The UNC Tar Heels athletics account deleted a post for “Pride Month,” but is the LGBTQ agenda really dead at the state’s flagship university?

Two criminals with a history of violence remain at large after escaping Vance County jail where they were being held without bond on charges including drug trafficking and organizing a shooting, respectively; authorities say they received help from the outside.

“Texas man” linked to $33+ million meth bust may be illegal alien

Texas man found with more than $16 million worth of meth in Wake County: Sheriff - CBS17

A “Texas man” charged with trafficking methamphetamine in a multi-state conspiracy may be an illegal alien, according to court documents.

On Wednesday, an operation at a location near the intersection of I-40 and NC 54 involving the Wake County Sheriff’s Office, the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation, and the Cary Police Department resulted in the seizure of 122 pounds of methamphetamine, with another 124 pounds seized in a follow-up raid in Dallas, Texas.

Jonathan Pena, 31, a resident of Texas, faces three counts of trafficking in methamphetamine and one count of conspiring to traffic methamphetamines, with the court documents citing at least one “unknown Hispanic male” conspirator.

According to a court document, a magistrate “was unable to determine if [Pena] is a legal resident or citizen of the United States” after “an inquiry of the defendant” and the “examination of relevant documents.” Another court document identifies Pena as having an out-of-state criminal history including crimes such as assault inflicting bodily injury and impaired driving.

However, the court record does not show Pena as subject to an ICE detainer; he is currently in Wake County jail under a $2 million secured bond.

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UNC Athletics deletes “Pride” post under non-politicization policy

UNC Athletics celebrated Pride month in social media post. Now, it’s deleted. - N&O

The UNC-Chapel Hill athletics account on X/Twitter removed a pro-LGBTQ “Pride Month” post after pushback, citing the UNC System’s equality policy requiring institutional neutrality, which was adopted in 2024 as a replacement for a previous policy requiring diversity, equity, and inclusion.

The now-deleted post read “The Tar Heels are for everyone 🐏” with a graphic featuring not only the rainbow of the traditional Pride Flag on a UNC-CH pattern, but also blue and pink to represent transgenderism as well as black and brown to represent non-whiteness.

Although this particular post may have been identified as violating policy by weighing in on a “view of social policy” or one of the “political controversies of the day,” LGBTQ is actively praised and promoted by UNC-CH, as represented by the continuing existence of the university’s LGBTQ Center.

The 2026 website of the UNC LGBTQ Center not only provides “resources” to promote a plethora of “intersection[al]” identities, but also showcases an annual “Lavender Graduation” and includes recognition of “awareness days” in the past month such as “International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia, and Biphobia” and “Harvey Milk Day.”

(Harvey Milk was a California politician who continues to be celebrated as an “iconic civil rights leader” by groups like the UNC LGBTQ Center despite the fact that he is known to have engaged in a sexual relationship with a 16-year-old boy who was less than half his age).

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$40k reward for violent criminals who escaped Vance jail with outside help

Vance County jail escapees were given ride after breakout, are still being assisted on the run: Sheriff - CBS17

Reward of up to $40K offered, billboards go up in search for escaped Vance County inmates - ABC11

Search for escaped Vance County inmates stretches into 3rd day - WRAL

Two North Carolina inmates escaped from a problem-ridden jail. What’s Vance County doing about it? - WRAL

Former Vance County Jail employee sees ‘red flags’ in surveillance video - WRAL

A reward of up to $40,000 is being offered in relation to the capture of two convicted felons who escaped from the Vance County Detention Center who are believed to have escaped with outside help, and remain at large.

Video shared by the Vance County Sheriff’s Office shows Michael Lewis Miles, 33, and LiShawn Knott, 21, running down a hallway in their orange jumpsuits as they broke out.

“We know they planned their escape in advance,” said Sheriff Curtis R. Brame. “They were picked up nearby, and they are being helped while they are on the run.”

Miles’ prior convictions include assault, possession of a firearm by a felon, robbery, larceny of dogs, breaking and entering, and possession of stolen goods, while Knott had been convicted of assault with a deadly weapon inflicting serious injury and inciting to riot.

At the time of his escape, Miles was being held without bond on numerous charges including fifteen drug/trafficking counts relating to marijuana, fentanyl, heroin, meth, etc., while Knott was being held without bond on more violent charges including assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill and rioting for allegedly organizing a shooting in a parking lot earlier this year, as well as possession of a stolen car, possession of schedule VI drugs, and possession of a firearm by a felon when he was caught three days later.

Miles and Knott are considered armed and dangerous; anyone with knowledge of their whereabouts is encouraged to contact the FBI at 1-800-CALL-FBI or the Henderson-Vance Crime Stoppers at 252-492-1925.

The State of North Carolina has filed to seize a behind-schedule mega-manufacturing site in Chatham County which had significant taxpayer investment, including using eminent domain to seize and tear down homes, businesses, and even a historic church.

It’s the 50th anniversary of the anti-democratic merger of the Wake County and Raleigh school systems along DEI lines. But what has this really accomplished?

Ungrateful “Muslim Arab” student highjacks Clayton graduation with leftist remarks

Clayton teen claims high school diploma withheld after graduation speech touched on ICE, genocide - WRAL

A graduate of Clayton High School claims her diploma was withheld after she went off the approved script for her speech to make politically-tinged statements about “families being torn apart by ICE” and “millions suffering in Palestine, Sudan, Congo, Afghanistan.”

In a video explaining the situation, the self-described “Muslim Arab girl” Leen Hijaz described Clayton as a “very, very racist,” describing how she had to fight for months and deceive the school administration in order to have the chance to “[speak] up for all the people in my country...that are unable to graduate. (She didn’t appear to mention which of those four foreign countries she belongs to instead of the country she lives in and was educated in.)

“The only reason why I wanted to go on that stage was because I wanted to say something and I really think that somebody had to say something because nobody else is going to speak up,” Hijaz said. “I said what I was going to say at the end of my speech, if I submitted it to the school, they would have disapproved it immediately because of how racist they are.”

Hijaz also claimed her remarks were not “political,” despite explicit referencing opposition to immigration enforcement, and a general alignment with leftist ideology.

Before I leave the stage, I have one last thing to say. Every single person here has a voice; we have the privilege to use it when millions around the world are struggling and suffering to be heard. Whether it’s the millions suffering in Palestine, Sudan, Congo, Afghanistan and so many other countries around the world, or the families being torn apart by ICE. These are not just an issue there; they are happening there, they’re happening right here as I speak. My point is, we’re not given a voice to stay silent.

— Leen Hijaz, Clayton High School graduation 2026 (as transcribed by WRAL)

@leenhijaz_never be afraid to speak up!! #freepalestine #ice #valedictorian #grad #graduation

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State attempts to seize delayed VinFast manufacturing site

NC sues VinFast to take over Chatham County site after company resists sale - N&O

North Carolina sues VinFast to take back control of Chatham County land - Axios

The State of North Carolina has filed to seize a factory site under construction in southeastern Chatham County and recover $80 million in taxpayer investment after the Vietnamese electric vehicle company failed to meet performance metrics.

The agreement signed by the startup granted the state the ability to buy back the property if VinFast failed to meet benchmarks such as vertical construction by January 2024 (which has yet to happen), local manufacturing underway by July 1, and 1,750 jobs at the site by the end of the year.

Although initially reported to be on track in 2022 to meet the milestones over the next five years to receive “one of the largest economic incentive packages in state history,” the company was already announcing delays in 2023. In 2024, VinFast announced a four-year pause with production not to begin until 2028, far past the agreed to timeframe.

To add insult to injury, not only has the state invested millions in transportation infrastructure as well as water and sewer infrastructure in nearby Sanford, the NC Department of Transportation also used eminent domain to seize and tear down the history Merry Oaks Baptist Church as well as 27 homes and 5 businesses for site.

Although North Carolina law does restrict the use of eminent domain to seize property for economic development, the church property was technically seized for a road expansion necessitated by the expected traffic generated by the factory, thus bypassing the legal protection.

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50 years of DEI: reflecting on Wake County’s anti-democratic school district merger

In 1973, the citizens of Wake County voted 3-1 to reject the DEI measure of merging the Wake County and Raleigh school districts, which was intended to promote “racial integration.” (The legislature did it anyway.)

Now, as the Wake County Public School System celebrates the 50th anniversary of the merger, the new generations of transplants and immigrants who now make up the majority of the county’s residence might vote by a similar margin in favor of such an agenda.

However, five decades of “equity” focused policies such as busing, racially gerrymandered base attendance districts, and magnet schools have entirely failed to eliminate the racial achievement or behavioral gap, suggesting that the philosophical foundation of this political ideology driving these policies is without merit.

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The History

Wake and Raleigh schools merged 50 years ago. How the region still feels the impact - N&O

Is Wake losing the school choice battle? How the district competes for students - N&O

Wake Schools plans celebrations for 50th anniversary of school system merger - WRAL

How did this merger take place? The narrative propagated by the mainstream institutions goes something like this:

In the wake of the Supreme Court discovering that access to white people was a human right, with desegregation and the prioritization of civil rights over property rights, the evil racist white families engaged in “white flight” out of the neighborhoods, cities, and school districts they had built for no reason at all other than the fact that they were white and evil.

Raleigh was apparently no exception to the phenomenon across the country, with the outlying suburbs under the Wake County Board of Education trending white and experiencing increased demand, while the schools under the jurisdiction of the Raleigh City Board of Education trended in the opposite direction on both counts.

Given the lack of any solution for improving the quality of the predominantly black schools or the performance of black students, the legislature decided on giving the residents of Wake County the opportunity to Do The Right Thing by merging the better whiter district with the worse blacker district via a non-binding referendum in 1973.

However, when the citizens overwhelmingly rejected this opportunity, the legislature made the desired decision on behalf of the people with a bill passed by the Democratic supermajorities which controlled both chambers, and signed by the Republican Governor James Holshouser.

The consolidated school district then began pursuing an explicit strategy of racial balancing, ensuring that there wasn’t too many or too few black students at any public school in Wake County, including via strategies such as busing and magnet schools.

Although the current board is overt about their “equity” policies, the district has come to rely less on direct measures of race, including in 2010 when a brief Republican majority on the county school board made national news for a plan to shift to a “neighborhood school” model.

While the left-wing social engineers are very much back in charge, the current wave of anti-DEI and school choice sentiment on the right has resulted in a withdrawal of federal support for the continuation of the “civil rights” activist agenda, and the erosion of district-level monopolization of public education with the expansion of school choice.

However, it still doesn’t take much more than a cursory look at the current “base attendance areas” to see that the current maps drawn by the school board are far more “gerrymandered” than the oft-criticized political maps, with non-contiguous districts and many students having to pass multiple schools to get to the institution chosen by the administration.

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Fifty Years of Integration: the Results

The mass migration of newcomers from all corners of the state, the country, and the globe in the past fifty years has radically changed the demographic makeup of Wake County. According to the 1980 census, the county had a population of 301,327, of which 76.8% were white and 21.8% were black.

The number of residents has approximately quadrupled in the ensuing years, with the 2020 census showing a population which is 65.5% white, 20.3% black, 11.9% Hispanic, and 10.2% Asian.

The standardized testing data shows that the project of bringing “equity” to the academic performance between racial cohorts has been an abject failure, with a metric like “Grade Level Proficiency” showing that the Wake County student demographic groups follow a pattern observed in countless contexts, where Asians (87.7%) tend to outperform whites (80.2%) who tend to outperform Hispanics (41.9%) who tend to outperform blacks (41.1%).

This pattern is so strong that knowing the demographics of a particular school’s student body can give you a fairly good guess at the overall testing results of the school, with above average schools having the most white and Asian students, while below average schools have the most blacks and Hispanics.

In fact, the top performing elementary school (White Oak) by the GLP measure is 69.4% Asian and 22.1% white, while the five worst performing schools are 0% Asian and are each less than 25% white.

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Literacy, crime, and magnet schools

Earlier this year, a video went viral on social media in which a student at a STEM magnet school in Philadelphia highlighted the inability of many of his classmates to pronounce or comprehend a sentence reading “she wore a silhouette of clothes that were extraordinary but somewhat gauche.”

One may be forgiven if one thinks that the purpose of a magnet schools is to attract the best and brightest students from across a school district to receive specialized instruction commensurate with their potential.

That is, indeed, the “attraction” which is intended to draw the desired students to magnet schools, but the purpose of the magnet schools is actually to balance those students out by getting them in the same building as some of the worst and lowest-potential students in the district as a means to achieve “equity” or “desegregation,” as chronicled on the website of the Magnet Schools of America.

This explains not only why an institution offering specialized education would have a large number of students who can’t read, but also why a school like Southeast Raleigh Magnet High School stands out for incidents of stabbing or shooting, while the even more loftily named Southern School of Energy and Sustainability in the Durham school district had a brawl/riot last year involving “at least 12 people.”

A woman accused of shooting two lawyers at the Wake County Courthouse is attracting some supporters, who feel that her schizophrenic-esque claims of a government conspiracy are worthy of “standing in solidarity” with.

A previously unreported story has come to light, in which court documents appear to indicate that a Hispanic illegal alien car thief residing in Durham impregnated a 13-year-old girl in Chatham County.

A Wake County judge (D) has been censured by the state supreme court for violating judicial ethics in regards to continuing to practice law after taking the office he won from a Republican incumbent in the November 2024 election.

A recent graduate of the Wake County Public School System committed suicide after her father got her drunk and raped her in California; he is expected to only be sentenced to three years in prison after pleading guilty last week.

A man who wasn’t happy with the marriage his mother arranged for him with an immigrant from Iraq has been sentenced to over three decades in prison after shooting his wife and dumping her body in Jordan Lake in 2023.

Wake courthouse shooter: schizophrenic, or legitimately aggrieved?

How a fight for police videos led to 2 attorneys being shot outside Wake courthouse - N&O

Woman accused of shooting attorneys at Raleigh courthouse has history of lawsuits - N&O

Woman accused of shooting Wake County attorneys will remain in jail without bond - WRAL

Ex-lawyer for accused Wake courthouse shooter says internet has distorted the facts - N&O

Former attorney of Gwendolyn White speaks out, calls for more mental health resources - WRAL

Suspect in shooting of Wake County attorneys had years-long legal battle with Rolesville police, documents show - CBS17

A prolific litigant accused of non-fatally shooting two lawyers outside the Wake County Courthouse has become someone of a “cause célèbre” for those who distrust law enforcement, the legal system, or government in general. However, is she actually an overzealous freedom fighter, or merely violent and out of touch with reality?

Gwendolyn White, 57, of Raleigh, is accused of retrieving a gun from her car after a hearing in a lawsuit she had brought against the Rolesville Police Department, and shooting two attorneys hired to represent the department as they exited the courthouse after a hearing in the case at which White had been removed from the courtroom for being “belligerent.”

Although this specific hearing was in a years-long case involving a request for bodycam footage from when RPD responded to a “verbal altercation” between White and her neighbors, White appeared to tie the case to a conspiracy involving an alleged acid attack which she claims resulted in the death of her elderly mother at the Duke Raleigh Hospital.

In a fundraiser started by White to get “justice” for her mother’s death, she claimed that her mother was denied medication for an infection, and that her mother’s body showed evidence of severe “acid burns,” which had allegedly been “poured in her open wounds.”

Although one may tend to lend a bit of gravity to allegations of such a serious nature made in the context of court, the facts paint quite a different picture in my mind. White filed a number of apparently frivolous or baseless suits over the years, to the point that a judge entered an order that she could no longer file complaints in Wake County court without either an attorney representing her, or a $500 bond.

I’ve heard directly from at least two citizens who had encountered White in a business capacity, one describing her as “mentally unwell” but not obviously dangerous, and another as a “complete basket case” who believe that cameras were being hidden in her house and she was being poisoned as her neighbors and the Ku Klux Klan were plotting against her. (One of her Facebook profiles which has yet to be taken down also contains posts along these lines.)

The concern over her mental capacity and/or behavior had also been documented in the court record of her numerous legal suits, showing that White had been found incapable to proceed in a stalking case against her, that she had been trespassed from the hospital where her mother was a patient, that her mother had been assigned a state-appointed guardian due to White’s inability to serve in this role, and that multiple nursing homes had refused to admit her mother due to White’s behavior.

Regardless of these facts, the notoriety of White’s alleged act of extreme violence has attracted supporters, many along racial lines (White is a black woman). Here’s what the creator of a “Friends of Gwendolyn E. White” Facebook page wrote about the decision to “stand[] in solidarity” with the alleged shooter, which has attracted hundreds of members:

I’ve been in Ms. White’s shoes. When Black people choose to take on the system, they are all too often disrespected and dismissed. This is what happened in this case. We want Ms. White to know that a group of citizens believe she and her mother were wronged. We want her to get a fair trial. We want her to believe that justice is possible for her.

I started this group because I believe every person deserves fairness, due process, and the right to have their full story heard. While I do not condone violence or the shooting that took place, I also understand how systems can fail, frustrate, and break people — especially Black people and families who often feel unheard and silenced.

This group is about standing in solidarity with Gwendolyn E. White and her loved ones as they navigate this difficult season. It is about ensuring that justice is pursued fairly, truthfully, and with humanity. Too many people are judged before they are fully heard. We choose to be voices for those who feel voiceless.

May justice be served in her case.

— Kashi Levette Bazemore (Friends of Gwendolyn E. White) Monday, May 25, 2026 at 6:10 PM

White is facing two counts of attempted first degree murder, and is being held without bond.

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Unreported court documents: illegal alien car thief impregnated 13-year-old?

Yet another instance of an (illegal) alien charged with sexually abusing a child in Chatham County would have flown under the radar except for the watchful eye of the @ImmigrantCrimes account on Twitter/X.

According to court documents, Bryan Lizandra Martinez-Sauceda, an 18-year-old resident of Durham, is accused of the statutory rape and kidnapping of a 12-year-old girl who was left pregnant when he was arrested in December 2025.

The search warrants for Martinez-Sauceda’s cell phone and DNA describe the victim being reported missing by her father from their home in northeast Chatham County in February 2025, reportedly in the company of a “Bryan” who was “around 17 or 18 years of age.” (Martinez-Sauceda was seventeen at the time, or five and a half years older than the victim).

The victim returned home five days later, but “was not forth coming with information.”

The victim’s father was notified by the Orange County Sheriff’s Office that a video of Martinez-Sauceda sneaking into his daughter’s bedroom had been recovered on a cell phone left in a stolen vehicle which had been found crashed the month prior.

Two weeks later, the victim notified law enforcement that Martinez-Sauceda was once again on the way to her residence, and he was arrested on outstanding warrants regarding dozens of counts of charges such as breaking or entering motor vehicles, larceny, and burglary¹, ², ³, ⁴.

At the time, the court was informed that Martinez-Sauceda had an ICE detainer in place.

Further interviews with the victim revealed that she had met Martinez-Sauceda “through social media” in January 2025, and they had engaged in sexual activity at various points in the ensuing months, including when he took her away from her home in February, as well as “just before the vehicle crash” in November. The victim also told investigators that she was pregnant, and that she believed Martinez-Sauceda to be the father.

Martinez-Sauceda has subsequently been charged in Chatham County with two counts of first-degree kidnapping, two counts of statutory rape of a child under sixteen, and one count of contributing to the delinquency of a minor¹, ². (The fact that the theft charges were dropped does not appear to have affected the charges he was linked to by the phone in the stolen vehicle, or the fact that )

However, the 33 theft-related charges against Martinez-Sauceda in Orange County were dropped in February, with the DA’s office citing “insufficient evidence” that Martinez-Sauceda committed the crimes. However, he still faces kidnapping/rape charges he was linked to by the phone allegedly in the stolen vehicle; the stolen vehicle is also cited in the charging text for contributing to the delinquency of a minor as well as at least one of the kidnapping charges.

Martinez-Sauceda also faces one count of simple assault from March 2026, as well as a Wake County DWI case from July 2025 in which he was also cited for driving without a license, a charge somewhat commonly found in previously reported on cases which involve illegal aliens.

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Wake judge censured for continuing to practice law after election

Top NC court tackles Currituck taxes, cannabis odor, Duke rates, more - Carolina Journal

In re Inquiry Concerning a Judge, No. 25-148 - NC Supreme Court Opinion

The Supreme Court of North Carolina has unanimously agreed to censure Wake County Superior Court Judge Sean A. Cole for continuing to practice law in his jurisdiction after being sworn into office in January 2025. (Cole, a Democrat, had beat out the incumbent Republican judge Rebecca Waters Holt in a three-way race by a margin of 48.3-43.8%.)

The court found that Cole had violated multiple judicial canons, which explicitly forbid judges from practicing law and require judges to uphold the integrity and independence of the judiciary, as well as act in a manner to promote public confidence in this integrity and independence.

According to the findings of the North Carolina Judicial Standards Commission, Cole took his oath of office while still having twelve outstanding despite “advice to the contrary” which he had received and continued to receive from parties such as the commission’s executive director and the county’s senior resident superior court judge.

As the court summarized the evidence, Cole “appeared as attorney of record in his own jurisdiction, and filed numerous summonses, motions to withdraw, and voluntary dismissals in multiple cases.”

Cole was also found to have made a court assistant “f[eel] pressured” to get a judge to sign a “deficient” motion to withdraw, which the per curiam opinion found “troubling,” as it “could be interpreted or perceived as a misuse of one’s position to pressure court personnel or staff.”

Justice Phil Berger Jr. wrote a concurring opinion in which he agreed with the decision to rebuke Cole, but disagreed with the court’s interpretation of its statutory and constitutional authority to “exercise[] independent judgment” in disciplinary cases rather than merely “issue a public reprimand, censure, suspend, or remove” a judge based “upon recommendation” of the commission.

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WCPSS student committed suicide after moving to California and being raped by father

Disgusting SoCal dad pleads guilty to incest after daughter killed herself — sentenced to only 3 years in California prison - NY Post

Family of teen who killed herself after sicko dad allegedly raped her demands justice - NY Post

Calif. Father Pleads Guilty to Incest Months After Teen Daughter Dies by Suicide - People

Ventura County dad faces 3 years after pleading guilty to incest involving daughter - FOX 11

Stephen Vincent Chavez, 41, has plead guilty to one felony count of incest and one misdemeanor count of furnishing alcohol to a minor in relation to the sexual abuse of his 18-year-old daughter, a graduate of the Wake County Public School System, whom he plied with alcohol and raped just days after she moved out to California to live with him.

Unfortunately, the young woman took her own life after moving back to Raleigh in the wake of the assault; according to her cousin, who had been organizing advocacy for the Ventura County District Attorney not to drop the case, the victim “left notes talking about how she couldn’t stop thinking about what he did to her.”

@crystallacachetona @crystallacachetona ♬ original sound - Crystal💕

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Despite the tragedy of the situation, Chavez is only expected to receive three years in prison and twenty years on the sex offender registry when he is sentenced next month.

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Iraqi arranged marriage: husband murdered bride, dumped body in Jordan Lake

Husband gets prison for killing wife in Chatham Co. to escape arranged marriage - N&O

Man took wife for a late-night meal at Denny’s after her Walmart shift, then shot her in the back and threw her off a bridge - Law & Crime

Husband of Apex woman found dead at Jordan Lake charged with murder - WRAL

Omar Matthew Ibrahim Drabick, 37, a resident of Apex, was sentenced to 32-40 years in prison after pleading guilty to murdering the wife he imported from Iraq and dumping her body in Jordan Lake in 2023.

The investigation by the Chatham County Sheriff’s Office revealed that Turkish native Hadeel Ghadhanfer Hikmat, 34, had married Drabick in 2022 after moving from Baghdad, Iraq as part of a marriage arranged by Drabick’s mother. (Drabick appears to be a 2nd or 3rd generation immigrant with Iraqi heritage who grew up in the Raleigh area.)

However, according to a search warrant, at least one source relayed investigators that they had been told by Drabick that the marriage was “rocky” and had never been consummated, and that Drabick was jealous of Hikmat meeting with another Iraqi man.

Hikmat’s body was found by a boater in Jordan Lake on August 29, 2023, with deputies subsequently finding a large bloodstain and two 9mm shell casings on the Farrington Rd. bridge which crosses the lake.

Investigators were able to place Drabick’s vehicle in the area around the time of the murder, identify Hikmat’s blood on his shoes and in his vehicle, find records of a matching firearm and ammunition purchased by Drabick in 2022, and recover searches on his cell phone regarding getting away with murder.

Drabick was allowed to plead down to second degree murder from the initial charge of first degree murder, which carries a mandatory sentence of death or life in prison, and was sentenced to 300-372 months, with credit for the nearly three years he has already spent in jail. Drabick also received a consecutive sentence of 80-108 months for concealing his wife’s body.

We have not one, but two stories involving illegal aliens and underage sex crimes in the majority-Hispanic Siler City, including another sting by the “predator hunters” whose work led to the arrest of an alleged pedophile in Raleigh last year.

UNC coronavirologist Ralph Baric is retiring as the federal government has officially moved to cut him off from any future grants, though the reasons given aren’t directly related to the origins of COVID-19 or his colleagues at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

What does the data show about collapsing student performance?

‘Learning recession’: NC student performance in reading, math worse than peers a decade ago - ABC11

New Education Scorecard Finds “U-Shaped Recovery”: High- and Low-Income Districts Improve Most Since 2022, While Middle-Income Districts (30-70% Federally Subsidized Lunches) Lag - Education Scorecard

Academic performance for students across America has yet to bounce back from pandemic era policy, according to recent reports and test data.

However, the “learning recession” appears to have begun before 2020, with certain education metrics already in decline when the schools were shut down.

Testing data from the twelve school districts in the Triangle Trumpet’s beat confirm this pattern, with the the standardized test scores failing to return to 2018-2019 levels.

However, one potential factor which often goes ignored in the discussion surrounding average test scores is the changing student demographics due to replacement migration and racial disparities in the exercise of school choice.

For instance, in 2024-2025, Asian students at districts across the Triangle were over three times more likely to test as “college and career ready” than black students in those same public schools.

The demographics of these districts have significantly changed in only 10 years, with the Asian and Hispanic public school populations has been steadily growing, while the number of white students has gone down.

However, the pattern of decreasing performance in standardized testing is fairly consistent across the major racial/ethnic groups in each of these public schools districts:

Although the significant increase in above-average demographics like Asians across these districts has counter-balanced the decrease in above-average white students and the increase below-average Hispanic students, the demographic replacement may be responsible for a larger portion of changing performance at the district or school level.

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Siler City: Two more Hispanic illegal immigrants identified in underage sex crimes

Despite having a population of less than 9,000, Siler City continues to punch above it’s weight in crimes involving illegal aliens and sexual abuse of children, reflective of a town which has rapidly become majority Hispanic due to (failed) immigration policy.

(Data from neighboring Wake County shows that Hispanics are overrepresented in arrests for statutory sex crimes against minors.)

Last year, two Hispanic illegal aliens were charged with abducting a 15-year-old girl from Siler City for sexual purposes, while in another case a Hispanic resident of Carrboro who had previously plead guilty to sex crimes involving children was charged with kidnapping and human trafficking a minor female who had been reported missing from Siler City.

And in another immigration and sex crime related story, the charges against an employee of the Siler City Police charged with visa-related fraud were dropped after one of the alleged victims was charged with “sex offense crimes” and went on the run.

Previous Coverage:

• Pair charged with kidnapping 15-year-old from Siler City identified as illegal aliens (No. 114 — Mar. 8, 2025)

• Kidnapping/grooming epidemic continues w/ registered sex offender accused of trafficking another underage girl in Siler City (No. 120 — Apr. 19, 2025)

• Siler City Police employee caught running visa scam (No. 140 — Sep. 6, 2025)

• Ciudad Siler (No. 147 — Oct. 25, 2025)

• Siler City Police employee ducks visa-related fraud charges after “victim” charged with sex offenses, flees country (No. 166 — Mar. 7, 2026)

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Illegal alien charged with grooming, extorting child was working for Amazon, Uber

Man held on ICE detainer, facing over 50 felony charges for exploiting minor on Snapchat - Queen City News

ICE fugitive arrested in Gaston County on dozens of child sexual exploitation charges - WCNC

Gaston County Police FAST Team Arrests Man Wanted for Multiple Child Sex Offenses - Press Release

According to court documents, an ICE detainer has been filed for Jose Isaias Martel-Arriaga, 23, of Honduras, who was arrested in Gaston County on nearly 60 counts from the Siler City Police Department for allegedly grooming and extorting a 14-year-old victim via Snapchat.

Despite being a wanted person by ICE for failure to appear for removal proceedings, court documents list Martel-Arriaga as being employed by Amazon and Uber Eats.

Martel-Arriaga faces 40 counts of first-degree sexual exploitation of a minor, nine counts of indecent liberties with a minor, four counts of solicitation of a child by computer, three counts of solicitation of a child for prostitution and three counts of extortion.

“Predator hunters” catch Siler City illegal in underage sex sting

In another unrelated case, Alex Rosen of Predator Poachers visited Siler City last week to expose another “predator” who allegedly was sending “disgusting images” to and attempting to meet up with who he believed was a 13-year-old girl.

Walter Armindo Morales De Paz, 30, was arrested by the Siler City Police and was charged with five counts of solicitation a child by computer; court records show Morales De Paz has been a resident of Chatham County for nine years, despite lacking legal immigration status, and is subject to an ICE detainer.

In a previously reported on story, Rosen busted an alleged pedophile in Raleigh in July 2025, who admitted to having child pornography on his cell phone, resulting in an arrest by Raleigh Police three months later, in which Daniel Bondowski, 52, was charged with twenty counts of second degree second exploitation of a minor.

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Follow-up

Confirmed: UNC coronavirologist to retire as feds block grant funding over gain of function misdeeds

Ralph Baric and UNC’s Biodefense Contract Racket Exposed - The DisInformation Chronicle

Virologist accused of starting COVID-19 will fight U.S. ban on funding - Science

UNC-Chapel Hill Coronavirus Researcher Ralph Baric to Retire - The Assembly

Top coronavirus researcher Ralph Baric will retire from UNC-Chapel Hill - N&O

72-year-old UNC coronavirologist Ralph Baric has announced his retirement amid public confirmation that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has suspended him from receiving federal grants while pursuing debarment to prohibit Baric from receiving future grants, as first reported by Real Clear Investigations last month.

According to the Notice of Suspension and Proposed Debarment, which Baric shared with the Science publication, the DHHS action is not directly related to the Wuhan Institute of Virology or the origins of COVID-19, but rather to a “deception” regarding prior gain-of-function research, as well as non-federal sources of grant funding.

Baric is accused of a “pattern of deception” regarding research related to a mouse-adapted strain of bat coronavirus in violation of a 2014 federal pause on gain-of-function research, as well as failing to provide data regarding the modified coronaviruses and “minim[izing] the concern about a potential increase infectivity in human cells.”

The letter also references a “clear attempt at deception” by Baric in regards to the reporting of external funding from UK-based Wellcome Trust.

As stated in the information in the record, the NIH found that, based on his own statements and published research, Dr. Ralph Baric was engaged in GoF research that was subject to the October 17, 2014, U.S. Government funding pause and NIH Notice Number: NOT-OD-15-011, Funding Pause for Certain Types of Gain-of-Function Research Projects to that effect, and continued to participate in in GoF research even after being notified of this by the NIH. Also, the NIH found that Dr. Ralph Baric was not forthcoming surrounding his Wellcome Trust grant in documents submitted to the NIH. Furthermore, as established in the information in the record, Dr. Ralph Baric is associated with multiple active NIH-funded grant awards.

— Notice of Suspension and Proposed Debarment of Ralph Baric, PhD

Baric characterized these accusations as “bulls--t” in the Science piece, where he also stated his intent to fight the debarment, which he referred to as “being strung out for being a scientist.”

Previous Coverage:

• Public Records Lawsuit Against UNC by Medical Watchdog Group Investigating COVID-19 Origins Advances (Original Article — Nov. 6, 2023)

• UNC claims “research project collaborations” are exempt from public records statute in COVID-19 origins investigation lawsuit (No. 57 — Feb. 3, 2024)

• U.S. Right to Know public records lawsuit reveals efforts to evade transparency (No. 58 — Feb. 10, 2024)

• Coronavirus Pandemic Subcommittee alleges FBI interest in UNC/COVID origins public records requests (No. 59 — Feb. 17, 2024)

• UNC COVID-19 Origins Public Records Lawsuit: what does “proprietary mean”? (No. 61 — Mar. 2, 2024)

• “Stop Gain of Function” rally at UNC-Chapel Hill (No. 62 — Mar. 9, 2024)

• UNC-linked coronavirus researcher accused of “discrepancies in testimony” (No. 66 — Apr. 6, 2024)

• UNC coronavirologist Ralph Baric: “can’t rule out” lab leak origin of COVID-19 (No. 70 — May 4, 2024)

• 3rd Party Report Finds UNC Withheld Public Records Requested by Medical Watchdog Group Investigating COVID-19 Origins (Original Article — Aug. 1, 2024)

• Judge rules in favor of UNC in public records suit brought by medical watchdog investigating COVID-19 (No. 94 — Oct. 19, 2024)

• U.S. Right to Know appeals public records lawsuit ruling vs UNC (No. 99 — Nov. 23, 2024)

• UNC lab leaks? Evidence indicates seven lab-acquired SARS-CoV-2 infections in Chapel Hill during pandemic, researchers say (interview) (Original Article — Apr. 26, 2025)

• US Right to Know files brief filed in appeal of UNC COVID-origins public records lawsuit (No. 126 — May 31, 2025)

• COVID-19 origins transparency? Legislative committee requests UNC records (No. 128 — Jun. 14, 2025)

• AG Jackson files response to COVID-19 origins public records appeal (No. 136 — Aug. 9, 2025)

• Appeals court sides with UNC in public records lawsuit over COVID-19 origins (No. 158 — Jan. 10, 2026)

• Lead COVID-19 virologist placed on leave from UNC? (No. 174 — May 2, 2026)

A “married” homosexual in Erwin is facing charges related to rape and child pornography involving multiple underage male victims as young as five, at least one of whom appears to have been the couple’s “son.”

The incoming Wake DA is proposing local funding for more prosecutorial resources; data shows that the prosecutorial districts of Wake and Durham are 3rd and 1st respectively across the state in terms of crimes per assistant district attorney.

Wake County has postponed a rubber stamp vote on a “merger” between WakeMed and Atrium Health after pushback from the public, as well as local and state officials from both parties.

Harnett homosexual “dads” charged with child pornography/grooming/rape involving “son(s)”

Two Harnett County men arrested on child sex crimes - WRAL

2 arrested in Harnett County on child sex crime charges after sheriff’s office gets NCSBI cybertips - CBS17

Cape Fear Valley worker, spouse accused in sex crimes against children - ABC11

Harnett Detectives Arrest Two Men Following NC SBI Cybertip Investigation - JoCo Report

A child pornography investigation into a homosexual couple in Harnett County has resulted in charges for grooming and making sexual content of a 15-year-old boy, and raping a 5-year-old.

According to a search warrant executed last week, the Harnett County Sheriff’s Office Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force received a tip in March by way of the NC State Bureau of Investigation implicating Joshua Lee Gilliam aka Josh Gilliam-Lynch, 39, of Erwin, in regards to two videos of prepubescent boys being raped which had been uploaded to Snapchat. The ICAC task force had previously received a tip in May 2025 with Gilliam’s “husband” Ronald Wayne Lynch, 39, identified as the suspect, though the document does not specify why no charges were filed.

The investigation by the HCSO resulted in charges for the pair as creators of child sexual abuse material, not merely its possession and distribution. Gilliam has been accused of using, inducing, encouraging, or facilitating the creation of CSAM involving a 15-year-old male victim, while Lynch is accused of actually taking the images for “pecuniary gain.”

Gilliam is also accused of sexually abusing another victim, aged six years old.

A Facebook profile associated with Gilliam confirms that the pair is a “married” homosexual couple who “have 5 boys,” whom they have involved in LGBTQ activism.

Gilliam is being held in jail under a $1 million secured bond, facing one count each of first degree sexual exploitation of a minor, first degree statutory sexual offense, and taking indecent liberties with a child.

Lynch is being held in jail under a $360,000 secured bond, facing two counts of first degree sexual exploitation of a minor and one count of second degree sexual exploitation of a minor.

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Do our largest counties suffer from a dearth of prosecutors?

Incoming Wake DA asks county for $600K for more prosecutors, mental health court - N&O

In an election year where law and order weighs heavy on the minds of North Carolinians, are there any public safety measures that can be agreed on by both sides of the political aisle?

Although incoming Wake District Attorney Wiley Nickel has promised left-wing priorities such as deprioritizing marijuana crimes and prosecuting immigration officials, he is also proposing an increase in staffing and funding at the DA’s office to help manage the high caseload and improve the swiftness of justice.

The prosecutorial districts may be drawn along county lines and the district attorney election may happen locally, but the allocation of full-time assistant district attorneys is set by the state, ranging from 6 ADAs in Montgomery and Stanly counties to 71 in Mecklenburg County, which was recently increased in response to the murder of Iryna Zarutska.

However, the distribution of these ADA positions by the state is inconsistent, with a large variance in the concentration of ADAs in comparison to either crime or population.

For instance, although Wake has a slight margin as the state’s largest county, it only has 44 ADA positions allocated compared to 71 in Mecklenburg. In fact, the Wake district has the fewest ADAs compared to its population, with only 3.56 per 100k residents. On the other end of the scale, Prosecutorial District 21 (Anson, Richmond, & Scotland) has 11.34 ADAs per 100k.

It is perhaps more fair to judge the allocation of prosecutorial resources according to the crime rates in the respective districts, as a district with more criminals would surely need more prosecutors than a district with few criminals.

Going off of the “index offenses” reported by the State Bureau of Investigation, the variance in distribution is even more pronounced, with 96.38 index offenses per ADA position in Prosecutorial District 35 (Avery, Madison, Mitchell, Watauga, & Yancey) compared to 760.61 in the Durham district.

Mecklenburg comes second with the recent addition of 10 ADA positions, for a rate of 678.45 index offenses per ADA, Wake comes in third with 591.52, and Prosecutorial District 18 (Chatham & Orange) comes in eighth with 431.20. (The best staffed district in the Triangle, by this metric, is Johnston with 238.10 index offenses per ADA).

Under Nickel’s proposal, Wake County would chip in $603,000 for 5 ADAs and a mental health court, Raleigh would contribute $168,826 for two ADAs and two legal assistants, and Cary and Apex would each contribute $84,413 for one ADA and one legal assistant.

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Wake County postpones vote on WakeMed merger after public backlash

Atrium poised to take over WakeMed in Triangle healthcare shakeup - WUNC

WakeMed is seeking a combination with Atrium Health, the state’s largest hospital network - Axios

State, local officials, lawmakers press for delay on WakeMed/Atrium deal - NC Health News

What to know about WakeMed’s deal with Atrium as NC officials raise alarms - WRAL

Wake County Board of Commissioners has delayed a vote in which it was expected to approve the transfer of the WakeMed hospital system to Atrium Health as part of its “consent agenda” without public input.

The vote was delayed after negative response, including from a number of state officials such as State Treasurer Brad Briner (R), State Auditor Dave Boliek (R), Rep. Erin Paré (R), Rep. Mike Schietzelt (R), Rep. Sarah Crawford (D), Sen. Jay Chaudhuri (D), and Raleigh Mayor Janet Cowell (D).

WakeMed was originally founded by the county as a public hospital in 1955 before becoming a private non-profit organization in 1997, with the county still retaining certain control.

Although proponents of the deal tout a greater access to capital and resources as part of a larger system, skeptics see it as giving away a public asset, which could result in higher prices for no benefit.

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Harnett County detention officers charged over assaulting inmate

3 ex-Harnett County jail officers arrested after inmate assaulted twice, NCSBI investigating - CBS17

3 Harnett detention officers accused of assault, using pepper spray on inmate - WRAL

3 former Harnett County detention officers facing charges - ABC11

SBI: Incidents at Harnett County Jail Lead to Arrest of Three Former Officers - JoCo Report

Press Release - NC SBI

A total of three detention officers have been fired from the Harnett County Sheriff’s Office and face charges relating to an inmate assaulted by officers on at least two occasions in December at the county jail.

According to the charging documents, Adam Russell Isbell, 39, used OC spray on the inmate and punched him repeatedly on December 27, while Joseph Austin Collins, 28, is accused of striking the inmate in the head with an OC cannister in the decontamination room at the jail three days later. In addition, Lenora Guerrant Dawson, 60, has been charged with enabling the second assault as the on-duty supervisor.

The incidents were reported several days later; an internal investigation by the HCSO found that the officers had violated jail use of force policies, leading to their termination, while an independent investigation by the NC State Bureau of Investigation resulted in charges of assault and battery for Isbell and Collins, and a charge of injury to prisoner by jailer for Dawson. (1, 2, 3)

The three have each been released on bonds ranging between $2,000-$5,000.

Legislators have dropped a plan to allow Franklin County to buy or seize land in neighboring counties without the permission of their governments. But the underlying fight is far from over, with Franklin seeking a long-term water supply from Kerr Lake to support the expected migration of tens of thousands of new residents to the county.

A South Carolina man has been arrested in Apex after police received a report of a suspicious vehicle covered odd messages, including one which read “HEADED TO WSH TO KILL THE PRES.”

For years, skeptics of the mainstream narrative on the origins of the coronavirus have cast their eyes towards the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, home of Ralph Baric and his coronavirus gain-of-function research. According to a recent report, Baric has been placed on leave from UNC, and has been removed from federal grants.

Another man has been fatally stabbed near a Durham greenway where another man was fatally stabbed in March; locals say the police did nothing in the meantime to stop the rampant criminality by the homeless who have camped nearby.

Teachers and their supporters gathered in Raleigh on a socialist holiday to protest for higher wages as well as various left-wing causes, leading to classes cancelled or whole districts shut down in Chatham, Durham, Orange, and Wake.

Wake schools bring DEI to America 250

Wake schools will use an ‘inclusive lens’ to explore America’s 250th anniversary - N&O

Wake schools plans lessons around ‘America 250’ - WRAL

America 250: Celebrating the 250th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence - WCPSS School Guidance

America 250: Celebrating the 250th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence - WCPSS Student Achievement Committee

Documents issued by the Wake County Public School System reveal that the district intends its educators to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence with a focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion, as well as a reimagining of our nation’s history to suit the current progressive agenda.

Each of the four “desired outcomes” listed in a guidance document revolve around DEI, such as “highlight[ing] the diverse voices (Indigenous, enslaved, immigrant, and women),” ensuring the “work is inclusive” for a “diverse school community,” and “equity practices” such as “disrupt[ing] disproportionality” and “partner[ing] equitably with families/caregivers.”

The objectives make it clear that instead of promoting American culture and heritage, the instructors are to cater to “diverse” cultures and “diverse” heritages, ensuring that “EVERY student accurately sees their culture and heritage reflected in their learning.”

This focus on non-American culture and heritage is reflected in most of a page being taken up with a comparison between cultural “appreciation” vs cultural “appropriation.” (It is doubtful whether the same standard of “honoring, respecting, and showing empathy” would be applied to the culture of the founding fathers, the most moderate of whom would be considered evil racist far-right extremists by the median Wake County school board member).

The suggested activities take an activist bent as well, with more references to Civil Rights activists than to the men who signed the Declaration, or fought for American freedom in the Revolution. Beginning with kindergarteners, the Revolution given a progressive framing of “people want[ing] new rules” and “they saw a rule that wasn’t fair, so they worked together to change it” rather than that the colonists were merely insisting on the ancient rights of their English heritage, established on the fields of Runnymede and in the halls of Westminster.

Additionally, if the overt references to diversity, equity, and inclusion are not sufficient to draw a direct line to DEI, one of the documents authors, Dr. Janeen Perry-Campbell, was a student of critical race theory who was employed as a Director of DEI at a Virginia school district role prior to being hired at the Wake County Public Schools Office of Equity Affairs.

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Franklin County fights for migrants’ water access

Water wars: Booming population, drought driving tension in NC statehouse and beyond - WRAL

Protesters flood legislature, succeed in defeating land-grab bill over water access - WRAL

Residents express concerns over Kerr Reservoir reallocation - Henderson Dispatch

Citizens group: Find another water source and remain in Regional Water System - Warren Record

Franklin County Water: A Generational Challenge - Franklin County

An attempt to give Franklin County power to purchase or seize land in Halifax, Vance, or Warren without the permission of their respective county governments has been dropped after public outcry.

According to Rep. Matthew Winslow (R-Franklin), the purpose of this provision was to secure increased water resources for future development in Franklin County after failed negotiations to obtain water from Kerr Lake through the current water utility, which is owned by Henderson, Oxford, and Warren County.

Although Winslow claimed that “the provision is strictly for constructing a direct raw water line from Kerr Lake to a future Franklin County treatment facility,” the actual proposed text of the bill shows no such restriction on the power being granted:

PART V. FRANKLIN COUNTY PROPERTY ACQUISITIONS
SECTION 5. Notwithstanding the provisions of G.S. 153A-15, the County of Franklin may acquire, including by condemnation, real property or an interest in real property located in Halifax, Vance, or Warren County, without the consent or approval of the other county’s Board of Commissioners.

— Senate Bill 214 (4/21/2026)

However, after the strong negative reaction from citizens and their elected representatives in the counties from which the approval power was being stripped, House Speaker Destin Hall (R-Caldwell) announced that the provision would be removed from the bill, but could be brought back if the involved parties didn’t “work it out.”

Ultimately, although the counties bordering the body of water and currently benefitting from its storage capabilities may feel the greatest sense of ownership, John H. Kerr Reservoir aka Kerr Lake was created by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 1952, and it is to the USACE that Franklin County directed a request in December for 15.7 million gallon per day.

A recent document on the Franklin County website cites “growth” as the explanation for the county’s water demand, with the population expected to double by 2060.

To be clear, the county is not pursuing the expected water needs of its current citizens or their posterity; instead, it is planning for the future needs of the thousands and thousands of migrants expected to “flood” into the county from across the state, across the county, and across the world. (The last two of which can both be linked to federal immigration policy.)

Would-be Trump assassin intercepted in Apex

Man arrested in Apex accused threatening President Trump now faces federal charges - CBS17

Secret Service places detainer on SC man accused of threatening message toward the President - ABC11

Man accused of threatening Trump will appear in federal court Monday - WRAL

Who is the man accused of making threats against the president at an Apex car wash? - N&O

A South Carolina man arrested in Apex faces charges including communicating threats against the president just days after a gunman stormed the White House Correspondents’ Association and allegedly shooting a Secret Service agent.

Daniel Rodney Swain, 41, was charged by Apex Police with possession of methamphetamine, resisting a public officer, and displaying a fictitious license plate after officers responded to a call regarding a suspicious vehicle at a local car wash.

As photos captured by media and law enforcement show, the windows of Swain’s vehicle were covered with messages, one of which read “HEADED TO WSH TO KILL THE PRES.”

According to the federal complaint regarding the threat, Swain had been previously interviewed by the Secret Service regarding a post he made about the attention that would be gathered by shooting the president’s father. (President Trump’s father died in 1999 at the age of 93.)

The complaint also cites a more recent Facebook post by Swain in which he wrote that “somebody oughta go put a round in his f---ing head and then do it to his son and do it to his wife and then do it to the rest of Congress.”

The vehicular messages and Facebook posts also referenced the deaths of Swain’s family members, which he believed the government was responsible for.

Swain told investigators that he was merely in North Carolina to look for work in the Research Triangle Park area and take pictures of local buildings with his drone, before possibly eventually heading to DC exercise his First Amendment rights.

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Follow-ups

Lead COVID-19 virologist placed on leave from UNC?

COVID Cover-Up: Hiding Star Researcher Ralph Baric’s Ties to Global Pandemic - Real Clear Investigations

Did Ralph Baric at UNC Create SARS-CoV-2? - Brownstone Institute

According to exclusive reporting by Real Clear Investigations, coronavirologist Ralph Baric has been placed on leave from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and has been removed from all his grants from the National Institutes of Health.

Baric’s award-winning internationally-acclaimed expertise on coronaviruses has also brought scrutiny to UNC-CH, with skeptics continuing to press on in their investigation of the previously-suppressed theory that COVID-19 may have leaked from a laboratory.

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, Baric’s work included the “Project DEFUSE” proposal, which has been described as a “smoking gun“ or a COVID-19 “blueprint“ for its proposed gain-of-function research on bat coronaviruses. (The authors privately noted was “downplaying” the planned involvement of researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), with Baric himself writing that “US researchers will likely freak out” if they found out that the viruses in question would be “grown” under substandard biosafety conditions.)

The efforts to get past the censorship, coverups, and repression of this line of inquiry have included a lawsuit by medical watchdog group U.S. Right to Know against UNC over its refusal to hand over certain records, including those related to Baric and his associations with the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

According to the RCI report, UNC has been uncooperative with NIH officials investigating Baric’s coronavirus research, with one anonymous source attributing the university’s lack of transparency to a cognizance of complicity:

A senior official inside the Department of Health and Human Services told RCI that the answer is obvious. After reviewing the government’s classified material, the official said that UNC is terrified that the public will learn that they were complicit in starting the pandemic.

“Baric designed the gun,” he said. “But the Chinese built it, and then they pulled the trigger.”

Previous Coverage:

• Public Records Lawsuit Against UNC by Medical Watchdog Group Investigating COVID-19 Origins Advances (Original Article — Nov. 6, 2023)

• UNC claims “research project collaborations” are exempt from public records statute in COVID-19 origins investigation lawsuit (No. 57 — Feb. 3, 2024)

• U.S. Right to Know public records lawsuit reveals efforts to evade transparency (No. 58 — Feb. 10, 2024)

• Coronavirus Pandemic Subcommittee alleges FBI interest in UNC/COVID origins public records requests (No. 59 — Feb. 17, 2024)

• UNC COVID-19 Origins Public Records Lawsuit: what does “proprietary mean”? (No. 61 — Mar. 2, 2024)

• “Stop Gain of Function” rally at UNC-Chapel Hill (No. 62 — Mar. 9, 2024)

• UNC-linked coronavirus researcher accused of “discrepancies in testimony” (No. 66 — Apr. 6, 2024)

• UNC coronavirologist Ralph Baric: “can’t rule out” lab leak origin of COVID-19 (No. 70 — May 4, 2024)

• 3rd Party Report Finds UNC Withheld Public Records Requested by Medical Watchdog Group Investigating COVID-19 Origins (Original Article — Aug. 1, 2024)

• Judge rules in favor of UNC in public records suit brought by medical watchdog investigating COVID-19 (No. 94 — Oct. 19, 2024)

• U.S. Right to Know appeals public records lawsuit ruling vs UNC (No. 99 — Nov. 23, 2024)

• UNC lab leaks? Evidence indicates seven lab-acquired SARS-CoV-2 infections in Chapel Hill during pandemic, researchers say (interview) (Original Article — Apr. 26, 2025)

• US Right to Know files brief filed in appeal of UNC COVID-origins public records lawsuit (No. 126 — May 31, 2025)

• COVID-19 origins transparency? Legislative committee requests UNC records (No. 128 — Jun. 14, 2025)

• AG Jackson files response to COVID-19 origins public records appeal (No. 136 — Aug. 9, 2025)

• Appeals court sides with UNC in public records lawsuit over COVID-19 origins (No. 158 — Jan. 10, 2026)

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Another man fatally stabbed near homeless-infested Durham greenway

Durham Police investigate deadly stabbing near American Tobacco Trail - ABC11

Man stabbed to death along American Tobacco Trail in Durham - WRAL

Man stabbed to death in area of American Tobacco Trail in Durham, police say - CBS17

Durham police investigate second stabbing in 2 months near American Tobacco Trail - N&O

Howard Reade, 44, has been found fatally stabbed near the same intersection of the American Tobacco Trail where a man was fatally stabbed in March, which has been noted for years as a particularly perilous area due to the presence of homeless camps, as well as numerous documented incidents of violence and sexual assault

There’s few details available on this latest stabbing besides the victim and location; however, as an update in our coverage of the last stabbing in this location, the Durham Police did locate and arrest LaRue Barbee, the repeat violent offender named as the suspect in the murder of Chesleigh Eloyd Lyons.

According to locals familiar with the area interviewed by WRAL and the News & Observer, the “open-air drug market” and rampant criminality of the area have not been checked by police intervention since the March murder.

Previous Coverage:

• Man fatally stabbed on section of Durham greenway known for homeless, violence (No. 167 — Mar. 14, 2026)

• Repeat violent criminal named as suspect in deadly American Tobacco Trail stabbing (No. 169 — Mar. 28, 2026)

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Protest Watch

Teachers’ union strikes for better pay and left-wing causes on socialist holiday

Senate District 26 Republican candidate Sam Page spotted at NCAE May Day protest - North State Journal

Thousands from across NC join teachers protest in Raleigh. Catch up on Friday’s rally - N&O

Teacher rally: NC educators focus on funding, pay issues as thousands march in Raleigh - WRAL

On Friday, at least 22 school districts representing over 700k students closed down or cancelled classes in association with the protest by the North Carolina Association of Educators in Raleigh, which the teachers’ union characterized as “ma[king] the powerful choice to support their workers.” (These districts include Chapel Hill-Carrboro, Chatham, Durham, Orange, and Wake.)

Increasing teacher pay could theoretically be a bipartisan issue, with local Democrats and Republicans in the NC House seeking to raise the starting teacher salary to $50,000, and Rockingham Sheriff Sam Page (Republican nominee for Senate District 26) seen speaking with the union president at the rally.

However, the thousands of teachers and their supporters who gathered at the state’s capital for “Kids over Corporations” on the historically socialist May Day did so with an overtly left-wing agenda, matching the political tenor of the union. In addition to increasing for public schools, the event called for

• Ending “corporate tax breaks”

• Eliminating private school vouchers

• Making the “wealthy finally pay what they owe” (presumably shifting an even more disproportionate amount of the tax burden onto their shoulders)

• Enacting “fair maps” for elections

This specific protest was organized as part of the “May Day Strong” nationwide 50501-associated anti-Trump event, which also called for ““No ICE. No War.,” “Tax the rich,” and “Hands off our vote” with additional Triangle-area events listed in Durham and Chapel Hill.

A Jamaican man has been charged with a home invasion and rape in Benson while working as an officer at the town’s police department.

An allegedly suicidal former Chapel Hill police officer has been accused of planning a mass shooting in Louisiana after his family told police that he had been threatening to harm “Black people.”

An (illegal) alien in Garner has been charged with sexually abusing a 10-year-old girl in 2019.

With yet another hearing in which Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools officials defended the presence of explicit LGBTQ material in elementary school libraries, Republicans in the state legislature have filed a “CHCCS Act” to improve enforcement of the Parents’ Bill of Rights.

With the mayor of Creedmoor refusing to resign, despite his recent DWI arrest, the city’s board of commissioners has cut down his powers.

Can we be sure it’s not the SPLC distributing neo-Nazi material in Clayton?

White supremacist and neo-Nazi signs found at Clayton Park - WRAL

Flyers with white supremacy symbols, images posted at Clayton park, police say - CBS17

Last week, mainstream media outlets like WRAL and CBS17 covered the discovery of “white supremacist and neo-Nazi” flyers and vandalism at East Clayton Community Park in Johnston County.

It is perhaps entirely coincidental that the Southern Poverty Law Center was indicted days before in federal court related to their alleged secret funding of organizations/individuals which the SPLC based their fundraising on opposing.

For years, the mainstream media has taken their cue from the SPLC, amplifying the extremely scarce dyed-in-the-wool white nationalists or white supremacists as a weapon to smear center-right organizations like Moms for Liberty or Turning Point USA.

Meanwhile, the normalization of political violence on the left is downplayed, whether it’s continued assassination attempts, open calls for French Revolution-style mass slaughter, or the street-level beatdowns administered by antifa and leftist activists.

For instance, can you imagine WRAL sending reporters down to cover these anarchist stickers calling for anarchist violent revolution/terrorism which I came across when covering a black bloc demonstration in Durham last June? I think not...

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Immigrant police officer charged with home invasion rape

Former Benson Police Officer Charged With Rape, Kidnapping - JoCo Report

Judge orders $5 million bond for ex-cop charged in ongoing Benson rape, kidnapping case: NCSBI - CBS17

$5M bond set for Benson police officer accused of rape and involuntary sexual servitude - WRAL

Press Release - Town of Benson

Press Release - NC State Bureau of Investigation

Peter Alphonso Blake, 33, has been charged with breaking into a Benson home and raping the inhabitant earlier this month while an officer of the town’s police department: Blake was reportedly fired Wednesday ahead of being arrested by the State Bureau of Investigation.

Prior to being hired by the Benson Police Department in August 2025, Blake was an officer with the Raleigh Police Department from April 2022 to July 2023.

Blake is charged with first degree forcible rape, first degree burglary, first degree kidnapping, and sexual servitude of an adult victim; Blake faces a maximum penalty of life in prison, which the Johnston County District Attorney intends to seek.

Blake is being held on a $5,000,000 secured bond, which was granted over the DA’s argument that he should be held without bond. The DA cited in part Blake’s ties to his nation of origin, Jamaica, which he has returned to visit every year since immigrating to America at the age of nine.

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Former Chapel Hill police officer accused of planning mass shooting of black festivalgoers in Louisiana

Ex-police officer accused of planning mass shooting in New Orleans allegedly wanted to ‘harm Black people’ - 4WWL

Former Chapel Hill police officer arrested in Florida over alleged New Orleans mass shooting threat - ABC11

New Orleans mass shooting plan was thwarted by network of law enforcement. Here’s what we know - CNN

Press Release - Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office

A 15-year veteran of the Chapel Hill Police Department was arrested in the Florida panhandle, allegedly on the way from North Carolina to commit suicide by cop in a racially motivated mass shooting at a festival in New Orleans.

According to a bulletin by Burlington Police and the Alamance County Sheriff’s Office, Christopher Gillum was sought as a “missing/suicidal person” on April 22. However, when the sheriff’s office in Okaloosa County, FL was able to make contact with Gillum after he was located using Flock’s license plate reader system, he was released as he did not “present any grounds for involuntary commitment or criminal charges,” despite the bulletin attributing to his family the claim that Gillum had “expressed recent threats to harm ‘black people,’”

Gillum was relocated and arrested in the same county on Wednesday, with the sheriff department announcing he was arrested at a hotel with a handgun and 200 rounds of ammunition, with a photo showing a rather small handgun with mismatched ammunition:

Gillum was a police officer in Chapel Hill between 2004 and 2019; since then he has worked in various law enforcement roles including police officer in Carolina Beach, detention officer and deputy at the Orange County Sheriff’s Office, and a non-sworn employee back in Chapel Hill.

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(Illegal) alien charged with sexually abusing 10-year-old girl

Rigoberto Paz-Rivera, 66, has been charged by Garner Police with statutory rape of a child and indecent liberties with a child for allegedly abusing a 10-year-old girl in 2019.

According to the court records, the magistrate was unable to determine that Paz-Rivera is a citizen or legal resident, and an ICE detainer has been issued.

Paz-Rivera is being held without bond.

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Follow-ups

Republicans file “CHCCS Act” to tighten Parents’ Bill of Rights

Oversight lawmakers accuse Chapel Hill-Carrboro Schools of skirting Parents’ Bill of Rights law - North State Journal

Lawmakers Threaten Chapel Hill-Carrboro Schools Over Books, Policies on Gender - INDY

New bill seeks financial penalties for schools that violate the ‘Parents’ Bill of Rights’ - WUNC

House Majority Leader Brenden Jones (R-Columbus, Robeson) has filed a “CHCCS Act” on the same day as yet another legislative oversight hearing in which officials from the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools failed to convince Republicans on the NC House Oversight Committee that the district is in compliance with the Parents’ Bill of Rights.

When challenged on pro-LGBTQ books in elementary school libraries, including one picturing a homosexual man in bondage gear at a “Pride” event, Superintendent Rodney Trice defended the explicit material on the grounds that it’s “certainly something a child may see in their community.”

The Curriculum Honesty, Compliance, and Child Safety (CHCCS) Act (HB-1043) would increase clarity and give teeth to the Parents’ Bill of Rights, which included only limited enforcement mechanisms. The new provisions include:

• clarifies definition of “curriculum”

• strengthening parents ability to sue for violations

• giving State Auditor authority to audit compliance

• withholding central office administration funding for noncompliant school districts

Previous coverage:

• Orange County school boards still defying Parents’ Bill of Rights (No. 147 — Oct. 25, 2025)

• House Oversight Committee investigates Chapel Hill–Carrboro City Schools (No. 148 — Nov. 1, 2025)

• Evidence of “wokeness” highlighted ahead of oversight hearing into Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools (No. 152 — Nov. 29, 2025)

• CHCCS superintendent backtracks on defying legislature in hearing (No. 154 — Dec. 13, 2025)

• CHCCS called back before legislators over LGBTQ books for elementary schoolers (No. 170 — Apr. 4, 2026)

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Creedmoor mayor declines resignation after DWI arrest; board strips powers

Creedmoor officials start ‘amotion’ process for removing mayor from office - Ledger News

State legislator adds voice to those calling for Downey’s resignation - Ledger News

Mayor of NC city refused to resign after DWI charge. How city stripped his powers - [N&O](https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article315498509.html

Creedmoor mayor stripped of city powers by Board of Commissioners after DWI charge, past convictions - CBS17

Mayor Antwane Downey has been stripped of certain powers by the Creedmoor Board of Commissioners after being charged with his fifth DWI in February.

Although the it requires a lengthier process to actually remove an elected official like Downey from office, the board voted to prohibit him from activities such as representing the city in an official capacity at events, use city-owned communication media, or even access the City Hall (except for public meetings).

Downey publicly apologized to residents, but declined to accede to the demands for his resignation, which have come from the board as well as Rep. Bryan Cohn (D-Granville, Vance).

Previous Coverage:

• Creedmoor mayor charged with DWI (again) (No. 164 — Feb. 21, 2026)

ICYMI: a transgender-identifying woman has ben sentenced to prison for threatening the VA a mass shooting in Raleigh over government-provided testosterone.

Pittsboro Police have made an arrest in the “massage parlor” brothel investigation (you’ll never guess the race of the suspect).

Charges have been dropped against the man accused of stabbing four victims in Raleigh, after video shows he was acting in self-defense.

UNC-Chapel Hill has reversed course on investigating a student organization for making offensive satire after a free speech watchdog got involved.

Raleigh Police accused of violating rights of evangelist

Raleigh Police Department Improperly Restricts Religious Speech in Public - Press Release

Christian legal ministry Liberty Counsel has sent a demand letter to the Raleigh Police Department on behalf of a local evangelist, alleging that the RPD has violated his constitutional rights at a number of public events by hindering the sharing of the gospel through street preaching and distributing tracts.

According to the letter, Tommy Waltz and his Gospel of God Ministries have been told to leave public areas, stop using amplification, or stop distributing tracts at events including Brewgaloo in 2023, Packapalooza in 2025, the State Fair in 2025, and the Bluegrass Festival in 2025.

Although courts have ruled that the government may place some restrictions on traditional public forums, such as sidewalks, the letter argues that the RPD’s actions were not “narrowly tailored to serve a significant government interest” such as “eliminating excessive noise or promoting public safety,” as the incidents involved the evangelists following sound ordinances while ensuring they were a sufficient distance from the events to not be a disturbance.

In conclusion, the letter asks the RPD to confirm in writing that the evangelists will not be asked to leave or refrain from using amplification at these public events in the future.

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ICYMI: Homeless mentally ill transgender woman sentenced for threatening VA with mass shooting over Trump’s “gender affirming care” ban

Ashley “Elijah” Moore has been sentenced to 13 months in prison for sending a threatening email to the Department of Veterans Affairs in August 2025 which promised a “bloodbath in Raleigh” after finding difficulty in “get [her] next testosterone injection” from the government agency.

More details:

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Follow-ups

Arrest made in Pittsboro brothel investigation

Arrest Made in Blue Jade Spa Investigation - Press Release

If you intuited that the “Blue Jade Spa” being investigated by the Pittsboro Police for sex trafficking was likely run by an Asian, based on the pattern of previous “massage parlor” brothel investigations, you would be correct.

Chao Li, 37, a resident of Garner, was taken into custody in Johnston County on charges¹ ² of promoting prostitution, aiding and abetting prostitution, unlicensed practice of massage/bodywork, advertising without a license, and operating and unlicensed establishment.

Li was released on a secured bond of $3,000 and an unsecured bond of $5,000; court documents indicate he is either a citizen or a legal resident of the United States.

Although previous arrests of similar illegal enterprises in the Triangle have resulted in the arrests of individuals sharing the same last name, Quan Chun Li and Jin Hua Li, my basic research did not turn up any evidence of a connection there: Li is an extremely common surname in China, making up over 7% of the country’s population.

Previous Coverage:

• Pittsboro police investigate sex trafficking at massage parlor (No. 171 — Apr. 11, 2026)

- 北卡州 No.1華人房地產公司 - (translation: North Carolina’s #1 Chinese Real Estate Company)

I did however stumble across a fun aside, the fact that Chao Li’s wife appears to work for a real estate company based out of Apex which appears to be primarily staffed with Asians, and advertises the sale of local homes in the Chinese language.

Property records in Wake, Durham, and Orange show that out of 22 properties referenced in these five Chinese language posts (which are the most recent on the HHomes Realty LLC Facebook page), 16 of the homes currently belong to owners with Asian/Chinese names.

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Video shows Raleigh stabber was acting in self defense, charges dropped

Wake DA’s office drops charges against man accused in downtown Raleigh stabbings - N&O

Charges dropped against man accused of stabbing 6 in downtown Raleigh - WRAL

Charges dropped against man in downtown Raleigh stabbings - ABC11

Downtown Raleigh stabbing charges dropped against man accused of injuring five - CBS17

The charges against a knifeman who seriously injured four others in an incident on April 10 have been dropped after prosecutors reviewed video showing that his use of force was justified in self-defense.

According to the Wake County District Attorney’s Office, the new evidence indicated that Frank Lalich had actually been “sucker punched” and was being kicked while on the ground when he used a knife in self defense.

It is unclear whether any of the approximately twenty other individuals described by witnesses as being involved in the incident will be facing charges.

Previous Coverage:

• Six stabbed in late-night Raleigh brawl (No. 171 — Apr. 11, 2026)

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UNC “retracts” investigation of student organization for offensive satire

In free speech win, UNC retracts statement announcing investigation into student satire - College Fix

It’s official: making skits in mockery of racism is once again allowed on the UNC-Chapel Hill campus, even if students or alumni go viral for being offended at a (perhaps deliberate) misinterpretation.

After receiving a letter from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression raising concern about the unconstitutional “chilling” effect of the university’s response to April Fool’s Day satire, which many found offensive, the university reversed course: “For the record, the University is not investigating any student or student group for the articles that appeared in the April 1, 2026 edition of The Daily Tar Heel or for the recent Hill After Hours video.”

“Our April 6, 2026 statement was issued out of concern for members of our community, many of whom were clearly distressed,” the update continued. “That statement was in no way intended to chill free speech on our campus, and we retract those portions of our message that may have suggested our students and student groups were engaged in unlawful conduct or conduct that could subject them to discipline.”

Although it may be framed as a clarification, it appears that this new statement in response to the first amendment concerns is a 180-degree turn from the original statement, which did claim an ongoing investigation into “a video that was produced by a registered student organization:”

“Student Affairs is investigating this incident to determine more information about how and by whom the video was authorized and produced as well as next steps needed to address concerns.”

Previous Coverage:

• April Fool’s Day satire gets “cancelled” at UNC (No. 170 — Apr. 4, 2026)

• UNC student org. under investigation for mocking racism (No. 171 — Apr. 11, 2026)

A late-night Raleigh stabbing incident sent six to the hospital, but witnesses describe it as more of a mass brawl which escalated, rather than any sort of active stabber event.

Pittsboro police raided a massage parlor after finding evidence of illegal sexual activity and potential human trafficking, following a pattern of Asian owned/operated brothels disguised as massage parlors which have been busted across the Triangle over the last decade.

Left-wing activists accused a counter-protester in a “Support ICE” decorated truck of “swerv[ing]” and “knock[ing] down” an anti-Trump protester at the recent No Kings protest in Raleigh, but police say they that such a collision was neither observed by nor reported to nearby officers.

A free speech watchdog is jumping in after a UNC-Chapel Hill senior vice provost promised to investigate a student organization for making a satirical video mocking racism.

ICE deports “Durham family” (actually Biden-era Honduran “refugees”)

Immigrant advocates in North Carolina say family was deported without due process - ABC News

Two Durham Elementary Students and Their Parents Were Detained and Deported In the Span of Three Days - INDY Week

State, city leaders call for transparency in Durham family’s deportation - CBS17

Two Durham Public Schools students detained, deported by ICE - WRAL

Was a Durham family “kidnapped” in the middle of the day, or did ICE merely return a family of illegitimate “asylum” applicants who skipped a court date to their home, saving taxpayers the $22.7k spent annually by the Durham Public Schools to educate each of their two elementary school children?

The former is the framing adopted by Siembra NC and State Sen. Sophia Chitlik (D-Durham) in a press conference held on Thursday, neither of whom seem to have ever found a foreigner they would exclude from our country (not even criminals convicted of violent offenses).

Both Siembra NC and the Department of Homeland Security agree that Nelson Ramon Espinoza Sierra, Dacia Mariela Pacheco Galindo, and their two children Genesis Elizabeth Espinoza Pacheco and Denis Daniel Espinoza Pacheco were released into the interior of our country after traveling from their home country of Honduras to cross the border without prior authorization.

DHS characterizes this as entering “illegally”, while the opponents of immigration enforcement as exercising a right to “asylum” under American law. According to a 2023 report by the Senate Judiciary Committee, DHS released over 2,148,738 border-hoppers into the US during just the first 26 months of the Biden administration, with only 6% of the “asylum seekers” even being screened for “fear of persecution” in their own country.

When the Espinoza-Pachecos showed up for an immigration appointment in Charlotte, they were detained and swiftly deported to Honduras; according to DHS, the family had no pending asylum claims, and had been issued a final order of removal by a judge after missing a previous hearing.

Siembra NC declined to answer questions from reporters regarding the basis on which the Espinoza-Pachecos made their “asylum” claim, other than the assumed preference for residing in America, or what specific “due process” had been violating, instead pointing to the fact that they may not have had access to an attorney.

At the press conference, Chitlik also announced that many of her colleagues on “town commission,” “city council,” and “school board” had agreed to provide “protective presence” at immigration hearings. (Durham Public Schools Board of Education Chair Bettina Umstead also spoke at the event).

A relative of the Espinoza-Pachecos who was waiting outside the immigration appointment when the family was detained has collected nearly $30k so far to help the family with “food, clothing, shelter, and basic stability” as they “restart their lives” in their country of origin.

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Six stabbed in late-night Raleigh brawl

Police charge 1 man after multiple people stabbed in downtown Raleigh overnight - N&O

Man accused of stabbing six people in downtown Raleigh remains in hospital - WRAL

Witness sensed crowd’s ‘vibes’ before 6 stabbed in downtown Raleigh brawl, man arrested; 20 involved, bystanders say - CBS17

6 hurt in overnight stabbing in Downtown Raleigh after fight - ABC11

Just past midnight on Saturday morning, a brawl on Fayetteville St. in downtown Raleigh involving around 20 participants resulted in six people being being taken to the hospital with non-life threatening stab wounds.

“”It was two groups walking in opposite directions,” said and they just got into a verbal argument that escalated,” said local bar owner Kyle Taylor, who witnessed the confrontation.

Frank Lalich, 35, has been charged with four counts of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to seriously injure, according to Raleigh Police.

Given that Lalich is one of the individuals taken to the hospital with serious injuries, and he is only charged with four counts, it is not clear from the police’s limited statement whether there were any other knifemen involved in the incident, who started the violence, or what role self-defense may have played in some of the injuries inflicted.

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Pittsboro police investigate sex trafficking at massage parlor

Why police in this small NC town allege potential human trafficking at local spa - N&O

Pittsboro police investigate Blue Jade Spa amid human trafficking concerns - ABC11

Press Release - Pittsboro Police

On Friday, police raided what appears to be a massage parlor operating as a brothel on US-64 inside Pittsboro town limits, in a building which until somewhat recently housed an accounting/professional services firm.

According to a press release, Pittsboro Police received a complaint that “Blue Jade Spa” was operating as an unlicensed massage parlor, and that there were individuals living at and rarely leaving the property.

When police investigated, they found “probable cause indicating illegal sexual activity and potential human trafficking occurring at the business” and executed a search warrant on Friday, though no arrests were made and no details of the warrant appear to be available.

The stereotype of the Asian massage parlor as a front for prostitution has an objective basis in reality, with such enterprises often involving the human trafficking of female immigrants.

A report by the National Human Trafficking Resource Center reveals that the institution’s hotline received over two-thousand substantive calls about “human trafficking at illicit massage businesses;” of the 21% of calls which specified the country of origin of the victims, 77% were in references to Asian victims, most often from China.

Previous prostitution/massage parlor related law enforcement actions in the Triangle, which all happen to involve Asians, include:

• 2016, 2019: Quan Chun Li accused of owning massage parlor brothels in Apex and Durham, linked to Chinese mafia

• 2016: Seong Fan Chen and Xin Lan Chao charged with practicing massage therapy without a license at Li’s Apex massage parlor

• 2017: Ri Ping Lan charged with human trafficking and promoting prostitution at a Knightdale massage parlor

• 2017: Huilan Tian attempted to bribe police not to investigate Raleigh massage parlor

• 2018: Jai Liu, of Cary, charged with promoting prostitution at Greensboro massage parlor, where Fan Chen moved to after Apex arrest

• 2018: Raleigh massage parlor worker Li Qaungbi charged with prostitution

• 2019: Lian Jin Xu received suspended sentence of 16 to 29 months for promoting prostitution at Li’s Durham massage parlor, which she managed

• 2020: Jin Hua Li and Jin Hongmei charged with prostitution and practicing massage therapy without a license at two separate locations in Cary

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Fact Check: Left-wing activists fabricate claims about alleged hit-and-run by counter-protester at No Kings protest

“BREAKING: MAGAt in Trump-decorated truck deliberately knocks down peaceful “No Kings” protester in Raleigh and cops let him drive away with broken mirror!”

That’s the opening line of a post by a left-wing Facebook page with 11 million followers which has garnered 50,000 reactions and 11,000 comments; the post goes on to claim that police in Raleigh had allowed a counter-protester to leave in his truck despite “shocking video” which showed him “swerving toward peaceful protesters on the sidewalk and striking one of them” at the No Kings protest at the state capitol on March 28.

However, the Occupy Democrats post curiously only includes screenshots from the video showing the driver and the “Support ICE” message drawn on his windows, perhaps because even the edited version of the video available from other accounts online does not match the sensationalized narrative being promoted.

In response to an inquiry by the Triangle Trumpet, the NC State Capitol Police clarified that their officers, who video shows were nearby the incident, did not witness a pedestrian collision, and had not received any reports of a pedestrian collision either from a driver or from any pedestrian.

The version of the video which I was able to find starts with the anti-Trump protesters huddled around a truck in the lane closes to the capitol on S Salisbury St, with the man behind the camera leaning over the windshield in an apparent attempt to record the truck’s VIN. The truck is several feet from the curb, with multiple demonstrators in the roadway to the front and drivers side of the vehicle.

A voice which appears to belong to the cameraman can be heard shouting “Do it, b---h! Do it! Do it, b---h! You ain’t gonna do s--t!” while others can be heard attempting to get the demonstrators to “back up.”

The video then jumps to the next clip, where the driver has switched lanes away from the demonstration and is at the intersection of S Salisbury St and W Morgan St. The light appears to be green, granting the driver right of way, but a pedestrian with a sign is crossing in front.

As soon as the demonstrator comes around the left corner of the vehicle to the driver’s side, the driver lets off the brake and begins to accelerate, appearing to hit the demonstrator in the shoulder with the side mirror of the truck. This appears to be the collision in question, as the voice behind the camera begins to shout to a nearby police officer: “He just hit that person! Get him! He hit that person!”

In the next clip, the driver has made a left turn onto W Morgan St, and appears to be attempting to reattach the side mirror into its frame. A handful of police officers, who have apparently been nearby for the entire interaction, approach the driver and appear to indicate that he should leave despite impassioned shouts such as “Do your d--n job, f---ing lazy pieces of s--t!”

The final clip appears to be a different camera recording the same interaction of the police approaching the driver, in which he can be heard asking the officers if he’s “good to drive” with the damaged mirror; the verbal response of the officers doesn’t seem clear from the audio, with one perhaps telling him to “call and report” before waving him to continue driving.

The uniform and sleeve patch worn by the officers matches identifies them as NC State Capitol Police.

At no point in the video does the driver appear to “swerve” anywhere, let alone towards the sidewalk.

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UNC student org. under investigation for mocking racism

The collective inability for UNC-Chapel Hill to take a joke has taken a turn into the legal realm, with a free speech watchdog raising issue with the fact that a UNC-CH Senior Vice Provost has responded to the outcry over “harmful” April Fool’s Day satire with a promise to investigate and/or discourage such “highly inappropriate and offensive” content.

In addition to the satirical articles published by the Daily Tar Heel student newspaper, UNC-CH student “late-night sketch comedy show” Hill After Hours drew criticism for publishing a comedic video in which a well-meaning anti-racist white female student from Granville Towers takes bodyguards to visit the “third world country” of South Campus.

Although anyone with the slightest modicum of “media literacy” would understand that the stereotypical beliefs were the butt of the sketch’s joke, Senior Vice Provost for Student Success James Orr appeared to be referencing Hill After Hours when he promised a Student Affairs investigation into a “video that was produced by a registered student organization” as part of a statement on “recent content of both a racist and insensitive nature.”

The other content Orr’s statement referenced was the written satirical content by the Daily Tar Heel, which Orr “unequivocally condemn[ed]” on behalf of the university as “harmful” and “highly inappropriate and offensive” while explaining that DTH was an independent organization over whom UNC-CH has no control.

Orr nonetheless promised to use his bully pulpit against DTH over the satire: “Student Affairs will meet with DTH leadership to engage in a conversation that reinforces our values and commitment to fostering a welcoming environment for all students.”

This heavy-handed institutional response to offensive satirical material has attracted the attention of free speech/campus watchdog Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, which accused UNC-CH in a public letter of violating not only policy and state law, which requires the public institution to “remain neutral...on the political controversies of the day,” but also the US Constitution. (The Supreme Court has ruled that the First Amendment protects the publishers of satire and parody not just from official retaliation, but from government officials like Orr engaging in activities such as public statements which would “chill or silence a person of ordinary firmness from future First Amendment activities.”)

Although DTH was self-aware and self-deprecating enough to satirize itself as the “Daily Woke Heel” with jokes about DEI consultants and over-sensitivity, it apparently lacks either the courage or the motivation to not plunge full steam ahead into the wokest response possible, with a follow-up second apology announcing the following:

• apologies to racially/ethnically organized student groups

• adding a professional news adviser to the DTH staff

• instituting biannual staff DEI training with assistance from professors at the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media

• satire ban for the rest of the semester

• internal and external review of how the April Fool’s Day satire edition made it to print

• resignation of the opinion editors

Previous Coverage:

• April Fool’s Day satire gets “cancelled” at UNC (No. 170 — Apr. 4, 2026)

ICYMI: The latest article in our series celebrating the 250th anniversary of North Carolina touches on the colonial history of the area, including the namesakes of Johnston, Granville, Orange, Chatham, and Bute.

The primary student newspaper at UNC-Chapel Hill has apologized after its April Fool’s Day satire struck a nerve with the radical leftists in the student body and alumni.

The House Majority Leader is once again alleging violations of the Parents’ Bill of Rights by the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools, citing books available to elementary schoolers ranging from promoting LGBTQ activism and agenda to depictions of homosexuals in BDSM gear.

Harnett Schools dual language immersion: for immigrants or for Americans?

‘No decisions about us without us!’ Students protest proposed changes in HCS’s dual language immersion program - Daily Record

Harnett County School Board Stands Firm for Students, Taxpayers, and Common Sense - Barbecue Sentinel

Keep Dual Language Immersion Programs in Harnett County Public Schools - Change.org Petition

Do bilingual Spanish immersion programs in our schools serve the interests of English-speaking American students, or are they being used to delay the necessity of learning our language by Spanish-speaking school-aged immigrants and children of immigrants?

An official of the Harnett County Schools cited the latter to the board of education in explaining why the county’s dual language immersion program was being cut back.

“The original thought there on dual immersion was some language acquisition for English speakers, but it has shifted heavily towards native speakers being in that program,” said Assistant Superintendent for Auxiliary Services Chris Pearson at a March 2 board meeting.

At the following March 30 board meeting, Pearson shared an example of how the current system is failing to produce acceptable results, citing the fact that 21 out of 23 English-learners in kindergarten at Coats Elementary were in the dual language program, yet less than 5% of English-learners at the school were testing as proficient in the 3rd grade.

The decision to reduce the program to only two elementary schools has met both resistance from parents, who have complained about the short notice, as well as from dual language activists such as the National Association of Bilingual Education, which has endorsed a petition to reverse the change which has garnered several hundred signatures.

However, reviewing the NABE website suggests that the disproportionate use of the Spanish immersion program by Hispanic immigrants may be more of a feature than a bug, with the NABE website citing “educational equity” and “global citizens” in its mission, as well as linking to resources geared towards helping illegal aliens evade immigration enforcement while making use of taxpayer funded educational resources.

Although the demographic change induced by post-1965 immigration policy may have been slower to reach Harnett, migration has skyrocketed the population of Hispanics in the county in recent decades, growing from 5,336 (5.86%) in 2000 to 18,899 (14.15%) in 2020.

The population of “English Learner Students” in the district has concurrently increased by ~200 per year, according to the number of ELS test-takers reported in the NC Department of Public Instruction accountability data sets:

The same data shows the vast disparity in performance between English Learner Students and their English-proficient peers, with the latter being up to 3.5x more likely to achieve the standard of “Grade Level Proficiency” in the twelve public school districts in the Triangle Trumpet’s beat:

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ICYMI: Long Carolina, a Forgotten Earl, and the Regulation

A brief history of the colonial counties of the Triangle

I can see by my analytics that not many of y’all took a look at the latest article in the Celebrating the 250th series, but I think you might find yourself at least mildly interested in the history anecdotes contained therein if you give it a chance:

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April Fool’s Day satire gets “cancelled” at UNC

Statement from the editor on The Daily Tar Heel’s satire edition - Daily Tar Heel

UNC student newspaper’s April Fools’ satire sparks outrage on campus - N&O

It felt ‘mean’: April Fools’ Day joke backfires on UNC’s Daily Tar Heel - CBS17

UNC-Chapel Hill’s reliably left-leaning primary student newspaper the Daily Tar Heel has apologized for the “insensitive” publication of satire touching too close to home on its audiences’ sacred cows, including immigration enforcement, DEI, and Israel.

These satirical articles included “Trump orders ALE in Chapel Hill to be replaced with ICE agents” and “The new plan for the Dean Dome — a two-stadium solution,” which have been taken down from the DTH website after social media posts were made criticizing the publication, accruing tens of thousands of likes: “You cannot take a real, active, politically charged issue that is affecting people’s safety and turn it into a campus-wide ‘prank’ and hide behind ‘it’s satire.’”

“Scenarios like a ‘two-stadium solution’ and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement at He’s Not Here were not written to be mockeries of real-life horrors, but to shed light on them,” explained DTH Editor-in-Chief Alli Pardue in an apology statement. “The pieces were written to call attention to the senseless events occurring today, like sending ICE agents to replace TSA agents at airports nationwide — abhorrent real-life news events.”

What is perhaps the most ironic part of the situation is that the DTH’s satirical articles for the holiday included “The Daily Tar Heel rebrands — now The Daily Woke Heel,” playing off the paper’s left-wing reputation with jokes about DEI consultants and over-sensitivity, only for the publication to fall prey to the power of those same tropes from an audience incapable of accepting the self-deprecating humor of satire directed at their pet causes.

Meanwhile, an article making humor out of the fact that UNC has discriminated (and continues to discriminate) against white students is still up: “UNC brings back DEI — for whites.”

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Follow-up

CHCCS called back before legislators over LGBTQ books for elementary schoolers

Superintendent Rodney Trice and Library Media Director Al McArthur of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools have been called before the House Oversight Committee of the North Carolina General Assembly on April 24 to answer for over a hundred illegal books in elementary school libraries across the district, according to letters shared by committee chair and House Majority Leader Brenden Jones (R-Columbus, Robeson).

Jones has provided examples of the 155 books his staff has identified as being in violation of the Parents’ Bill of Rights, providing examples of books available for CHCCS elementary schoolers, ranging from promoting various LGBTQ concepts to depictions of homosexuals depicted wearing BDSM accoutrements:

• “Grandpa’s Pride” - encouraging children to engage in intergenerational LGBTQ activism, which includes images of surgically mutilated transgenders and homosexual men in bondage gear
  

• “Call Me Max” - about a teacher acquiescing to a student’s demand to be referred to by her nom-de-trans, refers to identifying babies by their gender as a “mistake”
  

• “’Twas the Night Before Pride” - sanitized history glorifying LGBTQ movement, encourages involving children and even infants in LGBTQ activism
  

• “My Maddy” - eroding the gender binary and the essence of motherhood by promoting the concepts of transgender, nonbinary, and “gender diverse”
  

• “Molly and the Twin Towers: A 9/11 Survival Story” - inserting the LGBTQ and feminist agenda into a retelling of America’s most notorious terrorist attacks with a homosexual airline pilot
  

Previous coverage:

• Orange County school boards still defying Parents’ Bill of Rights (No. 147 — Oct. 25, 2025)

• House Oversight Committee investigates Chapel Hill–Carrboro City Schools (No. 148 — Nov. 1, 2025)

• Evidence of “wokeness” highlighted ahead of oversight hearing into Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools (No. 152 — Nov. 29, 2025)

• CHCCS superintendent backtracks on defying legislature in hearing (No. 154 — Dec. 13, 2025)

An anonymous tipster says that Harnett County Schools put a teacher back in the classroom despite her on-campus marijuana use, she’s now facing drug and weapon charges.

The Durham sheriff was called to testify before Congress about his approach to immigration enforcement, a Louisiana Senator was not satisfied with the honesty of his responses

A suspect has been identified by Durham Police in the recent fatal greenway stabbing, it just so happens to be a repeat violent offender

The grad student accused of fatally shooting a professor at UNC-Chapel Hill in 2023 has been found competent to stand trial, after previously having been found incompetent due to schizophrenic symptoms.

A nationwide No Kings protest attracted thousands demonstrators at 14 locations across the Triangle, but one elderly Harnett Co. man found his face smashed into the ground after Lillington Police determined he was part of an unpermitted counter-protest, with his pastor being charged as well.

DOGE used ChatGPT to flag an NCCU grant as DEI, was it mistaken?

DOGE canceled a grant to NC Central. It used ChatGPT to make the decision - N&O

DOGE Used AI to Cancel HBCU Grant - HBCU Gameday

How DOGE Gutted the NEH in 22 Days — Inside Higher Ed - Inside Higher Ed

When DOGE Unleashed ChatGPT on the Humanities - New York Times

Former DOGE staffer says ChatGPT helped feds cancel grants mentioning ‘LGBTQ+’ - The Advocate

An $89k grant for digitizing and making educational material out of material from the archives of the North Carolina Central University was one of the grants selected for cancellation by Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) initiative after being identified by ChatGPT as “relat[ing]” to DEI, according to discovery in a lawsuit brought against the Trump administration over the cuts.

The following is one of over a thousand queries fed into the large language model to help identify which of the taxpayer/debt funded grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities were being used to promote leftist activism such as the now infamous “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion”:

Does the following relate at all to DEI? Respond factually in less than 120 characters. Begin with ‘Yes.’ or ‘No.’ followed by a brief explanation. Do not use ‘this initiative’ or ‘this description’ in your response.Faculty and staff from Humanities disciplines within the College of Arts, Social Sciences, and Humanities at North Carolina Central University will form a cohort to participate in a two-year project (2022-2024) that uses the NCCU materials at Digital NC (especially the newspapers and yearbooks) and the materials in the NCCU Archives to develop teaching materials to be implemented in their courses. In the first year, we will coordinate with the Digital Humanities Research Institute at CUNY for workshop materials and instructors who would be willing to run a week of workshops. After the workshop, faculty members will be expected to create and implement course modules using this digital archival material. In the second year, faculty members will participate in a symposium discussing their results and will engage with other faculty members in their disciplines as well as the greater university community and the citizens of Durham, NC.

And ChatGPT’s answer:

Yes. This initiative focuses on utilizing digital archival material to develop teaching materials and engage with the university community and citizens, promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Now perhaps ChatGPT’s line of analysis was incorrect, but was the characterization of this as a “DEI” grant entirely inaccurate?

As to the two NCCU English professors who were awarded the grant, Kathryn Wymer uses her position to pursue her interests in “gender studies” and “queer theory” while Rachelle Gold has taught various woke-style topics as well as published research into such topics as “Bearing Witness: Innovations in Teaching Trauma Literature at an Historically Black University” and “menstrual equity.”

Perhaps leftist activist professors are merely a representative sample of the involved institutions, which alone might cast the grant into question, but the questionable political activist motivation is not lacking from the grantor.

According to NCCU’s announcement, the grant was part of a program by the National Endowment for the Humanities to to fund “Humanities Initiatives” at Historically Black Colleges and Universities like NCCU, which was founded as the National Religious Training School and Chautauqua for the Colored Race in 1910.

If the true motivation of the grant was merely to preserve history, and not pursue a leftist activist agenda, why wasn’t it available to any college or university with a similar 100+ year history, regardless of the historical (and current) racial composition of its students?

The federal lawsuit, brought in the Southern District of New York, argues that it is unconstitutional “viewpoint discrimination” for the federal government to put the brakes on the $6+ billion distributed by the NEH over the course of its existence, much of which went to organizations promoting progressive and leftist agendas.

(In the case of this particular NCCU grant, most of $89,110 had already been spent, leaving only $5,977 in taxpayer savings by its cancellation.)

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“Her classroom reeked of marijuana:” Harnett Co. teacher charged with drug, weapon possession

Harnett County high school teacher charged with intent to sell marijuana near campus - WRAL

Harnett County Teacher Jailed On Multiple Charges - JoCo Report

Harnett County high school teacher charged with selling marijuana near campus - CBS17

Harnett County deputies arrested Overhills High School math teacher Jocelyn Lee McArthur, 33, on March 27 after the sheriff’s office received a tip that she was in possession of illegal substances on campus.

The arrest warrant states McArthur possessed marijuana with intent to “manufacture, sell or deliver” it within 100 feet of the boundary of her place of employment at OHS (a school zone enhancement that elevates the severity of the charge under N.C.G.S. 90-95(e)(8)).

“She reeked of marijuana every single day, her classroom reeked of marijuana every single day,” the anonymous coworker told WRAL “This is nothing new. This has been an ongoing situation.” The same source alleged that a former Overhills principal tried to terminate McArthur twice, only to have the county office send her back to the classroom each time.

In addition to charges relating to the possession of marijuana and paraphernalia, McArthur is also charged with possession of a stun gun/taser on the school property.

McArthur faces four charges: possession of a controlled substance with intent to sell or deliver on or near a school, simple possession of a Schedule VI controlled substance, possession of drug paraphernalia, and possession of a weapon on educational property (not a firearm). She is being held at the Harnett County Detention Center under a $102,000 secured bond.

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“Pants-on-fire:” anti-ICE Durham sheriff denies “sanctuary” label

Durham Sheriff Clarence Birkhead testifies on immigration enforcement in DC hearing - CBS17

Durham Sheriff Clarence Birkhead defends policies in testimony before Congress - ABC11

Hearing held on constitutional protections, limitations against sanctuary policies - The Center Square

Durham sheriff tells US Senate: Local police shouldn’t be immigration enforcement - N&O

“Do you need some water? ‘Cause I think your pants are on fire.”

That’s what Sen. John Kennedy (R-Louisiana) had to say to Durham County Sheriff Clarence Birkhead regarding his prevarication before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution regarding his lack of cooperation with federal immigration enforcement authorities.

Birkhead testified that “Durham County is not a sanctuary county,” yet when pressed on his previous anti-ICE statements, including the fact that he campaigned in 2018 on an “uncompromising commitment to not cooperate with ICE,” Birkhead admitted that he refuses any cooperation with ICE that is not explicitly mandated by law.

Although his testimony was that “anyone who violates federal or state law needs to be held accountable and there need to be consequences,” Birkhead also testified that “[didn’t] agree with targeting people without criminal records who pose no threat to public safety.”

Birkhead also referenced that he recently became co-chair of the Law Enforcement Immigration Task Force, which advocates for policies with results virtually indistinguishable from the most radical open border communist, despite its framing as a “law and order” organization. (The website for this organization has recently been removed from the internet, but an archived copy from February reveals their anti-immigration enforcement principles.)

LEITF argues against enforcing immigration laws on the basis that illegal immigration is actually the fault of our current immigration system not making it easy enough for foreigners to flood into our country, despite figures showing a record-high level of foreign-born residents in America, both in absolute terms and as a percentage of the population.

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Eight years of consistent anti-ICE policy

Birkhead’s anti-ICE stance has been clear dating back to 2018, when he defeated incumbent Sheriff Mike Andrews in the Democratic primary on a platform of ending ICE cooperation, as documented in a contemporary article in the left-wing INDY Week: “Durham County’s Friendly Relationship With ICE Could Hinge on Its Sheriff’s Reelection Bid.”

Within a week of implementing his promised policy of ending compliance with ICE detainer requests, eleven people were released from the Durham jail whom ICE would have previously been allowed to take into custody, according to follow-up reporting by INDY on Birkhead’s first 100 days in office.

(The GOP-controlled General Assembly has taken away the discretion of sheriffs to refuse compliance with ICE detainer requests, in a bill which Birkhead described as an “attack on the immigrant community.”)

In January 2025, Birkhead “reiterated he doesn’t cooperate with federal immigration detainer requests” in a forum organized by local Hispanic activist organization Respuesta Rápida de Durham aka Rapid Response Durham. According to reporting by WUNC, “Birkhead said he’ll follow the law, but that he won’t notify ICE if an issued detainer is about to expire and a person is about to be legally released from jail.”

Birkhead justified his position in the hearing on the basis that “it was not state law” at the time to require sheriffs notify ICE when the jail was making an inmate available for ICE pickup on the basis of a detainer request, a loophole which was remedied with HB-318 passed last year over the veto of Gov. Josh Stein.

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Cooperation: a two-way street?

Despite his own refusal to participate in any way with immigration enforcement beyond the minimum required by law, Birkhead would prefer that ICE reach out to him when they are operating within the county.

Birkhead cited a positive example in which ICE did work with the sheriff’s office when they arranged to pick up an immigrant offender who was scheduled to appear at the Durham Courthouse.

Based on the few details given, this appears to be the same incident in which dozens of anti-ICE demonstrators including multiple elected Democrats showed up at an “emergency response” to the would-be detention of a convicted felon.

Although Birkhead may consider the instance to be successful collaboration, the criminal in question avoided ICE detention by skipping out on the court hearing.

Similarly, Orange County Sheriff recently described a similar instance of “cooperation” with ICE in which he briefed a leftist anti-ICE Hispanic organization on the situation, and the immigrant happened to stay home and avoid a planned ICE arrest on his way to work after the sheriff had requested that the operation not take place in the majority-Hispanic neighborhood in which the subject of the removal resided.

Relevant Coverage:

• Durham officials “grossly inaccurate” in denying “sanctuary jurisdiction” label (No. 126 — May 31, 2025)

• Durham activists respond to ICE activity at courthouse (No. 134 — Jul. 26, 2025)

• Orange County candidates fight over who will oppose ICE the most (No. 164 — Feb. 21, 2026)

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Follow-ups

Repeat violent criminal named as suspect in deadly American Tobacco Trail stabbing

Durham police search for wanted man after deadly stabbing on American Tobacco Trail - WRAL

Wanted man accused of murder on American Tobacco Trail - CBS17

Two weeks after Chesleigh Eloyd Lyons, 51, was found fatally stabbed near a section of the American Tobacco Trail known for violence, sexual harassment, and homeless encampments, the Durham Police have charged LaRue Barbee, 46, who remains at large.

In 2021, Barbee was arrested for charges including attempted first degree murder for near-deadly home invasion the prior September in which the 68-year-old victim was shot in the head, according to a public release by Durham Police.

However, these charges do not appear on the lengthy list of Barbee’s convictions maintained by the NC Department of Adult Corrections, which includes assault with a deadly weapon, robbery, selling controlled substances, etc.

Barbee was most recently released in December 2024 after being sentenced to 17-30 months for an armed robbery which took place on September 17, 2022. Few details about this crime appear to be available, other than that Barbee’s plea deal involved the District Attorney dropping a more serious charge of Assault With a Deadly Weapon with Intent to Kill Inflicting Serious Injury.

Police say the attack was not random and that Lyons appears to have known his attacker, but no information appears to be available as to whether the suspect or the victim were associated with the homeless encampments reported by the public as being nearby the site of the murder.

Previous Coverage:

• Man fatally stabbed on section of Durham greenway known for homeless, violence (No. 167 — Mar. 14, 2026)

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Schizophrenic UNC Shooter ruled competent for trial

UNC grad student competent to stand trial, expected to plead not guilty by reason of insanity - WRAL

Accused UNC shooter found competent for trial, will use insanity defense in first-degree murder case - CBS17

Accused UNC shooter, Tailei Qi, found competent to stand trial - ABC11

UNC shooting suspect Tailei Qi found fit to stand trial, plans to plead insanity - Daily Tar Heel

The graduate student accused of murdering UNC Professor Zijie Yan in a 2023 shooting which sent the campus into lockdown over fears of an active shooter has been ruled competent to stand trial.

The trial for Tailei Qi, 37, was previously put on hold after a November 2023 ruling in which he was found incompetent due to schizophrenic symptoms such as auditory hallucinations and delusional thinking.

After questioning Qi through a Mandarin interpreter, Orange County Superior Court Judge Allen Baddour ruled that Qi was now able competent to the charges against him and participate in his own defense.

Qi faces a mandatory life sentence in prison if convicted; Qi’s lawyers plan to pursue a defense of not guilty by reason of insanity.

Under state law, a defendant found not guilty by reason of insanity must be committed to a state facility, but may be released after an indeterminate amount of time if it is found that he no longer has a mental illness or is no longer dangerous to others, according to legal analysis by a UNC law professor.

Previous Coverage:

• UNC PhD student kills advisor on campus (No. 35 — Sep. 2, 2023)

• $750,000 settlement over UNC professor’s 2023 on-campus murder (No. 134 — Jul. 26, 2025)

• UNC unveils memorial for professor murdered by insane grad student (No. 139 — Aug. 30, 2025)

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Protest Watch

No Kings

Police tackle retired cop in protest. Pastor also arrested - Daily Record

On Saturday, anti-Trump protesters gathered as part of at least 14 events across the counties of the Triangle Trumpet’s beat, with the largest gatherings numbering in the thousands.

The protests were generally as “peaceful” as a demonstration where participants call for French Revolution-style executions of their political opponents could be, with two exceptions that have come to light.

In Raleigh, a counter-protester was accused of a “hit-and-run” after demonstrators swarmed his vehicle (more on this later), and in Harnett County, Lillington Police charged two non-leftists with not being part of the licensed protests, one of whom being an 83-year-old former police officer left with a broken nose and torn ligaments when his arrest ended with him on the ground, according to the Daily Record.

Lill Thomas “Tommy” McNeill, 83, was charged with resisting a public officer, disorderly conduct, and protesting without a permit, while Cecil Everette McNeill, 56, was only charged with protesting without a permit.

According to Tommy McNeill, he was informed about the No Kings protest outside the Lillington Courthouse by his pastor Cecil McNeill, who also invited him to join in a counter protest.

However, when Tommy McNeill arrived, he was unable to find Cecil McNeill, and instead decided to “take a look at the signs displayed at the No Kings protest underway.” Tommy McNeill was asked to leave the permitted area of the protest and eventually did so, making his way to where Cecil McNeill was “holding a pro-Trump banner along a sidewalk a good distance away from the No Kings protest.”

However, police officers made their way over to where Cecil McNeill and a few others were gathered on the sidewalk, and told Tommy McNeill and his wife to leave the area of the “unpermitted” protest as well.

Tommy McNeill denied that he was protesting, and insisted that the officer arrest him if he had a problem with him remaining on a public sidewalk. However, when an officer attempted to put his hands behind his back and Tommy McNeill twisted away (which he claims was a reaction to the pain), the officer dragged Tommy McNeill to the ground leading to his nose being broken, ligaments in his arm being torn, and abrasions caused to his face.

Tommy McNeill was allowed to leave after receiving medical attention for his injuries, and was charged along with Cecil McNeill before a magistrate on Monday.

Tommy McNeill and Cecil McNeill were released on unsecured bonds of $2,500 each.

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Attendance

The attendance of these events appears to be roughly similar to the last nationwide No Kings protest in October, with some locations seeing a larger crowd and some a smaller, according to my estimates based on images and videos of the various events, ranging from approximately 70 outside a nursing home in Raleigh to over 3,000 in Durham:

• Apex: ~300-800

• Cary: ~400-1000

• Chapel Hill: ~2000-5000

• Clayton: ~100-300

• Durham: ~3000-4500

• Lillington: ~100-300

• Louisburg: ~100

• Oxford: ~100

• Pittsboro: ~300-800

• Raleigh (Downtown): ~500-1500

• Raleigh (North): ~200-500

• Raleigh (Nursing Home): ~70

• Sanford: ~150-300

• Wake Forest: ~150-250

However, calculating a total number of participants in these events is made more complex by the fact that they were staggered throughout the day from 9:30 am to 2:00 pm, allowing the most dedicated demonstrators to attend multiple. For instance, one could begin at Apex at 9:30, continue to Capital Blvd. in North Raleigh at 11:00, rally downtown at the State Capitol at 1:00, head over to Cary at 2:00, and perhaps finish out in Chapel Hill at 3:45.

Its not mere supposition: that’s what at least one activist did, according to a Facebook comment screenshotted and provided to the Triangle Trumpet. The News & Observer confirmed as well, in a Facebook post reading “some people attended multiple rallies Saturday, going to one in Raleigh or Chapel Hill but also showing up for the one in their hometown.”

All in all, I’d estimate the total number of participants at between 6,000 and 16,000, perhaps slightly larger than the last No Kings rally, but not significantly so.

Over at UNC-Chapel Hill, we compare whether the racial demographics of the classes admitted since the banning of affirmative action by the Supreme Court are truly reflective of the university dropping it’s racial preferences, or whether white applicants from across the state and nation are still being discriminated against.

In Raleigh, the mass shooting at Columbine which inspired an attempted copycat at Orange High School in 2006 is still having an impact two decades later, with police identifying and arresting a 19-year-old man who had indicated his intent to commit a racially-targeted active shooting. The would-be killer appears to be part of a growing online movement/subculture of “Nihilistic Violent Extremism” revolving around extreme violence, active shooters, white supremacy, and Satanism.

UNC still discriminating against white applicants?

How enrollment at Triangle colleges shifted after demise of affirmative action - N&O

Under affirmative action, highly-selective universities like UNC-Chapel Hill put their thumb on the admission scales based on the race of applicants, creating a higher academic standard for whites and Asians while lowering the bar for blacks and Hispanics.

In the wake of affirmative action being found unconstitutional in the landmark 2023 Supreme Court decision Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, the racial makeup of American universities has shifted; but has affirmative action truly been abolished, or altered in its scope?

The demographics of post-SFFA enrollment alone may fail to answer that question, but we have special insight in the case of UNC-CH, as the twin Students for Fair Admissions v. UNC lawsuit contained detailed analysis estimating the results of a truly race-neutral admissions process on admission demographics.

According to the analysis of applicants between 2016-2021, in-state black applicants were up to 3.4x more likely to be admitted than their white peers, with an even bigger gap between between black and Asian applicants:

The racially-based gap in admission rates was even larger for out-of-state applicants, with black applicants being accepted at a rate more than 10x higher than whites for four out of the ten academic deciles:

The analysis estimated that without this obvious racial preference, the number of white and Asian admits would be 11.4% and 12.0% higher respectively, while the number of black and Hispanic admits would drop by 56.3% and 40.8%.

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Post-SFFA UNC-CH admissions data

However, the demographics of new UNC-CH admits in the wake of SFFA and the adoption of a new non-discrimination policy by the Board of Trustees do not reflect the effect of adopting a race-neutral admissions calculated by Duke professor Peter Arcidiacono.

Although black enrollment did drop significantly, it did not due so to the extent indicated by the race-neutral estimate; Hispanic enrollment dropped only slightly (but recovered the next year), Asian enrollment increased slightly, and white enrollment decreased.

Which is more likely: that white applicants to UNC-CH dropped in average academic quality the same year that the university was forced to drop racial preferences, or that the university admissions ignored both the Supreme Court and the Board of Trustees to continue racial preference directly or by proxy?

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Would-be active shooter copycat involuntarily committed by Raleigh Police

FBI charges Raleigh teen with Instagram mass shooting threats - N&O

Raleigh man obsessed with guns, death, arrested. FBI says he idolized mass shooters - WRAL

Raleigh teen involuntarily committed after FBI investigation finds concerning posts, purchase of AK-47, ammunition - CBS17

Earlier this month, Raleigh Police arrested and obtained involuntary commitment of a local man seemingly intent on following in the footsteps of the mass shooters he idolized, according to documents filed in federal court.

According an affidavit, the FBI Raleigh Joint Terrorism Task Force “became aware of concerning Instagram posts” made by the 19-year-old Eric Constantine Byrd on March 5. Four days later, Raleigh Police searched his home and arrested him after interviewing him at his place of work.

The search revealed a Smith & Wesson M&P 9mm in Byrd’s closet; Byrd allegedly told the interviewing officers that if he had had ammunition for the firearm at the time, he “probably” would have killed his parents during a January incident in which they became concerned and called the police on him. (An email receipt shows Byrd ordered 1000 rounds of ammunition for the weapon in February.)

The “concerning Instagram posts” by Byrd in the days leading up to his arrest include one in which he stated his intention to livestream an active shooting targeting “yns” and “edgars,” slang terms referring to subdemographics of blacks and Hispanics respectively. Byrd also used racial slurs in reference to a black former classmate of his at LRHS (presumably Leesville Road High School) named “Isaiah” whom he also sought to murder.

Byrd has been charged with one count of transmitting a threat in interstate commerce to injure the person of another (18 U.S. Code § 875(c)), which carries a maximum sentence of five years imprisonment.

Satanic murder cults?

Although Byrd’s posts were classified as “Racially or Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremism (REMVE)” in the court filing, his associations and intentions seem to align more with “Nihilistic Violent Extremism.”

The posts and messages from Byrd included in the affidavit contain elements of both branches of NVE described in a recent Lawfare article, including an association with “online networks that combine white supremacy, Satanism, and misanthropy into a vicious and largely indiscriminate hatred that celebrates ritualized child sexual exploitation” as well as an online community which “glorifies school shooters, conducting deeply tactical investigations of prior acts of mass murder, and has encouraged new attacks.”

Byrd’s selected posts include:

• references to Nazis, Hitler, and “#WHITEPOWER”

• venerating previous NVE active shooters as “saint” or “saintess”

• an intent to avoid a “boring suicide” by recording/livestreaming an active shooting

• referring to himself as a “sadistic f--k” for his love of watching gore, self-mutilation, suicide, torture, and murder

• associating his depraved prolicivities with “Lucifer”

• associating his intent to commit suicide by mass shooting with a growing boredom of gore: “Nothing phases me any more”

• references to other crimes such as “smashing people’s windows and taking their stuff out of their cars” and “ruining people’s lives by draining their bank accounts and selling their info”

The threat of an actual active shooting following this pattern of online behavior is very real, including shooters cited by Byrd as his role models such as the shooters at Abundant Life Christian School and Antioch High School, who were connected online, as well as the Christchurch mosque shooter, who has inspired a number of such killers. This line of active shooters and their acolytes can perhaps be traced back to the Columbine High School killers, with the Abundant Life shooter expressly referencing the pair in the manifesto attributed to her, as well as in clothing choice shared on social media.

In 2006, an 18-year-old graduate of Orange High School murdered his father before attempting to copycat the Columbine massacre at his alma mater, but only managed to wound two students before his gun jammed and he was subdued by a school resource officer. According to his defense, Alvaro Rafael Castillo had also developed an obsession with violence after being traumatized by exposure to pornography at the age of eight.

The crimes associated with these organizations/networks/ideologies are not limited to mass murder: Byrd also tagged posts with “#NOLIVESMATTER” in reference to the No Lives Matter movement, an offshoot of the Satanic/neo-Nazi sextortion network “764.”

Although no direct link seems to have been established to these specific groups, an example of the type of crime these networks are known for would be an incident involving a student at Athens Drive Magnet High School.

The student was part of a group chat on Discord, where another online user threatened to “SWAT” the student if the student didn’t carve the extortionist’s username into the student’s arm. The resulting follow-through on the threats resulted response by the Raleigh Police, twice to reports of violent crime at the student’s house and once to a report of an active shooting at the school.

A search warrant by the Raleigh Police revealed that these type of threats were not always ineffective, finding six photographs of individuals who had carved the name of the group chat or the extortionist into their arms or legs.

I recommend the following resources for more information on these specific linked groups, and NVE in general:

• A report on the subject specifically relating to Byrd’s arrest - The Rabbit Hole: Saints and Killers (Court Watch)

• For an independent investigator on the history and connections of “No Lives Matter” - The NLM and 764 Connection (Bx’s Substack)

• A warning from the FBI - FBI Boston Warns of Nihilistic Violent Extremists Targeting Children and Vulnerable Victims Online (FBI Boston)

A property tax loophole intended for affordable housing non-profits is being “abused” by for-profit landlords, potentially costing tens of millions in tax revenue for counties with high rates of usage such as Durham and Wake, leaving the county leadership potentially facing with the unenviable choice of cutting spending or increasing the taxation on the remaining non-exempt property owners.

With the recent cluster of Islamic terrorist attacks on American soil, we take a moment to reflect on the history and characteristics of parallel incidents involving individuals and institutions in the counties of Durham, Johnston, Orange, and Wake.

Man fatally stabbed on section of Durham greenway known for homeless, violence

Police: Deadly stabbing on American Tobacco Trail was not random, no arrest yet - WRAL

Man identified after fatal stabbing on American Tobacco Trail - ABC11

Person killed in American Tobacco Trail stabbing named, Durham police say it was not a random attack - CBS17

American Tobacco Trail stabbing was not random, but Durham police still need help - N&O

Chesleigh Lyons, 51, was found stabbed to death on the American Tobacco Trail just south of its intersection with Fayetteville St. near E. Pilot St., which community members have identified as the location of a homeless encampment: reports from over the years show a concentration of incidents involving the homeless, violence, and sexual misconduct.

The incident bears some resemblance to the 2020 fatal stabbing of cyclist Chauncey “Chip” Depew on the Walnut Creek Trail in Raleigh near the intersection of I-40 and S. Saunders St., a location also frequented by the homeless:

However, while Durham Mayor Leonardo Williams acknowledged city has had complaints about “open fires” and “trash,” the police have released little information besides that the killing of Lyons “does not appear to be a random attack,” though they did not appear to acknowledge the reports of nearby homeless encampments or clarify whether the victim or the killer may have been among their inhabitants.

As reported by the News & Observer, radio traffic indicates the victim called the police at approximately 4:15 pm on Monday to report that he had been stabbed in the back, but dropped off the line and was not located by the police until half-an-hour had passed.

Users of the r/bullcity subreddit, usually ones to pooh-pooh and downvote any inkling of a suggestion that Durham is dangerous, appear to collectively agree that this is the one area of the city which is a serious problem and should be addressed:

• “The gas station is a epicenter for drugs. Been known for 10 years+” - ForceAntique3229

• “Lots of homeless folks. Many drug users, strung out, clustered in the wooded areas. And definitely occasional fighting. Not to mention that there’s trash everywhere. A known open sore that the city ignores.” - mcswagner

• “The boots on the ground issue with that area is that there are many dark wooded areas along the ATT on both sides of F-Ville convenient for sleeping/smoking crack/shooting up.” - SeenInDurham

• “My hunch is that it was probably someone from the encampment killing someone else in the encampment.” - Nervous-Emotion28

• “Anyone who regularly travels the Tobacco Trail in Durham recognizes this area as the sketchiest part of the trail, really the only part that makes the trail sketchy. The city needs to resolve this. You can’t change the habits of those sketchy people but you can build tall fences and deterrents to keep the trail safer. They hang there on those makeshift spots because it’s been allowed for far too long.” - EatinSumGrapes

• “There are tent encampments on both sides of ATT at this intersection. Last weekend I was biking with my kids along ATT towards the ballpark. That intersection was unhinged, even at 2pm in the afternoon on a Sunday. There were mentally ill folks yelling profanities at each other from the bus stop. Skirmishes between these same folks shoving each other. There was a line of folks by the trail, obvious drug users high out of their minds. There were fire pits by the trail side, still smoldering and the area reeked of marijuana.” - radarbot

A search for “American Tobacco Trail” on the forum reveals numerous personal accounts of incidents on this trail and this particular Fayetteville St. intersection:

• “When I was riding the ATT every day, I was heading back North right as it was getting dark and had a group of people on the trail, by the bench just South of Fayetteville st spread out across the path in front of me to stop me...” - pbgod (2026)

• “I used to ride and run there regularly and have only been threatened once, but if you are concerned, the Al Bueler trail is safer, but with much more limited parking.” - runs1note (2018)

• “Tell that to my buddy who was jumped by 4 teens while jogging on ATC. Maybe it’s not generally a ‘problem’ but there have been a number of assaults on the trail.” - 5zepp (2018)

• In terms of safety, I’ve had two incidents that have given me pause over the years. One was just north of Hillside High and the other a bit more north at Fayetteville. In the first one, I’d ridden my bike north on the trail to downtown without incident. As I was heading back, I noticed the trail was blocked numerous limbs that I’m pretty certain were dragged into place. As I slowed, some young men (or teens) emerged from the woods. I was able to bunny hop in one spot and keep riding, and called 9-1-1.
  The second incident (at the Fayetteville crossing) happened so fast it’s kind of a blur. One guy jumped in front of me, trying to get me to stop or crash, and the other guy was running towards me. They were well older and perhaps homeless. I avoided crashing and was able to just keep going. Both incidents were midday during weekdays when the trail is not very crowded. I’ve avoided that section for 2-3 years now as a result.” - photog_in_nc (2024)

• “I love the ATT and travel it regularly, but the section between about Otis street and Cornwallis is a disaster. Trash everywhere and dangerous people lurking...People have tried for decades to keep the Fayetteville/E. Pilot street intersection clean to no avail.” - chambchan (2024)

• “Solo females (or anyone, really) be careful on the American Tobacco Trail near Fayetteville St. crossing by the Food Lion/Chicken Hut.
  ...
  On Jan 2 around noon I was running South on ATT and a kid/teen (maybe 13-14 years old) walking in the opposite direction turned around and started following me running behind me for about a mile. He started following me at the Fayetteville St intersection and stopped and turned around when the trail meets Riddle Rd. behind Hillside HS. It was super agitating but the kid looked so young, I felt more like I needed to educate him on why you don’t follow people (especially women) on the trail vs. feeling actually threatened.

  On Jan 3 around 3pm I was out on the trail and again I see this kid in the exact same area. Again, he is walking in the opposite direction of me, turns around, and begins jogging behind me. I couldn’t believe this was happening again and was thinking about what I wanted to do, when the kid comes sprinting up behind me, smacks my ass, and continued running up off the trail into a neighborhood (Atlantic St.)” - bullcityrungal (2024)

• “A friend of mine was groped back in the summer. Apparently there was a groper going around because I later saw a news report about a guy (not a teen like in OP’s story) groping ladies on one of the trails. His modus operandi was to grope a woman, then flee on a bike. I wonder if they ever caught him. It seems to be a real problem...” - CFO_of_SOXL (2024)

• “Heads up: crossing Fayetteville on the American Tobacco Trail and a sketchy dude in the woods yelled ahead to another sketchy dude who stepped from the woods into the center of the path as I crossed. He’s glaring at me from 10-20 yards out (dark pants, hood, black mask) straddling the dividing line…
  …so I took off through the grass on instinct alone. I’ve biked cities for years, encountering harmless weirdos regularly, but this was the first time I encountered what truly felt like a dangerous situation. I was, thankfully, already too wide of him and had accelerated too quickly for him to make a move.” - deleted (2022)

A 2014 study funded by the left-wing Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation titled “Social Justice as it Pertains to Safety on the American Tobacco Trail” attempted to blame the perception of safety on the trail on disproportionate media attention and “implicit racial bias,” but was nonetheless forced to admit that this Fayetteville St. intersection was an “exception” to the overall relative safety of the trail as compared to surrounding high-crime neighborhoods.

In addition the pseudonymous reports on social media, reporting in the mainstream media includes police confirmation of numerous similar incidents on the trail in the area over the past decades:

• Three incidents of indecent exposure on the trail within two month, including one by “a man standing on the trail near Fayetteville and Pilots streets” who exposed himself to two sisters (WRAL, 2007)

• 17-year-old student at nearby Hillside High School charged with two assaults in which he punched a cyclist and a pedestrian, the latter of whom he robbed of a cellphone and an iPod (WRAL, 2014)

• Three incidents of indecent exposure on the stretch north of the intersection in a two month period, one 23-year-old man charged with exposing himself to a woman and two children, while another perpetrator exposed himself to two different women (News & Observer, 2017)

In each of these incidents, the perpetrator was identified as a black male, suggesting that the attempt by the study to refute those who may “associat[e] African American men...with higher crime rates and a lack of safety” is not based in fact.

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Use of property tax “loophole” by for-profit landlords skyrockets

Affordable Housing Tax Loophole Threatens to Drain Local Government Budgets in NC - NC Newsline

Affordable Housing Property Tax Exemption Loophole ‘the Biggest Threat’ to Wake County Revenue - WRAL

State Loophole Lets Raleigh-Area Companies Cut $745 Million from Wake County Property Rolls - WRAL

A property tax exemption intended for non-profits providing low-cost housing is being used by for-profit owners to avoid paying millions of dollars a year in property taxes.

In 2010, the North Carolina General Assembly adopted a property tax exemption for property owned by “a nonprofit organization providing housing for individuals or families with low or moderate incomes.” (NCGS § 105-278.6(a)(8))

However, in 2013, the North Carolina Court of Appeals ruled that a property which was 99.9% owned by a for-profit organization and 0.01% owned by a non-profit could still receive the exemption by taking into account factors such as

1. the entity’s control of the venture’s operations;

2. the entity’s status as trustee of LLC property;

3. the possibility of future increased actual ownership interest; and

4. the intent of the participating parties

A decade later, the amount of property covered by such exemptions is increasing rapidly, with a 50% year-over-year increase between 2023-24 and 2024-25, according to a House Select Committee on Property Tax Reduction and Reform presentation with data from the NC Department of Revenue.

According to the presentation, Wake and Durham are among the counties with the highest per capita amount of property tax valuation exempted under this category.

This exemption was named the “biggest threat to the revenue stream of the county” by the Wake County Tax Administrator at a Wake County Board of Commissioners meeting in February, revealing that up to “94% of all the multi-family units in Wake County” could make use of the exemption by pushing the boundaries of the appellate ruling with creative ownership structure.

The number of properties actually exempted under this section in Wake County jumped from 69 in 2021 to 137 in 2025, which represented a nearly 10x increase in the value of the property exempted from $289 million to $2.2 billion. At the current base property tax rate of .5171, this exemption represents over $11 million in lost revenue for the county itself, with $6 million lost by the City of Raleigh according to Mayor Janet Cowell.

One factor that makes this a particular issue for Wake County is that the Housing & Urban Development’s definition for low and moderate income is based on 80% of the median income; according to the US Census Bureau, the county’s median household income of $105,768 is nearly 50% higher than the state median of $72,388.

An effort to modify the law to close this loophole is in the works at the legistlator, with Rep. Erin Paré (R-37) of southwestern Wake County who chairs the house select committee promising a “fix” to the “growing and costly abuse” under this exemption in a post last month.

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Is the Triangle ripe for an Islamic terrorist attack?

A Senegalese Muslim wearing “Property of Allah” and an Iranian flag on his shirts shoots up a bar in Austin, killing three and injuring fifteen more.

A pair of second-generation immigrants with parents who naturalized from Afghanistan and Turkey declare their allegiance to the Islamic State and attempt to outdo the Boston Marathon bombing by throwing improvised explosive devices at an anti-Islam demonstration in New York City.

A Sierra Leonean who had previously been convicted of providing support to the Islamic State shouts “Allahu Akbar” before attacking a classroom filled full of Reserve Officer Training Corps students at Old Dominion University in an attempt to replicate the deadly 2009 Fort Hood shooting, but only managed to murder one instructor before being killed by his targets.

A Lebanese Muslim drives his explosive-laden vehicle into a synagogue near Detroit.

This cluster of terrorist attacks has occurred in just the past several weeks.

But could the Triangle or elsewhere in North Carolina be the target of the next Islamic terrorist?

While one of these attacks involved the terrorists driving multiple states to conduct a terror attack in America’s largest city, the other three targeted locations in or near the communities in which these Muslim immigrants settled.

Given the large Muslim population with parallel demographics to these attackers and the following history of Islamic terrorism involving the counties of Durham, Johnston, Orange, and Wake, the possibility cannot be ruled out.

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Terrorism and Jihad in the Triangle

Islamic Radicalization in North Carolina - International Institute for Counter-Terrorism

In the 1980s, a small Baptist college in Murfreesboro had become a pipeline for Muslim students seeking an American education, with a dean of admissions recruiting internationally in the Middle East with the offer of enrollment without any test of English proficiency.

One such student was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, a Pakistani who was already a member of the Muslim Brotherhood when he enrolled at Chowan College in 1984 amid a class which was primarily composed of Middle Eastern students. According to a biography of Mohammed, he was attracted to the area “because of North Carolina’s politically active Muslim community, numbering as many as fourteen thousand across the state,” including “Muslim Brotherhood and Salafi activity” in “Murfreesboro, Raleigh and Greensboro.”

Mohammed transferred to and graduated from North Carolina A&T State University in Greensboro with a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering, which he shortly put to use planning terror attacks including the 1993 World Trade Center bombing (carried out in part by Mohammed’s nephew), as well as masterminding the September 11 attacks eight years later.

Five years after the 9/11 attacks, UNC-Chapel Hill alumnus Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar attempted to follow in the footsteps of al-Qaeda hijacker Mohamed Atta to “avenge the deaths of Muslims worldwide” by driving his SUV onto his alma mater’s campus in March 2006 and striking nine pedestrians, all of whom survived. Taheri-azar was born in Iran, but became a naturalized citizen after being brought to the states at the age of two and raised in Charlotte.

Three years later, in 2009, the FBI busted an Islamic terrorist conspiracy involving eight North Carolina residents in operation “Triangle Terror Takedown” which “began in 2005 with a tip from someone in the Muslim community,” according to the FBI.

The ring included Daniel Patrick “Saifullah” Boyd, a white American who converted to Islam after his mother remarried a Muslim, two of his sons, and another five conspirators who appear to be first or second generation immigrants to America from countries such as Bosnia, Kosovo, and Pakistan.

The group were accused of aiding foreign terrorists, as well as planning an attack on the Marine base at Quantico; seven members were convicted of federal charges and received sentences ranging from eight to forty-five years imprisonment, while the eighth terrorist named in the conspiracy was out of the country, and was eventually killed in a drone strike.

Although sometimes referred to as the “Raleigh jihad group,” where some of the members lived, Boyd and his sons were residents of Willow Spring, and Boyd had opened a halal market in Garner which he had used for recruitment, according to the FBI: “The talk at the market was often about fighting jihad and how, in their belief, fighting jihad was an obligation.”

(The jihadists also reportedly “practiced with the weapons and developed their military tactics on private property in rural Caswell County.”)

Boyd was heavily involved in the Muslim community across the Triangle, including at least two mosques (Jaamat Ibad ar-Rahman in Durham and the Islamic Center of Raleigh) which he either left or was asked to leave due to his radicalism.

Boyd’s business partner in his jihadi-involved Blackstone Market was Sheikh Abdenasser Zouhri, who has been involved as an Islamic religious leader at JIAR as well as the Islamic Center of Morrisville.

Over the following years, the feds have made a handful of arrests related to Islamic jihad/terrorism related to the Triangle area:

• 2013, Cary, Pakistani immigrant Basit Javed Sheikh attempted to join al-Qaeda front in Syria

• 2014, Raleigh, African-Americans Akba Jihad Jordan and Avin Marsalis Brown attempted to join jihadis in Yemen/Syria

• 2015, York (SC), 16-year-old Syrian-origin Zakaryia Abdin planned with NC-based Muslim militant to rob Raleigh gun store and attack military members in North Carolina

• 2017, York (SC), Abdin attempted to fly to Jordan to join ISIS after being released on parole

• 2017, Cary, white American Garrett Asger Grimsley planned attack on non-Muslims

• 2024, Durham, white American Alexander Justin White planned to travel to Morocco to join ISIS:

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Analysis: religious freedom vs immigration

Although this violent Islamic extremism is not limited to Muslim immigrants and their children, the above examples show that they make up the preponderance of these incidents, with the Muslim community playing a known role in the jihadi conspiracy of American converts like Daniel Boyd, while the radicalization of other converts is unknown.

As covered in a recent article on the Muslim Brotherhood-linked Islamic schools funded by school choice vouchers, the vast majority of the rise of Islam and its radical fringe in America is a result of immigration policy, not of Americans exercising the “freedom of religion:”

In analyzing whether it is “truly American” to defend the cultural jihad of Islam in the West, one may turn to founders like Thomas Jefferson, who successfully advocated for a religious freedom bill in Virginia which he noted would encompass the “Mahometan” and the “Hindoo.”

However, in practice, the founders had no intent to let the Muslim or Hindu peoples take root in America, as one of the laws passed by the First Congress was the Naturalization Act of 1790 which forbid American citizenship to every foreigner who was not a “free white person...of good character.”

This restriction lasted in some form until 1952, when the McCarran-Walter Act removed the racial language while maintaining national/regional quotas with the intent to “preserve the sociological and cultural balance of the United States.” (European countries received 94.41% of the quotas, with 41.22% going to the UK, 16.28% to Germany, and 11.20% to Ireland).

The national-origins quotas were abolished with the Hart-Celler Act in 1965, truly throwing the doors of the nation open to the world outside of the predominantly Christian peoples of Europe.

The ongoing record-high immigration wave has not only reshaped the demographics of America, bringing the population of white Americans down from 85% in 1965 to 57.5% in the 2020 census, it has also exploded the Muslim population from approximately 100,000-150,000 in 1965 to an estimated 4.5 million in 2020.

The number of mosques in the United States has steadily grown along with the influx of Muslims, more than doubling in the years since the 9/11 attacks from 1,209 in 2000 to nearly 2,769 in 2020 according to the US Mosque Survey.

In Raleigh, UNC Health Rex has agreed to a $150k settlement with a remote, non-patient facing employee who was fired after being denied a religious exemption to the COVID-19 vaccine.

A state trooper was killed by a wrong-way driver with a history of DWIs on a Durham highway.

An undercover underage sex sting by the Holly Springs police nabbed a former Rolesville High teacher, the school claims no involvement, but a source tells us he lost his position at the school due to a similar incident.

A leftist activist and candidate from Raleigh made national news when he disrupted a Senate hearing so hard his arm broke.

A previously-reported on Siler City police employee charged with visa-related fraud has gotten the charges dismissed after one of the immigrant “victims” was charged with sex offense crimes and is believed to have fled the country.

In an update from the 2024 election, an administrative judge has ordered the State Board of Elections to hold a hearing on a complaint over the Democrats on the Wake County Board of Elections who chose to defy state law in 2024 by counting the ballots of early voters who died before election day.

Primary Election Results

The unofficial results from the March 2026 election are in, to view the local election results for your county: Chatham | Durham | Franklin | Granville | Harnett | Johnston | Lee | Orange | Person | Vance | Wake.

Former governor Roy Cooper handily won the Democratic nomination to replace Thom Tillis in the US Senate with 91.98%, while former GOP chair Michael Whatley received the Republican nomination with 64.57%.

For the incumbent representatives in the US House, Republican Brad Knott of District 13 and Democrat Deborah Ross of District 2 both advanced to the general without a major challenger, while Democrat Valerie P. Foushee of District 4 narrowly defeated a more progressive challenge by Durham County Commissioner Nida Allam 49.16-48.23%.

District 1, which contains Vance County and a small portion of Granville, is expected to be a close race after the legislature redrew the map: incumbent Don Davis advanced unopposed while Republican Laurie Buckhout won a plurality victory at 39.51%. In District 9, which contains portions of Chatham County, Democrat Richard N. Ojeda II won his primary with 41.76% of the vote while Republican incumbent Richard Hudson advanced unopposed.

Although there were notable primary upsets with incumbents in the state legislature on both sides of the aisle losing to challengers, incumbents representing the Triangle in the state house and senate were not among them.

Two of the local NC House primaries featured Democrat teachers who changed their party affiliation to run in the Republican primary as part of the “Educators on the Ballot” project; both fell flat, with incumbent Republican Mike Schietzelt beating Michele Joyner-Dinwiddie 90.99-9.01% in District 35 (northeast Wake County) and former Republican representative Frank Sossamon beating Pamela M. Ayscue 88.44-11.56% in District 32 (Granville County, northern Vance County).

However, another Democrat-turned-Republican Lakeshia Alston who made national news for getting her election board photo taken in a burka will be proceeding to the general election, as she filed to run in Senate District 22 (northern Durham County) in which no “true” Republican filed to run; she stands virtually no chance in the D+31 rated district against incumbent Sophia Chitlik, who defeated former Durham City Councilwoman DeDreana Freeman in the Democratic primary 65.51-34.49%.

For the Orange County School Board of Education, self-proclaimed antifa candidate Brian D. Edwards (recently fired from the sheriff’s department due to his extremist posts) came in last, attracting less than half the votes of any of the four winning candidates.

In one Franklin County upset, Republican challengers Jennifer Paylor, Scott Graham, and Jonathan Vanderford beat out one Democrat and two Republican incumbents for the top spots in the nonpartisan primary races for At-Large Seat 7, District 1, and District 5 respectively on the Franklin County Board of Education. However, the incumbents Paige Sayles (D), Meghan Jordan (R), and Chris Perry (R) each achieved second place in the primary, and will each face their challenger in a head-to-head race in November.

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UNC Health Rex agrees to $150k settlement over denial of COVID vaccine religious exemption

Rex Healthcare to Pay $150,000 in EEOC COVID-19 Vaccine Religious Accommodation Suit - EEOC

UNC Health Rex to implement new policy, pay $150K to settle COVID-19 vaccine discrimination lawsuit - WRAL

Rex settles lawsuit over religious exemption for COVID vaccine - N&O

UNC Rex settles with EEOC in COVID-19 religious discrimination lawsuit, will pay $150,000 - CBS17

UNC Rex Healthcare settles federal lawsuit over COVID vaccine religious exemption denial - ABC11

UNC Health’s Rex Healthcare has agreed to a $150,000 settlement in a case brought by the federal US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in December 2024 over Rex’s refusal to accommodate an employee who sought a religious exemption to the organization’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate.

According to the lawsuit, Heather Goeller had been working remotely for over a year in an accounting position with no patient contact when Rex instituted a requirement that employees be vaccinated against COVID-19.

Goeller had previously received exemptions from Rex for the flu vaccine in 2019 and 2020. as she believes that vaccines are a violation of the Christian doctrines that she made in the image of God and that her body is a temple of the Holy Spirit.

However, instead of offering the same “accomodation” for the COVID-19 vaccine, Rex denied four religious exemption requests from Goeller and fired her for refusing to get the shot.

As part of the consent decree approved by the court in February, Rex agreed to pay Goeller $85,643 in back wages and a $64,366 settlement payment, provide a reference letter for future employers, develop a compliant religious accommodation policy within 30 days, provide training to HR and management, and provide compliance reports to the EEOC.

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State Trooper killed on Durham highway by wrong-way driver with DWI history

Master Trooper Steven J. Perry killed in Durham wrong-way crash - N&O

Wrong-way driver may have been impaired in crash that killed trooper on Durham Freeway - WRAL

Trooper killed in head-on collision on Durham Freeway - ABC11

Head-on crash kills trooper, wrong-way driver on NC-147 in Durham - CBS17

Attorney and friend of NCSHP trooper killed weighs in on NC’s DWI laws - ABC11

Early Sunday morning, 30-year-old Master Trooper Steven J. Perry of the North Carolina State Highway Patrol was on duty when he was killed in a head-on collision with a driver travelling the wrong direction on NC-147 in west Durham.

Melshawn Moore, 39, of Kinston also died in the crash while travelling southbound in the northbound lanes, and had three prior DWI convictions between 2010 and 2017 as well as tickets in 2020 and 2021 in Pitt and Lenoir counties for open container violations; NCSHP suspects impairment on the part of Moore as a cause of the accident as the investigation continues.

Vehicular accidents are one of the leading causes in line-of-duty death of law enforcement officers; just one week prior to Perry’s killing, Master Trooper Stien Davis, Jr. died in a single-vehicle collision after veering off NC-130 in southeast North Carolina.

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Police underage sex sting catches former Wake teacher

Former Wake County teacher, youth pastor charged with child sex crimes - ABC11

Former Wake County teacher and youth pastor charged with child sex crimes, wife faces drug charges - WRAL

Former Wake educator charged with child sex crimes; wife faces drug charges - N&O

Former Wake County assistant principal, schoolteacher charged in child sex crimes investigation, NCSBI says - CBS17

Mikah Douglas Brondyke, 36, is facing a number of charges¹ ² related to sexual behavior with an undercover operative of the Holly Springs Police Department whom he believed to be a 14-year-old girl; Brondyke and his wife Chloe Grace Brondyke, 29, also face charges¹ ² for psychoactive mushrooms found at the couple’s residence in Louisburg.

Mikah Brondyke is a former teacher and assistant soccer coach at Rolesville High School, the same school at which Chloe Brondyke is currently an assistant principal.

According to Holly Springs Police Chief Paul Liquorie, Mikah Brondyke was referred to the department by the NC SBI’s Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force.

Mikah Brondyke is accused of sending explicit photos and videos to as well as soliciting explicit material/sexual activity from the undercover officer, who he believed to be an underaged female.

Chloe and Mikah Brondyke have both been charged with felony possession of a Schedule I controlled substance and keeping/maintaining a dwelling for the purpose of using controlled substances; Mikah Brondyke also faces four counts of soliciting a child by computer, four counts of indecent liberties with a child, ten counts of disseminating obscenity in the presence of a minor, and one count of first degree sexual exploitation of a minor.

Mikah Brondyke is being held on a total secured bond of $620,000, while Chloe Brondyke has been released on a $20,000 unsecured bond.

According to a message sent to Rolesville High parents, Mikah Brondyke has not been employed at the school since May 2024, and the charges have no connection to the school or its students.

However, the continuing investigation by the Holly Springs Police Department may turn up evidence casting doubt on this assertion, as an uncorroborated inside source claims that the reason Mikah Brondyke was terminated from his position at Rolesville High was because he was caught in an inappropriate relationship with one of his soccer students.

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Raleigh firefighter/leftist activist has arm broken during arrest for disrupting Senate hearing

Raleigh firefighter, Marine veteran charged after protesting war in Iran at Senate hearing - ABC11

Raleigh firefighter, a Marine veteran, forcibly removed from US Capitol for anti-war protest - WRAL

An NC candidate for U.S. Senate faces charges that he injured Capitol police - N&O

Raleigh man’s arm broken as he disrupts Senate Armed Services hearing, officials say - CBS17

The leftist activist who went viral for being seriously injured while being removed from the Senate Armed Services hearing he was disrupting while wearing his Marine uniform is Brian Clifford McGinnis, a senior firefighter at the Raleigh Fire Department and the North Carolina Green Party’s 2026 Senate candidate.

As graphic video of the incident shows, Capitol Police officers were physically removing a shouting McGinnis from the hearing room when he grabbed on to the center pillar of the room’s double doors, managing to get his arm wedged into the closing door.

As a Republican senator from Montana joined the police efforts to drag him out of the room, McGinnis’ arm can be heard audibly and seen visually snapping in a grotesque display of dedication to his anti-war and anti-Israel activism.

McGinnis reportedly faces three counts of assaulting a police officer, three counts of resisting arrest, and one count of unlawful demonstration.

McGinnis has also been active in local leftist activism including at least one anti-ICE protest in Durham on January 30 organized by the local Party for Socialism and Liberation and waving a Palestinian flag in uniform. McGinnis’ Palestinian wife Hanadee Ali is also a pro-Palestine activist, including showing up at the Raleigh City Council, calling on them to “take a stand against the terrorist state of Israel.”

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Follow-ups

Siler City Police employee ducks visa-related fraud charges after “victim” charged with sex offenses, flees country

The charges against a employee of the Siler City Police Department accused of fraudulently taking cash from two apparently illegal aliens for assistance in applying for a visa designed for crime victims have been dropped after one of the “victims” is facing criminal charges of his own and is on the lam, according to a filing by the DA’s office for Chatham and Orange counties:

“Victim has now been charged with sex offense crimes and believed to have fled the country, not available to testify.”

Gloria Maldonado, 57, a domestic violence advocate at the SCPD, was charged with taking a combined $6,400 in cash from Cesar and Enrique Portilla-Platas to “assist” with applying for U-Visas, a service which she allegedly did not actually provide to them.

The U-Visa program, intended to grant nonimmigrant legal status to victims of certain crimes who are “helpful to law enforcement or government officials in the investigation or prosecution of criminal activity,” has been described as “susceptible to fraud” in a report by the Office of the Inspector General, and the DOJ has previously prosecuted rings of fraudsters involving staged crime or bribed law enforcement officials.

It is still not clear based on the information from information available to the public from the NC State Bureau of Investigation, the SCPD, or the District Attorney whether the alleged victims in this crime were actually eligible for the visa, whether Maldonado’s official duties as a domestic violence advocate included the “assistance” she was allegedly charging cash for, or whether she had been involved in the issuance of any U-Visas in the past, which may have been fraudulently paid for by eligible or ineligible foreigners.

Previous Coverage:

• Siler City Police employee caught running visa scam (No. 140 — Sep. 6, 2025)

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Counting the ballots of the dead: administrative judge rules state election board should have heard complaint against Wake board members

Judge reissues original order in NC election board case - Carolina Journal

Weaverville man wins ruling in favor of election misconduct hearings - 828 News Now

Will Dead Voters Make Election Officials’ Heads Roll? - VoteChecker

Judge Issues a Replacement Order Requiring State Board of Elections to Hold Hearings on Misconduct by County Board Members - Press Release

Administrative Law Judge Linda F. Nelson of the Office of Administrative Hearings has ruled that the North Carolina State Board of Elections must hold a hearing on a complaint regarding county board members violating their duties in 2024 by counting the ballots of early voters who died before election day, including the members of the Wake County Board of Elections.

The complaint, brought by two citizens of Buncombe County and Rowan County, demanded that four board members in Rowan County and three in Wake should be removed for ignoring state law and its explicit interpretation in a memorandum by the state board.

As reported by the Triangle Trumpet at the time, the three Democrat members of the Wake board who are named in the complaint openly acknowledged that their decision was based on what they believed the law should be, rather than what the law is and was. “One way to get the law changed I think perhaps is to make some noise about it,” said board member Gerry Cohen.

Although the Democrat-controlled state board had removed two Republican members of the Surry County board in 2023 after a similar citizen complaint over declining to certify the results of the 2020 election, the board voted 3-2 on party lines to refuse to even hold a hearing on the complaint.

However, as Nelson ruled, North Carolina Administrative Code (08 NCAC 03 .0102) requires that such a hearing be held if “prima facie” evidence of a violation of a board member’s duties be presented. (For those unfamiliar with Latin or legal terminology, Nelson explained: “a prima facie case is established where facts are alleged which support, if true, each element of the charged offense without regard to potential defenses.”)

Summary judgment on the administrative appeal of the board’s denial was granted on the basis that the OAH had administrative review of the board’s decision under the North Carolina Administrative Procedure Act and that there was no dispute about the “material facts” of the case, while the state board’s pondering of the motive of the county board members on which they based their decision was irrelevant to the legal standard.

“The State Board members’ discussion during the prima facie review illustrates that a majority of the Board members misunderstood the prima facie standard,” Nelson ruled.

“The discussion reflected that the Board members...acknowledged that the evidence submitted supported the factual allegation that the County Board Members took the action complained of in contravention of Numbered Memorandum 2022-05 and the governing law.”

Unlike the board which dismissed the complaint, the state board which will hear the complaint against the six Democrats and one Republican is composed of three Republicans and two Democrats after the lame duck session of the 2023-2024 GOP-controlled legislature moved nomination power from the Democrat-controlled governor’s office to the Republican-controlled state auditor’s.

Previous Coverage:

• Wake County Board of Elections flouts state law/guidance in counting ballots of dead voters (No. 98 — Nov. 16, 2024)

• State Board of Election dismisses complaints over Wake BoE illegally counting dead voters
  (No. 108 — Jan. 25, 2025)

A Republican voter was arrested and charged after removing a sign associating Michele Morrow with January 6th at an Apex early voting location, though doubt and confusion abound.

A landslide of racism allegations have hit the president of the Durham teacher’s union after she publicly called the Durham Public Schools superintendent by his first name, in response to him doing the same to her.

The story’s too absurd to be anything but true: a criminal convicted of shooting a Durham police officer was “exonerated” and released less than halfway through his sentence, hired as a “violence interrupter” by a city-county partnership, got subsequent drug charges dropped by the DA, and is now back in prison after a federal task force caught him selling cocaine and fentanyl.

Chapel Hill has declined to follow the footsteps of Carrboro and Durham in adopting a resolution prohibiting immigration enforcement from accessing town “workplaces” without judicial warrant.

Feds reveal road rage as alleged motive in Garner murder

5-Day Report from Raleigh Police Reveals More About Officer-Involved Shooting During Arrest of Garner Murder Suspect - CBS17

Raleigh Police Release Report Detailing Gunfire Exchange Involving Garner Murder Suspect - ABC11

Man Who Shot at Raleigh Officers Faces Federal Charges - WRAL

Alleged Road Rage Murderer Faces Federal Charges - USAO EDNC Press Release

Additional information regarding the gangbanger charged with shooting two Raleigh SWAT officers serving a warrant for the killing of a father of five in Garner has been revealed over the past week, including a motive for the killing based on the alleged murderer’s own words.

According to the five-day report which is compiled by the Raleigh Police Department for officer-involved shootings, members of the RPD’s Selective Enforcement Unit forced entry into the apartment of Solomon Owens, 26, on February 19 after knocking on the door and announcing their presence to serve a homicide-related search warrant from the Garner Police.

However, when the officers opened the door, Owens opened fire with an “AR-style pistol chambered in 300 Blackout,” which appears to be the firearm he also had an active warrant for having stolen.

Owens fired ten shots, one of which struck an officer in his ballistic helmet and another three of which struck another officer’s ballistic shield.

One officer fired two shots in response; although it was initially believed that the injuries to Owens during this arrest were caused by this return fire, the report concludes that they were sustained later in the arrest.

After the officers took cover, Owens emerged from the apartment with an adult female and a small child; one of the officers was able to “immobilize” Owens with a less-lethal 40mm sponge grenade.

However, additional details were revealed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of North Carolina, which is charging Owens in federal court for the unlawful possession of the firearm he allegedly used to shoot the Raleigh officers.

According to the press release, Owens told a witness that he had fatally shot Joseph “Joey” Adams in Garner on February 9 because he wouldn’t let Owens change lanes: “He wouldn’t let me over, so I handled it.”

Owens’ previous convictions included plotting gang-related murders in Warren County, as well as robbing a Circle K in Durham while on probation.

Owens is being held without bond, and faces up to the death penalty.

Previous Coverage:

• Raleigh SWAT officers shot while arresting gangbanger felon ID’d as killer of Garner father (No. 164 — Feb. 21, 2026)

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Republican voter charged with removing anti-Morrow sign in Apex

Ivy Lynn Dearman, 67, has been charged with unlawfully removing a political sign outside the voting site at Apex Town Campus, which court documents incorrectly described as belonging to Andi Morrow, a Democrat challenging the incumbent Republican representing Onslow County in the state senate.

In actuality, the sign Dearman was captured on camera removing was a homemade “anti-Morrow” sign reading “Michele Morrow was at January 6th,” which had been recycled for Michele Morrow’s current campaign in the GOP primary for the open seat in the US Senate.

(Morrow participated in all three “Stop the Steal” rally in DC following the 2020 election, but did not enter the Capitol.)

According to Morrow, the woman who removed the sign did not believe it qualified as a “political sign” protected by NC GS § 136-32, which defines the term as “any sign that advocates for political action.”

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Durham superintendent hypocritically complains about “racial connotation” of first-name usage

DAE president apologizes for calling Durham schools superintendent by first name - N&O

DPS superintendent cites racial history, calls for ‘reset’ following DAE incident - N&O

DAE president’s comments to superintendent spark backlash - 9th Street Journal

It’s been over a year since the Durham Public Schools Board of Education approved a pro-union “Meet and Confer” policy mandating regular meetings between district leadership and the Durham Association of Educators (and any other qualifying “employee representative organization”), but it doesn’t appear to be going so well.

According to the publicly available livestream of a February meeting of the Meet and Confer Committee, DAE President Mika Twietmeyer was criticizing the administration’s lack of responsiveness when superintendent Dr. Anthony Lewis interrupted her as his side of the committee got up to leave: “Mika, we’re done, the meeting is over.”

After a pause, Twietmeyer reponded: “Thank you, Anthony.”

Various black Durhamites immediately came out to paint her use of the PhD-holder’s first name in a racial light, such as “diminish[ing] a Black man’s accomplishments” from school board chair Bettina Umstead, “racialized” by vice-chair Millicent Rogers, and “racial diminishment” in a letter from nationally-recognized “anti-racist” activist Ronda Taylor Bullock.

In turn, the president of the far left teachers’ union apologized, admitting the “harmful racial dynamics that [her] actions brought into play.”

However, the video shows that prior to Lewis’ interruption and use of Twietmeyer’s own first name, she had referred to him by his honorific title.

Although Lewis promised to “continue to practice respect and humility” in his own statement on the situation, published as an op-ed after her apology, he continued the attacks by associating her behavior with slavery and Jim Crow era practices, while making no apology on his own part for whatever absence of “respect” she was merely reflecting back at him.

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“Exonerated” criminal back in prison after returning to crime

Judge rebukes former Durham ‘violence interrupter’ turned drug dealer - N&O

A Durham man who was released from prison after being “exonerated” of shooting a police officer in 2007 and later got drug charges dropped by the Durham District Attorney after complaining of “targeting” has now been sentenced to 17 years in federal prison after he was caught as part of a ring selling cocaine and fentanyl.

In 2007, Durham police officer D.B. Vereen was shot in the arm and the back while responding to a burglary in progress, with police identifying 24-year-old Kevin Johnson and 22-year-old David Williams as the suspects.

After being arrested, Johnson was tried, convicted, and sentenced to 33 years in prison, with evidence including the implication by his co-defendant.

However, in 2023, with the assistance of the North Carolina Center on Actual Innocence, Johnson had his conviction vacated and a new trial ordered. Among the evidence considered was the fact that in 2020, Williams had signed a statement claiming that he had lied about Johnson’s involvement, yet when forced to testify for the appeal he reverted to his original story.

After the Durham District Attorney’s Office declined to try Johnson a second time, he was hired by the as a “violence interrupter” by Bull City United, a program funded by the City of Durham and Durham County with the aim of reducing crime.

Months after his release, Johnson was arrested and charged with possession of drugs and guns, which Durham Police found at his home. However, Johnson’s NCCAI lawyer Christine Mumma claimed the arrest was retaliatory, and that Johnson had been “on such a positive track” since his release.

The Durham DA dismissed the charges, but denied they were “targeted.”

Less than a year later, in September 2024, Johnson was caught selling 3 oz. of cocaine to an undercover officer, and was surveilled over the following months by the federal Raleigh Durham Safe Streets Task Force as he sold cocaine and fentanyl.

Johnson was among at least ten charged federally as part of a conspiracy to traffic these drugs, which included Khuram Choudhry, who had been released early after Durham DA Satana Deberry agreed in 2019 to a downgrade of his first degree murder conviction for the killing of Rana Shazad Ahmed, for which Choudhry had been sentenced to life in prison without parole.

At his sentencing hearing after pleading guilty to four out of ten charges he was facing, Johnson claimed that he had “tried” to keep his life on track after losing his job in the post-release arrest, but turned to selling drugs when he was unable to find a job.

The federal judge was not sympathetic to Johnson’s excuses, and sentenced him to 17 years in prison.

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Chapel Hill declines to pass “4th Amendment Workplace” resolution

Chapel Hill council declines to take up ICE workplace training resolution - N&O

The Chapel Hill Town Council has declined to adopt a 4th Amendment Workplace resolution, previously passed by Carrboro and Durham, to prevent immigration officials from entering any “workplace” controlled by the municipality without a judicial warrant.

The Fourth Amendment Workplaces movement is a project of the anti-immigration enforcement organization Siembra NC, which boasts over two hundred employers across the state who have signed on.

Although the Chapel Hill government has shown itself to be strongly on the side of opposing immigration enforcement, Mayor Jess Anderson cited the complexity of the situation in the council’s decision to decline to take up the resolution at a Wednesday meeting.

Previous Coverage:

• Carrboro, Durham declared as “4th Amendment Workplaces” (No. 140 — Sep. 6, 2025)

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ICYMI

Opposition to immigration enforcement is apparently a major issue in Orange County politics, cited races for both county commissioner and sheriff, with candidates vying for who can be the most far-left in advocating for the protection of even violent criminals from ICE.

In a completely unrelated story, one of the illegal aliens charged with a horrific home invasion in Greenville in which the victim was sodomized and had his fingernails removed is a resident of Chapel Hill.

Lee County deputies investigating a vehicular crash discovered that one of the drivers was a member of MS-13 wanted for kidnapping, murder, etc. in El Salvador.

The mayor of Creedmoor has been charged with DWI after crossing the road and crashing into a tree, though it might not be such a surprise given his past four DWI convictions.

Raleigh SWAT officers shot while arresting gangbanger felon ID’d as killer of Garner father

No bond for suspect in Raleigh police shootout and deadly Garner shooting - WRAL

Garner murder suspect accused of shooting Raleigh SWAT officer appears in court - ABC11

Police officer injured in shootout with Garner murder suspect Thursday night - N&O

‘Judgement day is coming’: Joey Adams’ family and friends react to murder arrest - CBS17

Just days after renewing their request to the public for any information related to the seeming random murder of a man found fatally shot in his car, Garner Police identified the alleged killer as a felon with prior convictions and documented gang affiliations.

Solomon Owens, 26, was only brought into custody after a shootout Raleigh Police serving the warrant for his arrest on Thursday at a home in North Raleigh. Warrants allege that Owens shot at five Raleigh Police officers, striking one in the back of the head and another in a ballistic shield with rounds from a .300 Blackout AR-15, which appears to the the same firearm he is accused of stealing in Durham earlier in the day.

The SWAT officer struck in the head was wearing a ballistic helmet, and was released from the hospital after treatment; Owens also sustained minor injury in the arrest, with one officer returning fire, and appeared in court and in his mugshot with a bandage on his face.

On February 9, Garner Police had responded to reports of a crash near the intersection of Timber Dr. and Vandora Springs Rd. only to find that the driver Joseph “Joey” Adams suffering from multiple gunshot wounds, with Adams passing away from his injuries after transportation to the hospital.

Even with the suspect identified, the motive for the shooting of the father of five remains unclear, though one of Owens’ previous convictions may shed light.

According to reporting by the Warren Record, an arrest warrant for Owens described him admitting Warren County Sheriff’s Office that he was involved in two shootings in September 2018 as part of a gang initiation for an aspiring new member Haley Street Folk Nation Gang, of which he was a member.

The initiate was reportedly dropped by Owens after failing to shoot either of the intended targets he had interpersonal conflict with at their homes, which Owens brought him to, instead merely firing his weapon into the air.

Owens plead guilty to charges including conspiring to commit assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill, and with a sentence finding of “criminal gang activity” under N.C.G.S. 14-50.25 and appears to have been released from jail in January 2019 with a suspended sentence of 15.30 months, which would only have to be served if he violated his probation.

Despite the opportunity to turn his life around, records from the NC Department of Adult Corrections show he violated the probation ten months later by robbing a Durham Circle K with an accomplice in 2019, as well as possession of a firearm by a felon while out again in 2021 (also in Durham); he appears to have been released from prison most recently in April 2024.

Owens currently faces a charge of first degree murder for the killing of Adams; one count each of larceny of a firearm and possession of a firearm by a felon for allegedly stealing a firearm in Durham the day of his arrest; two counts of attempted first degree murder, three counts of assaulting an emergency worker with a deadly weapon with kill, and five counts of assaulting a law enforcement officer with a firearm.

Owens has been denied bail, noting his gang affiliations and violent offense history, and faces a maximum penalty of death.

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Orange County candidates fight over who will oppose ICE the most

Orange County sheriff responds to election challenger’s immigration claims - N&O

Orange County 2026 primary: Here are the challenges the commissioner candidates see - N&O

Is opposing immigration enforcement a top priority for one of NC’s bluest counties? Both Orange County Commissioner Jamezetta Bedford and her primary challenger Maria Palmer cited ICE as when given the opportunity to name three challenges facing the county.

Bedford described the need to “alert” the population to immigration enforcement activity (as the county’s municipal, county, and law enforcement leaders did November), while Palmer emphasized the importance of politicians with broad left-wing “community support” to “speak up.”

The passion for protecting illegal immigrants from the enforcement of the nation’s immigration laws extends to violent criminals, as is evidenced by the county’s sheriff race, where 12-year incumbent Charles Blackwood is facing a primary challenge from further-left fellow Democrat David LaBarre.

In his campaign, LaBarre is challenging Blackwood on his office’s handling of Jorge Lopez-Duran, a Hillsborough resident accused of the meth-fueled “vicious” biting of the three Orange County deputies attempting to arrest him in March 2025 in response to reports by neighbors of him throwing bricks and stealing from a nearby residence. (The deputies suffered “severe” bites to the hands, with one also sustaining injury to the head and eye.)

Instead of being detained in Orange County, after his arrest, Lopez-Duran was transferred to Alamance County Jail under a policy designed to avoid defendants accused of assaulting law enforcement being detained in a facility manned by the same department as their alleged victims.

LaBarre’s criticism of Blackwood on the situation echoes the concerns raised at the time by Enlace Latino NC, an organization which has a history of organizing to protect violent criminals from immigration enforcement, regarding the fact that Alamance County Sheriff Terry Johnson has a history of working with ICE.

There appears to be no evidence besides Lopez-Duran’s ethnicity that he is an immigrant, let alone an illegal immigrant, with Blackwood pointing to his previous criminal record to suggest that he is a US citizen. (Lopez-Duran has at least one felony conviction from Oklahoma in 2012, which was cited in court documents for a charge of possession of a firearm by a felon in Orange County in 2024; Lopez-Duran plead guilty to this charge as well as two counts of communicating threats after his 2025 arrest.)

Blackwood defended his position on using his office to push back on immigration enforcement, while following applicable laws, describing a situation in August 2025 when ICE sought to arrest a resident of Carrboro; Blackwood told the News & Observer that his office checked the legitimacy of their paperwork and encouraged the federal agents not to conduct the operation at the immigrant’s home in a majority-Hispanic neighborhood.

The immigration officials complied with the request from the sheriff’s office, planning instead to arrest him when he drove to work, but failed to make the arrest when the subject instead stayed home. (Blackwood described a later attempt to arrest the same individual in Wake County involving a foot and vehicle chase, but did not provide identifying details or clarify whether the immigrant was eventually arrested.)

Blackwood also says he briefed El Centro Hispano on the situation, another local far-left Hispanic organization which opposes the enforcement of immigration laws. (El Centro Hispano mission statement: “We strive to dismantle systemic, institutional, and historical barriers, so they no longer determine the population’s socioeconomic, education, health opportunities and status.”)

Blackwood was also a signatory of the letter sent out by Orange County officials regarding Operation Charlotte’s Web, encouraging those “vulnerable to immigration enforcement operations” to “stay tuned to trusted news sources, know your rights, and have a plan,” and linking to “resources” like Siembra NC, another far-left Hispanic organization opposing immigration enforcement (you may note a theme).

Relevant Coverage:

• Durham activists respond to ICE activity at courthouse (No. 134 — Jul. 20-Jul. 26, 2025)

• Siembra NC: even criminals must stay (No. 151 — Nov. 16-Nov. 22, 2025)

• Orange County Commissioners call for “reform” of DHS (No. 162 — Feb. 1-Feb. 7, 2026)

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Chapel Hill resident among illegals charged in “brutal” Greenville home invasion

Two men now jailed in Cherry Oaks home invasion, assault, kidnapping - Daily Reflector

Chapel Hill man one of two charged in Pitt County home invasion; placed on ICE detainers - WRAL

2 illegal alien ‘perverts’ allegedly sodomized, beat, ripped fingernails off male victim in NC home invasion - Fox News

NORTH CAROLINA NIGHTMARE: ICE Lodges Arrest Detainer Against Criminal Illegal Aliens Charged in Beating, Sodomizing, and Ripping Fingernails off of a Victim in Brutal Home Invasion in Sanctuary North Carolina - Department of Homeland Security Press Release

Zaid Mayen-Esteban, 21, an illegal alien resident of Chapel Hill, is one of the suspects charged in an especially perverted and gruesome home invasion in Greenville last Wednesday.

According to court documents, local reporting, and a Department of Homeland Security press release, Mayen-Esteban and his accomplices broke into a Greenville home, then restrained the resident, assaulted him with an edged weapon, removed his fingernails, and sodomized him.

Mayen-Esteban and Jonathan David Garcia-Larios, 20, are both illegal immigrants from Mexico, with Garcia-Larios having been deported in 2024, while the immigration status of the third defendant John Carlo Calderon, 22, is unknown.

According to the Pitt County Sheriff’s Office, the attack was a “targeted crime and was not random,” and appears to be isolated.

All three defendants are being held without bond.

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Lee County crash investigation turns up wanted MS-13 member

Crash reveals driver is MS-13 member accused of homicide, kidnapping, NC cops say - N&O

Deputies: Wanted El Salvadorian gang member arrested in Lee County - WRAL

Crash investigation in Lee County leads to arrest of MS-13 member wanted for serious crimes - ABC11

Accused killer from El Salvador caught after crash in Lee County, deputies say - CBS17

MS-13 gang member arrested in Lee County - Sanford Herald

While other counties may have a soft spot for foreigners who commit crime, Lee County Sheriff Brian Estes congratulated deputies for “go[ing] the extra mile” while responding to a crash on US-1 on Wednesday, leading to the identification of one of the involved drivers as an wanted member of MS-13, one of the most notorious international criminal organizations.

According to the press release from the Lee County Sheriff’s Office, Jonathon Josue Ayala-Melendez provided multiple variations of his name to the responding deputies and highway patrol troopers, none of which matched the birth date he provided, leading to the deputies to detain him and charge him as a “Juan Doe” with identity theft and resisting, delaying, and obstructing.

Deputies identified Ayala-Melendez by his fingerprints and got in touch with federal authorities, revealing that he a “transnational member of the criminal gang MS-13” who the feds had been “searching for...for some time” and was wanted for kidnapping, drug trafficking, and homicide/attempted homicide in El Salvador, according to LCSO.

Ayala-Melendez is under an immigration detainer by DHS, and is being held without bond.

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Creedmoor mayor charged with DWI (again)

Creedmoor mayor charged with DWI in SUV crash - WRAL

Creedmoor mayor faces DWI charge in Monday crash - Ledger Times

Creedmoor Mayor Antwane Downey charged with DWI after crashing into ditch, tree - ABC11

Creedmoor Mayor Antwane Downey is facing a potential fifth DWI conviction after NC State Highway Patrol troopers say he crashed into a ditch and a tree after crossing the center line and travelling off the roadway on US-15 south of Oxford.

Downey was elected in 2025 with the endorsement of the Granville County Democratic Party, despite a criminal history including four prior convictions for DWI between 2003 and 2018.

In response to the situation, Creedmoor Mayor pro tem Archer Wilkins asked the community for prayer and a non-judgmental attitude while Granville County Sheriff Robert Fountain refuted accusations that he was involved in a cover-up, according to reporting by the Ledger Times. (Fountain says he was merely at a basketball game when he heard about the accident, drove over to alert elected officials at a county retreat, and personally responded to the scene of the crash.)

The charges Downey currently faces include driving while impaired and driving while licensed revoked for impaired driving

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A federal judge has granted a preliminary injunction allowing several pro-Palestine activists to return to protesting on the UNC-Chapel Hill campus after having been banned due to their arrest at the illegal encampment in 2023.

Left-wing demonstrations continued with an anti-ICE protest in Clayton, as well as a march from Wilson to Raleigh in protest of general left-wing “love” causes as well as the redistricting to push the 1st Congressional District into Republican hands.

Cooper’s Criminals

The brutal murder of Iryna Zarutska on a Charlotte train has once again captured national headlines with the revelation that her alleged killer was on the list of prison inmates recorded as being released early by the NC Department of Adult Correction as part of a settlement between Gov. Roy Cooper (and his appointees) and left-wing activist organizations using the COVID-19 pandemic to demand the mass release of convicts.

(The NCDAC claims that despite his inclusion on the list of early re-entries in relation to the lawsuit, neither DeCarlos Brown Jr.’s early release nor the subsequent decision not to revoke his release after an assault arrest were “affected by the COVID litigation or settlement.”)

The settlement was signed on February 25, 2021, over a year after the lawsuit had been filed by the ACLU of North Carolina, Disability Rights North Carolina, Emancipate NC, Forward Justice, and the National Juvenile Justice Network alleging that the rights of the 30,000+ prisoners in the North Carolina by being incarcerated during the pandemic.

The motivation of these radical anti-organizations was clear, such as a press release from ACLU NC making a clear demand, not for PPE or social distancing, but for Cooper to issue an executive order “to halt jail admissions, release a meaningful number of medically vulnerable people, or allow people whose sentences are nearly up to be released.”

After receiving an unfavorable ruling from Wake County Superior Court Judge Vinston Rozier Jr., the government ended up agreeing to the early release of at least 3,500 inmates, which ACLU NC hailed as “among the largest prison releases in the country achieved via COVID-19 litigation efforts.”

This month, WSOCTV obtained and released a document from the NCDAC listing the early releases of 4,234 offenders between February and August, 2021. Comparing this list of IDs to the sentencing database maintained by the NCDAC shows a recidivism rate of at least 51.6%, with 2,186 of these releases either having their release revoked or earning a subsequent conviction.

An example would be Patrick Renard Crews, who has spent the majority of the time since his eight month-early release in jail after being arrested and charged with new crimes including for shooting into a woman’s vehicle as she attempted to escape an argument with him and assaulting an officer. Crews was allowed to consolidate his charges and plead guilty and get a potential sentence of ten years reduced to only 23-37 months, which amounts to a near-immediate release when taking into account his time served.

The early releases in the document include 909 whose convictions include at least one conviction in the eleven counties covered by the Triangle Trumpet, with 465 (51.2%) matching the recidivism criteria.

An example is Najee Isiah Fevecque, who is listed as receiving an early release date of 04/01/2021 head of an original release date of 12/4/2021. Fevecque has been arrested in Wake County at least 21 times since 2013, with a post-release convictions including 10 days in jail for possession of drug paraphernalia and resisting an officer as well as 6-17 months in prison for receiving/possessing a stolen vehicle with a sentence of 6-17 months.

The early release document includes parole for 51 inmates serving life sentences, including nine whose prison records include convictions in the Triangle:

• John Phillips, sentenced to life at 18 for the rape of a four-year-old girl in Durham in 1952. Phillips was described at the time as a “moron,” with the intellectual development of a seven-year-old and survived to become the oldest inmate in the North Carolina prison system.

• Eric Johnson, sentenced to life for a 1992 murder in Vance County. Johnson’s prior convictions included DWI, assault, breaking and entering, and larceny in Vance and Johnston.

• Herman Lee Carver, sentenced to life for first degree and a second degree murder in 1990 Cumberland County. Carver’s prior convictions included larceny of a motor vehicle in Johnston County.

• Robert Vernon Jones, sentenced to life for beating/strangling his female partner to death in 1991 in Johnston County. Two months prior to the murder, Jones’ had been convicted of assault with a deadly weapon inflicting serious injury, also in Johnston.

• Carlton Leroy Green, sentenced to life for second degree murder in 1993 in Vance County. Green was simultaneously sentenced to 20 years for 2nd degree sexual offense in Vance.

• Sharon Randolph, sentenced to life for the armed kidnapping, rape, and robbery of a Fayetteville woman in 1983. Randolph had approached the victim and asked for a ride to work, only to pull a firearm and take her hostage after she generously agreed. Randolph and her male-codefendant stopped in Wake County to rape the victim, then continued north with her until she was able to escape in Virginia long enough to contact Arlington County Police and be rescued.

• Sticardo Mandria McCullers, sentenced to life for participating in fatally beating a man with baseball bats in a night of armed robbery in Raleigh in 1992. McCullers and four other men drove from Clayton to find victims to beat and rob near the Tower Shopping Center. After one of the robbers was accidentally struck in the head by a co-conspirator while robbing the first victim, the group of criminals decided to make their next victim “suffer” like he was suffering, including a blow to the head from McCullers’ bat. (The victim was found still alive hours later, but passed due to his injuries in the following weeks.)

• Barry Eugene Freeman, sentenced to life for second degree murder in Harnett County in 1985. Freeman’s prior convictions included DUI, receiving stolen goods, forgery, and check fraud in Lee, Chatham, and Wake.

• William Cornell Whitley, sentenced to life for second degree murder in Wake County in 1992. Whitley’s prior convictions included breaking and entering, armed robbery, and larceny in Johnston and Wake.

More from at Longleaf Politics:

Longleaf Politics

Fleshing out Roy Cooper’s secret list

I got myself into a little bit of trouble over my column in the Observer last week about the connection between former Gov. Roy Cooper and the man charged with murdering Iryna Zarutska. Sometimes you just have to live to fight another day, is all I’ll say…

Read more

4 months ago · 4 likes · Andrew Dunn

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Follow-up

Judge suspends UNC’s indefinite ban on pro-Palestine activists

Federal judge orders UNC to lift campus ban against pro-Palestine protesters after 2024 clash: Court records - CBS17

Judge: UNC must allow protesters to return to campus - WRAL

Judge blocks UNC’s ban against protesters, tosses part of their suit - Carolina Journal

Judge allows protesters back on UNC campus. Duke prof plans to take court up on it - N&O

A federal judge has granted a preliminary injunction temporarily preventing the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill from enforcing trespass notices issued against three pro-Palestine activists who were arrested at the “Triangle Gaza Solidarity Encampment” in 2024.

The ruling was specifically in regards to Laila Dames, Emily Rogers, and Kathryn Newman aka Kathryn Mccaskil, three plaintiffs who are not affiliated with the university, refused an order to vacate the encampment, and accepted a deferred prosecution agreement in which their charges of second degree trespass would be dropped if they completed community service.

Although acknowledging that the demonstration was in open violation of campus policies and “presented legitimate and serious security concerns,” District Judge Thomas D. Schroeder found that the plaintiffs were likely to succeed on the claim that an indefinite ban from the UNC-CH campus was a violation of their first amendment rights, citing the fact that the area of campus primarily in question does constitute a “limited public forum,” and that an indefinite ban with an “absence of clear standards” governing how the ban could be lifted was unlikely to be reasonable.

The judge also referenced the fact that although participants in the demonstration may have posed a security concern by intimidating students and propping open doors to gain unauthorized overnight access to the surrounding buildings, the defendants in the lawsuit had not presented evidence that these specific plaintiffs had engaged in such behavior, and had not argued why an indefinite ban was necessary to pursue a legitimate goal like the safety and security of the campus.

(Although they might have engaged in as widespread civil disobedience since the encampment, demonstrators associated with the same organizers as the plaintiffs in this case have vandalized the campus in multiple instances since, and have been accused of intimidating behavior.)

Trespassing from an otherwise public area owned by the government falls into somewhat of a murky area requiring careful balance, as failing to act against troublemaking or threatening individuals can suppress the speech of those on the opposite side of an issue.

However, the same justification for removing treats can be used to stifle protesters antagonistic to the government, as in another lawsuit cited in this ruling and also previously covered by this publication, Bernstein v. Sims, where an election integrity activist sued the Wake County Board of Elections after being trespassed from the headquarters where the board’s public meetings are held:

Previous coverage:

• UNC students protest decision to ban ‘Cop City’ activist (No. 15 — Apr. 15, 2023)

• Antifa UNC Law student dances into Georgia arraignment (No. 45 — Nov. 11, 2023)

• “Students for Justice in Palestine” interrupt public discourse event at UNC (No. 56 — Jan. 27, 2024)

• UNC students protest in favor of antifa law student banned from campus over “domestic terrorism” charges (No. 67 — Apr. 13, 2024)

• UNC Students for Justice in Palestine hold “encampment” in support of anti-Israel demonstrators at Columbia University (No. 68 — Apr. 20, 2024)

• Alleged domestic terrorist receives UNC award (No. 68 — Apr. 20, 2024)

• Anti-Israel protesters make 2nd attempt at UNC encampment (No. 69 — Apr. 27, 2024)

• UNC Pro-Palestine Encampment Shutdown Timeline (No. 70 — May 4, 2024)

• Pro-Palestinian demonstrators begin third encampment at UNC (No. 71 — May 11, 2024)

• Defense of American flag by UNC frat bros celebrated at RNC (No. 81 — Jul. 20, 2024)

• UNC students commit vandalism spree in support of Palestine (No. 90 — Sep. 21, 2024)

• Pro-Palestine leftists celebrate anniversary of October 7th attacks with “Week of Resistance” (No. 93 — Oct. 12, 2024)

• UNC pro-Palestine encampment arrestees receive pretrial depositions (No. 101 — Dec. 7, 2024)

• UNC pro-Palestine encampment charges - how they were resolved (No. 103 — Dec. 21, 2024)

• Anniversary of “Triangle Gaza Solidarity Encampment” on UNC campus (No. 122 — May 3, 2025)

• One Year Later: review and analysis of UNC pro-Palestine encampment arrests (Original Article — May 8, 2025)

• Domestic Terrorism charges dismissed against UNC antifa (No. 138 — Aug. 23, 2025)

• Palestine supporters vandalize UNC campus, again (No. 141 — Sep. 13, 2025)

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Protest Watch

Anti-ICE activism continues with protest in Clayton

Anti-ICE rally held in Johnston County - ABC11

Clayton residents protest ICE for second time in three weeks - WRAL

Johnston County Group Announces Feb. 8 Immigration Protest - JoCo Report

Sunday, February 8, Clayton Town Square, organized by Indivisible Johnston County:

Social justice activists march from Wilson to Raleigh

Rev. Barber’s ‘Love Forward Together’ rally draws thousands to NC State Capitol - N&O

Thousands gathered at State Capitol after civil rights reverend led 50-mile march for peace, love - WRAL

Hundreds walk 50 miles in ‘Love Forward Together’ movement in North Carolina - ABC11

Love Forward Together: March for justice and unity in North Carolina ends in Raleigh - CBS17

A four day “This is Our Selma” march from Wilson organized by Rev. William Barber’s NC Poor People’s Campaign arrived in Raleigh on Saturday to protest for various left-wing causes.

The News & Observer estimated an attendance of over two thousand as the demonstrators arrived in Raleigh. The organizers claiming that several hundred had made the full 50-mile trek, but the livestream shows a group which would be more aptly described as “dozens:”

In addition to various “love”-based left-wing causes such as anti-ICE, public housing, socialized healthcare, unions, etc., the protest specifically focused on the Republican attempt to redraw the 1st Congressional district to be more favorable for Republicans. (The district, which includes Wilson, is currently represented by Democrat Don Davis who won in 2024 by 1.7 point margin.)

A Duke professor who has previously taken heat for using falsified data in widely-cited research on honesty now appears to be less-than-honest in his attempts to explain why his name appeared over 600 times in recently released Epstein files.

The Orange County Board of Commissioners is calling for the reform of DHS due to alleged constitutional violations and loss of public trust, but the radical positions they’ve taken suggest there is no amount of immigration enforcement in the county with which they would be comfortable.

In small town political drama, the mayor of Selma has led a censure of a town councilwoman for “inappropriate” behavior including the use of her town position in the endorsement of a Republican candidate, despite the fact that the title of the mayor himself has been used in the endorsement of a Democrat candidate.

Accuracy in Media has released another undercover video exposing how government officials are secretly subverting anti-DEI policies, this time leading to the firing of an assistant director of the pride center at NC State.

Duke professor named 600+ times in Epstein files, attempts to minimize interactions

Duke professor Dan Ariely had longstanding friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, newly released files show - Duke Chronicle

My connection with Jeffrey Epstein - Dan Ariely

Duke University professor appears in newest release of Epstein files - ABC11

Duke professor named hundreds of times in newly released Epstein files - N&O

Duke University professor mentioned in Epstein files; says he was not involved in criminal activity - CBS17

Duke Professor Dan Ariely, who has previously attracted criticism for using falsified data in his research on honesty, is once again in hot water after the Duke Chronicle revealed that Ariely was named 636 times in the millions of pages of Epstein-related documents released last month.

According to Ariely’s telling, he only met Epstein twice, he believed Epstein when he told him that the minor sex trafficking allegations (to which he had already plead guilty) were false, and that “the contact [he] had with Jeffrey Epstein was infrequent, largely logistical, often mediated by assistants.”

However, the documents reviewed by the Chronicle paint a different picture, with Ariely meeting Epstein at least seven times between 2010 and 2016, at least three of which took place at Epstein’s house.

In addition to those seven meetings, Ariely “encountered Epstein briefly at a professional conference” in an incident which was not documented in the emails, except for Ariely emailing Epstein afterwards to ask for the contact information to a “redhead” who had been with Epstein at a conference that was “very very smart.”

Ariely claims that this was merely in regards to “somebody who [he] believed was [Epstein’s] colleague” whom he “had a short conversation” that he “found intellectually interesting,” but his narrative entirely neglects to mention him arranging to visit Epstein’s home only seven days later, suggesting that Ariely may only be as honest as the data he used in his landmark studies.

Ariely and Epstein are (or were) both Jews with ties to the state of Israel: Ariely’s family emigrated when he was three years old, while Epstein’s ties included former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak (who received millions of dollars from Epstein, and visited him numerous times including on his island), Saudi-Arabian businessman/arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi (a middleman between Israel and Iran in the notorious Iran-Contra Affair), and Israeli military intelligence officer Yoni Koren (who stayed at Epstein’s apartment on at least three occasions).

Epstein also reportedly helped broker deals between Israel and both Mongolia and the Ivory Coast, as well as attempting to set up a backchannel Israel and Russia during the Syria civil war.

According to former Israeli intelligence officer Ari Ben-Menashe, an early whistleblower on the Iran-Contra Affair, Epstein gathered blackmail for Mossad. (Ben-Menashe also claimed that Robert Maxwell, an Israeli citizen who was father of Esptein-accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, also worked for Mossad.)

Epstein was also reportedly able to travel to Israel in April 2008 while negotiating an extremely generous “sweetheart deal” in which the federal charges were not only dropped, but the federal government entered into a non-prosecution agreement granting immunity to Epstein and all “potential co-conspirators” in exchange for Epstein pleading guilty to state charges of solicitation of prostitution and solicitation of prostitution with a minor under the age of 18, for which he was sentenced to 18 months in jail and required to register as a sex offender.

(Israeli publication Haaretz has previously reported on the phenomenon in which factors like Israel’s right-of-return laws and lack of international cooperation intersect to create conditions in which alleged Jewish sex-offenders can flee to the country to avoid prosecution in nations like the United States or Australia.)

Previous coverage:

• Duke “superstar honesty researcher” roasted by supposed source of data for falsified study (No. 30 — Jul. 29, 2023)

• Scientific journal issues “Expression of Concern” regarding honesty research by prolific Duke researcher (No. 91 — Sep. 28, 2024)

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Orange County Commissioners call for “reform” of DHS

The Orange County Board of Commissioners has passed a resolution calling for the “reform” of the Department of Homeland Security, citing alleged violation of constitutional rights and eroding public trust.

However, previous actions by Orange County authorities suggest that as the second bluest county in the state, the only “reform” that would be acceptable would be a DHS which no longer deports the illegal aliens they consider to be members of their “community.”

For instance, the resolution refers to the “community safety depend[ing] on the public’s trust that law enforcement officers...act in residents’ best interests.” It may be a subtle distinction to some, but the interest of the citizen do not align with the interest of the “resident” when the resident is an illegal alien whose presence in our country is unlawful.

When immigration enforcement came to the Triangle last November, then-chair Jamezetta Bedford signed a “joint message” along with the mayors of Carrboro, Chapel Hill, and Hillsborough to “strongly denounce actions that sow fear among community members, undermine our local community safety efforts, and infringe on the human rights of our most vulnerable friends and neighbors.”

Among the “trusted organizations” included in the resources section of the message was Siembra NC, a radical anti-immigration enforcement organization which opposes even the deportation of illegal aliens convicted of violent crimes, and has organized the type of “ICE Watch” activity which violent anti-ICE activist Alex Pretti was engaged in when he was fatally shot in Minneapolis.

Here’s the text of the resolution, which was approved 6-0:

Whereas citizens of the United States and law abiding immigrants have suffered violence and the violation of their constitutional rights at the hands of agents of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security;
And whereas this trend has been occurring in numerous cities and states across America;
And whereas community safety depends on the public’s trust that law enforcement officers comply with the United States Constitution and federal, state and local laws and that they act in residents’ best interests;
And whereas local law enforcement and local government play a key role in ensuring community safety;
And whereas the public trust has been eroded by the actions of federal agents, underscoring the urgent need for accountability and reform in the administration of federal immigration enforcement;

Be it resolved that the Orange County Board of Commissioners is elected, representatives and concerned constituents urge its elected representatives in the United States Senate and House to take immediate legislative action to ensure accountability, improve oversight and reform the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to protect the rights of all residents and restore public trust.

Signed this day through February 2026 by the chair of the commissioners.

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Hypocrisy? Selma mayor who endorsed Democrat leads censure of councilwoman for endorsing Republican

‘About Control’: Selma Councilwoman Censured Following Contentious Meeting, Communications Restricted - JoCo Report

Selma Mayor Byron McAllister successfully led a resolution to censure of Councilwoman Susan Parrish Watson at the last town council meeting, also ordering Watson not to contact any town staff besides the town manager.

In the limited time she was given for her defense, Watson denied or defended her actions in the various and sometimes vague accusations in the censure motion, which ranged from “ma[king] ill-advised, inappropriate, and inaccurate remarks during Selma Town Council meetings” to sharing confidential information and “Ha[ving] inappropriate or unreasonable communication with staff for political purposes.”

However, one allegation particularly stands out in terms of the validity or fairness of the censure, that she violated town rules by “championing the candidate for Congress while using your Town of Selma Councilmember title.”

This allegation appears to be specifically in reference to a flier for Kelly Daughtry in the 2024 Republican primary for the 13th Congressional District, which featured Watson’s endorsement while recognizing her as a member of the Selma Town Council. (In her response, Watson clarified that she had not been specifically asked about the inclusion of her title when she gave her permission for her name to be used.)

Although McAllister characterized this use of Watson’s endorsement as “clearly [rising] to the level of political activity inappropriate to your office,” evidence produced by the Brightleaf Bulletin shows that McAllister does not appear to hold himself to the same standard, with his name and title as “Town of Selma, Mayor” appearing on the endorsement list for Wiley Nickel, a Democrat who represented Johnston County in Congress for one term in 2022 and is currently running for District Attorney in Wake County.

(Nickel’s endorsement list also highlights that such a rule banning such “political activity” by town councilmembers would not be the norm, as it features elected officials from Apex, Carrboro, Cary, Durham, Fuquay-Varina, Garner, Goldsboro, Holly Springs, Knightdale, Morrisville, Raleigh, Rolesville, Wake Forest, Wendell, and Zebulon.)

Nickel has also previously touted an endorsement by Selma Town Councilman Bruce McKay, using his title, with no apparent censorious consequences for McKay.

Watson came armed with a letter from two Republican allies Rep. Larry Strickland and Sen. Benton Sawrey, Selma’s representatives in the General Assembly, which characterized the censure proceedings as an apparent “attempt to chill legitimate speech with official town action and punish someone that you believe is a political opponent.”

(Although McAllister’s voting record reflects that he participates in Republican primaries as an unaffiliated voter, his endorsement of a strongly-partisan Democrat and decision to pick a fight with the county GOP in his inaugural address would support the idea that political motivations may be at issue.)

The censure was passed 3-1 with Mayor Pro Tem Joe Scarboro and Councilwoman Amy West Whitley joining McAllister in the affirmative, Councilman William Overby voting against, and Watson recusing herself.

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Undercover video exposes DEI workaround strategies at NC State

NC State staffer admits school swapped names and titles, but keeps DEI going - AIM

NC State Pride Center official no longer employed after new undercover video - N&O

LGBTQ Pride Center assistant director fired after undercover watchdog video surfaces - Technician

NC State University has become the latest subject of a hidden camera exposé by Accuracy in Media, with a leader at the university’s LGBTQ center revealing how the activist employees are able to get around the anti-DEI mandate from the UNC Board of Governors, which at least nominally wields legislature-granted authority over the state-funded university system.

Jae Edwards, who was fired from his role as Assistant Director of the NC State LGBTQ Pride Center after the release of the video, was recorded describing how they “[had] to be more careful,” but were “still able to do the things that [they] want to do” in the wake of the UNC BOG repealing pro-DEI policy and adopting “institutional neutrality and nondiscrimination.”

The strategies described by Edwards including eliminating words like “equity” (while maintaining the same practices) and shifting to “support” and “push” student organizations in order to circumvent restrictions on what the university can directly do.

The NC State website lists dozens of DEI-friendly student organizations focusing on black students, Hispanic students, LGBTQ students, female students, etc. while having perhaps zero organizations focused on white students or straight students.

With the addition of NC State, AIM has released videos involving over a third of the institutions in the UNC System, with undercover journalists previously exposing ongoing DEI efforts at NC A&T, UNC-Asheville, UNC-Charlotte, UNC-Wilmington, and WCU. AIM also released a video involving DEI at the City of Raleigh, prompting a hearing by the NC House Select Committee on Government Efficiency.

Previous Coverage:

• By any other name: Raleigh’s DEI coverup exposed (Original Article — Oct. 28, 2025)

• Raleigh city manager defends DEI rebrand before legislative committee (No. 158 — Jan. 10, 2026)

The Southern Baptist Convention is not merely America’s largest Protestant denomination, it’s members are among the most politically conservative of any major political Christian denomination in the country. Yet, an investigation by author and podcaster Jon Harris reveals how many major Southern Baptist churches partner, perhaps unwittingly, with some of the most politically radical “refugee” organizations.

As Harris’ expose shows, the same appeal to Christian virtue of sympathy to our “neighbors” may be linked to pushing leftist agendas like LGBTQ or open borders; not merely focused on ministering to foreigners with legal refugee status, but advocating for policy change, providing legal services for the “undocumented,” or teaching illegal immigrants to effectively avoid submission to the civil magistrate.

Many of these organizations, even those ostensibly under the authority of churches or denominations have been acting as de-facto arms of the federal government, with the majority of their revenue coming from federal grants even as they were working to influence, subvert, or stretch federal immigration law and policy to the greatest extent possible. (For instance, the umbrella of “refugee” is often extended by these organizations to include “asylum seekers” or those under Temporary Protected Status, which until the current Trump administration had been repeatedly extended to continue bringing over Salvadorans or Hondurans under a “temporary” status issued due to natural disasters over two decades ago.)

Some of the fruit of these refugee organizations can be seen in recent reporting regarding Somalis in Minnesota, many of whom were resettled due to the efforts of agencies like Lutheran Social Service of Minnesota, Catholic Charities of Southern Minnesota, or Arrive Ministries. (Formerly known as World Relief Minnesota, Arrive Ministries is associated with a Baptist church, which took millions of federal dollars during the Biden administration and advocates against the current immigration enforcement under the Trump administration.)

Local examples of such organizations identified by Harris include Refugee Hope Partners, which is counts numerous Baptist churches among it’s “partners,” and “sees it as their goal to amplify refugee voices, promote inclusivity, and express concern about recent ICE raids,” as Harris characterizes it.

Another example would be World Relief, one of the largest refugee resettlement organizations in the country (and which engages in the very type of political activism described above), credits the Summit Church under former SBC President J.D. Greear with “contribut[ing] the largest number of volunteers to help his organization resettle refugees in the Triangle,” according to a profile in The Assembly.

From the Desk of Jon Harris

The Southern Baptist Immigration Reckoning

The country’s largest Protestant denomination may be shifting back toward a more conservative position on immigration, but they have a lot of baggage to overcome. Last year, I chronicled how Southern Baptists steadily moved left on the topic of immigration over the past two decades, from receiving money from World Relief for refugee resettlement to reso…

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5 months ago · 57 likes · 22 comments · Jon Harris

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Three Durham school administrators charged in coverup of student tied to chair

Eno Valley Elementary School principal resigns after indictment - ABC11

Three DPS Administrators Indicted on Charges Related to 2024 Child Abuse Case - INDY

Abuse allegations, felony charges prompt calls for safety and accountability in Durham schools - 9th Street Journal

Durham Public Schools superintendent says changes are underway after three admins indicted - WRAL

Dr. Tounya Wright, the principal of Eno Valley Elementary School in Durham, has resigned after being charged with three counts of felony obstruction of justice and one count of perjury, along with two Durham Public Schools administrators.

Deputy Superintendent Tanya Giovanni is facing five counts of felony obstruction of justice, while Senior Executive Director of Employee Relations Ayesha Hunter is charged with six counts of felony obstruction of justice and two counts of perjury.

According to the indictments and previously reporting on search warrants related to the case, the charges stem from an incident in which a photo was taken of an autistic six-year-old student tied to a chair with a jump rope.

Wright allegedly both lied to police and falsely testified to a jury in the prosecution of Jenae Martin about receiving the photo anonymously under her office door, about when she became aware of the photo, and about not knowing the identity of the individual who made her aware of the photo.

Giovanni allegedly lied to the police about and/or withheld evidence including the DPS investigatory file, witness statements, an affidavit from Wright, and the photo itself.

Hunter allegedly falsely told police she had provided all the information in her possession, when she in fact withheld investigatory notes and witness statements, falsely claimed in a court hearing that Wright had reported the abuse when she became aware as well as regarding how she kept investigatory records, and falsely testified at the Jenae Martin trial that she did not have investigatory notes and that she saw Wright provide the photo to police.

Wright, Hunter, and Giovanni have been released on bonds of $5,000, $10,000, and $5,000 respectively.

According to DPS Superintendent Anthony Lewis, the three women are suspended, the district has brought in a law firm to investigate, staff will be provided additional training, and the district will comply with future investigations.

Trial reveals disturbing details in double teen murder case

Issiah Ross found guilty of second-degree murder in killing of Devin Clark, mistrial declared in Lyric Woods’ death - CBS17

Issiah Ross Trial: Man accused of killing NC teens Lyric Woods, Devin Clark: Live Updates - ABC11

Orange County jury finds Ross guilty of 1 teen’s murder but splits on 2nd killing - N&O

Ross Found Guilty Of Second-Degree Murder of Clark; Mistrial In Death Of Woods - Chapelboro.com

Jury continues deliberations as weather interrupts - News of Orange

The trial over the killing of 14-year-old Lyric Woods and 18-year-old Devin Clark, who were found murdered off a rural road in western Orange County in 2022, was concluded with a hung jury and a 2nd degree murder conviction for the respective murder charges against Issiah Ross, who was 17-years-old at the time.

Ross was tracked down to Delaware shortly after the murders and arrested after a tip from a friend of his to whom he had confessed the murders, who told police and testified at trial that Ross had described shooting Clark with his own gun after an argument, then shooting Woods as well to cover his trail.

The bodies were found by ATV riders near Efland the afternoon after they were murdered, with forensic evidence showing that both had been moved from where they had been killed, with Woods having been shot seven times and Clark six times, both of which included shots from behind.

According to recovered Snapchat messages, including in an eleven-member group chat, Clark had been looking for someone to drive he and Woods to the location of the murder so they could have sex, in exchange for which he promised that the driver would be able to engage in sexual acts with the much-younger girl as well.

In Ross’s defense, he testified that after driving the pair to the location, he heard them arguing, with Woods exiting the vehicle shouting about how she didn’t want to be “pimped out” as Clark’s “whore,” and threatening to get the police involved.

According to Ross’s telling, Clark followed Woods out of the vehicle and shot her with his gun, after which Clark came after him and he was forced to defend himself by disarming Clark and shooting him with his own weapon.

The jury was given the option of conviction on first degree murder, second degree murder, or voluntary manslaughter in Clark’s death, while the only option on the table for Woods’ death was guilty or not guilty on first degree murder.

The jury convicted Ross of the second degree murder of Clark, yet were unable to come to a unanimous in the murder of Woods.

Ross was sentenced to 241-300 months incarceration for the murder of Clark, while District Attorney Jeff Nieman has indicated that his office will continuing pursuing the prosecution of Ross for Woods’ murder, despite the mistrial setback.

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Protest Watch

Anti-ICE demonstrations continue

Left-wing activists have continued demonstrating in opposition to immigration enforcement and with a specific focus on remembering Alex Pretti, a Minnesotan activist who was shot by two immigration officials after rushing in to physically interfere with the federal agents were armed with a handgun, such vigils outside the Durham VA hospital on Wednesday and in Smithfield on Thursday at the Johnston County Courthouse.

(Additional video of a separate incident involving Pretti a week before his death was published this week, in which he kicked the tail light off a federal vehicle, and was tackled by the agents inside.)

Activists with the Triangle branch of the Party for Socialism and Liberation as well as 50501 NC helped organize local “ICE Out!” actions in conjunction with a “nationwide shutdown” on Friday with the organizers claiming hundreds of participants at protests/walkouts at NC State, UNC, downtown Durham, and the ICE office in Cary (¹, ², ³).

The following Durham businesses were listed as supporting the shutdown (¹, ², ³, ⁴):

• Arroyo Tires

• Bull City Detailing

• La Bodeguita

• Moroleon Supermarket

• Peluquieria Belleza a la Moda

• Catrines Men’s Salon

• Paleteria La Monarca Michocana

• Pachanga Party Supply

• Compare Food Trucks

• El Mariachi NC

• Chronic Guru

• Hair Depot Supercenter

• Nail Station

• Creative Tattoo Service

• Cocoa Cinnamon

• East Durham Sweet Shoppe

• Homebucha Kombucha

• Redhead Hemp

• Scrap Exchange

On the issue of immigration policy and enforcement, Democrats in the modern day seem to have two options: embrace the open borders extremism of their party’s radical wing, or attempt to appease the radicals without alienating moderates and independents by painting a picture as if they oppose the current administration’s immigration operations on a “law and order” basis.

In the former camp, Durham Democrats like Nida Allam, Natalie Beyer, and Javiera Caballero (on the county commission, school board, and city commission respectively) will rally at the Durham courthouse against ICE potentially detaining a domestic abuser, and support the most radical of the anti-ICE activists.

On the other side, we have Democrats like Wiley Nickel promising in a post on his Substack to prosecute any federal agents who “break[] the law” if elected District Attorney in Wake County.

The Supreme Court of the United States has ruled that the supremacy clause of the constitution prohibits federal agents from being “held to answer” by state courts when acting reasonably in execution of the federal duty.

Although acknowledging that such immunity exists, Nickel argues that it is not his job to “determine federal immunity,” suggesting that he may intend to file charges in regards to every use of force by federal immigration agents in Wake County, and leave it up to the federal courts alone to rule that the officers acted reasonably.

However, what stands out as particularly disingenuous is Nickel’s suggestion that Trump’s immigration enforcement would be more “effective” if he limited his administration to Obama era policies and tactics:

Under President Obama, federal immigration enforcement removed millions of people from the country by focusing on violent criminals. Resources were focused where they mattered most — violent offenders, traffickers, and people who posed real threats to public safety. Enforcement was targeted, strategic, and lawful.

If one was to take Nickel’s point at face value, the idea that there were millions of violent criminals for the Obama administration to identify and deport would indicate that illegal immigrants are committing violent crimes at a rather high rate, a figure most Democrats would deny.

Although Nickel is not the first to portray Obama as taking a hardline position on immigration, with some on the far left labeling him the “deporter-in-chief,” the actual figures tell a different story.

There are two main axes on which the facts regarding Obama’s immigration legacy are muddled: removals vs returns, and border removals vs interior removals.

If one includes the both compulsory “removals” and voluntary “returns” in the count of deportations, Obama’s numbers fell far behind the prior administration, with a total of only 5.3 million deportations compared to 10.3 million in the Bush administration, according to data compiled by the Migration Policy Institute.

Although the total number of deportations dropped, the ratio of removals to returns changed drastically from 2 million removals and 8.3 million returns under Bush to 3.1 million removals and 2.2 million returns under Obama.

So although the oft-cited number of “removals” did increase due to the change in policy of when the formal removal proceedings were pursued, the total number of noncitizens removed from the country by immigration authorities dropped.

In addition, apples-to-oranges nature of any comparison with Obama policies is further illustrated by the decline in the number of interior removals, showing that his increased removal numbers were solely due to policy changes with how illegal immigrants were handled at the border, while the number of interior removals dropped by nearly two-thirds from 181,798 in FY 2009 to 65,332 in FY 2016.

Thus, although Obama managed to pump up the numbers with “removals” at the border, his policy of limiting interior removals to those meeting more stringent criteria allowed approximately 2.5 million new illegal aliens were able to enter the country during his two terms, according to estimates by the Center for Immigration Studies.

As the Biden-Trump transition suggests, a higher number of uninvited immigrants turned away at the border may in fact be strong evidence of a lax immigration policy, as the number of encounters on the U.S.-Mexico border dropped from 137,000 in March 2024 to 7,000 in March 2025, the “fewest since at least 2000” according to the MPI.

In conclusion, although the annual number of Biden or Obama’s border turnaways may be higher that the hundreds of thousands of interior removals in the first year of Trump’s second term, it is unquestionable which is more effective in reducing the number of violators of the nation’s immigration law.

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Idol vandalized at record-setting Hindu temple in Cary

Cary police looking for Hindu temple vandalism suspects - CBS17

‘Deeply disturbing’: Cary’s Hindu temple vandalized; police seeking 5 suspects - N&O

Cary police: Statue outside Hindu temple vandalized, search ongoing for suspects - WRAL

Statue vandalized in front of NC temple, Cary police investigating - ABC11

Cary Police are asking for the public’s assistance in identifying five individuals believed to be responsible for vandalizing one of the four-armed “guardian” statues outside the 7-story entrance tower to the Sri Venkateswara Temple of North Carolina.

An image shared by the police appears to show one of the arms broken off of the statue, while video captures the five suspects entering and fleeing from the area around three in the morning.

The construction of the temple began in 2007 to accommodate the rapidly increasing population of Indian immigrants, many of whom are brought over on H-1B visas by the numerous tech companies located in the area.

Although the 87-ft tower elevated the structure to that of the tallest Hindu temple in North America when it was finished and unveiled by Democrat Gov. Roy Cooper in 2022, it has since been surpassed by the much larger Swaminarayan Akshardham temple in New Jersey.

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Hedingham mass shooter pleads guilty

Thompson guilty: Plea accepted in Raleigh mass shooting - WRAL

Teen pleads guilty in Raleigh’s Hedingham mass shooting. Motive remains unknown. - N&O

Teen pleads guilty in Raleigh Hedingham neighborhood mass shooting - CBS17

The 15-year-old responsible for the mass shooting in the Hedingham in east Raleigh in 2022 has now, at age eighteen, pleaded guilty to all charges including five counts of first degree murder.

Thompson’s murder spree began with shooting his 16-year-old brother and stabbing him dozens of times, and continued with the murder of four neighbors including an off-duty Raleigh Police officer.

According to evidence presented at the plea hearing, Thompson was following the ensuing manhunt on his phone as a police canine tracked him to a nearby shed; Thompson shot one of the responding officers in the knee, inflicting a career ending injury, before shooting himself in the head.

According to his defense, the self-inflicted injury has left him him with serious brain damage, suffering from seizures and unable to articulate why he committed the massacre.

Prior to the shooting, Thompson’s internet search history indicated he had researched previous mass shootings as well as how juvenile murder suspects were treated, according to prosecutors.

Thompson faces a mandatory minimum sentence of life in prison, but the judge will determine whether or not that sentence will include the possibility of parole. (The 2005 Supreme Court ruled in Roper v. Simmons that death penalty for juveniles had become “cruel and unusual punishment” under the “evolving standards of decency,” and was now forbidden to states under the Incorporation of the Bill of Rights).

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Follow-ups

$800k settlement for family of deceased student in fatal self-defense stabbing

The Wake County school board has approved an $800,000 settlement for the family of 15-year-old Delvin Ferrell who was fatally stabbed after punching another student at Southeast Raleigh High School in 2023.

According to the family’s legal counsel, the school administration was aware of the escalating violence, which reportedly included altercations involving the alleged knifeman’s family members, but failed to act.

Video of the incident appears to show 14-year-old TyQuan General Jr. backing up in the fact of Ferrell’s assault, but immediately fighting back with a knife as soon as Ferrell threw the first punch.

According to General’s mother, she had told General’s case worker that day that she expected him to be attacked due to an incident with his older sister that had escalated.

Although both school board chair Tyler Swanson and the family’s attorney referenced the desire that a similar incident not happen again in the future in an article by the News & Observer.

The school reported 31.25 criminal acts per 1000 students in the 2023-2024 school year, nearly four times the county and state average of 7.93 and 8.10 respectively; the student population at Southeast Raleigh High School is 53% black, 37% Hispanic, and 5% white.

Previous Coverage:

• Fatal stabbing at Raleigh high school - what happened? (No. 48 — Dec. 2, 2023)

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Former JoCo commissioner to get new trial in child molestation case

Ex-Johnston County commissioner convicted of child sex crime gets new trial: Court - CBS17

Former NC politician wins new trial on child sex crime charge involving daughter’s friend - WRAL

Court Of Appeals Grants New Trial For Former Johnston County Commissioner Richard Braswell - JoCo Report

The North Carolina Court of Appeals has vacated the conviction of Richard Braswell, 77, who had been sentenced to 20-33 months in prison and removed from the Johnston County Board of Commissioners after a jury trial in 2024 found him guilty of one count of taking indecent liberties with a child, a Class F felony.

According to the appeals court ruling, a friend of Braswell’s daughter (referred to by the pseudonym of “Penny”) testified that Braswell had touched her inappropriately on multiple occasions after Braswell and his wife had developed a relationship with her and her brother as their “second parents” owing to their father’s suicide and their mother’s drug addiction.

Braswell’s defense challenged Penny’s testimony by pointing out inconsistencies, and suggesting that she was “upset” that Braswell had reported her mother to probation for drug use around the same time.

In response, the state was allowed to call five witnesses including Braswell’s daughter and wife (now ex-wife) to testify to Penny’s character as a truthful person.

The Appeals Court overturned the verdict on the basis of these witnesses, ruling that the trial court erred by allowing this “rehabilitative evidence bolstering the witness’s good character for truthfulness,” which should have only been permitted if the defense had “opened the door” by first attacking her character.

The error was sufficiently prejudicial for the three-judge panel to unanimously concur in vacating the conviction and remanding the case to the district court for a new trial.

Previous Coverage:

• Johnston County seeking applications to replace commissioner convicted of sex crime (No. 93 — Oct. 12, 2024)

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Protest Watch

Anti-ICE demonstrators target retailer

The left-wing protests against the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement have continued, with hundreds gathering in Raleigh for the one year anniversary of President Trump’s second inauguration on Tuesday; another nationwide “ICE Out for Good” protest with locations in Durham, Raleigh, Cary, and Fuquay-Varina on Friday; a boycott/protest planned at five Target locations in Raleigh and Durham on Friday; a vigil in Durham on Saturday for the armed anti-ICE activist Alex Pretti shot by Border Patrol in Minneapolis.

Target does not appear to be the subject of anti-ICE protests because of anything the massive retail corporation has done, but rather because they have not taken an active stand against immigration enforcement, and are headquartered in Minneapolis. (The Target skyscraper was broken into during one of the 2020 Black Lives Matter riots, with three arsonists convicted federally for setting fires causing nearly $1 million in damages to the building).

Protesters were encouraged by Siembra NC to show up with signs at the specified Target stores as well as disrupting operations by buying and returning salt (chosen for it’s symbolic anti-ice properties).

Pictures shared by the NC State chapter of the AFL-CIO show an attendance of about twenty at the Target on Hillsborough St. Target, with at least some of the protesters even entering the store as part of the demonstration.