By Katie Reeder • SMN Intern 

Young drivers in North Carolina may no longer be required to take driver education to get their learner’s permit if a Senate subcommittee’s modifications to House Bill 97 are passed by the General Assembly.

In Cherokee, alcohol could soon be available in more places than just Harrah’s Cherokee Casino following Gov. Pat McCrory’s signature on a 12-page alcohol omnibus bill. 

In an unexpected turn of events, the North Carolina General Assembly passed legislation last Thursday that will allow people to cast a ballot in 2016 even if they don’t have an acceptable form of identification. 

By Katie Reeder • SMN Intern 

It may be too late to change North Carolina’s new voting laws, but it’s not too late to have a say in how those laws are going to be implemented.

SEE ALSO:
• Be prepared at the polls
• WCU students react to NC voting law changes

Even though members of local NAACP chapters are not happy with North Carolina’s new voting laws pushed through by a Republican-led General Assembly in 2013, they now want to focus on how those laws may be implemented.

The days of simply walking into a polling place and casting a ballot are over.

If traffic seemed a bit slow through downtown Sylva on Friday (May 22), it probably had something to do with Gov. Pat McCrory’s afternoon stroll along Main Street that day.

Of all the constructions on Western Carolina University’s campus, the distinctly non-glamorous Natural Sciences Building might have seemed like an odd place to host a visit from Gov. Pat McCrory. In the classroom where McCrory sat with a panel of university representatives and state administrators, a tile hung loosely from the ceiling and the hum of the HVAC system reverberated through the concrete walls, which weren’t quite expansive enough to comfortably contain the assembly of officials and media representatives gathered there.

What the bill says: The method of doling out sales tax to towns and counties would be changed to give more to rural counties and less to towns and cities than under the current formula.

Hunting on Sundays

What the bill says: The Sunday hunting ban would be lifted on private land. (House bill 640)

Lake Junaluska annexation

What the bill says: Lake Junaluska would become part of the town of Waynesville pending approval by voters of both Lake Junaluska and the town.