Frank Stasio

This week the North Carolina Senate voted along party lines to repeal the Racial Justice Act. Also in the legislation are measures designed to restart executions, which have been unofficially on hold in the state since 2006.

Critics contend that eliminating the Racial Justice Act will prevent those unfairly sentenced to death because of racial bias from getting justice. More than 150 people in the state are awaiting execution.

Republican Senator Thom Goolsby of New Hanover County sponsored the legislation repealing the Racial Justice Act, and he said on The State of Things that the Act isn’t necessary.

  The Third Expression is an interesting hodgepodge of genres -- jazz, roots music and country -- and they only hit the Durham scene about two years ago.

TEDx is the community offshoot of TED, a nonprofit dedicated to "Ideas Worth Spreading." Greensboro is the site of a spring conference, featuring such speakers as Daniel Herr, a neuroscientist giving the talk, "The Language of Nature: what's the big deal about nano"; and Katie Marshall, a corporate communicator at Volvo Financial Services, talking about her passion for Greensboro, and the intersection between college and professional life.

The Louder Than a Bomb Poetry Slam competition started in Chicago in 2001. Inspired by the competition and a documentary about it, local group Poet.she Female Performing Arts & Spoken Word decided to bring the competition to Greensboro.

Rivalries are fierce at the World Taxidermy Championships. Judges, armed with flashlights and magnifying glasses, examine anatomy and artistry. And taxidermists, who fancy themselves artists, vie for the legitimacy of their craft.

Nicole Triche’s new documentary, “Taxidermists,” premiers at the annual Full Frame Documentary  Film Festival. Triche is also an assistant professor at Elon University in the school of communications.

Natalie Diaz grew up on the Fort Mojave Indian Reservation. While many of those around her struggled with the lack of opportunities, she saw basketball as her way out.

In 1976, Joseph Sledge was accused of murdering a mother and daughter in Bladen County, NC. Because of the many limits of scientific evidence at the time, hairs found at the scene of the crime were identified as "Negroid." And because Joseph Sledge was a Black man, the hairs were linked to him. Over 34 years later, the use of DNA testing has been used to prove that those hairs were not Sledges'. 

Elaine Neil Orr was born and raised in Nigeria, the daughter of Baptist Missionaries. When she began writing her memoir about 10 years ago, her mother gave her a keepsake – the 1853 diary of the first Baptist Missionary in Nigeria. This artifact spoke to Orr, and it was the inspiration for her first novel, “A Different Sun: A Novel of Africa” (Berkley Trade/2013).

Several years ago, Chris Benfey decided to write a traditional memoir. He soon realized, however, that his family was anything but traditional. His new book, “Red Brick, Black Mountain, White Clay” (Penguin/2012), is part memoir, part history, part archeology.

It tells the stories of his ancestors’ work as bricklayers, his father’s escape from Nazi Germany and his great aunt and uncle’s pivotal role in the founding of Black Mountain College. Chris Benfey is a Professor of English at Mount Holyoke College. He joins Host Frank Stasio to discuss his family’s North Carolina stories.

Jim Minz’s childhood in small-town West Bend, Wisconsin prepared him for two things: game shows and science fiction.

West Bend was home to the West Bend Company – the maker of small appliances which were regularly featured as consolation prize on game shows.