

Ronald Hayes, left, and his son Shemar Hayes. (Photos: Ronald Hayes)
By Greg Childress
Ronald Hayes was cautious when he talked to a reporter this week about the political TV advertisement he appears in, talking about the death of his son Shemar, a college football player who was murdered in Charlotte in March 2024 at age 23.
“I have already been swindled into an ad that was about politics, which I don’t want to be about,” Hayes told NC Newsline on Monday.
Despite his intentions, the ad has landed him squarely in the middle of one of the nation’s most watched races.

(Photo by Anne-Marie Caruso/New Jersey Monitor)
By Clayton Henkel
Every political candidate likes to believe they’re a winner, and Laurie Buckhout is no different. But the Republican nominee for North Carolina’s 1st Congressional District took things a little too far when she placed a bet on herself on the prediction market Kalshi to win November’s midterm election.
Buckhout is in a rematch with incumbent Democrat U.S. Rep. Don Davis, rated by some as the most vulnerable House Democrat in the country.

An Amazon warehouse near Newport, Delaware. The Federal Trade Commission and 22 states have sued Amazon over an alleged scheme to inflate advertising prices. (Photo by Jacob Owens/Spotlight Delaware)
By Alex Brown
NC is one of the states taking part in the lawsuit
The Federal Trade Commission and attorneys general from 22 states sued Amazon Monday, claiming the online retail company used artificial bids to inflate costs for advertisers, bringing in tens of billions of dollars.
COMMENTARY

North Carolina House Speaker Destin Hall (R-Caldwell), left, and Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger (R-Rockingham) speak ahead of Democratic Gov. Josh Stein’s State of the State address on March 12, 2025. (Photo: Galen Bacharier/NC Newsline)
By Rob Schofield
When it comes to understanding and assessing the never-ending barrage of new state voting rules and election law changes that North Carolina Republicans continue to advance, it would be one thing if the proposals came from a group of proud and honorable sticklers for detail.
In other words, yes, repeated efforts to make voting by mail more difficult, eliminate college polling sites and disqualify ballots with tiny technical errors would still be objectionable, wasteful and unnecessary.
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JOHN COLE'S NORTH CAROLINA

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