VOLUME 3 ISSUE 42
Inside
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WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 12, 2018
Duke defense powered by Tre Jones, B1
JONATHAN DREW | AP PHOTO
Andrew Dedman, 16, walks through snow as he heads to a friend’s apartment about a mile away to drink hot chocolate on Monday Dec. 10, 2018 in Durham, N.C. A winter storm dumped a foot of snow in some parts of Durham County starting Sunday.
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NEWS BRIEFING
Trump argues with Pelosi, Schumer over border wall Washington, D.C. In a heated Oval Office exchange Tuesday, President Donald Trump said he would be willing to see a partial government shutdown if funding for continued construction of a U.S.-Mexico border wall is not included in a spending agreement. This unfolded in a press event with Democratic leaders Rep. Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Chuck Schumer, where the Democrats argued with Trump over the wall in front of cameras. Trump said if Democrats won’t vote for the funding, the military can build it. Funding for some government agencies is set to expire Dec. 21, but military funding has already been secured. A partial shutdown would primarily impact Washington, D.C., area federal employees starting the week of Christmas. They would still be paid for that time when a spending deal is in place.
EPA to narrow Obamaera environmental regulations Washington, D.C. The Trump administration proposed narrowing the regulatory power of the Obama-era Clean Water Act on Tuesday by prohibiting the federal government from extending the “Waters of the U.S.” (WOTUS) rule to rivers that only flow after rainfall or wetlands that are not connected to larger rivers or waterways. By limiting the definitions in WOTUS, acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler say that landowners can better understand which projects would impact water subject to state or federal protections. Environmental activists objected calling it a “rollback” of water protections.
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Refreezing still threatens roads after Southern snowstorm Wednesday could mean a third slick morning if melting snow turns to black ice after Sunday snow By Jonathan Drew The Associated Press RALEIGH — Seesawing temperatures across several Southern states were gradually melting snow from a wintry storm but also “transforming slushy roads into treacherous ice,” one governor warned Tuesday.
Scores of schools in Virginia and North Carolina were closed for a second day, and tens of thousands of people were without power in several states. The storm that blew in over the weekend was blamed for at least three deaths in North Carolina. Some roofs buckled under the weight of the snow, with a building collapse killing three horses at a North Carolina farm. North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper urged people in hard-hit areas
UNC instructors to withhold grades in protest Bill would set new of Silent Sam plan Trustees’ plan to build $5.3 million center for controversial statue draws backlash By David Larson North State Journal CHAPEL HILL — After a plan was unveiled last Monday for a new “History and Education Center” to house the Confederate statue Silent Sam, students and faculty expressed their disapproval by protesting and by threatening strikes. UNC Board of Governors member Thom Goolsby, a UNC Chapel Law School alumnus, opposes the plan for very different reasons than the protestors. “The law in North Carolina General Statute 100-2.1 is clear,” Goolsby said in a video. “Silent Sam should have been put back up in his place within 90 days of the outside radicals tearing it down, when our police stood down and our administration did nothing.” The statute Goolsby cites says monuments of this kind “may not be removed, relocated, or altered in any way without the approval of the North Carolina Historical Commission.” If “an object of remembrance” is moved, it must be given a place “of similar prominence, honor, visibility, availability, and access that are within the boundaries of the jurisdiction from which it was relocated.” This site cannot be a “mu-
seum, cemetery, or mausoleum unless it was originally placed at such a location,” which may create legal challenges by those charging the “center” is just a museum by another name. This tightly crafted state law, as well as pressure from UNC Board of Governors members like Goolsby, leaves university administration with limited ways out of blowback from students and faculty. Administration leaders say the $5.3 million “center” was the best out of these options. “This site most closely fits both the recommendations from the safety panel and the criteria established for relocation by the current monument law,” UNC Chancellor Carol Folt and Provost Robert Blouin said in a statement. After hearing word of faculty strike plans, Blouin and Kevin Guskiewicz, dean of the College of Arts & Sciences, sent an email to instructors on Thursday night saying, “Our students are entitled to receive their grades in a timely manner. It is especially critical for the students preparing to graduate next Sunday, as well as the thousands of students whose scholarships, grants, loans, visa status, school transfers, job opportunities and military commissions may be imperiled because lack of grades threaten their eligibility.” The email also asked instructors not to influence student See UNC GRADES, page A2
See WEATHER, page A2
primaries for 9th District if new elections held Investigators would study decades of voter fraud allegations statewide in new legislation expected to be on the House and Senate chamber floors Wednesday By Donna King North State Journal
RALEIGH — On Tuesday, leadership in the N.C. legislature announced a new bill that restores the State Board of Elections to its original 2016 composition and could allow for a new election in North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District, pending the outcome of a fraud investigation into handling of absentee ballots in that race. The bill is expected to move through both chambers’ committee process and be on the chamber floors on Wednesday. Deadlines, fraud allegations and court orders are driving the fast timeline but also bringing lawmakers and the governor’s office to the table to work out the details. A panel of judges ruled in October that the current nine-member elections and ethics board was unconstitutional because the process of making appointments prevented Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper from controlling an executive agency. Republican lawmakers say the proposed new measure is what the governor requested and leaves the current board in place until after the negotiations.
“Drastically restructuring the board during this investigation would not be productive,” said Rep. David Lewis (R-Harnett) in a press conference Tuesday afternoon. It also delays implementation of the new voter ID constitutional amendment until Sept. 1, 2019 “We have engaged in good faith negotiations with the governor’s office for several weeks,” said Lewis. “Many of the things he asked for are in this bill. I wish he were standing here with us today and it were a done deal, but this is the very best we could do.” In addition to returning the structure of the State Board of Elections and the State Ethics Commission to their original designs, the bill also allows the current board, though ruled unconstitutional, to continue investigating allegations of absentee ballot fraud in the state’s 9th Congressional District, even back to the race’s primaries. It also calls for an investigation of alleged “ballot harvesting” statewide, going back five election cycles. The term “ballot harvesting” refers to the illegal process of collecting absentee ballots on behalf of voters, without being one of their family members. Allegations have surfaced from people in Bladen County that they were paid to go door to door and collect unsealed absentee ballots. “The bill actually expands the See DISTRICT 9, page A2