Stephen Largen

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Edwards camp reacts to video

By Stephen Largen | October 29

Chapel Hill got an unexpected taste of presidential campaign hardball last week when John Edwards' presidential campaign demanded that a UNC broadcast journalism graduate student remove her story about the candidate's headquarters from YouTube.The story, which will air on television this evening, focused on the location of the campaign's headquarters in the affluent Chapel Hill neighborhood of Southern Village.

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Audit claims reforms lacking

By Stephen Largen | October 15

North Carolina's troubled mental health care system received another bruise last week in the form of a state audit that pointed to "a serious systemic problem with mental health reform." The audit highlighted inefficiencies at Albemarle Mental Health Center - including drastically overpaying officials and charging for services available elsewhere for little or no cost - and brought the state to task for its lack of oversight.

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Lumbee recognition fight ongoing

By Stephen Largen | September 24

The Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina has a new hurdle to overcome in its decades-long fight for federal recognition: intertribal feuding with the Tuscarora Nation of Indians. Katherine Magnotta, traditional council chairwoman of the Tuscarora, attended a Senate hearing last week that addressed the possibility of federal recognition for the Lumbees, but she was not allowed to testify.

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Study: Minorities utilize fewer health care benefits

By Stephen Largen | September 18

Minorities and low-income employees of Duke University take advantage of prescription and mental health benefits at a much lower rate than whites and high-income employees, according to a study released last week by Duke law professor Barak Richman. Despite having the same health care plan and co-payments, whites sought nearly four times the annual health care benefits of blacks and more than three times those of Asians. Treatment also was sought more frequently by employees with higher incomes.

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Students forgo federal loans

By Stephen Largen | August 28

College students are leaving money on the financial aid table in huge numbers, a report suggests, as more take on private loans and forgo less expensive federal options. The August report, released by the American Council on Education, shows that one in five students who use private loans to help finance their education do so despite their eligibility for the cheaper and more flexible federal Stafford Loans. A number of factors, including ignorance of options, motivate some students to forgo federal loans, said Jacqueline King, the study's author.

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Lottery shortfall attracts criticism

By Stephen Largen | April 27

In most states, $900 million in added sales revenue would be a controversy-free boon. But when that revenue, the amount projected for the N.C. Education Lottery's first fiscal year, comes from one of the most controversial sources in recent state history, the voices that opposed its creation were bound to continue to articulate their disapproval.

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Air Force pioneer blasts inequality

By Stephen Largen | April 11

DURHAM - U.S. Air Force Col. Martha McSally said many people told her that her career was finished. After she successfully challenged a U.S. Department of Defense policy that required servicewomen, when traveling in Saudi Arabia, to wear the full-body cloak that some Muslim women traditionally wear, many thought she would be ostracized for her actions.

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Oil company deals spur controversy at schools

By Stephen Largen | March 21

Cooperation between two of the world's largest, most profitable oil companies and two of the West Coast's most prestigious universities has fomented controversy about the relationship between big oil and the schools. In 2002, Exxon Mobil Corp., along with several other major corporations, made a commitment to give Stanford University a projected $225 million throughout the next decade to create the Global Climate and Energy Project.

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Group seeks bipartisan '08 ticket

By Stephen Largen | February 28

The influence of third-party candidates such as Ralph Nader and Ross Perot largely has been limited to siphoning off enough votes from one major-party candidate to help the other win. A new ticket for the 2008 presidential election aims to change all that. The group Unity08 will hold an online primary following the major parties' primaries in summer 2008 to draft a bipartisan presidential ticket.

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Facilities prepared for norovirus

By Stephen Largen | February 14

The Greensboro community and hospital system have been dealing with an outbreak of highly contagious stomach flu, known as norovirus, for the last week. The Carolina community is familiar with the virus, having been hit with it in 2004 and 2006. Experts warn that everyone in the state should take precautions against the bug. Dawn Martin, spokeswoman for the Moses Cone Health System, said the system, made up of five hospitals, has adjusted to control the spread of the virus. "We are discouraging people from visiting if they have any symptoms," Martin said.