Paleo Diet Blogger Sues State for Violating Free Speech

(Carolina Journal) n North Carolina, it is illegal to give one-on-one dietary advice without a license. The libertarian public interest law firm Institute for Justice yesterday filed a lawsuit challenging that law.

The law attracted national attention last month when Carolina Journal online reported of a blogger being censored by the state nutrition board.

Charlotte-area resident Steve Cooksey started a blog — Diabetes-Warrior.net — about his victory over diabetes using the high-protein “Paleo” diet. After attracting thousands of followers, Cooksey started a Dear Abby-styled online advice column, in which he answered readers’ questions about controlling diabetes through diet.

About a month after starting the column, Cooksey got a call from the North Carolina Board of Dietetics/Nutrition telling him the advice column and other advice-like language throughout his blog were illegal. Also illegal, said the board’s director, was a motivational life-coaching service, in which Cooksey offered personal support to people trying to transition into the “Paleo” lifestyle.

Read the rest HERE!

Endangered fish won’t block Duke hydros

(Charlotte Observer) A federal agency says its defense of two endangered fish species won’t stand in the way of a new Catawba River hydroelectric license for Duke Energy, now four years overdue.

A biological opinion by the National Marine Fisheries Service, posted online Wednesday, said Duke’s dams won’t jeopardize the existence of endangered shortnose sturgeon and Atlantic sturgeon.

The opinion is a draft that will be open to public comment before it’s made final. But it appears likely to end a stalemate over the fish that has helped block renewal of Duke’s 50-year Catawba license, which expired in 2008.

Read the rest HERE!

Charlotte area blogger claims state violating free speech rights

(Charlotte Observer) Steve Cooksey wants to help other people lose weight and get their diabetes under control the way he did, by eating a low-carbohydrate, meat-and-vegetables diet.

So, like many people today, he started a blog to share his experience and offer advice.

But when the N.C. Board of Dietetics/Nutrition contacted him about possible violations of state law for dispensing diet advice without a license, he says that had the effect of censorship.

Read the rest HERE!

Republicans want to make Perdue’s DOT changes permanent

(Raleigh News Observer) They are loath to praise her by name, but Republican legislators really do like what Democratic Gov. Bev Perdue has done with the state Department of Transportation.

So they are enshrining in state law a number of Perdue changes that have been credited with making DOT more open and less political.

Public trust in DOT had ebbed when Perdue took office three years ago after ethical abuses by Democratic transportation board members. Two had been forced to resign – one after influencing road-improvement decisions that benefited his family’s business interests, another after mingling his DOT duties with his role as a Perdue campaign fundraiser.

Read the rest HERE!

N.C. House balances budget with housing settlement funds

(Charlotte Observer) The North Carolina House budget, which was approved Wednesday, could use nearly $23 million from a blockbuster legal settlement with the nation’s largest mortgage servicers to plug budget gaps, joining dozens of states in redirecting money intended to help struggling homeowners.

Though law enforcement and housing advocates will still receive the millions directed to them in the settlement, the House budget also encourages state agencies to use settlement dollars to make up for cuts in other places.

Read the rest HERE!

North Carolina House passes budget after heated debate

(Raleigh News Observer) State House members spent more than seven hours Wednesday arguing, sometimes bitterly, over the proposed $20.3 billion budget along mostly partisan lines before passing it 73-46.

Five Democrats crossed party lines and joined Republicans to approve the budget just before 11 p.m., but most Democrats spent the day fighting for funding for meth lab investigators, drug courts and other programs. The Republican majority took the lead in swatting away most of those amendments. The House budget does not include any tax increases.

Charges of hypocrisy came from both sides in a debate that was a forum for the state’s polarized politics.

Read the rest HERE!

Performer or panhandler? Street musicians scarce where codes ban begging

(Smoky Mountain News) The warm weather and sunshine brings a flurry of people to Waynesville’s downtown to enjoy the local fare — but it can also mean the beginning of busking season.

While Asheville is an epicenter for busking — slang for performing on the sidewalk in hopes of earning a few bucks from passersby — the phenomenon is fairly rare in downtown Waynesville. But every so often, someone will plop themselves down on a bench or take up a position along Main Street’s sidewalk and start crooning. For the most part, they are simply playing for fun.

“If they are just playing to play and it’s not causing a disturbance for somebody else, then we see no need (to address it),” said Waynesville Police Lt. Brian Beck.

Read the rest HERE!

Asheville board approves U.S. Cellular Center sign

(Asheville Citizen-Times) A city board on Tuesday approved 4-1 an application for a sign on the U.S. Cellular Center that will be about three times as large as usually allowed under city rules.

It takes a supermajority of the city Board of Adjustment to approve an exception to city rules, so the vote was the minimum needed for approval.

A key point in the debate appeared to be when Shannon Tuch, assistant city planning director, said similar exceptions had been granted to other facilities that are regional draws, like Mission Hospital, Asheville Regional Airport and Biltmore Park Town Center.

“If it makes sense for them, then it seems to make sense for something that people are going into from all over the Southeast,” said board member Tom Cathey.

Read the rest HERE!

Prayer eliminated from Franklinton High graduation ceremony

( Raleigh News Observer) Prayer is off the agenda at Franklinton High School’s graduation ceremony after the Franklin County Board of Education voted unanimously Tuesday to remove it in response to a parent complaint filed with the state ACLU.

This is the first school-prayer complaint in six years, ACLU attorney Chris Brook told the board.

The board’s vote also bans prayer at future awards ceremonies, and vows to make policy changes to ensure that there is no prayer at other school-sponsored events.

Read the rest HERE!

Merchants, others in Asheville criticize downtown tax district idea

(Asheville Citizen Times) A proposed downtown tax district found criticism Tuesday night from a broad spectrum of downtown workers and property owners, ranging from anarchists to conservative business advocates.

Opponents said the proposed property tax increase of 7 cents per $100 valuation on top of city, county and school taxes could force some small independent businesses to shut down.

“I heard this rosy picture about downtown, but according to my group and a business group, we entered a double-dip recession in April,” said Chris Peterson, a downtown property owner and leading member in the conservative Council of Independent Business Owners.

Read the rest HERE!

Electronic monitors provide another tool for police

(Charlotte Observer) LaSharla Brown’s son was 17 last summer when police charged him with breaking and entering after he and some friends were caught inside a Charlotte private school.

The teen was released from custody, but Charlotte-Mecklenburg police gave him an electronic monitor – an ankle bracelet that requires daily charging and a curfew. Embarrassed, he covered it with a sock beneath his pants.

“I told him, ‘This is what happens when you do things you’re not supposed to do,’” Brown said.

Her son is among a growing number of suspects getting fitted with ankle monitors in Charlotte.

Read the rest HERE!

Road Worrier: Auditor’s appeal for refund denied — because she paid her tickets

(Raleigh News Observer) You’d think the City of Raleigh’s parking-ticket appeals process would aim to fix mistakes and reimburse innocent motorists who have been forced to pay somebody else’s tickets.

And you would be wrong.

In this week’s episode of “Beth Wood and the Big Orange Boot,” we learn the secret purpose of Raleigh’s appeal hearings: Not righting wrongs, but wronging rights.

Read the rest HERE!

Girl, 6, is youngest ever in National Spelling Bee

(Richmond Times Dispatch) The youngest person ever to qualify for the Scripps National Spelling Bee was running around in a stream with a friend, hunting for rocks. Suddenly, she came charging up the bank and headed straight for her mother.

“Hold on to that basalt,” Lori Anne Madison said in a bossy 6-year-old’s voice, “and do not drop it.”

“Go away,” her mother, Sorina Madison, said playfully.

She talks at 100 mph. In the last few weeks, she has won major awards in both swimming and math, but one accomplishment above all has made her an overnight national celebrity: This week, the precocious girl from Lake Ridge will be onstage with youngsters more than twice her age and twice her size as one of 278 spellers who have qualified for the national bee.

“She’s like a teenager in a 6-year-old body,” Sorina said. “Her brain, she understands things way ahead of her age.”

Read the rest HERE!

Schools telling elementary students that new middle school math is too hard for them

(Raleigh News-Observer) Bright elementary school students across the Triangle will be blocked from taking middle-school math courses this fall because school officials say the material is too hard for them.

As part of a national movement to standardize math instruction, North Carolina is putting into effect a new curriculum for the 2012-13 school year that’s supposed to be more rigorous. The result is that most Triangle school districts, including Wake County, will no longer allow high-level elementary school students to take middle-school math.

The suspension, which could affect hundreds of Wake County students, had led Karissa Webb’s parents to file a grievance against the school system. Central office administrators rejected a plan developed by Karissa’s teachers to have the rising fifth-grader at West Lake Elementary School near Apex take sixth-grade math this fall at the adjoining West Lake Middle School.

Read the rest HERE!

Asheville police evidence room repercussions near-deadly

By Joel Burgess

(Asheville Citizen-Times) Not long after midnight on a cold January morning, police officer Evan Flanders found himself facing the wrong end of a .38 Smith & Wesson revolver.

Flanders thought 24-year-old Twari Rashad Mapp looked suspicious when he walked up to him, and Mapp started to go for a gun, according to police.

But in reality the circumstances leading up to that Jan. 6 confrontation started months earlier with the discovery of sweeping problems in the Police Department evidence room.

Mapp might otherwise have been in jail — along with at least three other violent crime suspects freed on unsecured bonds because of lost evidence, according to a search of criminal and detention center records by the Citizen-Times.

Read the rest HERE!