Happy New Year, friends and neighbors!
It’s been an eventful twelve months over here at the Triangle Trumpet (formerly known as This Week in the Triangle), but it’s already looking like 2026 is lining up to be the publication’s most content-packed year to date.
In addition to original investigative pieces in the pipeline, I plan to be celebrating the nation’s semiquincentennial with a historical series highlighting the Revolutionary history of our beat here in the Greater Triangle area of North Carolina.
The history we’ll be focusing on will cover local events related to our nation’s founding, such as the Constitutional Convention of 1788 Hillsborough, as well as important characters who either originated from the area or have local namesakes lasting to this day, such as Cornelius Harnett, Major General Thomas Person, or even King Louis XVI.
Meanwhile, the Triangle Trumpet will still continue to focus on breaking and reporting on the sort of local stories that tend to escape the attention of the local mainstream media, as well as providing the similarly-themed weekly editorial roundup of local news.
Yours Sincerely,
Stephen Horn
P.S. If you find value in the Triangle Trumpet, please consider becoming a paid subscriber ($5 per month/$50 per year), sharing the publication with your friends, or reaching out with story tips/ideas to improve
P.P.S. Next week’s issue of the Weekly Roundup will cover stories from this week as well (the year’s end is usually a quieter time newswise)
2025’s Top Stories
The year started off strong with a report on Cognizant and Infosys, two of the largest H-1B visa sponsors in nationally as well as here in the Triangle.
Durham, Raleigh, Cary, and Morrisville join Charlotte at the top of the list of the North Carolina municipalities most often listed for the worksite on H-1B applications from 2020-2024, with Morrisville having a significantly higher rate of H-1B applications compared to the population with nearly one for every three residents of the town in the five year period.
Although this figure represents the number of applications, not approved visas, there is no question that the mass influx of H-1B visa holders (~3/4 of whom are from India) has had a significant impact on the social and cultural fabric of many Triangle communities: I expect to have more reporting on this topic in the coming months.
NC's biggest H-1B sponsors have engaged in "systemic visa fraud", anti-American discrimination
H-1B visas: are they a vehicle for "widespread abuse" to replace American workers with foreigners, or are they "essential for America to keep winning?"
Three of this year’s top stories involved reporting on left-wing extremism, specifically of the antifa or “antifascist” variety.
A story from February covered the Zizians, a militant leftist transgender cult associated with at least four homicides which took up residence in a quiet neighborhood south of Chapel Hill prior to a federal crackdown on the group after the murder of a Border Patrol agent in Vermont. It’s not clear why exactly they chose the Chatham County neighborhood to lie low in, or whether they were engaged in any extremist or leftist activity in our state.
REPORT: Radical trans cultists hid out in Chapel Hill neighborhood before murdering Border Patrol agent in Vermont
Members of a militant leftist transgender cult known as the "Zizians" which are linked to at least four murders were holed up in a quiet Chatham County neighborhood near Chapel Hill for over a year prior to the latest killing associated with the group, a shootout with US Border Patrol in Vermont last month which left one agent dead, according to reporti…
In a less extreme instance of leftist criminality, the 24-year-old daughter of a Republican member of the Johnston County school board was charged with painting a Tesla with a swastika and the word “Nazi.”
Olivia Marie Antoine was identified by facial recognition software based on the video captured by the vehicle’s onboard camera system of the act of vandalism, which took place in the parking lot of a Clayton shopping center.
Antoine’s Class 2 misdemeanor was dropped after she completed 25 hours of community service as part of a conditional discharge agreement.
24-year-old woman arrested for vandalizing Tesla in Clayton with swastika, "Nazi"
Olivia Marie Antoine, a 24-year-old resident of Zebulon in Wake County, has been charged by in Johnston County with vandalizing a Tesla in Clayton earlier this month by drawing a swastika and the word "Nazi" on the vehicle.
The final antifa-related top story occurred in September, shortly after the assassination of Charlie Kirk, when a right-wing Twitter/X account exposed that a detention officer at the Orange County Sheriff’s Office had made social media posts declaring himself “antifa” and calling for right-wingers to be “thrown in prison” or even sent to the “guillotine.”
Such language was too much for a law enforcement officer even in the heavily left-leaning jurisdiction of Orange County, and Detention Corporal Brian D. Edwards was terminated from the department two days after the posts went viral.
"I am Antifa:" detention officer terminated after advocating for imprisoning/executing right-wingers
An employee of the Orange County Sheriff's Office has been terminated from his position as Detention Corporal after a right-wing meme account on Twitter/X exposed social media posts in which Brian D. Edwards identified himself as "antifa" and called for right-wingers to be "thrown in prison" or even sent to the "guillotine."
Another Triangle Trumpet story which attracted attention this year was an interview with two scientists who believe they found evidence that COVID-19 strains being studied at UNC-Chapel Hill during the pandemic had leaked into the community through lab-acquired infections, based on viral sequences recorded from infected individuals in the Chapel Hill community.
UNC lab leaks? Evidence indicates seven lab-acquired SARS-CoV-2 infections in Chapel Hill during pandemic, researchers say
If once is happenstance and twice is coincidence, what do we call seven instances of apparent lab-acquired SARS-CoV-2 infections in relation to coronavirus research at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill?
After the brutal murder of Iryna Zarutska on a Charlotte train, many were shocked to discover the existence of repeat offenders who continued to be let out on the street after dozens and dozens of arrests.
Analysis of arrest data in Wake County showed similar patterns, with eight highlighted individuals having been arrested over 50 times across the past ten years. In addition, the 776 offenders who had been arrested 14 or more times in the same period made up 7.3% of the total arrests in the county, despite being only 0.8% of the arrestees.
REPORT: The "Repeat Offenders" of Wake County
The brutal murder of 23-year-old Ukrainian woman Iryna Zarutska on a Charlotte train has captured the attention of many across America (up to and including President Donald Trump): not only for the complete unprovokedness of the fatal stabbing as illustrated in the released video, but also for the fact that the
Although the rest of the stories put out by the Triangle Trumpet this year may not have rode the same waves of national interests related to their subject matter, I consider them nonetheless to be relevant to the citizens of our beat who wish to stay informed on local matters:
