When you first heard about a horde of protestors storming the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, who did you believe was responsible?

It’s a special holiday edition of CoastLine with two original stories of the season. Zelda Lockhart is a Visiting Associate Professor in the Creative Writing Department at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. She is the 2010 winner of the Piedmont Laureate for Literature. And she is the author of three novels, including Fifth Born and Fifth Born 2: The Hundredth Turtle . Fifth Born tells the story of Odessa Blackburn in St. Louis Missouri and rural Mississippi. She loses her grandmother

Sheila Boles played for the first women’s basketball team at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. She won the first women’s basketball scholarship the next year, and she became the team’s first MVP.

The debate over reparations for African-Americans, descendants of those brought to the United States as enslaved people, has existed since the very end of the Civil War. It’s taken various forms ranging from the idea of 40 acres and a mule to monetary payments. But from 1861 to 2020, the idea has never gained serious traction in state legislatures or on Capitol Hill.

During the pandemic of 2020, parents are working from home, many people have lost their jobs, and business owners and employees are wondering how they’ll get their financial heads above water again. Anxiety about venturing out plagues those who are more vulnerable, and those who are vigilant about mask-wearing are bothered by those who are not. 2020: the year we’ll all look back on as a pivotal one, as a year of worry, angst and for some – profound loss. The pandemic has exercised a toll on the collective mental health of people around the world. As national and state officials give updates on the number of new Covid-19 cases, hospitalizations, and deaths, they often follow with available mental health resources.

North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein says DuPont company officials have known for four decades that its chemicals are harmful to humans. The allegation is part of a lawsuit filed last month by the state Department of Justice.

PFAS, a class of manmade chemicals in the drinking water supply of the Cape Fear region, are unregulated, likely carcinogenic and otherwise toxic to humans, and are still entering the air and water in southeastern North Carolina. State Attorney General Josh Stein has filed a lawsuit against DuPont, Chemours, and other corporate entities associated with DuPont and the production of these toxic chemicals. Often referred to as “forever chemicals”, PFAS are so-called because they bioaccumulate and do not biodegrade.

More than a week has passed since the 2020 Election. President-Elect Joe Biden is moving forward with his transition plans, key Republican leaders are quiet, and there are questions about whether the American public is as divided as it’s ever been. In North Carolina, Republicans head into the next legislative session with an as-yet unofficial 70-50 majority in the House and a 29-21 majority in the Senate.

One of Wilmington’s major arteries, Market Street, is named for an antebellum slave market. Bedford Forest Drive in Wilmington honors Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Confederate General and the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. That street is intersected by Robert E. Lee Drive.

Ben Schachtman and Rachel Lewis Hilburn unpack the dynamics that are shaping the 2020 Election in North Carolina and the Cape Fear region -- including a look at the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision extending the deadline for absentee ballots, how super PACs are trying to influence some races, who all these unaffiliated voters might be, and why politics is so divergent from policy-making.