Asheville Republican Congressman Mark Meadows (NC-11) spoke with Cory Vaillancourt of Smoky Mountain News and BPR News ahead of the 2018 election. You can listen to their full interview here. Meadows is seeking a fourth term in office this fall. His challengers are Democrat Phillip Price and Libertarian Clifton Ingraham.
On Tuesday October 23rd, incumbent Republican Patrick McHenry and Democrat David Wilson Brown held their lone debate ahead of the election in North Carolina's 10th Congressional district. It took place at Highland Brewing in Asheville and was sponsored by the Council of Independent Business Owners (CIBO). The 10th was heavily redrawn earlier this decade during the last round of redistricting. It stretches west from the Charlotte suburbs to Polk County - with a narrow portion that juts north in B...
On Wednesday October 17th, Blue Ridge Public Radio and Mountain Xpress hosted a forum with the candidates for the District 2 seat on the Buncombe County Board of Commissioners. Republican Glenda Weinert and Democrat Amanda Edwards are running for the seat being vacated by Democrat Ellen Frost, who declined to run for re-election. Early voting in North Carolina runs until November 3rd. You can find a polling place near you here . Election Day is November 6th. Those who did not register to vote by...
On Tuesday October 16th, Blue Ridge Public Radio and the Asheville Citizen-Times hosted a forum with the candidates for the District 3 seat on the Buncombe County Board of Commissioners. Republican incumbent Robert Pressley and Democrat Donna Ensley took part in the forum. Pressley was first elected to the board in 2016. Early voting in North Carolina starts Wednesday October 17th and runs until November 3rd. You can find a polling place near you here . Election Day is November 6th. Those who di...
On Monday October 15th, Blue Ridge Public Radio and the Asheville Citizen-Times held a forum with the candidates running for Buncombe County sheriff. Democrat Quentin Miller, a 25-year veteran of the Asheville police force, and Republican Shad Higgins, a Weaverville business owner, participated. Libertarian Tracey DeBruhl did not respond to repeated invitations to participate. The winner of this election will replace Van Duncan, who decided to retire after serving three terms in office. Early vo...
Early voting begins Wednesday October 17th in North Carolina. Probably the most critical item on the ballot is a race for a seat on the state Supreme Court. BPR's Jeremy Loeb spoke with each of the candidates. Above is his interview with Democrat Anita Earls. Interviews with the other two candidates can be found here .
Early voting begins Wednesday October 17th in North Carolina. Probably the most critical item on the ballot is a race for a seat on the state Supreme Court. BPR's Jeremy Loeb spoke with each of the candidates. Above is his interview with Republican Justice Barbara Jackson, the incumbent in the race. Interviews with the other two candidates can be found here .
Early voting begins Wednesday October 17th in North Carolina. Probably the most critical item on the ballot is a race for a seat on the state Supreme Court. BPR's Jeremy Loeb spoke with each of the candidates. Above is his interview with Republican Chris Anglin. Interviews with the other two candidates can be found here .
Perhaps the biggest race on the ballot for North Carolina voters is for a seat on the state Supreme Court. The seat is currently held by Republican Barbara Jackson . She has two challengers in Democrat Anita Earls and Republican Chris Anglin . BPR's Jeremy Loeb conducted in-depth interviews with each of them.
When Kathryn Edin was studying poverty in the U.S., she and Luke Schaefer made a startling discovery - the number of households in the U.S. living on just $2.00 a day had skyrocketed in the past two decades. The pair authored the 2016 book ' $2.00 A Day: Living On Almost Nothing In America' which chronicles their research into why extreme poverty has risen so much in America. At the time of the book's release, they estimated 1.5 million households in America qualify as extremely poor, and that 3...
Buncombe County's rape crisis and prevention center says it has seen a surge in calls before, during, and after last Thursday's hearing featuring Dr. Christine Ford. She testified to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee allegations that supreme court nominee Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her when they were teenagers. Angelica Wind is the executive director of Our Voice , which provides services and support to survivors of sexual violence in Buncombe County. She explains to BPR's Matt Bush wh...
Carol Anderson's book "One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression is Destroying Our Democracy" is an extensive look at voter suppression methods past and present. She spoke with BPR's Jeremy Loeb about her book and about suppression efforts taking place in North Carolina.
BPR will be interviewing candidates for state races in the 2018 midterms. Our series of conversations starts with Norm Bossert. Bossert is a Democrat running in the heavily Republican Senate District 48, which encompasses Henderson, Transylvania and southern Buncombe counties. It's currently represented by Republican Sen. Chuck Edwards. Bossert spoke with BPR's Jeremy Loeb.
Ballots are finalized (we think) for the high-stakes November mid-term elections. Voters will be deciding a state Supreme Court race, the fate of 6 amendments to the state constitution, who goes to Congress and who goes to the legislature. Western Carolina Univeristy political scientist Chris Cooper breaks it all down with BPR's Jeremy Loeb.
Monday is the first day of classes for the fall semester at UNC-Asheville. It also marks the beginning of Dr. Nancy Cable's tenure as the 8th chancellor at the school. She takes over for Dr. Mary Grant, who left the school at the end of 2017. Dr. Joe Urgo served as interim chancellor until Cable's arrival. Cable comes to Asheville from the world of philanthropy, having served as the president of the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations since 2012. Cable's first few days on the job were hectic - a com...
An increase in bear encounters has prompted the U.S. Forest Service to consider clamping down on food storage rules for campers in parts of Western North Carolina. BPR's Helen Chickering has details. Hanging food from a tree is apparently no longer enough to keep away the black bears that live around two popular Western North Carolina camping spots Panthertown Valley , just outside of Cashiers in Jackson County and the portion of the Appalachian Trail that travels through North Carolina "They ha...
NC State University's Institute for Emerging Issues is bringing its forum to Asheville in a month, September 17. New York Times columnist David Brooks will headline the event. Leslie Boney is the IEI's director. He spoke with BPR's Jeremy Loeb about the focus of this year's forum, titled ReCONNECT to Community.
A former assistant coach for the University of North Carolina football team says players have the power - if they choose to use it - to reverse the suspensions of 13 players for improperly selling school-issued shoes. John Shoop served as North Carolina's offensive co-ordinator from 2007 to 2011 under then head coach Butch Davis. During that time, an academic scandal led to the suspensions of several players. Shoop says he sees echoes of that incident in the current one. But he says the ensuing ...
The Trump administration took another swipe at the Affordable Care Act recently in announcing that it's cutting funding to ACA 'navigators' 72 percent, from $36 million to $10 million. In North Carolina, the cut is even more severe: an 85 percent cut from $3.4 million to $500,000. That will hurt the efforts of navigators to help get people enrolled in health insurance. Jackie Kiger is an attorney and ACA navigator with Pisgah Legal Services serving western North Carolina. She spoke with BPR's Je...
Asheville native Jackie Grant is now president of the North Carolina Bar Association . She was inaugurated at the NCBA's annual meeting last month. The A.C. Reynolds High School and Western Carolina University graduate is the first woman attorney from Asheville to serve as president of the NCBA, and only the second African-American woman to hold the position. Grant is a partner and litigator for Roberts & Stevens. She sat down with BPR's Matt Bush to talk about the role the Bar Association p...
Western Carolina University political scientist Chris Cooper spoke with BPR's Jeremy Loeb about the latest in North Carolina politics. This week saw a major U.S. Supreme Court "punt" on political gerrymandering, a flurry of election changes pushed by Republican state lawmakers amid a process that's drawn criticism for a lack of transparency, and the Trump administration's policy of separating immigrant children from their parents at the border draws a response from local politicians.
A new study put out by the League of Women Voters finds the vast majority of schools taking in students receiving vouchers are teaching a biblical worldview. Many of those schools are using what's called the Abeka Curriculum, which teaches students the earth was created 6,000 years ago, that climate change is a hoax, and refers to media as the "liberal press," according to study author Bonnie Bechard. She spoke with BPR's Jeremy Loeb. The legislature started the Opportunity Scholarship Program i...
Western Carolina University is unveiling NCDataDashboard.org, an online resource that shows key economic indicators and trends for all 100 counties in North Carolina. The site includes 12,000 unique data series according to the school, including information on employment, workforce, land, infrastructure and industry GDP. That data is broken down county by county. Two of those instrumental in creating the resource, WCU economics professors Angela Dills and Edward Lopez, joined BPR's Matt Bush for...
Commencement ceremonies take place this Saturday on the campus of UNC-Asheville. The school's interim chancellor Joe Urgo says this year's graduating class is the largest in recent memory, while the incoming class of freshman this fall is the largest in school history. Urgo sat down with BPR's Matt Bush to discuss news at the school, including the search for a full-time chancellor (expect something by the end of May). Urgo also discussed something he spoke about at a recent appearance in Western...
Asheville City Council member Vijay Kapoor was critical of the North Carolina legislature for moving towards forcing districts on the city of Asheville. Speaking with BPR's Jeremy Loeb, the councilman of south Asheville said his election shows that voters from anywhere in the city are fully capable of being represented on council under the current system. And he added that voters overwhelmingly rejected the idea of districts in a voter referendum. The legislature is seeking input on criteria for...
Recently released data from Duke Energy is raising new concerns about contaminated water at the Asheville coal plant and others around the state. BPR's Jeremy Loeb reports groundwater at the Asheville plant had levels of radioactivity 38 times the federal safety standard.
Leaked video of an Asheville police officer beating an unarmed black man accused of jaywalking has brought renewed attention to the North Carolina law regarding the release of police body cam footage. Lauren Horsch of NC Insider reports the Asheville incident is being cited by the law's critics as an example of its weaknesses. She spoke with BPR's Jeremy Loeb. As Horsch reports, the law signed in 2016 lays out the protocol for which body cam footage is released, and requires a superior court jud...
The city of Asheville Monday afternoon formally asked Buncombe County Superior Court to release any additional police body camera footage of the beating of Johnnie Jermaine Rush. The unarmed black man was beaten by then Asheville police officer Chris Hickman last August as he walking through the parking lot of a closed business on Short Coxe Avenue. Rush was initially stopped for suspected jaywalking and trespassing, but charges against him were dropped. Hickman resigned from the force in Januar...
Reverend Billy Graham passed away Wednesday morning at the age of 99 at his home in Montreat. The most prominent American Christian preacher of his era was ordained in Southern Baptist church, but it was his ability to blur the denominational lines of Protestant Christianity that built his large following says Reverend Dr. Marcia Mount Shoop, the pastor at Grace Covenant Presbyterian Church in Asheville. She joined BPR's Matt Bush in studio to discuss how Graham was able to do that - plus his co...
The North Carolina legislature is adjourned until May. Or are they? BPR's Jeremy Loeb and Western Carolina University political scientist Chris Cooper talk about the latest in North Carolina politics, from a loaded class-size bill critics call a "poison pill" to a stand-off over Gen-X, the latest in the neverending gerrymandering saga, and the 2018 midterms.
