Trump Administration Secures New Indictment Against Comey; The New York Times, April 28, 2026

 Devlin Barrett and Tyler Pager , The New York Times; Trump Administration Secures New Indictment Against Comey

The new case stems from a social media post showing seashells on a North Carolina beach that the Trump administration characterized as a threat against the president.

"The Justice Department has secured a new indictment of James B. Comey, the former F.B.I. director, over a social media post, after an indictment effort spurred by President Trump last year ended in failure.

An indictment filed in North Carolina charges Mr. Comey with making a threat against the president, and transmitting a threat across state lines, according to court records.

The new case represents another twist in the department’s tortured efforts to satisfy the demands of Mr. Trump to pursue criminal charges against Mr. Comey, a longtime target of the president’s wrath. The first indictment against Mr. Comey was thrown out by a judge, and other prosecutorial efforts against Trump targets have faltered in the face of grand juries or judges."

Amid new GOP-led restrictions, North Carolina students lead a fight to vote during the midterm primary; Democracy Docket, February 18, 2026

 Natalie Hausmann, Democracy Docket; Amid new GOP-led restrictions, North Carolina students lead a fight to vote during the midterm primary

"Olu Rouse clearly remembers the first time he voted.

He was a freshman at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University (NC A&T), and he meticulously researched candidates before he cast his ballot at his on-campus voting site in the 2024 presidential primary election.

Today, that voting site doesn’t exist. 

Rouse, now a third-year student, is just one of the thousands of students in North Carolina who lack easy access to early voting sites on their college campuses — even as early voting for North Carolina’s primary election is underway.

That’s because the GOP-controlled North Carolina State Board of Elections (NCSBE) last month rejected early voting sites at NC A&T, the nation’s largest historically Black college, and three other college campuses across the state: Western Carolina University (WCU), the University of North Carolina-Greensboro (UNC-G) and Elon University.

Student advocates and voting rights experts have warned that the board’s decision represents a major assault on student voting rights in the state. But it has since also catalyzed student advocacy efforts to get out the vote.

Brian Kennedy, a senior policy analyst for the nonpartisan advocacy organization Democracy North Carolina, told Democracy Docket that this newest blow is just one of several efforts to suppress the Black vote across the state and narrow student voting access in general across the country.

“I think we’ve seen the blueprint for what voter suppression across the nation can look like here in North Carolina,” he said.

The legal battle

Rouse was one of dozens of students present at the Jan. 13 NCSBE meeting in Raleigh, North Carolina, during which Republican state officials refused early voting sites at the four colleges, which together serve around 47,000 students.

Despite the objections of students who sent a letter to the board and showed up in person to protest the decision, the board denied two new midterm primary sites at UNC-G and NC A&T and rejected two existing sites at Elon University and WCU.  

Several students from NC A&T, WCU and UNC-G, as well as the College Democrats of North Carolina, raised their concerns in a lawsuit* against the board."

God’s Chief Justice Paul Newby, a born-again Christian, has turned his perch atop North Carolina’s Supreme Court into an instrument of political power. Over two decades, he’s driven changes that have reverberated well beyond the borders of his state.; ProPublica, October 30, 2025

 Doug Bock Clark, ProPublica ; God’s Chief Justice: Paul Newby, a born-again Christian, has turned his perch atop North Carolina’s Supreme Court into an instrument of political power. Over two decades, he’s driven changes that have reverberated well beyond the borders of his state.

"Few beyond North Carolina’s borders grasp the outsize role Newby, 70, has played in transforming the state’s top court from a relatively harmonious judicial backwater to a front-line partisan battleground since his election in 2004.

Under North Carolina’s constitution, Supreme Court justices are charged with upholding the independence and impartiality of the courts, applying laws fairly and ensuring all citizens get treated equally.

Yet for years, his critics charge, Newby has worked to erode barriers to politicization."

Last-ditch legal effort tries to halt NC regional library system breakup over LGBTQ+ content; Carolina Public Press, June 20, 2025

 Lucas Thomae , Carolina Public Press ; Last-ditch legal effort tries to halt NC regional library system breakup over LGBTQ+ content

"Local debates capture national attention

The heated debate in Yancey is just one more example of a larger national trend: the transformation of public schools and libraries into political battlefields.

John Chrastka is executive director at EveryLibrary, a self-described “non-partisan, pro-library” political advocacy organization. He told CPP that the emergence of social conservative groups seeking to limit materials in public libraries has led to policy changes at both the state and local level. Sometimes, he said, the best means of pushing back is through the courts.

“Sometimes (court) is the only place that you can go, because you can organize all day long locally and the politicians and the political actors won’t listen because they’re not in for the rule of law,” Chrastka said.

First Amendment challenges are common in these library disputes, but Chrastka said an often underlooked litigation strategy is through a civil rights lens.

Federal law dictates that all people are entitled to “equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages and accommodations of any place of public accommodation.” Public libraries, being taxpayer-funded institutions, are considered places of public accommodation.

“So many of the book bans, so many of the challenges to displays, so many fights over what kind of programming is done in the libraries is based on the comfort of the majority,” Chrastka said.

“If the majority population isn’t comfortable with a minority population — whether it’s race or gender or sexuality or religion, we see these fights. The relevance of a program, the relevance of a display, the relevance of a title to a minority population should be considered in that civil rights framework.”"

Yancey residents plan lawsuit in response to July 1 library takeover by county over Pride display; Asheville Citizen Times, June 13, 2025

 Johnny Casey, Asheville Citizen Times; Yancey residents plan lawsuit in response to July 1 library takeover by county over Pride display

"Edwards pointed to the multiple protests in which residents marched on Burnsville Town Square in support of the local library, and said the local library has been a bright spot for many residents dealing with hardships, particularly during the county's Tropical Storm Helene recovery.

"I care that the little boy with Down Syndrome who gets his therapy at the library won't start his session without getting a hug from me," Edwards said. "I care that a woman who lost her father turned to reading and rediscovered a passion for reading to help her cope.

"I care about the thousands and thousands of people we've helped after Helene find resources, fill out forms, send paperwork to agencies, and mostly just by listening to their stories. I never once asked somebody who walked through those library doors who they voted for, who they pray to or who they have at home that they love. Every patron interaction starts with a simple question: 'How can I help you?'...

Landon Beaver is born and raised in Yancey County and has been following the library takeover in his hometown since 2023, when the commissioners proposed the takeover.

Beaver is helping organize a First Amendment lawsuit in order, according to the Our Voice Our Library website, "to try to prevent the Yancey County Board of Commissioners from wresting control of the library for political purposes...

According to the Our Library Our Voice website, the team hopes to set a legal precedent that will protect libraries like Jackson County and Yancey County all across North Carolina.​"

North Carolina bans ‘Banned Books Week’ but retracts after media backlash; The Guardian, September 30, 2023

 Edward Helmore, The Guardian ; North Carolina bans ‘Banned Books Week’ but retracts after media backlash

"North Carolina’s Charlotte-Mecklenburg school district appears to be a bit confused as to where it stands in the ongoing battle against books around the US: they banned educators from participating in a weeklong series of events drawing attention to banned books and then … said there was no ban."

North Carolina, Warned of Rising Seas, Chose to Favor Development; The New York Times, September 12, 2018

John Schwartz and Richard Fausset, The New York Times; North Carolina, Warned of Rising Seas, Chose to Favor Development

[Kip Currier: Food for thought for all stakeholders (--particularly anyone, anywhere, concerned and involved with matters of scientific research, data, modeling, ethics, law, and policy--) as the Carolinas prepare for the arrival of Hurricane Florence.

The article's takeaway insight is in the last three sentences, excerpted and highlighted in bold below.]

"The leading scientific model used to forecast storm surge and its effect on coastal areas, known as Adcirc, was created in large part by Rick Luettich, director of the institute of marine sciences at the University of North Carolina.

In a telephone interview during a break from boarding up the windows of his home in Morehead City, on the coast, Mr. Luettich noted that before 2012, the state pursued progressive policies that put it in the forefront of coastal management. When the legislature pushed back against the clear scientific evidence underlying climate change, he said, “it came as a shock.”

There is a lesson in that, he said.

[Bold and red added for emphasis] “The process of converting scientific research into policy is one that we take for granted at times,” Mr. Luettich said. “What we learned is that you can’t take that for granted. We need to have a closer dialogue with policymakers, to make sure we’re on the same page.”

Corporate Coalition Is Forming To Fight Mississippi’s Anti-LGBT Law; Huffington Post, 4/5/16

Alexander C. Kaufman, Huffington Post; Corporate Coalition Is Forming To Fight Mississippi’s Anti-LGBT Law:

"Yet another coalition of tech titans is forming to fight yet another discriminatory law in yet another Southern state.

Top executives from Salesforce, Microsoft and IBM decried on Tuesday a new “religious liberty” law passed in Mississippi that gay rights advocates say legalizes discrimination in the state based on sexual orientation or gender identity.

The public statements, little more than condemnations at the moment, could be the first step toward organizing a divestment campaign such as the one currently growing in North Carolina. The announcements came hours after another tech giant, PayPal, said it would cancel plans to expand in North Carolina — a move that was expected to bring about 400 jobs to the state — as a result of the Tar Heel State’s anti-LGBT law."