The State of Things

When Martha Kelly was 18, she knew comedy was her career of choice. Paralyzed by fear, Kelly took what appeared to be an easier road and enrolled in college.

Hundreds of people lined up in Detroit this morning to bid farewell to Aretha Franklin at her public visitation . The singer’s outsized legacy has crystallized in the days since her death on Aug. 16, 2018.

Cheetie Kumar grew up in Chandigarh, India with America on the mind. Her family talked often about moving overseas to pursue a fresh start in the United States. Her parents lived through Indian Partition in 1947, a bloody conflict during which Kumar’s mother lost both of her parents. For their family, moving to the U.S. was both about finding new opportunities and gaining distance from trauma.

The North Carolina General Assembly is in a last-minute special session, called yesterday , to rewrite two proposed constitutional amendments to appear on the November ballot.

Earlier this week the state turned down Chemours ’ suggestion to raise the acceptable amount of GenX, a chemical found in the water, soil and air around its North Carolina plant. The Secretaries’ Science Advisory Board instead affirmed the state’s conservative threshold of the chemical for drinking water.

The sale of not-for-profit community hospital system Mission Health to a national health care titan is underway in Western North Carolina.

Silent Sam may no longer be standing on the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill campus, but activist Maya Little says the fight is far from over.

They call it psychedelic-hillbilly-rock, but the singer-songwriter duo Ladies Gun Club also embraces the term Americana.

Silent Sam fell to the ground Monday night , breaking through the dirt around its pedestal. Protesters cheered, and police, for the most part, looked on as protesters kicked the statue and captured photos of the controversial Confederate symbol.

During her speech at the Golden Globes, Oprah introduced many people to Recy Taylor, a 24-year-old sharecropper who was gang raped in 1940s Alabama and risked her life to seek justice.