VOLUME 3 ISSUE 12
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WWW.NSJONLINE.COM |
WEDNESDAY, MAY 16, 2018
Inside Hornets hire Borrego as new coach, page B1
NORTH
STATE
JOURNaL ELEVATE THE CONVERSATION
RONAN ZVULUN | REUTERS
IBRAHEEM ABU MUSTAFA | REUTERS
Left, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin unveils the seal for the new U.S. embassy standing next to Senior White House Adviser Ivanka Trump. Right, a female demonstrator holds a Palestinian flag during a protest against U.S. embassy move to Jerusalem.
the Wednesday
NEWS BRIEFING
State legislature gavels in at noon Raleigh The North Carolina General Assembly returns to work at noon on Wednesday for what is expected to be a short legislative session. The House and Senate leadership have already agreed on a spending target of $23.9 billion for the fiscal year 2018-19 state budget, including a fifth consecutive teacher pay raise. Leadership says they are working toward adjournment by the end of June.
U.S. Embassy opens in Jerusalem, violent protests leave 60 dead Trump Administration backs Israel, says it has a peace plan under construction
By Nidal al-Mughrabi and Jeffrey Heller Reuters GAZA/JERUSALEM — The high-profile opening of the U.S. embassy to Israel in Jerusalem raised tensions to the boiling point this week. With officials from around the world scheduled to attend the opening ceremony, including Ivanka Trump and Jared
Kushner, Israel bolstered security ahead of planned mass protests. In addition to increased military force, Israel dropped leaflets from planes over Gaza that urged residents to stay away from the fence on Monday. “You deserve a better government. You deserve a better future,” the leaflets said. “Do not approach the security fence nor participate in the Hamas display that is putting you in risk.” Still, in stark contrast to the dignitaries in Jerusalem, tens of thousands of rioters on Monday burned tires, attacked the cargo trucks carrying supplies between
Israel and Gaza and did millions of dollars in damage. It became the bloodiest single day for Palestinians since 2014, Palestinian Health Ministry officials said 58 protesters were killed and 2,700 injured by live gunfire, tear gas or other means. “Today is the big day when we will cross the fence and tell Israel and the world we will not accept being occupied forever,” said Gaza science teacher Ali, who declined to give his last name. The bloodshed drew calls for restraint from some countries, including France and Britain, and stronger criticism from others,
Warsaw probing officer seen choking black man in prom attire Fayetteville Lawyers for a man seen on social media being chocked and pinned to the ground by a Warsaw police officer say Waffle House, where the incident happened, discriminated against their client. Police are investigating the incident involving Officer Frank Moss. The video of the incident involving Anthony Wall, 22, dressed in prom attire has been viewed more than 6,000 times online. Wall had just attended his sister’s prom, authorities say, before stopping Saturday night at a Waffle House. Wall has admitted to being irate and disruptive in the restaurant over a dirty table and threatening employees, who called police to intervene.
Melania Trump treated for benign kidney condition in hospital Washington, D.C. Melania Trump underwent a surgical procedure on Monday to treat a benign kidney condition and will remain at Walter Reed medical center for the rest of the week, the first lady’s office said. Spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham said in a statement that Trump, 48, underwent an embolization procedure to treat the kidney condition.
U.S. to consider expanding Medicare drug price negotiation Washington, D.C. The Trump administration is considering expanding Medicare’s ability to negotiate the cost of drugs by giving private payers a role in setting the price of medicines administered in hospitals and doctors’ offices, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said on Monday.
INSIDE The N.C. Supreme Court heads west Jones & Blount
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with regional power Turkey calling it “a massacre.” The White House declined to join in urging Israel to exercise caution and pinned the blame squarely on Gaza’s ruling Hamas group, backing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who described the Israeli military’s actions as self-defense of his country’s borders. In siding squarely with Israel, Washington put distance between itself and its European allies for the second time in a week, after angering France, Germany and See ISRAEL, page A2
NC joins whistleblower case against Insys over opiod kickbacks NORTH STATE JOURNAL STAFF
Senate Leader Phil Berger (R-Rockingham) and House Speaker Tim Moore (R-King’s Mountain) announce a new website to detail education funding in North Carolina on May 15 in Raleigh.
Lawmakers ready for Wednesday’s rally, armed with new website The Republican-led General Assembly launched ncteacherraise.com Tuesday to get their word out on education funding By Donna King North State Journal RALEIGH — According to the N.C. Fiscal Research Division, the average North Carolina public teacher will earn $53,600 next year, up an average of $8,600, or 19 percent, since 2014. Its report says more than half of the state’s educators have gotten a raise of at least $10,000 over that time. State lawmakers are trying to get that word out through a new website, ncteacherraise.com, as more than 10,000 teachers prepare to descend on the legislative building on Wednesday for the first day of the short session. “Despite these facts we know there is a lot of politically motivated rhetoric and misinformation out there, so that’s why we want people to check the numbers for themselves … to understand the total increase to base teacher pay since 2014 under Republican leadership,” said Senate Leader Phil Berger (R-Rockingham). Berger and House Speaker Tim Moore (R-Kings Mountain) announced the website and the numbers in a press conference on Tuesday afternoon, a day ahead of the return of the full legislative body for the short session. “Last year we were the No. 1 state in America for increasing teacher pay, this year we were No. 2,” said Moore. “You can’t go in and try to deal with a mess that we inherited in 2011 in just one swoop.”
A rally organized by the N.C. Association of Educators, the state teachers union, is expected to draw tens of thousands of teachers demanding higher salaries and more spending on education. The plans have made national news and forced the closure of dozens of school districts across the state as educators take the school day off. “We all listen to the teachers that talk with us, but I would say that the fact that a million kids are not going to be in school tomorrow because a political organization wants to have folks come here, to send a message or whatever, is probably going to be the front and center thing about this,” said Berger. The NCAE has instructed the demonstrators to gather outside the NCAE building and march to the state capital and gather in the third-floor rotunda overlooking the N.C. Senate and N.C. House chambers. The lawmakers say they have left room in their schedule to visit with teachers from the districts they represent and said they look forward to telling them that a 6.2 percent raise is already in the budget for this year, but they also say that rolling back the scheduled tax cuts to free up more money is not on the table. “We’ve heard people like Gov. (Roy) Cooper push for a return to the same failed approach that required the furloughing of teachers and the freezing of their salaries by Democrats when they were last in control,” said Berger. “It led them to … supplementing millions of dollars in state funding with one-time federal stimulus money, leaving a massive hole in our state budget that we’ve been working for years to backfill.” The legislative building will be using new X-ray machines and metal detectors as the crowds file into the building.
The government’s case includes a former sales rep who said the powerful drug was often prescribed off-label By Donna King North State Journal RALEIGH — The N.C. Department of Justice joined in whistleblower litigation led by the U.S. Department of Justice accusing Insys Therapeutics of trying to generate more profit by paying kickbacks to doctors to prescribe powerful opioid medications. The government’s involvement was disclosed in a filing made public on Monday. Six U.S. other states— California, Colorado, Indiana, New York Federal and Virginia — have also joined prosecutors the case against Insys, according to the filing in U.S. District in Boston Court in Los Angeles. have said The litigation comes amid a Kapoor and wave of related criminal cases against medical practitioners, six other and former executives and sales former Insys representatives employed by Insys, including its billionaire executives founder John Kapoor. and In a separate filing, the Justice Department asked that the managers litigation be put on hold until the schemed criminal cases were resolved. to bribe Subsys is an under-thetongue spray approved to treat doctors to severe pain in cancer patients prescribe who are already receiving and tolerant to around-the-clock opi- Subsys and oid therapy. The government ac- to defraud cused Insys of having since 2012 offered “sham” speaking fees and insurers into lavish meals to induce doctors to paying for it. prescribe Subsys. It also said Insys knowingly caused Medicare to pay for Subsys by encouraging doctors to prescribe it when it was not needed, or by misrepresenting patients’ diagnoses. Federal prosecutors in Boston have said Kapoor and six other former Insys executives and managers schemed to bribe doctors to prescribe Subsys and to defraud insurers into paying for it. The litigation that the government joined included a 2013 lawsuit by Maria Guzman, a former Insys sales representative who said doctors improperly prescribed Subsys for off-label uses such as treating back pain. She sued under the False Claims Act, which lets private whistleblowers sue on the government’s behalf and share in recoveries. Reuters News Service contributed to this report.