Tag Archives: North Carolina

North Carolina’s bathroom law puts NCAA events at risk: official

transgender bathroom sign

By Colleen Jenkins

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. (Reuters) – North Carolina is close to losing NCAA championship events for six years at a cost of more than $250 million because of a law that restricts bathroom access for transgender people, a local sports official told state lawmakers on Monday.

The governing body for U.S. college athletics is reviewing bids to host events through spring 2022, including 133 from North Carolina cities and universities, said Scott Dupree, executive director of the Greater Raleigh Sports Alliance.

The law known as House Bill 2, which bars transgender people from using government-run restrooms that match their gender identity and limits local nondiscrimination protections, will doom the state’s chances, Dupree wrote in a letter.

“Our contacts at the NCAA tell us that, due to their stance on HB 2, all North Carolina bids will be pulled from the review process and removed from consideration,” said Dupree, adding he was sharing the information on behalf of the North Carolina Sports Association.

Asked for comment, the NCAA said it expects to announce its site selections for upcoming seasons in April.

The organization in September moved championship events, including two rounds of the prominent Division I men’s basketball tournament, from the hoops-loving state for the current academic year in protest at the measure.

“In a matter of days, our state’s sports tourism industry will suffer crushing, long-term losses and will essentially close its doors to NCAA business,” Dupree said. “Our window to act is closing rapidly.”

Adopted last March by North Carolina’s Republican-controlled legislature, the law prompted legal challenges, boycotts by corporations and entertainers, and the relocation of the National Basketball Association’s 2017 All-Star Game.

Supporters of the statute cite traditional values and a need for public safety, while opponents deem it discriminatory to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.

A repeal bid failed during a one-day special legislative session in December.

Dupree’s letter prompted a new call on Monday by advocacy groups and Democratic lawmakers for an immediate repeal to avoid further economic damage.

Senate leader Phil Berger, a Republican, on Twitter blamed the potential loss of more NCAA events on Democratic Governor Roy Cooper, who took office in January.

In a statement, he said Cooper would “have to work toward a compromise that keeps women from being forced to share bathrooms and shower facilities with men to move past this distraction.”

Cooper urged Republican leaders to put the issue to a vote, saying in a statement: “There is no time to waste.”

(Reporting by Colleen Jenkins; Editing by Peter Cooney and Lisa Shumaker)

North Carolina rebuffs transgender bathroom law repeal

Lawmakers confer during a negotiations on the floor of North Carolina's State Senate chamber as they meet to consider repealing the controversial HB 2 law

By Marti Maguire

RALEIGH, N.C. (Reuters) – North Carolina’s Republican-controlled legislature on Wednesday rejected a bid to repeal a state law restricting bathroom access for transgender people, which has drawn months of protests and boycotts by opponents decrying the measure as discriminatory.

A one-day special legislative session ended abruptly after the state Senate voted against abolishing a law that has made North Carolina the latest U.S. battleground over lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights.

The repeal legislation was rejected 32-16, leaving the bathroom restrictions in place statewide. The rejection followed Republican-led political maneuvering that tied repeal to a second provision that would have temporarily banned cities from affirming transgender bathroom rights.

Democratic Senator Jeff Jackson said the repeal effort failed because Republicans reneged on their deal to bring the measure to a floor vote with no strings attached.

The moratorium on municipal bathroom regulations, described by Jackson as a “poison pill,” withered Democratic support, and in the end all 16 Senate Democrats joined 16 Republicans in voting against repeal. Another 16 Republicans voted for it.

The Senate then adjourned without acting on the temporary municipal ban. The state’s House of Representatives had already called it quits.

Democratic Governor-elect Roy Cooper accused Republican leaders of back-peddling on an agreement ironed out in lengthy negotiations. He said both chambers had the votes for a full repeal, but divisions within the Republican Party killed it.

“The Republican legislative leaders have broken their word to me, and they have broken their trust with the people of North Carolina,” he said.

Senate Republican leader Phil Berger earlier defended the proposal to link repeal with temporary municipal restrictions as a genuine attempt at compromise, citing “the passion and disagreement surrounding this issue.”

After the vote, outgoing Republican Governor Pat McCrory blamed “well-funded left-wing interest groups” that he said “sabotaged bipartisan good faith agreements for political purposes.”

BACKLASH OVER BATHROOM RESTRICTIONS

Earlier in the week, McCrory had called the special session to consider scrapping the law, which passed in March and made North Carolina the first state to bar transgender people from using public restrooms that match their gender identity.

Supporters of the statute, known as House Bill 2 (HB 2), have cited traditional values and a need for public safety, while opponents called it mean-spirited, unnecessary and a violation of civil liberties.

The national backlash was swift and fierce, leading to boycotts that have been blamed for millions of dollars in economic losses for the state as events, such as business conferences and the National Basketball Association’s 2017 All-Star Game, were moved out of North Carolina.

The pushback contributed to McCrory’s razor-thin defeat in a fall re-election bid against Cooper, an opponent of the law.

HB 2 was enacted largely in response to a local measure in Charlotte that protected the rights of transgender people to use public bathrooms of their choice.

The Charlotte City Council on Monday repealed its ordinance as a prelude to the state repealing HB 2.

Civil liberties and LGBT rights groups condemned the outcome, accusing the legislature of breaking its promise to do away with HB 2.

“It is a shame that North Carolina’s General Assembly is refusing to clean up the mess they made,” said James Esseks, an American Civil Liberties Union executive.

The North Carolina Values Coalition hailed the legislature for upholding the law and refusing to give in to “demands of greedy businesses, immoral sports organizations or angry mobs.”

(Additional reporting by David Ingram; Writing by Letitia Stein, Daniel Trotta and Steve Gorman; Editing by Tom Brown, G Crosse and Lisa Shumaker)

North Carolina governor-elect says deal could repeal transgender bathroom law

North Carolina Governor-elect Roy Cooper speaks to supporters at a victory rally the day after his Republican opponent and incumbent Pat McCrory conceded in Raleigh, North Carolina, U.S.

Dec 19 (Reuters) – North Carolina’s governor-elect said on Monday that a deal was in the works to repeal a law limiting bathroom access for transgender people after the legislation led to economic boycotts and criticism from rights groups.

Incoming governor Roy Cooper, a Democrat, said Republican leaders of the state legislature planned to call a special session on Tuesday to repeal the law, known as HB 2.

Under the law enacted in March, North Carolina is the only U.S. state to require that transgender people use bathrooms in publicly owned buildings that correspond with the sex listed on their birth certificates.

“I hope they will keep their word to me,” Cooper said in a statement. “Full repeal will help to bring jobs, sports and entertainment events back and will provide the opportunity for strong LGBT protections in our state.”

(Reporting by Letitia Stein; Editing by W Simon and Lisa Von
Ahn)

White supremacist found guilty on all counts in Charleston church massacre

South Carolina church massacre shooting suspect Dylann Roof is seen in U.S. District Court of South Carolina evidence photo which was originally taken from Roof's website.

By Greg Lacour

CHARLESTON, S.C., Dec 15 (Reuters) – A federal jury on Thursday found avowed white supremacist Dylann Roof guilty on all counts for gunning down nine black parishioners at a historic church in Charleston, South Carolina, last year.

Twelve jurors deliberated for a little under two hours after six days of chilling testimony about the bloodshed during a Bible study at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church on June 17, 2015. The panel will return on Jan. 3 to decide whether Roof should be sentenced to death or life in prison.

Roof, 22, showed no emotion as the guilty verdicts were read on 33 charges of federal hate crimes resulting in death, obstruction of religion and firearms violations.

“Justice has been served,” South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley said in a statement immediately after the verdict in a case that intensified the debate about race relations in the United States.

In the aftermath of the massacre, Haley led a push that removed the Confederate battle flag from the state capitol
grounds in Columbia. The flag was carried by pro-slavery Confederate forces during the Civil War and is viewed by many as a racist emblem.

Roof’s trial was one of two racially charged proceedings that played out in recent weeks in courthouses across the street from each other in the heart of Charleston’s downtown.

A state murder trial against a former North Charleston police officer who shot and killed a black man fleeing a traffic stop last year ended on Dec. 5 in a mistrial after jurors deadlocked.

Roof’s guilt was not in dispute. But his defense lawyers, hoping to spare him from execution, asked jurors to consider what factors had driven Roof to commit the senseless act and suggested he might be delusional.

The defense did not call any witnesses after the trial judge blocked them from presenting evidence of Roof’s mental state during the guilt phase of the trial. Roof plans to represent himself during the penalty phase.

During closing arguments on Thursday, prosecutors reminded jurors that Roof had been eager to share his story, giving a two-hour videotaped confession to Federal Bureau of Investigation agents and telling one worshipper he was letting her live so she could recount what he had done.

“He must be held accountable for each and every action he took inside that church,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Nathan Williams said. “For every life he took.”

(Additional reporting by Letitia Stein in Tampa, Florida; Writing by Colleen Jenkins; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Lisa Shumaker)

North Carolina police officer justified in black man’s shooting

Keith Scott looks over to police with hands by his sides just before he was shot four times by Charlotte police in Charlotte, North Carolina,

By Greg Lacour

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (Reuters) – The police officer who shot and killed a black man in Charlotte, North Carolina, in September “acted lawfully” and will not be charged for his use of force, the local district attorney said on Wednesday.

Officer Brentley Vinson reasonably believed he and fellow officers faced an imminent threat from Keith Scott, 43, who was armed with a cocked and loaded gun when they confronted him in the parking lot of a Charlotte apartment complex, District Attorney Andrew Murray told a news conference.

“Officers can be heard at least 10 times ordering Mr. Scott to drop the gun,” Murray said. “Mr. Scott did not comply with those commands.”

Scott’s family has denied he had a weapon during the Sept. 20 incident, which sparked a week of sometimes violent protests in Charlotte, North Carolina’s largest city and a U.S. banking hub.

But Murray said “all of the credible and available evidence suggests that he was, in fact, armed.”

The shooting made Charlotte another flashpoint in two years of protests over police killings of black men, many of them unarmed, across the country.

A day after Scott was killed, demonstrators took to the streets in the upscale urban area known as “Uptown,” where some looted businesses, smashed windows and blocked traffic.

Dozens of people were arrested, and a man was fatally shot amid the chaos.

(Additional reporting and writing by Colleen Jenkins; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)

Claims of votes by the dead, felons cloud North Carolina’s governor race

Voters fill out their ballots on election day for the U.S. presidential election at Elevation Fire Station in Benson, North Carolina

By Colleen Jenkins

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. (Reuters) – North Carolina’s gubernatorial race remains undecided 10 days after the Nov. 8 vote and new allegations by the Republican incumbent’s campaign about felons and dead people casting ballots could leave the outcome in limbo for weeks.

Republican Governor Pat McCrory, who is trailing Democratic challenger Roy Cooper by about 5,200 votes, has refused to concede with ballots still being tallied. Under state law, Friday was supposed to be the deadline for counties to certify their results.

But challenges over the validity of hundreds of votes and reviews of provisional ballots are expected to delay the reports from many, if not all, of the state’s 100 counties, elections officials said.

The uncertainty has been punctuated this week by a war of words between Republicans and Democrats, with McCrory’s campaign accusing Cooper of being lax on voter fraud and Cooper’s campaign calling the incumbent dishonest and desperate.

“It is absolutely shameful that Governor McCrory would make these unfounded claims,” said Cooper spokesman Ford Porter. “This is the worst kind of misinformation campaign meant to undermine the results of an election the governor has lost.”

McCrory’s campaign, however, argues it is following the legal process to ensure all legitimate votes are counted.

Protests being filed by registered voters in some 50 counties argue that up to 200 ballots should be thrown out because they were cast under the names of dead people, felons or individuals who voted more than once, according to the campaign.

“These are the initial findings,” McCrory spokesman Ricky Diaz said in a phone interview. “There’s additional cases of voter fraud being discovered each day.”

McCrory representatives also have cited “staggering evidence of voter fraud” in Bladen County that Diaz said could include up to 400 absentee ballots and have called into question the tabulation of about 90,000 ballots in Durham County.

The state elections board said in a statement it was working with counties to make certain the final results were reliable.

A win by Cooper would be the only governorship pick-up for Democrats nationally this year. Republicans, who flipped seats in New Hampshire, Missouri and Vermont, will hold at least 33 governor offices next year, the most for the party since 1922.

(Reporting by Colleen Jenkins; Editing by Bill Trott)

Wildfires scorch U.S. Southeast, forecast adds to concerns

A heavy air tanker drops fire retardant over the Boteler wildfire near Hayesville, North Carolina, U.S.

By Rich McKay

ATLANTA (Reuters) – Dozens of wildfires burned in the U.S. Southeast on Tuesday, scorching tens of thousands of acres of forest and sending plumes of smoke across hundreds of miles of western North Carolina, northern and central Georgia and parts of eastern Tennessee.

Air quality alerts were issued across swaths of those states, with hazy smoke reaching as far south as Atlanta and north to Knoxville, Tennessee. People in the affected areas were urged to stay indoors or limit outside activity, officials said.

The fires could take weeks to extinguish, and a lack of rain in the forecast has added to concerns, said Wendy Burnett, spokeswoman for the Georgia Forestry Commission.

“The extended drought across the Southeast is the number one culprit,” Burnett said in an interview. “Rain is going to be what it takes to knock this down anytime soon. We’re doing every rain dance we know.”

North Carolina has been the hardest hit with more than 36,800 acres in western parts of the state burning in 15 major fires that are in various stages of being controlled, according to the governor’s office.

North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory has ordered a state of emergency in 25 counties. The fires closed parts of the Appalachian Trail, along with parks, roads and stretches of highways, and forced the evacuation of about 1,000 residents, the governor’s office said in a statement.

In Georgia, more than 28,000 acres are burning, according to Burnett, forcing the evacuation of about 60 homes. The largest fire is on the Rough Ridge in the Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest, she said, with about 19,500 acres burning.

That blaze was caused by a lightning strike, said U.S. Forest Service spokeswoman Michelle Burnett, while several others on federal land remain under investigation.

In Tennessee, nearly 16,000 acres have burned in 67 active fires, according to the state Department of Agriculture’s Division of Forestry.

Arson is suspected in at least one major fire in Tennessee, according to local news accounts. Others were caused by camp fires, farm equipment and a tossed cigarette, officials and state websites said.

“It’s been so dry, that one spark is all it takes to burn a forest,” said the Georgia Forestry Commission’s Burnett.

(Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Alan Crosby)

Battle over bathrooms looms large in North Carolina governors race

A sign protesting a recent North Carolina law restricting transgender bathroom access adorns the bathroom stalls at the 21C Museum Hotel in Durham, North Carolina

By Colleen Jenkins

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C., Nov 4 (Reuters) – In a year of police shooting protests, historic hurricane flooding and voting rights clashes in North Carolina, it is the battle over bathrooms that could prove pivotal in the Tar Heel state’s gubernatorial race.

The election will effectively serve as a referendum on a state law that bans transgender people from using government-run restrooms that match their gender identity and limits protections for gays and lesbians. Signed by Republican Governor Pat McCrory in March, the law has been blamed for hundreds of
millions of dollars in economic losses and the relocation of major sporting events from the ninth largest U.S. state.

Opponents of the law say the vote on Tuesday also could have national implications. If McCrory loses to Democratic challenger Roy Cooper, they said, elected officials backing such measures in other states will face greater political risk.

“I believe a strong message already has been sent to lawmakers across the country,” said Chad Griffin, president of the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) civil rights organization.

“I believe and hope on Election Day that an even stronger message will be sent.”

The advocacy group has joined with Equality North Carolina for a broad effort to boost voter turnout and unseat McCrory and other supporters of the law known as House Bill 2. The organizations are targeting about 400,000 pro-equality voters in the state, including an estimated 255,800 LGBT voters, Griffin said.

The Human Rights Campaign said that voting bloc could make a difference in a presidential swing state where Democrat Barack Obama won by about 14,000 votes in 2008 and Republican Mitt Romney led by about 92,000 votes in 2012.

“There’s no question this is going to be a very close race at the top of the ticket, and the LGBTQ voting bloc really has the ability to impact the outcome of this election,” said Chris Sgro, executive director of Equality North Carolina.

RACE A TOSS-UP

Elections experts consider the race between McCrory and Cooper, one of 12 U.S. gubernatorial seats being decided on Tuesday, to be among the country’s most competitive.

Public opinion polls have been tight most of the year, though the RealClearPolitics average of recent surveys shows
Cooper with a slight advantage.

A Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll found that, among residents who expect to vote, 38 percent were less likely to support McCrory’s re-election bid as a result of the law and its fallout, compared with 32 percent who were more likely to support him.

The poll was conducted online in English between Oct. 6 and Oct. 19. It included 1,233 likely voters and had a credibility interval, a measure of accuracy, of 3 percentage points.

Other polls have shown a majority of residents believe the law is hurting the state.

McCrory, who in 2012 became North Carolina’s first Republican governor in two decades, has blamed the backlash
against the law on national groups trying to redefine gender and “basic norms of privacy.”

Cooper says the law is discriminatory, and he has made McCrory’s support for it a central issue of his campaign.

An ad campaign launched last week by the conservative NC Values Coalition accuses Cooper, the state’s attorney general since 2001, of putting women and children at risk by refusing to defend H.B. 2.

“By not defending it, he’s allowing men into women’s bathrooms,” the group’s executive director, Tami Fitzgerald,
said in a phone interview. “We think that just goes too far.”

“Equality NC and HRC have made North Carolina ground zero for their radical LGBT agenda,” she added. “But I believe that their efforts will fail.”

At early voting sites in North Carolina this week, the issue appeared to be galvanizing people on both sides.

“I admire McCrory for standing behind H.B. 2,” said Republican Parker Umstead, 81, a certified public accountant who cast a ballot in Winston-Salem for the incumbent. “It takes
courage to stand up for your beliefs.”

But Holly Carpenter, a 41-year-old Republican from Cary who works in the medical field, cited the measure as the prime reason why she voted against McCrory, whom she supported in 2012.

“To lose so many economic opportunities over that was just a huge negative for me,” she said.

(Additional reporting by Marti Maguire in Cary, North Carolina,
and Chris Kahn in New York)

North Carolina estimates $1.5 billion in hurricane damage to buildings

An aerial view shows flood waters after Hurricane Matthew in Lumberton, North Carolina

(Reuters) – North Carolina emergency officials have estimated that the destructive and deadly Hurricane Matthew caused $1.5 billion worth of damage to more than 100,000 homes, businesses and government buildings in the state.

The state’s Department of Public Safety said in a release issued on Saturday that county and state officials were still surveying the damage left behind by the storm.

The department also said more than 33,000 applications for individual assistance to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) have been filed and $12.4 million has been approved.

The death toll from Hurricane Matthew stands at 26 in North Carolina, with two more bodies recovered on Saturday as some flood waters receded.

More than 30 deaths in the United States have been blamed on Matthew, which dumped more than a foot (30 cm) of water on inland North Carolina last week. Before hitting the southeast U.S. coast, the fierce storm killed around 1,000 people in Haiti.

On Sunday, North Carolina’s public safety department forecast that all rivers would be below flood levels by October 24, though there was still major flooding in several areas.

In Princeville, believed to be the oldest U.S. town incorporated by freed slaves, water surged to house roof lines on Thursday.

Statewide, power outages had fallen to 2,521 customers by Sunday afternoon, down from more than 800,000 customers without power last Sunday.

In one sign that the crisis was easing, the department only recorded three water rescues between Saturday and Sunday, bringing the total number of rescues to 2,336. The department said 32 shelters are open and are serving nearly 2,200 displaced people.

A total of 570 roads remained closed in the state because of damage from the flooding.

(Reporting by Curtis Skinner in San Francisco; Editing by Sandra Maler)

Historic town swamped, 22 dead in North Carolina flooding

Flooded motor homes

By Jonathan Drake

TARBORO, N.C. (Reuters) – Floodwaters inundated the historic black town of Princeville, North Carolina, on Thursday, leaving homes submerged to their roof lines as the state’s death toll in the aftermath of Hurricane Matthew climbed to 22.

Flooding from the Tar River had been expected in Princeville, which was founded in 1885 and believed to be the oldest U.S. town incorporated by freed slaves, and most of its 2,000 residents evacuated.

North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory described a dramatic rise in the water level in the town, long been plagued by flooding and devastated by floods after Hurricane Floyd in 1999.

Areas that had about a foot of water on Thursday morning were covered in up to 12 feet by afternoon, he said.

“Princeville is basically under water at this time,” McCrory told a news conference after flying over the town. “You gotta see it to believe it.”

The governor praised the town’s residents for heeding evacuation orders, saying no one there had died.

However, McCrory announced two additional fatalities after the storm death toll rose to 20 late on Wednesday. The latest victims included someone who drowned in Lenoir County after driving around a barricade for a washed-out roadway. Most of the state’s deaths from the hurricane have been drownings, he said.

“Stay off the roads,” McCrory said. “Stay out of the water.”

More than 30 deaths in the United States have been blamed on Matthew, with a fourth death announced in South Carolina by that state’s governor on Thursday. Before hitting the southeast U.S. coast, the fierce storm killed around 1,000 people on its rampage through Haiti last week.

The recovery effort in central and eastern North Carolina is expected to take weeks or months. So far, the federal government has disbursed about $2.6 million to individual flooding victims and approved $5 million for emergency road repairs.

(Additional reporting and writing by Colleen Jenkins; Editing by Tom Brown)