Author: Jordan Meadows

By Jordan Meadows Staff Writer Democratic Gov. Josh Stein has proposed a sweeping change to one of North Carolina's largest and most debated education programs by recommending a phased wind-down of the state's Opportunity Scholarship voucher system. Under Stein's proposed budget, unveiled in late-April, the state would halt new enrollments in the Opportunity Scholarship Program and impose a stricter income cap on current recipients. The plan sets eligibility at 150%

By Jordan Meadows Staff Writer Tensions between Southeast Raleigh residents and city officials over the implementation of long-planned parks bond projects have resurfaced, as community members argue that years of grassroots planning are being overshadowed by a lack of transparency and limited public input, according to documents from the South Park-East Raleigh Neighborhood Association (SPERNA) obtained by The Carolinian. The concerns center on several initiatives tied to the historic South

By Jordan Meadows Staff Writer North Carolina Democrats have abandoned a high-profile federal lawsuit challenging the state's Republican-drawn Senate map.  State Rep. Rodney Pierce of Halifax County and co-plaintiff Moses Matthews, a voting rights advocate, filed a stipulation of dismissal last Monday with the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, formally ending their appeal of a lower court ruling that upheld the contested districts. The lawsuit, originally filed in 2023,

By Jordan Meadows Staff Writer Raleigh and the surrounding Triangle region are seeing a complex shift in violent crime trends, as recent incidents have tested public confidence and prompted a visible response from local law enforcement. Newly released first-quarter data from 2025 show that homicides in Raleigh rose modestly year-over-year, from 9 incidents in Q1 2024 to 11 in Q1 2025. Nine of the eleven cases have already been closed,

By Jordan Meadows Staff Writer Raleigh's long-vacant former Division of Motor Vehicles headquarters on New Bern Avenue is moving closer to redevelopment, with city leaders now weighing multiple proposals centered on affordable housing, retail space, and community-focused development along the future New Bern Bus Rapid Transit corridor. Demolition of the former DMV campus is roughly halfway complete, although city officials say the project has been delayed due to the scale

By Jordan Meadows Staff Writer A bill moving through the North Carolina General Assembly aims to address what lawmakers and advocates describe as a growing stillbirth crisis across the state. Senate Bill 909, known as the Building Understanding of Movement in Pregnancy Act, or BUMP Act, would require the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services to provide free, standardized education on stillbirth prevention to pregnant patients and training

By Jordan Meadows Staff Writer North Carolina lawmakers advanced a bill that would dramatically reshape how the state regulates natural hair braiding and other textured-hair services, cutting hundreds of required training hours down to just 10 hours focused on infection control. NC Senate Bill 808, which has cleared key Senate committees and passed the full Senate, would replace the state's current 300-hour natural hair care license with a simplified certification

By Jordan Meadows Staff Writer The immigration systems of the United States and Europe have produced dramatically different outcomes for Black and Caribbean populations, shaped by law, geography, and fundamentally different ideas about race, citizenship, and national identity.  While major European cities such as Paris have highly visible Black populations tied to decades of colonial migration, the pathways that created those communities differ sharply from the modern immigration structure of

[caption id="attachment_17596" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Credit: Ashley Fredde, NC Health News[/caption] By Jordan Meadows Staff Writer More than 30 students from 14 counties across North Carolina gathered at the North Carolina General Assembly on Wednesday as part of the Tobacco 21 (T21) Coalition. Their goal was to press lawmakers into adopting stricter nicotine regulations and advance House Bill 430, known as "Solly's Law." The legislation is named after Solomon Wynn, a

By Jordan Meadows Staff Writer The idea of lifetime appointments to the U.S. Supreme Court begins with a very specific institutional problem the framers were trying to solve: how to create a judiciary strong enough to check the other branches, but not so politically entangled that it simply mirrored them.  In the Federalist Papers, Alexander Hamilton argued that courts would be the "least dangerous branch" precisely because they lacked control