INDY Week

11/01/2024

Most of the 17 students opted to resolve their suspensions through an agreement with conditions.

But several asked for formal hearings to challenge the charges. What followed for two—Hashem Amireh, a doctoral student in economics and the president of the UNC-Chapel Hill Graduate Student Union, and Kaleb, a senior majoring in history and computer science who requested the INDY use only his first name—was a months-long odyssey that led both to question the fairness and transparency of the university’s disciplinary process.

✍: Written by Lena Geller
📸: Photos by Angelica Edwards
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Suspended UNC student protesters say the university lacked due diligence in bringing disciplinary charges against them

11/01/2024

In recent weeks, the Wake County Board of Education’s bimonthly public comment sessions have increasingly become a forum for conservative political vitriol and viral social media moments. Moms for Liberty and Michele Morrow, the far-right candidate for state superintendent of public instruction, have been rallying their supporters to disrupt school board meetings over issues like graphic content in books.

Recently, a teacher was singled out for wearing a tutu during school spirit week. But now, parents and the Wake County PTA are fighting back, bringing their supporters out in numbers to speak against book banning and to support school staff.

✍: Written by Chloe Courtney Bohl
🖋: Illustration by Nicole Pajor Moore
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Following weeks of disruption at school board meetings from Moms for Liberty, the Wake County PTA Council is fighting back

10/31/2024

The Best of the Best of the Triangle Readers Poll is live! Winners from each county are going head to head for your vote. Support your favorites now through November 18th. The champions of the Triangle will be announced on December 11th. Make sure to use this guide to shop locally throughout 2025, and pick up last-minute holiday gifts.

https://indyweek.com/best-of-the-triangle/the-2nd-annual-best-of-the-best-of-the-triangle/

10/31/2024

Navigate to the organization’s website and you’ll find the phrase “a site of possibility” hovering above a grainy rendering of a barnlike structure. Navigate to that structure, deep in the woods, and you’ll find people milling about murmuring words like “resolution” and “balance”; venture further, and you’ll find yourself in a glowing, windowless red room.

Is this a secret society? A religious cult from the 1970s?

No: This is PHOTO FARM, a capacious new photography space on the outskirts of Chapel Hill founded by photographer Phyllis B. Dooney. It opened in September and offers artists studio space, workshops, and a well-appointed darkroom. And if there’s any shared religion here, it’s the documentary arts.

✍: Written by Sarah Edwards
📸: Photos by Angelica Edwards
🔗: https://indyweek.com/culture/just-outside-chapel-hill-a-capacious-space-for-creatives/

10/30/2024

Beyond the Big Lie draws up a frank taxonomy of political lies, dives into Adair’s early-2000s neighborhood friendship with Mike Pence and his family (where he got a front-row-seat to Pence’s descent into political opportunism), and looks at the radicalizing effects of social media. Ahead of an event at Flyleaf Books, the INDY sat down with Adair to talk about the election and learn more.

✍: Written by Sarah Edwards
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Talking with Bill Adair about his new book "Beyond the Big Lie," how misinformation became mainstream, and how we can correct course.

10/30/2024

Noncitizens may not currently vote in any election in North Carolina.

The state constitution says that “Every person born in the United States and every person who has been naturalized,” may vote. A statewide referendum on ballots this year proposes amending that to “Only a citizen of the United States” may vote.

The proposed change doesn’t really make sense because anyone born in the United States or naturalized is, by law, a citizen.

So why did both parties in the state legislature overwhelmingly vote for a bill to put this confusing measure before North Carolina voters?

✍: By Chase Pellegrini de Paur
🔗: https://indyweek.com/news/northcarolina/progressive-democrats-civil-rights-and-good-government-groups-urge-vote-against-nc-constitutional-amendment/

10/29/2024

While the Parés made allegations of harassment in this instance, the INDY spoke to six people and viewed complaints from eight more who described Wayne or Erin Paré harassing or intimidating them or other poll greeters—mostly women—at polling sites in 2020, 2022, and 2024. Rep. Paré declined to comment for this story. Wayne Paré did not respond to an email and phone calls requesting comment.

✍: Written by Chloe Courtney Bohl and Jane Porter
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The INDY spoke to six people and viewed complaints from eight more who described Wayne or Erin Paré harassing or intimidating them or others

10/29/2024

"Has anybody come to this before?” Ryan Solistad, our guide for the evening, asks shortly before we enter the woods.

Nobody raises a hand.

“Okay,” Solistad says, “some things to know. First: the clowns will not touch you.”

Beside me, the INDY’s staff photographer, Angelica, presses her fingertips to her temples like she’s warding off a headache. We’re huddled with about 20 people at the mouth of a trail leading into West Point on the Eno, waiting to embark on the Creepy Clown Walk, a seasonal outing hosted by Durham Parks and Recreation.

Contraband is usually not permitted at Eno parks, but tonight, White Claws and Ponysaurus beer are available for purchase. Political involvement is also encouraged, per the “Say Yes to the Bonds!” flyers present.

Read more at the

✍: Written by Lena Geller
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INDY staff brave the Creepy Clown Walk, a seasonal outing hosted by Durham Parks and Recreation at West Point on the Eno.

10/28/2024

Elizabeth Lindsey Rogers’ wide-ranging and intimate debut essay collection, Miss Southeast—released in September from Curbstone Books—is a portrait of the artist as a young person, tracing the author’s coming of age to both q***rness and writing.

Miss Southeast opens with Rogers’ childhood in Greensboro in the 90s, following her to college in Oberlin, Ohio, and beyond—to a teaching job in China, the beginnings of adulthood in New Orleans and Washington, D.C., and finally, back to Oberlin, where she currently teaches creative writing.

Rogers made a stop in Chapel Hill, earlier this month, appearing October 21st at Epilogue Books with author Joanna Pearson. Ahead of that visit, Rogers sat down with the INDY to discuss the collection, the relationship between poetry and prose, and the importance of the place in their writing.

✍: Written by Maggie Cooper
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Rogers is the author of "Miss Southeast," a new essay collection about coming-of-age as a q***r person in the South.

10/28/2024

Population growth and increased economic activity have transformed the Bull City over the last two decades. But that transformation has come with a few growing pains.
Residents are concerned that new construction projects and more vehicles on the road are making the streets unsafe for cyclists and pedestrians and that the city’s design standards are decades old, making them ill-equipped to manage the increased volume.

On Monday night, the city council took steps to modernize the city’s design standards by adopting three new guidelines: the “Urban Street Design Guide” and “Urban Bikeway Design Guide” created by the National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO) and the “Implementing Content – Sensitive Design on Multimodal Corridors: A Practitioners Handbook” from the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE).

Council member Nate Baker spearheaded the adoption of the new standards and the city council voted unanimously in favor of the resolution.

✍: Written by Justin Laidlaw
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The City of Durham looks to modernize its urban design standards for transportation through the adoption of national standards.

10/25/2024

On September 17, Brittany Thomas received a text message from a distressed teacher at Merrick-Moore Elementary School. The air conditioning had broken down at Merrick-Moore, where Thomas is PTA president, and teachers were so uncomfortable that many threatened to call out of work, the teacher said.

“Can you please help us?” Thomas recalls him asking. “It’s 80 degrees and teachers are sweating through their clothes and the kids can’t learn…the staff is saying they feel sick because they’re so hot.”

Brittany and her husband Aaron say they called the district and met with the school’s interim principal. Yet more than a week went by, and the heat did not subside.

Merrick-Moore is just the latest Durham elementary school grappling with HVAC failures. At other schools, parents have been urging the school system for months to address broken air conditioning and other maintenance issues. Now some are demanding long-term solutions, worried that their public schools are becoming unsafe learning environments.

✍️: Written by Storey Wertheimer
📝: Originally published in 9th Street Journal
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Parents have been urging Durham Public Schools to address broken air conditioning and other issues. Now some demand long-term solutions.

10/25/2024

Four weeks ago, Ethan Clark gathered his weather models, leaned over his computer, and attempted to define catastrophe.

From hours of analyzing forecasts, Clark, 21, knew that extreme flooding in western North Carolina was inevitable. At the same time, the National Weather Service was releasing alert after alert about the danger of Hurricane Helene touching down in an area already drenched from rain. Most people, though, don’t know what ‘14 to 20 inches of rain’ or ‘historic flooding’ could look like.

It was Clark’s job to tell them.

Clark, a fourth-year student at North Carolina State University studying meteorology, runs a weather forecasting page called North Carolina’s Weather Authority. He says he enjoys doing regular student life things, like attending football games and hanging out with friends—but in his eight years of doing daily weather reports, he hasn’t missed a single day.

Read more at the link below.

✍️: By Hannah Kaufman
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The NC State student has run a wildly popular forecasting page called North Carolina’s Weather Authority since he was 12.

10/24/2024

Duke University senior Catherine Flanagan arrived at the March 2024 polls excited and prepared, with her driver’s license and list of preferred candidates in hand.

“I thought, ‘This will be a breeze. I’ll just fly straight through,’” said Flanagan.

But she barely made it inside before discovering that her New York driver’s license would not be accepted due to a technicality: under North Carolina’s new voter ID laws, out-of-state IDs are only valid if a voter registers within 90 days of the election.

Flanagan was handed a provisional ballot, a temporary ballot issued when a voter’s eligibility is in question. To ensure her vote counted, she would need to come back later, bringing her passport to the county Board of Elections office.

But she couldn’t make it. Her provisional ballot was thrown away, along with those of hundreds of other students, according to State Board of Elections data.

Read more at the link below.

✍️: Written by Storey Wertheimer
📝: Originally published in 9th Street Journal
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Provisional Ballots: Why thousands of young voters' ballots get tossed, and how to avoid it

10/24/2024

Throughout the year, readers picked their favorite restaurants, music venues, museums, and activities from across the Triangle. Now the winners of Wake, Durham, and Orange/Chatham Counties will face off to determine the Best of the Best of the Triangle!

In addition to the winners of over 120+ categories from each county, we have added a handful of categories that span the entire Triangle. It’s up to you — our readers — to choose and support your favorites!

There is no nomination round for the year-end contest. The winners from each category have been pre-populated and the top write-ins for the Triangle-wide categories will be crowned as the champions of their respective categories.

The ballot will be live Wednesday, October 23. Voting ends November 18.

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The winners of Wake, Durham, and Orange/Chatham Counties will face off to determine the Best of the Best of the Triangle!

10/24/2024

Earlier this month, the Durham City Council voted 5-2 to approve a request to rezone 10 Duke University-owned parcels to give the university broad freedom for future construction.

That college and university (UC) zoning, which the city created specifically for Duke and North Carolina Central University to use, allows the universities to build essentially whatever they want without having to go back through the lengthy council approval process for development.

“It allows for planning and zoning elements, such as stormwater, parking, sidewalks, tree coverage, to be considered holistically at the campus scale, rather than on each individual building site,” Adem Gusa, director of planning and design at Duke, told the council.

The request itself was not complicated—it simply incorporated those 10 parcels in the Erwin Road/central campus area already owned and used by Duke, into that zone that surrounds most of the parcels. But the conversation around the vote, which was continued from an August meeting, highlighted the council’s divided approach to the relationship between the city and its largest landowner and employer.

Read more at the link below.

✍: by Chase Pellegrini de Paur
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The move comes despite concerns from some council members and lack of a detailed development plan from Duke.

10/23/2024

In 2005, a few dozen people traveled to Boone for Black Banjos Then and Now, a multi-day gathering that sought to explore and celebrate the banjo’s African, Afro-Caribbean, and African-American origins.

One attendee was the musician Rhiannon Giddens, then 28 and a recent graduate of Oberlin Conservatory of Music. The event, an outgrowth of a listserve on the same topic, offered a chance for scholars and musicians to come together for talks, performances, and raucous old-time jams alike and seek a new path forward for the art form.

It changed Giddens’ life—later that same year, she would form the Carolina Chocolate Drops alongside fellow attendees Dom Flemons and Justin Robinson—and became a turning point for a revival of multiracial, intergenerational old-time music. A November 2005 INDY cover story described it as a moment where a “new generation restrings an old music.”

Twenty years later, Giddens will celebrate that moment with Biscuits & Banjos, a landmark three-day festival slated to take place in downtown Durham April 25-27.

Read more at the link below.

✍: by Sarah Edwards
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Twenty years after The Carolina Chocolate drops formed, the group will reunite in Durham for a three-day celebration of Black roots music.

10/23/2024

Congresswoman Deborah Ross was in Zebulon last week to announce $800,000 in federal grant funding for public transit improvements in Eastern Wake County.

The grant will pay for 10 new bus stops in Wendell and Zebulon, some of the fastest-growing towns in the county. The new stops will feature ADA curb ramps, crosswalks, pedestrian signals, and—most importantly—all-day, hourly service.

The atmosphere outside Zebulon Town Hall was celebratory on Friday morning as Ross mingled with local leaders ahead of a press conference. Zebulon mayor Glenn York, Wendell mayor Virginia Gray, acting GoTriangle CEO Byron Adams, and Wake County commissioners Shinica Thomas, Don Mial, and Susan Evans exchanged hugs and handshakes as they arrived, seemingly eager to end their week on a high note.

After loitering around the make-your-own hot chocolate bar for a few minutes, the officials settled into rows of plastic folding chairs next to a podium and a giant novelty check.

Read more at the link below.

✍: by Chloe Courtney Bohl
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GoTriangle's addition of 10 new bus stops along the ZWX route will improve connectivity between Zebulon, Wendell, and Raleigh.

10/22/2024

A Vermont maple block, malt vinegar powder, cranberry vinegar, smoked Calabrian chilis, dried yuzu peel, bonito flakes, aged soy sauce, mustard powder, shirodashi, and transglutaminase: the secret ingredients for recent Top Chef runner-up, Savannah Miller.

Contestants of Bravo’s popular competitive cooking show are allowed a select 10 ingredients to bring with them to the show. For Miller, chef at Durham’s M Tempura restaurant who was featured on the show’s most recent season in June, the collection meant more than your average grocery list.

“I wanted to bring things that felt like my history,” Miller said with the chop of a lotus root as she prepared for a Wednesday dinner service at M Tempura.

After falling in love with cooking while working in restaurants during high school, Miller moved to Vermont to study at the New England Culinary Institute. Two years later, she packed up again and started working at the Boston restaurant, Townsman.

Read more at the link below.

📝: Originally published by Ninth Street Journal
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Savannah Miller, a chef at Durham’s M Tempura restaurant, was a runner-up on the most recent season of Top Chef.

10/22/2024

Learn more about your state candidates this election season: read our candidate questionnaires for US Congress, NC House, and NC Senate below.

🔗: https://indyweek.com/news/elections-news/2024-general-election-candidate-questionnaires-nc-house-and-senate/

10/22/2024

What’s red, ubiquitous, and blue and captures the stymied political optimism of the mid-aughts?

There can only be one answer: Street artist Shepard Fairey’s image of Barack Obama, emblazoned with the word HOPE and distributed so widely in 2008—the presidential campaign sold more than 50,000 copies of the poster—that it became a defining image, not just of the Obama campaign, but of the era itself.

It was a success, though Fairey himself became entangled in legal issues around the image. He did not make candidate renderings in subsequent elections.

That changed this August when Fairey released an image of Vice President Kamala Harris. This one has a similarly heroic composition, though the tones—powder blues; a swipe of lipstick offering just a hint of red—are lighter and less textured, a bit less confident. It is overlaid with the word “Forward.”

Read more at the link below.

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NC is one of five battleground states to land a mural of Harris. It is the first time Fairey has made a candidate rendering since Obama.

10/21/2024

Incoming! A live symphony at a “Nosferatu” screening, dental horror, “Rosemary’s Baby,” and more scary fare at theaters around the Triangle.

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A live symphony at a "Nosferatu" screening, dental horror, "Rosemary's Baby," and more scary fare at theaters around the Triangle.

10/21/2024

Durham Democrats celebrated the first day of early voting on Thursday with appearances by Tim Walz and Bill Clinton at an invite-only rally of about 200 officials and supporters in the Lyons Park community center gymnasium.

But in a rare instance when the warmup band was more exciting than the headliner, Durham’s own lineup of younger local officials may have accidentally upstaged the former president and current vice presidential hopeful.

The first speaker, Mayor Pro-Tem Mark-Anthony Middleton, danced as he took the stage to A Tribe Called Quest’s “Can I Kick It?”

“Bull City, are you in the house today?” he asked the borderline-rambunctious crowd before launching into a five-minute rallying cry centered on the local angles—an investment in affordable housing and help for small business owners—ofto the Harris-Walz economic agenda.

Read more at the link below.

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The former president and vice presidential hopeful hit the right notes but Durham’s young Black leaders had a better connection with the local crowd.

10/21/2024

Hundreds of people flowed into a Baptist church in Southwest Raleigh on Thursday, not to hear a sermon but to demand affordable housing from the next Raleigh City Council.

Elderly white homeowners sat alongside young Black renters in a gathering of community members that has become a powerful lobbying force in Raleigh and Wake County elections. Packed shoulder to shoulder in church pews, residents of all ages, races, and religions quizzed city council candidates on their commitment to helping low- and middle-income residents stay in their homes.

The candidate forum—hosted by ONE Wake, a grassroots campaign for affordable housing—is representative of the larger anxieties of Raleigh residents. Questions about how residents will afford increasing rents and property taxes have dominated the narrative in the last several elections, and housing is once again the top priority for many voters as the next city council election approaches.

Read more at the link below.

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In the upcoming mayoral and city council elections, Raleigh voters will choose to change or stay the course.

10/19/2024

For the past decade, artist Sherrill Roland’s muse has been a painful past experience.

In 2012, Roland was pursuing an MFA in studio art from the University of North Carolina-Greensboro when he was arrested while visiting Washington, D.C. Roland was told that he had four warrants against him, pending indictment, and was wrongfully imprisoned for 10 months before the charges were dropped and he was exonerated.

When he returned to Greensboro to finish his master’s degree, he donned an orange prison jumpsuit to draw attention to the inequities of the criminal justice system.

In the years since his release, Roland, a multimedia artist, has continued to wrestle with his experience and to invite others into the conversation through his craft.

✍️: By Justin Laidlaw
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Two local exhibitions by artist Sherrill Roland, who was wrongfully incarcerated in 2013, deal with identity and the criminal justice system.

10/18/2024

In an election cycle with enormous stakes at the state and federal levels, Durham has few competitive local races on the ballot this year.

But even though Durham’s local races don’t seem that exciting this cycle, voting up and down the ballot—especially at the very bottom—is still important.

The Durham City Council included two bond referenda on the ballot for city residents to consider this November: one to improve Durham’s parks, and the other to improve Durham’s streets and sidewalks. Together, the two bonds, collectively called the “Connecting Durham” bonds, would cost taxpayers $200 million.

✍️: By Justin Laidlaw
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The Durham municipal bonds would prioritize under-invested areas and speed up capital improvement projects