The State of Things

A new paper from Duke University concludes that North Carolina should end the sentence of life without parole for juvenile offenders. “ Juvenile Life Without Parole in North Carolina ” looks at the cases of 94 people sentenced to life without parole as juveniles in the state and finds almost half of them have been overturned.

North Carolina-born jazz musician Max Roach carved out a creative legacy in music that spanned genres. Roach grew up in New York City and during the 1940s he drummed alongside artists like Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie. His recordings were innovative and during the civil rights movement, even political. To honor Roach, Black Mountain College Museum and Arts Center is hosting a restaging of Roach’s “We Insist! Freedom Now Suite” recording.

Many people associate pop art with American artists like Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein, but there were many contributions to the movement from outside the borders of the United States, notably from Latin American artists. A new exhibit at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University called “Pop América, 1965-1975” shares the work of artists from the Americas, from Tierra del Fuego up to Anchorage.

Tara Dunsmore is a nurse by trade, but after her own experience with breast cancer, she found a new way to help others heal: tattoos. After undergoing a double mastectomy and breast reconstruction, Dunsmore uncovered a gap in the healing process: how to recreate a realistic-looking nipple.

A number of North Carolina communities are struggling to access safe drinking water. A WRAL investigative team tracked two decades of data and uncovered high rates of water violations, which are most pervasive in rural areas including the towns of Carthage and Butner in central North Carolina.

Raccoons. For many, they are scheming trash denizens and a neighborhood scourge. But musician Tom Merrigan has a deep and mildly obsessive relationship with the creatures and shares their propensity for night roams and mischief. His band name, Tom Merrigan’s Hot Raccoons, is a tribute to that bond.

Jean Michel Dissake was an economics student at the University of Douala in Cameroon when he made a radical shift: He left school and spent the next nine years living in the forest. He spent his days interacting with the trees and the river, and this deep connection with nature spawned an artistic passion and a career as a sculptor.

Last year more than 4 million children participated in a school lockdown drill. The exercises are ostensibly a way to train and prepare students, teachers and administrators to keep safe in the event of an active shooter. But no research has been done into the psychological effect of these drills on the children they aim to protect.

Romance novels made up almost a quarter of the U.S. fiction market in 2016, second only to general fiction. Some people may think of the genre solely as Harlequin -published books with a man who looks like Fabio on the cover. But romance fiction encompasses more than this stereotype.

Last week U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents detained at least 200 people in enforcement actions around the state. Officials raided a gun manufacturing plant in Sanford and arrested people at traffic stop check points in various cities.