The events will also include a number of roundtable discussions featuring activists and family members of other Americans killed by police, including Gwen Carr, the mother of Eric Garner, who was killed by New York City police in 2015, and Katy and Aubrey Wright, the parents of Daunte Wright, who was killed by police in a Minneapolis suburb last month.
Floyd was placed in a fatal knee-to-neck restraint by former Minneapolis officer Derek Chauvin in May last year. The incident was captured on video by a number of bystanders and sent shockwaves around the world. Last month Chauvin was convicted of second-degree murder and two other felonies and faces up to 40 years in prison. Three other officers involved in the arrest are awaiting trial.
Some in Fayetteville are experiencing a personal impact from the second wave of COVID-19 that rages through India.
Velappan Velappan, head of access services at Fayetteville State University, said multiple members of his family back in India contracted COVID-19. Velappan is from a state in India called Tamil Nadu where several members of his family and in-laws live.
“Recently, we had the second wave. It impacts a lot in our area, especially the Southern part of India,” he said. “There are so many positive cases, it went up really, really high.”
According to data from Johns Hopkins University, in the past month more than 100,000 people in India have died of COVID-19. India’s total death toll from COVID-19 is nearing 300,000.
Originally published on May 21, 2021 9:49 am
Connie Walker, a longtime public radio leader and president and general manager of North Carolina Public Radio - WUNC, died on May 19 in Durham, North Carolina. She was 59.
The station’s acting president, Nora Casper, said Walker had been on medical leave since February but the specifics about her cause of death were not shared by the family.
Walker had been with the station for 16 years and led it for 12 of those years. During her tenure, she oversaw tremendous growth, including expanding a signal in Fayetteville, guiding the station through the Great Recession without a single layoff, and, most recently, expanding the station’s digital audio content with the creation of a new team dedicated to podcasts and other new ventures.
For WUNC
Desmond Blackstock, age 3, of Fayetteville, N.C., attends a public memorial for George Floyd in 2020 at Cape Fear Conference B Headquarters of the United American Free Will Baptist Denomination in Raeford, N.C.
The George Floyd Foundation presented a $25,000 check Friday to a historically Black college in North Carolina that will be used for scholarships for students.
Fayetteville State University Chancellor Darrell T. Allison announced the gesture during an on-campus presentation Friday.
“This act by the Floyd family is indeed a testimony to their desire to make certain not only that the name lives on, but that his name remains memorialized in a most meaningful way for the generations to come,” Allison said.
By Mark Starling
Hendersonville Woman Appearing In Court After Murder Indictment
(Hendersonville, NC) A mother charged in the death of her five-year-old daughter is appearing in Henderson Count court this morning. The district attorney told WLOS-TV Penny Hartle has been indicted by a grand jury for first-degree murder. Investigators say she stabbed her daughter to death at their home in the Fruitland community last month. She waived her first court appearance.
Buncombe County Okays Training Center For Airplane Engine Maker
(Buncombe County, NC) Buncombe County is building a training center for an airplane engine maker. Pratt & Whitney will eventually employ 800 people to help make turbine airfoils at a new location being built in the Bent Creek area. The Citizen-Times is reporting commissioners voted Tuesday to spend five-million-dollars to construct a training center for employees. The new jobs at Pratt & Whitney are expected to average 68-thousand-dollars-a-year.