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North Carolina moves to revoke license of wilderness camp where boy died

North Carolina officials say they plan to revoke the license of Trails Carolina, a wilderness camp for troubled youths where a 12-year-old boy recently died after having spent less than 24 hours at the program.

The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services sent letters Thursday notifying Trails Carolina’s executive director that the camp in Lake Toxaway had violated several state regulations, including one requiring mental health facilities to protect clients from abuse. The department did not provide additional details about the violations, which were documented during an investigation that was completed this month.

The department said that it determined the violations “endanger the health, safety, and welfare of clients in your facility” and that it intends to revoke Trails Carolina’s license. The camp was given 10 days to provide a written statement saying why it believes it is in compliance with the rules, along with supporting documents or a plan of correction. The department also fined Trails Carolina $18,000 for the violations and extended its suspension of admissions indefinitely.

A spokesperson for Trails Carolina did not immediately provide a comment.

Trails Carolina is a private, for-profit wilderness program for children who struggle with behavioral problems or depression and are typically sent to the camp by their parents. The children at Trails Carolina have diagnoses such as autism, ADHD, bipolar and post-traumatic stress disorders.

A boy identified by the Transylvania County Sheriff’s Office only by his initials, CJH, was found dead at Trails Carolina on Feb. 3 with his pants and underwear removed, prompting an ongoing criminal investigation. The cause of death has not yet been determined, but the sheriff’s office said in a statement shortly after the death that, according to a forensic pathologist, it “appeared to not be natural.” Trails Carolina has said that preliminary information indicates the boy’s death was accidental.

The state Department of Health and Human Services declined to say whether the violations prompting the license revocation are connected to the boy’s death. The license inspection reports detailing the actions resulting in the violations were not immediately released.

The 18 children who had been at the camp when the 12-year-old died were removed later in February.

Over a dozen people who were placed at Trails Carolina between 2013 and 2022 told NBC News that the camp’s rules and protocols had caused them serious concern and, in some cases, ongoing trauma. The camp defended its approach but declined to comment on specific children’s experiences.

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Supreme Court delay prompts federal judges to act over South Carolina redistricting dispute

WASHINGTON —The Supreme Court has delayed resolving a South Carolina redistricting case for so long that a lower court has has been forced to step in, saying on Thursday that a congressional district it previously ruled was racially gerrymandered can be used in this year’s election.

Last year, a federal court ruled that the Charleston-area district held by Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., was unlawfully drawn by removing thousands of Black voters.

But on Thursday, the same court said in an order that the map could be used for this year’s congressional election.

The three-judge panel wrote that “with the primary election procedures rapidly approaching, the appeal before the Supreme Court still pending, and no remedial plan in place, the ideal must bend to the practical.”

The decision constitutes a setback for Democrats, who might have gained a more favorable map if it was redrawn.

The Supreme Court has spent months considering the merits of whether map-drawers unlawfully considered race when drafting the map but has yet to issue a ruling despite both sides saying it needed to be resolved well before the election.

The justices have also failed to act on an emergency application brought by Republican state officials asking for the existing map to remain in place, at least for now.

In a nine-month term running from October to June dominated by cases involving former President Donald Trump, the justices have issued only 11 rulings in argued cases.

Oral arguments in the South Carolina case were held on Oct. 11, giving the justices ample time to rule.

State officials had argued their sole goal was to increase the Republican tilt in the district in drawing the map. But in January 2023, the lower court ruled race was of predominant concern when one of the state’s seven districts was drawn. Republicans led by South Carolina Senate President Thomas Alexander appealed the decision.

The three-judge panel had said the state did not have to take any action to draw a new map until after the Supreme Court resolved the appeal — on the understanding that the justices would act more quickly.

Republicans redrew the boundaries after the 2020 census to strengthen GOP control of what had become a competitive district. Democrat Joe Cunningham won the seat in 2018 and narrowly lost to Mace in 2020. Two years later, with a new map in place, Mace won by a wider margin.

The roughly 30,000 Black voters who were moved out of the district were placed into the district held by Democratic Rep. James Clyburn, who is Black. It is the only one of the seven congressional districts held by Democrats.

The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and other civil rights groups alleged not only that Republicans unlawfully considered race when they drew the maps, but also that they also diluted the power of Black voters in doing so.

The claims were brought under the Constitution’s 14th Amendment, which requires that the law applies equally to everyone. The case arose under a different legal theory than was at issue in the major ruling this year in which civil rights advocates successfully challenged Republican-drawn maps in Alabama under the Voting Rights Act.

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Federal court reinstates lines for South Carolina congressional district despite racial gerrymander ruling

Washington — A panel of federal district court judges in South Carolina said Thursday that the 2024 elections for a congressional district in the state can be conducted using a map it determined was racially gerrymandered.

The three judges overseeing the redistricting dispute granted a request from South Carolina Republican legislative leaders, who asked the court to reinstate the lines for Congressional District 1 that GOP state lawmakers drew following the 2020 Census.

The Republicans had asked the court to pause its own January 2023 decision invalidating the lines of the district, represented by GOP Rep. Nancy Mace, while it awaits a ruling from the Supreme Court on whether to uphold the map. They argued that the 2024 election cycle in South Carolina is now underway — the candidate-filing period opened March 16 and closes April 1 — and last-minute changes to congressional district lines and the state’s election calendar would confuse voters and lead to disorder.

At least five candidates have filed to run in the primaries and have begun campaigning in Mace’s coastal district, as well as the neighboring district represented by Democratic Rep. Jim Clyburn.

The judges said in a short five-page decision that the “present circumstances make it plainly impractical for the court to adopt a remedial plan for” Congressional District 1 before an April 27 deadline for military and overseas ballots to be mailed. South Carolina’s statewide primary elections are set for June 11.

The district court panel noted that it had concluded that the district is unlawful under the 14th Amendment, but “with the primary election procedures rapidly approaching, the appeal before the Supreme Court still pending, and no remedial plan in place, the ideal must bend to the practical.”

Republican leaders had made their request to the district court on March 7, but then sought emergency relief from the Supreme Court on March 18 because the panel hadn’t yet ruled. The Supreme Court has yet to act on the GOP lawmakers’ bid for it to intervene.

The South Carolina State Conference of the NAACP and a voter challenged the GOP-crafted congressional voting map in federal district court in the 2021 redistricting cycle. South Carolina Republicans had said they constructed the district to produce a stronger Republican tilt. Mace narrowly won the seat in 2020, but cruised to reelection in the 2022 midterm elections, after the new lines were enacted.

In January 2023, the three-judge panel concluded that state lawmakers racially gerrymandered Congressional District 1 and designed it with racially discriminatory intent.

The district court blocked the state from holding elections for Mace’s district until lawmakers approved a constitutionally valid plan, and later gave the GOP-led legislature until 30 days after the Supreme Court rules to submit new boundaries. It amended that earlier order to bar elections from being conducted under the GOP-drawn lines for Congressional District 1 after the 2024 election cycle.

The high court considered in October whether Republican lawmakers impermissibly used race as the predominant factor when drawing the lines for Congressional District 1, and had been asked by GOP legislative leaders and the NAACP to issue its ruling by Jan. 1. But that deadline has long passed without any decision from the justices.

It’s unclear when the Supreme Court will rule in the case, but during arguments in the fall, a majority of the court appeared skeptical of the lower court’s decision.

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Moonshine cave long rumored to be under historic NASCAR speedway possibly found in North Carolina

A possible moonshine cave has been discovered under the grandstands of a legendary NASCAR track in North Carolina.

The discovery was made during a routine cleaning and inspection at North Wilkesboro Speedway last week, track officials shared Tuesday. Operations staff noticed cracks in the original concrete in Section N, revealing an approximately 700-square-feet open area underneath.

“We’d often hear stories of how an old moonshine still was operated here on the property under the grandstands,” said Steve Swift, senior vice president of operations and development at Speedway Motorsports.

“We haven’t found a still (yet), but we’ve found a small cave and an interior wall that would have been the perfect location to not only make illegal liquor, but to hide from the law as well,” Swift added.

With around 600 seats removed from the grandstands, the next step for the Speedway Motorsports staff is foundation repair and concreate replacement ahead of NASCAR All-Star Race Week in May.

North Wilkesboro Speedway became one of the original NASCAR race tracks after hosting the inaugural Strictly Stock Series. The speedway closed in 1996 but returned to host NASCAR in 2023 following an extensive restoration.

Moonshine is no stranger to NASCAR and North Carolina. Many early stars got their start carrying illegal moonshine on the rough mountain roads of Appalachia. Racing legend Junior Johnson was the best-known bootlegger in Wilkes County.

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South Carolina has $1.8 billion in a bank account — and doesn’t know where the money came from

IRS has $1B in unclaimed tax refunds

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South Carolina has collected about $1.8 billion in a bank account over the past decade — and doesn’t know where the money came from or where it was supposed to go.

“It’s like going into your bank and the bank president tells you we have a lot of money in our vault but we just don’t know who it belongs to,” said Republican Sen. Larry Grooms, who is leading a Senate panel investigating the problem.

The bank account, which is now being examined by state and private accountants, is the latest trouble with the state’s books and comes after South Carolina’s top accountant resigned last year. In that case, elected Republican comptroller general Richard Eckstrom stepped down after his agency started double posting money in higher education accounts, leading to a $3.5 billion error that was all on paper.

The paper error started during a decade-long transition to a new accounting system, which began in 2007, according to the South Carolina Daily Gazette.

But the $1.8 billion involves actual cash placed in a bank account. Now, lawmakers are asking why the money was parked there in first place and why officials never fixed the problem,

“This is one of the things that was swept under the rug for years,” Grooms told the Daily Gazette.

Looking for answers

Investigative accountants are still trying to untangle the mess, but it appears that every time the state’s books were out of whack, money was shifted from somewhere into an account that helped balance it out, state Senate leaders have said.

“Politics really shouldn’t come into play. People prefer their accountants not be crusaders,” Grooms said Tuesday, just after the Senate approved putting a constitutional amendment before voters to make the comptroller general an appointed position. The proposal now goes to the House.

Grooms suggested that an amendment to make the treasurer also appointed might be next unless he can provide some satisfactory answers.

Whatever caused the bank account errors has not been rectified, and if there are records showing where the $1.8 billion came from, they have not been shared with state leaders.

“It does not inspire confidence. But the good news is no money was lost,” Republican Gov. Henry McMaster said.

$200 million in interest

Elected Republican Treasurer Curtis Loftis, whose job is to write checks for the state, has said he invested the money in the mystery account and made nearly $200 million in interest for the state, which led to questions about why he didn’t let the General Assembly know money they either set aside for state agencies or that might have been in a trust fund was just sitting around.

Loftis said that wasn’t the job of his office.

The comptroller general “is attempting to shift responsibility to clean up its mess to the Treasurer,” Loftis wrote in a March 14 letter to Grooms that also said a timeline to answer questions in just a few weeks was impossible.

Loftis said his staff spent thousands of hours researching the account, and that the Comptroller General’s Office has refused to meet with them or share information. In one Facebook comment earlier this month, he asked his followers to “pray for my staff as they are working tremendous hours due to this situation.”

An audit of how the Treasurer’s Office and the Comptroller General’s Office communicate found they don’t do it well.

The treasurer hasn’t answered detailed questions from lawmakers but has posted statements on social media where he said he was being attacked politically and was having blame shifted on him by Comptroller General Brian Gaines, a well-respected career government worker who took over the office after Richard Eckstrom resigned during his sixth term.

A long history of accounting issues

Gaines and Loftis have been called before Grooms’ committee next week. Grooms said Gaines has answered every question his subcommittee has asked and that he has confidence in his work.

Grooms said he thinks Loftis’ office should have found the mistake, but it was reported by the Comptroller General’s Office.

South Carolina has had a long history of accounting issues.

The Treasurer’s Office was created when the state’s first constitution was written in 1776. Back then, the General Assembly selected the treasurer. But by the early 1800s, the state’s finances were in “a state of bewildering confusion” and no one could “tell the amounts of debts or of the credit of the State,” according to History of South Carolina, a book edited in 1920 by Yates Snowden and Howard Cutler.

The first comptroller general determined the state was due about $750,000, which would be worth about $20 million today considering inflation.

Meanwhile, plenty of lawmakers and others are aware there is $1.8 billion sitting around potentially unspent and not appropriated at a time when $3 billion in requests from state agencies went unfulfilled in next year’s budget just passed by the South Carolina House.

Legislative leaders and the governor want to wait for some definitive report before tapping into the account.

“That’s a lot of money and there is no need to hurry up and try to spend it,” McMaster said.

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Biden aims to make North Carolina a top battleground — but Trump isn’t worried yet

FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. — Everywhere he turns, President Joe Biden and his campaign are playing defense across the 2024 electoral map.

That is except for one state: North Carolina.

In the Tar Heel State, where Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are set to visit Tuesday, favorable demographics, a string of major Republican nominees painted as extreme and a rapidly changing electorate that only narrowly backed former President Donald Trump in 2020 has Democrats feeling optimistic about their chances to flip the crucial battleground.

But with Biden’s popularity lower since his last run, Republicans here aren’t fretting yet. Polling shows Trump with an edge ranging from a few points to almost double digits, with even bigger leads on major issues.

“North Carolina is going to be this election’s Arizona, or past elections’ Florida,” former GOP Gov. Pat McCrory said of his state’s role in 2024 as the potential tipping point.

Republicans have a long history of success at the presidential level in North Carolina over the past 40 years, losing only once when Barack Obama carried the state in 2008. But Biden’s loss there in 2020 was the closest a Democrat has come since then, with Trump winning by just slightly more than 1 percentage point. Meanwhile, the state’s rapid growth has seen its largest Democratic-leaning counties become bigger and more blue.

That’s encouraged Democrats to be much more proactive in North Carolina this time around, particularly as it’s the only front-line swing state Biden did not carry in 2020. Already, his campaign has staffed up top positions and included the state in its $25 million battleground state ad buy. Biden’s visit Tuesday will mark his second visit to the state this year; in the 2020 general election cycle, he didn’t visit North Carolina until September.

“Anyone that you talk to from 2020 would tell you that the Biden campaign was just not here early,” said Anderson Clayton, chair of the state Democratic Party. “What we’ve really tried to do is go ahead and put boots on the ground and have an energy build up here.”

Winning North Carolina and its 16 electoral votes could be essential for Biden given his vulnerability in other states he carried four years ago. Rep. Wiley Nickel, D-N.C., who won one of the most hotly contested House races last cycle but is not seeking re-election this fall after redistricting, made the case for a North Carolina focus to Biden aboard Air Force One last year.

“The nationwide math just isn’t there without North Carolina,” he said. “You had John McCain’s ghost and John Lewis’ ghost propelling Biden to win in Georgia and Arizona, and you don’t have as much going on in those states this time, so you’ve got to look to one more and without one more state it gets really difficult … North Carolina by every account is the best opportunity there.”

Biden and Harris have billed their visit — which is technically a White House and not a campaign event — as a chance to tout in-state job growth, investments in local infrastructure and a law signed last year by Gov. Roy Cooper that expanded Medicaid as part of the Affordable Care Act. But leaders in the state see it as an opening salvo of what is sure to be a brutal and expensive campaign season.

“In 2020, we probably weren’t that high on the target list,” said Cooper, who is appearing alongside Biden and Harris on Tuesday, adding that unlike the 2020 campaign, which fell in the middle of the Covid pandemic, Biden and Democrats will get to engage in much more substantive door-to-door and in-person voter engagement. “You’re going to see organization that we haven’t seen before.”

Surveys so far show Trump ahead. A Marist College poll taken after this month’s Super Tuesday primaries, which had a margin of error of 3.6 percentage points, found Biden trailing the former president by 3 points — with the same survey showing Democratic state Attorney General Josh Stein leading Republican Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson by 2 points in the battle for governor.

The same poll showed Trump with 12- and 9-point edges on immigration and the economy, including a 22- and 17-point edge respectively with independents. Biden held a 5-point advantage with voters on abortion and a 1-point edge on preserving democracy, which was a top concern for North Carolina voters.

Other preprimary surveys, including from Fox News and Bloomberg/Morning Consult, showed Trump leading by 5 to 9 points.

Couple those results with Trump having already pulled off back-to-back victories here, and his team is feeling good about their chance to make it three in a row. Trump has also elevated several veterans of North Carolina races: Senior adviser Chris LaCivita previously worked on McCrory’s campaign, and new Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley formerly led the North Carolina state party. New RNC co-chair Lara Trump also hails from the state.

“In 2016 and 2020, Democrats lit money on fire in North Carolina only to lose to President Trump,” Anna Kelly, an RNC spokesperson, said in a statement. “With President Trump’s record of success in the state and two North Carolinians at the helm of the RNC, 2024 will be no different — Tar Heel State families have felt the strain of Biden’s failures and are ready to deliver for President Trump yet again.”

‘The greatest liability’

Both Democrats and Republicans in North Carolina acknowledge that there are some true wild cards this time around. While Democrats lost a Senate race here after the Supreme Court rescinded Roe v. Wade, this year will mark the first elections for president and governor since the state’s GOP supermajority in the state Legislature overturned Cooper’s veto and enacted a 12-week abortion ban last year.

What’s more, Robinson, the GOP gubernatorial candidate, has said that he wants to further restrict abortion to six weeks. (His campaign says he supports exceptions that include rape, incest and the life of the mother.)

Robinson himself will be a focal point of the campaign. Formerly a prolific poster to his personal Facebook page, Robinson has been in the spotlight for years over comments that include linking homosexuality to pedophilia, calling homosexuality and transgenderism “filth,” and saying that the Black Panther franchise was “created by an agnostic Jew and put to film by [a] satanic marxist” before using a Yiddish slur for Black people. That is in addition to other comments and posts critics have condemned as sexist, Islamophobic and antisemitic.

Robinson in October insisted he is not antisemitic and distanced himself from his old social media posts, describing them as “poorly worded” in remarks for the state Legislature, adding: “There is no antisemitism standing here in front of you.” Facing a backlash over his anti-LGBTQ remarks in 2021, Robinson said he would “fight for” the rights of LGBTQ community.

Democrats are hopeful that they can take Trump down in the state by closely tying him together with Robinson, whom the former president called “Martin Luther King on steroids,” in endorsing him at a North Carolina rally this month.

One Trump ally predicted Robinson’s history of remarks could turn off some evangelicals who are staunch supporters of Israel, and that he will face far more in negative spending than McCrory did as an incumbent in 2016.

“The open question is how Trump deals with statements that Robinson makes and whether [Democrats] can tie the two together,” this person said. “So if I’m Biden, I’m going to try to do that.”

“I do think it’s an uphill climb for Biden on Trump right now. I’d bet on Trump,” this person added. “But it’s entirely in Trump’s hands about how he deals with Robinson.”

L.T. McCrimmon, a senior adviser to Biden’s campaign, said in a statement that North Carolina Republicans “continue to alienate the voters who will decide this election with their extreme rhetoric and backwards policies,” targeting Trump for “doubling down on his toxic agenda by hand-picking a slate of extreme candidates” and calling the state “ground zero for the extreme and losing MAGA agenda.”

Democrats have also taken aim at other down-ballot, statewide candidates, including Dan Bishop, the GOP nominee for attorney general and current member of the House Freedom Caucus, and Michele Morrow, a conservative activist and GOP nominee for state superintendent of public instruction who previously expressed support for violence against Democratic leaders.

But none have garnered the attention Robinson has.

“The greatest liability for Donald Trump, on his whole national race for president that is greater than any legal liability he’s currently facing, is Mark Robinson on the gubernatorial ticket,” Paul Shumaker, a longtime Republican operative in the state, said. “And the reason being is the Democrats will move to link Trump and Robinson together and put them in lockstep.”

Mike Lonergan, communications director for Robinson’s campaign, said in a statement that Robinson “is very bold and outspoken about his Christian faith” and is “not a career politician that’s been groomed for higher office for decades — he’s a former factory worker.”

“As Lt. Governor Robinson has often said, we don’t live in a theocracy, we live in a constitutional republic,” he said. “If and when he should become governor, he will take the oath and duties of his office with the utmost respect, working to make North Carolina better for people of all backgrounds and walks of life; by growing our economy, reforming our schools and creating a culture of life that does more to support mothers and families.”

Jonathan Felts, a longtime North Carolina operative who is leading a pro-Robinson super PAC, said Robinson’s opponents are greatly overestimating how unknown the candidate is, while greatly underestimating his appeal.

“They think this is a phenomenon unique just to blue collar, working-class grassroots,” Felts said of Robinson’s meteoric rise through North Carolina GOP circles. “And that’s not the case. It doesn’t matter if you’re a country club Republican, big commercial developer, one of the largest car dealers in the country … they’re all in on Mark Robinson.”

And with Robinson generating headlines throughout North Carolina for years, voters aren’t just being introduced to him.

“They’ve all heard about the controversies,” he said, “And they’re still sticking with him.”

No matter which way the gubernatorial race goes, it will be historic. Robinson, should he win, would be North Carolina’s first Black governor. Stein, his opponent, would be its first Jewish chief executive. Another interesting wrinkle to the race is North Carolina’s long history of ticket-splitting, specifically sending Republicans to the White House or Senate while voting for Democrats for governor. And initial polling suggests that could happen again this time, just as it did in 2016 and 2020 when Trump and Cooper won on the same ballot.

Winning those crossover voters could be critical for both Trump and Biden, while another group of voters — those who cast ballots for former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley in this month’s Republican presidential primary — could prove key to both coalitions as well.

So far, the candidates aren’t putting much distance between themselves and the top of the ticket. Robinson has already campaigned with Trump, while Stein is set to appear at Biden’s Tuesday event.

“I think he’s the one who can deliver a better future for the people of North Carolina in this country,” Stein said of Biden. “But the voters will choose us on our own merits.”

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Suspect in custody after allegedly running over migrant workers outside North Carolina Walmart

A suspect has been arrested and charged with felony hit and run after allegedly plowing into a group of migrant workers outside a Walmart in North Carolina, police said.

Daniel Gonzalez turned himself in just before 6 p.m. local time Monday, the Lincolnton Police Department said in a statement.

The migrants were hit by a black SUV outside a Walmart in Lincolnton around 1:17 p.m. Sunday, the Lincolnton Police Department said. They were taken to a local hospital and none of their injuries appeared to be life-threatening, according to police.

Surveillance video showed the SUV slowly driving through the parking lot and then turning to face the group of workers, who were standing on the sidewalk. The SUV then accelerated over the curb and into the group before driving away.

Gonzalez’s family members, who were with him when he turned himself in, claimed he accidentally hit the gas instead of the brakes and he drove away because he panicked, police said in a statement.

The victims were not publicly identified, but CBS affiliate WBTV reported they worked for Toluca Blackberry, which provides workers for Knob Creek Orchard in Lawndale, North Carolina, a roughly 30-minute drive from Lincolnton.

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