The passage of the North Carolina House Bill 237, also known as the “Unmasking Mobs and Criminals” Bill, in the state Senate on Wednesday brings the state one step closer to making it illegal to wear face masks in public, regardless of the threat posed by the COVID pandemic.
Simone Hetherington, a speaker during public comment, urges lawmakers not to pass the masking bill during the state Senate Rules Committee in the Legislative Building in Raleigh, N.C., Wednesday, May 15, 2024. [AP Photo/Makiya Seminera]
The legislation was voted on by a margin of 30 to 15 along party lines, with five abstentions. Revisions to the bill will mean the state House will vote on it again. But even if North Carolina Democratic Governor Roy Cooper vetoes the law, the Republican-majority state legislature will have sufficient votes to override him.
Although the bill leaves a number of exemptions in place, it specifically deleted the exemption, “Any person wearing a mask for the purpose of ensuring the physical health or safety of the wearer or others.” Meanwhile, masks can be worn as part of “traditional holiday costumes in season,” or if the person is “Engaged in trades and employment where a mask is worn for the purpose of ensuring the physical safety of the wearer, or because of the nature of the occupation, trade or profession.”
Public mask wearing has long been illegal in the state, but with many exemptions. The exemption for public health concerns was put into effect with the onset of the COVID pandemic. The measure to remove that exemption was introduced to the Senate Judiciary Committee by right-wing Republican Senator Buck Newton.
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Newton told reporters that the action was being taken in part because of recent demonstrations by students on college campuses who were protesting the genocidal Israel onslaught against Palestinians, which has completely devastated the Gaza enclave and its more than 2 million inhabitants.
Newton’s claims that students are attempting to cover up their identities and that this represents some form of criminal enterprise are simply preposterous. “This isn’t just about protests,” Newton said. “I think it’s clear that people are seizing the opportunity to do things they’re not supposed to do, to break the law, or to intimidate people, and to keep their identities hidden, and it’s time for that to stop.”
Republican supporters of the legislation openly admit that the purpose of the measure is to help law enforcement crack down on protesters wearing masks, arguing that they were abusing pandemic practices to hide their identities.
In reality, students and protesters have, by all accounts, conducted themselves with considerable restraint. They have demonstrated exceptional courage in the face of attacks by the police and fascistic thugs. Police have carried out mass arrests of young people and faculty members who have come out in support. Many also take the ongoing pandemic as a serious reason to protect themselves and others from infection.
In that, they represent an important development of conscious social awakening in response to the actions of Biden and company in shutting down all public health measures in addition to the rampant US militarism. The students oppose the government’s and respective universities’ complicity and support for these war crimes, exercising their essential democratic rights laid down in the Constitution.
In fact, the assured passage of the law will only strengthen the hand of the state and will be seen as a landmark action that will be mirrored across the country. Challenges to the North Carolina bill will assuredly reach the Supreme Court and find legal expression for state repression while potentially placing the lives and well-being of people in danger. One can even assume that those wearing respirators or who cover their heads and faces for religious and cultural reasons will face hostility and repression from the local police and fascistic mobs.
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Ohio’s Attorney General Dave Yost’s warnings made in a recent letter to the presidents of Ohio’s 14 universities underscores the gravity of these developments.
Yost wrote, “In our society, there are few more significant career-wreckers than a felony charge. I write to you today to inform your student bodies of an [1953] Ohio law that, in the context of some behavior during the recent pro-Palestinian protests, could have that effect.” That law states, “No person shall unite with two or more others to commit misdemeanor while wearing white caps, masks, or other disguise.” The breaking of the “anti-disguise” carries a fourth-degree felony charge and up to $5,000 fine and five years on community control, Yost reminded them. That the law has never been applied until now means it amounts to a state-sanctioned threat.
These anti-mask laws Yost references were enacted in the 1940s and 1950s by states in response to the activities of the Ku Klux Klan, whose members hid their identities to perpetrate violence and terror on their victims. However, as historians have noted, these laws weren’t intended to protect the victims, but were rather employed to curb the public displays of the Klan which were discrediting Democratic Party efforts to defend Jim Crow segregation. They remain in place in 18 states including North Carolina.
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The COVID pandemic remains an ongoing public health concern. Despite the dismantling of all metrics that provide real-time information on the state of the pandemic, nearly 22,000 people died of COVID in the first four months of 2024. For the 2023/2024 influenza season, hospitalized COVID patients had a 35 percent higher rate of death than those admitted for the flu.
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Meanwhile, the Economist update on the impact of Long COVID estimates a prevalence of 2 to 7 percent or upwards of half a billion people worldwide with some level of ongoing impact from their infection.
For the US, the magazine estimates a loss of $152.6 billion in GDP in 2024 alone from COVID. For those who have left the workforce, 953.6 million hours of work were lost. Those with reduced hours account for another 366.3 million hours and those who continue to work with their condition cost more than 177 million hours. One needs only to extrapolate these figures to the rest of the globe to understand the magnitude of the COVID pandemic atop the nearly 30 million that needlessly died because of the greed of the ruling elites that have placed profits over life every step of the way.
Last season, Stanford basketball entered the Kyle Smith era, looking to take Stanford to the next level as a basketball program. The Cardinal had a successful first season under Smith, but it seemed like they couldn’t get their season-defining win. Then came their matchup with North Carolina.
In their first season in the ACC, Stanford hadn’t won a game on the East Coast. Having to go into an immensely tough environment against a blue blood program, it looked like they would lose another one.
Instead, Stanford’s stars rose to the occasion. Maxime Raynaud had a massive 25 points and 13 rebound performance, adding a poster dunk in the process. Duke transfer Jaylen Blakes hung 20 points on his former rivals, including the game-winning shot.
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Going into Wednesday’s contest, the Cardinal have an opportunity to do it once again. After a solid start to the year, Stanford has gotten wins over No. 16 Louisville, Virginia Tech, St. Louis, Colorado, and Minnesota. Their losses have come to No. 23 Virginia, Notre Dame, Seattle, and UNLV. The Cardinal sit at 2-2 in ACC play, and have been hot in recent games.
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North Carolina has had their own great start to the year. With wins over No. 19 Kansas, No. 18 Kentucky, Ohio State, Georgetown, Florida State, and Wake Forest, the Tar Heels look like a top team in the nation. However, losses against No. 11 Michigan State and SMU prove that they can be toppled.
An interesting point to make is about recent play. The last time Stanford was at home, the Cardinal took down Louisville in one of the best wins of the Kyle Smith era. The last time North Carolina had to go on the road, they got run out of the gym by SMU.
North Carolina still has a 64.8% chance to win, but it’s not as high as many would have expected, given UNC’s history. That’s because Stanford has a legit chance of taking down the Tar Heels, especially at home.
Last year, Stanford won due to a couple of things. First, their stars played at their best. They got a combined 45 points out of their two biggest stars, which helped to guide the Cardinal to victory. Second, their ability to make free throws.
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Stanford went 13-of-14 from the line, which is key in a close game. Stanford dominated the blocking battle, winning it 7-2, and letting their defense come up with some big stops. They also got a lot out of Donavin Young, who stepped up in the big moment. Finally, they stopped North Carolina’s bigs, which was a big key to victory.
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Stanford has to mimic those specific things to get a win on Wednesday. Stanford needs Ebuka Okorie to score the ball well, and have an overall good game. They need to make free throws, just like they did against Louisville.
Stanford needs Oskar Giltay to give good minutes, and block as many shots as possible. They are going to need a lot out of Donavin Young, just like last year. And finally, they will need Chisom Okpara to slow down Caleb Wilson from dominating the game for his own team.
If Stanford can achieve all these things, Stanford could be in position to come away with yet another huge win over UNC.
Republicans took control of elections administration in mid-2025 and, in some counties, they have quickly moved to enact two longtime party goals: Eliminating Sunday hours and campus polling places during early voting.
Those decisions have now led to political disputes in a handful of counties statewide, which will be up to the GOP-majority State Board of Elections to settle in a meeting Tuesday.
The state board is scheduled to review and vote Tuesday on early voting plans in a dozen counties, including Cumberland, Harnett, Wayne and others. All failed to receive unanimous support at the county level so now require final approval by the state elections board.
The plans are for the March primaries only. But the outcomes Tuesday could give clues to how willing the state board might be to allow similar strategies in November.
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Republican state lawmakers’ most recent effort to target Sunday voting — part of wider-ranging changes to state election law passed in 2013 — was struck down in federal court as unconstitutional for being motivated by intentional racial discrimination. Black voters use Sunday voting disproportionately more than white voters.
At the time, Republican lawmakers argued in court that they should be allowed to target Black voters because the majority of Black voters are affiliated with the Democratic Party. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit strongly disagreed, striking down the law in a harshly worded ruling, calling it “the most restrictive voting law North Carolina has seen since the era of Jim Crow.”
Republicans haven’t tried seriously since then to eliminate Sunday voting statewide. Some did cosponsor a bill at the legislature to do so in 2025, but GOP leaders didn’t allow it up for a vote. It remains to be seen whether new county-by-county efforts to target Sunday voting will meet similar legal fates.
So far, two small-scale efforts to target Sunday voting have been allowed in the state. WRAL reported in August that GOP officials in Davidson and Union counties asked to cut back on Sunday voting for the 2025 municipal elections, which the state elections board approved in 3-2 votes along party lines.
“I do not want us to regress back to a previous time,” Democratic board member Siobhan Millen said at the time, as she voted against those plans.
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Most of the board’s Republicans offered no explanation for eliminating Sunday voting for that handful of 2025 races, WRAL reported at the time. Republican board member Stacey Eggers said he thought it was important to let elections workers get some rest.
Details of the plans
Sunday voting isn’t the only contentious topic on agenda for Tuesday’s meeting. Attempts to eliminate on-campus voting sites at N.C. A&T University, UNC-Greensboro and Western Carolina University are up for discussion. So are other contentious plans from areas including Cumberland, Harnett and Wayne counties.
The state board already approved early voting plans for most of North Carolina’s 100 counties, since most counties approved their plans in a bipartisan, unanimous fashion. Every county elections board has three Republicans and two Democrats.
Tuesday’s meeting is meant to focus on the dozen counties where March early voting plans didn’t win unanimous approval, due to political or logistical disputes.
In Cumberland County, for example, there are multiple competing issues. The county election board’s professional staff suggested using five early voting sites, all in Fayetteville. The board’s political appointees, however, want seven sites. Complicating matters further is that the board’s political appointees also don’t fully agree on where to put those extra sites. All agree with having at least five sites in Fayetteville and one in Hope Mills. But there’s a dispute over whether to put a sixth site in Fayetteville, or to open one in Spring Lake instead.
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Disputed early voting plans from Guilford and Jackson counties, meanwhile, revolve around the efforts to eliminate college campus polling places. Other counties are fighting over Sunday voting, including Wayne and Pitt counties, home to Goldsboro and Greenville.
In Pitt County, the GOP majority on the county elections board says only a few dozen dozen people have bothered showing up to vote on Sundays in each of the past few primary elections. Paying to keep the sites open for such little return isn’t a good investment for the county, they argue in filings to the state, not to mention the fact that there are fewer and fewer people who want to help work at local polling places.
“Pitt County, like every other county in the state, is seeing a significant drop in civic engagement, particularly with election workers,” the board’s Republicans wrote to the state. “Finding workers to manage and work in locations, especially on Sundays, is extraordinarily difficult.”
In Harnett County, the dispute is over an attempt to shut down the polling place at Western Harnett High School in Lillington and replace it with two new sites, one at the Benhaven Community Center and the other at the Anderson Creek fire department.
American Airlines subsidiary PSA officially opened its new headquarters in Charlotte, North Carolina, on Monday.
The carrier moved its corporate office from Dayton, Ohio, and plans to have over 450 employees at its Charlotte campus. The headquarters is situated about two miles from American Airlines’ Charlotte Flight Training Center and five miles from Charlotte Douglas International Airport, where many PSA staff are based.
PSA is now the only Part 121 passenger carrier based in North Carolina, company leaders said.
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“Because of what Charlotte offers, PSA has a stronger foundation for continued growth,” PSA President and CEO Dion Flannery said in a statement. “And we believe the benefit will be mutual, as the region will continue having reliable aviation partners, a top employer, and a responsible corporate citizen headquartered in its backyard.”
Of the 450 employees expected to be based in Charlotte, about 150 have relocated from Dayton and another 50 were already in Charlotte at other facilities. The other 250 positions are being filled by new hires.
PSA operates flights under the American Eagle brand. It directly supports four American Airlines hubs – Charlotte, Dallas/Fort Worth, Philadelphia, and Washington National.
A grand opening event at the headquarters in Charlotte will take place in March.
PSA will maintain a significant presence in Dayton, with hundreds of employees, including pilots, flight attendants, and technicians, based at the airline’s crew base and maintenance hangar at Dayton International Airport.
