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Equal Rights Amendment introduced in General Assembly More than 40 years after it first took up the matter, the North Carolina General Assembly may consider finally ratifying the Equal Rights Amendment first passed by Congress in the early 1970s.  “The Equal Rights Amendment symbolizes the unpacking of equality. We’re in this space right now where we’re talking about equality and what it means to be an inclusive society,” said Dr. Ameena Zia, a Mills River-based social impact consultant and appointed United Nations representative at ECOSOC, the Economic and Social Affairs C...

State report calls for greater police transparency A task force founded by Gov. Roy Cooper in the wake of violent protests after the police killing of Minneapolis man George Floyd last summer makes dozens of recommendations to strengthen and support North Carolina’s law enforcement community, including several that would lead to greater transparency by law enforcement agencies.  “It’s high time that North Carolina’s open government laws move out of the basement and into the vanguard of the best open government states in the country,” said John Bussian, a Raleigh intellec...

  Sen. Kevin Corbin Violence and looting by anyone, for any political cause, is wrong and illegal.  The riot yesterday as well as the riots that have taken place over the past few months have been well documented by television stations as well as dozens of cell phone recordings. These people should be easily identified and held accountable for damages and charges like breaking and entering.  The time has long passed for the microphone to be passed to those who want civility and honest conversations. In the past few months, including yesterday in Washington, there have been sincere people w...

Last week, as elected members of the House of Representatives and the Senate gathered in their respective chambers to certify electoral votes, Western North Carolina’s newly-elected Republican congressman began to notice that something wasn’t quite right.  Indistinct radio chatter. Restlessness from elected officials. Tension among law enforcement officers. Doors locking. Representatives donning gas masks. Staffers crouching on the floor behind bulletproof seats.  “Wow, this is real,” Rep. Madison Cawthorn, R-Hendersonville, said to himself.  The insurrection that ensued was indeed...

A promise to keep on keepin’ on How does one best express gratitude? That thought kept coming up as I sat down to write a column for this week’s paper. After the rush of a holiday season that was so different, I found myself in our quiet mountain house on an unseasonably warm and sunny day pondering the year to come with more than a little excitement. This is going to be another memorable year, and I can’t wait to push forward. But how do I thank those who helped get me to this state of mind, this knowledge that we — this newspaper and this company — can perhaps foster con...