Weekly Wrap: Goooaaalll?
Boosters trying to land a Major League Soccer franchise for Raleigh hope to build a stadium on part of the state government complex downtown.
Although organizers say the stadium would be privately funded, the site would entail tearing down some state office buildings and parking garages. No word yet on whether state officials back the plan.
In non-sports news this week, Gov. Roy Cooper has signed a few dozen bills sitting on his desk but vetoed one that would allow governments in Guilford County to pilot posting legal notices online instead of paying for classified ad space in a local newspaper. Cooper said the measure was aimed at hurting media companies, and sponsor Sen. Trudy Wade, R-Guilford, accused the governor of "brown-nosing" to win favor with reporters.
Cooper also came out against offshore drilling, saying state regulators would submit comments to the Trump administration in opposition to the government's plan to open up the Atlantic Ocean to oil and gas exploration.
On the legal front, the State Board of Education voted to appeal the ruling of a three-judge panel in favor of Superintendent of Public Instruction Mark Johnson in the ongoing power struggle over the state's public schools, Republican lawmakers dropped their lawsuit against Cooper's efforts to expand Medicaid because the governor hasn't pushed the idea and the ACLU and LGBT groups sued over the House Bill 2 replacement legislation, arguing that the same restrictions remain in place.
