Kerolin scored her first goal since returning from an ACL injury, helping the North Carolina Courage beat the Chicago Red Stars 3-1 on Sunday night.
It was just the second game back for Kerolin, who was named MVP of the 2023 National Women’s Soccer League season.
In the 15th minute at SeatGeek Stadium in Bridgeview, Illinois, the Courage (11-9-2) jumped into the lead when Ashley Sanchez crossed to Brianna Pinto, who forced an own goal while battling for the ball. Pinto was injured on the play and had to sub out a few minutes later.
Just before halftime, Tyler Lussi passed back to Denise O’Sullivan at the top of the 18-yard box, and O’Sullivan fired a shot into the upper right corner with her first touch to double North Carolina’s lead.
Kerolin got on Olivia Wingate’s cutback pass to make it 3-0 in the 65th.
Ludmilla responded for Chicago (9-11-2) a few minutes later, scoring from a tight angle.
The Courage finish the weekend in fifth place while the Red Stars hold onto sixth.
U.S. women’s national team coach Emma Hayes attended the match.
BAY 1, REIGN 0
Asisat Oshoala scored a penalty kick, and Bay FC held on for a 1-0 road win against the Seattle Reign at Lumen Field.
In the 27th minute, Oshoala sent her penalty into the lower left corner after the Reign were whistled for a foul in the box.
The win moved Bay (9-12-1) into eighth place, the final playoff position, with four games remaining. The expansion team is tied with Portland for seventh place with 28 points.
After going unbeaten in seven straight games, the Reign (5-12-5) have now lost three straight.
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — Carolina Panthers quarterback Bryce Young said he was surprised to learn from head coach Dave Canales that he’d been benched and accepted blame for the team’s struggles on the field.
“It was not something that I was necessarily expecting,” Young said following Thursday’s practice. “Obviously not something that was great to hear. But I respect coach Canales and the organization.”
Young is 2-16 as an NFL starter since he arrived in Carolina amid high expectations after being selected No. 1 overall in the 2023 draft.
The Panthers are 0-2 this season and have not been competitive in either game. They have been outscored 73-13, including 53-3 in the first half, and have scored just one touchdown. Young has not thrown a TD pass in his last four starts dating back to last season.
The 36-year-old Andy Dalton will start on Sunday at Las Vegas.
Young placed the blame for the demotion on his own shoulders, saying he needs to be more productive.
“Last year and these first two games for the most part every snap has hit my hands and I didn’t do enough with it at the end of the day,” Young said. “I take accountability for that. There are plays and a long list of things that I wish I was better at and I’m going to continue to work and grow and be better at them. I’m always going to look in the mirror.”
He added, “If I went out there and played better, and we won games, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
Young is the first quarterback selected No. 1 overall in the common draft era starting in 1967 to be benched for noninjury reasons in his second season.
Canales tried to cushion the blow on Wednesday, saying he still thinks Young can be a franchise quarterback and that the team has no plans to trade him.
As for whether he still views himself as the franchise quarterback in Carolina, Young sidestepped the question by saying “really right now, I am a day-by-day type of person. Big picture stuff, that’s out of my hands. That’s in God’s hands. Organizational stuff, that is with the people upstairs” in the front office.
Young said he’s been grateful for the support of his teammates and will continue to approach the game in the same way.
“I’m a competitor and it’s not what you dream of or what you think is going to happen, but I trust in the Lord,” Young said. “I know that he is in control of everything and I am super blessed. It’s not something that is ideal but at the end of day, it is what it is. I have to focus on what I can do now to get better.”
Defender Malia Berkely had three assists as the North Carolina Courage earned a 4-1 road win against the San Diego Wave on Sunday evening in the National Women’s Soccer League.
The Courage (10-8-1) came away with their second road win this season and played spoliers on a special evening, as 26,516 fans filled the stands at Snapdragon Stadium to witness Alex Morgan’s last professional soccer game.
Morgan announced earlier this week that Sunday’s game would be her last, as she is retiring and pregnant with her second child. The longtime U.S. women’s national team forward retires with two World Cup titles, one Olympic gold medal and a bronze medal. She also won the NWSL Shield with San Diego in 2023 and helped fight for equal pay and to bring light to abuse in the NWSL.
All three opening goals came off corner kicks.
In the 4th minute, North Carolina’s Haley Hopkins headed in Berkely’s corner kick.
Morgan had one final chance to add to her goal tally with a penalty kick, but Courage goalkeeper Casey Murphy saved the attempt. Shortly after, Wave teammate Kennedy Wesley got her head on a corner kick to tie the score.
In the 13th minute, in honor of her jersey number, Morgan subbed out of the match for a final time to a thunderous applause.
Felicitas Rauch rose up to head in another corner from Berkley in the 21st minute, while Bianca St-Georges scored off Berkley’s pass just before halftime.
Wave goalkeeper Kailen Sheridan received a red card in the 61st minute for denying a goal-scoring opportunity.
Meredith Speck finished Olivia Wingate’s cross to give the Courage an insurance goal in the 94th minute.
The Wave (3-9-7) are winless in 12 straight games.
GOTHAM 2, DASH 1
Esther González scored in the 93rd minute to give Gotham a 2-1 home win over the Houston Dash.
The forward got the ball with her back to the goal, turned and fired into the left corner to seal the win at Red Bull Arena.
Lynn Williams, in her first match back from the Paris Olympics, assisted the goal.
Yazmeen Ryan opened the scoring for Gotham (11-4-4) in the 10th minute, dribbling into the box and shooting into the left corner.
Diana Ordóñez headed in Avery Patterson’s cross to bring the match level in the 17th minute.
Houston (3-11-5) have lost five straight games and finished the weekend in last place.
PRIDE 1, RED STARS 0
Marta’s first-half goal gave the Orlando Pride a 1-0 win on the road against the Chicago Red Stars.
Orlando (14-0-5) is now undefeated in a league record 20 straight games, dating back to last year.
In the 37th minute, Marta whipped a left-footed shot into the far post to put Orlando ahead.
Chicago (7-10-2) was held to just three shots and has lost three straight games.
CHEROKEE, N.C. (AP) — The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians began selling marijuana and cannabis products to any adult 21 or over starting Saturday at its tribe-owned dispensary in North Carolina, where possession or use of the drug is otherwise illegal.
A post on the Facebook page of Great Smoky Cannabis Co., located on the Eastern Band of Cherokee’s western tribal lands, called the day “history in the making” with a video showing a line of people waiting outside the shop shortly before sales began at 10 a.m.
The outlet already started July 4 to sell in-store or drive-thru products for recreational use to adults enrolled in the tribe or any other federally recognized tribe. It had opened its doors in April initially for adult medical marijuana purchases.
Marijuana possession or use is otherwise illegal in North Carolina, but the tribe can pass rules related to cannabis as a sovereign nation. Of North Carolina and its surrounding states, only Virginia allows for the legal recreational use of marijuana statewide.
Tribal members voted in a referendum last September backing adult recreational use on their reservation and telling the tribal council to develop legislation to regulate such a market. Those details were hammered out by the council, approving language in June that effectively decriminalized cannabis on Eastern Band land called the Qualla Boundary.
The move was not without its opponents. Shortly before the referendum, Republican U.S. Rep. Chuck Edwards introduced legislation that would have removed federal highway funding from tribes and states that have legalized marijuana — a bill that ultimately died.
The Great Smoky Cannabis marijuana sales center, located near the Harrah’s Cherokee Casino Resort, is predicted to be more of a revenue-generator for the 14,000-member tribe as its customer base is expanded.
Some selective colleges are reporting drops in the number of Black students in their incoming classes, the first admitted since a Supreme Court ruling struck down affirmative action in higher education. At other colleges, including Princeton University and Yale University, the share of Black students changed little.
Several schools also have seen swings in their numbers of Asian, Hispanic and Native American students, but trends are still murky. Experts and colleges say it will take years to measure the full impact of last year’s ruling that barred consideration of race in admissions.
The end of affirmative action isn’t the only factor affecting the makeup of freshman classes. Some colleges are changing standardized test requirements, heightening their importance. And the federal government’s botched rollout of a new financial aid form complicated decisions of students nationwide on where and whether to attend college.
“It’s really hard to pull out what one policy shift is affecting all of these enrollment shifts,” said Katharine Meyer, a fellow at the Brookings Institution think tank. “The unsatisfying answer is that it’s hard to know which one is having the bigger impact.”
On Thursday, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill reported drops in enrollment among Black, Hispanic and Native American students in its incoming class. Its approach to admissions has been closely watched because it was one of two colleges, along with Harvard University, that were at the center of the Supreme Court case.
The population of Black students dropped nearly 3 percentage points, to 7.8%, compared with the UNC class before it. Hispanic student enrollment fell from 10.8% to 10.1%, while the incoming Native American population slid half a percentage point to 1.1%, according to the university. The incoming Asian student population rose 1 percentage point to 25.8%. The share of white students, at 63.8%, barely changed.
It is “too soon to see trends” from the affirmative action decision, said Rachelle Feldman, UNC’s vice provost for enrollment. She cited the delays in the Free Application for Federal Student Aid application process as another possible influence on the makeup of the incoming class.
“We are committed to following the new law. We are also committed to making sure students in all 100 counties from every population in our growing state feel encouraged to apply, have confidence in our affordability and know this is a place they feel welcome and can succeed,” Feldman said.
Some colleges reported sharp declines in the percentages of Black students in their incoming class, including drops from 15% to 5% at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and from 11% to 3% at Amherst College. At Tufts University, the drop in the share of Black students was more moderate, from 7.3% to 4.7%. At Yale, the University of Virginia and Princeton, the change year-over-year was less than a percentage point.
Many colleges did not share the demographics of applicants, making it impossible to know whether fewer students of color applied, or were admitted but chose not to attend.
Changes in other demographic groups also did not follow a clear pattern. At MIT, for example, the percentage of Asian students increased from 40% to 47% and Hispanic and Latino students from 16% to 11%, while the percentage of white students was relatively unchanged. But at Yale, the percentage of Asian students declined from 30% to 24%. White students at Yale went from 42% of the class to 46%, and Hispanic and Latino students saw an increase of 1 percentage point.
Colleges have been pursuing other strategies to preserve the diversity they say is essential to campus life.
JT Duck, dean of admissions at Tufts, emphasized the school would work on expanding outreach and partnerships with community organizations to reach underrepresented, low-income and first-generation students. He cautioned against reading too much into year-to-year changes in enrollment.
“The results show that we have more work to do to ensure that talented students from all backgrounds, including those most historically underrepresented at selective universities, have access to a Tufts education. And we are committed to doing that work, while adhering to the new legal constraints,” he said in an email. “We’ve already done a lot of work toward these ends and look forward to doing even more.”
At UNC, Feldman said it is a priority to offer substantial financial aid to low-income families, along with retaining students through investments in undergraduate advising and other initiatives. She said there are no plans for dramatic changes in light of the new enrollment data.
The university wants to make sure “anyone from any background knows they can earn their way here,” she said at a news conference.
Sharp declines in the number of students of color can impact how prospective students view schools, leading some to choose other colleges where they might feel a stronger sense of community, said Mitchell Chang, a professor of higher education at the University of California, Los Angeles.
“If we’re below a certain threshold, people who see themselves as having a more difficult time developing a sense of belonging will choose elsewhere,” he said. That’s especially true at selective colleges, where admitted students may be choosing between multiple top-tier schools.
So far, the drops in underrepresented minority students are smaller in scope than when states like Michigan and California passed bans on affirmative action decades earlier, Meyer said. But since those bans, colleges have developed more best practices for effective, non-race-based ways of recruiting and enrolling a diverse class, Meyer said.
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Before voters even begin casting ballots, Democrats and Republicans are engaged in a sprawling legal fight over the 2024 election through a series of court disputes that could even run past Nov. 5 if results are close.
Republicans filed more than 100 lawsuits challenging various aspects of vote-casting after being chastised repeatedly by judges in 2020 for bringing complaints about how the election was run only after votes were tallied.
After Donald Trump made ” election integrity ” a key part of his party’s platform following his false claims of widespread voter fraud in 2020, the Republican National Committee says it has more than 165,000 volunteers ready to watch the polls.
Democrats are countering with what they are calling “voter protection,” rushing to court to fight back against the GOP cases and building their own team with over 100 staffers, several hundred lawyers and what they say are thousands of volunteers.
Despite the flurry of litigation, the cases have tended to be fairly small-bore, with few likely impacts for most voters.
“When you have all this money to spend on litigation, you end up litigating less and less important stuff,” said Derek Muller, a law professor at Notre Dame University.
The stakes would increase dramatically should Trump lose and try to overturn the results. That’s what he attempted in 2020, but the court system rejected him across the board. Trump and his allies lost more than 60 lawsuits trying to reverse President Joe Biden’s win.
Whether they could be successful this year depends on the results, experts said. A gap of about 10,000 votes — roughly the number that separated Biden and Trump in Arizona and Georgia in 2020 — is almost impossible to reverse through litigation. A closer one of a few hundred votes, like the 547-vote margin that separated George W. Bush and Al Gore in Florida in 2000, is much more likely to hinge on court rulings about which ballots are legitimate.
“If he loses, he’s going to claim that he won. That goes without saying,” Rick Hasen, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, said of Trump. “If it looks like what we had last time … I expect we’ll see the same kind of thing.”
“The only way they can beat us is to cheat,” Trump said at a Las Vegas rally in June.
To be clear, there was no widespread fraud in 2020 or any election since then. Reviews, recounts and audits in the battleground states where Trump disputed his loss reaffirmed that Biden won. And Trump’s attorney general said there was no evidence that fraud tipped the election.
Trump installed his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, as co-chair of the Republican National Committee, which then named attorney Christina Bobb as the head of its election integrity division. Bobb is a former reporter for the conservative One America News Network who has been indicted by Arizona’s attorney general for being part of an effort to promote a slate of Trump electors in the state, even though Biden won it.
Echoing Trump, the RNC said it’s trying to counter Democratic mischief.
What to know about the 2024 Election
“President Trump’s election integrity effort is dedicated to protecting every legal vote, mitigating threats to the voting process and securing the election,” RNC spokeswoman Claire Zunk said in a statement. “While Democrats continue their election interference against President Trump and the American people, our operation is confronting their schemes and preparing for November.”
This time around, Democrats say they’re prepared for whatever Republicans might do.
“For four years, Donald Trump and his MAGA allies have been scheming to sow distrust in our elections and undermine our democracy so they can cry foul when they lose,” Jen O’Malley Dillon, Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign manager, said in a statement. “But also for four years, Democrats have been preparing for this moment, and we are ready for anything.”
The highest-profile litigation so far has been in Georgia, over new rules from a Republican-appointed majority on the State Board of Elections, which has echoed Trump’s conspiracy theories. The rules could allow members of local election boards to try to refuse to certify results, a gambit Trump supporters have tried, unsuccessfully, to reverse losses in 2020 and 2022.
A Trump-aligned group sued to have courts declare that election board members have that power while Democrats sued to overturn the new rules. GOP Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger has questioned the wisdom of the board changing procedures so close to the election. Legal experts say the state board’s rules conflict with longstanding state law that certification is not optional.
Whether local boards delay or refuse to certify the results from the upcoming election has been a growing concern, especially after a handful of local officials took that step during this year’s primaries. But experts say the fears of a certification crisis are overblown, in large part because most state laws are clear that state or local boards must certify the official results brought to them by election offices. The courtroom remains the most important venue for candidates who want to challenge results.
“Trying to deny certification is a really poorly thought out theory,” Ben Ginsberg, a Republican election lawyer, said on a Thursday call with reporters. “It has never worked.”
The litigation to date has often been about relatively esoteric matters, but some cases could have implications after November if Trump loses. The RNC has filed lawsuits in Michigan, Nevada and North Carolina alleging the states need to remove inactive or ineligible voters from their rolls. Late last month, Republicans sued North Carolina over a favorite issue — the risk of noncitizens voting, which is rare. They contend the state wasn’t doing enough to safeguard against it.
So far none of the claims have succeeded. But if Trump loses in those states by a narrow margin, that sort of pre-election litigation could pave the way for him to claim in court that the vote was invalid.
The other area that could have ramifications in November and beyond is whether mail ballots arriving after Election Day can be counted. Nineteen states allow that as long as the ballots are sent before polls close. The RNC sued to overturn this provision in Nevada and Mississippi, but both cases were dismissed by judges.
The RNC appealed those cases, and the first is scheduled to be heard by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals later this month. It’s the sort of issue that could end up before the U.S. Supreme Court. Some Trump allies in 2020 hoped the court would declare him the winner, but the late-arriving mail ballot litigation at the time showed the limits of that tactic.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that the state had to count mail ballots that arrived up to four days after Election Day. Republicans then appealed that ruling to the nation’s highest court, and late-arriving mail was counted separately in November 2020 while everyone waited for the Supreme Court to weigh in.
In the end, the Supreme Court didn’t take up the case. Trump lost Pennsylvania by more than 80,000 votes, so the 10,000 late-arriving mail ballots wouldn’t have even made a difference.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned voters in the battleground state of North Carolina that they could lose jobs if Republicans weaken a signature Biden administration law that encourages investments in manufacturing and clean energy.
Yellen said that Republican-dominated states like North Carolina are greatly benefiting from tax incentives under the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act and that eliminating them would be a “historic mistake,” in a Thursday speech a community college in Raleigh.
North Carolina has emerged as a key battleground this election cycle between Republican former President Donald Trump and Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris, where Trump ultimately won North Carolina in the 2020 presidential election.
Yellen said Treasury data shows that 90,000 North Carolina households claimed more than $100 million in residential clean energy credits and $60 million in energy efficiency credits.
“Rolling them back could raise costs for working families at a moment when it’s imperative that we continue to take action to lower prices,” Yellen said. “It could jeopardize the significant investments in manufacturing we’re seeing here and across the country, along with the jobs that come with them, many of which don’t require a college degree. And it could give a leg-up to China and other countries that are also investing to compete in these critical industries.”
“As we see clearly here in North Carolina, this would be a historic mistake,” she said.
Some Republicans have called on their leaders to reconsider repealing IRA energy tax incentives.
“Prematurely repealing energy tax credits, particularly those which were used to justify investments that already broke ground, would undermine private investments and stop development that is already ongoing,” the letter reads. “A full repeal would create a worst-case scenario where we would have spent billions of taxpayer dollars and received next to nothing in return.”
But Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, tweeted on social media site X that the lawmakers who signed the letter want to “preserve so-called ‘green’ handouts to Democrats’ corporate cronies.”
“The GOP must ignore K-Street lobbyists and refuse to fund the climate corporate cronies destroying our country,” he said.
The Republican case against the Inflation Reduction Act hinges on the argument that the spending is wasteful and benefits China.
IRS data released in August states that 3.4 million American families have claimed $8.4 billion in residential clean energy and home energy efficiency tax credits in 2023 — mostly towards solar panels and battery storage.
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (AP) — Mack Brown’s return to North Carolina stabilized the program. His sixth season begins with a pair of hurdles to accomplishing more.
The Tar Heels are moving forward after star quarterback Drake Maye headed to the NFL, and Brown is determined to figure out how to finish better after two straight late-season fades.
“It’s a problem, it’s an issue,” Brown said. “And it’s the only thing that’s keeping us from being where we need to be.”
Now Maye is gone as the No. 3 overall pick in the draft, and Brown is focused on how to get the Tar Heels to finish with some zip.
“When we come out here and say the offense had a bad day in practice, that means you’re probably going to be an inconsistent team,” Brown said after the first preseason-camp practice. “And we’ve had too much of that around here.”
Brown is touting depth as the best of his second tenure in Chapel Hill, as well as showing optimism for growth under former Georgia Tech and Temple head coach Geoff Collins as defensive coordinator.
Maye is the highest-profile of 11 departed offensive and defensive starters, though losses include one of the nation’s leading tacklers in linebacker Cedric Gray.
Powering the offense
Running back Omarion Hampton was an Associated Press second-team All-American last year after ranking fifth in the Bowl Subdivision by averaging 115.7 yards rushing. He’s studied film on players like NFL star Christian McCaffrey to expand his game.
“I’m trying to catch the ball … and then pass block, because I know that’s what they do in the (NFL),” Hampton said. “I feel like doing that, it can expand my game and show them I’m able to do that as well.”
Maye’s successor
The Tar Heels have a preseason-camp battle to replace Maye, headlined by redshirt sophomore Conner Harrell and Max Johnson, a transfer with stops at LSU and Texas A&M.
Harrell got his first career start in the Duke’s Mayo Bowl loss to West Virginia after Maye declared for the NFL draft, throwing for 270 yards and two scores while also running for 75 yards and a score. Johnson, son of former NFL quarterback Brad Johnson, has 22 career starts.
There’s also the return of Jacolby Criswell, who started his career at UNC before transferring to Arkansas for a year.
Linework
Willie Lampkin, who started eight games at right guard last year, is the only returning starter to the offensive line. The Tar Heels bolstered their numbers at the position through the transfer portal, including adding Austin Blaske (Georgia), Howard Sampson (North Texas) and Jakiah Leftwich (Georgia Tech).
Brown said his goal is being able to reliably play nine offensive linemen.
More defensively
Brown is on the third defensive coordinator of his second UNC stint in Collins, who replaced Gene Chizik. UNC hasn’t ranked higher than 10th in the 14-team ACC in scoring or total defense for the past three seasons. Losing Gray (10.1 tackles per game) won’t help, though fellow linebacker Power Echols returns with pass rusher Kaimon Rucker (8 1/2 sacks last year).
“More aggression — ‘Master of Mayhem’ describes him perfectly,” Echols said of Collins. “He’s going to call a real aggressive game.”
Brown also sounded high on secondary that includes cornerback Alijah Huzzie (three interceptions) and adds safety Jakeen Harris from rival North Carolina State.
The schedule
The Tar Heels open at Minnesota on Aug. 29 and visit rival Duke (Sept. 28) in their ACC opener. There’s also a trip to No. 10 Florida State (Nov. 2), the reigning league champion and preseason favorite. The slate doesn’t include any of the league’s three new schools and is rooted in longtime instate or league matchups, including a trip to Virginia (Oct. 26), a visit from Wake Forest (Nov. 16) and the home finale against No. 24 N.C. State (Nov. 30).
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — North Carolina State keeps putting together successful seasons that flirt with accomplishing even more. That has coach Dave Doeren firmly entrenched with a winning program yet invigorated by the thought of what else could be within reach.
There have been four straight seasons with eight or nine wins, bringing the 24th-ranked Wolfpack to the verge of its second 10-win season ever and first since 2002. And if N.C. State can do that, it could have Doeren’s squad challenging for the Atlantic Coast Conference title.
“What we did last year and the year before and the year before is good,” Doeren said. “Winning nine games is good. We don’t want to be good, we want to be the best at what we do. These guys understand that.”
Doeren is entering his 12th season after becoming the program’s all-time winningest coach last season. He’s been chasing the program’s first ACC title since 1979, and this year’s team is picked to finish fourth in the expanded 17-team league.
N.C. State returns roughly half its offensive and defensive starters, but also added a veteran class from the transfer portal that includes a new starting quarterback in Grayson McCall from Coastal Carolina.
“The buzz has been buzzing. Our fan base has been electric,” defensive end Davin Vann said. “I wouldn’t really call it pressure, but we’re enjoying the energy they’re bringing.”
The new QB
This is the second straight season that the Wolfpack will start the season looking to a transfer to lead the offense. Last year it was Virginia graduate transfer Brennan Armstrong. Now it’s McCall, a a sixth-year graduate with more than 10,000 career passing yards.
“It’s refreshing to be in a new spot,” said McCall, who has shown a knack for avoiding mistakes. He threw 77 touchdown passes with just eight interceptions from 2020-22.
“He’s got great touch on the football, his game-management skills, his clock management and everything — he’s a vet,” Doeren said. “And he’s a great fit for our program.”
Top threat
KC Concepcion grew into a starring role for the Wolfpack in the team’s second-half surge last season. The sophomore enters this year as N.C. State’s top weapon.
Concepcion had 71 catches for 839 yards with 10 touchdowns, and he also ran for 320 yards. He closed last year with three straight games of seven catches.
Next defensive steps
The defense has been reliable for the Wolfpack in recent years, ranking in the top 30 nationally in scoring (20.8) and total defense (332.1).
But that unit has multiple departed starters, notably Payton Wilson — The Associated Press league defensive player of the year, the Butkus Award winner as the nation’s top linebacker and the Bednarik Award for the nation’s top overall defensive player.
“Just with Tony Gibson being defensive coordinator, I feel like we’re always going to have a high-caliber defense,” cornerback Aydan White said.
Bolstered experience
N.C. State ranked 18th nationally in 247Sports’ transfer classes, with newcomers that included a proven runner in Duke back Jordan Waters, receiver help in Ohio State’s Noah Rogers and a veteran center in Notre Dame’s Zeke Correll (31 starts).
The Wolfpack brought in more than 40 new players this year.
The schedule
N.C. State opens at home against Western Carolina on Aug. 29 before playing a marquee nonconference game against No. 15 Tennessee in Charlotte on Sept. 7.
The ACC schedule begins at No. 14 Clemson (Sept. 21), while two of the three new league schools appear on the slate with a trip to California (Oct. 19) and a visit from Stanford (Nov. 2). N.C. State faces Duke in its home finale (Nov. 9) and visits rival North Carolina on Nov. 30.
The Democratic presidential nominee laid out plans including a proposal for a federal ban on what she called price gouging on groceries, as well as $25,000 in down payment help for certain first-time homebuyers and tax incentives for builders of starter homes. She also spoke at length about lowering drug costs and criticized the platform of her Republican opponent, former President Donald Trump.
Here’s a closer look at some of her promises and claims.
The impact of Trump’s proposed tariffs
HARRIS: Trump “wants to impose what is in effect, a national sales tax on everyday products and basic necessities that we import from other countries. … And you know, economists have done the math. Donald Trump’s plan would cost a typical family $3,900 a year.”
THE FACTS: Harris was referring to Trump’s proposal to impose a tariff of 10% to 20% on all imports — he has mentioned both figures — and up to 60% on imports from China.
Most economists do expect it would raise prices on many goods. The Tax Policy Center, a joint project of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution, estimates it would reduce average incomes in the top 60% of earners by 1.8%. And the Center for American Progress Action Fund, a progressive advocacy group, has calculated that the higher tariffs would cost households an extra $3,900 a year. However, Trump has said the tariff revenue could be used to cut other taxes, which would reduce the overall cost of the policy.
Lowering the cost of insulin and prescription drugs
HARRIS: “I’ll lower the cost of insulin and prescription drugs for everyone.”
THE FACTS: Harris made this promise while referencing the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, which allows Medicare to negotiate medication costs directly with drug companies. While it is difficult to predict whether she will be able to keep it, especially without more details, recent policy can provide some clues.
For example, the White House announced Thursday that it had inked deals with manufacturers that could save taxpayers billions of dollars by knocking down the list prices for 10 of Medicare’s costliest drugs. However, there are a number of factors — from discounts to the coinsurance or copays for the person’s Medicare drug plan — that determine the final price a person pays when they pick up the drugs at their pharmacy.
Powerful drug companies unsuccessfully tried to file lawsuits to stop these negotiations. They ended up engaging in talks and executives hinted in recent weeks during earnings calls that they don’t expect the new Medicare drug prices to impact their bottom line. However, the manufacturers have warned that the Inflation Reduction Act could drive up prices for consumers in other areas.
Both the Trump and Biden administrations achieved $35 insulin copay caps for certain Medicare recipients. Biden’s caps have a wider reach, as they apply to all insulin products covered by any Medicare Part D or Part B plan, according to health policy research nonprofit KFF. Trump’s applied only to some insulin products covered by a voluntary subset of Part D plans.
A federal ban on grocery ‘price gouging’
HARRIS: “As president, I will take on the high costs that matter most to most Americans. … And I will work to pass the first ever federal ban on price gouging on food.”
What to know about the 2024 Election
THE FACTS: While grocery prices are 25% higher than they were before the pandemic four-and-a-half years ago, they have settled down recently and it’s not clear that much price gouging is now going on.
In the past 12 months, grocery prices on average are up just 1.1%, comparable to pre-pandemic increases. Also, prices for most goods and services, in general, don’t fall significantly except in steep, painful recessions. Instead, most economists expect that wages will rise enough so that Americans can adjust to higher costs. Still, prices remain higher overall than they were just a couple of years ago.
Addressing housing shortages and helping home buyers
HARRIS: “And by the end of my first term, we will end America’s housing shortage by building 3 million new homes and rentals. … While we work on the housing shortage, my administration will provide first time homebuyers with $25,000 to help with the down payment on a new home.”
THE FACTS: These promises could end up working at cross-purposes. By helping more Americans afford homes, the Harris proposal to subsidize down payments would almost certainly increase demand, at a time when estimates of the U.S. housing shortage already range from 3 million to as high as 7 million.
Harris’ proposal to provide tax incentives to builders to encourage more home and apartment construction would address that concern, but there are many reasons experts cite for the housing shortage, including restrictive zoning laws, higher costs for building materials, and even shortages of construction workers, which tax incentives can’t address.
Harris is also promising to cut red tape that restricts new building, but that is mostly a state and local concern, and many localities are already moving to make it easier build homes.
With inflation and high grocery prices still frustrating many voters, Vice President Kamala Harris on Friday proposed a ban on “price gouging” by food suppliers and grocery stores, as part of a broader agenda aimed at lowering the cost of housing, medicine, and food.
It’s an attempt to tackle a clear vulnerability of Harris’ head-on: Under the Biden-Harris administration, grocery prices have shot up 21%, part of an inflation surge that has raised overall costs by about 19% and soured many Americans on the economy, even as unemployment fell to historic lows. Wages have also risen sharply since the pandemic, and have outpaced prices for more than a year. Still, surveys find Americans continue to struggle with higher costs.
“We all know that prices went up during the pandemic when the supply chains shut down and failed,” Harris said Friday in Raleigh, North Carolina. “But our supply chains have now improved and prices are still too high.”
Will her proposals do much to lower prices? And what even is “price gouging”? The answers to those and other questions are below:
What is price gouging?
There is no strict definition that economists would agree on, but it generally refers to spikes in prices that typically follow a disruption in supply, such as after a hurricane or other natural disaster. Consumer advocates charge that gouging occurs when retailers sharply increase prices, particularly for necessities, under such circumstances.
Is it already illegal?
Several states already restrict price gouging, but there is no federal-level ban.
There are federal restrictions on related but different practices, such as price-fixing laws that bar companies from agreeing to not compete against each other and set higher prices.
Will Harris’ proposal lower grocery prices?
Most economists would say no, though her plan could have an impact on future crises. For one thing, it’s unclear how much price gouging is going on right now.
Grocery prices are still painfully high compared to four years ago, but they increased just 1.1% in July compared with a year earlier, according to the most recent inflation report. That is in line with pre-pandemic increases.
President Joe Biden said Wednesday that inflation has been defeated after Wednesday’s inflation report showed that it fell to 2.9% in July, the smallest increase in three years.
“There’s some dissonance between claiming victory on the inflation front in one breath and then arguing that there’s all this price gouging happening that is leading consumers to face really high prices in another breath,” said Michael Strain, an economist at the American Enterprise Institute.
In general, after an inflationary spike, it’s very hard to return prices to where they were. Sustained price declines typically only happen in steep, protracted recessions. Instead, economists generally argue that the better approach is for wages to keep rising enough so that Americans can handle the higher costs.
So why is Harris talking about this now?
Probably because inflation remains a highly salient issue politically. And plenty of voters do blame grocery stores, fast food chains, and food and packaged goods makers for the surge of inflation in the past three years. Corporate profits soared in 2021 and 2022.
“It could be that they’re looking at opinion polls that show that the number one concern facing voters is inflation and that a large number of voters blame corporations for inflation,” Strain said.
At the same time, even if prices aren’t going up as much, as Harris noted, they remain high, even as supply chain kinks have been resolved.
Elizabeth Pancotti, a policy analyst at Roosevelt Forward, a progressive advocacy group, points to the wood pulp used in diapers. The price of wood pulp has fallen by half from its post-pandemic peak, yet diaper prices haven’t.
“So that just increases the (profit) margins for both the manufacturers and the retailers,” she said.
Did price gouging cause inflation?
Most economists would say no, that it was a more straightforward case of supply and demand. When the pandemic hit, meat processing plants were occasionally closed after COVID-19 outbreaks, among other disruptions to supply. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine lifted the cost of wheat and other grains on global markets. Auto prices rose as carmakers were unable to get all the semiconductors they needed from Taiwan to manufacture cars, and many car plants shut down temporarily.
At the same time, several rounds of stimulus checks fattened Americans’ bank accounts, and after hunkering down during the early phase of the pandemic, so-called “revenge spending” took over. The combination of stronger demand and reduced supply was a recipe for rising prices.
Still, some economists have argued that large food and consumer goods companies took advantage of pandemic-era disruptions. Consumers saw empty store shelves and heard numerous stories about disrupted supply chains, and at least temporarily felt they had little choice but to accept the higher prices.
Economist Isabella Weber at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, called it “seller’s inflation.” Others referred to it as “greedflation.”
“What a lot of corporations did was exploit consumers’ willingness” to accept the disruptions from the pandemic, Pancotti said.
Is banning price gouging like instituting price controls?
During the last spike of inflation in the 1970s, both Democratic and Republican presidential administrations at times imposed price controls, which specifically limited what companies could charge for goods and services. They were widely blamed for creating shortages and long lines for gas.
Some economists say Harris’ proposal would have a similar impact.
“It’s a heavy-handed socialist policy that I don’t think any economist would support,” said Kevin Hassett, a former top economic adviser in the Trump White House.
But Pancotti disagreed. She argued that it was closer to a consumer protection measure. Under Harris’ proposal, the government wouldn’t specify prices, but the Federal Trade Commission could investigate price spikes.
“The proposal is really about protecting consumers from unscrupulous corporate actors that are trying to just rip the consumer off because they know they can,” she said.
KANNAPOLIS, N.C. (AP) — A prisoner serving a life sentence for murder was captured at a North Carolina hotel early Friday, three days after his escape on the way to a medical appointment, and authorities say he had help from at least one person.
Ramone Alston, 30, escaped from a van Tuesday as it arrived at the UNC Gastroenterology hospital in Hillsborough, where he was being taken for a medical appointment. He freed himself from his leg restraints and fled into the woods with handcuffs on, according to the North Carolina Department of Adult Correction.
Alston was taken into custody at about 2 a.m. at a hotel in Kannapolis, near Charlotte, about 110 miles (177 kilometers) southwest of Hillsborough, the department said in a news release, and no one was injured during the arrest. Alston will be charged with felony escape from prison, according to the release.
Alston was taken to the Granville Correctional Institution’s high-security maximum control unit, the state prison system’s most secure, to resume serving his life sentence, Department Secretary Todd Ishee said at a news conference Friday afternoon. Alston could face additional charges related to his escape.
Online court records did not immediately list the case or an attorney who could speak on Alston’s behalf.
“While we can’t provide specifics about how Alston was located, I can assure you it was the result of exceptional investigative work and dedication from the team that was assembled to work this escape,” Ishee said. “I’m grateful for the people standing here with me today and the hundreds of officers, deputies, agents and investigators who they represent that all worked so hard this week with great collaboration to bring Alston back into custody.”
Officials will evaluate whether anyone is eligible for the reward offered for information leading to Alston’s capture, Ishee said, adding that the department is conducting an internal investigation and review to identify areas for improvement. The officers who were transporting Alston have not been placed on leave but were reassigned to non-transportation duties.
Alston has been serving a life sentence at Bertie Correctional Institution in Windsor since his conviction in the killing of 1-year-old Maleah Williams, who was shot on Christmas Day in 2015 from a passing car while she was playing outside her family’s apartment in Chapel Hill. She died three days later.
A woman described as an acquaintance of Alston’s was arrested shortly afterward in Alamance County and charged with felony aiding and abetting a fugitive, the department said. Investigators believe she drove Alston around, but it wasn’t clear when or where, or whether she was the only person doing so, department spokesman Keith Acree said by phone.
Alston’s relationship with her began several months ago and was conducted mostly by phone, Orange County Sheriff Charles Blackwood said at the news conference. Officials are investigating whether anyone else was involved.
The Carolina Hurricanes have agreed to a two-year, $13 million deal with forward Martin Necas, keeping one of its most skilled offensive players through the 2025-26 season.
The team announced the deal Monday, providing some roster certainty for the 25-year-old Czech who had been discussed as a trade candidate since the close of Carolina’s sixth straight playoff season.
“Martin is an immensely skilled player who provides a scoring threat whenever the puck is on his stick,” new general manager Eric Tulsky said in a statement. “He will play a key role in the continued success of our franchise, and we’re excited to have a multi-year contract done.”
That wasn’t a sure thing for Necas, a first-round pick by Carolina in 2017 who has played with the franchise for his entire career. He was a restricted free agent heading to arbitration and there had been a report out of Europe in which Necas’ father said his son would prefer to be traded.
Yet a trade never materialized for Necas to head elsewhere.
Necas had 24 goals and 29 assists in 77 games last year, which had followed a breakout 2022-23 season with 28 goals and 43 assists for a team-best 71 points in in 82 regular-season games. He scored four goals in 11 postseason games last season, with the Hurricanes losing to the Presidents’ Trophy-winning New York Rangers in the second round.
Necas’ nine overtime goals since the 2020-21 season rank tied for the NHL lead in that span.
His future had been one of the key questions hanging over the Hurricanes in what has been an offseason of major change. Tulsky took over as GM when Don Waddell left for Columbus; while big names like trade-deadline acquisition Jake Guentzel at forward, and defensemen Brady Skjei and Brett Pesce departed in free agency.
Carolina has been in talks for a deal with another one of its young forwards in Seth Jarvis. The 22-year-old is a restricted free agent who has become a proven contributor, including scoring 33 goals this season and 13 playoff goals in his first three seasons.
GLOSTER, Miss. (AP) — This southern Mississippi town’s expansive wood pellet plant was so close to Shelia Mae Dobbins’ home that she sometimes heard company loudspeakers. She says industrial residues coated her truck and she no longer enjoys spending time in the air outdoors.
Dobbins feels her life — and health — were better before 2016, when United Kingdom energy giant Drax opened a facility able to compress 450,000 tons of wood chips annually in the majority Black town of Gloster, Mississippi. To her, it’s no coincidence federal regulators find residents are exposed to unwanted air particles and they experience asthma more than most of the country.
Her asthma and diabetes were once under control, but since a 2017 diagnosis of heart and lung disease, Dobbins has frequently lived at the end of a breathing tube connected to an oxygen cannister.
“Something is going on. And it’s all around the plant,” said the 59-year-old widow who raised two children here. “Nobody asked us could they bring that plant there.”
Shelia Mae Dobbins holds part of her oxygen tube inside her home in Gloster, Miss., Wednesday, May 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
Shelia Mae Dobbins walks with her oxygen tube inside her home in Gloster, Miss., Wednesday, May 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
Wood pellet production skyrocketed across the U.S. South. It helped feed demand in the European Union for renewable energy, as those coutries sought to replace fossil fuels such as coal. But many residents near plants — often African Americans in poor, rural swaths — find the process left their air dustier and people sicker.
Billions of dollars are available for these projects under President Joe Biden’s signature law combating climate change. The administration is weighing whether to open up tax credits for companies to burn wood pellets for energy.
Shelia Mae Dobbins cries as she talks about her health inside her home in Gloster, Miss., Wednesday, May 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
As producers expand west, environmentalists want the government to stop incentivizing what they call a misguided attempt to curb carbon emissions that pollute communities of color while presently warming the atmosphere.
Despite hefty pollution fines against industry players and one major producer’s recent bankruptcy, supporters say the multibillion-dollar market is experiencing growing pains. In wood pellets, they see an innovative long-term solution to the climate crisis that brings revenue necessary for forest owners to maintain plantations.
Birds fly past a pile of wood used to make pellets during a tour of a Drax facility in Gloster, Miss., Monday, May 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
Biomass boom
After the European Union classified biomass as renewable energy in 2009, the Southeast’s annual wood pellet capacity increased from about 300,000 tons to more than 7.3 million tons by 2017, according to research led by a University of Missouri team.
Federal energy statistics show about three dozen southern wood pellet manufacturing facilities account for nearly 80% of annual U.S. capacity. Most pellets are used for commercial-scale energy overseas.
The market brought hope for revitalization to small, disadvantaged communities. But interviews with residents of towns with large Black populations, from Gaston, North Carolina, to Uniontown, Alabama, surfaced complaints of truck traffic, air pollution and noise from pellet plants.
Dan Caston, an employee of Drax leads a tour of their plant in Gloster, Miss., Monday, May 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
Dan Caston, an employee of Drax, shows some of the wood pellets their plant produces in Gloster, Miss., Monday, May 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
Gloster has become the poster child for such tensions. In 2020, Mississippi’s environmental agency fined Drax $2.5 million for violating air emissions limits. Gloster is exposed to more particulate matter than much of the U.S. and adults have higher asthma rates than 80% of the country, according to an Environmental Protection Agency mapping tool. Median household income is about $22,000; the poverty rate is triple the national level.
Spokesperson Michelli Martin said Drax in 2021 installed pollution controls, including incinerators to decrease carbon emissions. An environmental consulting firm found “no adverse effects to human health” and that “no modeled pollutant from the facility exceeded” acceptable levels, Martin said.
The company recently committed to annual town halls and announced a $250,000 Gloster Community Fund to “improve quality of life.”
But critics aren’t swayed by showings of corporate goodwill they say don’t account for poor air. Krystal Martin, of the Greater Greener Gloster Project, returned to her hometown after her 75-year-old mother was diagnosed with lung and heart problems.
“You don’t really know you’re dealing with air pollution until most people have breathed and inhaled it for so long that they end up sick,” she said.
Krystal Martin, a Gloster native, shows pamphlets to residents Myrtis Woodard and Shelia Mae Dobbins, right, during a community meeting she organized regarding health complaints against the Drax facility in Gloster, Miss., Thursday, May 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
Krystal Martin, a Gloster native, shows pamphlets during a community meeting she organized regarding health complaints against the Drax facility in Gloster, Miss., Thursday, May 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
Brown University assistant epidemiology professor Erica Walker is studying health impacts of industrial pollutants on Gloster residents. Walker said fine particulate matter can travel deep into lungs and reach the bloodstream.
“It can also circulate to other parts of our body, leading to body-wide inflammation,” she said.
A man crosses the street in downtown Gloster, Miss., Thursday, May 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
Subsidies for an upstart industry
Environmentalists are calling on Biden to stop aiding an industry they believe runs counter to his green energy goals. At the annual United Nations climate conference, The Dogwood Alliance urged attendees to phase out wood pellets.
Enviva — the world’s largest wood pellet producer — had already received subsidies through the 2018 farm bill signed by former President Donald Trump, according to Sheila Korth, a former policy analyst with nonpartisan watchdog Taxpayers for Common Sense.
But Korth said the Biden-era Inflation Reduction Act made tax credits available to companies that create pellets for countries in Europe and Asia.
Elizabeth Woodworth, interim executive director of the US Industrial Pellet Association, said the money is a small part of lRA allocations and noted emerging technologies require government subsidies. The industry argues that replanting of trees will eventually absorb carbon produced by burning pellets.
“We need every single technology we can get our hands on to mitigate climate change,” Woodworth said. “Bioenergy is a part of that.”
Scientific studies have found firing wood pellets puts more carbon immediately into the atmosphere than coal. Pollution from biomass-based facilities is nearly three times higher than that of other energy sectors, according to a 2023 paper in the journal Renewable Energy.
In a 2018 letter, hundreds of scientists warned the EU that the “additional carbon load” from burning wood pellets means “permanent damages” including glacial melting.
A resident crosses the street for a community meeting regarding health complaints against Drax in Gloster, Miss., Thursday, May 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
Expansion plans and more burning?
Drax — with plants operating in Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi — is heading west.
The corporation signed an agreement in February with Golden State Natural Resources to identify biomass from California’s forests. The public-private venture hopes to build two plants by year’s end and produce up to 1 million tons of wood pellets annually. Another Drax project in Washington would produce 500,000 tons a year.
The Natural Resources Defense Council’s Rita Frost, who fought plants in the South, said the deal will endanger California’s low-income Latino communities much like she says the industry threatened Black southern towns.
“It’s an environmental justice problem that should not be repeated in California,” Frost said.
An employee walks toward a pile of lumber to be used during a tour of a Drax facility in Gloster, Miss., Monday, May 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
But a key federal decision could draw more companies into pellet combustion — not just production.
The White House is looking into whether biomass facilities should receive tax credits meant for zero-emission electricity generators. The Treasury Department is weighing whether biomass’ potential long-term carbon neutrality is sufficient even if its production increases emissions in the short term.
Spokesperson Michael Martinez said they are “carefully considering public comments” and “working to issue final rules that will increase energy security and clean energy supply as effectively as possible.”
Some environmentalists doubt the energy alternative is ultimately carbon neutral. The Southern Environmental Law Center fears the credits could be the incentive needed for the U.S. to join Europe in scaling up the burning of pellets.
“The threat here is really the growth of biomass energy production in the U.S. itself,” said senior attorney Heather Hillaker. “Which obviously will add to the total carbon and climate harms of this industry globally.”
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Pollard reported from Columbia, South Carolina. Watson reported from San Diego. Contributing were video journalist Terry Chea from San Francisco and reporter Matthew Daly from Washington, D.C.
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The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — The Atlantic Coast Conference will collaborate with Apple to bring iPad technology to the sidelines and coaching booths for the upcoming season.
In an announcement Monday, the ACC said all 17 football members — a group that includes new arrivals California, SMU and Stanford — will have access to league-provided iPad Pro and iPad Air models allowing them to view video playback. That comes after the NCAA Playing Rules Oversight Panel in April approved the use of in-game video.
In a statement, ACC commissioner Jim Phillips made an “unparalleled prioritization of technology” going back to its design of a new gameday operations center. It will assist in football replays as part of the headquarters move to Charlotte last year.
The ACC’s first game this season is Aug. 24 in Dublin, Ireland, featuring Florida State and Georgia Tech.
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — Kara Murphy, a transgender woman helping to organize the Union County Pride in a suburb of Charlotte, North Carolina, is heartened to see Pride celebrations across the country, big and small, shining a spotlight on transgender rights this year.
“When we look and see who’s standing up for us, it kind of signals the strength of the movement,” she said.
Whether it’s transgender grand marshals at the massive New York City Pride parade or a photo display of transgender victims of violence at the much smaller festival in Hastings, Nebraska, many celebrations this June are taking a public stand against state legislation targeting transgender people.
Some Prides are putting transgender people front and center at events where they’ve often been sidelined because of a historical emphasis on gay and lesbian rights, along with the same sorts of prejudice and misinformation held by many straight, cisgender people about trans lives.
The growing number of new laws and policies, including restrictions on gender-affirming care, public bathroom use and participation in sports, has prompted Pride organizers to more fully embrace a segment of the LGBTQ+ populace that hasn’t always felt included.
While trans activists have always been integral to steps toward greater LGBTQ+ rights, “too often, the larger LGBTQ movement ignored or even actively erased the voices of trans and nonbinary folks,” Kierra Johnson, executive director of the National LGBTQ Task Force, said in an email.
“Uplifting trans voices and fighting for trans liberation must be at the forefront of our movement” when the rights of transgender and nonbinary people are “under a coordinated attack,” Johnson said.
“We are specifically standing by and being supportive of those who are transgender, because we understand that they’re under assault, that their rights are under assault,” said Jonathan Swindle, organizer of Pride in Corpus Christi, Texas. Republican Gov. Greg Abbott recently signed legislation that would make Texas the most populous state to ban gender-affirming treatments for minors. At least 20 others have similar bans.
This year, Swindle said, steps to show solidarity include displaying the blue, pink and white transgender flag, offering Pride T-shirts in just pink and blue, involving trans advocacy groups at events, and offering resources for trans people, including legal help with changing gender designations.
Smaller events are also planned that bring people together, but Swindle said those won’t be widely advertised because of security concerns and potential threats. This year, he said, “the static in the air and the temperament is so much different” from 2022, when Pride seemed more celebratory.
One transgender board member, he noted, abruptly resigned last month and deactivated their social media accounts because they didn’t want to be in the public eye.
“This year, it’s like no, we have to fight through our messaging, as well as reach the young generation to help them understand that it’s going to be OK,” Swindle said. “Yes, they’re doing this, but we will be there. There are resources for you.”
Many are also supporting the drag community, which has also been the target of protests and legislation.
In Reading, Pennsylvania, Pride organizer Enrique Castro Jr. said that instead of a parade, a march dedicated to both the trans and drag-performer communities is planned. In addition to displays of flags honoring those communities, there will be a rally afterward at which Dr. Ashley Grant, a specialist in gender-affirming care, will speak and march with the group to her clinic.
The recent Pride in Hastings, a central Nebraska city of 25,000, was “edgier” than past years, acknowledged organizer Randal Kottwitz. With the theme “Rise Up” and dedicated to victims of trans violence, it included a speech by state Sen. Michela Cavanaugh, who told the crowd, “You are loved and you matter.” She led the unsuccessful fight against legislation signed into law by Republican Gov. Jim Pillen that bans abortion at 12 weeks of pregnancy and restricts gender-affirming medical care for people younger than 19.
In New York City, where this year’s Pride theme is “Strength in Solidarity,” organizers selected representatives of the trans community to be among the grand marshals of the June 25 parade. There are also plans to have a float carrying transgender people of color.
AC Dumlao, chief of staff for Athlete Ally, a group that advocates on behalf of LGBTQ and intersex athletes, and a transgender, nonbinary Filipino American, is one of the grand marshals. They welcome the attention at Pride this year.
“It’s really important for me to take this opportunity and attention to spotlight kind of what is happening across the country,” said Dumlao, noting how nearly half of U.S. states have banned trans athletes from playing in school sports. With a draw of about 2 million spectators on hand, they said the often-televised parade is a great opportunity to spread the message that trans athletes have “always been here.”
Murphy said the number of expected spectators at her Pride in North Carolina, planned for September, will be tiny in comparison with New York and won’t include a parade — but that the message will be no less meaningful.
“You can do so much just person to person, just walking around, meeting people at Pride,” she said, noting how the festival becomes an opportunity for people to tap into an informal network of people who might know a therapist or doctor or have a trans child who is trying to make friends.
“At this kind of a rural area, you don’t get the big demonstrations. You get the little assistance, person to person to person to person, that kind of starts to add up,” she said. “And yeah, if I could, we would have just a trans pride parade on Main Street if I could, but I can’t do that.”
In Connecticut, where restrictions on transgender people are not being proposed, organizers of the Middletown Pride still placed a major focus on trans rights in this year’s events, which Democratic Gov. Ned Lamont attended.
“Just seeing everything that’s happening in the legislation (elsewhere), we definitely wanted to make it a priority,” said Haley Stafford, event coordinator for the Middlesex County Chamber of Commerce which helps to organize Middletown Pride. “Just because it’s not happening to us right now doesn’t mean that it can’t end up happening further down the line.”
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court said Monday it won’t review North Carolina’s decision to stop issuing specialty license plates with the Confederate flag.
As is typical, the court did not comment in declining to hear the case, which challenged the state’s decision. The dispute was one of many the court said Monday it would not hear. It was similar to a case originating in Texas that the court heard in 2015, when it ruled the license plates are state property.
The current dispute stems from North Carolina’s 2021 decision to stop issuing specialty license plates bearing the insignia of the North Carolina chapter of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. The chapter sued, claiming that the state’s decision violated state and federal law. A lower court dismissed the case, and a federal appeals court agreed with that decision.
North Carolina offers three standard license plates and more than 200 specialty plates. Civic clubs including the Sons of Confederate Veterans can create specialty plates by meeting specific requirements.
In 2021, however, the state Department of Transportation sent the group a letter saying it would “no longer issue or renew specialty license plates bearing the Confederate battle flag or any variation of that flag” because the plates “have the potential to offend those who view them.”
The state said it would consider alternate artwork for the plates’ design if it does not contain the Confederate flag.
The organization unsuccessfully argued that the state’s decision violated its free speech rights under the Constitution’s First Amendment and state law governing specialty license plates.
In 2015, the Sons of Confederate Veterans’ Texas chapter claimed Texas was wrong not to issue a specialty license plate with the group’s insignia. But the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that Texas could limit the content of license plates because they are state property.
FORT LIBERTY, N.C. (AP) — Fort Bragg shed its Confederate namesake Friday to become Fort Liberty in a ceremony some veterans said was a small but important step in making the U.S. Army more welcoming to current and prospective Black service members.
The change was the most prominent in a broad Department of Defense initiative, motivated by the 2020 George Floyd protests, to rename military installations that had been named after confederate soldiers.
The Black Lives Matter demonstrations that erupted nationwide after Floyd’s killing by a white police officer, coupled with ongoing efforts to remove Confederate monuments, turned the spotlight on the Army installations. A naming commission created by Congress visited the bases and met with members of the surrounding communities for input.
“We were given a mission, we accomplished that mission and we made ourselves better,” Lt. Gen. Christopher Donahue, the commanding general of the XVIII Airborne Corps and Fort Liberty, told reporters after the ceremony that made the name change official.
The North Carolina base was originally named in 1918 for Gen. Braxton Bragg, a Confederate general from Warrenton, North Carolina, who was known for owning slaves and losing key Civil War battles that contributed to the Confederacy’s downfall.
While other bases are being renamed for Black soldiers, U.S. presidents and trailblazing women, the North Carolina military installation is the only one not renamed after a person. Retired U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Ty Seidule said at a naming commission meeting last year that the new name was chosen because “liberty remains the greatest American value.”
“Fayetteville in 1775 signed one of the first accords declaring our willingness to fight for liberty and freedom from Great Britain,” said Donahue, referring to the city adjacent to the base. “Liberty has always been ingrained in this area.”
The cost to rename Fort Bragg — one of the largest military installations in the world by population — will total about $8 million, Col. John Wilcox said Friday. Most front-facing signage has been changed but the process is ongoing.
“The name changes, the mission does not change,” base spokesperson Cheryle Rivas said Friday.
Fort Polk in Louisiana will be the next installation to change its name June 13 to Fort Johnson, in honor of Sgt. William Henry Johnson. The naming commission’s proposed changes must be implemented by Jan. 1.
Several military bases were named after Confederate soldiers during World War I and World War II as part of a “demonstration of reconciliation” with white southerners amid a broader effort to rally the nation to fight as one, said Nina Silber, a historian at Boston University.
“It was kind of a gesture of, ‘Yes, we acknowledge your patriotism,’ which is kind of absurd to acknowledge the patriotism of people who rebelled against a country,” she said.
The original naming process involved members of local communities, although Black residents were left out of the conversations. Bases were named after soldiers born or raised nearby, no matter how effectively they performed their duties. Gen. Bragg is widely regarded among historians as a poor leader who did not have the respect of his troops, Silber said.
For Isiah James, senior policy officer at the Black Veterans Project, the base renamings are a “long overdue” change he hopes will lead to more substantial improvements for Black service members.
“America should not have vestiges of slavery and secessionism and celebrate them,” he said. “We should not laud them and hold them up and venerate them to where every time a Black soldier goes onto the base, they get the message that this base Bragg is named after someone who wanted to keep you as human property.”
Other Black veterans such as George Postell Jr., 56, who served at the base for more than four years with the 27th Engineers Combat Airborne Division before he was injured in a parachute jump, were hesitant to embrace the change.
“I shared my blood, and I know a lot of my other brothers that did the same for the namesake of Fort Bragg,” Postell said. “To me, it will always be Fort Bragg, no matter what they call it.”
James Buxton Jr., a U.S. Army veteran and president of the Fayetteville chapter of the NAACP, supports the base renaming. Buxton said he has seen the effects of racism associated with the base over the years — including the killing of a Black couple in the 1990s by soldiers in the 82nd Airborne who were neo-Nazis.
But Buxton also called the new choice of name Fort Liberty “off the wall.” He said he would have preferred the base retain the name Bragg but be redesignated to honor Edward S. Bragg, an accomplished U.S. lawmaker and Union general in the U.S. Civil War.
At last week’s “All American Week,” a celebration of the 82nd Airborne Division and one of the last major events under the Fort Bragg name, several veterans expressed mixed feelings about the name change.
Gregory Patterson, 64, a former member of the 82nd Airborne, who served in the Army from 1977 to 1999, joined scores of veterans for the celebration. Patterson, who is Black, said he understood why they changed the name, but in his mind, the name is associated with the place, not the person — and specifically as the home of the 82nd Airborne.
“I’m still gonna call it Bragg, even though the person that they named it after wasn’t a good person,” he said.
Mark Melancon, 63, who served from 1983 to 1990, wore a t-shirt that read “Born at Benning, Raised at Bragg.” Fort Benning, in Georgia, was renamed Fort Moore last month.
Asked about the change to Fort Liberty, Melancon replied: “We’re not thrilled about that. It’s always gonna be Bragg, the way we look at it.”
The Bragg name, Melancon said, conjured up strong feelings and memories. “Home. The camaraderie that we had. The brotherhood.”
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Hannah Schoenbaum is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.
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Associated Press writers Jason Dearen and Michelle Smith contributed to this report.
Rookie quarterbacks will get much of the attention this week when most NFL teams hit the field for non-contact practices.
Twenty teams kicked off their voluntary organized team activities on Monday and 10 more will do so on Tuesday. Only the defending NFC champion Philadelphia Eagles and the AFC runner-up Cincinnati Bengals aren’t holding workouts this week.
Teams are allowed, per the collective bargaining agreement, to hold 10 days of practices without pads and no live contact over a four-week span. They can run 7-on-7, 9-on-7 and 11-on-11 drills.
Aaron Rodgers, who didn’t participate in some of these offseason workouts the past few seasons with the Green Bay Packers, was on the field with his new team. Wearing a green New York Jets helmet, black shorts and a red, No. 8 practice jersey, Rodgers pump-faked on one play and scrambled for a TD, holding both his hands in the air to signal a score.
Lamar Jackson, who signed a five-year, $260 million contract extension earlier this month, was absent from Baltimore’s session on Monday.
Bryce Young, the No. 1 overall pick, impressed coach Frank Reich at Carolina’s first practice.
“Just complete command, control, poise,” Reich said after the Panthers held Monday’s workout. “You could tell the way he was seeing it, the way he was working through progressions, accuracy in the throw, ball placement of the throw, it was all very good.”
Though it’s early and there’s a long way to go before training camp, all eyes will be on Young, Houston’s C.J. Stroud and Indianapolis’ Anthony Richardson this week.
Here are some of the top story lines to follow:
ROOKIE QBS: Young, Stroud and Richardson, who were among the top picks in the draft, are getting acclimated to life in the NFL while also learning new offenses and shouldering the burden of high expectations.
AARON RODGERS: Rodgers flashed a big smile as he ran into the end zone on his TD scramble in a video that had Jets fans buzzing on Monday. His attendance is a big deal for a franchise desperate for a turnaround. Rodgers is already familiar with offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett’s system from their time together in Green Bay. But the four-time NFL MVP has been spending time at the Jets’ facility since his arrival and it should help him build chemistry with his new teammates.
LAMAR JACKSON: Todd Monken is Baltimore’s new offensive coordinator, so the Ravens would prefer the NFL’s highest-paid quarterback shows up to learn the nuances and work with his teammates. However, new Ravens wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr., fellow wideout Rashod Bateman, tight end Mark Andrews and running backs J.K. Dobbins and Gus Edwards weren’t in attendance on the first day, either. Plenty of starting players across the league prefer to work out on their own instead of attending voluntary practices and many often skip a few days until mandatory minicamp.
SEAN PAYTON: The former Super Bowl-winning head coach with New Orleans returned to the NFL after a one-year absence and is trying to turn the Denver Broncos into a winner again. It starts with getting Russell Wilson to play more like the potential Hall of Famer he was in his first 10 seasons in Seattle.
PACKERS NEW ERA: The Green Bay Packers will start a season without Rodgers or Brett Favre for the first time since 1991. Jordan Love will be under scrutiny as the team transitions to the fourth-year QB. He has the youngest group of wide receivers and tight ends in the NFL.
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) — A 9-mile (14-kilometer) stretch of Florida sugar-white sand in an unspoiled natural setting alongside the Gulf of Mexico is the nation’s best beach for 2023, according to the annual ranking released Thursday by the university professor known as “Dr. Beach.”
The state park on St. George Island just off the Florida Panhandle drew the top honor from Stephen Leatherman, professor in the Department of Earth & Environment at Florida International University. This year’s top 10 list marks the 33rd year Leatherman has rated the best of America’s 650 public beaches around Memorial Day, the traditional start of summer.
St. George Island is frequently on the list. But this year what set it apart from others is its natural beauty, lack of development, abundant activities including fishing, swimming, kayaking, cycling, camping and an unparalleled view of the night sky for stargazers, Leatherman said.
“There’s just so many things that capture my imagination there,” Leatherman said in an interview. “It’s an idyllic place.”
The park covers about 2,000 acres (810 hectares) on the east end of the island, which is connected by a bridge to the mainland across Apalachicola Bay, famed for its oysters. The other sections of the island contain a small village, restaurants, rental homes and motels, but not a whole lot else.
And that’s the way Leatherman likes it.
“People can have the best of both worlds there, just miles and miles of unspoiled beaches,” he said.
The island has been battered over the decades by tropical storms, most recently by Hurricane Michael in October 2018. That deadly Category 5 storm made landfall about 50 miles (80 kilometers) northwest in Mexico Beach, but packed enough punch to level many St. George Island sand dunes and damage park facilities such as picnic pavilions and restrooms.
“Since that time, staff and volunteers have made great strides toward getting the park back to normal,” park officials said on its website.
In 2005, a 153-year-old lighthouse on nearby, uninhabited Little St. George Island collapsed into the Gulf due to storms and erosion. It was rebuilt on the main island after volunteers salvaged 22,000 of the original bricks and found the 19th-century plans at the National Archives. The new location means people can more easily trek to the top for a panoramic view.
Leatherman uses 50 criteria to evaluate beaches including sand type, wave action, whether lifeguards are present, presence of wildlife, the level of development and crowding, and many other factors. Extra credit is given to beaches that forbid cigarette smoking, mainly because of the need to prevent discarded butts. None were seen during a recent visit to St. George Island, he said.
“I had to give them more credit for that,” Leatherman said. “I think people are coming around to the point of view that our beaches are some of our greatest recreational areas. You can go to the beach and you can do so many things.”
A second Florida Gulf coast beach, Caladesi Island State Park near Clearwater and Dunedin, ranks fourth on the list this year. It’s reachable mainly by ferry and private boat, or a person could walk a fairly good distance there from Clearwater Beach depending on the tides. Despite the name, Caladesi isn’t a true island any longer because an inlet closed off, Leatherman said.
“The white beach is composed of crystalline quartz sand, which is soft and cushy at the water’s edge, inviting one to take a dip in the sparkling clear waters,” he said.
Caladesi has boardwalk nature trails and kayaking through mangroves that are home to numerous species of fish, birds and other animals.
Hawaii placed three beaches on the list, more than any other state. Florida was next with two.
Here is Dr. Beach’s complete 2023 top 10:
1. St. George Island State Park, Florida Panhandle
2. Duke Kahanamoku Beach, Oahu, Hawaii
3. Coopers Beach, Southampton, New York
4. Caladesi Island State Park, Dunedin/Clearwater, Florida
5. Lighthouse Beach, Buxton, Outer Banks of North Carolina
6. Coronado Beach, San Diego
7. Wailea Beach, Maui, Hawaii
8. Beachwalker Park, Kiawah Island, South Carolina
