News & Views

Rep. Ashton Wheeler Clemmons (Photo: NCGA)

Down through the decades, the relationship between the United States and China has gone through many iterations. In the mid-20 th Century, China was a closed, mysterious, and totalitarian state that was almost completely cut off from the global economy. Today, of course, that situation is dramatically different. While many basic individual freedoms remain in short supply for most Chinese, China has become an economic giant, the United States’ biggest partner and rival, and by any fair estimation, a nation that we ignore at great risk.

Fortunately, despite many recent tensions, efforts to keep our two nations connected and in conversation continue and recently, I caught up with a North Carolina elected leader who’s been part of such an effort, State Rep. Ashton Wheeler Clemmons of Guildford County. Clemmons was part of a bipartisan

In Part Two of our interview, we shifted our gaze back home to domestic matters and, among other things, Clemmons’ deep concern about the threats to democratic government lurking on the state and national political scenes and her fervent hope that North Carolina Republican legislative leaders and budget writers will abandon their war on public schools and recognize the need to dramatically enhance education funding.

Public Policy Polling's Tom Jensen (Courtesy photo)

One of the nation’s top pollsters – Tom Jensen – joins us to discuss what voters are thinking about some key national and state races at the dawn of a very important election year.

Kelan Lyons

Most Americans are aware of the outsized impact that rulings from the U.S. Supreme Court can have on our society, but as a steady drumbeat of stories from NC Newsline investigative reporter Kelan Lyons made clear in 2023, the state civil and criminal justice systems can also be hugely impactful and deserving of our close attention.

Recently, Kelan sat down for a two-part conversation with Newsline’s Rob Schofield in which we looked back at some of the top North Carolina courts and justice stories from 2023. In Part One of our chat, we discussed a state Court of Appeals decision in which a panel of judges ruled that quote “life begins at conception” (and how Kelan’s reporting likely led to it being withdrawn). We also discussed an end-of-year campaign launched by opponents of the death penalty, and the tragic story of a man who, effectively, got lost in the state prison system.

In Part Two of our conversation, we discussed his reporting on some other troubling news from the state’s prison system and a pair of important court actions with implications for the First Amendment and freedom of the press.

Read more of Kelan Lyons’ coverage here.

Investigative reporter Lisa Sorg

2023 was yet another big year for stories related to the environment – and, in particular, the seemingly countless ways in which human well-being was (and continues to be) endangered by pollution.

Here in North Carolina, NC Newsline environmental investigative reporter Lisa Sorg filed scores of stories documenting this hard reality, and recently, she sat down with Rob Schofield to discuss some of them – including the recent decision of the federal EPA to limit imports of the toxic forever chemical GenX, continued concerns about a new natural gas pipeline that’s proposed for parts of central North Carolina, the advances and setbacks of the environmental justice movement, and how the 2024 elections will likely impact state environmental policy. Read more of Sorg’s comprehensive coverage here.

Reporter Lynn Bonner

When North Carolina Republicans obtained veto-proof supermajorities at the General Assembly early in 2023 thanks to the party-switch of Mecklenburg County representative Tricia Cotham, it suddenly opened the door to the enactment of a raft of new laws that had long been blocked by the pen of Democratic governor Roy Cooper.

And two areas in which newly enacted laws were especially momentous were elections and abortion. And recently in order to get a reminder of exactly what the new laws in those vitally important fields do – and to take a look at one subject of bipartisan agreement, Medicaid expansion, we caught up with NC Newsline investigative reporter Lynn Bonner. Read more of Lynn’s coverage here.

NC Newsline reporter Greg Childress

When North Carolina Republicans obtained veto-proof supermajorities in both the state House and Senate in 2023, it unleashed a wave of conservative legislation that had previously been bottled up, and another field in which that was especially obvious was public education.

As we were reminded in a recent conversation with NC Newsline K-12 education reporter Greg Childress, the conservative push to remake public schools has had many components, but two, in particular stood out in 2023: 1) the culture war agenda that gained the most attention with the passage of a controversial bill known as the “Parents’ Bill of Rights,” and 2) in the continued expansion of so-called school choice laws that make school vouchers available to families of all incomes and that open the door to even more rapid expansion of charter schools. Read more of Greg’s coverage here.

Photo: Joe Killian

It’s been several years since North Carolina lawmakers enacted, and then were forced by public opinion to repeal, HB2 – the infamous bathroom bill. Unfortunately, some lessons have to be learned over and over, and as has been made plain repeatedly at the Legislative Building, conservative state lawmakers remain wedded to a strategy of demonizing LGBTQ people and limiting their rights. And recently, we caught up with our colleague, NC Newsline investigative reporter Joe Killian, to review some of the controversies and legislation he documented in this field in 2023.  Read more of Joe’s coverage here.

Lakewood Elementary School's Turquoise Parker celebrates after delivering more than 36 tons of food to low income families in Durham County.

Hunger. It’s been on the rise in many places in our country. It’s a maddening state of affairs that deserves all our attention. One person, however, that’s long been doing something about this situation is Turquoise Parker, a teacher at Durham’s Lakewood Elementary School. Over the last several years, Parker’s response to the needs of an individual family for food over a Christmas holiday has morphed into a large and growing volunteer program that helps provide free and nutritious food to scores of low-income children and their families over the winter and spring breaks. And recently, NC Newsline sat down with Mrs. Parker to learn more about her efforts, and how interested people can support the effort.

Read our full story about Parker’s efforts here.

Prof. Steven Rogers - Photo: stevenmrogers.com

Despite multiple legal challenges to what the Republican legislators who drew them admit are blatantly rigged and gerrymandered districts, it looks like North

Of course, as sobering as this news is, it comes as little surprise. As NC Newsline learned a couple months back in a conversation I had with Prof. Steven Rogers of St. Louis University about his new book, “Accountability in State Legislatures,” gerrymandered districts have become a common pattern across the country and their prevalence goes along way toward explaining why modern elections have come to do very little to hold state legislators accountable.

This is a rebroadcast of an interview that originally aired in October 2023.

Michael Sozan - Photo: Center for American Progress

Researcher Michael Sozan of the Center for American Progress on a new report that documents some worrisome threats to democracy in a pair of U.S. States – Wisconsin and North Carolina