Weekend reads: Homeowners fight a major rate hike, water woes, and hope for Black mothers, babies | NC Newsline

Homeowners push back against proposed 42% insurance rate increase

By Greg Childress

Dozens of North Carolinians attended a public comment session Monday to speak against a North Carolina Rate Bureau request to increase homeowner insurance rates by an average of 42%.

The Rate Bureau, which represents companies that write insurance policies, made the request to the North Carolina Department of Insurance earlier this month, citing a higher cost of doing business due to climate change, which produces more powerful hurricanes and more severe flooding.[Read more...]

Associate dean, department head resigns in protest of program eliminations at UNCG

By Joe Killian

An associate dean and department head at UNC Greensboro resigned Wednesday in protest of the process used to identify programs that may be cut on the campus, pointing to a lack of transparency and “egregious behavior from senior administration,” according to a resignation letter obtained by Newsline.

Charles Bolton, associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and interim head of the university’s anthropology department, tendered his resignation in a scathing letter to the college’s dean, John Kiss. Programs in Bolton’s own department were on a list of 19 potential eliminations the university released last week. That list, and the process university administrators used to create it, has been hotly debated since.[ Read more…]

Burlington finds high levels of 1,4-Dioxane in wastewater, which is headed downstream; Apollo Chemical again named as source

By Lisa Sorg 

Wastewater leaving a City of Burlington treatment plant contained 545 parts per billion of a likely carcinogen 1,4-Dioxane, a level is more than 1,500 times the target value set by the state for surface water. The slug of the compound is headed downstream in the Haw River to Pittsboro and other communities. [Read more...]

North Carolina faces a child care cliff. Will state lawmakers step up as federal support ends?

By Clayton Henkel

It may feel like a lifetime ago, but Ariel Ford remembers fondly when she worked as a preschool teacher with a room full of rambunctious and creative two-year-olds.

“It is my favorite job I have ever had by far.”

Ford, who now serves as the Director of the Division of Child Development and Early Education for the NC Department of Health and Human Services, said there was only one problem with the best job ever — she couldn’t make ends meet even working full-time. [ Read more…]

A Raleigh-based health center works to reduce rates of Black maternal and infant deaths

By Lynn Bonner

A Raleigh-based community health center that low-income and uninsured people have relied on for decades is opening an OBGYN clinic with the intention of addressing, head-on, the factors that have Black mothers and babies dying at higher rates than white mothers and infants.

Services for expectant parents at Advance Community Health will feature a type of group prenatal care that’s been credited with reducing rates of preterm births. The center is also starting a parenting program for fathers. [ Read more…]

Proposed homeowners’ insurance hike could send 75-year-old Swansboro man back to work

By Greg Childress

Seventy-five year-old Swansboro resident Boyd Pate is reluctantly thinking about returning to work to help make ends meet.

The retired Durham firefighter who moved to the coast decades ago to enjoy his twin passions  — boating and fishing — said expenses are beginning to outpace the modest increases in his state pension and Social Security checks. [ Read more…]

Grasping at straws: Anti-Trump GOP’ers are failing to acknowledge the choice that confronts them (commentary)

By Rob Schofield

Some county boards of election violated “the text and spirit” of the voter ID law when they baselessly questioned the reasons voters didn’t have photo identification last November, three voting rights groups told the State Board of Election in a letter.

The Southern Coalition for Social Justice, Common Cause North Carolina, and Democracy North Carolina want the State Board of Elections to make it clear what local boards can and cannot do when they’re considering accepting ballots from people who vote without photo ID. [Read more.…]

UNC System, community colleges offer scholarships to families making less than $80,000

By Joe Killian 

North Carolina students whose families make $80,000 or less are eligible for a minimum $5,000 scholarship at any of the UNC System’s 16 universities, the system office announced this week. Families with greater financial need could see more aid.

The Next NC Scholarship, a combination of federal Pell grants and state funded financial aid, is open to qualifying families who fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) by June 1.

Students and their families who need help with the application can get it through dozens of institutions, public and private, on FASFA Day, January 27. [Read more...]

NC utilities to receive $47 million to keep toxic lead out of drinking water

By Lisa Sorg

Under EPA’s proposed rule, all lead-contaminated service lines would be replaced within 10 years

Beneath the yards of an untold number of homes in North Carolina lay water lines installed 100 years ago, when Calvin Coolidge was president. Some of these service lines, which send drinking water from the main pipes to the houses, contain lead, a neurotoxin.

When the drinking water passes through the contaminated line, it could carry the lead into the home. From there, the contaminated water flows through the tap into the glass of sweet tea, bottle of baby formula, and kettle of homemade soup. [Read more…]

Federal judge blocks part of Republicans’ new election law

By Kelan Lyons

A federal judge issued a ruling over the weekend blocking part of an elections law passed by Republicans last year that required the ballots of voters who register and vote during early voting to be thrown out if mail meant to verify their addresses could not be delivered.

That policy change was part of a wide-ranging elections bill Republicans passed last year over Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto. This is one of several lawsuits dealing with that new law that are wending through the courts; voting rights advocates also contend it discriminates against young people, and others claim it makes it harder for other state residents to register to vote or have their ballot count. [ Read more…]