News Roundup

The North Carolina General Assembly’s short session began Monday.  On the first day of the session, supporters and opponents of HB2 held well attended dueling rallies in Raleigh according to this report from the Charlotte Business Journal.  The Wall Street Journal has a national perspective on the rallies here. Democratic legislators filed a bill to repeal HB2, but Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger has stated that repeal is not on the Republican agenda. The News and Observer reports that 54 protestors opposed to HB2 were arrested inside the Legislative building after refusing to leave House Speaker Tim Moore’s office and the area around it.  Keep reading for more news. Veterans Treatment Court Judge Spends Night in Jail.  The Fayetteville Observer reports that Cumberland County judge Lou Olivera recently spent the night in jail.  Olivera, a veteran himself, presides over Veterans Treatment Court and had sentenced a participant to spend a night in jail as a sanction for a positive urinalysis.  Rather than have the man spend the night alone, Olivera drove him to the Robeson County jail and spent the night alongside him in a cell.  Separately, WRAL has a story about the Cumberland court’s first graduate, a man who once struggled with homelessness and substance abuse but who says that he is “a different person” after completing the program. Crisis Intervention Training.  The News Roundup previously noted that a substantial portion of the people shot by the L.A.P.D. in the last year had documented signs of mental illness.  A [...]