Senate Military and Veterans Appropriations Act includes $750 million for North Carolina U.S. Senator Kay R. Hagan has announced that the Senate approved $750 million for veterans programs and military construction in North Carolina that she fought to secure. Hagan voted in support of the 2012 Military Construction and Veterans Affairs and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, which passed the Senate Wednesday night, July 20, by a 97-2 vote. The bill now moves to be merged with the House version.

“North Carolina is the most military friendly state in the nation, and this important legislation helps ensure our servicemembers, veterans and their families receive the support and care they deserve,” said Hagan, Chair of the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Emerging Threats.

Remember the nuclear waste debates of the 1980s? Remember the panic after Three Mile Island, a nuclear power station on an island in the Susquehanna River near Harrisburg, Penn., which after a reactor core meltdown in 1979 released highly radioactive gas into the environment? Remember the protests and pickets? Remember how the consensus in the country regarding the clear dangers of nuclear power led to the cancelation of all new nuclear power projects for decades?

Some in Western North Carolina, those who are able to remember all the way back to those glory years of muscle cars and Reaganomics, may even recall Sandy Mush and a local protest campaign to keep nuclear waste from being trucked into our mountains and dumped here.

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John Davis is convinced that Macon County could use its own dialysis center.

Three times a week – on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays – Davis drives his wife, Sue, to a dialysis center in Sylva where she receives treatment for End Stage Renal Disease. The time, cost and inconvenience associated the 50-mile plus round-trip take their toll. According to Davis, he and his wife are not alone.

“We’ve got about 30 some odd people in Macon County on dialysis,” said Davis, noting that most people must travel outside the county for treatment. At DaVita Sylva Dialysis Center where Davis’ wife receives treatment for end-stage renal disease, six or seven other Macon County residents also receive treatment on the same schedule. The next closest dialysis center is in Clayton, Ga.

Some praise, mostly criticism, at final public hearings on proposed NC electoral maps

“It's a dragon, daddy.”

This was the reaction of one little girl when a Mecklenburg County resident asked what the map of Senate District 37 looked like to her. The father told this story during the third and final public hearing on the newly proposed electoral maps which were held Monday at sites statewide, coordinated via video conference link up.