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North Carolina Open Thread [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2025-08-31

Welcome. This is a regular feature of North Carolina Blue . The platform gives readers interested in North Carolina politics a place to share their knowledge, insight and inspiration as we take back our state from some of the most extreme Republicans in the nation.

Please stop by each week. You can also join the discussion in four other weekly State Open Threads . If you are interested in starting your own state blog, weekly to occasionally, I will list your work below.

Colorado: Mondays, 7:00 PM Mountain

Michigan: Wednesdays, 6:00 PM Eastern

North Carolina: Sundays

Missouri: Wednesday Evenings

Kansas: Monday Evenings

Please jump the fold for more. I hope you find these stories useful.

How the state is luring visitors back to the western mountains with consumer surveys, evolving ad campaigns and online influencers.

Earlier this year, Wit Tuttell and his colleagues at North Carolina’s Visit NC tourism office were carefully watching a key metric in their monthly surveys: how many tourists weren’t coming to the mountains because they thought they weren’t accessible.

North Carolina had for months been blasting out marketing under a campaign designed to bring business back to the area after Hurricane Helene. “The best way for us to get back is for you to come back,” ads pleaded to potential visitors.

Finally, a survey showed less than 10% of people sharing that sentiment — a key watermark. Visit NC pivoted and launched a new campaign: “Rediscover the Unforgettable.”

“We want people to remember what a great experience going to the North Carolina mountains was,” Tuttell told NC Newsline in an interview. “We want them to feel like they can rediscover that. Now is the time they can go back out there.”

In the first full year since the deadliest storm in North Carolina history, tourism has been overall “sluggish,” Tuttell said. He estimated that to date, 2025 spending was “about on par” or “down anywhere from 1-3%” from 2024. <More>

North Carolina was one of more than two dozen states that argued earlier this month that the federal government was “secretly” withholding millions of dollars in AmeriCorps funding, representing a second round of cuts to the national service program since April.

Now, federal officials say that funding — totaling nearly $185 million — is heading out to the states after all. In North Carolina that means money for jobs and grants supporting recovery from Hurricane Helene last September.

“The federal government knew that it would lose against us in court because it had no right to cut funds for AmeriCorps that Congress had already authorized,” N.C. Attorney General Jeff Jackson said in a statement Friday. “This money belongs to North Carolina and is crucial for western North Carolina’s recovery. I’m deeply grateful for the AmeriCorps members on the ground who can keep helping our communities rebuild after Helene.”

AmeriCorps officials said in a filing Thursday in the U.S. District Court for Maryland, that the $185 million represents the remainder of the funding appropriated by Congress for AmeriCorps in the current fiscal year. AmeriCorps pledged to apportion the funds by Sept. 30, the end of the federal fiscal 2025. <More>

Click title for a list of NC protests

Billionaire greed and government corruption are focal points of Labor Day weekend rallies scheduled across North Carolina.

Workers Over Billionaires will be staged in Franklin and Pittsboro on Friday evening. Twenty-two more locations are lined up on Monday.

Organizers say local labor unions, community organizations, immigrants, educators and working families will gather in what is part of the more than 1,000 events across the country.

On its website, May Day Strong pushes protection of Medicaid and Social Security; “fully funded schools, and health care and housing for all”; to “stop attacks on immigrants, Black, indigenous, trans people, and all our communities”; and “invest in people not wars.” The group’s name draws from International Workers Day, and support is through some unions and political organizations.

A release says in part, “The May Day Strong Coalition is organizing over 1,000 events nationwide to reject the billionaire takeover of government and stand up for working people. This year, it’s more than just traditional barbecues – it's a fight for democracy, fully funded schools, health care for all, and to defend against attacks on workers’ rights, immigrant families, and Black and brown communities.”

<More>

Thanks for stopping by, wishing all a strong week!

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