It could be the start of a trend: State Treasurer Dale Folwell now warns that a growing number of North Carolina towns are at risk of insolvency.
To date, a half-dozen other small rural N.C. towns have had their financial operations taken over by the Local Government Commission due to a lack of fiscal controls.
“These aren’t revolutions; these are evolutions. These are patterns and trends that have been evolving for, in some cases, 20 years and they’re just now coming to a head,” said Folwell, who chairs the Local Government Commission as part of his role.
The Local Government Commission is made up of nine members, including the treasurer, state auditor, secretary of state, secretary of revenue. The other five members are appointed by the governor or General Assembly.
The pandemic is headed in different directions in different parts of the world.
Here in the US, things are looking up, as they have for a few weeks. 55% of adults in the US have gotten at least one shot. And the CDC recently outlined the impact that getting immunized can have on everyone s lives, including less mask-wearing outdoors.
In fact, things have gotten so cheery that there s a whole movement brewing around this summer in the US. The sextech market has never been hotter, according to startup founders and investors who spoke with Insider s Melia Russell and April Joyner.
It s the free market s natural reaction to calls for a Hot Vax Summer, I suppose.
But they remain mindful of any potential impact on traffic and pedestrians.
Sam Pettyjohn is the head of the traffic committee for the Tree Streets neighborhood. He wants to be sure the city maximizes the amount of safe pedestrian access to and from the neighborhood, including crossings at University Parkway to East Tennessee State University.
Although the crossing at West Walnut Street will be eliminated, Johnson City Public Works Director Phil Pindzola said pedestrians will be able to cross University Parkway at a new traffic signal to be installed at West Pine Street.
Left-hand turns from West Walnut Street to University Parkway will be blocked by a median running up University.
This week, our reporters also spent some time looking at the potential future of biotech.
Andrew Dunn pinpointed 5 takeaways from Walter Isaacson s best-selling book on Jennifer Doudna, the pioneering scientist who won a Nobel Prize for discovering CRISPR including what ethical questions now face the cutting-edge gene-editing tool.
Meanwhile, Patricia Kelly Yeo took a closer look at the plans Moderna s laid out to develop an HIV vaccine.
After the success of Moderna s COVID-19 vaccine, it s possible the biotech could chart a new path toward a vaccine that s eluded researches for decades.