teams can be physical with us, but they have to do that for 40 minutes. As long as our guys stay composed and poised like they did (Saturday), then we’re going to be tough to beat and I think that’s the lesson here early on.”

AP PHOTO

AP PHOTO

Viktor Hovland celebrates winning the Tour Championship with the FedEx Cup trophy Sunday in Atlanta.

Former Duke standout Paolo Banchero vies for the ball during the United State’s FIBA Basketball World Cup Group C game Satruday against New Zealand in the Philippines.

Republicans pick Houston to host their 2028 national convention

The Associated Press

WASHINGTON, D.C. —

Republicans on Friday chose Houston to host their 2028 national convention, hoping to cement support in Texas even as Democrats are betting that a booming Hispanic population and other key demographic shifts could eventually turn the country’s largest reliably red state blue.

“I am excited to announce Houston as the host city for the 2028 Republican National Convention,” Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel said in a statement. She applauded the committee’s “smart business decision” last spring to allow for selecting the site “earlier than ever.”

Houston is the United States’ fourth largest city and is among its fastest growing, with a population exceeding 2.3 million. It was for decades a Republican stronghold, the home turf of President George H.W. Bush and the site of the Republican convention that nominated him for reelection in 1992.

But the city has since become solidly Democratic, with the party sweeping every countywide seat in Harris County, which includes Houston, in 2016. In a re ection of

the change, McDaniel’s statement listed among the o cials Republicans are “eager to work with” Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner, a former state lawmaker who was once a leading Dem-

ocratic voice in the Texas House.

“As the nation’s most diverse and inclusive city, we believe Houston represents the future of the United States and our aspirations as a country,” Turner

said in a statement released by the RNC.

Houston’s blue shift is a departure from the rest of Texas, which hasn’t supported a Democrat for president since Jimmy

Carter in 1976 and where Republicans have won every statewide o ce since 1994 — the longest political winning streak in the nation. Still, Texas is now more than 40% Hispanic, and its strong economy has brought in many new residents from more liberal states.

Both factors have Democrats dreaming about ipping Texas, which would drastically alter the nation’s political landscape.

Former U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke came within 3 percentage points of upsetting Republican Sen. Ted Cruz in 2018, though then-President Donald Trump carried Texas by a larger margin of about 5.5 percentage points in 2020. Democrats are hoping to knock o Cruz in next year’s Senate race with a primary eld that includes Rep. Colin Allred, a former NFL linebacker who was elected to a once strongly red Dallas district.

Texas nonetheless remains “the heart of the conservative movement,” Republican Gov. Greg Abbott said in a social media post on Friday. His party’s retrenching there re ects a different strategy than next year, when the GOP will hold its convention in Milwaukee, in the critical swing state of Wisconsin.

Democrats haven’t yet selected their 2028 national convention site. But the Democratic National Committee considered Houston along with New York and Atlanta before settling on Chicago for its 2024 convention, underscoring the importance of the battleground Midwest.

appealing.

Murdaugh is also charged with creating a bank account that had a similar name to a legitimate company that handled settlements to steal money from clients.

The Associated Press COLUMBIA, S.C. — Convicted murderer and former South Carolina attorney Alex Murdaugh has agreed to plead guilty to federal charges he stole millions of dollars from clients, according to court records.

If Murdaugh doesn’t change his mind before standing in front of a judge on Sept. 21, it would mark the rst time he admits guilt for any crime in court.

Murdaugh, 55, is serving a life sentence for killing his wife and son at their home two years ago. But he insisted from the witness stand at his trial that he did not kill them and is appealing his double murder conviction.

Prosecutors say he decided to kill them because his millions of dollars of theft was about to be discovered and he was hoping their deaths would buy him sympathy and time to gure out a cover-up.

The federal guilty plea would almost certainly bring prison time, keeping Murdaugh behind bars even if his murder conviction appeal was successful.

Before the killings, state and federal investigators said Murdaugh stole millions from clients who su ered debilitating injuries and who needed money for medical care. He is charged with stealing from his family’s law rm and helping run a drug ring to launder money. Authorities said he asked a friend to kill him on the side of a lonely highway so his son would get $10 million in life insurance. The shot

only grazed Murdaugh’s head.

In federal court, Murdaugh faces 14 counts of money laundering, ve counts of wire fraud, one count of bank fraud, one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and bank fraud, and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Court records didn’t indicate whether there’s an agreement to drop any charges in exchange for a guilty plea.

Each charge carries at least a maximum of 20 years in prison. Some have a maximum 30-year sentence.

Attorneys for Murdaugh didn’t comment on Thursday’s court ling. But they said after his indictment on 22 federal charges in May that Murdaugh was helping federal investigators and the charges would be “quickly resolved without a trial.”

The federal allegations are similar to charges Murdaugh still faces in state court.

They include stealing about $4 million in insurance settlements meant for the family of Gloria Satter eld, a longtime housekeeper who died when she fell at the Murdaugh home, ac-

cording to the indictments.

Longtime friend and now ex-attorney Cory Fleming helped Murdaugh steal the money, investigators said. Fleming was sentenced earlier this month to nearly four years in prison after pleading guilty.

Other indictments said Murdaugh and a banker friend, Russell La tte, worked together to take settlement money out of client’s accounts, prosecutors said. La tte was convicted in November of six wire and bank fraud charges. He was sentenced to seven years in prison and is

He is currently in protective custody at an undisclosed state prison after being convicted in March of the shooting deaths of his 22-year-old son, Paul, killed with shotgun blasts, and 52-year-old wife, Maggie, who was shot several times with a rie.

Murdaugh is also awaiting trial on around 100 other state charges. Along with the thefts, they also include insurance fraud, a drug and money laundering ring, tax evasion and theft.

A pretrial hearing on those charges will likely take place the week before the federal guilty plea and would mark Murdaugh’s rst appearance outside prison since he was escorted out of the Colleton County Courtroom in handcu s, shackles and a jail jumpsuit on March 3.

Murdaugh has been seen publicly only once since then in a batch of photos taken by the camera in his prison-issued tablet computer as the system conrmed his identity so he could use the device to make monitored calls, watch approved entertainment, read books or take video classes.

The photos showed Murdaugh sometimes shirtless and wearing reading glasses in his cell. Prison o cials initially released the photos under the state’s open records law, but after a brief publicity splash, decided that since the photos were taken for security reasons and not as an o cial measure, they should not have been released under the Freedom of Information Act.

Alex Murdaugh to plead guilty in theft case. It would be the rst time he admits to a crime

AP PHOTO

Republican National Convention, Aug. 24, 2020, in Charlotte

AP PHOTO

Alex Murdaugh speaks with his legal team before he is sentenced to two consecutive life sentences for the murder of his wife and son by Judge Clifton Newman at the Colleton County Courthouse on Friday, March 3, 2023 in in Walterboro, S.C.

STATE & NATION

Judge asks if poverty quali es for Biden policy letting migrants from 4 countries into US

The Associated Press HOUSTON — A federal judge on Friday questioned whether living in poverty would be enough to qualify someone for a key immigration policy from President Joe Biden that allows a limited number of people from four countries in the Americas to enter the U.S. on humanitarian grounds.

The program allows up to 30,000 people into the U.S. each month from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela combined.

The program is being challenged in a lawsuit led by Texas and 20 other Republican-leaning states. They’re accusing it of being a “shadow immigration system” that’s letting in nearly everyone who applies.

U.S. District Judge Drew Tipton said that a “massive chunk of the world” lives in poverty, adding he’s visited Haiti and seen terrible living conditions there rsthand.

“Does the fact they are living in poverty qualify as an urgent humanitarian need?” Tipton asked as closing arguments were being presented in the trial in Victoria, Texas.

“I think probably not,” said Elissa Fudim, a lawyer with the U.S. Justice Department, which is defending the federal govern-

ment in the lawsuit.

Esther Sung, an attorney with the Justice Action Center, one of several immigrant rights group’s that are defending the parole program in the lawsuit, said that Congress “has frowned on letting a migrant in for purely economic reasons.”

Attorneys for Texas and the other states say the large numbers of migrants being paroled in the U.S. show o cials are granting parole en masse and not on a case-by-case basis as required by law.

But lawyers with the U.S.

Justice Department and the immigrant rights groups argued migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela are not simply eeing economic hardship but also oppressive regimes, escalating violence and worsening political conditions that have endangered their lives.

The program’s supporters argue it isn’t giving blanket approval to all who apply and that each case is individually reviewed. They dispute the claim everyone is accepted, saying people who had made it to the nal approval step after ar-

Bare electrical wire and leaning poles on Maui were possible cause of deadly res

The Associated Press IN THE FIRST MOMENTS of the Maui res, when high winds brought down power poles, slapping electri ed wires to the dry grass below, there was a reason the ames erupted all at once in long, neat rows — those wires were bare, uninsulated metal that could spark on contact.

Videos and images analyzed by The Associated Press con rmed those wires were among miles of line that Hawaiian Electric Co. left naked to the weather and often-thick foliage, despite a recent push by utilities in other wild reand hurricane-prone areas to cover up their lines or bury them.

Compounding the problem is that many of the utility’s 60,000, mostly wooden power poles, which its own documents described as built to “an obsolete 1960s standard,” were leaning and near the end of their projected lifespan. They were nowhere close to meeting a 2002 national standard that key components of Hawaii’s electrical grid be able to withstand 105 mile per hour winds. A 2019 ling said it had fallen behind in replacing the old wooden poles because of other priorities and warned of a “seri-

ous public hazard” if they “failed.” Google street view images of poles taken before the re show the bare wire.

It’s “very unlikely” a fully-insulated cable would have sparked and caused a re in dry vegetation, said Michael Ahern, who retired this month as director of power systems at Worcester Poly-

technic Institute in Massachusetts.

Experts who watched videos showing downed power lines agreed wire that was insulated would not have arced and sparked, igniting a line of ame.

Hawaiian Electric said in a statement that it has “long recognized the unique threats” from

riving in the U.S. have been rejected. No number was given on how many such rejections have occurred. They said the program has also helped reduce the strain on resources and border agents along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Tipton pushed back on claims from Texas’ lawyers too. They have argued the state is spending millions of dollars on health care and public education costs because of an in ux of paroled migrants. Texas would have to prove it has su ered an economic loss to have standing in the case.

Tipton repeatedly asked Texas’ lawyers how the state could be claiming nancial losses if data shows that the parole program has actually reduced the number of migrants coming into the U.S.

“In the last six moths you’ve actually spent less on people from those countries,” Tipton told Texas’ lawyers.

After closing arguments wrapped up Friday, Tipton did not immediately issue a ruling on the legality of the parole program. A decision could come months down the road.

But Tipton said he was uncomfortable with issuing any temporary order in the case that would halt the parole program nationwide, as there are U.S.

climate change and has spent millions of dollars in response, but did not say whether speci c power lines that collapsed in the early moments of the re were bare.

“We’ve been executing on a resilience strategy to meet these challenges, and since 2018, we have spent approximately $950 million to strengthen and harden our grid and approximately $110 million on vegetation management e orts,” the company said. “This work included replacing more than 12,500 poles and structures since 2018 and trimming and removing trees along approximately 2,500 line miles every year on average.”

But a former member of the Hawaii Public Utilities Commission con rmed many of Maui’s wooden power poles were in poor condition. Jennifer Potter lives in Lahaina and until the end of last year was on the commission, which regulates Hawaiian Electric.

“Even tourists that drive around the island are like, ‘What is that?’ They’re leaning quite signi cantly because the winds over time literally just pushed them over,” she said. “That obviously is not going to withstand 60, 70 mile per hour winds. So the infrastructure was just not strong enough for this kind of windstorm … The infrastructure itself is just compromised.”

Sixty percent of the utility poles on West Maui were still down on

states that say the initiative has bene ted them.

The trial began Thursday and only one witness testi ed — an American who is sponsoring a migrant from Nicaragua who is now living in the U.S. because of the program. Most of the trial has been taken up by closing arguments and questions to the lawyers from Tipton.

As of the end of July, more than 72,000 Haitians, 63,000 Venezuelans, 41,000 Cubans and 34,000 Nicaraguans had been vetted and authorized to come to the U.S. through the program.

The lawsuit has not objected to the use of humanitarian parole for tens of thousands of Ukrainians who came after Russia’s invasion.

The parole program was started for Venezuelans in fall 2022 and then expanded in January. People taking part must apply online, arrive at an airport and have a sponsor. If approved, they can stay for two years and get a work permit. Other programs the administration has implemented to reduce illegal immigration have also faced legal challenges.

Tipton, who was appointed by then-President Donald Trump, has previously ruled against the Biden administration on who to prioritize for deportation.

Aug. 14, according to Hawaiian Electric CEO Shelee Kimura at a media conference — 450 of the 750 poles.

Hawaiian Electric is facing a spate of new lawsuits that seek to hold it responsible for the deadliest U.S. wild re in more than a century. The number of conrmed dead stands at 115, and the county expects that to rise.

Hawaiian Electric also faces criticism for not shutting o the power amid high wind warnings and keeping it on even as dozens of poles began to topple. Maui County sued Hawaiian Electric on Thursday over this issue.

Michael Jacobs, a senior energy analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said that with power lines causing so many res in the United States: “We denitely have a new pattern, we just don’t have a new safety regime to go with it.”

Insulating an electrical wire prevents arcing and sparking, and dissipates heat.

In 2002, the National Electric Safety Code was updated to require utility poles like those on Maui to withstand 105 mile per hour winds.

The U.S. electrical grid was designed and built for last century’s climate, said Joshua Rhodes, an energy systems research scientist at the University of Texas at Austin. Utilities would be smart to better prepare for protracted droughts and high winds, he added.

AP PHOTO

Valerie Laveus stands with her brother Reginald Malherbe Daniel and her nephew Tristan-Ryan Malherbe Daniel after her relatives arrived for the rst time to the United States from Haiti at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Wednesday, Aug. 9, 2023.

AP PHOTO

Utility poles stand in Lahaina on the island of Maui, Hawaii, Aug. 16, 2023. When the winds of Hurricane Dora lashed Maui Aug. 8, they struck bare electrical lines the Hawaiian electric utility had left exposed to the elements.

Randolph record

Asheboro Fire Dept. Promotions

Daniel Brown is pinned for his promotion to Engineer by his son Parker Brown last Thursday. View more photos from the event online at randolphrecord.com.

COUNTY NEWS

Black bear sighted roaming around Asheboro

Last week, local authorities were alerted about a black bear roaming around Asheboro after a resident in the Cli Road area noticed her ring camera captured the animal in her front yard. According to Randolph County Emergency Services, they received a phone call at roughly 7 a.m. about the animal being spotted on Gardiner Rd. and heading towards Shannon Rd. Animal Control and o cers from the Asheboro Police Department responded to the area but were ultimately unable to locate the large animal. O cials have stated that they will not track or capture the animal unless it becomes a nuisance. If you encounter a black bear, do not corner it, remain quiet if it doesn’t notice you and give it a chance to leave the area. Unlike larger species of bears, if you do encounter the bear and it approaches you, make yourself as big as you can and make loud noises until it ees.

Asheboro police track down and arrest hitand-run suspect

Last Wednesday, o cers from the Asheboro Police Department received a report about a pedestrian struck by a vehicle. When emergency services crews arrived on the scene, they found the pedestrian lying in the crosswalk near Magnolia 23 restaurant and witnesses in the roadway attempting to assist him. According to those witnesses, a vehicle with a large white or yellow sticker in the back window and temporary tags hit the pedestrian before departing onto Sunset Avenue. While Ash-Rand EMS took the victim to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, law enforcement engaged with the public to be on the lookout for the vehicle involved. O cers eventually caught 36-year-old Xavier Jermaine Wilhite and charged him with felony hit and run causing injury and misdemeanor driving with a license revoked. He was also issued a citation for failing to yield to a pedestrian. He was given a $2,500 secured bond.

RCS issues over 1,000 diplomas

By Ryan Henkel North State Journal

ASHEBORO — The Randolph County Schools Board of Education met Monday, August 21, with a variety of informational items to be presented to the board.

The rst information item that was presented to the board was an update on Apprenticeship Randolph.

According to its website, Apprenticeship Randolph is “an opportunity for juniors and seniors living and/or learning in Randolph County to get a jump start on a professional career in our booming local industries.”

Students get on-job training, experience and an Associates of Applied Science from Randolph Community College.

“Apprenticeship Randolph’s Signing Ceremony and Graduation was held at Randolph Com-

munity College last month,” said Superintendent Stephen Gainey. “Two things happened that night. The seventh group of apprentices were named, and I’m very proud to say that 12 of the 16 apprentices named for the seventh cohort came from Randolph County School systems. The third group of graduates from the program were recognized that night, and 11 of the 13 graduates were from RCS.

“This is a great opportunity that students have been taking advantage of. We have 21 industry partners. The rst year, we started with 12. It’s exciting. Really proud of our kids. All high school students in Randolph County are eligible for the program, whether it’s charter private, home, Asheboro City Schools or Randolph County Schools. Today, 123 have been selected for this program, and 93 have come from Randolph

Zoo to send amingos to South Carolina

By Bob Sutton Randolph Record

ASHEBORO — Flamingos are leaving the North Carolina Zoo.

A ock of 15 Chilean amingos will be moved to the Greenville Zoo in South Carolina by late September.

A “Farewell Flamingos” event was held Saturday at the zoo. Some of the amingos in the ock are from the original ock that arrived at the zoo in August 1982.

The aviary closed in April 2022 because of its age. In order to demolish the building that housed the aviary, the amingos had to be moved, according

to information from the zoo.

“Flamingos are social birds that live in large ocks in the wild,” according to a North Carolina Zoo social media post.

“We are very thankful to the Greenville Zoo for accepting the entire ock, as several of these birds have been together for over 25 years. We will miss our pink-feathered friends.”

There’s a ock of 19 amingos already at the Greenville Zoo.

Chilean amingos can live up to 50 years in captivity and grow to more than 4 feet tall.

A new aviary is in the planning stages for the North Carolina Zoo. It’s unclear if amingos will return if that’s constructed.

County Schools.”

The second information item that was presented to the board was the results of the 2023 Read to Achieve Summer Reading Camp, which took place from June 19 to July 6 for second and third-grade students.

The camp had 345 participants, with 166 second graders and 179 third graders. Of the 179 third graders, 120 took the mCLASS Summer Benchmark Assessment, with ve students passing, and 123 took the Read to Achieve test, with 22 students passing.

“If they didn’t pass the mCLASS, they could go and take the Read to Achieve,” Gainey said. “They could satisfy the Grade 3 reading standard for the state by passing one or the other, and they wouldn’t take the second one if they passed the rst.

“We see the pass rate, but I think anytime we’re working

on reading, you can’t go wrong working on reading. We’d like to see the rate higher, but at any rate, working on reading is paramount, in my opinion.”

The board was also presented with the Class of 2023 Graduation Statistical Information.

RCS issued 1,066 diplomas and six certi cates. Of the graduating students, 320 are attending a four-year college, 465 are attending a community college, private junior college or trade school, 231 are entering the workforce and 18 students indicated that they were undecided.

In total, $31,196,485 in scholarship money was awarded to Randolph County School System graduates pursuing further education.

The nal informational item was the 2023-2024 Alternative Education Option for Students

See EDUCATION, page 2

Annual Randolph County visitor impact report shows 3.8% increase

By Matt Mercer North State Journal

ASHEBORO — Domestic

and international visitors to and within Randolph County spent $178.63 million in 2022, an increase of 3.8% from 2021, according to new data.

The spending report comes from an annual study commissioned by Visit North Carolina, a unit of the Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina. State tax revenue generated in Randolph County totaled around $7.9 million through state sales and excise taxes, and taxes on personal and corporate income. About $4.7 million in local taxes were generated from sales and property tax revenue from travel-generated and travel-supported businesses.

Statewide, North Carolina set a record for visitor spending in 2022. As previously reported in May, travel statewide rose 15.2%, an increase following a 2021 turnaround from the pandemic’s 2020 peak, which brought a devastating drop of 32% in visitor spending.

“As we celebrate a record $33.3 billion in visitor spending statewide, we’re pleased that

counties that rely on business travel, as well as leisure trips, are doing well,” said N.C. Commerce Secretary Machelle Baker Sanders.

The travel and tourism industry directly employs more than 1,100 in Randolph County, according to the report.

The study was prepared for Visit North Carolina by Tourism Economics in collaboration with the U.S. Travel Association.

“Tourism is more than an essential industry for the state,” said Wit Tuttell, executive director of Visit NC. “It’s an economic development force in all 100 of our counties, the places where travelers experience our scenic beauty and adventure, our cuisine and unique culture, our history and the dynamic forces that create our enduring appeal. We look forward to continued success in welcoming people to experience places they won’t nd anywhere else.”

PHOTO COURTESY NC ZOO

Flamingos will be leaving North Carolina Zoo.

SCOTT PELKEY | RANDOLPH RECORD

WEEKLY FORECAST SPONSORED BY 336-629-7588

Here they come

Archdale bags one form of yard waste collection

By Bob Sutton Randolph Record

ARCHDALE — Bagged yard waste collection services in Archdale are being suspended by the end of the week.

City manager Zeb Holden said that the change in policy impacts a small percentage of residents, but solutions are being sought.

Holden said that the facility where bagged yard waste has been going has discontinued accepting plastic bags.

“I know some folks are going to be disappointed,” Holden said.

A notice from the city reads, in part: “City sta continue to evaluate options for the possibility (of) collecting yard waste in the future. … The city understands the inconvenience this suspension may cause and encourages residents to explore these alternative approaches to manage their yard waste in an environmentally

EDUCATION from page 1

who are long-term suspended.

Schools in North Carolina are required to provide an education to students who are long-term suspended, and the current plan presented to the board is consistent with the plan that the district has

Randolph Guide

The Randolph Guide is a quick look at what’s going on in Randolph County.

September 1

Wild Walks with Littles

10am

PELKEY

mings and organic debris, which is outlawed from landlls.”

Holden emphasized the city’s stance that the service has been “suspended” in hopes that there’s a workable alternative.

conscious manner.”

About 10 percent of residents use the bagged waste option, Holden estimated. That percentage varies in di erent parts of the city.

“In some neighborhoods, that might approach 25 percent,” he said. “It’s a small percentage of homes that use it, but those that use it use it a lot.”

Archdale is following the City of High Point in suspending the collection of yard waste in clear plastic bags.

High Point’s arrangement for disposal of yard waste at Ingleside Compost Facility is ending. Archdale had contracted with High Point to dispose of yard waste.

“We collected waste and carried it there,” Holden said. “They changed what they’re accepting.”

Archdale’s noti cation to residents points out that “this service has provided a convenient way to handle yard trim-

been using for years.

“We have been using this plan with not many revisions to it,” Gainey said. “Obviously, as online options have increased over time. We actually presented this plan for the rst time in 2015 and have been using it ever since.

“Some people don’t realize that when a child gets long-

The city is recommending composting, mulching or grasscycling (leaving grass clippings on the lawn as natural fertilizer).

Loose leaves are collected in the fall and winter months when placed near the curb.

Using specially designed paper bags is also something that might be considered for yard waste, Holden said.

“We’re doing some experimentation with that,” he said.

The situation in Archdale and High Point comes after Greensboro city o cials announced that they’re making plans to alter the format in which yard waste is collected in that city. Among the proposals in Greensboro is eliminating the collection of loose leaves, though that’s not likely to be implemented until 2024.

“The timing of all this is kind of crazy,” Holden said of multiple municipalities dealing with similar topics.

term suspended from school, we have to provide an education for them. It has worked well, our sta has done a really good job with it, and obviously, as more online instruction occurs universally, this plan really ts into that.”

The Randolph County Schools Board of Education will next meet September 18.

Experience a “wilder” Uwharrie and meet new friends! Hit the trails, feel a sense of community, and have fun! Meet up at the Tot Hill Farm Trailhead, located at 3091 Tot Hill Farm Rd. in Asheboro.

September 2

Asheboro Farmers Market

7am – 1pm

Come out to the Asheboro Downtown Farmers Market, located at 134 S. Church Street. This event is free and open to the public!

Adopt & Play Saturday 10am – 2pm

Randolph County Animal Services is hosting its monthly Adopt & Play Event at the Animal Services Adoption Center, located at 1370 County Land Rd. in Randleman. There will be fun activities and plenty of furry friends looking for their forever homes. Adoption fees on speci c animals have been reduced for this event.

September 4

Monday Concert –North Tower 6pm – 8:30pm

Come out to Bicentennial Park this Monday for live music by North Tower! This event is free and open to the public. Food trucks will be on site. All you need to do is bring a lawn chair!

September 5

Seagrove Town Meeting

6pm

CRIME LOG

Conrad, William (M, 36), Arrested on charge of Assault by Strangulation, Injury to Personal Property, Assault on a Female, on 8/21, at 1116 Tryon Ave.

Mean, Lim (M, 43), Arrested on charge of Possess Meth, PWISD Cocaine, Possession of Stolen Goods, on 8/21, at 5905 Finch Farm Rd.

Parker, Henrietta (F, 29), Arrested on charge of Possess Drug Paraphernalia, Cont Sub/Poss/Loc Confinement, on 8/21, at RCJ.

Tok, Loeum (M, 46), Arrested on charge of Possess Meth, PWIMSD MDA/MDMA, Possess Schedule

Paraphernalia, PWISD MDPV, on 8/21, at 5905 Finch Farm Rd.

Baldwin, Christopher (M, 47), Arrested on charge of Assault on a Female, on 8/18, at 811 New Century Rd.

Benitez, Christian (M, 19), Arrested on charge of Carrying Concealed Gun, on 8/21, at US HWY 220 Bus S & Lester Russell Dr.

Chriscoe, Brian (M, 50), Arrested on charge of Misdemeanor Stalking, on 8/18, at 176 E Salisbury St.

Cline, Destiny (F, 24), Arrested on charge of Larceny by Employee, on 8/18, at 4690 US HWY 220 S. Driggers, Blake (M,

19), Arrested on charge of Carrying Concealed Gun, Speeding, on 8/21, at US HWY 220 Bus S & Lester Russell Dr. Elliott, Rebecca (F, 39), Arrested on charge of AWDW Serious Injury, on 8/20, at 3310 Fieldcrest Ct.

Furr, Justin (M, 26), Arrested on charge of Larceny of Motor Vehicle, Felony Probation Violation, Break or Enter a Motor Vehicle, Possess Stolen Motor Vehicle, Misdemeanor Larceny, on 8/18, at 3267 Alamo Dr. Jones, Edward III (M, 35), Arrested on charge of Second Degree Trespass, on 8/18, at 1691 Old Buffalo Ford Rd.

The Seagrove Town Council will hold its next meeting on Monday, September 5, at 798 Hwy 705.

Randolph County Board of Commissioners Meeting

6pm

The Randolph County Board of Commissioners will meet next Tuesday at the Randolph County Historic Courthouse, located at 145-C Worth Street in Asheboro.

September 6

World Tavern Poker at Carolina Tap House 7pm

Join America’s #1 Bar Poker League right in Asheboro at the Carolina Tap House! Entry is 100% free to the public and games take place every Wednesday night!

Amy Jean Schell Carey, age 70 of Randleman, died August 18, 2023 at Randolph Health Hospital.

Teachers and sta from Lindley Park Elementary hold signs out the window of a city bus as it goes through the school district handing out ice cream as part of a back to school event on Aug 17. View more photos from the event online at randolphrecord.com

SCOTT

| RANDOLPH RECORD

Neal Robbins, publisher | Frank Hill, senior opinion editor

Joe Biden Is a narcissist, not an empath

If this were an isolated incident, we could chalk it up to Biden’s encroaching senility. But it isn’t.

PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN, we keep hearing, is a deeply empathetic man. It is that empathy that brought him to the presidency — his deep and abiding capacity to connect with others. In “What It Takes,” Richard Ben Cramer’s detailed blowby-blow of the 1988 election cycle, Ben Cramer describes Biden’s ability to “connect” as his greatest supposed skill. This has been the pitch for Biden for decades: not much in the way of brains, not a tremendously resourceful politician, awkward on his feet — but he cares. In the words of Mark Gitenstein, Biden’s 1988 speechwriter and a four-decade adviser, “His ability to communicate with people in pain is maybe his most powerful strength.”

Or maybe, just maybe, Biden was never an empathetic man. Maybe he simply tra cked in ersatz empathy, all the while feeding his own narcissism.

That story certainly looks more plausible these days.

Last week, Biden visited Maui. He did so nearly two weeks after the worst wild re in modern American history killed hundreds of Americans. Meanwhile, Biden vacationed in Delaware on the beach, telling reporters he had “no comment” on the situation; he then jet-set o to Lake Tahoe before nally heading to Lahaina. Once he reached Hawaii, he proceeded to explain that he felt the pain of those whose family members had been incinerated. After all, he said, one time he experienced a small kitchen re. “I don’t want to compare di culties, but we have a little sense, Jill and I, of what it was like to lose a home,” he jabbered. “Years ago, now, 15 years, I was in Washington doing ‘Meet the press’... Lightning struck at home on a little lake outside the home, not a lake a big pond. It hit the wire and came up underneath our home, into the... air condition ducts. To make a long story short, I almost lost my wife, my ‘67 Corvette and my cat.”

In reality, back in 2004, lightning caused a kitchen re in Biden’s home that was put out in 20 minutes with no other damage.

If this were an isolated incident, we could chalk it up to Biden’s encroaching senility. But it isn’t. After presiding over the botched pullout from Afghanistan that resulted in the return of the Taliban, the murder of 13 American servicemembers, the abandonment of hundreds of American citizens and thousands of American green card holders, and the subjugation of some tens of millions of women, Biden essentially shrugged. Then, when faced with the families of wounded and killed American soldiers, he attempted to “feel their pain” by invoking the death of his son, Beau. According to Cheryl Rex, whose son died in the Abbey Gate bombing of Aug. 26, 2021, “His words to me were, ‘My wife, Jill, and I know how you feel. We lost our son as well and brought him home in a ag-draped co n.’”

Biden has cited Beau in similar instances multiple times.

In the Jewish community, death of a loved one is followed by shiva, a seven-day period of mourning. During shiva, mourners don’t leave their homes; they are instead cared for by the community, provided with food and communal prayer. Members of the community visit the shiva house to provide comfort.

The rst rule of visiting a shiva house: Don’t talk about your own experiences with death or pain. It’s gauche and irrelevant and trivializing.

Yet this is Biden’s rst move.

Empathy is the quality of putting yourself in the place of others. But Biden isn’t an empath. He’s someone who believes that everyone else’s pain is merely a re ection of his own.

Ben Shapiro, 39, is a graduate of UCLA and Harvard Law School, host of “The Ben Shapiro Show,” and co-founder of Daily Wire+.

Republican debate: Whatever happened in the debate, fundamentals could still matter

The fundamentals in this case are that majorities of voters are inclined to reject each of the two most recent incumbent presidents, even though they register hefty majorities in polls of their party’s primary voters.

HAVING COMPLETED the rst presidential debate of the 2024 campaign cycle, it’s tempting to focus on minor but perhaps momentarily decisive details, such as whether Ron DeSaantis was wise to outsource strategy to a committee that he’s legally barred from communicating with or whether it was wise for Trump campaign spokesmen to not be allowed in the Fox News spin room.

Reporters have an incentive to focus on such things. Being the rst to spot a change in course -- leading the pack -- is a source of professional pride. But the fundamentals remain potentially dispositive.

Jimmy Carter’s astute advisers were able to keep his campaign above water for months in the 1980 cycle. But when the election returns came in, his low job rating on most issues was re ected in his 41% share of the vote, enough to carry only six states. One lesson of that campaign, and of many others, is that voters seek in presidential candidates qualities that they nd lacking in the current president.

Voters in 1960, accustomed to what were then considered elderly incumbents (every president for the preceding 18 years was in his 60s, and Dwight Eisenhower turned 70 three weeks before Election Day), opted for the outwardly vigorous 43-year-old John F. Kennedy. The fundamentals in this case are that majorities of voters are inclined to reject each of the two most recent incumbent presidents, even though they register hefty majorities in polls of their party’s primary voters, 64% for Joe Biden and 55% for Donald Trump.

Majority rejection of the 45th and 46th presidents is not a momentary phenomenon. In the 91 months since

Trump was inaugurated, incumbent presidents have enjoyed majority approval in only seven months and have fallen short in 84 months.

That’s 92% of the time over the last seven years and seven months, an even higher percentage than during the seven years leading up to the 1980 election, during the presidencies of Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter.

It’s not hard to think of reasons why: Trump’s uncouth insults and vacillating policies, Biden’s visible aging and extreme policies, both men’s penchant for transparent untruths (or, in the opposition party’s parlance, lies). Their support in primary polling seems to re ect a sincere inability on the part of their co-partisans, in a time of sharp partisanship, to understand why most of their fellow citizens do not appreciate their performance.

But not all partisans are blind to the views of others. In the early caucus and primary states, where candidates have been most active and voters most engaged, Trump has been polling below 50%, signi cantly below his national average -43% in Iowa, 44% in New Hampshire and 46% in South Carolina.

The Des Moines Register/NBC poll, conducted by the astonishingly good pollster J. Ann Selzer, showed Trump leading DeSantis by a 42%-19% margin. That sounds like a whopping lead, and in a general election poll, where most voters tend to support their party’s candidates, it would be.

But in primaries, and especially the Iowa caucuses, preferences are more uid. As the veteran poll analyst Nate Silver points out, since 2004, only one of the Republican or Democratic candidates leading in Iowa polling at this stage of the

cycle has won the Iowa caucuses, and that candidate (Hillary Clinton in 2016) won by only 1%.

“The Selzer poll is good for Trump, but it’s not consistent with the view that his nomination is more-or-less inevitable,” Silver wrote. “Trump is ‘only’ 68% at prediction markets, which to me seems low, but lotta folks here are treating him at ~99%, which is de nitely too high.”

That suggests that Silver puts a Trump opponent’s chances of winning the Republican nomination somewhere around 29%, which his Fivethirtyeight. com estimated as Trump’s chance of winning the 2016 general election.

The problem Trump’s current opponents face is akin to the classic tension between the need to go right (or left) to win the party nomination and then go to the center to win the general election. To be Trumplike enough to win the nomination and to present, for the general election, a contrast with the untruthfulness and aging which, to varying degrees, a ict Trump and Biden.

That’s a di cult but not impossible task. Upsets or even surprisingly strong second-place nishes in early contests can, as in the past, change millions of votes in ensuing primaries. And a potential Republican nominee without Trump’s weaknesses could lead to ructions among Democrats suddenly terri ed that Biden could lose.

This week’s debates could change the course of the presidential contest. But so could the fundamentals.

Michael Barone is a senior political analyst for the Washington Examiner, resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and longtime co-author of The Almanac of American Politics.

COLUMN | MICHAEL BARONE

COLUMN | BEN SHAPIRO

SIDELINE REPORT

COLLEGE FOOTBALL

Arizona State imposes 1-year bowl ban Tempe, Ariz. Arizona State has issued a self-imposed one-year bowl ban amid an NCAA investigation for possible infractions incurred under former football coach Herm Edwards. The ban is a preemptive step as the NCAA investigates the Sun Devils for alleged recruiting violations during the COVID-19 pandemic. The NCAA has been investigating the program since 2021.

It’s looking into allegations that the Sun Devils hosted recruits during the NCAAimposed ban on in-person recruiting during the pandemic. Arizona State red Edwards three games into last season and gave him a $4.4 million buyout instead of ring him for cause.

MLS Messi violates MLS media rules by not speaking with reporters

Harrison, N.J.

Lionel Messi did not speak with reporters after his Major League Soccer debut, a violation of the league’s media rules. Messi scored in the 89th minute of Inter Miami’s 2-0 win over the New York Red Bulls. Miami spokeswoman Molly Dreska said after the match that Messi was not being made available to reporters. Dan Courtemanche, MLS’s executive vice president of communications, said before the game that Messi, like all players, was required to be available to media after all games.

NHL Rangers hire Hall of Fame women’s star Ruggiero

New York

The New York Rangers have hired Hockey Hall of Famer Angela Ruggiero as a hockey operations adviser. The team announced the addition of Ruggiero along with several front o ce changes. Ruggiero won four Olympic medals as a defenseman for the U.S. including helping the country win gold in 1998 in Nagano in the rst Games with women’s hockey. The Rangers also promoted former NHL forward Ryane Clowe to cosenior adviser to president and general manager Chris Drury and hired Andy Hosler as head athletic trainer.

TENNIS

Ymer announces abrupt retirement over doping ban

London

Swedish tennis player Mikael

Ymer abruptly announced his retirement at the age of 24 after an unsuccessful attempt to overturn an antidoping suspension. Ymer was charged in January 2022 for missing three outof-competition tests in a 12-month period. He initially fought the charges and said he had been cleared by an independent tribunal in June 2022. But the ITF appealed the decision and Ymer was handed an 18-month suspension. Ymer was ranked as high as 50 in the world in April and represented Sweden in the Davis Cup along with his older brother Elias.

Notre Dame thinking big after Hartman’s impressive debut

I won’t be using it. I’ll be tucking it away.”

The victory was hardly a surprise.

num had a record 19,217 yards with Houston from 2007-2011.

But with Notre Dame, it’s always about more than numbers.

“There’s no substitution for experience. None,” Freeman said. “I don’t care if you’re the head coach or a quarterback.”

Over the previous two years, Hartman threw for more than 300 yards per game, scored 89 total TDs and completed more passes of 20 yards or more than anyone else in the FBS.

The Associated Press NO. 13 NOTRE DAME can forget about game-managing quarterbacks.

It has a new star in Sam Hartman. He lived up to the billing on Saturday by going 19 of 23 with 251 yards while tying a school record for a debut with four TD passes, leading the Fighting Irish to a 42-3 rout over rival Navy. He celebrated the nearly perfect performance by putting his hands on a shillelagh.

“It’s kind of our new tradition, we’re going to get a new one each game,” Hartman said of the club after delivering Notre Dame’s most lopsided opening win in 11 years. “It’s used as a weapon, but

After going 9-4 with Tyler Buchner and Drew Pyne splitting the job last season, second-year coach Marcus Freeman searched for a dynamic quarterback to lead the o ense. The answer was Hartman, who transferred from Wake Forest to Notre Dame and encouraged reporters to include teammates Jaden Greathouse and Marist Liufau at the postgame news conference.

“You’ve got to ask these guys questions, too,” he said.

Hartman understands, though, that the spotlight always shines on the Notre Dame quarterback — especially when you’re one of college football’s most proli c passers at one of the sports’ most storied programs.

“You feel it when you travel,”

Former Notre Dame star quarterback Joe Montana on new Irish starter Sam Hartman

Hartman said. He is an unusual quarterback, too, the kind Notre Dame has been chasing since at least the end of the Ian Book era in 2020, maybe the Tommy Rees era in 2013 or perhaps the Jimmy Clausen era in 2009.

Hartman came to South Bend after compiling an ACC career-record 110 TD passes and 12,967 yards. If he tops 4,100 yards for the second time in three seasons, he’ll be second alltime on the FBS list. Case Kee-

Preece gets medical clearance to return to NC after terrifying crash at Daytona

The Stewart-Haas Racing driver’s car ipped about a dozen times on Saturday night

The Associated Press

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Cup Series driver Ryan Preece, whose car rolled about a dozen times during a terrifying crash at Daytona International Speedway, was on his way home about 12 hours later after being discharged from a hospital Sunday.

Stewart-Haas Racing said Preece was headed back to North Carolina after getting clearance from doctors at Halifax Health Medical Center. The team earlier said Preece was “awake, alert and mobile” and “had been communicating with family and friends.”

The 32-year-old Preece was able to climb out of his mangled No. 41 Ford on Saturday night with help before emergency workers put him on a gurney and into an ambulance. He initially went to the track’s in eld care center before being transported to Halifax Health for overnight observation.

Preece tweeted about two

hours after the race, posting: “If you want to be a race car driver, you better be tough. ... I’m coming back.”

Preece and SHR teammate Chase Briscoe made contact coming out of Turn 4, and Preece’s car turned hard left and then went into an uncontrollable barrel roll as soon as it slid from

the asphalt to the in eld grass.

The car came to a halt on all four tires with some minor damage to the roll cage.

Preece being able to climb out with help was a testament to NASCAR’s Next Gen car, which is considered the safest iteration in its 75-year history.

The car was roundly criti-

“This moment isn’t too big. It’s about him going out there and just executing,” Freeman said. “What I really, really thought he did a great job was putting our o ense in good positions to execute plays.”

Hartman has been humbled by joining a small, prominent Notre Dame fraternity that includes familiar names such as the late John Lujack Jr., Joe Theismann, Brady Quinn, Tony Rice and Joe Montana.

And now Hartman’s rst game even has one of those guys raving.

“It’s been great watching him,” Montana said during the telecast. “I think it’s great for Notre Dame and he brings a little something — some juice to the o ense.”

cized following its debut in 2022 because rear-impact collisions wreaked havoc on drivers. Kurt Busch of 23XI Racing su ered a life-changing concussion during a qualifying crash at Pocono Raceway last summer, and Hendrick Motorsports driver Alex Bowman missed ve races because of a concussion.

Other drivers complained about the violence felt during what they considered routine hits and wondered if they too had su ered head trauma.

NASCAR spent much of last year and the o season testing and tweaking its car to try to limit the G-forces delivered to drivers. The changes were welcomed, resulting in considerably fewer missed races and no reported concussions in 2023.

Busch, meanwhile, formally retired from the Cup Series Saturday at Daytona. The 45-yearold Busch held back tears as he called it quits, saying his “body is just having a battle with Father Time.”

Busch added that he’s dealt with arthritis and gout while trying to shake lingering e ects of a brain injury that rocked stock car racing a year ago.

Preece’s accident harkened memories of Ryan Newman’s harrowing wreck in the 2020 Daytona 500. Newman was able to walk out of the hospital days later, another testament to NASCAR safety improvements made since Dale Earnhardt’s death on the nal lap of the 2001 Daytona 500.

“He brings a little something — some juice to the o ense.”

The former Wake Forest star threw for four touchdowns in his Irish debut

AP PHOTO

Notre Dame quarterback Sam Hartman throws against Navy during the Irish’s 42-3 win Saturday in Dublin.

AP PHOTO

Ryan Preece barrel rolls along the back stretch during Saturday night’s Cup Series race at Daytona.

Blue Comets win under new coach

Randolph Record

ASHEBORO SECURED its rst volleyball victory under rst-year coach Kelly Smith by defeating host Providence Grove 25-11, 26-24, 26-24 in a match last week.

The Blue Comets, who lost their rst two matches of the season, won later in the week by sweeping host Wheatmore.

Sion Murrain’s 15 kills and four digs, Piper Davidson’s 27 service receptions and 14 digs, and Ellen Long’s 10 kills led the way against Providence Grove. Lia George provided 10 kills and 10 digs against Wheatmore.

** After a loss at Oak Grove, Randleman won matches against host Asheboro by 2512, 25-20, 25-20 and vs. visiting Northern Guilford by 25-21, 1725, 25-22, 24-26, 15-11.

Camryn Vickery had 28 assists, and Camden Scott posted 17 kills and 17 digs in the Asheboro match. Against Northern Guilford, Scott had 18 kills and

14 digs, Haley Hinshaw provided 16 kills and 12 digs and Vickery supplied 44 assists and 17 digs.

** Providence Grove went 1-2 in a trio of non-conference matches. After the result vs. Asheboro, the Patriots fell in four sets at Southern Alamance before sweeping visiting East Davidson behind Riley Mazzarone’s 30 assists and Mailey Way’s 19 digs.

Boys’ soccer

Southwestern Randolph had a big week with a pair of impressive performances.

The Cougars knocked o visiting Central Davidson 4-1 behind three goals from Fernando Hernandez and one goal from Pedro Ortiz.

Hernandez was back at it for three goals and three assists in a 9-0 romp at North Stanly. David Dominguez had two goals in that game.

With a 4-1 record entering this week, the Cougars are more

Karli Kennington

than halfway to last year’s seven-win total and matched the four victories from two seasons ago.

** Asheboro notched two victories in three home games, falling by 1-0 to North Moore before a 3-0 victory against Ragsdale and a 2-0 decision against Christ the King. Diego Bustamente had a goal in each of the Blue Comets’ victories.

The setback to North Moore marked the rst regular-season home loss for Asheboro since October 2021.

Cross country

At Thomasville. Zach Hazelwood of Wheatmore won East Davidson’s Bob Schilly Invitational on Aug. 19 with a time of 16 minutes. 21.71 seconds.

Hazelwood secured a nearly 32-second advantage on runner-up Cole Johnson of High Point Christian. There were 71 runners in the race.

The Warriors placed last among eight teams in the boys’ team standings. South Davidson was the winning team.

The girls’ winner was Jillian Parks of Central Davidson in 20:01.73. East Davidson won the team title, while Wheatmore was fth among six teams.

Randleman, volleyball

Kennington is one of four seniors on the Tigers’ roster. The defensive specialist has been a key contributor to Randleman’s strong start to the season.

She had 26 digs against Oak Grove last week and later in the week provided 18 digs against Northern Guilford. She has had 19 or more digs in three matches so far.

Kennington’s stat lines have also included aces, kills and assists.

Randleman, a Class 2-A school, set a schedule with Class 3-A opponents for each of its rst six non-conference matches. The Tigers entered this week with a 4-1 record.

Caraway honors past, sees fresh winners

Randolph Record

Waddell adds AD duties at UCA

By Bob Sutton Randolph Record

ASHEBORO — Chris Waddell’s roles have changed at Uwharrie Charter Academy, but he’ll still coach the powerhouse wrestling team.

His job titles now include duties as dean of students and athletics director.

“I’ve been doing a lot of preparation during the summer,” Waddell said.

Boys’ basketball coach Brad Monroe previously had the position of athletics director.

Waddell had been an assistant athletics director while also the wrestling coach.

“It’s an adjustment,” Waddell said. “I like a challenge. I always have.”

He has UCA’s wrestling program positioned as a Class 1-A state power. The Eagles won the 2019 and 2023 dual team championships and were runners-up in 2020 and 2022 (there wasn’t a duals tournament in 2021 because of the pandemic).

Waddell spent 16 years as

Southwestern Randolph’s wrestling coach during some strong seasons for the Cougars. Add in time with UCA and he has 700 coaching victories.

UCA has newcomers in some of its varsity coaching positions.

Israel Jaramillo has taken charge of the boys’ soccer team after a previous role as a middle school coach. Jaramillo is a

Randleman graduate.

The new girls’ tennis coach is Jennifer Walker, a history teacher at the school.

The softball coach will be Haven Marine, a former Southwestern Randolph baseball and football player and 2005 graduate of the school. Marine had been in a coaching capacity with the UCA middle school.

SOPHIA — Even on a night to engage in history, there was a sense of newness Saturday at Caraway Speedway. After a Wall of Fame induction that added ve to the speedway’s most-honored list, there were relative newcomers to victory lane. The Wall of Fame inductees were ex-drivers John Paul Linville, Donald Tucker and Junior Miller, former race o cial Lance Childress and Riggs Racing.

Jamie York won the 58lap Late Models feature – the length of the race paying tribute to the track’s 58 years of operation. His father, Jason York, was the fast quali er, but he ended up third. Jason York is the track’s points leader. Je Sparks contended for stretches and nished as the runner-up. Jamie York’s margin of victory was 2.446 seconds. Dean Ward was fourth, followed by Chase Murphy, Camden Thomas and Mike Bledsoe.

In 602 Modi eds, fast quali er Josh Lowder was the winner, crossing the line ahead of Billy Gregg in the 50-lap event. Third place went to Jaxson Casper with the next two spots

going to Mitchell Wright and Levi Holt.

In the 35-lap Challengers race, Matthew Smith moved to the front on the 20th lap and went on to win for the rst time in 2023. Nicolas Graham’s runner-up spot was also his best nish of the year, while Tommy Raino, Lucas Crim and DJ Dean secured the next three positions.

Fast quali er Allen Vance didn’t nish the race after his car overheated.

In Mini Stocks, A.J. Sanders was the winner in the scheduled 40-lapper, which was cut to 21 laps because of rain. Luke Smith was second, followed by Bryson Pickard and Rudy Hartley. Chuck Wall led for several laps before contact with Jeffry Burrow’s car sent him out of the race.

For Legends cars, Kaden Ballos was ahead of London McKenzie at the nish.

James Monolo captured the 15-lap Bandoleros race.

UCARs were rained out.

The speedway takes Labor Day weekend o before the Sept. 9 card. That will include two UCAR races to make up for the rainout along with 602 Modi eds, Challengers, Legends and Bandoleros.

SCOTT PELKEY | NORTH STATE JOURNAL Karli Kennington of Randleman sets the ball during a match last week.

PJ WARD-BROWN | NORTH STATE JOURNAL

PJ WARD-BROWN | NORTH STATE JOURNAL

RANDOLPH RECORD FILE PHOTO

Wrestling coach Chris Waddell is the new athletics director at Uwharrie Charter Academy.

Southwestern Randolph’s Fernando Hernandez takes a shot against Central Davidson during one of the Cougars’ victories last week.

Asheboro’s Lia George spikes the ball toward Providence Grove’s Maggie Freeman.

Trinity adjusts with Payne taking new role

By Bob Sutton Randolph Record

TRINITY — When Bear Bradley became Trinity’s football coach in the spring, he had lots of areas to address.

At or near the top of the list was meeting with Dominic Payne.

“He was one of the rst student-athletes I wanted to talk to,” Bradley said. “I said to him, ‘Where do you see yourself best?’”

Payne had been the Bulldogs’ quarterback the past two seasons, earning All-Piedmont Athletic Conference honors as a sophomore.

Now he’s two games into his senior season and playing running back.

“I like quarterback,” Payne said. “I feel like I can do better with this team at running back.”

So that’s where Bradley said Payne’s skills might best suit Trinity, which evened its record at 1-1 by defeating visiting Albemarle 29-19 on Friday night.

The Bulldogs’ quarterback is transfer Noah Bradley, a junior transfer from Southern Guil-

ford and the new coach’s son.

Bear Bradley had been Southern Guilford’s head coach.

Payne is adjusting to his role, and the Bulldogs are trying to make the pieces gel.

“We have higher expectations,” senior receiver Brandon Campbell said. “We need to lock in. Just have to work on the little things.”

So, the passing system looks di erent, but Payne is still a big part of the o ense.

“You naturally gravitate to

him,” Coach Bradley said. “He’s just a great guy to be around.”

Bradley said Payne can also be used as a receiver along with his role on defense as an outside linebacker. Against Albemarle, he also took snaps, so he hasn’t abandoned that totally.

Payne said he considered himself more of a running quarterback, so in that aspect, a position change isn’t all that drastic. He was the quarterback on the junior varsity as a freshman before taking the controls as a

Cougars, Tigers, Patriots move to 2-0

Randolph Record

ROBBINS — Southwestern Randolph built a rst-half lead on a couple of touchdown passes and held o host North Moore for a 22-12 victory Friday night.

Noah Stills threw a 9-yard touchdown pass to Marcus Robertson for the game’s rst points. Nathan Ellis threw to Colton Law for a second-quarter touchdown. The other touchdown came on Stills’ 12-yard scramble on a fourthand-10 play.

The Cougars (2-0) defeated one of the state’s top Class 1-A teams from a year ago. It marked the Mustangs’ rst regular-season loss since October 2021 and rst regular-season loss at home since the opening game of the 2021 spring season.

Southwestern Randolph never trailed, taking a 14-0 lead and holding a 14-12 halftime edge. Jakarey Gillis scored on two touchdown runs and nished with 169 rushing yards for North Moore (1-1).

The only points in the second half came on Stills’ 12-yard scramble on fourth-and-10 on the rst play of the fourth quarter and an ensuing two-point conversion.

North Moore gained 242

rushing yards but only 8 yards in the air.

Randleman 14, West Stokes 7: At King, the Tigers scored a pair of touchdowns, and despite not generating much o ensively, they held on for the road victory.

Edison Hernandez scored on a 1-yard run in the second quarter, and Micah Thurston scored from 5 yards out in the

third quarter. Christian McLeod kicked two extra-points, and Randleman led 14-0 before West Stokes (1-1) scored in the fourth quarter. Randleman (2-0) was charted for just ve rst downs and 128 yards of total o ense. Both teams committed two turnovers.

Providence Grove 45, Southern Guilford 12: At

sophomore on the varsity.

He said he’s adjusting to a more aggressive approach in carrying the ball as a running back.

“I still try to juke,” he said of past tendencies.

Payne, who was the Player of the Year for boys’ basketball in the PAC during the past season, said from a recruiting aspect, he’s more interested in football right now, even though basketball remains high on his list after a strong summer on the travel circuit. He has interests from several schools regarding football and an o er (for running back) from Davidson.

Noah Bradley is trying to mesh with his new team.

“They’ve been learning me,” Noah Bradley said. “You’re getting your timing down.”

That has been a challenge because Trinity’s receivers aren’t as speedy as those he was connecting with at Southern Guilford.

“I’m not used to their speed,” he said.

At Southern Guilford, his targets included a quartet that won the Class 3-A state track and eld championships in the 800

Greensboro, Logan Fox scored four touchdowns and gained 174 rushing yards on 24 carries for the visiting Patriots (2-0). Jacob Flinchum and Jackson Lawver also ran for touchdowns.

Eastern Randolph 27, Asheboro 16: At Asheboro, quarterback Carter Revelle threw for two touchdowns and gained a game-high 70 rushing yards as the Wildcats (1-1) churned out a non-league road victory.

Revelle passed for 185 yards, with DaSean Shamburger making ve catches for 90 yards.

Shamburger had touchdown catches of 38 and 24 yards, the second of those a 24-yard play with 21 seconds left in the rst half to help create a 14-9 halftime lead. Eastern Randolph’s A’Donye Herbert opened the second half scoring with a 3-yard run.

Asheboro (1-1) relied on Logan Laughlin’s 319 yards on 22for-37 passing. Elijah Woodle picked up 119 receiving yards on six catches, and Amare Godwin also caught six passes – two for touchdowns – to post 109 yards.

Laughlin threw a 4-yard, fourth-down touchdown pass to Godwin with 4:41 remaining. Less than a minute later, Revelle ran 45 yards for an Eastern Randolph touchdown.

Earlier, Alex Sanchez kicked a 20-yard eld goal for Asheboro.

Trinity 29, Albemarle 19: At Trinity, Dominic Payne scored three touchdowns as part of a 261-yard rushing per-

relay and placed third in the 400 relay.

The core of Trinity receivers are Campbell and senior Jacob Hodges and juniors Leyland White and Came Nelson – and their big-play capabilities have been on display during the season’s opening weeks.

Campbell, though preferring the passing attack, said it will be good to have a mixture on offense.

“If we keep passing the ball, that’s what people are going to expect,” he said.

Noah Bradley was pressed into duty, able on a limited basis, as a freshman at Southern Guilford. His role increased last year, but he dealt with a shoulder injury.

In his rst game with Trinity, the quarterback called it his best high school game despite the loss at Starmount.

Bear Bradley, former Wheatmore coach, said he feels right at home at a Randolph County school.

But what was uncomfortable was the rush to put together a team ready to take the eld after the equivalent of about a couple of months to prepare.

“Every time you come to a new team, there’s that transition period,” Coach Bradley said. “It’s just a new feel.”

Friday night’s games

Bishop McGuinness at Providence Grove Southern Lee at Eastern Randolph Randleman at Cedar Ridge Trinity at East Davidson Ledford at Wheatmore

formance as the host Bulldogs (1-1) gave coach Bear Bradley his rst victory with his new team.

Payne, who also scored a two-point conversion, threw for a touchdown to Cam Nelson. Payne’s scoring runs came from 15, 19 and 73 yards. The nal of those came on the rst snap following Albemarle’s kicko return for a touchdown to cut the gap to 22-19.

Albemarle (0-2) never trailed until the second half.

East Davidson 42, Wheatmore 41: At Trinity, Wheatmore’s home opener went away with the non-conference loss. The Warriors were unable to score on their nal possession. Riley Strickland threw for four touchdowns and 297 yards, and Jonathan Kelly racked up 197 rushing yards on 19 carries for Wheatmore (1-1).

Sa’Cory Maryland, Max Smith, Trey Swaney and Kelly made touchdown catches from Strickland, who was out late in the game with an injury. Jake Ward threw a touchdown pass to Swaney. On defense, Clay Hill made three interceptions. East Davidson is 1-1.

Eastern Randolph tops

Asheboro for rst win

BOB SUTTON | RANDOLPH RECORD

Dominic Payne, left, and Noah Bradley, right.

PJ WARD-BROWN | NORTH STATE JOURNAL

Eastern Randolph’s Will Stalker makes a tackle on Asheboro receiver Ben Luck.

PREP FOOTBALL WEEK 3

Linda Joy Hartwig

February 27, 1949 — August 24, 2023

Linda Joy Hartwig, age 74, of Asheboro, transitioned to her heavenly home on August 24, 2023.

Linda was born on February 27, 1949 to Joseph and Mary (Hutzaluk) Lukowski in Fort Meade, Maryland, and joined her sister, Priscilla (McClellan of Chesapeake, VA), in many adventurous family travels while her father served as an Army Chaplain.

After initially rejecting him as her date after an ill-fated summer camp banquet when they were just 10 years old, Linda accepted a second date several years later with Roger, when they ended up attending di erent colleges in the same town. Roger eventually became her college sweetheart and they were married for more than 53 years, sharing many moments lled with love and laughter.

Linda cherished her family and devoted herself to being a loving mother to her children when they were young (and out-swimming them in the pool), and cheering them and their spouses on in adulthood: daughter, Holly Moorhead, and her husband, Andrew, of Asheboro; and, son, Ryan, and his wife, Jill, of Tustin, CA. More than anything else however, she delighted in being “Grammy” and spending time with, and telling others about, her completely beautiful, talented, smart, funny, and deeply loved grandchildren: Graham and Anderson Moorhead; and, Halle, Alia, Katelyn, and Matthew Hartwig. She also is survived by her sister, Priscilla McClellan, and niece, Erin (Michael) Bean of Chesapeake, VA. Her unwavering prayers for her family throughout her life continue as reminders of her presence and love in the lives of her family.

Charles Kent Fowler

June 17, 1948 — August 24, 2023

Charles Kent Fowler, 75, passed away August 24, 2023 at High Point Medical Center surrounded by his loved ones. He was born in Union County, SC on June 17, 1948 to Russell Fowler and Rosa Hyde Fowler.

Charles was a devoted and loving husband and father, he enjoyed nothing more than spending time with his family and grandbabies. Mr. Fowler served in the US Army as a Diesel Mechanic in Germany during the Vietnam era. Charles spent 55 years in the Diesel Mechanic Industry.

Charles is survived by his wife, Lee Ann Lyndon Fowler; children, Charles Ray Fowler of Randleman, Leesa (Joe) Floyd Perdue of Trinity, Mike Fowler of Thomasville, James Daniel Floyd of Asheboro, Charles Donald Floyd of Randleman; grandchildren, Micahley Shaver, Tristian Shaver, Logan Anne-Marie Fowler, Kara Perdue, Allie Perdue, Braxton Perdue, Leilani Fowler, Aiden Fowler, Thurman Floyd; brother, Russell “Buster” Fowler of Asheboro. He is preceded in death by his daughter, Shiela Denise Fowler; parents Russell and Rosa Fowler; brother, William Hunt; sister, Tessa Lou Asbill.

Mildred Louise Tanner Allmond

May 2, 1929 — August 19, 2023

Mrs. Mildred Louise Tanner Allmond, 94, of Asheboro, went home to be with her Lord and Savior on August 19th, 2023.

Mildred was born in Belmont, NC on May 2nd, 1929 to the late John Thomas Tanner and Mary Bertha Gilliam. Mildred was married to Silas Allmond on May 11th, 1946. They began raising their family in Gastonia, NC and then moved to Asheboro, NC in 1968. They were married for 51 years and built a beautiful life together.

During their marriage, Mildred worked as a homemaker. She took pride in taking care of her husband, children, and grandchildren, as well as her beautiful yard and owers.

In addition to her parents, she is preceded in death by her husband, Silas Allmond, and her two sons, Steven Allmond and Eric Allmond, Sr. Mildred is survived by her daughters, Sherry McMasters (Mitchell) of Ramseur, and Linda Graham of Siler City. In addition, she is survived by her grandchildren, Eric Allmond II (Andrea), Zachary Graham, Nicholas Graham (Molly), Emily Soto (Joshua), and Crystal Burnett (Shane), Caleb McMasters, Jacob McMasters, daughter-in-law Doris Allmond, as well as 11 great-grandchildren.

Donna Lee Grubb Holder

April 18, 1971 — August 24, 2023

Donna Lee (Grubb) Holder, age 52, of Franklinville passed away on Thursday, August 24, 2023.

Donna was born on Easter Sunday, April 18, 1971, to Lanny Duane and Maxine Bean Grubb.

Donna was preceded in death by her father, Lanny Duane Grubb and brother, David Duane Grubb. Donna graduated from Asheboro High School, class of 1989 and furthered her education with a bachelor’s degree from UNC-G. Donna was a wonderful wife, mother and sel ess angel.

She is survived by her mother, Maxine Bean Grubb of Asheboro; brother, Alan E. Grubb (Michele) of Randleman; her husband of 31 years, Jimmy Ray Holder of Franklinville; and her 4 children, Cody Dwayne Holder of Franklinville, Jessica Lee Holder Webster (Logan) of Pleasant Garden, Charles Edward Holder of Franklinville and William Cale Holder of Franklinville; along with other loving family members.

Dewayne Ivan Lee omas

September 9, 1978 - August 20, 2023

Dewayne Ivan Lee Thomas, 44, of Asheboro, died Sunday, August 20, 2023, at his home.

Dewayne was born on September 9, 1978 in Randolph County, NC. He loved spending time with his family, and watching his kids play sports. He enjoyed playing cards and shing.

Dewayne was preceded in death by his grandparents, Robert & Mary Thomas and Nancy Dorsett; uncle, Robert Stewart; aunt, Wilma Thomas; and cousin, Clarissa Thomas.

Surviving are his wife of 11 years, Brittany Thomas; children, Farrah Thomas, Meleah Hicks, Hayley Thomas, Katelyn Thomas, Daylan Thomas, Amari Thomas, Dewayne Thomas, Jr; mother, Carol Thomas; father, Douglas Dorsett (Tinta); step-father, Tony Dunn; grandson, Christian Alston, Jr.; sister, Misha Johnson (Shawn); brothers, Tyrus Thomas (Connie), Randell Paige, Je Fox; niece, Izzybell Cunningham; nephews, Darius Glover, Delonte Glover, KyMani Johnson, Khyri Paige, Zayden Du , Camden Du ; aunts and uncles, Cynthia Thomas, Linda Crump (Donald), Lindale Thomas Sr. (Mary), Paul Thomas (Dorothy), John Thomas (Stephaine), Alice Washington (Theodore), Allen Thomas, Marie McFadden; great aunt, Elvina Thomas; great uncle, Author Thomas; parents-in-law, Jamie Viers and Donna Viers and Godmother, Margie Graves (Neil).

STATE & NATION

Judge asks if poverty quali es for Biden policy letting migrants from 4 countries into US

The Associated Press

HOUSTON — A federal judge on Friday questioned whether living in poverty would be enough to qualify someone for a key immigration policy from President Joe Biden that allows a limited number of people from four countries in the Americas to enter the U.S. on humanitarian grounds.

The program allows up to 30,000 people into the U.S. each month from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela combined.

The program is being challenged in a lawsuit led by Texas and 20 other Republican-leaning states. They’re accusing it of being a “shadow immigration system” that’s letting in nearly everyone who applies.

U.S. District Judge Drew Tipton said that a “massive chunk of the world” lives in poverty, adding he’s visited Haiti and seen terrible living conditions there rsthand.

“Does the fact they are living in poverty qualify as an urgent humanitarian need?” Tipton asked as closing arguments were being presented in the trial in Victoria, Texas.

“I think probably not,” said Elissa Fudim, a lawyer with the U.S. Justice Department, which is defending the federal govern-

ment in the lawsuit.

Esther Sung, an attorney with the Justice Action Center, one of several immigrant rights group’s that are defending the parole program in the lawsuit, said that Congress “has frowned on letting a migrant in for purely economic reasons.”

Attorneys for Texas and the other states say the large numbers of migrants being paroled in the U.S. show o cials are granting parole en masse and not on a case-by-case basis as required by law.

But lawyers with the U.S.

Justice Department and the immigrant rights groups argued migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela are not simply eeing economic hardship but also oppressive regimes, escalating violence and worsening political conditions that have endangered their lives.

The program’s supporters argue it isn’t giving blanket approval to all who apply and that each case is individually reviewed. They dispute the claim everyone is accepted, saying people who had made it to the nal approval step after ar-

Bare electrical wire and leaning poles on Maui were possible cause of deadly res

The Associated Press IN THE FIRST MOMENTS of the Maui res, when high winds brought down power poles, slapping electri ed wires to the dry grass below, there was a reason the ames erupted all at once in long, neat rows — those wires were bare, uninsulated metal that could spark on contact.

Videos and images analyzed by The Associated Press con rmed those wires were among miles of line that Hawaiian Electric Co. left naked to the weather and often-thick foliage, despite a recent push by utilities in other wild reand hurricane-prone areas to cover up their lines or bury them.

Compounding the problem is that many of the utility’s 60,000, mostly wooden power poles, which its own documents described as built to “an obsolete 1960s standard,” were leaning and near the end of their projected lifespan. They were nowhere close to meeting a 2002 national standard that key components of Hawaii’s electrical grid be able to withstand 105 mile per hour winds. A 2019 ling said it had fallen behind in replacing the old wooden poles because of other priorities and warned of a “seri-

ous public hazard” if they “failed.” Google street view images of poles taken before the re show the bare wire.

It’s “very unlikely” a fully-insulated cable would have sparked and caused a re in dry vegetation, said Michael Ahern, who retired this month as director of power systems at Worcester Poly-

technic Institute in Massachusetts.

Experts who watched videos showing downed power lines agreed wire that was insulated would not have arced and sparked, igniting a line of ame.

Hawaiian Electric said in a statement that it has “long recognized the unique threats” from

riving in the U.S. have been rejected. No number was given on how many such rejections have occurred. They said the program has also helped reduce the strain on resources and border agents along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Tipton pushed back on claims from Texas’ lawyers too. They have argued the state is spending millions of dollars on health care and public education costs because of an in ux of paroled migrants. Texas would have to prove it has su ered an economic loss to have standing in the case.

Tipton repeatedly asked Texas’ lawyers how the state could be claiming nancial losses if data shows that the parole program has actually reduced the number of migrants coming into the U.S.

“In the last six moths you’ve actually spent less on people from those countries,” Tipton told Texas’ lawyers.

After closing arguments wrapped up Friday, Tipton did not immediately issue a ruling on the legality of the parole program. A decision could come months down the road.

But Tipton said he was uncomfortable with issuing any temporary order in the case that would halt the parole program nationwide, as there are U.S.

climate change and has spent millions of dollars in response, but did not say whether speci c power lines that collapsed in the early moments of the re were bare.

“We’ve been executing on a resilience strategy to meet these challenges, and since 2018, we have spent approximately $950 million to strengthen and harden our grid and approximately $110 million on vegetation management e orts,” the company said. “This work included replacing more than 12,500 poles and structures since 2018 and trimming and removing trees along approximately 2,500 line miles every year on average.”

But a former member of the Hawaii Public Utilities Commission con rmed many of Maui’s wooden power poles were in poor condition. Jennifer Potter lives in Lahaina and until the end of last year was on the commission, which regulates Hawaiian Electric.

“Even tourists that drive around the island are like, ‘What is that?’ They’re leaning quite signi cantly because the winds over time literally just pushed them over,” she said. “That obviously is not going to withstand 60, 70 mile per hour winds. So the infrastructure was just not strong enough for this kind of windstorm … The infrastructure itself is just compromised.”

Sixty percent of the utility poles on West Maui were still down on

states that say the initiative has bene ted them.

The trial began Thursday and only one witness testi ed — an American who is sponsoring a migrant from Nicaragua who is now living in the U.S. because of the program. Most of the trial has been taken up by closing arguments and questions to the lawyers from Tipton.

As of the end of July, more than 72,000 Haitians, 63,000 Venezuelans, 41,000 Cubans and 34,000 Nicaraguans had been vetted and authorized to come to the U.S. through the program.

The lawsuit has not objected to the use of humanitarian parole for tens of thousands of Ukrainians who came after Russia’s invasion.

The parole program was started for Venezuelans in fall 2022 and then expanded in January. People taking part must apply online, arrive at an airport and have a sponsor. If approved, they can stay for two years and get a work permit. Other programs the administration has implemented to reduce illegal immigration have also faced legal challenges.

Tipton, who was appointed by then-President Donald Trump, has previously ruled against the Biden administration on who to prioritize for deportation.

Aug. 14, according to Hawaiian Electric CEO Shelee Kimura at a media conference — 450 of the 750 poles.

Hawaiian Electric is facing a spate of new lawsuits that seek to hold it responsible for the deadliest U.S. wild re in more than a century. The number of conrmed dead stands at 115, and the county expects that to rise.

Hawaiian Electric also faces criticism for not shutting o the power amid high wind warnings and keeping it on even as dozens of poles began to topple. Maui County sued Hawaiian Electric on Thursday over this issue.

Michael Jacobs, a senior energy analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said that with power lines causing so many res in the United States: “We denitely have a new pattern, we just don’t have a new safety regime to go with it.”

Insulating an electrical wire prevents arcing and sparking, and dissipates heat.

In 2002, the National Electric Safety Code was updated to require utility poles like those on Maui to withstand 105 mile per hour winds.

The U.S. electrical grid was designed and built for last century’s climate, said Joshua Rhodes, an energy systems research scientist at the University of Texas at Austin. Utilities would be smart to better prepare for protracted droughts and high winds, he added.

AP PHOTO

Valerie Laveus stands with her brother Reginald Malherbe Daniel and her nephew Tristan-Ryan Malherbe Daniel after her relatives arrived for the rst time to the United States from Haiti at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Wednesday, Aug. 9, 2023.

AP PHOTO

Utility poles stand in Lahaina on the island of Maui, Hawaii, Aug. 16, 2023. When the winds of Hurricane Dora lashed Maui Aug. 8, they struck bare electrical lines the Hawaiian electric utility had left exposed to the elements.

State enforcement agencies increase presence this Labor Day Weekend

The N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission (NCWRC) and the N.C. State Highway Patrol (SHP) are coordinating with state and local agencies, as well as participating nongovernmental agencies such as Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), in the annual “On the Road, On the Water, Don’t Drink and Drive” safety campaign this weekend. The multiagency initiative aims to reduce alcohol and drugrelated incidents on the state’s waterways and roads, with events and safety checkpoints throughout North Carolina.” We experience a high number of boats on the water during the summer holiday weekends,” said Lt. Nathan Green of the Wildlife Commission.

“Factor in impaired boat operators or passengers, and it greatly increases the risk of a serious or tragic incident. Additionally, we will see an increase in vehicle tra c, especially on those roads around our lakes and waterways. This is why we continue to combine our e orts with SHP and others to bring an increased awareness of the negative e ects of impaired operation of boats and vehicles. Our goal is for everyone to be able to enjoy a safe holiday weekend.” In North Carolina, a driver or vessel operator with a blood-alcohol concentration that meets or exceeds .08 or is appreciably impaired by alcohol and/or drugs is subject to arrest. For more information on boating safety and regulations, please visit ncwildlife.org/boating or call (919) 707-0031.

HOKE COUNTY

KAYLYNN JACKSON | FOR NORTH STATE JOURNAL

Bucks su er shutout loss in home opener

North State Journal

AFTER RECORDING a 7-0 win on the road in the season’s opening weekend, the Hoke County Bucks hoped to follow up with a successful home opener on Aug. 25. Instead, Hoke County dropped to 1-1 on the season after su ering a 32-0 shutout loss to South View.

The visiting Tigers were reeling after a re destroyed their football room in the days leading up to the game. South View lost much of their equipment and were forced to use the school au-

ditorium as a locker room for practices. The team pulled together on the eld, however and put up a dominating win at Hoke.

Tyriq Clarida led South View with 234 yards passing, Donavan Pauling-Outlaw had 143 receiving yards and two scores. The Tigers also added 218 rushing yards and three touchdowns on the ground.

Senior defensive back Darius Smith provided a highlight on defense to Hoke County, recovering a fumble for the Bucks.

It’s the rst shutout loss for Hoke County since the Bucks’

Annual Hoke County visitor impact report shows 7.4% increase

By Matt Mercer North State Journal

RAEFORD — Domestic and international visitors to and within Hoke County spent $14.54 million in 2022, an increase of 7.4% from 2021, according to new data.

The spending report comes from an annual study commissioned by Visit North Carolina, a unit of the Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina.

Statewide, North Carolina set a record for visitor spending in 2022. As previously reported in May, travel statewide rose 15.2%, an increase following a 2021 turnaround from the pandemic’s 2020 peak, which brought a devastating drop of 32% in visitor spending.

“As we celebrate a record $33.3 billion in visitor spending statewide, we’re pleased that counties that rely on busi -

ness travel, as well as leisure trips, are doing well,” said N.C. Commerce Secretary Machelle Baker Sanders. The travel and tourism industry employs around 100 people in Hoke County, according to the report.

The study was prepared for Visit North Carolina by Tourism Economics in collaboration with the U.S. Travel Association.

“Tourism is more than an essential industry for the state,” said Wit Tuttell, executive director of Visit NC. “It’s an economic development force in all 100 of our counties, the places where travelers experience our scenic beauty and adventure, our cuisine and unique culture, our history and the dynamic forces that create our enduring appeal. We look forward to continued success in welcoming people to experience places they won’t find anywhere else.”

2021 season ended with a 46-0 loss to Wake Forest in the playo s. Hoke’s last shutout loss at home was to South View earlier that same season, dropping a 20-0 decision to the Tigers on Sept. 3, 2021.

Hoke County will be back home for another non-conference game this Friday at 7:30 when the Bucks host Fayetteville’s Douglas Byrd. The Eagles are 0-2 on the year and coming o of a 3-7 2022 season. This is the rst time the two schools will meet on the football eld since October 2008, when the Tigers beat Hoke County at home.

PREP FOOTBALL

Upcoming Hoke County

Varsity Football Schedule:

Friday Aug. 25, 6:30 PM

Bucks (1-0) vs. South View (1-0)

Home / Non-Conference

Friday Sept. 1, 7:30 PM Bucks vs. Douglas Byrd (0-1) Home / Non-Conference

Friday Sept. 8, 7:30 PM

Bucks vs. Seventy-First (1-0) Away / Non-Conference

Friday Sept. 15, 7:30 PM

Bucks vs. Scotland (1-0) Home / Conference

Gov. Cooper names

Raeford resident NCCAT Board of Trustees

North State Journal

RAEFORD – Governor Roy Cooper appointed Dr. Freddie E. Williamson to the North Carolina Center for the Advancement of Teaching last week. Williams was chosen as the board representative from Educational Region 4. Williams became the Superintendent of the Public Schools of Robeson County (PSRC) in 2020. Prior this this role, he served Superintendent of Hoke County Public Schools.

Under his leadership, the school district has become a pilot for North Carolina with the implementation of a model to enhance school instruction and leadership. PSRC’s district work serves as a statewide model and proof point, as well as a national model through the Relay Graduate School of Education.

“I want to thank Governor

Cooper for allowing me the opportunity to serve on the NCCAT Board of Trustees,” Williamson said. “I look forward to continuing the rich history of NCCAT by providing support to teachers that will impact the outcomes of students and move them towards readiness.”

Williamson was previously named the A. Craig Phillips North Carolina Superintendent of the Year in 2016 while at Hoke County Schools. He also was one of four nalists in 2016 for the American Association of School Administrators National Superintendent of the Year Award. He was also named the Sandhills Region Superintend-

See COOPER , page 2

The Bucks bring down a visiting Tiger player near the line of scrimmage.

COOPER from page 1 ed of the Year in 2011 and 2015.

He was also presented in 2016 with the Order of the Long Leaf Pine, which is the highest civilian honor in the state of North Carolina.

As Superintendent of Hoke County Schools, Williamson led the district to receive numerous accolades, including NC Innovation in Digital Learning, Scienti c Learning National Reference Site and Southern Regional Education Board Outstanding School District.

“Dr. Williamson has a remarkable passion for leadership, and we are honored to have him as a member of our NCCAT Board of Trustees,” said Dr. M. Brock Womble, NCCAT Executive Director. “He is admired by his peers

in education for his commitment to continuous improvement while focusing on supporting teachers and impacting students.” Per Section 115C-296.6 of the North Carolina General Statutes, the NCCAT Board of Trustees is composed of the following membership: the Chairman of the State Board of Education and the State Superintendent of Public Instruction or their designees (both ex o cio members); two members appointment by the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the President Pro Tempore of the Senate; two members appointed by the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Speaker of the House of Representatives; and eight members by the Governor, one from each of the eight educational regions.

Walker, Kevin Terrell (B/M/45), Possession Schedule II CS, 08/29/2023, Hoke County Sheriff’s Office,

Mundy, Danny Joe (W/M/44), DWLR, 08/28/2023, Hoke County Sheriff’s Office, Tackett, Tiffany Marie (W/F/34), DWI, 08/28/2023, Hoke County Sheriff’s Office,

Thomas, Taezhon Malachi (B/M/19), Larceny Felony, 08/28/2023, Hoke County Sheriff’s Office, Moore, Tenesha Darlene (B/F/42), Simple Assault, 08/26/2023, Hoke County Sheriff’s Office, Cooper, Larmarr Hurst (B/M/51), Assault on a Female, 08/26/2023, Hoke County Sheriff’s Office, Burkes, Benjamin (B/M/55), Trespass - Second Degree, 08/24/2023, Hoke County Sheriff’s Office,

Bohl, Terry Lee (W/M/59), DV Protective Order Violation, 08/23/2023, Hoke County Sheriff’s Office,

Dial, Lee (I/M/45), Communicate Threats, 08/23/2023, Hoke County Sheriff’s Office, Wolfe, Tiffany Lynn (W/F/35), DWI, 08/23/2023, Hoke County Sheriff’s Office,

Do you have a birthday, wedding, engagement or other milestone to celebrate? Contact us at celebrations@northstatejournal.com.

WEEKLY CRIME LOG

Neal Robbins, publisher | Frank Hill, senior opinion editor

Joe Biden Is a narcissist, not an empath

If this were an isolated incident, we could chalk it up to Biden’s encroaching senility. But it isn’t.

PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN, we keep hearing, is a deeply empathetic man. It is that empathy that brought him to the presidency — his deep and abiding capacity to connect with others. In “What It Takes,” Richard Ben Cramer’s detailed blowby-blow of the 1988 election cycle, Ben Cramer describes Biden’s ability to “connect” as his greatest supposed skill. This has been the pitch for Biden for decades: not much in the way of brains, not a tremendously resourceful politician, awkward on his feet — but he cares. In the words of Mark Gitenstein, Biden’s 1988 speechwriter and a four-decade adviser, “His ability to communicate with people in pain is maybe his most powerful strength.”

Or maybe, just maybe, Biden was never an empathetic man. Maybe he simply tra cked in ersatz empathy, all the while feeding his own narcissism.

That story certainly looks more plausible these days.

Last week, Biden visited Maui. He did so nearly two weeks after the worst wild re in modern American history killed hundreds of Americans. Meanwhile, Biden vacationed in Delaware on the beach, telling reporters he had “no comment” on the situation; he then jet-set o to Lake Tahoe before nally heading to Lahaina. Once he reached Hawaii, he proceeded to explain that he felt the pain of those whose family members had been incinerated. After all, he said, one time he experienced a small kitchen re. “I don’t want to compare di culties, but we have a little sense, Jill and I, of what it was like to lose a home,” he jabbered. “Years ago, now, 15 years, I was in Washington doing ‘Meet the press’... Lightning struck at home on a little lake outside the home, not a lake a big pond. It hit the wire and came up underneath our home, into the... air condition ducts. To make a long story short, I almost lost my wife, my ‘67 Corvette and my cat.”

COLUMN | MICHAEL BARONE

In reality, back in 2004, lightning caused a kitchen re in Biden’s home that was put out in 20 minutes with no other damage.

If this were an isolated incident, we could chalk it up to Biden’s encroaching senility. But it isn’t. After presiding over the botched pullout from Afghanistan that resulted in the return of the Taliban, the murder of 13 American servicemembers, the abandonment of hundreds of American citizens and thousands of American green card holders, and the subjugation of some tens of millions of women, Biden essentially shrugged. Then, when faced with the families of wounded and killed American soldiers, he attempted to “feel their pain” by invoking the death of his son, Beau. According to Cheryl Rex, whose son died in the Abbey Gate bombing of Aug. 26, 2021, “His words to me were, ‘My wife, Jill, and I know how you feel. We lost our son as well and brought him home in a ag-draped co n.’”

Biden has cited Beau in similar instances multiple times.

In the Jewish community, death of a loved one is followed by shiva, a seven-day period of mourning. During shiva, mourners don’t leave their homes; they are instead cared for by the community, provided with food and communal prayer. Members of the community visit the shiva house to provide comfort.

The rst rule of visiting a shiva house: Don’t talk about your own experiences with death or pain. It’s gauche and irrelevant and trivializing.

Yet this is Biden’s rst move.

Empathy is the quality of putting yourself in the place of others. But Biden isn’t an empath. He’s someone who believes that everyone else’s pain is merely a re ection of his own.

Ben Shapiro, 39, is a graduate of UCLA and Harvard Law School, host of “The Ben Shapiro Show,” and co-founder of Daily Wire+.

Republican debate: Whatever happened in the debate, fundamentals could still matter

The fundamentals in this case are that majorities of voters are inclined to reject each of the two most recent incumbent presidents, even though they register hefty majorities in polls of their party’s primary voters.

HAVING COMPLETED the rst presidential debate of the 2024 campaign cycle, it’s tempting to focus on minor but perhaps momentarily decisive details, such as whether Ron DeSaantis was wise to outsource strategy to a committee that he’s legally barred from communicating with or whether it was wise for Trump campaign spokesmen to not be allowed in the Fox News spin room.

Reporters have an incentive to focus on such things. Being the rst to spot a change in course -- leading the pack -- is a source of professional pride. But the fundamentals remain potentially dispositive.

Jimmy Carter’s astute advisers were able to keep his campaign above water for months in the 1980 cycle. But when the election returns came in, his low job rating on most issues was re ected in his 41% share of the vote, enough to carry only six states.

One lesson of that campaign, and of many others, is that voters seek in presidential candidates qualities that they nd lacking in the current president.

Voters in 1960, accustomed to what were then considered elderly incumbents (every president for the preceding 18 years was in his 60s, and Dwight Eisenhower turned 70 three weeks before Election Day), opted for the outwardly vigorous 43-year-old John F. Kennedy.

The fundamentals in this case are that majorities of voters are inclined to reject each of the two most recent incumbent presidents, even though they register hefty majorities in polls of their party’s primary voters, 64% for Joe Biden and 55% for Donald Trump.

Majority rejection of the 45th and 46th presidents is not a momentary phenomenon. In the 91 months since

Trump was inaugurated, incumbent presidents have enjoyed majority approval in only seven months and have fallen short in 84 months.

That’s 92% of the time over the last seven years and seven months, an even higher percentage than during the seven years leading up to the 1980 election, during the presidencies of Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter.

It’s not hard to think of reasons why: Trump’s uncouth insults and vacillating policies, Biden’s visible aging and extreme policies, both men’s penchant for transparent untruths (or, in the opposition party’s parlance, lies).

Their support in primary polling seems to re ect a sincere inability on the part of their co-partisans, in a time of sharp partisanship, to understand why most of their fellow citizens do not appreciate their performance.

But not all partisans are blind to the views of others. In the early caucus and primary states, where candidates have been most active and voters most engaged, Trump has been polling below 50%, signi cantly below his national average -43% in Iowa, 44% in New Hampshire and 46% in South Carolina.

The Des Moines Register/NBC poll, conducted by the astonishingly good pollster J. Ann Selzer, showed Trump leading DeSantis by a 42%-19% margin. That sounds like a whopping lead, and in a general election poll, where most voters tend to support their party’s candidates, it would be.

But in primaries, and especially the Iowa caucuses, preferences are more uid. As the veteran poll analyst Nate Silver points out, since 2004, only one of the Republican or Democratic candidates leading in Iowa polling at this stage of the

cycle has won the Iowa caucuses, and that candidate (Hillary Clinton in 2016) won by only 1%.

“The Selzer poll is good for Trump, but it’s not consistent with the view that his nomination is more-or-less inevitable,” Silver wrote. “Trump is ‘only’ 68% at prediction markets, which to me seems low, but lotta folks here are treating him at ~99%, which is de nitely too high.”

That suggests that Silver puts a Trump opponent’s chances of winning the Republican nomination somewhere around 29%, which his Fivethirtyeight. com estimated as Trump’s chance of winning the 2016 general election.

The problem Trump’s current opponents face is akin to the classic tension between the need to go right (or left) to win the party nomination and then go to the center to win the general election. To be Trumplike enough to win the nomination and to present, for the general election, a contrast with the untruthfulness and aging which, to varying degrees, a ict Trump and Biden.

That’s a di cult but not impossible task. Upsets or even surprisingly strong second-place nishes in early contests can, as in the past, change millions of votes in ensuing primaries. And a potential Republican nominee without Trump’s weaknesses could lead to ructions among Democrats suddenly terri ed that Biden could lose.

This week’s debates could change the course of the presidential contest. But so could the fundamentals.

Michael Barone is a senior political analyst for the Washington Examiner, resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and longtime co-author of The Almanac of American Politics.

COLUMN | BEN SHAPIRO

SIDELINE REPORT

COLLEGE FOOTBALL

Arizona State imposes 1-year bowl ban Tempe, Ariz.

Arizona State has issued a selfimposed one-year bowl ban amid an NCAA investigation for possible infractions incurred under former football coach Herm Edwards. The ban is a preemptive step as the NCAA investigates the Sun Devils for alleged recruiting violations during the COVID-19 pandemic. The NCAA has been investigating the program since 2021. It’s looking into allegations that the Sun Devils hosted recruits during the NCAAimposed ban on in-person recruiting during the pandemic. Arizona State red Edwards three games into last season and gave him a $4.4 million buyout instead of ring him for cause.

MLS Messi violates MLS media rules by not speaking with reporters

Harrison, N.J.

Lionel Messi did not speak with reporters after his Major League Soccer debut, a violation of the league’s media rules. Messi scored in the 89th minute of Inter Miami’s 2-0 win over the New York Red Bulls. Miami spokeswoman Molly Dreska said after the match that Messi was not being made available to reporters. Dan Courtemanche, MLS’s executive vice president of communications, said before the game that Messi, like all players, was required to be available to media after all games.

NHL Rangers hire Hall of Fame women’s star Ruggiero

New York

The New York Rangers have hired Hockey Hall of Famer Angela Ruggiero as a hockey operations adviser. The team announced the addition of Ruggiero along with several front o ce changes. Ruggiero won four Olympic medals as a defenseman for the U.S. including helping the country win gold in 1998 in Nagano in the rst Games with women’s hockey. The Rangers also promoted former NHL forward Ryane Clowe to co-senior adviser to president and general manager Chris Drury and hired Andy Hosler as head athletic trainer.

Notre Dame thinking big after Hartman’s impressive debut

The former Wake Forest star threw for four touchdowns in his Irish debut

The Associated Press NO. 13 NOTRE DAME can forget about game-managing quarterbacks.

It has a new star in Sam Hartman. He lived up to the billing on Saturday by going 19 of 23 with 251 yards while tying a school record for a debut with four TD passes, leading the Fighting Irish to a 42-3 rout over rival Navy. He celebrated the nearly perfect performance by putting his hands on a shillelagh.

“It’s kind of our new tradition, we’re going to get a new one each game,” Hartman said of the club after delivering Notre Dame’s most lopsided opening win in 11 years. “It’s used as a weapon, but

I won’t be using it. I’ll be tucking it away.”

The victory was hardly a surprise.

After going 9-4 with Tyler Buchner and Drew Pyne splitting the job last season, second-year coach Marcus Freeman searched for a dynamic quarterback to lead the o ense. The answer was Hartman, who transferred from Wake Forest to Notre Dame and encouraged reporters to include teammates Jaden Greathouse and Marist Liufau at the postgame news conference.

“You’ve got to ask these guys questions, too,” he said.

Hartman understands, though, that the spotlight always shines on the Notre Dame quarterback — especially when you’re one of college football’s most proli c passers at one of the sports’ most storied programs.

“You feel it when you travel,” Hartman said.

little something — some juice to the o ense.”

Former Notre Dame star quarterback Joe Montana on new Irish starter Sam Hartman

He is an unusual quarterback, too, the kind Notre Dame has been chasing since at least the end of the Ian Book era in 2020, maybe the Tommy Rees era in 2013 or perhaps the Jimmy Clausen era in 2009. Hartman came to South Bend after compiling an ACC career-record 110 TD passes and 12,967 yards. If he tops 4,100 yards for the second time in three seasons, he’ll be second all-time on the FBS list. Case Keenum had a record 19,217

yards with Houston from 20072011.

But with Notre Dame, it’s always about more than numbers.

“There’s no substitution for experience. None,” Freeman said. “I don’t care if you’re the head coach or a quarterback.”

Over the previous two years, Hartman threw for more than 300 yards per game, scored 89 total TDs and completed more passes of 20 yards or more than anyone else in the FBS.

“This moment isn’t too big. It’s about him going out there and just executing,” Freeman said. “What I really, really thought he did a great job was putting our o ense in good positions to execute plays.”

Hartman has been humbled by joining a small, prominent Notre Dame fraternity that includes familiar names such as the late John Lujack Jr., Joe Theismann, Brady Quinn, Tony Rice and Joe Montana.

And now Hartman’s rst game even has one of those guys raving.

“It’s been great watching him,” Montana said during the telecast. “I think it’s great for Notre Dame and he brings a little something — some juice to the o ense.”

“He brings a

AP PHOTO

Notre Dame quarterback Sam Hartman throws against Navy during the Irish’s 42-3 win Saturday in Dublin.

Hovland wins FedEx Cup with record nish

Golf’s hottest player picked up an $18 million payout

The Associated Press

ATLANTA — Viktor Hovland knew he was playing the best golf of his life. Staked to a six-shot lead Sunday in the Tour Championship, he gured a steady diet of fairways and greens and plenty of pars would be the safest route to winning the FedEx Cup.

Xander Schau ele made him change his plans.

And then the 25-year-old Norwegian star performed even better.

Hovland didn’t inch under a relentless challenge from Schauffele, matching birdies at East Lake from start to nish until he capped o the best two weeks of his career with his biggest trophy — a FedEx Cup title and the $18 million bonus.

He closed with a 7-under 63, the lowest score by the winner in Tour Championship history, and won the Tour Championship by ve shots over Schau ele.

“The game plan was to try to play as boring as possible — play it like Tiger back in the day when

he would post a 69 or 70 in a major championship and walk away with the victory,” Hovland said.

This was anything but boring golf — Hovland with a 63, Schau ele with a 62. A six-shot lead was cut to three shots on the

back nine until Hovland poured in a 25-foot par putt on the 14th hole that made an already steep hill all but impossible for Schauffele to scale.

“What he was doing today was very special,” Hovland said.

“It made this day more stressful than it should have been.”

So ended a season when Hovland won for the rst time in the United States at the Memorial, had a multiple-win season, and then capped it o with two

weeks of such sublime golf that he won the BMW Championship at Olympia Fields and the Tour Championship at 36-under par.

“It’s pretty surreal to be standing here right now,” Hovland said after receiving the silver FedEx Cup trophy. “I played basically my best golf the last two weeks and it couldn’t have happened at a better moment.”

Schau ele made him work for that $18 million, ring at ags from the opening hole. He got to within three shots with seven holes to play and had momentum on his side. And then Hovland ended the suspense with that 25-foot par putt on the 14th hole, and he put Schau ele away with a 10-foot birdie putt on the 16th.

Schau ele and Hovland put on a superb show. Playing in the last group, on a day that was delayed nearly two hours by thunderstorms, they had the best scores of the day. The next best score was a 65 from players who never had a chance at winning.

“I thought 62 would have let me get close to him,” Schau ele said. “He played unbelievably well. He made important putts and he’s just played like a champ.”

US learning to roll with hits at Basketball World Cup

The Americans are expecting the tournament to be physical

The Associated Press MANILA, Philippines — It was late in the rst quarter of the U.S. team’s opener at the FIBA World Cup. Austin Reaves was in transition and tossed a lob to Cam Johnson, who got sandwiched in midair by two New Zealand defenders and took a hard fall.

Steve Kerr expected such plays to happen. The U.S. coach knows that every opponent awaiting the Americans in this tournament

will likely be very aggressive, hoping that tactic works to derail the only team in the World Cup with a roster composed entirely of NBA players. New Zealand tried; the U.S. shook o a slow start to win 99-72 and now faces Greece on Monday.

“I know everybody walked in this morning a little frustrated,” Kerr said Sunday as the Americans got loose for practice. “But we won by 27 points. And so, that’s the lesson. In FIBA, it’s so physical. Everybody is going to try to beat the crap out of us because that’s their best chance to beat us.”

It’s an adjustment for the Americans, but so far, so good.

“We understood that this

would be part of the process,” Johnson said.

It wasn’t quite like that in the ve exhibition games the Americans played on their way to the World Cup because, well, they were just exhibitions. A game against Spain earlier this month against the reigning World Cup winners and FIBA’s No. 1-ranked team — the U.S. is ranked No. 2 — got physical at times, but that was to be expected and nothing got out of hand.

But in the World Cup, the stakes are higher and so is the intensity. Johnson, the former UNC forward, stayed down for a few seconds after the big hit, then made his way to his feet uninjured. He said Sunday that he

was ne and didn’t show any aftere ects.

“That’s their way of playing, that’s their way of trying to stay in the game and whatnot,” Johnson said. “It’s de nitely di erent than how we’ve been playing, but we’re all capable of adjusting and guring it out. I think the thing that’s important for us to keep in mind is what’s the legal limit of our physicality. You can go out there and ght and throw punches and all that all game, but if you get three, four quick fouls, your game is basically over.”

Kerr — as Gregg Popovich did before him as the U.S. coach and as Mike Krzyzewski did before that — nds himself reminding

his team often about how the FIBA game isn’t the NBA game. It’s called di erently and defenders can be much more aggressive.

Kerr explains it to players like this: In the NBA, rules lean toward helping scoring, while in FIBA it’s the opposite. The solution, he says, is to weather the storms, rely on depth and keep cool.

So far, it’s working.

“Our threat is that we have 12 guys who are ready to make a great four- or ve-minute push,” Kerr said. “And we keep coming with another wave and another wave, another wave. So, teams can be physical with us, but they have to do that for 40 minutes. As long as our guys stay composed and poised like they did (Saturday), then we’re going to be tough to beat and I think that’s the lesson here early on.”

AP PHOTO

Former Duke standout Paolo Banchero vies for the ball during the United State’s FIBA Basketball World Cup Group C game Satruday against New Zealand in the Philippines.

AP PHOTO

Viktor Hovland celebrates winning the Tour Championship with the FedEx Cup trophy Sunday in Atlanta.

Republicans pick Houston to host their 2028 national convention

The Associated Press

WASHINGTON, D.C. —

Republicans on Friday chose Houston to host their 2028 national convention, hoping to cement support in Texas even as Democrats are betting that a booming Hispanic population and other key demographic shifts could eventually turn the country’s largest reliably red state blue.

“I am excited to announce Houston as the host city for the 2028 Republican National Convention,” Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel said in a statement. She applauded the committee’s “smart business decision” last spring to allow for selecting the site “earlier than ever.”

Houston is the United States’ fourth largest city and is among its fastest growing, with a population exceeding 2.3 million.

It was for decades a Republican stronghold, the home turf

of President George H.W. Bush and the site of the Republican convention that nominated him for reelection in 1992.

But the city has since become solidly Democratic, with the party sweeping every countywide seat in Harris

County, which includes Houston, in 2016. In a re ection of the change, McDaniel’s statement listed among the o cials Republicans are “eager to work with” Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner, a former state lawmaker who was once a leading Democratic voice in the Texas House.

“As the nation’s most diverse and inclusive city, we believe Houston represents the future of the United States and our aspirations as a country,” Turner said in a statement released by the RNC.

Houston’s blue shift is a departure from the rest of Texas, which hasn’t supported a Democrat for president since Jimmy Carter in 1976 and where Republicans have won every statewide o ce since 1994 — the longest political winning streak in the nation. Still, Texas is now more than 40% Hispanic, and its strong economy has brought in many new residents from more liberal states.

Both factors have Democrats dreaming about ipping Texas, which would drastically alter the nation’s political landscape.

Former U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke came within 3 percentage points of upsetting Republican Sen. Ted Cruz in 2018, though then-President Donald Trump carried Texas by a larger margin of about 5.5 percentage points in 2020. Democrats are hoping to knock o Cruz in next year’s Senate race with a primary eld that includes Rep. Colin Allred, a former NFL linebacker who was elected to a once strongly red Dallas district.

Texas nonetheless remains

“the heart of the conservative movement,” Republican Gov. Greg Abbott said in a social media post on Friday. His party’s retrenching there re ects a different strategy than next year, when the GOP will hold its convention in Milwaukee, in the critical swing state of Wisconsin.

Democrats haven’t yet selected their 2028 national convention site. But the Democratic National Committee considered Houston along with New York and Atlanta before settling on Chicago for its 2024 convention, underscoring the importance of the battleground Midwest.

Murdaugh is also charged with creating a bank account that had a similar name to a legitimate company that handled settlements to steal money from clients.

The Associated Press

COLUMBIA, S.C. — Convicted murderer and former South Carolina attorney Alex Murdaugh has agreed to plead guilty to federal charges he stole millions of dollars from clients, according to court records.

If Murdaugh doesn’t change his mind before standing in front of a judge on Sept. 21, it would mark the rst time he admits guilt for any crime in court. Murdaugh, 55, is serving a life sentence for killing his wife and son at their home two years ago. But he insisted from the witness stand at his trial that he did not kill them and is appealing his double murder conviction.

Prosecutors say he decided to kill them because his millions of dollars of theft was about to be discovered and he was hoping their deaths would buy him sympathy and time to gure out a cover-up.

The federal guilty plea would almost certainly bring prison time, keeping Murdaugh behind bars even if his murder conviction appeal was successful.

Before the killings, state and federal investigators said Murdaugh stole millions from clients who su ered debilitating injuries and who needed money for medical care. He is charged with stealing from his family’s law rm and helping run a drug ring to launder money. Authorities said he asked a friend to kill him on the side of a lonely highway so his son would get $10 million in life insurance. The

shot only grazed Murdaugh’s head.

In federal court, Murdaugh faces 14 counts of money laundering, ve counts of wire fraud, one count of bank fraud, one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and bank fraud, and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Court records didn’t indicate whether there’s an agreement to drop any charges in exchange for a guilty plea. Each charge carries at least a maximum of 20 years in prison. Some have a maximum 30-year sentence.

Attorneys for Murdaugh didn’t comment on Thursday’s court ling. But they said after his indictment on 22 federal charges in May that Murdaugh was helping federal investigators and the charges would be “quickly resolved without a trial.”

The federal allegations are similar to charges Murdaugh still faces in state court.

They include stealing about $4 million in insurance settlements meant for the family of Gloria Satter eld, a longtime housekeeper who died when she fell at the Murdaugh home, ac-

cording to the indictments. Longtime friend and now ex-attorney Cory Fleming helped Murdaugh steal the money, investigators said. Fleming was sentenced earlier this month to nearly four years in prison after pleading guilty.

Other indictments said Murdaugh and a banker friend, Russell La tte, worked together to take settlement money out of client’s accounts, prosecutors said. La tte was convicted in November of six wire and bank fraud charges. He was sentenced to seven years in prison and is appealing.

He is currently in protective custody at an undisclosed state prison after being convicted in March of the shooting deaths of his 22-year-old son, Paul, killed with shotgun blasts, and 52-year-old wife, Maggie, who was shot several times with a rie.

Murdaugh is also awaiting trial on around 100 other state charges. Along with the thefts, they also include insurance fraud, a drug and money laundering ring, tax evasion and theft.

A pretrial hearing on those charges will likely take place the week before the federal guilty plea and would mark Murdaugh’s rst appearance outside prison since he was escorted out of the Colleton County Courtroom in handcu s, shackles and a jail jumpsuit on March 3. Murdaugh has been seen publicly only once since then in a batch of photos taken by the camera in his prison-issued tablet computer as the system conrmed his identity so he could use the device to make monitored calls, watch approved entertainment, read books or take video classes.

The photos showed Murdaugh sometimes shirtless and wearing reading glasses in his cell.

Prison o cials initially released the photos under the state’s open records law, but after a brief publicity splash, decided that since the photos were taken for security reasons and not as an o cial measure, they should not have been released under the Freedom of Information Act.

Chacarl

June 3, 1980

Mr. Chacarl departed in heaven

He leaves memories Kershaw; Kershaw, Donovan Audrey Rogers, Howard Nakisha Kershaw, Tremaine along with and friends. be greatly

Alex Murdaugh to plead guilty in theft case. It would be the rst time he admits to a crime

AP PHOTO

Republican National Convention, Aug. 24, 2020, in Charlotte

AP PHOTO

Alex Murdaugh speaks with his legal team before he is sentenced to two consecutive life sentences for the murder of his wife and son by Judge Clifton Newman at the Colleton County Courthouse on Friday, March 3, 2023 in in Walterboro, S.C.

omas Berg

April 8, 1959 ~ August 22, 2023

Thomas Berg (64) of Raeford NC passed away peacefully at home surrounded by friends and family. Thom leaves behind his wife Christina, daughter Christal Wright (Je ) and granddaughter Adalena.

Chacarl Kershaw

June 3, 1980 ~ August 22, 2023

Mr. Chacarl Kershaw age, 43 departed his earthly life to rest in heaven on August 22, 2023. He leaves to cherish his loving memories his wife, Cashell Kershaw; children: Jaman C. Kershaw, Lyniah D. Kershaw, Donovan R. Kershaw; parents: Audrey Rogers, Leon Rogers, Howard Miller; siblings: Nakisha Kershaw, Lashonda Kershaw, Crystal Rogers, Tremaine White, Leonte Rogers along with a host of other family and friends. Chacarl "Duke" will be greatly missed.

Dasiree Hough

April 11, 1936 ~ August 25, 2023

Ms. Dasiree Hough age, 87 went home to rest with her Heavenly Father on August 25, 2023. She leaves to cherish her loving memories her beloved nieces: Pastor Stephanie Balaam (Tyson), Deborah Ross (Jerry); nephews: Clyde Hough, Leon Hough (Shirley); a special adopted God daughter Valerie Locke (Ronnie) along with a host of other family and friends. Dasiree will be greatly missed.

Carl Eugene Miller

April 23, 1941 ~ August 20, 2023

Mr. Carl Eugene Miller, of Lumber Bridge, NC went to be with his Lord and Savior on August 20, 2023, at the age of 82.

Carl was born in St. Albans, West Virginia on April 23, 1941, to the late John and Mary Miller.

Carl was a devoted Christian.

He served 15 years in the United States Army before medically retiring. He was a free-fall parachutist and enjoyed the sport for 55 years. He was on the Pieces of Eight Amputee Skydiving Team for 20 years. Carl was also on the Seventh Army Parachute Team for 4 years in Europe.

He is survived by his loving wife of 64 years, Carole Richard Miller, originally from West Virginia; four sons, Eugene Cameron Miller, Carl Bernard Miller, Cledith Richard Miller (Teresa), and Ronald Alvey Miller; six grandchildren; and eight great-grandchildren. In lieu of owers, please send memorials to the Disabled Veterans Association local chapter. 4204 Phillipi Church Rd., Raeford NC 28376.

Robert Malloy

January 26, 1957 ~ August 25, 2023

Mr. Robert Malloy age, 66 transitioned from earth to glory on August 25, 2023. He leaves to cherish his loving memories his wife Idell

M. Malloy, children: Robert Lee Malloy Jr., Promises Rene Hu Malloy, Rashad Jamal Malloy, Amod Rashad Malloy; sisters: Teresa Kearesa Malloy, Cassandra Smith Malloy, Regina Malloy; brother, Derek Malloy along with a host of other family and friends. Robert will be greatly missed.

Mary Lynn Warwick

September 21, 1939 ~ August 20, 2023

Mary Lynn Simmons Baker Warwick of Hoke county went to heaven on Sunday, August 20th at her home surrounded by loved ones at the age of 83.

Mary was born on September 21st, 1939 in Robeson county to the late Odell and Eula Simmons.

Mary was a faithful Christian. She served as a Sunday school teacher for many many years as well as a Bible school director and volunteer. Mary loved the outdoors. She was a wonderful gardener. Gardening was the highlight of her days. She loved growing vegetables, grapes, blueberries, and owers. Mary's yard is always in bloom with an assortment of owers. She loved any and every ower. She could rescue a dying plant and nurse it to a beautiful healthy ower. She hated dandelions. She was the hardest working woman.

Mary loved to converse. She never met a stranger. She loved to feed anyone who visited her especially her family on Sunday afternoons. She loved her family dearly. She insisted on a takehome plate and encouraged the afternoon nap.

She is survived by her daughter Jackie Logwood (George). Her son Wendell Baker(Betty). Her son Kevin Baker (Teresa). Her daughter Sharon Baker Wilson. Mary is survived by seven grandchildren, Connie Logwood, Renee Fleet ( Nehemiah), Brandon Baker, Nevin Wilson, Jack Wilson, China Cabel ( Josiah), and Carter Wilson. She is survived by seven great-grandchildren Auriah Taylor, Orianna Fleet, Joanna Fleet, Mia Fleet, Nehemiah Fleet Jr, Layla Fleet and Maddox Wilson. She is survived by her sister Faye S. Callahan. She is survived by many nieces, nephews and cousins. She is survived by Josh York, a very special person to her family. She is survived by special friends Pamela Medley, Sarah Sheppard, and Pidgie Chapman. She is preceded in death by her rst husband Jack Leonard Baker of 45 years and her second husband John Hugh Warwick of 11 years. Brothers Bruce Simmons and Norris Simmons. Her beloved dog, Rosie.

Peggy Monroe Gillis

November 25, 1928 ~ August 21, 2023

Peggy Monroe Gillis of Carteret Landing, Morehead City, NC, formerly of Raeford and Laurinburg, went to be with her Lord and Savior, on August 21, 2023, at the age of 94.

She was born in St. Pauls, NC on November 25, 1928, to Clarence Leroy and Minnie Lindsay Monroe. She married Harold Leon Gillis, on December 14, 1952. They were married 62 years when he passed in 2015.

She graduated from St. Pauls High School and attended East Carolina Teacher’s College, now ECU, receiving a degree in Primary Education. She was a member of Delta Kappa Gamma Honor Society. She taught 31 years in Chapel Hill, St. Pauls, and Hoke County Schools, retiring as a librarian after completing her Library Science Certi cation from ECU. Her love for education was shown in her dedication and love for her students.

Peggy and Harold moved in 1959 to Raeford from Lumberton (First Presbyterian Church) and she joined the Raeford Presbyterian Church. There she was a Sunday School teacher, VBS teacher, Circle Chairman, Co-Moderator of WOC, and District SecretaryTreasurer for Fayetteville Presbytery WOC. She was presented with a WOC Honorary Lifetime Membership in 1994. She also attended and was active in Bible Study Fellowship. In Hoke County, she was on the Hoke County Literacy Counsel, and volunteered for the American Cancer Society and Meals on Wheels. After moving to Scotia Village, she volunteered and served on committees in many capacities as long as her health allowed.

In addition to her parents and beloved husband, she was preceded in death by her sister, Omelia Monroe, brother, Roy Lindsay Monroe, and three nephews, Wayne, CL, and Je Monroe.

Peggy is survived by her son, Dr. H.L.(Lee) Gillis Jr. (Jude) of Milledgeville, GA, daughter, Susan Gillis Bailey of Morehead City, NC, granddaughter, Megan Elizabeth Gillis of New York City, NY, two nieces, Joyce Monroe Goza and Joan Gillis Baker, 10 great nieces and nephews, and 9 greatgreat nieces and nephews and special family members. She is also survived by her childhood friend of 94 years, Sarah Louise McNeill of St. Pauls, NC.

STATE & NATION

Judge asks if poverty quali es for Biden policy letting migrants from 4 countries into US

The Associated Press HOUSTON — A federal judge on Friday questioned whether living in poverty would be enough to qualify someone for a key immigration policy from President Joe Biden that allows a limited number of people from four countries in the Americas to enter the U.S. on humanitarian grounds.

The program allows up to 30,000 people into the U.S. each month from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela combined.

The program is being challenged in a lawsuit led by Texas and 20 other Republican-leaning states. They’re accusing it of being a “shadow immigration system” that’s letting in nearly everyone who applies.

U.S. District Judge Drew Tipton said that a “massive chunk of the world” lives in poverty, adding he’s visited Haiti and seen terrible living conditions there rsthand.

“Does the fact they are living in poverty qualify as an urgent humanitarian need?” Tipton asked as closing arguments were being presented in the trial in Victoria, Texas.

“I think probably not,” said Elissa Fudim, a lawyer with the U.S. Justice Department, which is defending the federal govern-

ment in the lawsuit.

Esther Sung, an attorney with the Justice Action Center, one of several immigrant rights group’s that are defending the parole program in the lawsuit, said that Congress “has frowned on letting a migrant in for purely economic reasons.”

Attorneys for Texas and the other states say the large numbers of migrants being paroled in the U.S. show o cials are granting parole en masse and not on a case-by-case basis as required by law.

But lawyers with the U.S.

Justice Department and the immigrant rights groups argued migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela are not simply eeing economic hardship but also oppressive regimes, escalating violence and worsening political conditions that have endangered their lives.

The program’s supporters argue it isn’t giving blanket approval to all who apply and that each case is individually reviewed. They dispute the claim everyone is accepted, saying people who had made it to the nal approval step after ar-

Bare electrical wire and leaning poles on Maui were possible cause of deadly res

The Associated Press IN THE FIRST MOMENTS of the Maui res, when high winds brought down power poles, slapping electri ed wires to the dry grass below, there was a reason the ames erupted all at once in long, neat rows — those wires were bare, uninsulated metal that could spark on contact.

Videos and images analyzed by The Associated Press con rmed those wires were among miles of line that Hawaiian Electric Co. left naked to the weather and often-thick foliage, despite a recent push by utilities in other wild reand hurricane-prone areas to cover up their lines or bury them.

Compounding the problem is that many of the utility’s 60,000, mostly wooden power poles, which its own documents described as built to “an obsolete 1960s standard,” were leaning and near the end of their projected lifespan. They were nowhere close to meeting a 2002 national standard that key components of Hawaii’s electrical grid be able to withstand 105 mile per hour winds. A 2019 ling said it had fallen behind in replacing the old wooden poles because of other priorities and warned of a “seri-

ous public hazard” if they “failed.” Google street view images of poles taken before the re show the bare wire.

It’s “very unlikely” a fully-insulated cable would have sparked and caused a re in dry vegetation, said Michael Ahern, who retired this month as director of power systems at Worcester Poly-

technic Institute in Massachusetts.

Experts who watched videos showing downed power lines agreed wire that was insulated would not have arced and sparked, igniting a line of ame.

Hawaiian Electric said in a statement that it has “long recognized the unique threats” from

riving in the U.S. have been rejected. No number was given on how many such rejections have occurred. They said the program has also helped reduce the strain on resources and border agents along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Tipton pushed back on claims from Texas’ lawyers too. They have argued the state is spending millions of dollars on health care and public education costs because of an in ux of paroled migrants. Texas would have to prove it has su ered an economic loss to have standing in the case.

Tipton repeatedly asked Texas’ lawyers how the state could be claiming nancial losses if data shows that the parole program has actually reduced the number of migrants coming into the U.S.

“In the last six moths you’ve actually spent less on people from those countries,” Tipton told Texas’ lawyers.

After closing arguments wrapped up Friday, Tipton did not immediately issue a ruling on the legality of the parole program. A decision could come months down the road.

But Tipton said he was uncomfortable with issuing any temporary order in the case that would halt the parole program nationwide, as there are U.S.

climate change and has spent millions of dollars in response, but did not say whether speci c power lines that collapsed in the early moments of the re were bare.

“We’ve been executing on a resilience strategy to meet these challenges, and since 2018, we have spent approximately $950 million to strengthen and harden our grid and approximately $110 million on vegetation management e orts,” the company said. “This work included replacing more than 12,500 poles and structures since 2018 and trimming and removing trees along approximately 2,500 line miles every year on average.”

But a former member of the Hawaii Public Utilities Commission con rmed many of Maui’s wooden power poles were in poor condition. Jennifer Potter lives in Lahaina and until the end of last year was on the commission, which regulates Hawaiian Electric.

“Even tourists that drive around the island are like, ‘What is that?’ They’re leaning quite signi cantly because the winds over time literally just pushed them over,” she said. “That obviously is not going to withstand 60, 70 mile per hour winds. So the infrastructure was just not strong enough for this kind of windstorm … The infrastructure itself is just compromised.”

Sixty percent of the utility poles on West Maui were still down on

states that say the initiative has bene ted them.

The trial began Thursday and only one witness testi ed — an American who is sponsoring a migrant from Nicaragua who is now living in the U.S. because of the program. Most of the trial has been taken up by closing arguments and questions to the lawyers from Tipton.

As of the end of July, more than 72,000 Haitians, 63,000 Venezuelans, 41,000 Cubans and 34,000 Nicaraguans had been vetted and authorized to come to the U.S. through the program.

The lawsuit has not objected to the use of humanitarian parole for tens of thousands of Ukrainians who came after Russia’s invasion.

The parole program was started for Venezuelans in fall 2022 and then expanded in January. People taking part must apply online, arrive at an airport and have a sponsor. If approved, they can stay for two years and get a work permit. Other programs the administration has implemented to reduce illegal immigration have also faced legal challenges.

Tipton, who was appointed by then-President Donald Trump, has previously ruled against the Biden administration on who to prioritize for deportation.

Aug. 14, according to Hawaiian Electric CEO Shelee Kimura at a media conference — 450 of the 750 poles.

Hawaiian Electric is facing a spate of new lawsuits that seek to hold it responsible for the deadliest U.S. wild re in more than a century. The number of conrmed dead stands at 115, and the county expects that to rise.

Hawaiian Electric also faces criticism for not shutting o the power amid high wind warnings and keeping it on even as dozens of poles began to topple. Maui County sued Hawaiian Electric on Thursday over this issue.

Michael Jacobs, a senior energy analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said that with power lines causing so many res in the United States: “We denitely have a new pattern, we just don’t have a new safety regime to go with it.”

Insulating an electrical wire prevents arcing and sparking, and dissipates heat.

In 2002, the National Electric Safety Code was updated to require utility poles like those on Maui to withstand 105 mile per hour winds.

The U.S. electrical grid was designed and built for last century’s climate, said Joshua Rhodes, an energy systems research scientist at the University of Texas at Austin. Utilities would be smart to better prepare for protracted droughts and high winds, he added.

AP PHOTO

Valerie Laveus stands with her brother Reginald Malherbe Daniel and her nephew Tristan-Ryan Malherbe Daniel after her relatives arrived for the rst time to the United States from Haiti at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Wednesday, Aug. 9, 2023.

AP PHOTO

Utility poles stand in Lahaina on the island of Maui, Hawaii, Aug. 16, 2023. When the winds of Hurricane Dora lashed Maui Aug. 8, they struck bare electrical lines the Hawaiian electric utility had left exposed to the elements.

Aircraft crash in Australia

In this photo released by Australian Department of Defense, United States Marine Corps MV-22B Osprey tiltrotor aircraft are parked at RAAF Base Darwin, Australia, Aug. 11, 2023, during Exercise Alon at the Indo-Paci c Endeavour 2023. Several U.S. Marines remained in a hospital in the Australian north coast city of Darwin on Monday after they were injured in a ery crash of a tiltrotor aircraft on an island.

COUNTY NEWS

State enforcement agencies increase presence this Labor Day Weekend

The N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission (NCWRC) and the N.C. State Highway Patrol (SHP) are coordinating with state and local agencies, as well as participating nongovernmental agencies such as Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), in the annual “On the Road, On the Water, Don’t Drink and Drive” safety campaign this weekend. The multi-agency initiative aims to reduce alcohol and drug-related incidents on the state’s waterways and roads, with events and safety checkpoints throughout North Carolina.” We experience a high number of boats on the water during the summer holiday weekends,” said Lt. Nathan Green of the Wildlife Commission.

“Factor in impaired boat operators or passengers, and it greatly increases the risk of a serious or tragic incident. Additionally, we will see an increase in vehicle tra c, especially on those roads around our lakes and waterways.

This is why we continue to combine our e orts with SHP and others to bring an increased awareness of the negative e ects of impaired operation of boats and vehicles. Our goal is for everyone to be able to enjoy a safe holiday weekend.” In North Carolina, a driver or vessel operator with a bloodalcohol concentration that meets or exceeds .08 or is appreciably impaired by alcohol and/or drugs is subject to arrest. For more information on boating safety and regulations, please visit ncwildlife.org/ boating or call (919) 7070031.

Annual Forsyth County visitor impact report shows 18.9% increase

By Matt Mercer North State Journa WINSTON-SALEM — Domestic

and international visitors to and within Forsyth County spent $987.54 million in 2022, an increase of 18.9% from 2021, according to new data.

The spending report comes from an annual study commissioned by Visit North Carolina, a unit of the Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina.

State tax revenue generated in Forsyth County totaled around $41 million through state sales and excise taxes, and taxes on personal and corporate income. About $26.9 million in

local taxes were generated from sales and property tax revenue from travel-generated and travel-supported businesses. Statewide, North Carolina set a record for visitor spending in 2022. As previously reported in May, travel statewide rose 15.2%, an increase following a 2021 turnaround from the pandemic’s 2020 peak, which brought a devastating drop of 32% in visitor spending. “As we celebrate a record $33.3 billion in visitor spending statewide, we’re pleased that counties that rely on business travel as well as leisure trips are doing well,” said N.C. Commerce Secretary Machelle Baker Sanders.

“As we celebrate a record $33.3 billion in visitor spending statewide, we’re pleased that counties that rely on business travel as well as leisure trips are doing well.”

N.C. Commerce Secretary Machelle Baker Sanders.

The travel and tourism industry directly employs more than 6,200 in Forsyth County,

according to the report.

The study was prepared for Visit North Carolina by Tourism Economics in collaboration with the U.S. Travel Association. “Tourism is more than an essential industry for the state,” said Wit Tuttell, executive director of Visit NC. “It’s an economic development force in all 100 of our counties, the places where travelers experience our scenic beauty and adventure, our cuisine and unique culture, our history and the dynamic forces that create our enduring appeal. We look forward to continued success in welcoming people to experience places they won’t nd anywhere else.”

Commissioners approve economic incentive package for

$5,000 contribution to NAACP scholarship program approved by board

By Ryan Henkel North State Journal

WINSTON-SALMON — The Forsyth County Board of Commissioners met Thursday, Aug. 10 with multiple budgetary matters on the agenda.

The board rst held a public hearing for the expenditure of county general funds for an economic development project with John Deere Electric Powertrain LLC.

“John Deere Electric Powertrain LLC is a joint venture between Deere and Company and Kreisel Electric which is an Austrian company who develops lithium-ion battery systems,” said Community and Economic Development Director Kyle Haney. “John Deere acquired a majority stake in Kreisel in 2021 and so this would be a project together here in the United States to design and manufacture cutting-edge battery technology for o -highway equipment.”

According to Haney, the cur-

John Deer Power Train LLC

rent location that John Deere Electric Powertrain is viewing is adjacent to the current John Deere facility in Kernersville. The site would be the North American headquarters for John Deere Electric Powertrain and include both o ce and production facilities

The project would see a capital investment of $69.6 million and create 87 full-time jobs with an average wage of $62,951.

The economic incentive package composes a 50% incentive over a period of seven years which is projected to be $1,320,720. Following the public hearing, the board approved the economic development project.

“This project, if it comes to Forsyth and I’m very hopeful it will, will let us be directly a part of bene tting from the electrication revolution that is underway,” said Commissioner Dan Besse.

The board was also presented with a potential agreement with the NAACP to operate a scholarship program based on nancial need for Forsyth County students to attend universities in the University of North Caroli-

na System.

The scholarship is needs and merit-based and can be applied for, and has been won, by Forsyth County students of di erent races, not just African-Americans, according to Board Chair Don Martin.

The scholarship funding had been a point of contention for the board for several weeks now, with some commissioners supporting an even greater contribution while others viewed participation in the scholarship program as overstepping their rights as elected o cials.

“What I will say, unapologetically as a public school educator for over 25 years serving in schools across this state, is that there is no greater investment in a democracy than in public school education,” said Commissioner Shai Woodbury.

Initially, Commissioners Tonya McDaniel and Woodbury approved a motion to support a $10,000 contribution to the scholarship fund, but that motion was voted down 5-2, however, a contribution of $5,000 was approved 4-3 with Commissioners Besse and Chair Don Martin joining McDaniels and Wood-

bury in approval and Commissioners Gloria Whisenhunt, Richard Linville and David Plyler voting against the motion.

“This has been a total disregard for our budget that was adopted just maybe a month ago,” Whisenhunt said. “Secondly, everybody that has served with me knows that I’m always opposed to special appropriations. It has absolutely nothing to do with race. It has to do with our taxpayers. With special appropriations, we’re mandating that every citizen be charitable and we’re choosing who they’re going to be charitable to. If taxpayers want to be charitable, that is their choice, not mine as an elected o cial.”

“Special appropriations, to me, are non-pro ts that provide services in a community that improve the quality of life,” Martin

Joe Biden Is a narcissist, not an empath

If this were an isolated incident, we could chalk it up to Biden’s encroaching senility. But it isn’t.

PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN, we keep hearing, is a deeply empathetic man. It is that empathy that brought him to the presidency — his deep and abiding capacity to connect with others. In “What It Takes,” Richard Ben Cramer’s detailed blow-by-blow of the 1988 election cycle, Ben Cramer describes Biden’s ability to “connect” as his greatest supposed skill. This has been the pitch for Biden for decades: not much in the way of brains, not a tremendously resourceful politician, awkward on his feet — but he cares. In the words of Mark Gitenstein, Biden’s 1988 speechwriter and a four-decade adviser, “His ability to communicate with people in pain is maybe his most powerful strength.”

Or maybe, just maybe, Biden was never an empathetic man. Maybe he simply tra cked in ersatz empathy, all the while feeding his own narcissism.

That story certainly looks more plausible these days.

Last week, Biden visited Maui. He did so nearly two weeks after the worst wild re in modern American history killed hundreds of Americans. Meanwhile, Biden vacationed in Delaware on the beach, telling reporters he had “no comment” on the situation; he then jetset o to Lake Tahoe before nally heading to Lahaina. Once he reached Hawaii, he proceeded to explain that he felt the pain of those whose family members had been incinerated. After all, he said, one time he experienced a small kitchen re. “I don’t want to compare di culties, but we have a little sense, Jill and I, of what it was like to lose a home,” he jabbered. “Years ago, now, 15 years, I was in Washington doing ‘Meet the press’... Lightning struck at home on a little lake outside the home, not a lake a big pond. It hit the wire and came up underneath our home, into the... air condition ducts. To make a long story short, I almost lost my wife, my ‘67 Corvette and my cat.”

In reality, back in 2004, lightning caused a kitchen re in Biden’s home that was put out in 20 minutes with no other damage.

If this were an isolated incident, we could chalk it up to Biden’s encroaching senility. But it isn’t. After presiding over the botched pullout from Afghanistan that resulted in the return of the Taliban, the murder of 13 American servicemembers, the abandonment of hundreds of American citizens and thousands of American green card holders, and the subjugation of some tens of millions of women, Biden essentially shrugged. Then, when faced with the families of wounded and killed American soldiers, he attempted to “feel their pain” by invoking the death of his son, Beau. According to Cheryl Rex, whose son died in the Abbey Gate bombing of Aug. 26, 2021, “His words to me were, ‘My wife, Jill, and I know how you feel. We lost our son as well and brought him home in a ag-draped co n.’”

Biden has cited Beau in similar instances multiple times.

In the Jewish community, death of a loved one is followed by shiva, a seven-day period of mourning. During shiva, mourners don’t leave their homes; they are instead cared for by the community, provided with food and communal prayer. Members of the community visit the shiva house to provide comfort.

The rst rule of visiting a shiva house: Don’t talk about your own experiences with death or pain. It’s gauche and irrelevant and trivializing.

Yet this is Biden’s rst move.

Empathy is the quality of putting yourself in the place of others. But Biden isn’t an empath. He’s someone who believes that everyone else’s pain is merely a re ection of his own.

Ben Shapiro, 39, is a graduate of UCLA and Harvard Law School, host of “The Ben Shapiro Show,” and co-founder of Daily Wire+.

Uber raises minimum age for most California drivers to 25, saying insurance costs are too high

The Associated Press SAN FRANCISCO — Uber raised the minimum age requirement for most of its new drivers in California to 25 on Thursday under rules the company said are necessary because of the rising costs of commercial auto insurance in the state.

The new rule applies only to drivers signing up to transport passengers with Uber’s ride-hailing platform, and not for those delivering food with Uber Eats. Previously, people as young as 21 could sign up to drive customers, and the age limit for deliveries was 19.

Those under 25 who activated their accounts prior to Wednesday can continue to drive for Uber, the company said.

Insurance rates for Uber’s California drivers are signi cantly higher than for personal vehicles or taxi drivers, according to a company statement announcing the change.

“As a result of these lopsided requirements, personal injury attorneys have created a cot-

COMMISSIONERS from page 1

said. “I’ve supported a number of those over the last eight budgets regarding quality of life issues. I ran on three things when I ran for commissioner nine years ago: improving the quality of life in Forsyth County, improving education and improv-

tage industry specializing in suing rideshare platforms like ours, pushing Uber’s California state-mandated commercial insurance costs to rise by more

ing economic development.”

According to County Manager Dudley Watts, Jr., the funding for the scholarships will come from the contingency line item.

The board then approved an amendment to the FY23-24 budget ordinance to appropriate $39,000 from the NC Department of Health and Human

Ill.,

than 65% in just two years,” the company said. “By increasing the age requirement for new drivers to 25, we hope to mitigate the growth of those costs.”

All 50 states require commercial insurance for drivers to earn money with a ride-hailing service. Uber maintains commercial auto insurance for drivers — in-

cluding at least $1 million of liability coverage once a ride is accepted. Personal auto insurance typically doesn’t cover activity on ride-hailing apps.

The minimum age is already 25 for those driving for Lyft, Uber’s main competitor.

Starting Thursday, drivers under 25 trying to sign up with Uber will receive an email explaining the new policy and providing a link to more information.

The new restriction coincides with a resurgence in passengers following a deep downturn due to the pandemic.

Uber is now handling more rides than it did in 2019, raising the company’s hopes that it may nally realize its long-term of goal of becoming consistently pro table.

Realizing that objective has sharpened management’s focus on cost control, a factor that may have contributed to the decision to drop 25-and-under drivers.

Uber’s food delivery service, which will continue to let that demographic work as drivers, accounts for one-third of the company’s revenue.

Uber hopes to work with state lawmakers and industry experts “to discuss legislative and regulatory changes that will improve the experience for all California drivers,” according to its statement.

Services for agreement addendum 491.

Finally, the board approved ve contractual matters.

Those include an agreement with Stryker Sales, LLC for an amount not to exceed $49,987.40 annually over three years to provide service and maintenance of ambulance

stretchers and powerlifting devices, a $14,300 purchase and conveyance of two BMW used and surplus law enforcement motorcycles from Cabarrus County, a $171,765 contract with Express Services, Inc. for temporary sta ng services for the sheri ’s o ce detention records section which will eliminate

three current positions and replace them with ve temporary sta ers, a $255,365 purchase of shelving for the new courthouse project, and a deal with Parrish Tire Company for a $260,000 purchase of new tires.

The Forsyth County Board of Commissioners will next meet Aug. 31.

An Uber sign is displayed inside a car in Palatine,

Monday, May 22, 2023.

SPORTS

SIDELINE REPORT

COLLEGE FOOTBALL

Arizona State imposes 1-year bowl ban

Tempe, Ariz.

Arizona State has issued a self-imposed one-year bowl ban amid an NCAA investigation for possible infractions incurred under former football coach Herm Edwards. The ban is a preemptive step as the NCAA investigates the Sun Devils for alleged recruiting violations during the COVID-19 pandemic. The NCAA has been investigating the program since 2021. It’s looking into allegations that the Sun Devils hosted recruits during the NCAAimposed ban on in-person recruiting during the pandemic. Arizona State red Edwards three games into last season and gave him a $4.4 million buyout instead of ring him for cause.

MLS

Messi violates MLS media rules by not speaking with reporters

Harrison, N.J.

Lionel Messi did not speak with reporters after his Major League Soccer debut, a violation of the league’s media rules. Messi scored in the 89th minute of Inter Miami’s 2-0 win over the New York Red Bulls. Miami spokeswoman Molly Dreska said after the match that Messi was not being made available to reporters. Dan Courtemanche, MLS’s executive vice president of communications, said before the game that Messi, like all players, was required to be available to media after all games.

NHL Rangers hire Hall of Fame women’s star Ruggiero

New York

The New York Rangers have hired Hockey Hall of Famer Angela Ruggiero as a hockey operations adviser. The team announced the addition of Ruggiero along with several front o ce changes. Ruggiero won four Olympic medals as a defenseman for the U.S. including helping the country win gold in 1998 in Nagano in the rst Games with women’s hockey. The Rangers also promoted former NHL forward Ryane Clowe to cosenior adviser to president and general manager Chris Drury and hired Andy Hosler as head athletic trainer.

TENNIS

Ymer announces abrupt retirement over doping ban

London

Swedish tennis player Mikael Ymer abruptly announced his retirement at the age of 24 after an unsuccessful attempt to overturn an antidoping suspension. Ymer was charged in January 2022 for missing three outof-competition tests in a 12-month period. He initially fought the charges and said he had been cleared by an independent tribunal in June 2022. But the ITF appealed the decision and Ymer was handed an 18-month suspension. Ymer was ranked as high as 50 in the world in April and represented Sweden in the Davis Cup along with his older brother Elias.

Notre Dame thinking big after Hartman’s impressive debut

I won’t be using it. I’ll be tucking it away.”

The victory was hardly a surprise.

num had a record 19,217 yards with Houston from 2007-2011.

But with Notre Dame, it’s always about more than numbers.

“There’s no substitution for experience. None,” Freeman said. “I don’t care if you’re the head coach or a quarterback.”

Over the previous two years, Hartman threw for more than 300 yards per game, scored 89 total TDs and completed more passes of 20 yards or more than anyone else in the FBS.

The Associated Press NO. 13 NOTRE DAME can forget about game-managing quarterbacks.

It has a new star in Sam Hartman. He lived up to the billing on Saturday by going 19 of 23 with 251 yards while tying a school record for a debut with four TD passes, leading the Fighting Irish to a 42-3 rout over rival Navy. He celebrated the nearly perfect performance by putting his hands on a shillelagh.

“It’s kind of our new tradition, we’re going to get a new one each game,” Hartman said of the club after delivering Notre Dame’s most lopsided opening win in 11 years. “It’s used as a weapon, but

After going 9-4 with Tyler Buchner and Drew Pyne splitting the job last season, second-year coach Marcus Freeman searched for a dynamic quarterback to lead the o ense. The answer was Hartman, who transferred from Wake Forest to Notre Dame and encouraged reporters to include teammates Jaden Greathouse and Marist Liufau at the postgame news conference.

“You’ve got to ask these guys questions, too,” he said.

Hartman understands, though, that the spotlight always shines on the Notre Dame quarterback — especially when you’re one of college football’s most proli c passers at one of the sports’ most storied programs.

“You feel it when you travel,”

Former Notre Dame star quarterback Joe Montana on new Irish starter Sam Hartman

Hartman said. He is an unusual quarterback, too, the kind Notre Dame has been chasing since at least the end of the Ian Book era in 2020, maybe the Tommy Rees era in 2013 or perhaps the Jimmy Clausen era in 2009.

Hartman came to South Bend after compiling an ACC career-record 110 TD passes and 12,967 yards. If he tops 4,100 yards for the second time in three seasons, he’ll be second alltime on the FBS list. Case Kee-

Preece gets medical clearance to return to NC after terrifying crash at Daytona

The Stewart-Haas Racing driver’s car ipped about a dozen times on Saturday night

The Associated Press

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Cup Series driver Ryan Preece, whose car rolled about a dozen times during a terrifying crash at Daytona International Speedway, was on his way home about 12 hours later after being discharged from a hospital Sunday.

Stewart-Haas Racing said Preece was headed back to North Carolina after getting clearance from doctors at Halifax Health Medical Center. The team earlier said Preece was “awake, alert and mobile” and “had been communicating with family and friends.”

The 32-year-old Preece was able to climb out of his mangled No. 41 Ford on Saturday night with help before emergency workers put him on a gurney and into an ambulance. He initially went to the track’s in eld care center before being transported to Halifax Health for overnight observation.

Preece tweeted about two

hours after the race, posting: “If you want to be a race car driver, you better be tough. ... I’m coming back.”

Preece and SHR teammate Chase Briscoe made contact coming out of Turn 4, and Preece’s car turned hard left and then went into an uncontrollable barrel roll as soon as it slid from

the asphalt to the in eld grass. The car came to a halt on all four tires with some minor damage to the roll cage.

Preece being able to climb out with help was a testament to NASCAR’s Next Gen car, which is considered the safest iteration in its 75-year history.

The car was roundly criti-

“This moment isn’t too big. It’s about him going out there and just executing,” Freeman said. “What I really, really thought he did a great job was putting our o ense in good positions to execute plays.”

Hartman has been humbled by joining a small, prominent Notre Dame fraternity that includes familiar names such as the late John Lujack Jr., Joe Theismann, Brady Quinn, Tony Rice and Joe Montana.

And now Hartman’s rst game even has one of those guys raving.

“It’s been great watching him,” Montana said during the telecast. “I think it’s great for Notre Dame and he brings a little something — some juice to the o ense.”

cized following its debut in 2022 because rear-impact collisions wreaked havoc on drivers. Kurt Busch of 23XI Racing su ered a life-changing concussion during a qualifying crash at Pocono Raceway last summer, and Hendrick Motorsports driver Alex Bowman missed ve races because of a concussion.

Other drivers complained about the violence felt during what they considered routine hits and wondered if they too had su ered head trauma.

NASCAR spent much of last year and the o season testing and tweaking its car to try to limit the G-forces delivered to drivers. The changes were welcomed, resulting in considerably fewer missed races and no reported concussions in 2023.

Busch, meanwhile, formally retired from the Cup Series Saturday at Daytona. The 45-yearold Busch held back tears as he called it quits, saying his “body is just having a battle with Father Time.”

Busch added that he’s dealt with arthritis and gout while trying to shake lingering e ects of a brain injury that rocked stock car racing a year ago.

Preece’s accident harkened memories of Ryan Newman’s harrowing wreck in the 2020 Daytona 500. Newman was able to walk out of the hospital days later, another testament to NASCAR safety improvements made since Dale Earnhardt’s death on the nal lap of the 2001 Daytona 500.

“He brings a little something — some juice to the o ense.”

The former Wake Forest star threw for four touchdowns in his Irish debut

AP PHOTO

Notre Dame quarterback Sam Hartman throws against Navy during the Irish’s 42-3 win Saturday in Dublin.

AP PHOTO Ryan Preece barrel rolls along the back stretch during Saturday night’s Cup Series race at Daytona.

STATE & NATION

Judge asks if poverty quali es for Biden policy letting migrants from 4 countries into US

The Associated Press HOUSTON — A federal judge on Friday questioned whether living in poverty would be enough to qualify someone for a key immigration policy from President Joe Biden that allows a limited number of people from four countries in the Americas to enter the U.S. on humanitarian grounds.

The program allows up to 30,000 people into the U.S. each month from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela combined. The program is being challenged in a lawsuit led by Texas and 20 other Republican-leaning states. They’re accusing it of being a “shadow immigration system” that’s letting in nearly everyone who applies.

U.S. District Judge Drew Tipton said that a “massive chunk of the world” lives in poverty, adding he’s visited Haiti and seen terrible living conditions there rsthand.

“Does the fact they are living in poverty qualify as an urgent humanitarian need?” Tipton asked as closing arguments were being presented in the trial in Victoria, Texas.

“I think probably not,” said Elissa Fudim, a lawyer with the U.S. Justice Department, which is defending the federal govern-

ment in the lawsuit.

Esther Sung, an attorney with the Justice Action Center, one of several immigrant rights group’s that are defending the parole program in the lawsuit, said that Congress “has frowned on letting a migrant in for purely economic reasons.”

Attorneys for Texas and the other states say the large numbers of migrants being paroled in the U.S. show o cials are granting parole en masse and not on a case-by-case basis as required by law.

But lawyers with the U.S.

Justice Department and the immigrant rights groups argued migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela are not simply eeing economic hardship but also oppressive regimes, escalating violence and worsening political conditions that have endangered their lives.

The program’s supporters argue it isn’t giving blanket approval to all who apply and that each case is individually reviewed. They dispute the claim everyone is accepted, saying people who had made it to the nal approval step after ar-

Bare electrical wire and leaning poles on Maui were possible cause of deadly res

The Associated Press

IN THE FIRST MOMENTS of the Maui res, when high winds brought down power poles, slapping electri ed wires to the dry grass below, there was a reason the ames erupted all at once in long, neat rows — those wires were bare, uninsulated metal that could spark on contact.

Videos and images analyzed by The Associated Press con rmed those wires were among miles of line that Hawaiian Electric Co. left naked to the weather and often-thick foliage, despite a recent push by utilities in other wild reand hurricane-prone areas to cover up their lines or bury them.

Compounding the problem is that many of the utility’s 60,000, mostly wooden power poles, which its own documents described as built to “an obsolete 1960s standard,” were leaning and near the end of their projected lifespan. They were nowhere close to meeting a 2002 national standard that key components of Hawaii’s electrical grid be able to withstand 105 mile per hour winds. A 2019 ling said it had fallen behind in replacing the old wooden poles because of other priorities and warned of a “seri-

ous public hazard” if they “failed.” Google street view images of poles taken before the re show the bare wire.

It’s “very unlikely” a fully-insulated cable would have sparked and caused a re in dry vegetation, said Michael Ahern, who retired this month as director of power systems at Worcester Poly-

technic Institute in Massachusetts.

Experts who watched videos showing downed power lines agreed wire that was insulated would not have arced and sparked, igniting a line of ame.

Hawaiian Electric said in a statement that it has “long recognized the unique threats” from

riving in the U.S. have been rejected. No number was given on how many such rejections have occurred. They said the program has also helped reduce the strain on resources and border agents along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Tipton pushed back on claims from Texas’ lawyers too. They have argued the state is spending millions of dollars on health care and public education costs because of an in ux of paroled migrants. Texas would have to prove it has su ered an economic loss to have standing in the case.

Tipton repeatedly asked Texas’ lawyers how the state could be claiming nancial losses if data shows that the parole program has actually reduced the number of migrants coming into the U.S.

“In the last six moths you’ve actually spent less on people from those countries,” Tipton told Texas’ lawyers.

After closing arguments wrapped up Friday, Tipton did not immediately issue a ruling on the legality of the parole program. A decision could come months down the road.

But Tipton said he was uncomfortable with issuing any temporary order in the case that would halt the parole program nationwide, as there are U.S.

climate change and has spent millions of dollars in response, but did not say whether speci c power lines that collapsed in the early moments of the re were bare.

“We’ve been executing on a resilience strategy to meet these challenges, and since 2018, we have spent approximately $950 million to strengthen and harden our grid and approximately $110 million on vegetation management e orts,” the company said. “This work included replacing more than 12,500 poles and structures since 2018 and trimming and removing trees along approximately 2,500 line miles every year on average.”

But a former member of the Hawaii Public Utilities Commission con rmed many of Maui’s wooden power poles were in poor condition. Jennifer Potter lives in Lahaina and until the end of last year was on the commission, which regulates Hawaiian Electric.

“Even tourists that drive around the island are like, ‘What is that?’ They’re leaning quite signi cantly because the winds over time literally just pushed them over,” she said. “That obviously is not going to withstand 60, 70 mile per hour winds. So the infrastructure was just not strong enough for this kind of windstorm … The infrastructure itself is just compromised.”

Sixty percent of the utility poles on West Maui were still down on

states that say the initiative has bene ted them.

The trial began Thursday and only one witness testi ed — an American who is sponsoring a migrant from Nicaragua who is now living in the U.S. because of the program. Most of the trial has been taken up by closing arguments and questions to the lawyers from Tipton.

As of the end of July, more than 72,000 Haitians, 63,000 Venezuelans, 41,000 Cubans and 34,000 Nicaraguans had been vetted and authorized to come to the U.S. through the program.

The lawsuit has not objected to the use of humanitarian parole for tens of thousands of Ukrainians who came after Russia’s invasion.

The parole program was started for Venezuelans in fall 2022 and then expanded in January. People taking part must apply online, arrive at an airport and have a sponsor. If approved, they can stay for two years and get a work permit. Other programs the administration has implemented to reduce illegal immigration have also faced legal challenges.

Tipton, who was appointed by then-President Donald Trump, has previously ruled against the Biden administration on who to prioritize for deportation.

Aug. 14, according to Hawaiian Electric CEO Shelee Kimura at a media conference — 450 of the 750 poles.

Hawaiian Electric is facing a spate of new lawsuits that seek to hold it responsible for the deadliest U.S. wild re in more than a century. The number of conrmed dead stands at 115, and the county expects that to rise.

Hawaiian Electric also faces criticism for not shutting o the power amid high wind warnings and keeping it on even as dozens of poles began to topple. Maui County sued Hawaiian Electric on Thursday over this issue.

Michael Jacobs, a senior energy analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said that with power lines causing so many res in the United States: “We denitely have a new pattern, we just don’t have a new safety regime to go with it.”

Insulating an electrical wire prevents arcing and sparking, and dissipates heat.

In 2002, the National Electric Safety Code was updated to require utility poles like those on Maui to withstand 105 mile per hour winds.

The U.S. electrical grid was designed and built for last century’s climate, said Joshua Rhodes, an energy systems research scientist at the University of Texas at Austin. Utilities would be smart to better prepare for protracted droughts and high winds, he added.

AP PHOTO

Valerie Laveus stands with her brother Reginald Malherbe Daniel and her nephew Tristan-Ryan Malherbe Daniel after her relatives arrived for the rst time to the United States from Haiti at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Wednesday, Aug. 9, 2023.

AP PHOTO

Utility poles stand in Lahaina on the island of Maui, Hawaii, Aug. 16, 2023. When the winds of Hurricane Dora lashed Maui Aug. 8, they struck bare electrical lines the Hawaiian electric utility had left exposed to the elements.

MOORE COUNTY

North Moore Soccer

COUNTY NEWS

Missing Moore County teenager found safe in Elizabeth City

On Saturday night, deputies from the Moore County Sheri ’s O ce reported that they had found a missing 14-yearold girl who was last seen on Thursday, September 24. According to a press release from the sheri ’s o ce, Zoe Price, the teenage girl from the Seven Lakes community, was reported missing by her family on Friday. She was believed to be with 25-year-old Jason Callaham in Scotland County. She was later found safe in Elizabeth City and brought home. Callaham has been charged with one count of felony rst-degree kidnapping by Moore County investigators. In addition, he was charged by the Elizabeth City Police Department with two counts of felony statutory rape of a child less than 15 years of age. He was committed to the Albemarle District Jail and given a $1,000,000 secured bond. His rst court appearance in Moore County is set for September 14.

Motorcyclist airlifted after struck from behind vehicle in Glendon area

A motorcyclist was airlifted to the hospital this past Saturday after he was struck from behind by a vehicle while traveling on Glendon Carthage Road. The incident, which took place at around 7:15 p.m., took place as the man on the motorcycle attempted to slow down, but the driver of the car behind him was not paying attention. Julene Diaz, the 24-year-old woman driving the car, was arrested and charged with driving while impaired and for failing to reduce speed. Moore County EMS transported the patient to the local trauma center after setting up an air eld at Fair Promise Church a few miles from the scene. At this time, the condition of the motorcyclists is considered serious but stable.

Pinecrest gets lone football win in the county

By Shawn Krest North State Journal

WEEK TWO of the high school football season saw two of the three local teams go down in defeat.

Pinecrest was the lone team to record a win, moving to 2-0 on the season with a 44-20 road win over 0-2 Overhills. The Patriots have scored 92 points in their rst two games. It’s their most explosive start to a season since winning the rst two games of 2015 by a combined 95-8 score, en route to a 6-0 start that season that saw Pinecrest score 305 points.

The Patriots were led against Overhills by 196 yards rushing by junior Zymire Spencer, who found the end zone ve times in his 22 rushes. For the season, Spencer has nine rushing touchdowns and 365 yards. Quarterback Mason Konen had 170 yards passing and a touchdown, to receiver Elijah Melton, who

nished with 89 receiving yards. The win was muted by what appeared to be a serious injury su ered by o ensive lineman Andrew Webb in the second quarter. The junior had to be carted o the eld.

Southern Pines to look into implementing subscriptionbased recycling services

S. Bennett Street development decision delayed once again

By Ryan Henkel North State Journal

SOUTHERN PINES — The Southern Pines Town Council met Tuesday, August 8, with an agenda full of public hearings and action items.

To begin the meeting, the council rst held four public hearings, the rst of which was to decide on a new approach for garbage and recycling services.

“This project actually started over a year ago,” said assistant town manager Mike Cameron.

“We hired Davenport Lawrence back in January. We’ve done a contract extension to get us through December 31 of 2024 with GFL to continue solid waste and recycling services.”

The council was presented with four options that involved either no recycling, select recycling with an upcharge, no change to the current format or the current format but with larger recycling bins provided to every resident.

“All four options that we are considering are cheaper than our current option,” said council

member Ann Petersen. “And the risk has shifted. So, regardless of which option we choose, it’s a veyear contract and the risk stays on the provider and not the town.”

Following the hearing, the council chose option number two.

“Option 2 is a tiered recycling type system where those that want to recycle would have the opportunity to at a cost that would be speci c to them,” Cameron said.

The second hearing was for an annexation request to incorporate 403.62 acres of property located between Camp Easter Road and US Highway 1 into the corporate limits of the town.

Following the hearing, the council approved the request.

The third hearing was for a text amendment to the Uni ed Development Ordinance related to canopy lighting for service stations.

“Currently, the UDO reads that the average lighting level for new and existing service stations shall be no greater than three lumens per square foot under the canopy,” said Planning Director B.J. Grieve. “All lighting shall be recessed to ensure that no light source is visible from or causes glare on public right-of-ways or adjacent properties. The request

North Moore, who won in Week One on the road, dropped its home opener, 22-12, to Southwestern Randolph, to fall to 1-1 on the season. It’s the rst time since the 2020 season that the Mustangs have dropped a game

MOORE COUNTY WEEK THREE HIGH SCHOOL SCHEDULE

Thursday Aug. 31, 7:00 PM, Union Pines Vikings (0-2) at Western Harnett Eagles (0-2, 1-9 in 2022)

Thursday, Aug. 31, 7:00 PM North Moore Mustangs (1-1) home vs. Northwood Chargers (1-1, 4-6 in 2022) *Conference Game*

Friday Sept. 1, 7:00 PM, Pinecrest Patriots (2-0) at Middle Creek Mustangs (1-1,5-5 in 2022)

in the rst two weeks of the season.

Union Pines fell to 0-2 on the year with a 20-19 loss to Northwood in Pittsboro. The Vikings took a lead into the fourth quarter thanks to an Anthony Goswick scoring pass to Caleb Milton and touchdown runs by Austin Mooring and Ethan Biggs. Following a Northwood touchdown, an interception with under four minutes to play ended Union Pines’ comeback hopes.

Annual Moore County visitor impact report shows 11.3% increase

By Matt Mercer North State Journal

CARTHAGE — Domes-

tic and international visitors to and within Moore County spent $749.50 million in 2022, an increase of 11.3% from 2021, according to new data.

The spending report comes from an annual study commissioned by Visit North Carolina, a unit of the Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina.

State tax revenue generated in Moore County totaled around $28.9 million through state sales and excise taxes, as well as taxes on personal and corporate income.

Statewide, North Carolina set a record for visitor spending in 2022. As previously reported in May, travel statewide rose 15.2%, an increase following a 2021 turnaround from the pandemic’s 2020 peak, which brought a devastating drop of 32% in visitor spending.

“As we celebrate a record $33.3 billion in visitor spending statewide, we’re pleased that counties that rely on business travel, as well as leisure trips, are doing well,” said N.C.

The travel and tourism industry directly employs more than 5,600 in Moore County, according to the report.

The study was prepared for Visit North Carolina by Tourism Economics in collaboration with the U.S. Travel Association.

“Tourism is more than an essential industry for the state,” said Wit Tuttell, executive director of Visit NC. “It’s an economic development force in all 100 of our counties, the places where travelers experience our scenic beauty and adventure, our cuisine and unique culture, our history and the dynamic forces that create our enduring appeal. We look forward to continued success in welcoming people to experience places they won’t nd anywhere else.”

PJ WARD-BROWN | NORTH STATE JOURNAL

North Moore’s Jakarey Gillis hurdles Colton Law for a rst down at North Moore high school in Robbins, NC on August 25, 2023.

PJ WARD-BROWN | NORTH STATE JOURNAL

Commerce Secretary Machelle Baker Sanders.

North Moore’s Ricky Betancourt takes a shot on goal against Asheboro at Lee J Stone Stadium in Asheboro, on August 21, 2023.

M, 8/28/2023, Moore County

Sheriff’s Office, Assault on a

Female, $50,000 Secured

COX, CHARLES ANTHONY, 42,

W, M, 8/28/2023, Moore County

Sheriff’s Office, Possess Drug Paraphernalia (x2), Possess

Methamphetamine, $20,000 Secured

WELCH, KENNY LEE, 44, W, M,

8/27/2023, Robbins PD, Felony

Larceny, Resisting Public Officer, Possess Marijuana Paraphernalia,

exterior lighting too.”

Possess Drug Paraphernalia, $25,000 Secured

OXENDINE, CHRISTOPHER LEE, 37, W, M, 8/27/2023, Moore County Sheriff’s Office, Felony Larceny (x2), Inj Prop Obt Nonferr Metal, $5,000 Secured

HUFFMAN, DAPHNE BRIANNE, 38, W, F, 8/27/2023, Moore County Sheriff’s Office, Simple Possession Schedule II CS, Simple Assault, $5,500 Secured

is to change it from three to 12.”

“Many years ago, the Town of Southern Pines decided that the Town was going to adopt a lighting ordinance,” Grieve said. “Lighting ordinances serve the purpose of restricting lighting by coming up with a measurement of that light. The general purpose of this section is to promote public health, safety and welfare, the quality of life, the ability to view the night sky and ongoing operations on Fort Bragg by establishing regulations for the process of review of exterior lighting. These provisions establish provision for

Following the hearing, the council approved the request, but with the change of a maximum allowance of 15 lumens per square foot below the canopy after new information was made available to town sta through the Illuminating Engineering Society’s recommended standards. The fourth hearing was for another text amendment to the UDO, with this one aiming to remove self-storages as a by-right land use in General Business zoning districts.

Following the hearing, the council also approved the request.

The council then approved a Watershed Protection permit request in order for the applicant to develop a single-family residence and detached garage on 0.12 acres of property within the Little River Intake No. 2 Watershed.

The council also approved a resolution setting the town’s intent to convey 7.73 acres of property located on the corner of Henly Road and Morganton Road to the YMCA of the Sandhills. The resolution allows the town to properly advertise the conveyance and also establishes a public hearing on September 12.

Finally, the council again continued a decision on the concep-

DURRANCE, REBECCA LYNN, 38, W, F, 8/27/2023, Southern Pines

PD, Felony Possession of Cocaine, Possess Drug Paraphernalia, $15,000 Secured

BOWDEN, JAMARRIOUS DEQUAN, 25, B, M, 8/27/2023, Moore County Sheriff’s Office, Disorderly

Conduct, Resisting Public Officer, Possess Marijuana Paraphernalia, $15,000 Secured

tual development plan for 0.786 acres of property located on the West Side of S. Bennett Street between New York Avenue and Pennsylvania Avenue.

The item had been previously continued after last month’s meeting for the council to have time to think about a nal decision, but after the applicant brought forth a request for additional changes related to parking, the council decided that they needed the CDP to go through the public hearing process again due to that.

The Southern Pines Town Council will next meet September 12.

Here’s a quick look at what’s coming up in Moore County:

August 31

Trivia Thursday at the Brewery

6pm

Come out for Trivia at the Southern Pines Brewery!

Enjoy fun and prizes each Thursday. Southern Pines Brewing Company is located at 565 Air Tool Dr., Southern Pines, NC.

Thursday Night Music Bingo

7pm

Come out to James Creek Cider House for Music Bingo with Lauren! James Creek is located at 172 US Hwy 1 Bus. in Cameron. A food truck will be on site at 8!

September 1

Carthage Farmers Market

2pm – 6pm

Come out and support your local farmers at the brand-new farmers market in Carthage! The market features fresh produce, meats, eggs, and handmade goods! The market will be set up on S. Ray Street in the parking lot across from the post o ce.

September 2

Moore County Farmers Market

8am – 12pm

Enjoy the Moore County Farmers Market at the Downtown Park, which is located at 145 SE Broad Street in Southern Pines! Buy local and fresh seasonal produce and products every Saturday morning from 8am until 12pm!

Sandhills Farmers Market

10am – 1pm

Come out for the Sandhills Farmers Market in the heart of the Village of Pinehurst! The market features many wonderful farms, nurseries, bakeries, meat and egg providers, cheesemakers, and specialty food producers in the area.

CRIME LOG

Neal Robbins, publisher | Frank Hill, senior opinion editor

Joe Biden Is a narcissist, not an empath

If this were an isolated incident, we could chalk it up to Biden’s encroaching senility. But it isn’t.

PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN, we keep hearing, is a deeply empathetic man. It is that empathy that brought him to the presidency — his deep and abiding capacity to connect with others. In “What It Takes,” Richard Ben Cramer’s detailed blowby-blow of the 1988 election cycle, Ben Cramer describes Biden’s ability to “connect” as his greatest supposed skill. This has been the pitch for Biden for decades: not much in the way of brains, not a tremendously resourceful politician, awkward on his feet — but he cares. In the words of Mark Gitenstein, Biden’s 1988 speechwriter and a four-decade adviser, “His ability to communicate with people in pain is maybe his most powerful strength.”

Or maybe, just maybe, Biden was never an empathetic man. Maybe he simply tra cked in ersatz empathy, all the while feeding his own narcissism.

That story certainly looks more plausible these days.

Last week, Biden visited Maui. He did so nearly two weeks after the worst wild re in modern American history killed hundreds of Americans. Meanwhile, Biden vacationed in Delaware on the beach, telling reporters he had “no comment” on the situation; he then jet-set o to Lake Tahoe before nally heading to Lahaina. Once he reached Hawaii, he proceeded to explain that he felt the pain of those whose family members had been incinerated. After all, he said, one time he experienced a small kitchen re. “I don’t want to compare di culties, but we have a little sense, Jill and I, of what it was like to lose a home,” he jabbered. “Years ago, now, 15 years, I was in Washington doing ‘Meet the press’... Lightning struck at home on a little lake outside the home, not a lake a big pond. It hit the wire and came up underneath our home, into the... air condition ducts. To make a long story short, I almost lost my wife, my ‘67 Corvette and my cat.”

COLUMN | MICHAEL BARONE

In reality, back in 2004, lightning caused a kitchen re in Biden’s home that was put out in 20 minutes with no other damage.

If this were an isolated incident, we could chalk it up to Biden’s encroaching senility. But it isn’t. After presiding over the botched pullout from Afghanistan that resulted in the return of the Taliban, the murder of 13 American servicemembers, the abandonment of hundreds of American citizens and thousands of American green card holders, and the subjugation of some tens of millions of women, Biden essentially shrugged. Then, when faced with the families of wounded and killed American soldiers, he attempted to “feel their pain” by invoking the death of his son, Beau. According to Cheryl Rex, whose son died in the Abbey Gate bombing of Aug. 26, 2021, “His words to me were, ‘My wife, Jill, and I know how you feel. We lost our son as well and brought him home in a ag-draped co n.’”

Biden has cited Beau in similar instances multiple times.

In the Jewish community, death of a loved one is followed by shiva, a seven-day period of mourning. During shiva, mourners don’t leave their homes; they are instead cared for by the community, provided with food and communal prayer. Members of the community visit the shiva house to provide comfort.

The rst rule of visiting a shiva house: Don’t talk about your own experiences with death or pain. It’s gauche and irrelevant and trivializing.

Yet this is Biden’s rst move.

Empathy is the quality of putting yourself in the place of others. But Biden isn’t an empath. He’s someone who believes that everyone else’s pain is merely a re ection of his own.

Ben Shapiro, 39, is a graduate of UCLA and Harvard Law School, host of “The Ben Shapiro Show,” and co-founder of Daily Wire+.

Republican debate: Whatever happened in the debate, fundamentals could still matter

The fundamentals in this case are that majorities of voters are inclined to reject each of the two most recent incumbent presidents, even though they register hefty majorities in polls of their party’s primary voters.

HAVING COMPLETED the rst presidential debate of the 2024 campaign cycle, it’s tempting to focus on minor but perhaps momentarily decisive details, such as whether Ron DeSaantis was wise to outsource strategy to a committee that he’s legally barred from communicating with or whether it was wise for Trump campaign spokesmen to not be allowed in the Fox News spin room.

Reporters have an incentive to focus on such things. Being the rst to spot a change in course -- leading the pack -- is a source of professional pride. But the fundamentals remain potentially dispositive.

Jimmy Carter’s astute advisers were able to keep his campaign above water for months in the 1980 cycle. But when the election returns came in, his low job rating on most issues was re ected in his 41% share of the vote, enough to carry only six states. One lesson of that campaign, and of many others, is that voters seek in presidential candidates qualities that they nd lacking in the current president.

Voters in 1960, accustomed to what were then considered elderly incumbents (every president for the preceding 18 years was in his 60s, and Dwight Eisenhower turned 70 three weeks before Election Day), opted for the outwardly vigorous 43-year-old John F. Kennedy. The fundamentals in this case are that majorities of voters are inclined to reject each of the two most recent incumbent presidents, even though they register hefty majorities in polls of their party’s primary voters, 64% for Joe Biden and 55% for Donald Trump.

Majority rejection of the 45th and 46th presidents is not a momentary phenomenon. In the 91 months since

Trump was inaugurated, incumbent presidents have enjoyed majority approval in only seven months and have fallen short in 84 months.

That’s 92% of the time over the last seven years and seven months, an even higher percentage than during the seven years leading up to the 1980 election, during the presidencies of Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter.

It’s not hard to think of reasons why: Trump’s uncouth insults and vacillating policies, Biden’s visible aging and extreme policies, both men’s penchant for transparent untruths (or, in the opposition party’s parlance, lies). Their support in primary polling seems to re ect a sincere inability on the part of their co-partisans, in a time of sharp partisanship, to understand why most of their fellow citizens do not appreciate their performance.

But not all partisans are blind to the views of others. In the early caucus and primary states, where candidates have been most active and voters most engaged, Trump has been polling below 50%, signi cantly below his national average -43% in Iowa, 44% in New Hampshire and 46% in South Carolina.

The Des Moines Register/NBC poll, conducted by the astonishingly good pollster J. Ann Selzer, showed Trump leading DeSantis by a 42%-19% margin. That sounds like a whopping lead, and in a general election poll, where most voters tend to support their party’s candidates, it would be.

But in primaries, and especially the Iowa caucuses, preferences are more uid. As the veteran poll analyst Nate Silver points out, since 2004, only one of the Republican or Democratic candidates leading in Iowa polling at this stage of the

cycle has won the Iowa caucuses, and that candidate (Hillary Clinton in 2016) won by only 1%.

“The Selzer poll is good for Trump, but it’s not consistent with the view that his nomination is more-or-less inevitable,” Silver wrote. “Trump is ‘only’ 68% at prediction markets, which to me seems low, but lotta folks here are treating him at ~99%, which is de nitely too high.”

That suggests that Silver puts a Trump opponent’s chances of winning the Republican nomination somewhere around 29%, which his Fivethirtyeight. com estimated as Trump’s chance of winning the 2016 general election.

The problem Trump’s current opponents face is akin to the classic tension between the need to go right (or left) to win the party nomination and then go to the center to win the general election. To be Trumplike enough to win the nomination and to present, for the general election, a contrast with the untruthfulness and aging which, to varying degrees, a ict Trump and Biden.

That’s a di cult but not impossible task. Upsets or even surprisingly strong second-place nishes in early contests can, as in the past, change millions of votes in ensuing primaries. And a potential Republican nominee without Trump’s weaknesses could lead to ructions among Democrats suddenly terri ed that Biden could lose.

This week’s debates could change the course of the presidential contest. But so could the fundamentals.

Michael Barone is a senior political analyst for the Washington Examiner, resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and longtime co-author of The Almanac of American Politics.

COLUMN | BEN SHAPIRO

Mary Edna York Lawrence

September 1, 1933 - August 18, 2023

Mary Edna York Lawrence of Seven Lakes, NC passed away peacefully at First Health Hospice House on August 18, 2023 just shy of her 90th birthday. Born on September 1, 1933 Mary Edna was the daughter of the late Paul Glenn York and Mildred Jarrell York. She was also preceded in death by her husband Fred Lawrence, brother Glenn York and sister Nancy Appen.

Mary Edna is survived by her son, Joel Lawrence and wife Carolyn of Seven Lakes, Pat Harrison and husband Larry of Carthage, brother in law Joe Lawrence and wife Betty of Sanford, grandchildren Sarah Franklin and husband Jason, Carrie Barber and husband Lance, Preston Stackhouse and wife Lora, Tabitha Jones, Joanna Baumgart, Paige Harris and husband Matt. Her life was further enriched by her great grandchildren, Jackson, Raylan, Wade, Warren, Elijah, Max, Trey, Nathan, Lilly, Henry, Sam and Clark, numerous nieces and nephews.

Norma Cresswell

November 19, 1942 - August 18, 2023

Norma Cresswell went to be with the Lord with her family at her side on August 18, 2023 at home. She is preceded in death by her husband Gary in 2001.

Norma was a member of the First Baptist Church of West End, NC. She loved her family and friends and always helped anyone in need. She never met a stranger. She is survived by 3 children, James Cresswell and family, Tim Cresswell and family , Jodi (Brat) Po and family, 5 grandchildren, 6 great grandchildren ,a brother Arden Rice and many nieces and nephews.

Norma retired from the Crawford County Home as a CNA and loved her patients dearly. She loved life and her greatest joy was spending time with her family. Psalms 23: 1&2.

Steven Bradly Wright

March 13, 1970 - August 22, 2023

Steven Bradly Wright, 53 of Nashville, TN passed on Tuesday, August 22, 2023 at Southern Hills Medical Center in Nashville, TN.

Mr. Wright was born March 13, 1970 in Columbus, GA to Steven Louis Wright and Rebecca Beasley Flider. He received a BA in Psychology from the University of Wisconsin Madison and was a member of Sigma Chi Fraternity there. Earned an MBA from Middle Tennessee State University Murfreesboro, TN.

Steven is survived by his children, Gavin and Lindsey Wright, his mother Rebecca (Dave) Flider, his father Steven (Sue) Wright, Brother Bryan (Katie) Wright, nephew Isaac Wright, niece, Julia Wright. Step sisters, Stacy Rivara and Joanna Filippini, stepbrother, Adam Walsh, and special Friend Amber Marie Warren.

Steven was preceded in death by his Paternal Grandparents, Lonnie R. Wright Sr. (Miriam), Frances Wright. His Maternal Grandparents Edward and Kathryn Beazley.

Bethel Wendell Dunlap

October 2, 1941 ~ August 22, 2023 (age 81)

Amanda Harris

June 21, 1981 ~ August 20, 2023

Amanda Ann Harris, 42, passed away Sunday, August 20, 2023, in Raleigh.

Amanda was born on June 21, 1981, in Moore County to John Harris and Norma Martin. Amanda enjoyed watching movies and animals. She was preceded in death by her paternal grandmother, Frances Everett.

Amanda is survived by her parents John Harris and Norma Martin (Sam); her children, Austin Gwyn and Jonathan Thompson; and her grandfather, Robert Everett.

Bethel Wendell Dunlap, age 81 of Carthage, passed away Tuesday, August 22, 2023 at his home.

A native of Moore County, Wendell was born October 2, 1941 to the late Pervy Howard and Stella Rouse Dunlap. In addition to his parents, he was preceded in death by his sister, Swannie Dunlap and brother, Robert Dunlap.

Wendell was a 1960 graduate of Westmoore High School. When he was younger, he was employed as a heavy machinery operator and retired after many years of hard work. He loved to go deep-sea shing, watching old western movies and going to church.

Wendell leaves to cherish his memory, his sons Mark and Shawn, a brother, Ray Dunlap and a sister, Esther Hundley, both of Robbins.

Karen Matthews Winchester

January 21, 1957 - August 20, 2023

Karen Matthews Winchester, 66 of West End, passed away on August 20, 2023 at FirstHealth Moore Regional Hospital.

Karen was born on January 21, 1957 in Wichita, Kansas to the late Harold Lynn and Betty Ann Matthews. At a young age, Karen’s family moved to Germantown, Tennessee where she grew up riding horses. After graduating from Mary Baldwin College, she returned to Germantown and stayed there to raise her own family. Karen spent over 40 years in the medical technology and laboratory management eld. She inherited her mother’s passion for antiques and loved scouring shops locally and in any city she would visit. She loved the beaches of Naples, Florida and always found the perfect shells to bring home to her ever-growing collection. After moving their full time (following grandkids!), she found her latest passion in life… Pickleball, which she played multiple times a week there and more recently in Pinehurst. She credits the sport for giving her a wonderful community of friends, but nothing in her life could compare to becoming a “Gigi” three times over. She adored her grandchildren and relished spending afternoons playing with them and taking them on multiple adventures.

She is survived by her loving husband, John; two daughters, Jennifer Gray (Nicholas) of Pinehurst, NC and Elizabeth Magee (Kyle) of Tallahassee, FL; one sister, Patricia Aiken; and three grandchildren, Adeline Gray, John Henry Gray and Claire Magee.

The family requests that any donations in her name be given to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

Margaret Ann Hobensack Ruddle

January 6, 1931 - August 22, 2023

Margaret Ann Hobensack Ruddle, beloved mother, grandmother, and greatgrandmother, age 92, passed away peacefully in her home at Penick Village of Southern Pines, NC on Tuesday August 22, 2023. She was preceded in death by her beloved husband Curtis Speight Ruddle Jr (aka Bud), and her sister Kathryn Saunders Gardner. She was born and raised in Doylestown PA and graduated from high school in Jenkintown PA. She graduated from Bradford Junior College, received her BA in Education from Trenton State College, and her Master’s in Education from Temple University. Margie and Bud raised their three children Jerry, Susan and Annie in Newtown, PA. Margie was the daughter of Lavinia Blackfan Hobensack, who was born in Newtown, the daughter of John and Mary Linton Blackfan. Margie’s father was W. Carlisle Hobensack, originally from Ivyland, PA. Margie’s great-grandparents were George Chapman Blackfan and Lavinia T. Worstall also of Newtown. The Blackfans were active Quakers and members of the Newtown Friends Meeting. Through Margie’s great-greatgrandfather George Blackfan, the family is related by marriage to William Penn. She is a Daughter of the American Revolution (DAR) along with her mother, daughters and granddaughters.

Margie was a lover of music, art, the literary council, teaching, swimming, playing tennis, quilting, knitting and cooking traditional specialties. She loved her family. She and Bud were life partners. They moved from Newtown to Seven Lakes NC 1988-2008 and shared their values and love of life with family and friends. Margie served on the Board of Directors with the Arts Council of Moore County from 19931998. She is survived by her children Jerry Curtis Ruddle (Nancy Haldeman Ruddle), Susan Ruddle Whitehurst, Ann Ruddle White (David White), her grandchildren and great-grandchildren whom she loved dearly. Margie had seven grandchildren (Cara, Kelly, Dave, Elizabeth, Katie, Anna, Michael) and ten great grandchildren (Rebekah, Addisyn, Reese, Cayden, Emelyn, Madeline, Jack, Olliver, Piper, and Joel).