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NC House Democrats propose 3 judicial constitutional amendments
Subscribe to Under the Dome to get North Carolina politics news in your inbox daily.
Wake schools hire a company to make sports sponsorship deals. Can it get much?
The Wake County school system will be guaranteed at least $100,000 a year from the agreement with National Amateur Sports.
Top NC lawmakers say budget negotiations are on track. Gov. Stein won’t bet on it
North Carolina’s state budget is already a year late. Is it still on schedule for June? Lawmakers say yes. The governor won’t bet on it.
Hurricanes’ Stanley Cup run caps off a year of NC sports fans having fun again
The Hurricanes have been North Carolina’s best team for a long time. The rest of North Carolina’s professional sports franchises may finally be waking up.
Any Charlotte Democratic voter could be interim mayor. But politics matter
Applications just opened, and the City Council plans to make an appointment before the end of June.
‘Hellacious’ car noise is affecting Charlotte businesses. How will officials act?
Local businesses and residents say noisy cars have been a big issue in Charlotte.
Feds coming to Raleigh to help small businesses get infrastructure work
The Triangle is one of only three places nationwide to host the US Department of Transportation’s National Small Business Matchmaking Series.
NC lawmakers return from break with budget pending. Catch up on what they’re doing
The NC legislature is about to return from a break. Here’s what you need to know about their activity so far.
Area business leader, philanthropist Stanley Star dies
One of the northern Chautauqua County's "brilliant" business and community leaders has passed. Stanley Albert Star, who co-founded Cliffstar Corp. and, through extraordinary determination and leadership, built it into the largest and most respected private label beverage company in the United States, died Friday at 89. His obituary notes he was "a devoted husband, loving…
Longtime Raleigh sports bar closes after 18 years in business
The brand also had a location in Chapel Hill that closed during the early days of the pandemic.
Longtime Raleigh sports bar closes after 18 years in business
The brand also had a location in Chapel Hill that closed during the early days of the pandemic.
ATG Entertainment Expands to 19K SF at GFP’s 630 Ninth Avenue
GFP Real Estate has signed three new deals at its 630 Ninth Avenue office building totaling 24,815 square feet.
Continental Strategy adds Florida government pro Brandi Gunder as newest partner
'She will offer clients unique insights because she wasn't just an observer of government, she was a part of getting things done.'
Charlotte plans to pick interim mayor before Vi Lyles leaves. Here’s the process
Public applications will open June 2, and a new mayor will be decided before Mayor Vi Lyles leaves office.
Hyperreal Politics: When the Simulation Becomes Too Absurd to Satirize
My dialogue with Claude continues as we reflect on civilizational decline, democratic erosion, and the capture of shared
Politics & Power: How thousands of departures from the DOJ are reshaping justice
A rapid, high‑profile exodus of experienced DOJ attorneys has drained legal expertise, shifted enforcement priorities, strained remaining staff, and prompted growing concern from judges, former officials and legal observers about the department’s capacity and credibility.
Charlotte business news roundup: Wegmans, I-77 tolls and more. What to know
Wegmans is coming, I-77 tolls are going and there’s yet another step forward to try to revive the Excelsior Club site.
Hyperreal Politics: When the Simulation Becomes Too Absurd to Satirize
The foreign policy playing out today in the West is so preposterously self-destructive it would be rejected as implausible fiction
Charter School Makes Waves in Science, Tech, and Engineering
Three 8th grade teams were selected from BFCCPS following an in school STEAM student showcase.
From red to blue: Deschutes County politics shift left after election
After Tuesday’s election results, the balance of power on the Deschutes County Commission is undergoing what some observers describe as a seismic shift to the left. Democrats and left-leaning candidates […]
Bond breakout? Big effects of bad data. Immigration and thermostatic politics & dad-chat is coming for dad-books.
Thank you for opening your Chartbook email. Anna Airy, A Shell Forge at a National Projectile Factory, Hackney Marshes, London, 1918 Bond breakout - John Authers Across the developed markets, bond markets are staging a slow-motion car wreck. Looking at the drastic moves in the US, Japan, the UK and France, Barclays’ Ajay Rajadhyaksha commented: “Last week, long bonds broke. Not in one country. In all of them. Simultaneously. Four countries. Four different political systems. Four different central banks. But the same trade — “get me out of duration!”” Each country has its own contributing political problems, but the uniformity of the shift out of long-term bonds with high duration makes clear that something broader is afoot. For Rajadhyaksha, it is “simple and uncomfortable.” The developed world “has too much debt, too little fiscal discipline, and no political appetite for fixing either.” If there’s a trigger, it has been the Iran war and the resulting shock to oil supply. Source: Bloomberg G7 countries are now borrowing at rates that were enjoyed by EM in the early 2020s For contributing subscribers only. Subscribe Trade between China and Russia has grown in recent years For contributing subscribers only. Subscribe Big effects of bad data A decade ago nearly nine in ten Americans, when approached, agreed to fill out the Current Population Survey, which is administered to about 60,000 households each month and asks about, among other things, employment. Fewer than seven in ten do so now (see chart 1). For the Consumer Expenditure Survey, which tries to capture 3,700 households monthly, the response rate is down from 68% to 40%. … When the information becomes less reliable, investment decisions get more difficult to make. Some may be delayed, creating a potential drag on the economy. A new working paper by Nicholas Bloom of Stanford University, Erica Groshen, former head of the Bureau of Labour Statistics (BLS) now at Cornell University, and Duncan Hobbs and Michael Strain of the American Enterprise Institute, a think-tank, hazards an estimate. Preserving trust in “the integrity and quality of official statistics”, the authors claim, generates economic benefits of about $25 for every $1 spent on the BLS, the agency with an annual budget of $700m that is responsible for many of these data. To arrive at their conclusion the quartet analysed an ignoble episode in the BLS’s recent history. On August 1st 2025 Donald Trump sacked Erika McEntarfer, appointed as the agency’s commissioner by his predecessor, Joe Biden. The president alleged, without evidence, that the BLS’s steep downward revision to recent jobs numbers had been “RIGGED in order to make the Republicans, and ME, look bad”. In fact, it was the wanton dismissal that looked bad in the eyes of many observers. In the following seven days there was a 50% leap, relative to the week before, in the average value of the index of Economic Policy Uncertainty (EPU), which tracks the number of articles mentioning such uncertainty that are published daily in American newspapers. This was a discernible jump even when compared to the chaos caused by Mr Trump’s trade war in April 2025 and his real one in Iran in the past two months (see chart 2). Based on Mr Bloom’s earlier study with other colleagues of the EPU’s impact on business investment, industrial production and employment, the authors estimate that the jump reduced American GDP by over $100bn (0.3%) and non-farm payrolls by 168,000 (0.1%). Source: The Economist Immigration and thermostatic politics (Sarah O’Connor in the FT) A strange thing happened a year and a half ago. No sooner had Americans elected Donald Trump as president on an explicitly anti-immigration platform than US public opinion began to swing much more favourably towards immigration. … to political scientists who study “thermostatic” politics, this development is no surprise at all. Public opinion often moves against the prevailing party, especially if they are perceived to have gone “too far” in one direction. The phenomenon was first explored in the 1990s with reference to fiscal policy, but in recent years it has been particularly evident in the realm of immigration policy. While these swings in opinion polls can make it seem as if people don’t know their own minds, they can be a useful democratic check on governments by sending bright flashing warning lights when policies stray too far from the public’s comfort zone. The problem comes when politicians misinterpret those signals. When people tell pollsters they want less immigration, or think it is bad for the country overall (or the converse), they are often expressing an opinion about how things appear to be going in that moment relative to their preferences, rather than a deep shift in their underlying views. According to Alexander Kustov, a political scientist, most Americans’ views are quite stable and moderate: they support immigration that is controlled and in the national interest, and oppose flows that are disorderly or under-enforced. In the US, he argues the Trump administration over-interpreted dissatisfaction with high immigration under Joe Biden, and implemented policies that went too far for many voters. “People don’t necessarily change their idea about their ideal immigration policy, but they can react to what the government is currently doing,” he told me. “A lot of people are not happy with what the Trump administration are doing — right now we’re not talking about border enforcement, we’re talking about people not just getting harassed, but killed.” But similarly, he added, pro-immigration advocates would be making a mistake to interpret the recent, more favourable swing towards immigration as a deep-seated ideological shift in attitudes. The recent history of UK immigration policy offers another cautionary tale. After the 2016 Brexit referendum, public concern about immigration fell. This was partly because net migration statistics declined, but also because people felt a sense of catharsis and control, says Sunder Katwala, director of British Future, a think-tank. By 2019, the public ranked immigration as only the ninth biggest issue of concern, according to Ipsos polling. But when the Conservative government liberalised visa routes for students and care workers between 2019 and 2022, that helped net migration to surge. And so, too, did public concern. Today’s Labour government has implemented another sharply restrictive turn in immigration policy. As Kustov and researcher Caitlyn Yates argue, thermostatic public opinion should be a useful check on politicians. Instead it seems to have helped to magnify the pendulum swing in the UK. The government over-interprets and overreacts to a change in public opinion, which reacts in turn, prompting a sudden swing the other way. Source: Financial Times HEY READERS, THANK YOU for opening the Chartbook email. I hope it brightens your day. I enjoy putting out the newsletter, but tbh, what keeps this flow going is the generosity of those readers who clicked the subscription button. If you are persuaded to click, please consider the annual subscription of $50. It is both better value for you and a much better deal for me, as it involves only one credit card charge. Why feed the payments companies if we don’t have to. Subscribe Anna Airy, Shop for Machining 15-Inch Shells: Singer Manufacturing Company, Clydebank, Glasgow, 1918 Racing for a vaccine … we have been here before! The deadly Ebola outbreak in two African countries driven by a virus species with no vaccine has triggered an urgent search for a potential jab, in a test of troubled global efforts to avert threats posed by emerging diseases. A World Health Organization advisory group is due to would meet on Tuesday to recommend candidate jabs to prioritise for clinical trials, the global health body said. It will assess data including an analysis by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (Cepi), which was set up after failures in the international response to a previous Ebola crisis. The latest Ebola outbreak in Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda has infected hundreds of people and killed more than 80, health authorities say. Cepi’s reaction will be a crucial indicator of its progress towards its wider goal of producing vaccines for pandemic threats in just 100 days, despite steep cuts to international health funding. “If there was ever a time that we could show the world why Cepi is needed and show the world why the 100-day mission is needed, it’s now,” Nicole Lurie, the organisation’s executive director for preparedness and response, told the FT. “We’re happy to accept that responsibility, but obviously we need help from partners — particularly financial help in the long run.” DR Congo and Uganda would make the final decision on whether to press ahead with any vaccine candidates endorsed for clinical trials by the WHO experts, the global health body said. “Other ethical and community acceptability issues will be considered,” said the WHO, which declared the latest outbreak a public health emergency of international concern on Sunday. “This will be important to make sure that the trial, if it happens, will be adequately communicated to the population.” Lurie said Cepi had provided information from a survey of research teams and companies working on drugs that might be effective against the Bundibugyo virus behind the outbreak. The organisation hoped soon to announce partners in the quest for a jab, she added, although she declined to give a timescale for when one might be developed. Cepi’s Nicole Laurie said global health bodies were ‘getting some live-fire drills’ with hantavirus and the latest Ebola outbreak. The hunt for a vaccine should be helped by scientific advances including the use of artificial intelligence to find drugs active against viruses, Lurie said. Existing jabs against the Zaire Ebola virus responsible for many previous outbreaks might provide a basis for tackling the Bundibugyo species, she added. “We’ll see how far and how fast we can get,” Lurie said, adding that Cepi had done preliminary work recently on a possible jab for the rat-borne hantavirus responsible for a recent fatal outbreak on a cruise ship. “Both with hantavirus and now with Ebola, [we] are getting some live-fire drills.” Source: Michael Peel in the Financial Times Dad-chat is coming for dad-books. (By Pamela Paul and Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg in the WSJ) They were the go-to gifts for Father’s Day: a book about some little-known chapter of World War II, the sweeping narrative of a shipwreck, perhaps the latest presidential biography. These days, dad books are a dying breed. Nonfiction book sales have been in decline for the past four years, and are now the most challenged segment of the print book market. Publishers say certain types of books still fare well—including celebrity memoirs and religious titles. But in recent years, print sales in such categories as biography, current affairs and business and economics—what publishers refer to as “serious nonfiction” and which tend to resonate especially with men—have fallen considerably. Sales of nonfiction print titles were down nearly 8% through May 9 this year, and sales of books about politics and current affairs were down 19%, according to book tracker Circana BookScan. Publishing has long been subject to cyclical changes, with trends in format and genre taking over bookshelves in grand sweeps. (Remember the adult coloring-book craze? Or the stratospheric rise of romantasy?) But many in publishing believe the decline in serious nonfiction is more existential. “The trend couldn’t be clearer,” said Jonathan Karp, the former chief executive of Simon & Schuster and publisher of the new Simon Six imprint. “This is a sea change and people should wake up and realize we’re living in a new world.” One culprit for the shift: a new media diet for fans of more serious nonfiction. … Sixty-two percent of men and 54% of women consumed a podcast in the prior month, according to a recent survey by Edison Research at SSRS, up from 46% and 39%, respectively, in 2023. “When we have internal meetings to talk about this problem, it always comes around to podcasts,” said Jonathan Burnham, president and publisher of the Harper Group at HarperCollins Publishers. “The man who wants to read American history is now tuning into one of the many good podcasts about history that lends the quiet attention to a serious subject he’s looking for. It makes the idea of sitting down with a 700-page Ron Chernow book less appealing. You’ve scratched that itch.” Source: Wall Street Journal Remarkable report by Novara from the nationalist rally in London in mid May. Anna Airy, Leopard Moth and Plums, 1915 If you’ve scrolled this far, you know you want to click: Subscribe
Charter School Makes Waves in Science, Tech, and Engineering
Three 8th grade teams were selected from BFCCPS following an in school STEAM student showcase.
UNC Health sought ‘partnership’ with WakeMed after Atrium merger announced
The Chapel Hill-based health system made its proposal on the day WakeMed and Atrium officials announced their planned combination.
Now What? With Carbon Pricing Eroded and Pipeline Politics Advancing, Here Are the Pathways for Climate Success
At the end of a whirlwind week of news on carbon pricing and electricity strategy, capping a madcap year of pretty much non-stop, dramatic change, the word across much of Canada’s climate and energy transition community is that climate policy in this country has been shredded. Eviscerated. Hit with a sledgehammer by policy rollbacks that have pushed the country’s 2050 net zero target “well out of reach”. That means it’s never been more important to look for the rays of hope and glimmers of possibility. To glimpse the seeds of the next set of strategies to get Canada’s climate pollution under control and the country into the accelerating global dash away from fossil fuels. And then, once we’ve spotted those possibilities, get on with the hard, day-to-day slog of trying to make them a reality. Nothing takes away from the frustration and the deep disappointment so many climate and energy hawks are expressing, the sense of betrayal by the author of Value(s) and the former UN special envoy for climate action and finance. But we knew two things as the week drew to a close. We’re looking at the world as it most definitely is. And we don’t get to give up finding the pathways to confront climate change and deliver faster, deeper carbon cuts that leave no one else behind. So really, the first question we all have to ask ourselves is: What’s next? Subscribe All the Oxygen in the Room The outpouring of anger and grief over the carbon pricing deal between Prime Minister Mark Carney and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has been absolutely understandable. So much of the climate community poured years, more than a decade, into dragging the current federal pricing regime across the finish line, then defending it from a deluge of three-syllable rhymes after the Trudeau government proved utterly incapable of delivering its own message. The policy foisted on us by neo-classical economists took up all the oxygen in the room, burned through years of climate response time that we won’t get back, while cornering climate hawks into the position that the best response to the crisis of our lifetimes is a new tax…in an era of historic anti-tax sentiment. I mean, really—what could possibly have gone wrong? Against that history, let’s appreciate columnist Max Fawcett’s point that even a modest carbon pricing agreement with a government as off-the-wall libertarian/conspiracist as Danielle Smith’s—those adjectives are mine, not Max’s—is a win worth savouring (as long as Smith keeps her promises for a change). But part of living in the world as it is (no, I’m not letting that go) is to be clear-headed about what we can and can’t control. And one thing we get to decide, after seeing this week’s carbon price festivities take up all the oxygen yet again, is whether we want to keep letting that happen. Particularly when success down that road depends on a factor that no one with a climate agenda can control or influence—a provincial carbon pricing mechanism that has been manipulated and eroded beyond its lowest possible denominator. Thankfully, that’s not the way it has to go. Not when we have so many other powerful, practical tools at our disposal, including the ones still available to us through this abominable Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between Canada and Alberta. Tools In Our Toolbox When I started roughing out this list, I didn’t expect it to grow to nearly a dozen bullet points. It’s probably still incomplete. Some of the greatest hits in today’s climate solutions toolbox include: • No Carbon Capture, No Pipeline: On Friday, Prime Minister Mark Carney explicitly stated that there’s been no change to the MOU provision that there will be no West Coast pipeline without an industry commitment to build its massive, $16.5-billion carbon capture and storage (CCUS) hub in Northern Alberta, and vice versa. The two megaprojects were joined at the hip when the MOU was signed Nov. 27, and the implementation agreement this week affirmed that they still are. A parade of independent analysts have spent years pointing to the economic and technical flaws in CCUS, while the industry kept postponing its investment decision until it could arm-twist the government for more “clarity” (by which it meant even more lavish taxpayer subsidies) on the project. Now the industry itself is running away from the CCUS hub and insisting the pipeline should proceed without it, but Carney doesn’t seem to be budging from a central tenet of the MOU to which Smith has signed on. • No Subsidies, No Investors: Climate analysts and advocates have quite rightly been hammering away at Carney and his team, insisting that any new capacity the industry wants to build must proceed without new subsidies. The government has responded with a growing collection of funding and financing mechanisms for the very wide menu of industrial development and nation-building projects they say they want to take on, and that menu always includes fossil fuel infrastructure. But it’s hard to see how even the combined fiscal clout of the federal and supportive provincial governments will deliver the financial backing private investors would need when the business case for new fossil fuel development is evaporating before their eyes. Particularly when… • No Market, No Demand, No Investors: As our friend Markham Hislop at Energi Media (our apparently sleepless friend, given the massive volume of great material he’s been churning out) points out this morning, the biggest vulnerability in any pipeline deal is the assumption that Asian buyers will want the oil or liquefied natural ga that our fossil industry is so keen to send them. Hislop writes in part: Ottawa and Alberta are effectively betting that countries like China and India will continue increasing oil imports for decades as their economies grow and energy consumption rises. That assumption underpins the entire economic rationale for expanding oil sands production and building billions of dollars in new export infrastructure. But Asian energy systems are changing rapidly… China, India, South Korea, and other major hydrocarbon importers are now investing hundreds of billions of dollars into electricity systems built around wind, solar, batteries, nuclear, hydro, and expanded transmission infrastructure. Domestic “energy sovereignty” is increasingly replacing the old energy-security model based on stable oil and gas imports. Those investments are expected to sharply slow oil demand growth and eventually reverse it, even as overall energy consumption continues rising. There are also refining constraints. Many Asian refineries and petrochemical complexes are already optimized to process discounted heavy crude from the Middle East and Latin America. That raises serious questions about how much additional Canadian bitumen Asian markets can absorb at profitable prices. Small wonder that there’s still no private sector investor for the project, despite Smith’s government desperately beating the bushes to put together a deal. For now, Alberta is acting as proponent and covering early start-up costs for a pitch to the federal Major Projects Office, which could actually turn into the next tough hurdle for Smith and her pipeline to jump. • Canada Day Looms: How ironic that Canada’s birthday this year could become a major chokepoint for the provincial premier who’s been working so diligently to tear the country apart! The July 1 target date for Alberta’s pipeline proposal is baked into the MOU, was reaffirmed by the implementation plan, but it hadn’t dawned on me that it cuts both ways. As one very smart colleague wrote in an email yesterday, “they’ve thrown the ball into Alberta’s court to get the project proposal on the table really quickly and to have to do a whole pile of work to put together a massive, complicated project that would typically take years to assemble, and they’ve given them weeks to do it.” That makes July 1 a looming deadline that Smith won’t be able to run away from politically, especially with the separatists in her party and her caucus breathing down her neck. (See previous ref to off-the-wall.) But if Alberta comes in with a sloppy, incomplete submission, even after Carney bent over backwards to simplify the application process and the rules that govern it, it may be harder for the province or the industry to blame Ottawa and insist on the faster process they claim their investors are demanding. (Oh, wait—which investors would those be??) • We’ll See You In Court (Then We’ll See You Again): If Carney did cave, that would be just one more reason for Indigenous and other affected communities to take the government and the process to court—Just as Alberta First Nations did, successfully, in response to Smith’s half-baked separation referendum. Veterans of the Harper era have been warning that a shoddy process around fossil fuel infrastructure or other major projects will be a recipe for the very delays that process seeks to avoid. And now more than ever, with renewable energy and energy storage eating fossil fuels’ lunch in import markets around the world, a delayed pipeline or LNG terminal may be as good as a cancelled one. • Charged Up, Ready to Go: With its goal of doubling Canada’s electricity supply to meet a doubling of demand by 2050, the national electricity strategy that Carney unveiled Thursday has a lot to like. With its explicit language about speeding the shift from fuels to more efficient and affordable electricity, global investment and deployment patterns that already favour that shift, an emerging bidirectional power grid, the role of front-line options like rooftop solar and heat pumps, the emergence of electric vehicles as behind-the-meter energy storage, and the domestic jobs and manufacturing to make it all happen, the document doubles down on the essential cornerstone of a faster shift off fossil fuels. The strategy envisions a more prominent role for gas and nuclear power. But some of those provisions were already in the Clean Electricity Regulations that climate hawks are now fighting so hard to defend, inserted as a compromise in a futile attempt to mollify the industry and its political representatives in Alberta and Saskatchewan. But once again, gas will be a tougher sell when it’s more expensive and now so much more unpredictable than the clean alternatives. The new nuclear technologies are still speculative and deeply vulnerable to cost overruns. Increasingly, utilities, developers, and investors know it. Carney declared Thursday that “it doesn’t do us good to be sitting in court all the time with provinces. It doesn’t do us good to be talking past each other. What does do us good is to come together with specific projects.” There are no guarantees, but so much of the language and narrative-building in the electricity strategy suggests the lion’s share of those projects will be renewable. • The Party Has Already Started: The electricity strategy only rarely digs down to specific projects, but provinces representing three-quarters of Canada’s population are already embracing a faster transition. Hydro-Québec is working on a 10-year, $185-billion renewable energy and grid buildout by 2035. Ontario recently brought 10 provinces and territories together in a National Energy Corridor Agreement to boost interprovincial and -territorial transmission infrastructure. And the MOU implementation agreement commits Alberta to facilitate investment in renewable energy projects, a big step back from its continuing, punitive restrictions on renewables development. The electricity strategy envisions much of the financing and infrastructure that will be needed to pull those advances together into an integrated whole. • Delivering on Affordability: The MOU implementation plan has little or nothing to say about affordability (are you surprised?), but the electricity strategy does, with a top-line pledge to reduce home energy costs for seven out of 10 Canadian households by 2050, a total saving of $15 billion across the board. It’s just a start, but it puts affordability on the government’s narrative map. If they’re serious and deliberate about patching together a least-cost energy strategy, it’ll have little if any room for oil, gas, or nuclear—not with powerful evidence, for example, that electricity prices are higher when those prices are set by gas. • Smith Proves that Canada Works: By signing a deal that makes it harder to claim the federal government is blocking a new pipeline, Smith has helped prove Carney’s constant anti-separatist refrain that “Canada works”—incurring the rage, no doubt, of her own political base. Canada also needs to work for anyone who depends on a clean environment, healthy and thriving ecosystems, and safe, stable climate. But with Smith and her separatist constituents setting up as a fifth column for annexation by Donald Trump’s United States, let’s set aside any notion that 51st state status for Canada is a recipe for anything other than climate disaster (and so much else). Resisting and withstanding Trump (just 170 more sleeps until mid-term elections, which is a damn sight better than the 730 we started with) doesn’t mean a free pass for a pipeline, but we can still appreciate it that keeping Canada whole and sovereign is still Carney’s Job One. • The Words Not Spoken: Apart from a commitment to export a million barrels of “low-emission” Alberta bitumen per day (memo to Smith and Carney: You realize that that’s less than the industry is already exporting??), the MOU implementation plan says nothing about the international trade and economic sovereignty deals that Carney has been travelling the world to negotiate. It didn’t have to. Carney doesn’t need permission from Danielle Smith, her American enablers, or her separatist allies to continue building the alliances that will ratchet down our economic dependency on our unstable, unreliable neighbour to the south. But every connection he builds with countries outside North America helps align our economy and our future with a faster shift off fossil fuels. Little if any of this was on our bingo cards a year or two ago. But it’s the pathway that has opened up to us. And if it gives Canada any climate or energy gains at all in an era still dominated by Trump and his increasingly ridiculous tariffs, his loutish trade negotiations and his continuing annexation threats, we have to take the wins. Not least because they’ll be the point of departure for what we can achieve in 2027, 2029, and beyond, as Trump’s grip and this era begin to loosen and then fade. What is Carney Doing? If this line of thought is right—and it’s a possibility, not a prediction—it means that Carney’s actions and decisions are largely about buying time. Time for Trump’s power to wane. Time for Alberta’s separatist/conspiracist virus to spread, mutate, die out, or at least die back, with help from a vaccine of federal steadiness and calm (appropriate enough, for a movement populated largely by vaccine deniers) that no conspiracy theory can dismiss. And time for the government’s trade and investment agenda to deliver results—even knowing that some of those results will bring impacts that front-line communities will not and should not accept. In the immediate moment, none of this changes the way the wider climate community has to respond, from campaigners to investors to front-line practitioners. All of our voices are still essential. But those voices will be stronger and more confident if we have a clearer sense of the brutal game we’ve been pulled into, and a plausible path (or two it three) for playing it to the win we need. This conversation also underscores our biggest task for the remaining years of what was supposed to be the “decisive” decade for climate response: if we can shift the energy narrative in Canada, make it a mainstream view that the country’s preoccupation with oil and gas has us falling farther behind a changing world, we’ll see far better results in the 2030s and beyond. For many veteran climate advocates, taking on that part of the fight will begin with recognizing that most of our friends and family, neighbours and colleagues already understand that climate change is real and right in front of us: they’re looking away and staying silent because they don’t have what climate communicator Katharine Hayhoe calls “efficacy”. As Hayhoe recently pointed out in a feature interview with The Energy Mix, it amounts to science denial to keep hammering away at the dire news about global warming without also helping audiences understand what they can do about it, with multiple studies telling us why that won’t work. Far better to open those conversations with the dominant crises like energy security, food security, emergency preparedness and business continuity, affordability, and financial security that have knocked climate change far lower on the list of public priorities, and will likely keep it there. We Knew This Would Happen Climate hawks have always known this day would come. For decades, we warned that everyone had to pay attention to climate change right now, because it would be much tougher to respond once the crisis itself started affecting our daily lives. We were right, and here we are. But now, thanks to decades of hard work, communities and countries have an alternative to doubling down on fossil fuels. “In 10 years everyone will have ‘always known’ that solar and batteries were going to win,” Morgan Solar Executive Chair Mike Andrade writes on LinkedIn. With the disruption in the Strait of Hormuz roiling energy priorities around the world, Canada and the United States are among the shrinking number of countries that are still very keen on fossil fuel development. Understanding that gap is a first, essential step in spotting the opportunities ahead, and averting the deep economic as well as environmental and social risk we face if we don’t seize them. Thanks for reading The Energy Mix Weekender! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support our work. Subscribe Mitchell Beer traces his background in renewable energy and energy efficiency back to 1977, in climate change to 1997. Now he and the rest of the Energy Mix team scan 1,200 news headlines a week to pull together The Energy Mix and The Energy Mix Weekender. Chart of the Week BYD Eyes 20 Dealership Locations After Canada Greenlights Chinese EV Imports ‘Sledgehammer’ Carbon Price Deal Boosts Emissions by 230Mt, Aims for Fall 2027 Pipeline Approval ‘Worse Than Harper’: Regulatory Rollback Would Stop Canada from Assessing Project Impacts, Critics Warn Electricity Strategy Aims for Doubling by 2050, Allows ‘Flexibility’ for Gas Power Plants Opposition Mounts as O’Leary’s Data Centre Approved in Drought-Stricken Utah Diluted Carbon Price Misses ‘Reality of the World We’re In’, Could Impede Diversified Trade: Climate Institute $200B in Clean Energy Investment Will Need On-Time Delivery, Reliable Policies, Trade Association Says ‘Sovereign Pipeline’: CEO Pitches to Keep Trans Mountain in Government Hands What a Supercharged El Niño Could Mean for Canada Canada’s future is electric, and here’s how a power grid superhighway would get us there (Toronto Star) The Perilous Waters of Hecate Strait (Globe and Mail) Saudi Aramco profits jump despite conflict in Middle East (The Guardian) Farmers confront rising cost of fertilizer and fuel as spring seeding under way (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) Clarkson forecasts 24% decline in offshore oil, gas capital expenditures (Oil & Gas Journal) Pipe Dreams: How Oil and Gas Fail to Deliver Economic Development in Africa (Oil Change International) Developing countries must hold the pen to script the fossil fuel transition (Climate Home News) Iran war threatens the dream of a post-oil economy in the Gulf (Washington Post) U.S. Oil, Gas Work Force Hits Lowest Level Since 2022 (Rigzone) Why Polestar Is Doubling Down on Net Zero as Rivals Pull Back on EVs (Bloomberg) Why this Michigan utility plans to sell its hydro dams for $13 (E&E News/Politico) Levees can no longer save New Orleans (Vox)
Panthers reportedly planning on joint practices with these 2 teams
According to The Charlotte Observer, the Panthers plan on holding joint practices with a pair of AFC South squads.
Lexington news startup debates its unique business model
While the “Local News Hub” program has helped the Observer pay for its own local reporting at a time when news outlets are in search of new revenue streams, some of its leaders are questioning whether it should continue.
2026 Observer Sports All-Commencement teams
Jeremiyah Love and Hannah Hidalgo take home Athlete of the Year honors to lead the All-Commencement teams.
NC Republicans have a deal on the long-delayed state budget
Top NC legislative leaders Phil Berger and Destin Hall are set to announce details of a state budget deal this afternoon.
Letters to the Editor: Hope for Earth, the DMV and national politics
The following are letters published in the Star-Observer's print edition this past week.
Charlotte business week: Hospital data breach, layoffs, an airline returns to CLT
From Harris Teeter’s parent company reaching a $100M settlement to over 100 layoffs at a Charlotte nonprofit, here’s a recap of business news.
MHS Students Show off Science Savvy in Fair
The Innovation Showcase provides students with the opportunity to present the culmination of their year-long academic and career-focused endeavors.
Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles announces surprise resignation 6 months after reelection
“Serving as Charlotte’s mayor has been the honor of my life,” Lyles said. She easily won a fifth term in November.
Charlotte nonprofit to lay off over 100 people, citing lack of new contracts
The nonprofit was poised to make a splash with upgrades to Charlotte’s rail trail this month.
Wake County may delay vote on WakeMed merger with Atrium Health. What we know
County commissioners are scheduled to vote on the plan Monday evening.
The World’s Most Unbelievable Science Fiction Novel
If years ago you’d pitched a novel where Donald Trump got elected president of the United States twice and hastened
Curing U.S. Health Care, Part II
On March 23, 2010 President Barack Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act — usually referred to either as the Affordable Care Act or as Obamacare — into law. Joe Biden, then the vice president, could be overheard whispering “This is a big fucking deal.” And it was. The ACA, which went into full effect in 2014, created a system of subsidies and regulations designed to make health insurance available to many Americans who had previously been left out. It worked: In 2010 there were 47 million uninsured people in America, but by 2016 this number had dropped to 27 million. This still fell short of the universal health insurance that every other advanced nation has, but it was real progress. In 2017, during his first term, Donald Trump tried to destroy the ACA, replacing it with the American Health Care Act — legislation that would have eliminated most of the provisions that expanded health insurance under Obama. At the time the Congressional Budget Office projected that the G.O.P.’s replacement bill would nearly double the number of Americans without health insurance, increasing the total uninsured population by 23 million and undoing all of the progress achieved under the ACA. However, the attack on Obamacare failed by one vote in the Senate, and the ensuing public backlash against the G.O.P. delivered a large victory in the 2018 midterms to the Democrats. After these developments many observers assumed that the ACA had become a more or less permanent feature of American life. Such assessments, however, failed to take into account the deep hostility of the U.S. right toward policies that expand access to healthcare. As we’ll see, this hostility goes back generations. And the second Trump administration has taken actions that the CBO projects will add 16 million people to the rolls of the uninsured by 2034. How did we get here? And now what? Today’s primer will analyze the political economy of U.S. healthcare since the 1940s and the combination of danger and opportunity created by the current crisis. Beyond the paywall I will discuss the following: US health care on the eve of Trump II 80 years of US health politics The Obamacare story The new assault on healthcare
Vi Lyles chooses big business over the public again in Charlotte
Our readers comment on Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles, the James Comey indictment, Donald Trump, mental health awareness and climate change urgency | Letters to the Editor
Atrium Health + WakeMed propose $2B merger, many jobs in major NC healthcare move
If approved, the deal would create 3,300 new healthcare jobs and expand services to 1 million North Carolinians.
WakeMed moves to merge with Charlotte-based Atrium Health system
Wake County nonprofit is one of the Triangle’s big three health care systems, along with UNC Health and Duke Health.
Staged? Why Conspiracy Theories Are Stupid, but Also Bad Politics
The attempted assassination at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner exposes America’s deepening polarization,
Every Bird Counts – Delivering Gold Standard Science for North America’s Birds
Each spring, as migratory birds span continents, our ability to protect them depends on one simple but powerful force: people paying attention. This World Migratory Bird Day, the theme “Every Bird Counts – Your Observations Matter!” underscores how everyday observers and community scientists provide the essential data that drives bird conservation.
Popular science
Isaiah Keys has beaten the odds, and is asking for help with keeping him on a winning streak. Keys, Warren High School freshman, could be the next student to tour The Planetary Society in California with Bill Nye The Science Guy, as well as appear in Reader’s Digest and receive $20,000 to invest in his […]
City council Introduces Ordinance Establishing Downtown Entertainment Zone
The City Council received and reviewed the Downtown Culver City Entertainment Zone Management Plan and unanimously introduced an ordinance to establish an entertainment zone during special events in Downtown Culver City. The proposed program, developed in partnership with the Downtown Business Association (DBA), would allow patrons to purchase alco...
Science Films Can Inspire Mindful Observation That Grounds Audiences in Local Nature
Surveys show science films help audiences comprehend new concepts through visual narratives. During Climate Week NYC 2025 last September, more than 100 people gathered on Governors Island for a screening of OBSERVER, a documentary film from the Science Communication Lab. The New York Climate Exchange, Stony Brook University and Science Communication Lab/Wonder Collaborative partnered to
Texas' Top Criminal Court Has Stymied the State's 'Junk Science' Law. Will SCOTUS Intervene?
If the U.S. Supreme Court renders a decision in favor of Charles Flores and others, it would likely force the Court of Criminal Appeals to relax its extremely strict handling of appeals based on shoddy and outdated science.
Conspicuous 1964 classic sports car goes missing in North Carolina, sheriff says
Chevelle convertibles are among “the best vintage cruisers you can buy,” experts say.
Familiar sports bar replacing shuttered uptown Hooters. It’s ‘something special’
Expect classic bar bites like chicken wings, burgers and signature sandwiches coming into a space that’s long been vacant.
Why 2 former Charlotte councilmen say I-77 tolls could decide 2027 mayor’s race
Tariq Bokhari and Larken Egleston predict several City Council members will run for mayor in 2027.
Sales include complex for care facility, new equipment rental business
A multi-building complex that is leased by The Resource Center is under new ownership. The Post-Journal and OBSERVER have been analyzing real estate sales in Chautauqua County and recently looked at the transactions from Feb. 11-17. The county does not provide transaction information, but real estate documents are available for review at the clerk’s office.…
Cape Fear Valley Health expands day care for employees
Cape Fear Valley Health expanded its Fayetteville day care, adding 12 classrooms and increasing capacity.
NC Rep. Carla Cunningham switches party affiliation after losing March primary
Cunningham joins Tricia Cotham as the second Mecklenburg County legislator to switch her party affiliation in recent years.
Florida named second highest state for business bankruptcies
A new study by The Kaplan Group found that commercial bankruptcies are rising faster in Florida than in every state but Texas.
Science Films Inspire Mindful Observation, Ground Audiences
Audience members from a September 2025 screening of the documentary OBSERVER ay Climate Week NYC were surveyed on why audiences engage with science films.
Adversaries may have taken missing US scientists, lawmaker says
Nearly a dozen scientists have disappeared or died in circumstances that some observers have deemed suspicious.
Adversaries may have taken missing US scientists, lawmaker says
Nearly a dozen researchers or people with links to aerospace or defense programs have disappeared or died in circumstances that some observers have deemed suspicious.
Third party mayor finds no honeymoon from partisan politics
Jay Doyle was 100 days into his first term as Mayor of Georgetown. He hadn’t been counting up, he said. He had been counting down. “I was retired, living a nice, peaceful life, and this just throws your life into chaos,” Doyle said. “I think it’s intended to be a part time job. It’s anything […]
Riverview apartments sell for $7.5M below 2021 sale price
The community just off Interstate 75 was bought by a Virginia real estate investment firm.
Funeral announced for beach music Hall of Famer killed in a crash in Eastern NC
Celebration of life gatherings also will be held on dates to be announced in Concord-Kannapolis and North Myrtle Beach.
Paul Gosar's rally appearance reignites health speculation
Arizona Congressman Paul Gosar's appearance at a Turning Point USA rally has renewed public speculation about his health, with observers citing slurred speech, unsteady posture, and difficulty completing sentences. Social media users suggested, without evidence, possible neurological conditions, echoing similar concerns raised in past years. Gosar has consistently denied such rumours, attributing symptoms to arthritis, spinal issues, and past surgeries.
No qualifying bids, so State Health Plan will restart search for new insurer
The initial request for bids came in less than a year and a half after the state switched to Aetna from Blue Cross NC.
Contested Body Counts, Visibility and the (Necro)Politics of America’s War in Iran
Recent focus on a missing US aircrew member and underreported military casualties in Iran reveals a deeper system controlling war visibility.
In Charlotte, Kamala Harris calls out Trump’s ‘obviously wrong’ Pope Leo post
The former vice president and presidential candidate was back in Charlotte Tuesday night promoting her campaign memoir.
In the shadow of RDU, an NC community seeks its own commercial air service
Business and tourism groups in the Pinehurst area are trying to persuade an airline to begin daily flights from Moore County Airport to Washington, D.C.
New University City sports bar touts air-fried wings, grease-free game day eats
Expect made-to-order classics like burgers, chicken tenders and wood-fired pizzas.
How Teach for America Helped Set Up James Talarico’s Political Rise
The prestigious education group is more than a shiny resume item. For the Democratic Senate candidate, it was an incubator for his rapid political ascent.
UNC releases statement on Trump's executive order to reform college sports
UNC chancellor Lee Roberts and AD Bubba Cunningham released a joint statement in response to President Donald Trump's executive order on college sports.
Jalen Hurts Has Reportedly Gotten The 'Message' In Philly
There was reportedly a lot of "friction" between Jalen Hurts and the Philadelphia Eagles toward the end of the 2025 season. ESPN reported on the development. "Close observers point to a lack of creativity and synergy in the Eagles' attack. The pass game wasn't always properly tied to the run, and ...
Miami bank lends $27.5M for Tampa hotel sale
Ocean Bank provided financing for the purchase of a Sheraton hotel near Tampa International Airport.
‘Orban constantly vetoes’: Europe braces for Hungary election
The practicalities of Hungary’s election may not matter as much as the psychological impact, say observers.
NC’s Thom Tillis drops the filter as he prepares to leave the Senate
Has Sen. Thom Tillis changed since bowing out of his reelection campaign? His fellow senators don’t think so.
Join Alliance Entertainment's Exclusive Live Investor Webinar and Q&A Session on April 7
/ March 31, 2026 / RedChip Companies will host an investor webinar on April 7, 2026, at 4:15 p.m. ET with Alliance Entertainment Holding Corp. (Nasdaq:AENT).
Serbia local elections marred by claims of violence
The student movement said some of their observers were threatened and in one incident sprayed with pepper spray
Starwatch: Lynx constellation well placed for northern hemisphere observers
A moonless evening away from streetlights will be the best to track down this celestial feline
The Stein, Berger and Hall era of political dynamics in NC will be brief
On Sundays, our Under the Dome newsletter focuses on Gov. Josh Stein.
Advocate Health will take to the Charlotte skies to start hospital drone deliveries
The healthcare giant is partnering with a drone business to deliver prescriptions and supplies to homes in Charlotte and two other cities.
Fayetteville Community’s Choice Awards business spotlight: Woods Plumbing
We're in the final stretch! Ready to recognize your favorite local businesses? Submit your Fayetteville Community’s Choice Awards nominations today.
Democratic and Republican Party officials face internal backlash after primaries
Party officials have received calls to resign amid endorsements and campaign spending in national and state primary elections.
WNBA CBA expected to raise pay for other women's sports leagues
While salary increases were a win, observers suggest revenue sharing in the new WNBA collective bargaining agreement will be transformative.
Rats, gnats and Yik Yak. Queens University responds to dining health concerns
The university received a lackluster health inspection in January and an improved one in February before other student concerns emerged.
Entertainment district expands in Lakewood Ranch
Several entertainment options are under construction on the Sarasota County side of Lakewood Ranch.
Duke battles Virginia in the ACC Tournament Championship game
See photos from the ACC Tournament championship game between the Blue Devils and the Cavaliers
Advocate Health touts early Pearl district wins, big ambitions for Charlotte
Wake Forest’s new Charlotte medical school, a medical-tech center is bringing jobs to The Pearl, a $1.5 district in midtown.
NC State Health Plan won’t extend Aetna or CVS contracts, will seek bids instead
“This administration has different priorities and would prefer a contract that is more in line with those priorities,” said a plan spokesperson.
USA TODAY Sports Network 2026 All-ACC men's basketball awards, player of the year
Cameron Boozer and Duke basketball took home major honors in the USA TODAY Sports Network's All-ACC awards. Check out the full selections.
NC furniture company is going out of business, lays off 200 near Greensboro
Prepac said competition from “low-cost Chinese imports” contributed to its closure.
Did Mecklenburg Democrats’ anger at Trump, MAGA oust two incumbents?
State Reps. Carla Cunningham and Nasif Majeed burned their party on veto overrides. On Tuesday, Democratic voters returned the favor.
Change afoot in South County politics? Keep an eye on the upcoming county supervisor race
Longtime political observers see a shift in Watsonville’s political landscape as the 2026 election cycle gets underway. Lookout spoke with current and former elected officials and community leaders about where South County politics is heading.
Mabel the dog and the sports radio talk show host in Charlotte she rescued
Travis “T-Bone” Hancock, who co-hosts a morning sports radio show on Charlotte’s WFNZ, recently had to face the day every pet owner dreads.
Newcastle are 'underwhelming' but is Woltemade a problem?
Newcastle striker Nick Woltemade has struggled to find form in recent months, scoring just once in his past 19 appearances, and it has led to a lot of criticism of the summer signing by fans and media pundits. BBC Radio 5 Live's Monday Night Club's panel of former Premier League defender Nedum Onuoha and Observer football correspondent Rory Smith discussed how how proportionate the blame is on Woltemade in a disappointing league campaign for the Magpies so far. "When I saw him in Germany, everyone was talking about how he's not a traditional number nine because he's massive but not great in the air," said Onuoha.
PHOTOS: Mount Tabor at Charlotte Catholic
Mount Tabor played at Charlotte Catholic in the NCHSAA 6A state quarterfinals Monday. Photos by Tracy Kimball, Charlotte Observer
Women's health at Oura: Time for an acquisition?
Industry observers see Oura as a potential consolidator of emerging wearable technology.
Science is political
In my very first biology class here at Case Western Reserve University, we covered a brief history of evolutionary science. During this lecture, we learned about Aristotle and his form of evolutionary thinking, which is a simple ranking of all living organisms. This was dubbed the scala naturae, or the “Great Chain of Being,” and...
Election observers raise concerns over secret ballot breaches at Gorton and Denton byelection
Democracy Volunteers say they saw 32 cases of apparent collusion – the highest levels in its 10-year history
The Balloon Museum Takes All 54K SF at Seaport’s Tin Building
The Balloon Museum is taking over the entire Tin Building in Lower Manhattan's Seaport District.
Republicans see political gold in Mamdani property tax proposal
Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s (D) “last-resort” proposal to raise property taxes in New York City has political observers questioning whether his gambit to get New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) to back a wea…
PHOTOS: South Meck vs. Hough in Greater Charlotte finals
South Mecklenburg played Hough in the Greater Charlotte 7A/8A conference tournament championship game Friday at Hopewell High School. Photos by Bill Kiser, correspondent
From Detroit to Charlotte: How a business coach built a culture of ‘tough love’
Nikita Allen trains Black entrepreneurs and others to build sustainable businesses in the Charlotte region.
What smart people are saying about Anderson Cooper's '60 Minutes' exit
Reactions have begun to come in from prominent media critics and observers about Anderson Cooper's exit from the show after nearly 20 years.
Derek Dooley didn’t vote for years. Now he wants Georgia voters to send him to Washington
Political observers say it's hard for Dooley to claim he's an outsider, yet his connections will help his bid for Georgia's Senate seat.
Business Tax Certificate Payment Due Soon
The deadline to submit and pay your business license tax is fast approaching. February 28 is the final due date for Renewals after that date will be subject to a 20% per month penalty. The City of Culver City has partnered with HdL Companies. We established a Business Support Center. Our efforts streamline processing of new business license applica...