Needle on N.C. natural gas meter falling fast

(Charlotte Observer) Fracking was originally billed as the golden key to unlocking a 40-year supply of natural gas and reversing North Carolina’s dependency on other states for energy. Proponents said it was the state’s ticket to an economic revival and newfound status as an energy supplier. Now with the state legislature poised to pass laws allowing fracking, estimates for North Carolina’s natural gas supplies are more modest: closer to an amount that’s equivalent to about five years of the state’s natural gas use. “There were wildly optimistic early predictions, I’ll say it that way,” said assistant state geologist Kenneth Taylor. “We started off with colleagues in energy companies telling us, ‘This is how much you have.’ ” The actual amount of natural gas in the state remains a mystery. Estimates are not part of the lengthy fracking report issued last month by the N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources.

Read more HERE.

Illegal immigrant grads rally for in-state tuition

(The Tennessean) Just hours before her graduation from John Overton High School, Arely Bravo, 19, stood on the steps of the Parthenon with about 50 other people and vowed to fight for tuition equality for all of Tennessee’s students. “Undocumented students have to pay out-of-state tuition even though they’ve been here since they were babies,” said Bravo, whose parents brought her to Tennessee when she was about 5 years old. “We just want to be able to pay as much as any other student would to continue our education.” Bravo, who grew up in Metro schools, was one of about 10 students standing in cap and gown at the Parthenon on Saturday. She was scheduled to graduate later that evening in the top 20 percent of her class, she said. She plans to attend Nashville State Community College and major in criminal justice. According to the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition, an organizer of Saturday’s event, undocumented students are charged more than three times as much as their classmates to attend public universities in Tennessee. Because of the financial barriers, there is only a 5 percent to 10 percent college attendance rate for undocumented high school students, the coalition said.

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High potency marijuana concerns authorities

(Wilmington Star News) Technological advancements have given today’s teenagers access to a lot of things their parents could hardly envision at that age: The Internet. iPads. And marijuana many times more powerful than what people smoked in the 1970s. The rise in marijuana use among teens, as documented by recent national surveys, comes as particularly alarming to health advocates because marijuana is more potent than ever before, experts say. That means the pot youth are smoking today carries a greater risk of harm than what their parents might have experienced a generation ago. “The people who are growing marijuana have improved their techniques,” Stephen Pasierb, president and CEO of the Partnership at Drugfree.org, said in phone interview. “Nobody’s cleaning seeds out of marijuana on a record album like they used to do in the old days.”

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Priorities: N.C. lawmakers plan hearing on eugenics reparations

(Raleigh News & Observer) A large crowd is expected when legislators hold a public hearing in Raleigh about a bill that would pay $50,000 to people who were sterilized against their will. Some victims are expected to attend the hearing, which will be held Tuesday at the Legislative Office Building. So far, the N.C. Justice for Sterilization Victims Foundation has identified 132 victims, of whom 118 are still alive. Foundation executive director Charmaine Cooper-Fuller says she expects more victims to come forward if the Legislature approves compensation.

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Budget woes? Why not ‘repurpose’ some schools and close others?

(Richmond Times Dispatch)  Richmond, VA could close as many as four elementary schools under a proposal made by a rezoning task force, the Richmond School Board heard during its work session Monday. Bellevue, John B. Cary, Summer Hill, and Fisher or Southampton — one or the other, not both — could be “repurposed,” the task force suggested during the late afternoon meeting. An alternative recommendation has Bellevue being combined with George Mason Elementary. Under that scenario, Mason would house students in kindergarten and first and second grades. Third-, fourth- and fifth-graders would attend Bellevue. The study also involves middle and high school attendance boundaries, but none of those schools is scheduled to close.

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New era of testing, ratings in NC schools

(Charlotte Observer) Say goodbye to the year-end exams and the N.C. school labels we’ve gotten to know over the past 15 years, where schools are rated from “low performing” to “school of excellence” based on the percent of students who pass exams. The state will issue its last “ABCs of Public Education” report this summer. Next school year will bring a new set of tests and a new “READY” accountability system. It’s part of the state’s Race to the Toppush to make testing more meaningful and comparable to other states, while holding schools accountable for a wider array of results and using student results to rate teacher effectiveness. The new exams are also designed to reflect the move to national “common core” academic standards, which are supposed to push students across the country to higher-level learning.

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Family says son, 11, was spanked too hard at school

(Atlanta Journal Constitution) A family is complaining that their 11-year-old son was paddled excessively as punishment for fighting at his private school, according to Channel 2 Action News. “I don’t know how to explain it. So brutal,” Desmond Omigie told Channel 2 about being spanked by a leader at Hope Christian Academy in Jonesboro. Desmond said he got into a fight on the basketball court at the school and punched another student in the nose. The school enforces corporal punishment and Robert Taylor, the pastor of the church that runs the school, spanked him, he told Channel 2. “Before he spanked me, he said, ‘I’m going to beat you until I get tired,” Desmond told Channel 2. The pastor told Channel 2 that he followed procedures when spanking the fifth grader, and that those are procedures that parents permit.

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Private supply ship rockets toward space station

(The State Newspaper) A first-of-its-kind commercial supply ship rocketed toward the International Space Station following a successful liftoff early Tuesday, opening a new era of dollar-driven spaceflight. The SpaceX company made history as its Falcon 9 rocket rose from its seaside launch pad and pierced the pre-dawn sky, aiming for a rendezvous in a few days with the space station. The unmanned rocket carried into orbit a capsule named Dragon that is packed with 1,000 pounds of space station provisions. It is the first time a private company has launched a vessel to the space station. Before, that was something only major governments had done.

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Asheville likely to ban new digital billboards

(Asheville Citizen Times) City Council’s message regarding digital billboards likely will be as sharp and clear as the signs themselves: We don’t want any more.Council has an item on its agenda tonight to consider an ordinance “to remove standards that allow digital billboards in the city of Asheville.” If the proposed new ordinance passes tonight — and Davis said he expects it to pass unanimously — the existing eight digital billboards will be grandfathered in, but no new digitals will be allowed. Under the 2008 agreement, the billboard companies had to agree to take down traditional billboards to get permits for digital ones, and 45 of the older billboards have been removed.

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Buncombe County schools consider free breakfast for students

(Asheville Citizen-Times) Starting next school year, Buncombe County students could begin receiving a free breakfast as part of a federally funded universal breakfast program at county schools.

Buncombe school board members are expected to consider the idea at their June 7 board meeting.

“I decided to put it on the agenda so we can discuss it. While it’s really not costing us, I thought it would be a good idea to discuss,” said Bob Rhinehart, chairman of the county school board. “If it’s not going to cost anything, we should at least try it for a year and see how it goes.”

Lynette Vaughn-Hensley, Buncombe County child nutrition director, said the program would be paid for through reimbursements from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Read the rest HERE!

Want a rare burger? You’re a step closer in NC

(Charlotte Observer) If you’re a burger fan in North Carolina, you just got a big step closer to being able to say “Make it rare.”

The N.C. Commission for Public Health this week approved the adoption of most of the 2009 federal food code. Among other changes, it would allow restaurant customers to order raw or undercooked foods if the restaurant provides a warning – usually a note on the menu – to remind you it’s dangerous. A similar procedure is already followed in many states, including South Carolina.

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Gay prosecutor’s rejection for judgeship lands Virginia back in spotlight

(Richmond Times Dispatch) The House of Delegates’ rejection early Tuesday of a judgeship for Richmond prosecutor Tracy Thorne-Begland, who would have been the first openly gay person elected to the bench in Virginia, retrained the spotlight on a General Assembly session rife with controversy over social issues.

After 1 a.m. Tuesday, conservative Republicans in the House rejected bipartisan support and committee recommendations for Thorne-Begland to become a general district court judge in Richmond.

The vote came amid a renewed national debate over the rights of same-sex couples, fueled by President Barack Obama’s declaration of support for gay marriage and by presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney’s remarks Saturday to evangelical Christians at Liberty University in Lynchburg that marriage should be between a man and a woman.

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Buncombe commissioners pay cut has support

Written by Jon Ostendorff

(Asheville citizen Times) A pitch to cut the pay of Buncombe County commissioners has the support of some board members and candidates seeking the office.

Others say they want more information before going on record supporting a pay cut.

Commissioner Holly Jones, a Democrat, raised the issue at a board meeting Tuesday night, saying county leaders are still among North Carolina’s highest paid despite recent cuts.

Buncombe is second only to Mecklenburg, which pays commissioners $26,679 a year, according to data Jones gave to the board before the meeting.

Read the rest HERE!

Fracking bill advances in N.C. legislature

(Raleigh News Observer) The state’s debate over fracking resumed Wednesday with the advance of a bill that would legalize the natural gas mining method within two years in this state, giving agency officials until 2014 to come up with provisions to protect the public health and the environment.

The bill, sponsored by Republican Sen. Bob Rucho of Mecklenburg County, is controversial even within the Republican-dominated legislature. It will compete for votes against an alternate approach from Rep. Mitch Gillespie, a McDowell County Republican who favors putting in a wide range of public safeguards and environmental protections.

Some say the technology is so dangerous and risky it should never be allowed in this state, but Rucho and Gillespie both say fracking can be done safely with the right laws in place.

Read the rest HERE!

Car inspection industry squelches bill to end required checks for new cars

(Raleigh News Observer) Remember that proposal from House Republicans to stop making new-car owners get safety and emissions inspections until the cars were more than three years old?

Forget it.

As has happened in the past when legislators tried to ease North Carolina’s inspection requirements, the new proposal was killed today after a lot of phone-calling and letter-writing by garage owners who make their living from car inspections.

Read more HERE!