Articles by Amy Eagleburger, Senior Writer

Impact of local currency mixed

When the NCPlenty, a local currency used in Chapel Hill, Carrboro and Pittsboro, started up six years ago it was hailed as an innovative way to support the local economy - but the results have been a decidedly mixed bag.

Weaver Street Market was one of the first businesses to accept full payment for goods in the alternative currency. The currency flooded in, but the store found that it had few ways to use the currency itself. Once dollars are traded in for Plentys, they can't be changed back into dollars.

Colleges make plans for budget crunches

Economic concerns have forced cutbacks in higher education funding nationwide.

In 2009, 22 states are expected to face budget shortfalls totaling at least $39 billion, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Those deficits have led states such as Florida and Kentucky to decrease higher education investment.

"Whenever we've had recession before, there have been budget cuts to higher education," UNC economics professor Stanley Black said.

Shirin Ebadi, the first Muslim woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize, gave her keynote speech at Duke University on Friday in her native Persian.

The Persian-speaking audience first erupted in cheers at her pronouncement, followed by the English-speaking audience once her words were translated:

"We love Iran, and we will not permit Iran to become another Iraq."

Throughout her speech Ebadi forcefully addressed the need for human rights to be the backbone of every democracy and spoke of the state of human rights in her country, Iran.

Edwards' UNC groups still fighting poverty

Three years ago, John Edwards came to UNC as a professor and an advocate for those he termed "the working poor."

He started a nationwide student organization and a center to focus on the many faces of poverty; then he left to run for president of the United States.

"He has a standing invitation for him to come back anytime, but there hasn't been any communication," said Heather Hunt, assistant director of the UNC Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity, which Edwards helped to found.

Groups question UNC's defense department ties

The newly formed UNC Coalition Against the War and Students for a Democratic Society have launched an investigation into UNC's ties with the Department of Defense.

Clint Johnson, a junior political science major and a member of both groups, said the funding makes the UNC community complicit with the bloodshed in Iraq.

"It should make us angry, and it should move us to do something," he said, adding that the coalition plans to research such links and to mobilize in the fall.

In early January, most of North Carolina's 19 superdelegates were ready to back former N.C. Sen. John Edwards for the Democratic nomination for president.

Now with Edwards out and a close Democratic race, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are trying to convert as many superdelegates as they can to their side of the contest.

Superdelegates are Democratic congressmen, governors, former presidents and vice presidents and other party leaders who are automatically granted an individual vote at the Democratic National Convention.

The N.C. Community College System decided this month to require all system schools to admit illegal immigrants, altering a 2004 decision to leave that admissions decision up to the individual colleges.

The rights of illegal immigrants have become a hot topic in North Carolina, which has one of the highest illegal immigrant populations in the country.

Chancy Kapp, assistant to the president for external affairs for the NCCCS, said system attorney David Sullivan conducted a study that prompted the decision.

Duke justice center set to open in 2008

The Duke University lacrosse case, at first widely perceived as a microcosm of national racial-economic divides, is now held up by many as an example of a legal system run amok.

The case of the three Duke athletes wrongfully accused of raping an exotic dancer at a house party in Durham has led to a great deal of introspection on the university's campus; President Richard Brodhead formed a council on campus race relations, the former lacrosse coach published a memoir, and financial settlements were paid to each of the accused athletes.

State plan may be altered

N.C. representatives and Gov. Mike Easley are fighting to ensure that a Bush administration proposal doesn't threaten expansion of the state's health-insurance program for children.

If federal consensus is not reached by Sept. 30, funding for the State Children's Health Insurance Program will be put on hold.

North Carolina was forced to freeze its version of SCHIP - N.C. Health Choice - from January 2001 to October 2001 when federal funding wasn't continued.

Hunt to speak at campus rally

After serving nearly 20 years for a crime he did not commit, Darryl Hunt, exonerated in 2004, has now become a key advocate for a death penalty moratorium in North Carolina.

Today he will share his story with UNC students at an anti-death penalty rally. Hunt last spoke at the University in 2004, and a documentary about his ordeal was aired on campus last October.

The rally is sponsored by the Newman Catholic Student Center Parish, N.C. State University Catholic Campus Ministry and the criminal justice action and awareness committee of the Campus Y.

Articles by Amy Eagleburger, Senior Writer

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