HEALTH CARE EXEC'S FIERY TONE SPOTLIGHTS LEGIT FRUSTRATION: It would be easy to dismiss the intemperate letter from a Greensboro-based Cone Health official to State Treasurer Dale Folwell and members of the State Health Plan Trustees as just a hot-head popping off. But it is more than that. Why would someone with the stature of Frank Kauder, assistant director of finance for Cone Health, write such a letter – inappropriate as it was? It was exasperation and immense frustration. He is not alone. His vexation is shared by both the health care community and North Carolina citizens. They see an attack on the state’s health care system that will tear it down, not improve quality, expand access to services or make them more affordable. He worries that the financial future of Cone healthcare -- and therefore its ability to serve the needs of its community -- is being jeopardized.
https://www.wral.com/editorial-health-care-exec-s-fiery-tone-spotlights-legit-frustration/18510361/

NC SENATE SET TO BOOST ENROLLMENT OF VIRTUAL CHARTERS DESPITE "D" GRADES: The Senate approved a bill Tuesday that would, among other things, get rid of the enrollment cap on one of the state’s two virtual charter schools and allow it to grow its population by 20 percent annually if it so chose. While there was no debate on the Senate floor Tuesday, legislative proponents of the bill have said that the schools attract “struggling students” and shouldn’t have a cap that artificially cuts off the number of such students who can use the resource. Opponents, however, point to the schools’ poor performance and trouble with virtual charter schools in other states as reasons not to let the schools grow easily. The North Carolina Association of Educators and the NC Justice Center sent a letter to Gov. Roy Cooper Tuesday asking him to veto the legislation.
https://www.wral.com/virtual-charter-school-gets-legislative-approval-to-grow-but-opponents-push-for...

NEWBY DESCRIBES FELLOW JUSTICES AS A "BUNCH OF AOC'S" AT RALLY: Newby keyed on new Justice Anita Earls in particular, though not by name, bringing up her election last year following a race that drew heavily partisan players and millions in political spending. "I lose sleep at night thinking, what would it be like if we had no one to hold accountable those that want to cause social change through our judicial branch," Newby said. "In 2018, the left put $1.5 million to get their 'AOC' person on the court." Newby's comments were recorded, then sent Tuesday to WRAL News. Newby did not return a message left for him in his chambers at the Supreme Court, but political adviser Paul Shumaker called back, saying the judge was on a family vacation this week. Shumaker said Newby was giving "an example of ideological differences, not direct reference to anyone."
https://www.wral.com/republican-supreme-court-judge-disses-all-six-other-nc-justices/18514145/

MEREDITH CUOMO CHOSEN AS NCDP'S NEW EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR: The former finance director of the North Carolina Democratic Party will now step into the group's top job. The party said in a statement Saturday that Meredith Cuomo will serve as its new executive director. The statement says Cuomo has nearly two decades of experience working to elect Democrats in North Carolina. She has overseen multimillion-dollar budgets and much of the party's day-to-day work. She was also previously the finance director for the N.C. Senate Democratic Caucus. Meredith graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1999, and served as a Director at United way and as a paralegal before working with the Democratic Party.
https://www.newsobserver.com/news/state/north-carolina/article232649427.html

ICE ROUND-UPS OF NON-CRIMINAL IMMIGRANTS SKYROCKET IN SOUTHEAST: “ICE continues to focus its enforcement efforts on criminal offenders,” ICE spokesman Bryan Cox said in a statement to the Observer this week. “Claims of any type of random or indiscriminate enforcement by this agency are not accurate.” But in the Southeast, ICE has steadily been arresting more immigrants who lack a criminal record, according to an Observer analysis of data released by the agency last week. The Atlanta office for the agency, which oversees Georgia and the Carolinas, has not changed the number of people it detains each year across the region in the current administration: Since at least fall 2017, it apprehended about 1,230 immigrants each month. (Arrest numbers, however, are down from the early 2010s under President Obama.) In the past year and a half, though, the percentage of those arrested who lack criminal convictions or pending charges has been rising steadily, up almost 50% in the past two years for the Atlanta field office, from 7.75% to over 11.5%.
https://www.newsobserver.com/article232503812.html