Liz Schlemmer

A group of university staff and faculty have filed a lawsuit against the UNC System to seek safer working conditions during the coronavirus pandemic. The plaintiffs are asking for a Wake County Superior Court judge to grant them class action status, and to step in on behalf of all UNC System employees.

The UNC-Chapel Hill Board of Trustees has voted to remove the names from four campus buildings that honored men who supported White supremacy in their careers and political lives.

The Board voted 11-to-2 to rename buildings named for Charles Aycock, Julian Carr, Josephus Daniels and Thomas Ruffin, Sr.

Five years after the state Supreme Court declared North Carolina's largest private school voucher program constitutional, public school advocates have filed another lawsuit challenging Opportunity Scholarships.

Seven parents have signed on as plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed Monday, including the current president and recent vice president of the North Carolina Association of Educators.

A UNC Chapel Hill commission voted Friday to recommend removing the names of four prominent white supremacists from campus buildings. The resolution will go to university Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz and the UNC Chapel Hill Board of Trustees for consideration.

Landlords in North Carolina can begin filing evictions this week, after a statewide moratorium on eviction proceedings lifted Monday. That means a wave of North Carolina tenants could soon face eviction hearings in court.

The current president of the North Carolina Community College System Peter Hans will take the helm of the University of North Carolina System beginning in August.

Updated at 9 p.m. ET

A line of mourners wrapped around a Raeford, N.C. church and extended down the highway Saturday, as thousands paid their last respects to George Floyd. 

Universities in the UNC System are beginning to release early plans for how they might reopen their campuses to students and faculty in the fall.

East Carolina University celebrated graduation online Friday morning. It's one of a number of modified college graduation ceremonies taking place in the state this weekend.

Some universities are expanding their mental health services to reach students remotely.

Doctor Allen O'Barr is director of UNC Chapel Hill's Counseling and Psychological Services. He's been seeing students through confidential online conferences. That allows the office to maintain on-going services and help students cope with new stress or grief related to the coronavirus pandemic.

Five faculty members at the East Carolina University College of Nursing are volunteering behind the scenes to identify nurses across the state who can pick up shifts at long term care facilities.

The pair of COVID-19 recovery bills passed by the North Carolina General Assembly and signed into law by Governor Roy Cooper provide broad relief and numerous funding streams dedicated to K-12 public school students.

Those individual line items - paid for with federal aid - cover a cornucopia of students' needs.

"Today's bills provide for feeding schoolchildren, summer learning programs to help them catch up and funding to purchase computers for students who need them," Cooper said at a press conference.

The COVID-19 relief package the governor has now signed into law includes hundreds of millions of dollars in federal aid for North Carolina's K-12 public schools. Those dollars will help schools continue to feed students and reach them through remote instruction.

Sharon Gaber has been named chancellor of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. She becomes the university's fifth chancellor after the UNC System Board of Governors approved the hire at a Tuesday special meeting.

As North Carolina education officials plan for how to spend the millions of dollars they expect to receive in state and federal aid, two related needs are rising to the top: computers and internet connection.

Federal Aid On Its Way

North Carolina public schools are expected to receive $390 million in federal aid allocated in the CARES Act to help cope with the effects of the coronavirus pandemic.

County commissioners in several North Carolina counties are urging Governor Roy Cooper to give them the authority to ease stay-at-home orders. Various news outlets report local officials in Gaston, Lincoln and Wilkes counties have reached out to the governor's office.

More North Carolinians have died from COVID-19 in a matter of weeks than of the flu during the entire flu season, which started in September.

State Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mandy Cohen noted at a briefing Monday afternoon that North Carolina's first COVID-19 death occurred on March 24.

"So in less than a month, we've already surpassed flu deaths for this year," she said. "COVID-19 is now the leading cause of death in the United States.