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NC Cities Weigh Curfews; Crime Declines; Feds Counter Comey

Carolina Journal Radio / Nick Craig
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August 21, 2026 6:35 am

NC Cities Weigh Curfews; Crime Declines; Feds Counter Comey

Carolina Journal Radio / Nick Craig

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August 21, 2026 6:35 am

North Carolina cities are reconsidering youth curfews following a summer marked by several large teen takeovers and concerns about public safety, with Andrew Pomeranz of Carolina Journal examining how local officials are responding. Meanwhile, a new report finds crime is generally declining in Raleigh and Charlotte, reflecting a broader drop in crime nationwide. Mitch Kokai of the John Locke Foundation joins the program to discuss more than 100 pages of new federal court filings pushing back against former FBI Director James Comey’s arguments in his North Carolina case. Plus, AmeriCorps has awarded $13.2 million to support volunteer and service programs across North Carolina.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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It's 505 and welcome in to a Friday 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. As we get close to rounding out these summer months here across North Carolina, we've been tracking an interesting trend that's not only brewing here in North Carolina, but across the nation. The idea of a teen takeover where teenagers, typically corresponding on social media apps, all decide to descend on a major population center at a given point in time.

It puts a major strain on law enforcement. We've seen shootings and violence taking place out of these events. It's an interesting problem for local elected officials to deal with across North Carolina. But walks through the latest this morning. Andrew Pomerance, CarolinaJournal.com, joins us on the news hour.

Andrew, we typically see this around holidays, July the 4th, Memorial Day, things of that nature, where these events take place. There's been big ones in Raleigh and in Charlotte. What's the latest that you're tracking from municipal governments as they try and handle an influx of literally thousands of teenagers descending on a relatively small area? Yeah, hey Nick, good morning. Happy Friday.

Like you mentioned, this is something that we've seen go back to that July 4th weekend where it kind of exploded in Raleigh, right? We've been seeing this trend across the country as cities all the way from Chicago to Miami deal with this challenge of having these teens show up in public places that aren't necessarily meant for them to be there, right? And so July 4th weekend here in Raleigh, we had about 8,000 teens who descended on two locations throughout the night, leading to over 30 people being arrested, including a number of individuals under the age of 18. And so, you know, if you ask bar owners, bar workers who were in that area of Raleigh on Glenwood South that night on July 4th, they will tell you that there were 13 and 14-year-olds running around with firearms. And so, a serious issue that city council that following week in an emergency city council meeting said, you know, we're going to take swift action on, and something that has been talked about again and again are these teen curfews, right?

And so, already in Charlotte, there's a more limited version of teen curfew in place. They are looking at really dialing that back in. But in Raleigh, where no teen curfew currently exists, they began to talk about a process of how to implement one at the backing of Raleigh Police Chief Rico Boyce. He said, you know, those teens were unruly, undisciplined, unsupervised, something he had never seen before. And so, looking for additional ways for his police officers to better respond, they started this process of talking about implementing a curfew and other areas across the state, too, as well.

You know, Greensboro has looked at a teen curfew. Like I said, Charlotte looked at tightening theirs. But as we've drifted away from these initial events happening and gaining a lot of that media attention, we started to see these local officials back off their original stances of being super pro these curfews or additional regulations around where teens can be, what times of nights, can they carry backpacks and things like that? We've seen city councils both in Raleigh, both in Richmond, or both in Charlotte, I apologize, and Greensboro begin to slip on some of these regulations and start to question whether they are actually necessary. Yeah, and obviously, you know, some of this is going to deal with the time of the year, Andrew.

Many of these individuals in their late teens are normally in school, obviously, in the middle of the summer. They are not, which makes the likelihood of some of these events a little bit more probable as many of North Carolina's traditional schools begin over the next couple of weeks here.

So some of that, the problem in some cases will probably solve itself, but it doesn't deal with the overall problem here of eight, nine, 10,000 teenagers. Let's make sure we make this abundantly clear for our audience. It's not like they're just showing up for an event and everybody's minding their own business. People are showing up. Fights are breaking out.

Fireworks are being shot. Guns are being shot at individuals. This is, for all intents and purposes, anarchy in the streets. You don't, it's not a large concert or an event that's planned.

So as I understand it, Andrew, there's no idea that there's extra law enforcement in this area. It's just a random group of 8,000 to 10,000 teenagers in the span of just a couple of hours. Yeah, and law enforcement has talked about their efforts to get ahead of these events by tracking social media posts, alerting parents to events that may be going on in areas near them so that they have a better watch of their teens. The issue, you know, in that Raleigh weekend where nine people were shot, you mentioned gunfire, 60% of those teens were actually from outside the Raleigh area.

So you had thousands of teenagers come to Raleigh that night from areas, you know, from great distances away and show up and then kind of be stuck here. Parents unaware of where their children are, Raleigh police not having a great feel for how to get them home or who they were in the first place, right? And so with that, you know, we talk about schools coming back and we talk about kind of that natural regression of where we may see these begin to fall off. But over the past couple weeks, you know, we've continued to see this happen. It may just not have gotten as much media attention.

And I think, you know, talking with local officials, they're nervous about things like spring break and fall break now for high schoolers, when traditionally you might think those are times where college kids come. And, you know, so I think there are still some concerns around those types of breaks. But we had an event in Huntersville just back on August 1st. That was approximately 300 teens showed up in Birkdale Village there. No crimes reported connection with the gathering, right?

Charlotte Petey kind of came in and was able to disperse them that night. And then we saw a shooting just a couple weeks ago in Greensboro at a rural banquet hall.

Now, that now, not a teen takeover, but those victims did include a majority of individuals who were under the age of 18, including a 15-year-old and three 17-year-olds.

So a number of these trends continue to happen, right? It's these continually happening teen instances where violence is true to actually late at night, right? And so I think city leaders have continued to talk about ways that they can handle this. And now that we are, again, as you talk about, slipping away from that initial time point, starting to ignore some of those underlying causes. You know, Andrew, typically when you and I talk, we're talking about state government and a lot of the work that goes on in the North Carolina General Assembly.

In this case, moving forward, these are going to have to be decisions that are made at the local level. We're talking about city councils and county commissions and local law enforcement, whether it be a county sheriff's department or a municipal police department, that are heavily involved in this. This is your most local form of government that is going to have to make these decisions as this stuff continues to happen on a more frequent basis, as you just noted. Yeah, and we talk a lot about local policing, right, and gaps in recruitment and retention for police officers in cities like Raleigh and Charlotte and Greensboro, where they just don't have enough officers, right, to really make sure that these events don't happen. And when they do happen, they can swiftly end them.

The other issue is, you know, we talk about city councils being so different, right?

So we had all these teens bust into Raleigh for this event and get away from maybe their local city council's regulations to do so. And so an issue where I think city councils often get together and think through this together instead of individually and create this patchwork where I think teens, you know, wisely enough will find those gaps. In Raleigh, you know, they continue to talk about additional Programming for teens and how that we can solve this issue by providing more opportunities for teens to get involved. You know, City of Raleigh, City of Charlotte have both come out and said, you know, they have plenty of spaces and their existing team programs for teens to get involved if they wish to do so. And they have just chosen not to, right?

And I think it goes back to the individual who's out on the streets at 2 a.m. and Glenwood South here in Raleigh has very different priorities, I think, than the person at 10 p.m. You know, bowling with the police officers, I think is something that Raleigh Chief brought up this week, right?

So those are very two different situations, and that programming exists and currently exists. And I think a lot are tempted to just dump a lot of more money into that teen programming. But Raleigh Parks and Rock has continually said that they are not interested and continue to expand their programs. What they already have is enough, just being underutilized by teens. And that's a great point.

I mean, yes, it's great to have the programs there, Andrew. And in some cases, you can make the argument, yeah, maybe we need a few more here, a few more there. But if we're being perfectly blunt and honest about this, I think it's fair to say that the vast majority of people that would drive from out of air out of the area to attend one of these teen takeovers events that they saw on TikTok or in a signal chat or something of that nature probably has no interest in any way, shape, or form of taking place with some of these municipal teen programs that do and do have some good success across the state of North Carolina.

Well, and I think this is where, right, the state legislature, which we usually talk about, has an opportunity to come in here and try to help local police departments and local sheriff's departments better enforce the rules that are currently on the books, whether that be in how we recommend teenagers to speeding up the process in which we do so, funding DA's offices more in a way that we can manage the large caseload that would come in based on these events, to how do we control what we like to call riots, right? These are teen takeovers, is commonly referred to, but I've seen mentioned a lot of times as just teen riots. And maybe that's a better definition for what they are. And so I'd be curious to see if the state comes back after the election this year, having spent a couple of months looking at this issue and continuing to dive into it, and has some different proposals about how they can handle this going forward and how those local sheriff's departments and police departments can better intervene when these events pop up. Andrew, let's talk about the practicality of this.

We've already seen the city of Charlotte begin the process of rolling out some of these restrictions. We know that those discussions are ongoing in some of our other large municipalities as well. And obviously, having these curfews, which is typically what we see on the books, is very good. The question is the enforcement angle of it. You just relayed some of those details from Raleigh.

You have 9,000 teenagers show up that are past curfew. Unless you're going to have 30,000 police officers on the ground to manage that. situation. It's a hard one to do. The curfews are important in a lot of these cases, but the enforcement mechanism is also important as well.

Right. And that's what these curfews aim to kind of fill that gap on, right? These curfews are not intended to target individuals traveling to and from jobs or to and from religious events or anything of that nature. And these are misdemeanor fines, right, for the most part. These are fines that if someone is found in violation of a curfew that has a negative impact on the community and they're not doing one of about a dozen things that were laid out.

And only between, like I mentioned, Raleigh, 11 to 5 a.m., 11 p.m. to 5 a.m.

So only about six hours where these teens cannot be out on the streets kind of just hanging out. They have to have a purpose for why they're there. The proposed curfew, at least here in Raleigh, would only be up to about a $500 fine on those teens. And so there would be some sort of real impact of that. But there's no jail time.

There's nothing like that. It is a misdemeanor fine in Charlotte. There are parental consequences. If your teen is picked up and breaking curfew, that's another fine. These are all misdemeanor fines.

And so, you know, This becomes less of a free speech issue, which I think a lot of people want to make it, about how we make sure those people are regulated. This is a very small window. This is a very slim majority of individuals, and that punishment really is something that doesn't necessarily ruin the lives of teens if they do end up violating.

Well, and Andrew, there's another important element of this as well, as we kind of have looked at a lot of the things that have gone on over the last couple of years here in North Carolina. We do consistently see individuals who do break very serious laws that are not held to account for their actions and consistently released back out on the streets. That's been a big topic of conversation in the city of Charlotte and around Mecklenburg County over the last couple of years. How do we make sure we don't fall into that same trap with this? Yeah, it's great to put these curfews on the books.

It's great to say, oh, you're going to fine you three or four hundred dollars. But if you don't have a judge that's willing to find somebody in violation of that curfew and actually hold them accountable, and many would argue, it doesn't even exist at that point. What's the point? What are we doing here? Yes, there's a number of, I think, interesting proposals out of the state legislature that's trying to get at what you're mentioning here.

We saw a bill that was just recently vetoed by Governor Stein that would allow the chief Supreme Court Chief Justice Paul Newby currently suspend judges whether he felt like they were breaking judicial standards after a review there, right? To say, if you are not prosecuting individuals under state law, we are going to suspend you pending investigations.

So to speed that process up, that bill was vetoed by Governor Stein just this past week. It's something that I think we will see the House over Ryan Speaker Hall has already said they plan to do when they come back post-November. I think we continue to see a number of these bills, like the criminal justice reform package, that's currently in a conference report in front of both the House and Senate.

So I think there's a number of measures that I think Republicans in the House and the Senate are keenly aware of that this issue, right? That we're continually to push criminals back on the streets and not prosecute them. We said, sorry, Rena Ruka's law last year, right, in Charlotte after that horrific murder. And so a number of these proposals that the state legislature continues to try to push to. Really, kind of bring that gap in right between where implementing state laws are currently at and those gaps that haven't women prosecuting.

Yeah, and you bring up Irina Zarutska. We will cross the one-year mark of that horrific tragedy unfolding on Saturday. We have more details on these team takeovers and some of these proposals and discussions that are taking place across municipal governments here in North Carolina. That continuing coverage over on our website, CarolinaJournal.com. We appreciate the update this morning.

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Granger for the ones who get it done. It's 5:24. Welcome back to the Carolina Journal News Hour, Charlotte's FM News Talk, 107.9 FM, WBT. We were just talking about these teen takeovers and crime with Andrew Pomerance from CarolinaJournal.com. We do have some other crime news this morning, some good news across the Tar Heel State.

With certain exceptions, crime was down in our two major cities, Raleigh and Charlotte, in 2025, on par with national trends of declining crime in major cities across the nation. This is according to the major cities chief associations mid-year crime report. Except for homicides in Charlotte and robbery and aggravated assaults in Raleigh, crime is down and was down in 2025 and portions of 2026 in these major cities. The report compares the numbers from January the 1st to June 30th. of 2025 and 2026.

We'll start off with the Queen City. In Charlotte, homicides are up from the same period in 2025 with 40 on record in the first half of 2026. There were 39 during that same period in 2029.

So one uptick there. Rape is down in Charlotte from 92 in the first half of 2025 to just 81 in the first half of 2026, a pretty significant decline there. During the first half of 2025, there were also 525 robberies on record compared to just 405, a significant decrease there during that same period in 2026. Aggravated, excuse me, assaults is down. 2,043 during the first half of 2026 from a little over 2,100 in 2025.

So, some good numbers there in Charlotte. Similar situation in our state capital in Raleigh: homicides in the first half of 2026 are down to four from 11 during that same period in 2025. A significant decrease there as well.

However, robberies and aggravated assaults are both up during the first half of 2026 compared to the same period last year. There has been a slight increase in robberies and aggravated assaults. During the first half of 26, there were 86 robberies in Raleigh compared to 81 during that same period in 2025. Aggravated assaults is up to 219 during the first half of 26 from 220 during that same period last year. According to the public affairs unit of the Raleigh Police Department that responded to a request for comment from Carolina Journal, they said that we are thankful to see a significant drop in homicides in our jurisdiction this year, down more than 50%.

While there is no single reason for a reduction in violent crime, meaningful progress requires a shared commitment to public safety. We are aware of the slight increase in the reported robberies and aggravated assaults compared with the same period last year. While any increase in violent crime is concerning, these changes are relatively modest, and we are closely monitoring the trends, ending the quote there from the Raleigh Police Department. In 2025, Charlotte ranked among the top cities in the nation for property crime, which does include robberies through the third quarter of 2025. Overall crime showed a mixed trend compared to the same period looking at the full year in 2024, according to the press release from the Chiefs Association.

Robberies have decreased from 1,046 in 24 to just 821 in 2025, while property crimes have also declined slightly from 27,974 offenses to about 26,500 comparing 24 to 25. Residential burglaries fell slightly, but it includes a modest improvement in that category, 1,300 to 1,200 or so. John Guzay, a senior fellow of legal studies at the John Locke Foundation, told the Carolina Journal, despite the slight upticks in a few categories, this is good news and it's consistent with what's been happening across the state and across the country. It looks as though the crime wave that started in the early 2010s and peaked in the early 2020s may finally be over. While Winston-Salem is not included in the report, likely due to the size of its city, it was ranked among the top U.S.

cities for crime in 2025. John Guzay continued by saying, however, we shouldn't be complacent. Crime rates vary from year to year, but they vary much more from community to community. For example, murder rates in Fayetteville and Greensboro are typically six or seven times as high as Raleigh, and there are similar disparities. In other categories of crime across the state, regardless of what happens in the state as a whole, North Carolinians who live in high crime communities will continue to need to enhance levels of police protection.

Those numbers are on par with the overall trend of declining crime across the United States. According to the report, homicide saw the largest decline at 17.2% from the first half of 25 to the first half of 26. The next largest decline was robbery at 16.6% during that same period. Other forms of crime fell anywhere between 4 and 6 percent. We've got full coverage of this report.

You can read this. It's from the major cities chief association, their mid-year crime report. We've got that linked up over on our website, CarolinaJournal.com. Look for this story with the headline, Report Crime Mostly Down in Raleigh, Charlotte, as U.S. crime declines.

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It's 5:38. Welcome back to the Carolina Journal News Hour, Charlotte's FM News Talk 107.9 FM. WBT, I'm Nick Craig. A good Friday morning to you. We have got an update this morning on the legal proceedings as they relate to former FBI director James Comey.

For those that are not super familiar with this situation, it did make a national news as the former FBI director allegedly vacationing here in North Carolina posted a photo on his Instagram account as it related to President Donald Trump 8647 spelled out with seashells on a North Carolina beach. We've been keeping a close eye on this case as it does have many national tie-ins, but is taking place here in North Carolina. Our last update included James Comey and his legal team arguing that this post on social media was not an actual threat on the life of the 47th president of the United States in Donald Trump. In response to that, the federal government now jumping back in as they are prosecuting this case to walk us through the latest this morning, Mitch Cokey from the John Locke Foundation joins us on the Carolina Journal News Hour. Mitch, am I reading this correctly?

More than 100 pages from the federal government in reply, in response. Yeah. That's exactly right. And Nick, the last time we talked about this, James Comey and his legal team had made basically a dozen different court filings, and all of them had to do with reasons why Comey believes that the federal judge should throw this case out. Basically, one of the key arguments was that the social media post of the seashell spelling out 8647 didn't actually constitute a true threat against President Donald Trump, that it was just a first amendment, protected First Amendment political speech.

Another claim was that there was vindictive and selective prosecution, that Trump was out to get Comey. And so this is why he's been charged. They also wanted to open up the secret grand jury proceedings because of some accusations that something might not have been up on the up and up there, and was also trying to suppress some FBI search warrants.

So those were the real key things that the Comey legal team was putting forward. What we're seeing now is the federal government's response to all of that. And as you mentioned, more than 100 pages of court filings. For one, the prosecution is saying, well, you know, this is up for a jury to decide whether this is a true threat or not. President Trump certainly thought it was a threat against him.

And so this is the type of thing that a jury should decide. Should this message on social media of 8647 be considered a true threat or not? Another interesting piece that goes along with that. is that we found out that the federal government believes that uh Comey, as he was learning more about this and what 8647 could be thought to mean, that some of it was tied into a book he was writing, a novel about someone who was trying to use secret codes to get his supporters to attack his rivals. And that as there was a social media buzz after the social media post, that Comey thought it was a good thing, potentially driving the book sales, which is probably a new revelation that we haven't heard before.

So we also saw a court filing that dealt with the idea of the vindictive and selective prosecution. Federal government saying that there's no evidence of that. And an associated affidavit from the U.S. attorney Ellis Boyle said that he says, no one directed me to do this. I came on board as the U.S.

Attorney a few months after the social media post and the investigation had already started as things move forward. The prosecution team and the U.S. Attorney decided that there was a viable case there and that no one told him to do this. He wasn't coerced to do this, that this was something done by him, the U.S. Attorney, with his prosecutorial team on their own without anyone from the Justice Department breathing down their neck.

They also say, don't open up the grand jury proceedings. There's nothing within Comey's court filing that suggests that that unusual and not unprecedented, but virtually unprecedented step should be taken. And they also say that there's no reason to suppress the search warrant.

So basically, over the course of 100 plus pages, you learn from the federal government why they want to counteract everything that the Comey legal team put forward as part of this case.

So now we've heard from Comey's side. We saw this week this more than 100-page filing from the federal government. What is the next step in this process, Mitch? Important to note for our audience as we've talked about this over the last couple of months. The former FBI director, outside of those pictures that he allegedly posted somewhere in eastern North Carolina, has yet to step foot into the state, at least as it relates to this legal proceeding.

How do things continue to play out?

Well, in terms of when we might see James Comey back in the state, the current schedule right now calls for an arraignment at the end of September in New Bern, and then potentially within a few weeks of that in mid to late October, a trial.

Now, that's subject to change, but that's where things stand right now. It's also entirely possible that the judge in this case, Louise Flanagan, might rule on some of these motions before you would even see an arraignment. If she looks at the evidence, looks at what's been put forward by the Comey legal team, the responses from the federal government, and decides that there is some valid reason to throw the case out, then Comey would never appear. If, on the other hand, the judge looks at the court filings and says, This is not something that I can resolve at this stage in the case, then you likely would see an arraignment. It might take place at the end of September, unless all of the parties decide that it should be delayed for one reason or another.

But that's really the next stage: the judge deciding whether to throw the case out. And then, if not, then moving toward the next stage in the process, which would be the arraignment, which would be any additional discovery that needs to take place. My guess is if there's a trial. It probably doesn't happen this October as it's scheduled, although that's possible. I think if it does go to trial, it would probably be later than that.

The next thing to watch out for is when Judge Flanagan decides to rule on some of these motions, presumably before the scheduled arraignment.

Well, that's what I was going to ask you, Mitch. We talked a couple of weeks ago when Comey and his legal team made their arguments, these hundred-plus pages from the federal government this week. You mentioned this arraignment date coming up. And for many folks maybe that don't want to get back to reality yet with summertime coming to an end, we're less than two weeks away from the start of September, so we're relatively close to that deadline. Does that seem plausible and practical that all of these motions and all that is dealt with in this relatively short timeline?

I think it certainly could be, especially given the schedule that you have for the arraignment and the trial coming up. There's a ton of documentation to go through, but I think. The th they're Key legal issues aren't all that complicated. One is: do you look at this? Instagram post that had seashells that spell out 8647 and say, Is that something that's really a true threat?

And if you look at it and say, You could either say, no, it's not a true threat. And so this has to go away, or you could say, it's not really clear. This is something that really needs to be worked out through additional court filings or potentially putting in front of a jury and saying, well, what would you think? What would a reasonable person think seeing this Instagram post? Is this something that is legitimately something that could be considered a true threat to the president?

My guess is Judge Flanagan is going to set aside some time, read all the documents, read what. James Comey's lawyers have said, read what the federal prosecutors have said, and then come up with a decision about whether there is enough with this prosecution to move forward. Remember, this is the first time that a charge against James Comey has come from the U.S. Justice Department.

Some months, I believe it was about seven months before this charge came out, he was charged with another crime, and that case ended up getting thrown out because of the way that the prosecutor was put in place for that case, that there was something untoward about that. And so the case got thrown out. No accusations that there's anything wrong about the prosecutor in this case.

Now it's more about the legal issues involved in the charge itself. Is this something that's a true threat? Is he a victim of vindictive and selective prosecution? Was there something wrong with the grand jury proceeding? Should these FBI search warrants that contributed to the evidence be thrown out?

If the Answers to all of those are no. Then the process moves forward. If the answer to any of this is yes, that there's not a true threat, that there's vindictive or selective prosecution, something wrong with the grand jury, that some of the evidence should be suppressed. If any of the answers are yes, then perhaps the case gets tossed. Yeah, not to draw any direct parallels or analogies, but we have seen other cases here in North Carolina over the last year and a half or so as it relates to folks making posts on social media threatening the life of President Donald Trump.

Currently, in years past, we've seen other stories as well as individuals in high levels of public office. Unfortunately, Mitch are targets of some of these discussions on social media.

So not truly unprecedented in what we're seeing. We have continuing coverage of this, and we'll keep a very close eye on it over on our website, CarolinaJournal.com. We appreciate the update this morning. Mitch Kokai from the John Locke Foundation joins us on the Carolina Journal News Hour. Many people believe buying a home requires a large down payment and years of saving, but that's not always the case.

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Hmm, somewhere with a lot more tabs open. Create your first Monday agent in minutes at monday.com. Good morning again. It's 554. Welcome back to the Carolina Journal News Hour, Charlotte's FM News Talk, 107.9 FM, WBT, more than 13.2 million funding from AmeriCorps has been awarded to the North Carolina Commission on Volunteerism and Community Service, the name of that group, Volunteer NC or Volunteer North Carolina, which is set to provide assistance to volunteer programs in 89 of North Carolina's 100 counties.

AmeriCorps is an independent agency of the federal government that engages more than 5 million Americans in service through a variety of volunteer work programs in many sectors, often with stipends. Democrat Governor Josh Stein made the announcement in a press release last week saying, whether it's mentoring students, helping communities recover from disasters, or reducing barriers to medical access, AmeriCorps volunteers are making a difference in North Carolinians' lives. These funds will help fund more than 600 volunteer meetings urgent needs while gaining skills and experience for the future. According to the release, this group is a federal-state partnership with a central role for the governor-appointed state service commission, like a group like Volunteer North Carolina. It helps develop and implement state-specific national service programs.

Volunteers will be able to use their skills. And experience to help in areas including tutoring and mentoring youth, provide arts education in classrooms, supporting high school students with career and educational exploration, improving access to medical care in underserved communities, addressing things like food insecurity, restoring the levels of the environment, and enhancing local government and nonprofit capacities. According to the executive director of Volunteer NC, they told the Carolina Journal: in addition to their impact on communities, these opportunities provide career pathways for our AmeriCorps NC volunteers, helping fill the employment gap in rural, underserved, and urban communities. AmeriCorps has awarded the state service commissions and 260 nonprofits, faith, and community-based organizations more than $387 million in AmeriCorps state and national federal funding, according to a July the 20th press release. The website lists App State, College Advising Corps, other groups, including Duke University, NC State, and UNC Chapel Hill as some of the recipients for these funds.

AmeriCorps has had its share of controversy after being under intense scrutiny following eight consecutive failed financial audits. A November 2024 independent audit revealed that the organization's financial statements could not be verified, resulting in a disclaimer of opinion. Auditors identified 11 material weaknesses and two significant deficiencies in internal controls, financial reporting, and IT systems. These include recurring deficiencies dating all the way back to 2017. You can read a full breakdown of this.

We've got quotes from the governor and others as the governor made a press release on that this week. Those details over on our website this morning, CarolinaJournal.com. That's going to do it for a Friday edition. WBT News is next, followed by Good Morning BT. We are back with you Monday morning, 5 to 6, right here on Charlotte's FM News Talk, 107.9 FM, WBT.

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