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☆ How to Police Gerrymanders? Some Judges Say the Courts Can’t.
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-05 | by ( Michael Wines | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

WASHINGTON — Courts decide vexing legal matters and interpret opaque Constitutional language all the time, from defining pornography and judging whether a search or seizure is unreasonable to determining how speedy a speedy trial must be. And then there is the issue that some judges increasingly say is beyond their abilities to adjudicate. It was on display again last week, in North Carolina. The North Carolina Supreme Court said on Friday that it could find no way to determine when even egregious gerrymanders — in this case, lopsided partisan maps of the state’s General Assembly and its 14 congressional districts — cross the line between skewed but legal and unconstitutionally rigged. political dominance, even though the state’s electorate is split almost evenly between the two major parties.

☆ Opinion | Republicans Are Running Wild in My State
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-04 | by ( Frank Bruni | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Political colorists can be promiscuous in calling states purple, but my state is true to that hue. Donald Trump prevailed in North Carolina that same year, but only barely. Nearly 2.6 million North Carolinians declare themselves unaffiliated, while just over 2.4 million identify as Democrats and just under 2.2 million as Republicans. That’s a huge comedown from what Republicans wanted and from what they’ve repeatedly tried to get for nearly 15 years. Without any fear that the state’s Supreme Court will foil them before the 2024 congressional elections, they don’t have to settle for it.

☆ North Carolina House passes 12-week abortion ban
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-04 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

If the state Senate passes the bill on Thursday as expected, Democratic Governor Roy Cooper will almost certainly veto it. Under the North Carolina proposal, elective abortions after the first trimester would be banned except in instances of rape, incest, life-limiting fetal anomalies and medical emergencies. Key to the North Carolina House Republicans' veto-proof majority is former Democratic state Representative Tricia Cotham, who in April changed her party affiliation to Republican. Abortions in North Carolina rose by 37%, more than any other state, in the first two months after the Supreme Court revoked federal abortion rights in June 2022, according to a study by the Society of Family Planning, a nonprofit organization that promotes abortion rights and research. In the six months after the ruling, there were 3,978 monthly abortions on average in North Carolina, up 788 from the average in the two months beforehand, the society said.

[1/4] Speaker of the North Carolina House of Representatives Tim Moore listens on the floor of the state Senate to debate over the bill limiting most abortions to the first trimester of pregnancy, a sharp drop from the state’s current limit of 20 weeks gestation, at the State Capitol in Raleigh, North Carolina, U.S. May 4, 2023. REUTERS/Jonathan DrakeMay 4 (Reuters) - North Carolina's Republican-controlled legislature on Thursday passed a bill limiting most abortions to the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, a sharp drop from the state's current limit of 20 weeks' gestation. The state Senate approved the bill 29-20 along party lines, a day after the state House of Representatives passed it in a similar party-line vote. The measure now heads to Democratic Governor Roy Cooper, who has vowed to veto it. Reporting by Julia Harte Editing by Colleen JenkinsOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Proud Boys chairman Enrique Tarrio was convicted of seditious conspiracy, but the extremist group he ran is still alive and well
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-04 | by ( Grace Eliza Goodwin | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

The Proud Boys' former leader Enrique Tarrio was convicted of seditious conspiracy on Thursday. But despite recent convictions like his, the extremist group has been gaining ground across the US. The Proud Boys have turned their attention from attempting to overturn the 2020 election to targeting the LGBTQ community, and specifically, drag performers. In 2022 alone, Proud Boys members either led or attended an average of one anti-LGBTQ protest per week across the US, as previously reported by Insider's Laura Italiano. A federal jury in Washington, DC, found Tarrio and three other Proud Boys members guilty of seditious conspiracy on Thursday in connection with the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot.

☆ As Broadway Rebounds, ‘Some Like It Hot’ Gets 13 Tony Nominations
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-02 | by ( Michael Paulson | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The nominations for “Ain’t No Mo’” were especially striking given that the show struggled to find an audience and closed early. “I’m just so elated, I can barely find the words,” said Cooper, who was nominated both as writer and actor. He is now 85 years old, and “Leopoldstadt” is his 19th production on Broadway. Stoppard said he was proud of the nomination, but sorry the play had come to seem so timely at a moment of rising concern about antisemitism. “Nobody wants society to be divided,” he said in an interview, “and I like to think ‘Leopoldstadt’ works against a sense of human beings dividing up and confronting each other.”

☆ A North Carolina Supreme Court Switcheroo
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-29 | by ( The Editorial Board | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +1 min

Images: AP/Reuters/AFP Composite: Mark KellyNorth Carolina’s Supreme Court reversed itself Friday on partisan gerrymandering, ruling 5-2 that it poses “nonjusticiable, political questions.” Last year a 4-3 court said the opposite. In between was the November election, in which GOP candidates won two Supreme Court seats, giving conservatives a majority again. Critics will call the reversal a judicial power play, but it’s really a corrective to the old majority’s overreach. Four liberal justices held that the North Carolina Constitution bans partisan map-making, because it guarantees “free elections,” the rights of speech and assembly, and so forth. At one point the court floated specific metrics that could be used to police gerrymandering, saying that a map could be presumptively constitutional if it has “a mean-median difference of 1% or less.”

☆ North Carolina’s Highest Court Reverses Course on Voting Decisions
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-29 | by ( Laura Kusisto | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

The North Carolina Supreme Court tossed court-approved maps used in the November election—which resulted in seven congressional seats apiece for Republicans and Democrats. Photo: Sean Rayford/Getty ImagesThe North Carolina Supreme Court, with a new Republican majority elected last year, on Friday threw out some of its own recent decisions that endorsed a broad view of voting rights, reinstating a voter-identification law and rejecting a challenge to electoral maps drawn by the state’s Republican-controlled legislature. The court, in a third decision, also rolled back voting rights for some people with felony convictions.

☆ In win for Republicans, North Carolina court allows partisan gerrymandering
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-28 | by ( Joseph Ax | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

[1/2] Voters line up a few minutes before the polls close during the 2022 U.S. midterm elections in Durham, North Carolina, U.S., November 8, 2022. In the same election, Republicans flipped two Democratic seats on the North Carolina Supreme Court, securing a 5-2 conservative majority. "I think it's the worst decision the North Carolina Supreme Court perhaps has ever made," Bob Phillips, executive director of Common Cause North Carolina, told reporters. When the North Carolina court agreed to rehear the case, however, the U.S. Supreme Court asked for additional briefing from the parties about whether it still had legal jurisdiction over the matter. Now that the North Carolina court has vacated the decision that formed the basis for the U.S. Supreme Court's review, the U.S. Supreme Court may conclude it no longer has a role to play in resolving the matter.

☆ In win for Republicans, North Carolina court says gerrymandering is legal
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-28 | by ( Joseph Ax | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

[1/2] Voters line up a few minutes before the polls close during the 2022 U.S. midterm elections in Durham, North Carolina, U.S., November 8, 2022. The decision threw out the court's previous decision, issued barely more than a year ago when liberal judges controlled the court, that had found partisan gerrymandering violated the state constitution. In the same election, Republicans flipped two Democratic seats on the North Carolina Supreme Court, securing a 5-2 conservative majority. In a 146-page opinion, Chief Justice Paul Newby noted that the U.S. Supreme Court had similarly found that federal courts have no jurisdiction to address partisan gerrymandering. "Today, the Court shows that its own will is more powerful than the voices of North Carolina's voters," she wrote.

☆ North Carolina Court, With New Partisan Mix, Reverses Itself on a Key Voting Case
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-28 | by ( Michael Wines | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Barely a year after Democratic justices on the North Carolina Supreme Court said new maps of the state’s legislative and congressional districts were partisan gerrymanders that violated the State Constitution, a newly elected Republican majority on the court reversed course on Friday and said the court had no authority to overturn those maps. The practical effect is to enable the Republican-controlled State Legislature to scrap the court-ordered State Senate and congressional district. boundaries that were used in elections last November, and draw new maps skewed in their favor for elections in 2024. In an opinion divided 5 to 2 along party lines, the new Republican majority of justices said the court had no authority to strike down partisan maps that the state General Assembly had drawn. “Were this Court to create such a limitation, there is no judicially discoverable or manageable standard for adjudicating such claims.”

☆ Opinion | Exorcising the Ghost of Robert E. Lee
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-27 | by ( Brent Staples | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

He took office in 1913 with a team of white supremacists who announced themselves by requiring separate white and colored bathrooms in federal buildings. The Wilsonians inflicted a neo-Confederate regime on the capital that was felt in far corners of the nation. On Nov. 10, 1898, throngs of white men burned and murdered at will, driving Black officials and their allies from Wilmington. The Lost Causers venerated racial terrorism as a means of suppressing Black political influence. They recast the pro-slavery war as a just struggle for “states’ rights” while elevating the dead Confederate general Robert E. Lee to the stature of a patron saint.

☆ Chris Smith: Former NFL defensive end dies aged 31
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-19 | by ( Matt Foster | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +2 min

CNN —Former NFL defensive end Chris Smith has died, his former agent said on Tuesday. Smith spent eight seasons in the NFL and played for seven franchises. Frank Jansky/Icon Sportswire/Getty Images/FileThe Browns tweeted their condolences on Tuesday. “We are deeply saddened by the passing of former Browns DE Chris Smith,” the message reads. “Rest in paradise Chris Smith,” wrote Browns tight end David Njoku on Twitter.

☆ Eli Lilly to invest additional $1.6 bln in 2 new plants
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-17 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

April 17 (Reuters) - Eli Lilly and Co (LLY.N) said on Monday it will invest an additional $1.6 billion at its two new manufacturing sites in Indiana, United States to support the manufacturing of its recently approved cancer drug, Jaypirca, among others. The company's total investment commitment in the facilities now stands at $3.7 billion, Eli Lilly said. The company in January announced plans to invest an additional $450 million to expand capacity of a plant in North Carolina and meet the strong demand for its blockbuster diabetes drug Trulicity and recently launched Mounjaro. Its commitments for expansion of the North Carolina site are $1.7 billion. Reporting by Leroy Leo in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini GanguliOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Inside the Rise and Fall of Kittyhawk, Larry Page's Failed Flying Car Company
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-16 | by ( Hugh Langley | Rob Price | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +22 min

Killing off projects had become something of a tradition at Kittyhawk, the secretive flying-car startup launched by the Google cofounder Larry Page. Larry Page has used his Google money to found a series of flying car companies with one common goal: "to free the world of traffic." "When Bloomberg did their original exposé, that's when urban air mobility became a thing," a former Kittyhawk employee recalled. Everyone thought: If Larry Page is in this space, there must be something here." Interpreting "Larry-isms" or "learning to speak Larry" were essential skills for any Kittyhawk employee who wanted to retain their sanity.

☆ John Edwards and Donald Trump were both accused of paying money to women who said they had affairs with them. But the cases are quite different.
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-14 | by ( Charles R. Davis | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Like Donald Trump, John Edwards was accused of paying off a mistress during a campaign. Edwards was charged with campaign finance violations over the payments but wasn't convicted. For one, Trump has not been charged with violating federal campaign finance laws. It may well be true that the Edwards precedent is why the Justice Department didn't charge Trump with a campaign finance violation. Bragg does not need to prove that Trump broke federal campaign finance laws; he needs to prove that he falsified business records, which is a crime no matter the reason.

☆ U.S. opens safety probe into Tesla that struck student in North Carolina
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-07 | by ( David Shepardson | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Companies Tesla Inc FollowWASHINGTON, April 7 (Reuters) - U.S. safety authorities said on Friday they are investigating whether an advanced driver assistance system was in use when a Tesla struck a 17-year-old student that exited a school bus in North Carolina. NHTSA said Tesla's advanced driver assistance systems were suspected of being in use in the North Carolina crash. The agency has ruled out Tesla Autopilot use in three other special crash investigations. The local fire department said a Tesla struck one of its fire trucks and the Tesla driver was pronounced dead at the scene. In June, NHTSA upgraded to an engineering analysis its defect probe into 830,000 Tesla vehicles with driver assistance system Autopilot that involves crashes with parked emergency vehicles including fire trucks.

☆ A North Carolina Democrat's shocking party switch may hand complete power over to the state's Republicans, report says
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-05 | by ( John L. Dorman | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

A North Carolina lawmaker is expected to switch parties in what would be a stunning turn of events. It would give the GOP a supermajority, meaning they could override the Dem governor's vetoes. As of March 2023, Cooper had issued 75 vetoes — more than all previous North Carolina governors combined — since taking office six years ago, according to The Assembly NC. From 2005 to 2009, Jerry Meek, whom Cotham married in late 2008, was the chair of the North Carolina Democratic Party. According to the North Carolina political blog Watauga Watch, Cotham and Meek are no longer married.

☆ People are moving to North Carolina for its natural beauty and country vibes, but finding it doesn't offer a lower cost of living or diversity
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-01 | by ( Jordan Pandy | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +9 min

She and her family considered places like Tennessee and Florida , but ultimately chose North Carolina because of its hands-off government and lush scenery. Five recent movers highlight what stands out about North Carolina, from its natural scenery to its lack of diversity. One thing she's had to get used to in North Carolina is the lack of diversity in food. An Ohio man liked North Carolina so much he moved there twiceJohn Yuschak first dipped a toe in North Carolina in 2012 after moving from Columbus, Ohio. They were pleased with the four seasons North Carolina has to offer, but anticipated higher savings.

☆ First Citizens Bank, the buyer of SVB's assets, is run by a billionaire North Carolina family that's bought over 20 failed banks since 2008
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-30 | by ( Carla Mozée | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

First Citizens Bank, the company that bought the assets of SVB, is run by a family with a wealth of experience buying failed banks. Forbes looked at the billionaire family that's guided First Citizens' purchase of more than 20 small banks since 2008. First Citizens will be among the largest 20 banks in the US with the SVB deal. Its purchases of failed banks include First Regional Bank and Temecula Valley Bank in California and Denver-based United Western Bank. Its assets jumped from $109 billion just before the SVB deal and have increased from $16.7 billion at the end of 2008.

☆ Here’s why the U.S. had to sweeten terms to get the SVB sale done
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-27 | by ( Hugh Son | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

First Citizens BancShares is acquiring $72 billion in SVB assets at a discount of $16.5 billion, or 23%, according to a Sunday release from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. But even after the deal closes, the FDIC remains on the hook to dispose of the majority of remaining SVB assets, about $90 billion, which are being kept in receivership. All told, the SVB failure will cost the FDIC's Deposit Insurance Fund about $20 billion, the agency said. The deal terms may be explained by tepid interest in SVB assets, according to Mark Williams, a former Federal Reserve examiner who lectures on finance at Boston University. The ongoing sales process for First Republic may have cooled interest in SVB assets, according to a person with knowledge of the process.

☆ Morning Bid: Brittle banks find a berth
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-27 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

With few fresh weekend developments on the European bank stock rigor late last week, European bourses and bank stocks found a level too. Deutsche Bank, whose stock lurched lower on Friday amid fears about rising bank funding costs, regained about 3% on Monday. Deposits at small banks fell by $120 billion in the week to March 15, while borrowing jumped $253 billion. Economists polled by Reuters expect the headline year-on-year inflation rate to have cooled to 7.2% from 8.5% in February. * U.S. Treasury auctions 2-year notes* U.S. corporate earnings: CarnivalReuters GraphicsReuters Graphics Reuters GraphicsReuters GraphicsReuters GraphicsBy Mike Dolan, editing by Ed Osmond, <a href="mailto:mike.dolan@thomsonreuters.com" target="_blank">mike.dolan@thomsonreuters.com</a>.

☆ First Citizens buys Silicon Valley Bank
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-27 | by ( Huileng Tan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

First Citizens BancShares has agreed to buy Silicon Valley Bank. The deal includes the purchase of about $72 billion of Silicon Valley Bridge Bank assets at a discount of $16.5 billion. Silicon Valley Bank was shut by regulators on March 10 after a bank run and capital crisis. Silicon Valley Bank was shut by regulators on March 10 after a bank run and capital crisis. —First Citizens Bank (@firstcitizens) March 27, 2023First Citizens said in a Monday statement the transaction is "structured to preserve First Citizens' solid financial position."

☆ Carvana customer says he bought his wife a luxury car for $68K — but it turned out to be stolen
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-25 | by ( Jordan Hart | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

A North Carolina man unknowingly purchased a stolen Maserati from Carvana, WTVD reported. "When they check the VIN number on the chassis, that's when they saw that it was a stolen vehicle. VIN on the car on the window and the car door was different," Scott told WTVD. Carvana sent Scott a letter saying it didn't know the car was stolen when the company purchased it. Check to see if the vehicle is stolen," Scott told WTVD.

☆ North Carolina urges US Supreme Court to toss major elections case
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-20 | by ( Andrew Chung | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

WASHINGTON, March 20 (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court should dismiss a major case from North Carolina that could give more power over federal elections to state politicians because the matter is being reconsidered by a lower court, North Carolina said in a filing on Monday, while the Republican lawmakers at the center of the dispute disagreed. The case began as a legal fight over a map drawn by Republican state legislators of North Carolina's 14 U.S. House of Representatives districts - one that a lower court blocked as unlawfully disadvantageous for Democrats. The justices should "dismiss this case for lack of jurisdiction" given that the "decisions on review are nonfinal," the state said. The Republican lawmakers had urged the U.S. Supreme Court to embrace a once-marginal legal theory now embraced by many conservatives that would remove any role of state courts and state constitutions in regulating presidential and congressional elections. Since its decision invalidating the map, the state court has undergone a change in its ideological makeup.

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