Category: Open Lines

One of the nation’s longest-running and most prestigious magazines printed its first issue this month in 1888 — the National Geographic, the publication of the National Geographic Society, founded earlier that year. One-hundred-twenty-five years ago, the magazine was a scholarly journal with fewer than a thousand subscribers. As it matured, it added photographic and map departments that boosted its circulation into the millions. The money generated was used to finance major explorations around the world. There are some 8,000 periodical …

Republican 2nd District Congresswoman Renee Ellmers said Wednesday that she would vote against a deal brokered in the Senate to reopen federal government and raise the nation’s debt limit to avoid a default. A Senate vote was set first on the legislation, which would permit the U.S. Treasury to borrow normally through Feb. 7 – or perhaps a month longer – and fund the government through Jan. 15. More than 2 million federal workers – those who had remained on …

Day 15 of the government shutdown started with as much promise as any recently: There was a bipartisan proposal by Senate leaders to reopen the government and raise the debt ceiling. But any hopes were quickly dashed when leaders of the Republican-controlled House said they would offer a competing proposal because of their dissatisfaction with the Senate effort. The Senate’s Bipartisan Proposal The Senate agreement between Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., came after weekend negotiations. It would reopen …

NC State Auditor Beth Wood says she and other officials from her office did their best to warn Health and Human Services Secretary Aldona Wos that it would be better to wait to go live with a new system to process Medicaid claims.  In a legislative hearing earlier this week, Secretary Wos said she did not receive any professional opinions that the system might not be ready to go live in July. But Auditor Wood says that is not correct. …

Clintondale was the first school in the United States to flip completely — all of its classes are now taught this way. Now flipped classrooms are popping up all over. Havana High School outside of Peoria, Ill., is flipping, too, after the school superintendent visited Clintondale. The principal of Clintondale says that some 200 school officials have visited. It’s well known by now that online education is booming. You can study any subject free in a MOOC — a massive …

North Carolina is the first, and only, state in the nation to stop issuing vouchers for formula and nutritional food for at-risk newborns, young children and expectant mothers as part of the federal government shutdown. The aberration was noted this week in publications like Governing, a national public policy magazine, which pointed out $125 million from a USDA emergency contingency plan kept the program up and running in the 49 other states. Now, questions are being raised about why North …

The head of the state’s Department of Health and Human Services, Aldona Wos, and other department leaders were grilled by lawmakers at an oversight committee meeting Tuesday in Raleigh. Lawmakers and some members of the public questioned the department’s hiring policies, new payment systems and future plans for the state’s Medicaid program.  Wos fielded tough questions from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle all day. The hardest ones concerned high paying jobs for young political hires in the department …

Voting results are in, and congratulations goes to Sara Coffey, Michael Inscoe, Garry Daeke, and Fearldine Simmons for the wins.  Thank you to all the runners for wanting to be a part of and better the community.  There are still many ways you, and all the rest of you readers, can help our town.  Ideas?  Post them here!  

Across North Carolina, many license plates read “First in Flight” — a tribute to Orville and Wilbur Wright. Their plane first flew there 110 years ago. Today, the state has one of the nation’s busiest airports and dozens of aviation companies. And finding workers to fill those jobs has been a challenge. No longer are workers building legs of furniture, hemming shirts and rolling cigarettes. They’re fixing GPS technology, working on stabilizers and manufacturing the next era of aviation. So …

With a government shutdown nearing its second week, there were no signs of a new deal in Washington Sunday. But several leaders are speaking out about the impasse, even as they look ahead to the next battle: an Oct. 17 deadline to raise the U.S. debt ceiling. When House Speaker John Boehner was asked on ABC’s This Week about the possibility that he might present a “clean” funding bill that doesn’t attack the new health care system in the Affordable …

Tourism in North Carolina could be particularly hard hit by National Park Services closures. NPR Host Frank Stasio speaks with News & Observer reporter Martha Quillin; and Phil Francis, former superintendent of the Blue Ridge Parkway about the effect of the shutdown on tourism along the coast and in the mountains. http://wunc.org/post/shutdown-slams-north-carolina-tourism

The shutdown is affecting more than 800,000 federal employees across the country.  Governor Pat McCrory told the Council of State Tuesday thousands of state employees could also face furloughs.  As many as 4,500 workers with the Department of Health and Human Services are totally or partially funded by the federal government. Read the full article here http://wunc.org/post/shutdowns-reach-north-carolina

Went to get the normal open lines text I use from the census site and was given this instead: Due to the lapse in government funding, census.gov sites, services, and all online survey collection requests will be unavailable until further notice. Updates regarding government operating status and resumption of normal operations can be found at <usa.gov>. Websites affected by this shutdown are all census.gov hosted websites, including: Census.gov American Factfinder Public API FTP Servers FAQs Blogs Online Surveys Federal Statistical …

On this date in 1785, the first city directory in the United States was published. Fittingly, it was in the young country’s place of birth — Philadelphia. The directory’s title was “Macpherson’s Directory, for the City and Suburbs of Philadelphia.” It contained 6,250 resident names. The 1790 Census found Philadelphia’s population to be just over 28,500, making it America’s second largest urban place, behind perpetual first place New York City. Today, Philadelphia is the nation’s fifth largest city, with a …

On this date in 1882, the world’s first hydroelectric power plant began operating on the Fox River in Appleton, Wisconsin. Inspired by Thomas Edison, a man named H.F. Rogers built the facility, using a water wheel to power the lights in the two mills of the Appleton Paper and Pulp Company, a nearby building, and his home. Soon, hydroelectric power plants were spurring industrial growth in many parts of the country. Now, water-generated electricity accounts for 7 percent of power …

Through the centuries of coffee’s popularity, if someone ordered the beverage, there was no question about what kind. Today, many Americans prefer their coffee decaffeinated. That option dates to the start of the last century, when Ludwig Roselius, a coffee merchant in Bremen, Germany, succeeded in removing caffeine from coffee beans. He moved to the U.S. before World War I, and his decaffeinated coffee became available in stores in 1923. Roselius sold his process and trade name to General Mills …

On this date in 1772, America’s first medical licensing law was enacted by the colony of New Jersey. A licensing board was set up with three members, and the practice of medicine was forbidden without the approval of the panel. The licensing board was comprised of two New Jersey Supreme Court judges, and a third member chosen by the judges. Exempted from its oversight were colonists who pulled teeth, bled patients, or gave free care or assistance. Medical education and …

Three important dates in American newspaper history occurred in September. These anniversaries span more than three centuries. On September 15, 1982, USA Today began publishing. Critics at the time said the idea of a national newspaper was doomed to failure — now, USA Today is one of the country’s largest-selling dailies. On September 18, 1851, the New York Times issued its first edition. And, on this date in 1690, the first newspaper in America was published for one day in …

One of our favorite foods is being celebrated — it’s National Chicken Month, nicely complementing September’s Mushroom and Rice Month. The versatility of chicken — served in numerous ways ranging from Southern fried style to sandwiches to salads — drives a demand that has reached over 8.5 billion birds a year in the U.S. alone. This is almost a 50 percent increase from the broiler production in 1990. Americans eat about 56 pounds of chicken per capita annually, at a …

Forget what you may have heard about Abner Doubleday and Cooperstown. The national pastime of baseball evolved out of older bat and ball games. An important step in that evolution occurred on this date in 1845, when the Knickerbocker Baseball Club of New York was formed. It was the first organized club, and its rules have shaped today’s game. Practice and intrasquad games under the rules occupied the Knickerbockers until the first contested baseball game on June 19, 1846 in …