IDIOT FROM CARY ARRESTED FOR TAKING PART IN INSURRECTION: A 19-year-old man from Cary was arrested Monday for assaulting law enforcement and other crimes during the Jan. 6 riots in which supporters of former President Trump breached the U.S. Capitol. Aiden Henry Bilyard was arrested by federal investigators in Raleigh and was released, the U.S. Department of Justice said Tuesday. Bilyard is charged with physical violence in a restricted building or grounds, civil disorder, and assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers with a dangerous weapon among other misdemeanors, according to a news release. The Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested Bilyard following an investigation of social media accounts with aid from online sleuths, according to Huff Post, who first reported the news. Rule #1 of Insurrection Club: don't talk about Insurrection Club on Facebook. Dumbass.
https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/crime/article256075822.html

JEFF AND CHERI ON GUN CONTROL: Jackson: We’ve seen unacceptable, unconscionable acts of violence over and over again. And over and over again, our leaders fail to act. Not because of policy ignorance, but because of political fear of the NRA. If we want change, we have to change our leaders. I served in Afghanistan. I was trained how to use weapons. When I talk to people across North Carolina, there’s strong support for standing up to the NRA and implementing commonsense reforms like universal background checks, red flag laws, and banning bump stocks. Those proposals have support from across the state and across the political spectrum — and they’d save lives. Giving the NRA a veto on these kinds of reforms is unacceptable, and we deserve a Senator who won’t let that happen. Beasley: I share in the heartbreak of communities across our state and nation for the lives forever altered and lost to gun violence. I firmly believe that we must take action to stop gun violence. North Carolinians are clear in supporting gun safety measures. We must listen to them and to law enforcement and public safety and health experts who are telling us that we need to address gun safety at the federal level — and not the corporate gun lobby. As a mother, I also know we must do more to stop the plague of mass shootings across our communities by keeping combat-style weapons and high-capacity magazines off our streets and away from our schools. And I agree with the majority of gun owners and an overwhelming majority of Americans that action is urgently needed to reduce gun violence. And I agree with both of them.
https://www.newsobserver.com/latest-news/article255933701.html

NC BUDGET WILL FUND 2 YEARS OF COMMUNITY COLLEGE FOR STUDENTS: North Carolina high school seniors graduating in 2022 can get extra help paying for community college following the expansion of a grant program started during the pandemic. The Longleaf Commitment grant program began in May 2021, using $25 million in federal money that was earmarked to help schools and students recover from the pandemic. It guarantees lower-income students enough financial aid to cover tuition and fees at a community college for two years. The program provides between $700 and $2,800 per year, according to Andrea Poole, executive director of the State Educational Assistance Authority, which manages the state’s scholarship and grant programs. Longleaf grants are available to students whose expenses exceed other financial aid they qualify for, including Pell grants and state lottery scholarships. The grants were initially available only to prospective two-year students who completed high school in the 2020-21 school year. Poole said about 12,000 of those students took advantage of the program. Both my older son and my daughter did their first two years at community college before plunging into the UNC System, and saved a ton of money. This is a fantastic new program.
https://www.wral.com/more-need-based-financial-aid-in-new-nc-budget/19998709/

WHITE SUPREMACISTS TO COUGH UP $25 MILLION FOR CHARLOTTESVILLE CIRCLE-JERK: A jury ordered 17 white nationalist leaders and organizations to pay more than $25 million in damages Tuesday over the violence that erupted during the deadly 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville in 2017. After a nearly monthlong civil trial, the jury in U.S. District Court deadlocked on two key claims but found the white nationalists liable on four other claims in the lawsuit filed by nine people who suffered physical or emotional injuries during the two days of demonstrations. Attorney Roberta Kaplan said the plaintiffs' lawyers plan to refile the suit so a new jury can decide the two deadlocked claims. She called the amount of damages awarded from the others counts “eye opening.” “That sends a loud message,” Kaplan said. The verdict, though mixed, is a rebuke to the white nationalist movement, particularly for the two dozen individuals and organizations accused in a federal lawsuit of orchestrating violence against African Americans, Jews and others in a meticulously planned conspiracy. This needs to happen every single time these peckerwoods gather together to burn their tiki torches.
https://www.wral.com/unite-the-right-jurors-to-begin-third-day-of-deliberations/19997599/

I'M NOT SO SURE THIS IS SUCH A GOOD IDEA...: If all goes well, the spacecraft that NASA plans to launch Tuesday will smash itself to bits against an asteroid. If all goes absolutely perfectly, that impact will jostle the asteroid into a slightly different orbit, meaning that for the first time, humans will have changed the trajectory of a celestial object. Making history, however, is incidental. The real mission is to defend the planet. No need to panic: The target space rock has no chance of striking Earth, nor does any other known asteroid for at least half a century. This NASA mission, operated by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md., is testing a technique for redirecting an asteroid in case future Earth folk really need to bat one out of the way. The basic idea could not be simpler: Hit it with a hammer! But the degree of difficulty is high, in part because no one has ever actually seen the asteroid NASA plans to nudge. It is a moonlet named Dimorphos that is about the size of a football stadium. I've seen this movie. I've read this book. We knock it into a different orbit, and then realize we made a huge mistake...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/interactive/2021/nasa-rams-an-asteroid-planetary-defense/?iti...