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NC Infrastructure Gets C-Minus; Crime Hearing Moves Forward

Carolina Journal Radio / Nick Craig
The Truth Network Radio
February 4, 2026 6:12 am

NC Infrastructure Gets C-Minus; Crime Hearing Moves Forward

Carolina Journal Radio / Nick Craig

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February 4, 2026 6:12 am

North Carolina received a C-minus grade for infrastructure in a report from the American Society of Civil Engineers, citing strain on key portions of infrastructure due to population growth. The state board of elections is working to correct voter registration issues, with over 100,000 voters needing to provide required information. Meanwhile, lawmakers are set to hold a hearing on crime and public safety issues in Charlotte, with a federal judge indicating that the hearing can proceed without additional limits.

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Book in minutes at vaccassist.com. Sponsored by Pfizer. It's 5.05 and welcome in to a Wednesday edition of the Carolina Journal News Hour on Charlotte's FM News Talk 107.9 FM WBT. I'm Nick Craig. Good morning to you.

We start off with some concerning information out of a new report from the American Society of Engineers. Their report grades states across the country for their infrastructure. And in this report, North Carolina received an overall grade of a C- for infrastructure in their 2026 report card for North Carolina. The report itself evaluates seven major infrastructure categories, which include drinking water, wastewater, dams, bridges, aviation, stormwater, and road infrastructures. North Carolina has shown improvement in several of the Areas as engineers reported that systems are aging, new population growth, as well as weather conditions all present significant challenges to overall infrastructure across the state.

Drinking water received the highest grade of a C plus, while dams and wastewater were graded at the lowest at a D plus. The additional categories of bridges, aviation, stormwater, and roads all earned a C minus. The report from the American Society of Civil Engineers attributes the grading to North Carolina's rapid population growth, which is driving the demand of infrastructure. Additionally, the increased use on the systems is placing pressure on structures that were designed many decades ago for significantly smaller populations. Chas Webb, who is the co-chair of the 2026 report, said North Carolina's population is surging because of the business opportunities our state presents and the beautiful landscapes we enjoy.

That growth will only remain possible if our built environment can adequately serve residents and businesses. Even though North Carolina received an overall C-min grade, the state outperformed the national averages in several different categories when referencing the 2025 report card for America's infrastructure, which looked at a whole bunch of different factors across the nation. Nationwide, aviation, roads, dams, stormwater, and wastewater all received D grades. Again, that is an average across the nation. North Carolina's road conditions remain stronger, somehow surprisingly, than the national average, with only one point five percent of noninterstate lane miles considered to be in poor condition compared to thirty seven percent nationwide.

Bridge infrastructure has also improved over the past decade. In 2015, over 22% of bridges in the state were rated in poor condition, and some good work has been done there. That number has dropped all the way down to just 8%.

So that is a major decline from 22 to 8% in the span of about 10 years. This is largely due to increased investments by the North Carolina Department of Transportation. Federal funding also has played a significant role in the report as well, as North Carolina has received more than $7 billion within the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021, which was the largest federal infrastructure funding in U.S. history under the Biden administration. These funds have contributed to transportation, water services and various statewide projects.

Liabilities do remain what water system do remain with water systems aging, which is raising the costs as utilities address contaminants like PFAS. Wastewater systems were required, billions of dollars worth of upgrades, and extreme weather adds to weakening infrastructure systems. Of course, looking out west, Hurricane Helene damaged over 400 roads and areas of Interstate 40 back in 2024. It also completely ripped out the wastewater and drinking water systems in many areas across the western North Carolina. Really, I mean, you had certain areas, the infrastructure, the grid, all of that was completely mangled as this remains one of the many challenges presented in North Carolina's geography, including both the mountains and the beaches.

Recent weather has led to further infrastructure complications. As we mentioned, Hurricane Helene caused widespread damage across western North Carolina back in September of 24, which has added to the growing cost of infrastructure. Not only physical damage, but road closures, service interruptions. Were affected, but emergency response, commerce, and travel across multiple counties in western North Carolina. Engineers noted that without increased weather planning, future weather disasters could create further negative economic impacts.

And we are still in many areas in western North Carolina, still trying to put the pieces back together as we're now more than a year and a half past the effects of Hurricane Helene with the severe economic impact and infrastructure impact in the western half of the state. The report done by the American Association of Civil Engineers is addressing the need for long-term investing, improved planning for weather, essential safety programs, and the greater use of resources to maintain infrastructure as population continues to grow. You can read a full copy of the 2026 report card for North Carolina from the American Society of Civil Engineers. We've got the link to that report over on our website this morning, CarolinaJournal.com. Look for the headline: North Carolina Infrastructure Earns C- in latest civil engineering poll.

In some other statewide news this morning, nearly a quarter million registered voters in North Carolina will be asked to verify their identity to ensure the accuracy of current voter rolls. This is according to a press release on Tuesday, February the 3rd, from the North Carolina State Board of Elections. The state board is sending letters to more than 241,000 voters who provided identification information that did not validate against other government databases. Voters may confirm their information by providing their driver's license, social security number, or by ensuring their name on their voter registration matches their official government records. The letter noted that the mismatch could be due to a simple error, such as differences in how a name is spelled in each record, such as adding or omitting hyphens, apostrophes, or spaces, as well as individuals with the prior use of a legal name, such as a Maiden name in one of the records, which of course is a common thing when folks get married.

The mismatch may also be caused by a date of birth error, driver's license number, or social security number listing in the wrong field or transposing the numbers incorrectly into the online record system if it is a physical voter registration form, which you can, in fact, still fill out across North Carolina. Voters who fail to respond could be asked if they want to update their information at a voting site during the next election, and it is noted that they will still be eligible to cast a ballot. According to Sam Hayes, who is the executive director of the State Board of Elections, he says this is just another way we are working to have the most accurate voter rolls in North Carolina history. This effort does not affect the eligibility of any of the voters to cast a ballot in our elections. North Carolina election law reinforced by the federal Help America Vote Act or HAVA requires voters to provide either a driver's license number or the last four digits of their Social Security number when registering or attesting that they possess neither.

Election officials have attempted to cross-reference the information against the existing records within the North Carolina Division of Motor Vehicle or the Social Security Administration to make sure that all of those various bits of information and data, spelling, social security numbers, all of that stuff is adding up. Voters may update their information with the State Board of Elections by May. Online or in person, according to the letters, again, that are sent to be sent out. The state board says that these mailings will become routine twice yearly processed in both January and August.

So, this is going to be a new kind of election integrity measure, is probably the most accurate way to put it. That is set to be rolled out twice a year from the North Carolina State Board of Elections. It is important to note that this initiative is separate from the State Board of Elections registration repair project, which was looking at more than 100,000 voters that were either that were missing either their driver's license number or the last four digits of their social security number. We will be joined by Dr. Andy Jackson from the John Locke Foundation coming up here a little bit later on in the program this morning.

We will talk about the registration repair project, the more than 32,000 statewide voters that have gotten their records cleaned up and what it means for you if you are part of that. That list of individuals that do not have that correct information on file. What does that mean for you for the primary, which starts here next week, Thursday, February the 12th, primary day the 3rd of March, or in the general election coming up later on here in 2026? Dr. Andy Jackson from the John Locke Foundation joins us coming up here in a few minutes on the Carolina Journal News Hour.

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I'm Nick Craig. Good morning to you. Many folks across the Charlotte Metro are patiently awaiting a very interesting legislative committee coming up next Monday, February the 9th, as lawmakers and elected officials within the city of Charlotte, including Mecklenburg County Sheriff Gary McFadden, Mayor Vi Lyles, and more are expected to testify in front of a House Oversight Committee in Raleigh over safety and issues and concerns that continue around the Queen City.

However, that hearing has already been delayed twice, in large part due to some interesting things going on in the federal court system with documents and evidence potentially not being available for lawmakers to really grill in on some of the public safety concerns and issues throughout Charlotte. To walk us through the latest out of the federal court system this morning, Mitch Kokai from the John Locke Foundation joins us on the Carolina Journal News Hour. Mitch, you and I chatted last week. You brought us up to date with a letter that lawmakers sent to the federal court system saying, hey, what kind of information are we allowed to talk about in this hearing? We now seemingly have a response from the federal judge.

What are you tracking? Yeah, actually, the response from the federal judge is very short, just a one-paragraph order from U.S. District Judge Kenneth Bell. And he basically says that what the General Assembly spelled out as what it plans to do in this February 9th hearing is consistent with. The earlier protective order that the federal courts had put out in the case of De Carlos Brown, who is the defendant in the killing death of Irina Zarutzka on the Charlotte Light Rail 9 from last August.

To back up a little bit, you mentioned the fact that this hearing that legislators with the House Select Committee on Government Oversight and Reform had planned was looking into Charlotte crime and public safety. It's been delayed a couple of times. The first time didn't really have anything to do with this federal case, but the second time definitely did. The second time, the committee chairs delayed the hearing by 11 days to February 9th. And as they did, they indicated that they were filing some support documents in the federal case saying, Look, we want to know what it is that this court order allows us to talk about and not talk about.

Here's what we plan to talk about, which is anything that's already in the public record. And we would like, if the court has a problem with that, let us know before this hearing. And that was basically where things stood. The plans were for the February 9th hearing to go forward, unless the court came back and said no. And basically, this is the court's response.

The initial order came from the magistrate judge, David Kiesler, but this is a little bit higher up the food chain, U.S. District Judge Kenneth Bell, who in just the course of a paragraph said, I've seen the response. I understand the concerns. I'm going to hold a hearing of my own at some point during the week of February 9th. That's at a time that's convenient to all the parties, so that the legislators can explain their concerns about the order and get those concerns out there in case that needs to be modified.

But in the meantime, the plan that the legislators have spelled out about what they attempt to attempt to do in the February 9th hearing is consistent. With what the protective order for de Carlos Brown Jr. spelled out.

So Judge Bell is not saying, don't do the hearing or else, or you need to make sure you don't say this or say that. He looked at what the legislative committee chairs said they were going to do and said, that's consistent with what the federal courts have said is okay. And so it looks as if there's going to be no roadblock from the federal courts. for this February 9th hearing to move forward. And Mitch, I've asked you about this before, and we've discussed this.

One of the things that makes the brutal murder of Irina Zarutska such an interesting story is there is so much stuff that is out in, for lack of a better term, the public domain. The brutal security footage that was released by Katz about a week or so after the situation took place really lays out the story as cleanly as you need it to be.

Some of the previous run-ins with law enforcement that the Carlos Brown Jr. has had, that has all been fully played out on social media and on cable news and other media publications and outlets. There is a lot of information that we already know about this case. And I would imagine lawmakers are going to use many of the videos and pictures that have been plastered all over social media when they grill some of these lawmakers coming up on Monday. Yeah, I think that's exactly right.

They're going to be talking about what all of us have already seen and what they've seen. What they cannot talk about, according to the court order that came out on January 15th, is contents of the criminal investigative file. And remember, how this came to light in terms of the federal court stepping in was that the legislators had issued a demand letter to the DA in Mecklenburg County saying, turn over information you have about this case, not only the Arina Zarutska stabbing, but also a later stabbing that took place on the Charlotte Light Rail line. And the DA responded saying, I'm going to comply, and I believe that this includes the information from the criminal investigative file. Then to Carlos Brown's lawyers stepped in and said, wait a minute, this could prejudice our case.

And so they went to federal court to try to get this emergency order. They had already gotten a protective Order blocking the Charlotte Mecklerburg Police Department from releasing any 911 audio or body cam footage to a local television station that wanted to get that information. And so the judge who had issued that initial order came back and said, Well, my order already blocks CMPD from releasing certain information, but to the extent there's other information within their investigative file that's not covered by that additional order, it's covered by this new order. And so Basically, what Judge Bell has suggested in his order is that what the legislators have said they plan to do, talking about information that's already in the public record and that's not just limited to the criminal investigative file, that that should be fine. That is consistent with, those are his words, is consistent with what is covered in the federal court order.

And so everything should be fine in terms of the legislator's plans, at least from the federal court's perspective. And, Mitch, let's be honest about this. We are not talking about a hearing that's going to be taking place in a courtroom at the North Carolina General Assembly. These are going to be lawmakers from Raleigh, all across the state, Representative Brendan Jones and others on that select committee on oversight, some of the lawmakers and elected officials within the Charlotte area. There's no legal proceedings that are going to go on here.

I think the questions are probably going to be pretty blunt as it relates to what are you doing to keep citizens within the state's largest city safe. And I don't necessarily know that you need a body camera footage from a CMPD officer after the stabbing already took place for these lawmakers to really build the case that there's major dereliction of duty and failures ongoing within the leadership in Charlotte. Yeah, I don't think they necessarily needed anything that is only right now in the criminal investigative file. My guess is in all respects, from what the legislators are doing and from what the defense team for DeCarlos Brown is doing, they're just covering all bases. If you've ever been involved in a legal action, the first thing that happens is that all sides try to get as much information as they possibly can from the other side.

And sometimes you have to go to court to settle what is going to count, what is not going to count, what could be withheld. And I think the lawmakers in trying to put together this hearing wanted to gather as much information as they possibly can. But when they got the criminal investigative file, DeCarlos Brown's lawyers said, you know, there are some things in there that have not been released. that if they are released, could prejudice the trial. Maybe that's true.

Maybe it's not. We don't know because we don't know really what's in the file that's not already out in the public. But from the standpoint of ensuring that DeCarlos Brown gets a fair trial, both at the state level and in terms of this court order at the federal level, you want to ensure that nothing is released that shouldn't be released at this point. And as you said, Much of what's going to take place in this hearing is based on what people already know who've been following this case very closely. The video that came out from Katz, the information that's come out about DeCarlos Brown's previous court record, all of that is already in the public domain.

I think legislators just wanted to be sure that they would not run afoul of the federal court by talking about stuff that people already know and have already been discussing in the public domain. It is definitely going to be an interesting committee hearing in Raleigh coming up on Monday. We'll have complete and total coverage of that over on our website, CarolinaJournal.com. We appreciate this update this morning. Mitch Kokai from the John Locke Foundation joins us on the Carolina Journal News Hour.

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It's 5:37. Welcome back to the Carolina Journal News Hour, Charlotte's FM News Talk 107.9. WBT, I'm Nick Craig. Good Wednesday morning to you. Last summer, we talked about the registration repair project here on the Carolina Journal News Hour.

It was being conducted by the North Carolina State Board of Elections, and it dealt with more than 103,000 voters across the state that had issues with their voter registration. It prompted a lawsuit from the Federal Department of Justice. There's been a lot of moving parts on that.

However, this morning, we do have some good news as more and more voters do get their registration repaired across the state of North Carolina. To walk us through some of the latest details on that this morning, it's my pleasure to welcome Dr. Andy Jackson from the John Locke Foundation. Andy, before we get into this most recent bit of information from the state board, can you walk our audience through what the registration repair project is? Why were these 103,000 voters dealing with this, and exactly this process that's been playing out now since the summer of last year?

Well, this project is to fix a long-standing issue with North Carolina voter rolls. The Help America Vote Act as a federal law requires that every voter registration have either a driver's license number or the last four of your social security number associated with that. Because of a failure in the process, namely how the state board of election treated that information, it basically made voters think that information was optional. And because of that, about 100,000 people did not have that information, which is required by law, on their registrations. And this prompted a lawsuit even going back before the Justice Department lawsuit.

Jefferson Griffin, who was a candidate for Supreme Court, sued about this. His lawsuit was eventually rejected by the North Carolina Supreme Court, not on the merits of his argument that these are required, but that he did it kind of post-fact after the election.

So it was A timing thing.

So, the state board, even before this settlement with the Justice Department, State Board of Elections were on notice that if somebody was going to sue them again on this issue, they were going to lose.

So, this was a long-term project going on. And so, now they have emailed, they have mailed, they have otherwise contacted voters on this list, and they got several tens of thousands that way. Others, they've gotten through the municipal election process, because if you come in, you're on the list, they'll ask you for some of that information. And we're expecting a lot more people to get their registrations fixed through the primaries and then on through the general election. Andy, I want to make sure our audience is understanding what you're saying here.

This federal Have a Help America Vote Act went back into federal law back in the early 2000s. I think it was 2002 or something like that. This is not new. This is nothing that the current administration did or even the previous administration did. This has been on the federal books now for quite some time.

Is it accurate to say that North Carolina was just blatantly ignoring that due to some of the ambiguity on the voter registration form? Yes, I mean, this was an ongoing problem. And there were a series of citizen complaints to the State Board of Elections by one activist, Carol Snow, I think, out of Surrey County, and some others. But especially her action, this is an example of one person's action really moving the ball on these things. She had complained about this.

Then the State Board of Elections said, okay, we'll fix the form, but we're not going to go back and correct the registration problems with these 100,000 or so registrations. And that led to all these other problems that we've had, and eventually that settlement.

So, yeah, this is an ongoing issue, something that's been a problem since at least the early 2010s, as far as this problem with the voter registration form. And now we're finally getting it corrected about 10, 15 years later. Andy, for those that follow state politics, they are well aware that there was some pretty major shakeup at the North Carolina State Board of Elections last year. That also trickled down to all 100 county board of elections. Those boards were previously run and appointed in large part by the governor of the state, who has now been a Democrat for quite some time.

It is now the state auditor Dave Bullock making those appointments.

So there's a power shift there as well. All of this happening while there's a DOJ lawsuit going on, the citizens' complaints continue to roll in. A lot of moving parts up at the state board. There was, although the agreement to fix this problem was unanimous because they already knew they had a problem. I mean, the Democrats knew that they had a problem.

Republicans coming in knew that they had a problem. They knew that they had to fix this problem because of the Jefferson-Griffin lawsuit, once again, was kind of a shot across the bow about what would happen if they got sued again.

So they knew this was going to be an issue. And so certainly having Republicans in charge probably put a little more emphasis, a little more urgency in trying to address and fix this problem. But I think this is something that the board was going to be compelled to do no matter who was in charge. Andy, over this process, as you mentioned, there's been letters that have gone out. There's been a pretty significant amount of news coverage of this.

So maybe folks reading over at CarolinaJournal.com or other publications across the state may have read about this. There's been links to the database where you can go and type in your name and see if you are on this list. As you mentioned, if you voted in the municipal election, you may have noticed a problem with this. They've done a pretty good job at getting this information out. And fortunately, tens of thousands of voters, as you've noted, have gotten gone through this process, provided this additional information, and everything seems to be churning along pretty well from my vantage point.

It is.

Now, you know, there's still more than twice as many people who haven't had their registrations corrected.

Now, there's going to be some on this list that are never going to get it corrected because there are people that are already moved out of the state. We have a lot of people on the rolls that we don't know about that they are no longer eligible to vote in North Carolina until years later.

So there's a certain percentage of the remaining roughly 70,000 people that are never going to have those corrections. That's not an issue with the process. That's just the way it is with voter rolls. And I really am expecting that when we get into the primaries, those folks are on the list with the municipal elections, election officials at the precinct level and the early voting sites. They're now used to flagging those folks, asking them for that information.

And it just so happens the number one form of information that they're going to be getting is a driver's license because we have voter ID in North Carolina.

So it's a really kind of a two-for-one deal. If you bring your driver's license or your state ID, you're going to be able to get that information in that way. And I think it's going to be, we're going to see tens of thousands maybe in the primary and another tens of thousands in the general. And at that point, there's going to be a handful who will have to vote provisionally because they don't. For whatever reason, they're not going to provide either of those.

I think in the municipal elections, there's only something like 17 people who eventually didn't have that provisional ballot counted.

So I think the vast majority of people are going to be able to get through this process and they're going to be able to have their votes counted. Andy, as I understand it, and you're mentioning some of the voting provisional. Can you walk us through the process? There's likely to be somebody in our audience that is listening today that might show up and vote, as you mentioned, either during the primary coming up here in early March or the general election in November of this year. What kind of process can they expect if their name happens to be on this list of the original more than 103,000 people that were lacking some of this information?

Well, it's going to be a pretty straightforward process. Whenever you go in to vote, you check in. And when you check in, you're going to if you're on that list, they'll ask you for that information. They'll provide you a provisional ballot. And if you're not used to it, a provisional ballot is basically a ballot, but it's one that they set aside until they can confirm the information that you provided.

And then within three days after election day, they will certify that and they'll say, okay, all the information checks out. We'll count the ballot. And in a handful of cases, if the correct information is not provided or they don't provide any of that information, which is required by law, then they won't be counted. But if you're a voter from your end of the ballot, as it were, you're not really going to notice much of a difference, except they're just going to call it a provisional ballot.

Now, if you want to, you can check the status of your provisional ballot with the county board of elections to make sure that it is counted. You know, for most of us, you can really be confident that that ballot is going to be counted because the vast majority of them in that category of provisional ballots have been. Andy, you mentioned earlier that this was a unanimous decision by the State Board of Elections, which currently has three Republicans and two Democrats, to move forward with this voter registration project. But I will bring up the fact that this has unfortunately turned into another political issue. If you spend time on certain social media platforms reading certain accounts, you will see discussions about Andy how this is voter suppression taking place.

People are being denied their constitutional right and access to vote. I know you've seen some of these arguments online. How do you respond to that?

Well I mean, it's hard to respond just because if you look at the evidence of what's happened on the ground with those municipal elections, it, you know, that doesn't bear up to scrutiny. And we had Mark Elias, he's a Democratic attorney. He just sued about this, and that lawsuit was dismissed where he was trying to stop this process. But the federal judge in that case struck down his attempt to sue that because he recognized that this process is laid out clearly. There's really It's hard to say how this is disenfranchising anybody because anybody who's a legal voter who provides the legally required information is going to have their vote counted.

And that's the reason that lawsuit was dismissed. And I'm expecting, you know, maybe we'll have another lawsuit before the general election, but I'm expecting if it happens, that'll get dismissed as well because there is a process in place, and it is a process that protects people's rights to vote while making sure that only people who are legal voters are able to vote through that ID process. And as you mentioned, we will likely see maybe this number, hopefully see this number drop significantly through the primary. We'll, of course, keep an eye on these most recent press releases and information coming from the North Carolina State Board of Elections. You can read some additional coverage of this this morning over on our website, CarolinaJournal.com.

We appreciate the information and the update this morning. Dr. Andy Jackson from the John Locke Foundation joins us on the Carolina Journal News Hour. You're still grooving, still connecting, still loving, still turning up, still thriving. You still got it.

But your immune system, it weakens as you age. That's where vaccines come in. They help train and strengthen your immune response to fight off respiratory illnesses like flu, pneumococcal pneumonia, RSV, or COVID-19. Ask your doctor or pharmacist which vaccines you need. Book in minutes at vaxassist.com.

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The event brings together policymakers, scholars, community leaders, and citizens from across the state of North Carolina to explore the challenges and opportunities of advancing freedom in today's political and cultural climate. The 2026 Carolina Liberty Conference is happening February the 27th and 28th at the Starview Hotel in Raleigh. This year, like many other organizations, we will be celebrating the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution. We've got a great group of guest speakers: Lord Daniel Hannon, Chief Justice Paul Newby. He's the head of the North Carolina Supreme Court, State Auditor Dave Bullock, and more.

All of that is taking place at the 2026 Carolina Liberty Conference. Register today at johnlocke.org. That's j-o-h-n-l-o-c-k-e.org. And a Purchase your tickets for the 2026 Carolina Liberty Conference, February the 27th and 28th in Raleigh. It's 5:54.

Welcome back to the Carolina Journal News Hour, Charlotte's FM News Talk 107.9 FMWBT. All eyes are going to be on the North Carolina General Assembly as we head into Monday of next week, as a federal judge indicated that he will not seek additional limits on the state legislature's February 9th hearing on crime and public safety issues within the city of Charlotte. U.S. District Judge Kenneth Bell issued the one-paragraph order on Tuesday indicating that lawmakers' plan for the hearing is consistent with a federal magistrate judge's January the 15th protective order in the case titled United States v. DeCarlos Brown Jr.

That name uh should be very familiar to you as Brown faces a state-level murder charge and a federal charge in connection with last August's stabbing death of 23-year-old Irina Zarutska. Chairs of the House Select Committee on Oversight and Reform filed a document back on January the 27th in the federal court system as they were seeking some level of clarification about the protective order and its impacts on their ability to discuss Arena Zarutska and Brown in the public meeting. They indicated that they believed that the order was invalid and unconstitutional when applied to them, yet they intended to voluntarily abide by the terms of the preliminary protective order while moving forward with the hearing.

However, due to this one paragraph order from U.S. District Judge Kenneth Bell yesterday, and that hearing is now, it was already going to happen, but it is now a full steam ahead for that. It is coming up Monday, February the 9th. We will have complete and total coverage of that over on our website, CarolinaJournal.com, and we'll bring you the latest coming up one week from now, or a little less than a week from now. Tuesday morning, right here on the Carolina Journal NewsHour.

In some other statewide news this morning, we've got an interesting report from the American Society of Civil Engineers. The 2026 report card for North Carolina gives the state overall a C-minus grade for infrastructure. It evaluated seven major infrastructure categories, including things like drinking water, wastewater, dams, bridges, aviation, stormwater, and roads. And while North Carolina has shown improvement in some areas, exploding and booming population across the state continues to put a major strain on key portions of infrastructure. You can read the full coverage of that report from the American Society of Civil Engineers and see where we stack up to other states across the nation as well.

Those details on our website, CarolinaJournal.com with the story headline: NC Infrastructure earned C minus. in latest civil engineering poll. That's going to do it for a Wednesday edition of the Carolina Journal News Hour. WBT News is next. Followed by Good Morning BT.

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