Leoneda Inge

There are so many Catholics in North Carolina these days, it’s hard to keep count.  Those who are keeping count say numbers have jumped 300 percent in a generation. The Diocese of Raleigh is growing so fast it plans to break ground on a 2,000-seat cathedral next year.  For now, if you plan on attending mass this Easter Sunday, you better get up early or you’ll likely be having service at an overflow site at the Clarion Hotel.  Or, you’ll just have to stand.

Collegiate entrepreneurs from schools like Pitt, Florida State, Clemson and NC State gathered in Raleigh Wednesday for a different kind of ‘March Madness.’  These business-minded students were not on a basketball court.  Instead, they were bouncing around a working prototype in hopes of winning a big check and a foot in the start-up world. 

The cold, damp weather so far this spring is causing problems for North Carolina farmers trying to get crops into the ground.  Farmers say they can deal with the rain because of the most recent drought, but the cold is a problem.

Roy Thagard is a Field Crop Agent at the Greene County Cooperative Extension Office.  He says farmers haven’t been able to get the soil weeded and prepared for planting corn and tobacco.  Thagard says the soil needs to be 55 to 60 degrees for plants to germinate or sprout.

A group of women looking for work participated in a special graduation ceremony this week in the Triangle.  They are clients in ‘Dress for Success.’ The non-profit provides women with interview suits and career-building tools to get them back into the world of work.  Businesses like Chinese computer maker Lenovo is a ‘Dress for Success’ partner.  They hosted this year’s ceremony.

The North Carolina Department of Transportation has made an about face and is abandoning its controversial decision to add a bold pink stripe across the top of new driver licenses for young immigrants.  A news release issued Thursday afternoon by the state DOT confirms that the Division of Motor Vehicles will begin issuing driver licenses on Monday, March 25, 2013 for immigrants qualifying under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.  But the attached ‘final’ image of the driver license no longer has the pink stripe or the words ‘No Lawful Status’ printed in large type.

North Carolina’s jobless rate may not be anything to cheer about, but the state’s job growth is getting some applause. 

The state’s unemployment rate was 9.5 percent in January.  It's one of the highest in the nation, hovering hovered around that amount for the past year. The national rate sits at 7.9 percent.

There are thousands of young, undocumented immigrants in North Carolina, dreaming of going to the school of their choice, finding a good job and getting a driver’s license.   Many of these ‘dreamers’ are waiting for official papers from the federal government after applying through the ‘Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals’ program.  But in this state, they’re also waiting to find out for if their new legal status warrants a ‘No Lawful Status’ banner stamped on their driver’s licenses.

The latest Global Business Outlook survey from Duke University and CFO Magazine shows companies are hungry for immigration reform.  Close to 90 percent of Chief Financial Officers surveyed say the U.S. government should adopt a merit-based system to determine which immigrants would get to stay and work in this country.

Duke Finance Professor John Graham is director of the quarterly Global Business Outlook survey.  He says they had not asked this type of immigration question before.

A researcher from Duke’s Fuqua School of Business has helped analyze a series of studies and publish a paper on the prevalence of racial slurs used in the workplace.  There’s a growing body of online humor that has been pegged “friendly prejudice.”  You can hear it in this popular video titled – “Dear White People.”

The largest law enforcement agencies in the state are being questioned about their use of military style weapons, technology and arrest tactics.  The North Carolina American Civil Liberties Union has sent public records requests to 62 law enforcement agencies.

“One of the reasons that we were very interested in sending out these public records requests, we learned that Gaston County had a drone.  And that was a big revelation,” says state ACLU director Chris Brook.