This has certainly been a hard week of work for those charged with keeping roads clear and travel safer during the recent spell of bad weather. Given the predictions of another jolt of winter for this coming weekend, it doesn’t look like there will be much rest.

Along with the other key public-safety functions, keeping roads clear and passable, especially major thoroughfares, is a prime mission for local government and the local operations of the state Department of Transportation. More »

Thanks to all the restaurants, clubs, musicians and merchants who have rallied to do what they can to help the people of Haiti.

The events and the outpouring of donations have shown the true heart of our community. Last week, Mediterranean Deli pledged a full day’s receipts and was packed from open to close. Hearts for Haiti are dotting the interior of the Orange County Social Club. Cat’s Cradle and Local 506 are hosting another round of benefits this week.In addition to raising funds, these efforts serve as reminders that even though the disaster has moved off the front page the need for assistance has not waned.

Chris Fitzsimon

It has been hard to miss the headlines in your local paper about your city slashing the budget or your county commissioners scrambling to find cuts to respond to last year’s revenue shortfall or to compensate for the cuts the state has imposed. More »

Beth Mechum
Staff Writer

Cheryl Means was tired of the merry-go-round of doctors she and her unborn child met with each month.

To her mind, it was a good idea gone wrong.

“Every visit that you have every month, you see a different doctor, and the idea is that when you give birth there will be a friendly face there waiting for you at the end.”
Means was drained from explaining the same things to different doctors. More »

El Centro Hispano of Durham plans to open a Carrboro branch to fill the gap left by the closing of El Centro Latino in Orange County. A public meeting to talk about the collaboration and meeting the needs of the Latino community in Orange County will be held Feb. 16 at 7 p.m. in the auditorium of the Seymour Senior Center at 2551 Homestead Road in Chapel Hill.

African-American comic book heroes will be the topic of a free public lecture Feb. 22 at Wilson Library at UNC.

Randall Kenan, associate professor of English, will present “It’s Clobbering Time! Comic Books and Creating the Idea of Black Masculinity” at 5:45 p.m. in the Pleasants Family Assembly Room. A reception at 5 p.m. in the Melba Remig Saltarelli Gallery will allow visitors to view the Rare Book Collection exhibit “Popular Culture in Print,” to be up Feb. 22 through May 31.

Frank Heath

Heels halt skid, tame the ’pack

The UNC men’s basketball Tar Heels received big-time contributions from nearly everyone who saw court time on Tuesday night at the RBC Center, bringing home a 77-63 victory over the N.C. State Wolfpack, and breaking a three-game losing streak.
It was midway through the second half, though, before the Heels took off. More »

The UNC women’s gymnastics team will hold its annual Blue & Pink meet on Feb. 14 at newly renovated Carmichael Auditorium. The Tar Heels will take on the University of Maryland in a special meet that includes a cancer-awareness health fair benefiting the Get REAL & HEEL program.

The cancer-awareness fair will be held in the lobby of Carmichael Auditorium on Feb. 14 from 12:30 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. The fair is free of charge and open to individuals of all ages. The gymnastics meet begins at 2:30 p.m. and also is free of charge.

The Carrboro Recreation and Parks Department will be sponsoring a spring baseball program for ages 6-12, a middle school baseball league for ages 13-14 and a girls’ volleyball program for ages 10-13.

Registration for these programs is underway at the Carrboro Century Center. The fee is $55 for Orange County residents and $92 for non-residents. Registration forms are accepted on a first-come, first-served basis and must be signed by a parent or guardian. For more information, call 918-7364.

• Obituary: Ruth Ray Crabtree
  Feb 4, 2010

• Obituary: Lenora Wagoner Marcouillier
  Feb 4, 2010

• Obituary: Charles Hines
  Feb 4, 2010

• Advanced ‘first-graders’
  Dec 25, 2009

• A walk on the Hollywood side
  Dec 10, 2009

• Recently: Radio station powered by volunteers
  Nov 12, 2009

• Holidays for Quince party
  May 14, 2009

• Music Calendar 10/23/08
  Oct 23, 2008

• Music Calendar 9/11/08
  Sep 11, 2008

Kirk Ross
Staff Writer

With the smokestacks and coal silos of the UNC co-generation plant as a backdrop, climate change researcher James Hansen joined students, university scientists and members of the Sierra Club’s Coal Free Campus campaign on Tuesday to ask the university to end the use of coal at the plant.

José Rial, a professor in the department of geological sciences, said his work in the Arctic compelled him to speak out. A glaciologist, Rial said he has seen new research that shows an even faster sea level rise than previously predicted. More »

A northbound lane of U.S. 15-501/Fordham Boulevard will be closed intermittently for about four months during the construction of a sidewalk on the east side of Fordham Boulevard between Manning Drive and Old Mason Farm Road.

In addition, the outside left turn lane from Manning Drive to Fordham Boulevard will be closed during these times. Traffic will not be altered during UNC home basketball games and other special events. Crews will be working on the project between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m.

The News and Observer Publishing Co. announced the sale of its Franklin Street headquarters for its Chapel Hill News and Durham News newspapers to Scott Maitland. Maitland, owner of Top of the Hill restaurant and brewery plans to turn the former press room into a liquor distillery.

He paid $2.15 million for the 0.8-acre site, which includes about 10,000 square feet of office space and 10,000 square feet of warehouse space. Maitland will lease office space to the N&O for its western Triangle news and advertising staff.

Kirk Ross
Staff Writer

CHAPEL HILL — Town leaders will take a hard look at library funding and the consequences of a proposed expansion of the Chapel Hill Public Library at the Town Council’s retreat this weekend.

After looking at the impact of the project during its regular meeting Monday night at Town Hall, council members said that while they support the project, the long-term costs and their effect on the town budget warrant more conversation. More »

The East Chapel Hill High School theater department will present Crumbs from the Table of Joy this Friday and Saturday at 7:30 p.m.

It’s 1950 in the South and Godfrey Crump has just lost his wife. Finding solace in Father Divine and the Peace Mission Movement, he pulls up stakes and moves his teenage daughters to Brooklyn. Told through the eyes of his 17-year-old daughter, Ernestine, Crumbs from the Table of Joy details a story invoking the boundaries of race, gender and society.

Previously purchased tickets will be honored. Tickets are $5 at the door, with sales starting at 6:30 pm.

Students participating in Chapel Hill High School’s Tobacco Reality Unfiltered (TRU) Crew presented the manager of Armadillo Grill in Carrboro with a certificate of appreciation for the restaurant’s compliance with the new smoke-free law. The TRU Crew at Chapel Hill High School recently earned the distinction of being the most active TRU group in Orange County during the fall 2009 semester.

The documentary High Five: Achieving the Dream premiered on UNC-TV on Monday, Feb. 1. The original special profiles the professional learning community initiative and examines how the Triangle High Five Regional Partnership works to improve public education in Triangle-area schools.

The High Five Regional Partnership was formed in April 2004 as a union of five school districts and five business partners. The school districts are the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools, the Orange County Schools, the Durham Public Schools, the Johnston County Schools and the Wake County Public Schools. The five business partners are the News and Observer Publishing Company, Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina, SAS, Progress Energy and Capitol Broadcasting.

The five-year partnership agreement formally ended in June 2009. The five school districts continue their collaboration to reach the organization’s 2013 goal of eliminating high school dropouts in our area.

Beth Mechum
Staff Writer

Cheryl Means was tired of the merry-go-round of doctors she and her unborn child met with each month.

To her mind, it was a good idea gone wrong.

“Every visit that you have every month, you see a different doctor, and the idea is that when you give birth there will be a friendly face there waiting for you at the end.”
Means was drained from explaining the same things to different doctors. More »

RECENTLY . . .
By Valarie Schwartz

Pauli Murray didn’t spend much time in Orange County. She visited the plantation house on Smith Level Road named after her kin who had been among the largest land- and slave owners in the county; and I expect she visited the family home in Hillsborough, the site of the rapes of her great-grandmother, a slave bought for the Smith daughter.

Murray recounts the story in her third book, Proud Shoes: The Story of an American Family, published in 1956, More »

Young at a refugee camp near Khe Sanh, 1968.

Old men lust after war; young men court it. It’s the same impulse born of opposite origins – that of those who needn’t fear having to actually encounter war and those who wish to. In that nexus lies what Perry Deane Young refers to as the “peculiar obscenity” of war.

That may be putting too fine a point on it. But it does seem to be what Young suggests when he talks about war. More »