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VOLUME 2 ISSUE 9
www.NSJONLINE.com | wednesday, March 29, 2017
Belles of the ball Cape Fear Garden Club Azalea Belles Sariah Ndiaye, Mina Yakubu, Maria Fernandez and Jacquelyn Rager visit the Executive Mansion on March 24, 2017. The 70th annual Azalea Festival takes place in Wilmington April 5-7. Cole Swindell, Duran Duran, and Jason Derulo are the headliners for the Miller Lite Main Stage Concert Series. Check for updates at nsjonline. com.
Christine T. Nguyen | NORTH STATE JOURNAL
the mid-week
News BRIEFing U.S. attorney general says sanctuary cities may lose federal grants Washington, D.C. U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said cities and states that protect immigrant felons from federal immigration laws may lose grants from the Justice Department. Sanctuary cities help illegal immigrants avoid deportation by limiting cooperation with federal immigration authorities and other agencies. N.C. has several cities that have identified themselves as sanctuary including Durham, WinstonSalem, Chapel Hill and Greensboro. Sessions said the U.S. Justice Department would withhold, and potentially claw back, grants to so-called sanctuary cities and other localities, such as counties, that are not in compliance with federal immigration law. Sessions said one of his agency’s offices was expecting to award more than $4.1 billion in grants this fiscal year.
PayPal hasn’t picked a new spot for canceled Charlotte facility Charlotte As the anniversary of the controversial H.B. 2 bill passes, executives at PayPal, one of two companies to have canceled announced plans for a new facility in N.C. citing the law as the reason, said they have not yet relocated the operation center they were going to put outside of Charlotte. The company previously considered Arizona and Florida before announcing the Charlotte expansion bringing 400 jobs to the area. PayPal was to receive $3.7 million in state incentives for the project.
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WILSON — Today across North Carolina, all 58 community colleges are celebrating Community College Day. College students, faculty, staff and administrators are traveling to the General Assembly to showcase, discuss and demonstrate the role community colleges play in North Carolina and equally sharing the role they play in their communi-
By Donna King and Jeff Moore North State Journal
ties. “If community colleges were absent, you would see a fundamentally different North Carolina,” said Dr. Tim Wright, president of Wilson Community Colleges. “There would be a poorer quality of life and a lack of hope for individuals and families. “Community colleges are the best at adaptation. We adapt ourselves to continuously serve the growing and realistic needs of our communities with support of state and local resources,” he added. North Carolina Community Colleges served more than 700,000 North Carolinians last See Colleges, page A8
See Marshall , page A8
Celebrating the role of community colleges in NC
By Laura Ashley Lamm North State Journal
Lawmaker calls for Marshall to resign or risk impeachment RALEIGH — State Rep. Chris Millis (R-Onslow) is asking for the resignation of Secretary of State Elaine Marshall, under threat of impeachment if she does not. In a press conference Tuesday morning, Millis presented documents outlining a long-term practice from Marshall’s office of providing illegal residents authority to act as notaries on official documents, along with what he says is an intentional effort to hide the practice from the public and lawmakers. “I’ve sent a letter to the Secretary of State Elaine Marshall requesting her immediate resignation,” said Millis at a press conference Tuesday. “Within my letter to the secretary I’ve made it clear that if the secretary chooses not to resign I will proceed with all legislative actions including a resolution for impeachment.” According to documents obtained through a public records request, for years the secretary of State’s office has been granting notary seals to people with Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, status. These are individuals who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children and have grown up in the country. They apply for DACA status as adults, which means the federal Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will defer action on their immigration status. If their DACA status is approved, they can separately be granted a legal work authorization, called an Employment Authorization Document (EAD). Millis points out that according to explicit DHS policy, issuance of either of these documents is not written into state or federal law, just departmental immigration policy. More importantly, neither documents grant legal residence, a core requirement to be a notary public. “None of these 320-plus notaries reside legally in the United States as our North Carolina notary law requires, nor do they meet the requirements set forth on the application to become a notary published by the secretary of State’s office,” said Millis.
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“One notary commissioned by the secretary was an alien against whom a final order of deportation existed.” Rep. Chris Millis (R-Onslow)
Trump signs order to end Obama-era environmental regulations The wide-ranging order is the boldest yet in Trump’s broader push to cut environmental regulation on drilling and mining industries By Donna King North State Journal
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Expanded coverage of the North Carolina political scene Jones & Blount Page 5
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WASHINGTON, D.C. - President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Tuesday to undo a slew of Obama-era environmental regulations that his administration says is hobbling oil drillers and coal miners. The “Energy Independence” order’s main target is former President Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan, requiring states to slash carbon dioxide emissions from power plants — what supporters say is a critical element in helping the United States meet its commitments to a global climate change accord reached by nearly 200 countries in Paris in 2015. The order will also reverse a ban on coal leasing on federal lands, undo rules to curb methane emissions from oil and gas production, and reduce the weight of climate change and carbon emissions in policy and inSee Trump, page A2
Carlos Barria | reuters
President Donald Trump holds up an executive order on “Energy Independence,” eliminating Obama-era climate change regulations, during a signing ceremony at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) headquarters in Washington, March 28, 2017.