North State Journal for Sunday, April 10, 2016
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NATION& WORLD Michigan governor hit with racketeering class action lawsuit Detroit More than 400 residents of Flint, Mich., on Wednesday filed a racketeering lawsuit against Governor Rick Snyder and several local and state officials over the contamination of the city’s drinking water with dangerously high levels of lead. The class action, filed in U.S. District Court in Flint, charged that Snyder and other officials enacted a “wrongful scheme to solve Flint’s fiscal problem by selling Flint residents poisoned drinking water” in order to balance the city’s financial books. A federal judge must certify a class. “As a result of the acts of Governor Snyder and his staff, the emergency managers, MDEQ, and MDHHS, unthinkable harm has been inflicted on the residents of Flint,” the suit said. The plaintiffs are seeking compensatory damages for personal, property and business losses that could total billion of dollars. It is one of at least eight lawsuits seeking class action status related to the water crisis. Snyder’s spokesman, Ari Adler, declined to comment on the lawsuit. Under the direction of a state-appointed emergency manager, Flint switched water supplies to the Flint River from Detroit’s system in 2014 to save money. The corrosive river water leached lead, a toxic substance that can damage the nervous system, from the city’s water pipes. Flint switched back to the Detroit system last October. MURAD SEZER | NORTH STATE JOURNAL
Migrants disembark from a Turkish coast guard boat after a failed attempt at crossing to the Greek island of Lesbos, in the Turkish coastal town of Dikili, Turkey.
Turkey strikes deal to take Syrian migrants as Pope plans visit By Philip Pullella Reuters ISTANBUL — Turkey has adopted a rule granting temporary protection status to Syrian migrants sent back from Greek islands in the Aegean Sea, a step required under a contested deal between Turkey and the European Union to start returning newcomers to Turkey this month. The status would be given to Syrians who had illegally crossed to the islands after March 20, and who requested protection after being readmitted to Turkey, according to an announcement posted Thursday on Turkey’s Official Gazette. Hundreds of thousands of refugees, many fleeing war in Syria, have poured onto the Aegean island over the past year, triggering Europe’s biggest humanitarian crisis in generations. Alarmed at the recent influx of ref-
ugees, the European Union and Turkey agreed to seal off the sea route last month after Balkan states shut their borders to migrants trying to reach wealthy western Europe, stranding thousands in Greece. Under the agreement, Turkey has said it will take back migrants and refugees who cross the Aegean. In return, the EU will take in thousands of Syrian refugees directly from Turkey and reward it with money, visa-free travel for Turks and progress in its EU membership negotiations. The Vatican also announced Thursday that Pope Francis will make a lightning trip to the Greek island of Lesbos on April 16. The visit is aimed at supporting refugees and drawing attention to the front line of Europe’s migrant crisis. The pope has repeatedly spoken out in support of refugees and has urged Roman Catholic churches around
Europe to take in migrant families. His first trip after he became pontiff in 2013 was to the Sicilian island of Lampedusa, which, like Lesbos, has received many thousands of migrants. “It’s very clear that the pope recognizes that there is a significant emergency going on,” said Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi. “Just as he went to Lampedusa, which was then the front line of the Mediterranean route, now that there is this difficult, dramatic situation on the Aegean front, he naturally wants to be present to show a sense of solidarity and responsibility.” The Vatican said details of the day trip were still being worked out but that the pope would meet refugees along with Bartholomew, the Istanbul-based spiritual head of the world’s Orthodox Christians, and Ieronymos II, head of the Greek Orthodox Church.
H.B. 2 from page A1
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commodations such as single-occupancy bathrooms or changing facilities and may designate those facilities as gender-neutral,” the instructions read. “The Attorney General has announced that he will not represent the Governor or the University in the lawsuit. The University will work with the Attorney General’s office to make arrangements for counsel in the lawsuit. Like all public agencies, the University is required to fulfill its obligations under the law unless or until the court directs otherwise.” The American Civil Liberties Union, Lambda Legal, and Equality NC are challenging H.B. 2 on behalf of three plaintiffs: a UNC Chapel Hill employee and transgender male; a full-time student at UNC Greensboro and transgender male; and a lesbian law professor at North Carolina Central University. “It’s incredibly disappointing that the University of North Carolina has concluded it is required to follow this discriminatory measure at the expense of the privacy, safety, and well-being of its students and employees, particularly those who are transgender,” said the groups in a joint statement. Since her installation at the helm of the UNC system on March 1, Spellings has seemingly had crisis management as part of her job description. A group of faculty and students interrupted her speech to the Board of Governors and organized a walkout on three campuses the day she started. On March 23, protesters demonstrated on the campus of UNC Chapel Hill when H.B. 2 became law. It’s not unchartered territory for Spellings. She also served as U.S. Education Secretary under President George W. Bush during Hurricane Katrina and the Virginia Tech shootings in 2007. “Constituent institutions must continue to operate in accordance with their nondiscrimination policies and must take prompt and appropriate action to prevent and address any instances of harassment and discrimination in violation of University policies,” her statement read.
deaths in the Unites States in 2014, with 1,358 of those overdose deaths in North Carolina alone. For Jonathan, an addiction to prescription pain pills led to heroin. He approached his parents in December of 2014 informing them of his pills addiction, but it would be after his run in with the law and a visit from Wilson Police Captain Eric Smith a month later than an addiction to heroin was unveiled. “When I meet with parents, I inform them how hard and difficult a road lies ahead of them,” said Smith. “We had never been exposed to this so we really didn’t understand,” said Cannon. “There are many dangers involved. When you go down the road of a heroin addiction, it is so hard to get off,” added Smith. The CDC reports that of new heroin users, approximately three out of four report having abused prescription opioids prior to using heroin. “Prescription pill addictions are harder to fund now, so addicts are turning to heroin,” said Smith. On the streets, heroin fetches for $7$10 a bag. For users to fuel their need to get high, addicts get desperate for money often stealing from their family first and selling their electronics to a pawn shop. “To me, heroin was in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Miami. It wasn’t in Wilson. It wasn’t in North Carolina,” said Cannon. Smith noted Wilson County Emergency Medical Services are responding to a drug overdose every other day while his colleagues in cities across the state are facing the same epidemic. Despite efforts to save Jonathan from a heroin addiction and two stints in rehabilitation facility, he died from an overdose in August. “When this happens, some people hide from it. We decided to unzip and
U.S. Supreme Court upholds “one person, one vote” Washington, D.C. A unanimous U.S. Supreme Court on Monday upheld the method all 50 states use in drawing legislative districts by counting every resident and not just eligible voters, rejecting a challenge to a Texas district map that argued the state violated the guarantee of equal protection under the law under the Constitution’s 14th Amendment. The eight justices ruled that Texas, in carving out its state Senate districts, did not violate the legal principle of “one person, one vote” endorsed by the court in the 1960s. Writing for the court, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg stated that elected legislators “serve all residents, not just those eligible or registered to vote.” Ginsburg said nonvoters, including children, have “an important stake in many policy debates,” including education, and sometimes need help navigating government bureaucracy. The challengers said the Texas redistricting map signed into law by a Republican governor in 2013 failed to equally distribute voters, improperly expanding the voting power of urban areas. The dispute did not involve U.S. congressional districts, including North Carolina’s newly redrawn congressional map, currently under review by a three-judge panel in Winston-Salem. The Constitution requires seats in the U.S. House of Representatives to be distributed based on a state’s total population, not just eligible voters. The court is one justice short following the Feb. 13 death of Justice Antonin Scalia. The unanimous ruling suggested his presence would not have substantially affected the outcome.
unveil it — to address this issue head on,” said Cannon. At the conclusion of his son’s funeral, Cannon stood up and offered help to the drug users in the room. Two hours later, knocks began on his front door and those struggling with addiction began to ask for help. In the months since Jonathan’s death, 100 youths and adults have come to him for help. Cannon and Smith have partnered and together are working to help one user at a time, to make parents aware of the silent struggles of addiction and to help legislators understand the need to battle the epidemic. Most recently, the team spoke before the N.C. House Select Committee on Step Therapy, which is discussing the barriers to access abuse-deterrent opioids that are in place by health insurance companies. Abuse-deterrent opioids,
which are pills coated with a special substance, are harder to crush. The inability to crush the pills reduces the ability of the user to snort the substance and is seen as a way to reduce abuse. “There is no one demographic heroin addiction singles out,” said Smith. “I’ve seen this with males, females, and different races; from older adults to young teens.” Tackling the nation’s growing addiction epidemic is becoming a bipartisan focus at the federal and state level. The N.C. House Step Therapy committee meets again April 19 where Chairman David Lewis is expected to propose a bill aimed at tackling the opioid epidemic in North Carolina. Look for part two of “Delivered from Addiction” coming soon in the North State Journal.
MADELINE GRAY | NORTH STATE JOURNAL
Mike Cannon, of Wilson, sits on the steps of Our Redeemer Lutheran Church near Barton College in Wilson.