N.C. lawmakers direct another mental health overhaul

(The Rocky Mount Telegram) The N.C. General Assembly has directed another overhaul of the state’s mental health system — the second in a decade — to attempt to fix chronic shortcomings in patient care and prevent financial blunders.

In 2001, the General Assembly agreed to turn 39 local public programs providing clinical treatment for the mentally ill, substance abusers and the developmentally disabled into administrative hubs that contracted with outside providers for patient services.

The switch to fewer “local management entities” was designed to shift treatment away from state institutions to private providers in communities. But the change fell short of expectations — many say it failed — as wide coverage gaps surfaced and watchdog agencies later determined hundreds of millions of dollars were wasted on overpriced or unnecessary care.

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Protecting Kids and Families in North Carolina

(ACLU) We’ve just filed a new federal case in North Carolina to ensure that kids being raised by lesbian or gay parents can have legally protected relationships with both of the parents who are raising them. North Carolina bans second parent adoption – which is the name for that kind of protection – and the stories of two of our plaintiff families illustrate just how harmful the ban is.

Crystal Hendrix and Leigh Smith are raising two children together, 2-year-old Quinn and Joe, their baby. Crystal carried each of them and of course is recognized as their mother. But Leigh, the stay-at-home mom, can’t become a legal parent because of the ban on second parent adoption.

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ACLU Files Lawsuit Saying NC Adoption Laws Unconstitutional

(WLOS) The American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of North Carolina Legal Foundation filed a lawsuit today on behalf of six same-sex couples and their children seeking the right to obtain second parent adoptions for their children.

A second parent adoption occurs when one partner in an unmarried couple adopts the other partner’s biological or adoptive child. This can occur in both gay and straight relationships.

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KKK group seeks Adopt-A-Highway OK

(Atlanta Journal Constitution) The Ku Klux Klan wants to “adopt” a stretch of highway in North Georgia, which would allow the white supremacy group to receive official state recognition for cleaning litter from the road, according to records obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution through an open records request.  The Georgia Department of Transportation is reviewing the May 21 request filed by International Keystone Knights of the KKK in Union County and are set to meet with lawyers from the state attorney general’s office today to decide what to do. The application — which covers a one-mile stretch of Route 515 in the Appalachian Mountains near the North Carolina border — has placed Georgia officials in a bind. A lengthy legal battle took place in Missouri after that state sought to ban an effort by the KKK to adopt a road there. Missouri eventually lost, with courts holding that the First Amendment prevented the state from denying an applicant because it disagreed with their viewpoint.

Read more HERE.

City to add meters to handicapped parking spaces

(Montgomery Advertiser) In a continued effort to keep vehicles from parking for long periods of time downtown, the city of Montgomery plans to start installing meters in front of handicapped parking spaces. Steve Jones, director of general services, said there have been a lot of complaints about there not being enough handicapped parking spaces downtown. Jones said after looking into the matter, he found that many vehicles parked in handicapped spaces stayed there all day. The purpose of the two-hour time limit on metered spaces is to make sure traffic moves every few hours so people can shop, eat and do business, Jones said. The problem areas are mostly Commerce Street, Dexter Avenue and around the State House.

Read more HERE.

Controversial NC pastor targeted with powder substance

(McDowell News) The white powdery substance found in an envelope Thursday at the church of controversial pastor Rev. Charles Worley is being tested by the FBI for identification. An envelope containing the substance was discovered and opened at Providence Road Baptist Church by a church staff member Thursday morning, according to Jim Dickerson, acting public information officer for Catawba County. Postal inspectors didn’t have enough of the white substance to test onsite, so it was packaged and taken to the FBI lab for identification, according to Dickerson. Worley’s sermon on May 13 in which he said all gays and lesbians should be imprisoned behind an electric fence prompted national outrage and a May 27 protest march in Newton. Providence Road members were outraged that someone would target their church. “I think it’s crazy, that’s what I think about it,” said 50-year member Lawrence Campbell. “It’s dumb. It’s ignorant. It’s someone that doesn’t love God – that’s all I can say about it.”

Read more HERE.

Group says NC violated separation of church, state

(Raleigh News & Observer) A humanist group is claiming the state of North Carolina violated the First Amendment by allowing voting in churches that advocated anti-gay political stances. A church signboard reading “A true marriage is male and female and God” greeted precinct W28 voters who walked up to the voting both to cast ballots on a state constitutional amendment to prevent gay marriage. Pictures of the billboard, displayed next to “vote here” signs in front of the Devon Park United Methodist Church in Wilmington, N.C., went viral. The humanist group claims the state violated the First Amendment by hosting voting at partisan churches, but the state says the practice is perfectly legal and will not change. The Appignani Humanist Legal Center, which advocates the non-religious views of humanism, sent a letter to the state board three weeks after the May vote. The letter outlines concerns about using churches as polling places and alleges the state violated the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause.

Read more HERE.

School pulls patriotic song at graduation, but Justin Bieber’s ‘Baby’ is OK

(NY Post) A controversial Coney Island principal has pulled the plug on patriotism. Her refusal to let students sing “God Bless the USA” at their graduation has sparked fireworks at a school filled with proud immigrants. Greta Hawkins, principal of PS 90, the Edna Cohen School, won’t allow kindergartners to belt out the beloved Lee Greenwood ballad, also known as “Proud to be an American,” at their moving-up ceremony. Five classes spent months learning the patriotic song, which skyrocketed in popularity after the 9/11 attacks and the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Read more HERE.

Candidates in Mexico Signal a New Tack in the Drug War

(NY Times) The top three contenders for Mexico’s presidency have all promised a major shift in the country’s drug war strategy, placing a higher priority on reducing the violence in Mexico than on using arrests and seizures to block the flow of drugs to the United States. The candidates, while vowing to continue to fight drug trafficking, say they intend to eventually withdraw the Mexican Army from the drug fight. They are concerned that it has proved unfit for police work and has contributed to the high death toll, which has exceeded 50,000 since the departing president, Felipe Calderón, made the military a cornerstone of his battle against drug traffickers more than five years ago.

Read more HERE.

Efforts To Relax Pot Rules Gaining In U.S.

(Huffington Post) Once consigned to the political fringe, marijuana policy is appearing on legislative agendas around the country thanks to an energized base of supporters and an increasingly open-minded public. Lawmakers from Rhode Island to Colorado are mulling medical marijuana programs, pot dispensaries, decriminalization and even legalization. Seventeen states and the District of Columbia now authorize medical marijuana and 14, including neighboring Connecticut and Massachusetts, have rolled back criminal penalties for possession of small amounts of pot. Rhode Island is poised to become the 15th state to decriminalize marijuana possession. The state’s General Assembly passed legislation last week that would eliminate the threat of big fines or even jail time for the possession of an ounce or less of pot. Instead, adults caught with small amounts of marijuana would face a $150 civil fine. Police would confiscate the marijuana, but the incident would not appear on a person’s criminal record.

Read more HERE.

U.N. could tax U.S.-based Web sites, leaked docs show

(CNet News) The United Nations is considering a new Internet tax targeting the largest Web content providers, including Google, Facebook, Apple, and Netflix, that could cripple their ability to reach users in developing nations. The European proposal, offered for debate at a December meeting of a U.N. agency called the International Telecommunication Union, would amend an existing telecommunications treaty by imposing heavy costs on popular Web sites and their network providers for the privilege of serving non-U.S. users, according to newly leaked documents.

Read more HERE.

Asheville criminalizing the homeless, advocates say

(Asheville Citizen-Times) Advocates for the homeless say city ordinances are criminalizing homeless people and making them unfair targets of frivolous arrests by police with the aim of driving them out of the center city.

Advocates proposed in a meeting this week that city police set up a system of tracking arrests of homeless people and tracking how the cases are handled in court.

“There is anecdotal evidence that certain officers are targeting the homeless,” Sabrah n’haRaven, Asheville Homeless Network president, said in the meeting of the Asheville-Buncombe Homeless Coalition at the Salvation Army center on Haywood Street. “There has to be some way to track that.”

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Several North Carolina lawmakers opposing idea of $20 tolls on I-95

(Fay Observer) The prospect of paying $20 tolls to drive Interstate 95 through North Carolina has brought potentially fatal opposition to the idea from state and federal lawmakers.

The state Department of Transportation has spent years exploring the concept of levying tolls on I-95 to speed $4.4 billion in widening, repair and upgrade projects along the 182-mile corridor. The toll plan would raise money far quicker than existing taxes on gasoline and car sales.

But as tolling has evolved from a nebulous concept to a clearer possibility in recent months, communities along I-95 have mounted fierce opposition.

The plan calls for license-plate reading cameras to be mounted at intervals along the interstate. Vehicle owners, identified by their license tags, would receive bills in the mail based on the distance traveled. A rate of 20 cents per mile was proposed for cars; trucks would pay more.

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New licensing test in the works for N.C. teachers

(Raleigh News Observer) State education leaders will consider requiring a new elementary teacher licensure test focused on strategies of teaching reading.

The test is considered more rigorous than the current exam, the Praxis II tests, which are subject tests for certification areas. The Praxis would be replaced by the Massachusetts Test for Educator Licensure if the State Board of Education approves. Prospective elementary and special education teachers, along with teachers who move to North Carolina from other states, would be required to take the MTEL in addition to a test of general curriculum.

The State Board is expected to vote in August on the switch, which would take effect in 2014. On Wednesday, the board heard a report from Department of Public Instruction officials who traveled to Massachusetts this spring to meet with education officials there. Massachusetts public schoolchildren lead the nation in reading scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress.

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Legislators to debate bill aiming to regulate sea-level science

(Raleigh News Observer) Bloggers and TV comics have ridiculed it, and now state legislators will get their first chance Thursday to debate unusual legislation that would put tight restrictions on how state and local agencies cope with rising sea levels.

The Senate Agriculture, Environment and Natural Resources Committee will air the proposal, which was drafted by Republicans in response to controversy over a state-appointed science panel’s warning that a rise of one meter (39 inches) is likely by the end of this century.

Coastal economic development interests protested that the figure was much too high, and they persuaded the state Coastal Resources Commission to reject the panel’s findings.

Read the rest HERE!