Congresswoman Valerie Foushee (NC-04) North Carolina Congresswoman Valerie Foushee (NC-04) joins NC Newsline’s Rob Schofield to discuss the latest developments in Congress, including a controversial trip to Israel, the possibility of more aid for Ukraine, abortion rights, and the IMPACT Act. The post U.S. Rep. Valerie Foushee on her recent trip to …

Tamika Walker Kelly As several news stories have reported in recent weeks, North Carolina public schools have been enduring a sizable and troubling exodus. Education officials disclosed that the state experienced a teacher attrition rate of 11.5% between March 2022 and March 2023. That means that more than 10,000 of the state’s teachers left the pr…

Child Care Resources Inc. President Janet Singerman and Charlotte-area childcare provider Rhonda Rivers As is the case in most of the U.S., North Carolina’s childcare system is not what it should be. Across the state, thousands of childcare providers operate in almost perpetual crisis – a crisis in which barely-making-it schools employ overworked a…

Common Cause policy director Ann Webb (Courtesy photo) In 2009, as voting by mail, became more and more a part of North Carolina elections, lawmakers of both parties unanimously agreed that mailed ballots postmarked by Election Day would still be counted if they arrived at county boards of elections within three days afterward. Under a new law pass…

SEANC Executive Director Ardis Watkins (Courtesy photo) As a growing list of reports has documented in recent months, several North Carolina state government agencies are struggling mightily to recruit and retain employees. The Department of Health and Human services reports a 25% vacancy rate and in some prisons, the numbers are even higher than t…

National economy reporter Casey Quinlan By just about any key measure, the U.S. economy is in remarkably good shape. Jobs are plentiful, wages are up, inflation has leveled off and by all indications, we’ve avoided the recession that some analysts had feared was looming. That said, things are far from perfect. High prices for essentials like housin…

Rep. Julie von Haefen Last week, the United States Supreme Court heard is first major abortion case since it issued the 2022 Dobbs decision, overturning Roe v. Wade. At issue this time is mifepristone – a safe and effective medication that was approved by the Food and Drug Administration a quarter century ago and that today is used in a large major…

Dr. Scott Brennen of UNC-Chapel Hill’s Center on Technology Policy Artificial intelligence or AI. It’s a topic that generates a lot of talk, a lot of hope, and a lot of concerns these days. On the positive side, AI has the potential to aid in solving an array of vexing societal problems and to help average people work better and faster in numerous …

Erica Palmer Smith Finding affordable childcare: it’s a huge challenge in North Carolina. While our state has one of the nation’s highest rates of working parents with young children, 44% of the state’s families live in a “childcare desert” where there are more than three times as many children as licensed childcare slots. What’s more, things could…

Sophia Resnick (Courtesy Photo) It’s been almost two years now since the U.S. Supreme Court reversed a half century of precedent by overturning the Roe v. Wade decision and ending the constitutional right to abortion care. And as had been expected, the ruling has produced a convoluted patchwork of laws that’s left women in many states – particularl…

Documentary producer Cristin Severance with Fon and Kimberly Dockery (pictured right) discuss how a gun that was wrongfully taken by a minor forever changed their world. (Photo: Courtesy WRAL) Firearms are the leading cause of death when it comes to kids. And a brand-new WRAL documentary looks at why kids are dying from guns in North Carolina. It’s…

UNC System President Peter Hans (Courtesy Photo) In Part One of our recent extended conversation with the University of North Carolina System president Peter Hans, we discussed some of the successes UNC campuses have had in keeping tuition and fees relatively affordable, while also dealing with some of the tough realities posed by shifting demograp…

Dr. Michelle L Malkin (Photo: Courtesy ECU) Legalized sports gambling arrived in North Carolina this past week, just in time for college basketball’s March Madness. And while many are treating this news as a ho-hum development, there are a lot of observers and experts who have some profound concerns. Michelle L. Malkin is an assistant professor of …

Kris Nordstrom, senior policy analyst A new report from national experts at the Network for Public Education paints a sobering picture of the policy choices North Carolina state legislators have made for our public schools in recent years. The report is called “The Best and the Worst Statehouses for Supporting Public Schools and their Students,” an…

Prof. Chris Cooper - Photo: wcu.edu The 2024 North Carolina Super Tuesday primary election has finally come and gone and now it’s full speed ahead for the next eight months to the November election. And for better or worse, voters should have very little trouble distinguishing the major party candidates. According to Western Carolina University pol…

Professor Michael Bitzer (Photo courtesy Catawba College) Super Tuesday is upon us and that means it’s primary election week in North Carolina and several other states as voters go to the polls to choose major party nominees for president and a host of other important offices. And while the primary season has been rather subdued here, with few of t…

Education Law Attorney Matt Ellinwood In late February, the North Carolina Supreme Court took the extraordinary (and what many see as the deeply worrisome) step of revisiting the landmark Leandro school funding case – a case that has long guaranteed all of the state’s schoolchildren a constitutional right to a sound basic education. At issue is whe…

Lauren Fox, Ph.D.Senior Director, Policy & Research, Public School Forum A top challenge facing public schools in North Carolina right now is a chronic teacher shortage – a shortage attributable to pitifully low salaries and several other shortsighted policies. Fortunately, there are some obvious and doable actions that state leaders can take to ad…

Ricky Hurtado, former state representative and current chair of the Governor’s Advisory Council on Hispanic/Latino Affairs (Courtesy photo) If you’re paying any attention to the national political debate these days, you know that the political right has made immigration and a campaign to demonize immigrants its top talking point for the 2024 electi…

Noel Nickle, executive director of the North Carolina Coalition for Alternatives to the Death Penalty This week in Johnston County, the death penalty – a punishment our state has not inflicted in close to two decades – will, effectively, go on trial, when one of more than a hundred pending challenges to the racially discriminatory way North Carolin…

Duke University Sanford School of Public Policy Professor David Schanzer In the eyes of a growing number of observers, the future of democracy itself will be at stake in the 2024 U.S. elections and this sobering fact has enormous implications – not just for Americans but for the populations of dozens of allies around the world. One expert who’s wat…

Senior Counsel Douglas Keith (Courtesy photo: Brennan Center) Throughout most of U.S. history, state courts (and judicial elections) have seldom been the site of pitched political battles. While these courts regularly issued important rulings with significant impacts on public policy debates, the judges and justices who served on these courts were …

Rev. Suzanne Parker Miller (Courtesy photo) North Carolina’s long running Leandro school funding case is headed back before the state Supreme Court this week and Newsline discusses why this has supporters of our public schools deeply concerned with the head of the group Pastors for North Carolina Children, the Rev. Suzanne Parker Miller. The post R…

Common Cause NC Sailor Jones (Backdrop Photo: Getty Images) The state’s March 5th primary election is right around the corner. Early in-person voting starts this Thursday and it’s already possible to obtain a ballot to vote by mail. Unfortunately, as we’ve discussed previously on News & Views, this year’s election will be accompanied by a raft of n…

Political scientist and pollster David McLennan Meredith College pollster Professor David McLennan on what voters are thinking (and in many cases not thinking) about the March 5th primary, as well as some other important issues that confront our state and nation. Read the full results from the latest Meredith College poll here. The post Meredith Co…