US Supreme Court blocks Trump rule limiting mail voting, sides with Dem states

By Jacob Fischler

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday kept in place a lower court’s order blocking President Donald Trump’s embattled plan to place new restrictions on mail ballots for this year’s midterm elections.

The unsigned, one-paragraph order upheld a Massachusetts federal court’s injunction on a U.S. Postal Service rule until after Nov. 3 and did not decide whether the rule itself was lawful. But a majority of the court said the Democratic state officials and voting rights groups challenging the rule were likely to succeed.

By Christine Zhu

North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson is asking the state Utilities Commission to make a new rate class for Duke Energy’s data center customers, his office said on Monday.

Jackson argued the separate class would prevent data centers from shifting energy costs to residential consumers.

By Lynn Bonner

Some North Carolina employees and teachers insured through the State Health Plan and seeking care at certain Atrium Health hospitals and clinics won’t see big jumps in their out-of-pocket costs after all. 

State Treasurer Brad Briner announced Monday that a dozen Atrium hospitals will be in a benefits tier that will keep their out-of-pocket expenses next year about the same as they are this year. Costs won’t change for members who see Atrium primary care doctors. 

By Rob Schofield

There are many reasons that a heck of a lot of people in 21^st Century North Carolina – a modern, wealthy, high-tech society of more than 11 million – regularly face a harsh reality usually associated with impoverished third world nations: hunger and malnutrition.

Topping the list: poverty. More than 12% of North Carolinians live below the absurdly low official poverty line. When one looks at what it really takes to get by, the number of folks in need is vastly higher.

How grassroots opposition to a new asphalt plant was infiltrated by an outside operative |

Lisa Sorg

How the US House could overturn the midterm election results |Jennifer Shutt

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