Two new billboards are being installed by PETA next to Charlotte schools, specifically targeting young children.
The new signs read “I’m me, not MEAT,” and tell kids to ask their parents about going vegan this Thanksgiving season.
“Children have a natural empathy for animals, so they’d be horrified to learn that gentle turkeys are babies themselves when they’re strung upside down and slaughtered,” commented PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman in a press release. “This Thanksgiving, PETA is calling on children and their parents to keep cruelty off the table.”
One of the signs has already been installed on Ashley Rd., centrally placed between Thomasboro Academy, Allenbrook Elementary, and Ashley Park Elementary. The other one is scheduled to be installed later today on Statesville Ave. – just down the road from Lincoln Heights Academy.
Last night, Republican candidate Kenny Smith and Democratic candidate Vi Lyles faced off for one last round of questioning before next week’s elections.
The debate lasted for about an hour and dove into a wide variety of topics, including; crime, the citizen’s review board, police pay, the opioid crisis, affordable housing, whether or not NFL players should be required to stand during the national anthem, and many others.
You can watch the full debate here;
The most recent Charlotte mayoral poll shows that the two candidates are virtually tied, so it’s now more important than ever before to get out there and vote!
If you still aren’t sure who to vote for, check out Ballotpedia.org’s pages on Smith and Lyles for more info on each candidate.
The upcoming election also includes a wide range of other positions, including on the CMS school board, Charlotte City Council, Board of Commissioners Mecklenburg Towns (Huntersville, Matthews, Cornelius, etc.), all Mecklenburg County Mayor’s offices (Huntersville, Matthews, Cornelius, etc.), and the Town Council in Pineville.
Early Voting started on, Thursday, October 19, 2017 at 8AM at Hal Marshall Annex. 16 additional locations opened on the 28th, including the following times and locations;
This past weekend, one of the strangest photos of the year was taken in South Carolina – a man in a purple hoodie, on a bike, with a deer thrown over his shoulder.
We aren’t sure where the man was going, where the deer came from, or how in the world he managed to balance the huge creature on his shoulder while riding his bike, but we are certainly impressed.
The photo was taken by Candice Lane Counts on Broad River Rd. in downtown Columbia.
Her post has already received over 2,000 shares;
Most people online are speculating that the dear was roadkill, given the fact that the man did not have a gun with him, and that South Carolina has an extremely high number of deer accidents.
According to StateFarm.com, South Carolina is the 12th worst state in America for deer accidents – with 1 in 93 insurance claims for damage caused by a collision with a deer in 2016 (North Carolina is the 16th worst state at 1 in 115).
Here’s how the other states measure up;
Thank you, bicycle man, for cleaning up our streets!
This past Monday night, a prominent author, public speaker, and former Charlotte pastor was escorted off and indefinitely banned from the campus of Liberty University by armed police while backstage at a Christian concert.
Liberty University is the largest nonprofit university in the nation, and the largest Christian university in the world, according to their website.
Yesterday morning, Jonathan Martin shared a picture of his restraining order from the University, along with an apology to the students who were hoping to pray with him.
His post has already been shared over 750 times and commented on over 200 times;
A little background…
Who is Jonathan Martin?
Jonathan Martin is the former pastor and founder of Charlotte’s Renevatus Church, and a close friend of Elevation Church’s Pastor Steven Furtick;
Had the great honor of speaking for Pastor Jonathan Martin & the Renovatus team tonight-Amazing people! http://www.renovatuscommunity.com
Family. So special to have @stevenfurtick in Tulsa tonight, & introduce some of my best friends to each other. And what a word tonight! pic.twitter.com/TyLJNbQsCD
According to his social media posts, Jonathan has become increasingly troubled by the “religious right”, and especially those who support alt-right leaders like Steve Bannon;
I agree with every single word of this, by @MJGerson: “The religious right carries its golden calf into Steve Bannon’s battles”: https://t.co/FB5tsYhTEI
What was he doing at Liberty when forcefully removed?
The night before his scheduled prayer rally, Jonathan was invited on campus by the Christian band “Johnny Swim”, who was performing at Liberty University as part of their world tour. When Jonathan was hanging out with his friends backstage in the green room, several armed Liberty University police officers came in unannounced and escorted him off campus;
Gonna be sharing a story today of something that happened last night night at @LibertyU.
More details from us later. But here’s the story from our guest who was escorted out of our dressing room & of campus by 5 armed officers pic.twitter.com/wArbLG2uQt
Last night, Liberty University issued a public statement on Facebook as to why they escorted Jonathan off campus and gave him an indefinite restraining order;
“Members of the Liberty University community are always welcome to engage in peaceful debate, intellectual inquiry and protest, but for public safety reasons, organized events by outside groups require advance notice and participating in the appropriate application process. Liberty University learned via social media of an attempt by Jonathan Martin to schedule an event on its private campus without any prior authorization or consultation. Mr. Martin is not a student, faculty member or employee of Liberty University. There are facility use protocols for those who are not members of the University community to schedule events on the campus. Those protocols take into account safety and security, as well as schedule conflicts and costs. Absent such pre-planning and authorization, an event promoted to the general public on social media has the potential to be a security risk. Given the late hour of the notice, the only effective way to prevent the unauthorized event from happening this morning was to issue a trespass warning to its organizer, Mr. Martin, last evening. This was done in a professional and matter of fact manner by Liberty University Police Department.”
However, given the fact that Jonathan scheduled his prayer rally for the morning of the 31st, and he was escorted off campus on the night of the 30th, without violating any campus rules, it seems clear that his forced removal had more to do with his anti-Trump views than with his potential “unscheduled meeting”.
Many of responses on social media have been against the actions of Liberty;
While some applauded the University’s actions;
What are your thoughts on Liberty University’s actions?
The North Carolina Department of Public Safety has just issued an Amber Alert for a missing 3-year-old girl.
Zy’Rah Nicole Holliday is described as a black female, approximately 3 feet tall, weighing 35 pounds. She was last seen wearing a black shirt with flowers and the word “Love” on it with black jogging pants.
According to police, Holliday was last known to be on foot in the Spring Lake area.
Police believe Holliday was abducted by 20-year-old Daquan Seandre Thomas. Thomas is described as a black male, approximately 5-foot-10, weighing 150 pounds. He has black hair and brown eyes and was last seen wearing a black shirt and black shorts.
Anyone with information about Holliday’s possible whereabouts is urged to call the Harnett County Sheriff’s Office at 910-893-9111 or 911 immediately. You can also call North Carolina Highway Patrol at *HP.
The Carolina Panthers have just traded Kelvin Benjamin, our #1 wide receiver, to the Buffalo Bills in exchange for 3rd and 7th round draft pick in next year’s season.
According to ESPN’s interview with GM Marty Hurney, “The Panthers were willing to part with him because it eliminates some redundancy on the field with the 6-foot-5 Benjamin and the 6-4 Devin Funchess, who has a similar skill set and now moves into Benjamin’s role as the No. 1 receiver. The Panthers also want to get speed guys such as Russell Shepard, rookie Curtis Samuel and Kaelin Clay on the field more.”
Because of the timing of the trade, it’s now officially the last trade of the 2017 season. NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport, tweeted out that the trade was finalized literally 3 minutes before NFL’s trade deadline;
The #Bills deal for #Panthers WR Kelvin Benjamin came together at 3:57 pm — 3 minutes before the trade deadline.
Not only is Concord seeing its highest home prices in history, it’s also seeing one of the highest population growths in our state. Based on new Census data, Concord has now surpassed Asheville to become the 11th largest city in the state of North Carolina.
According to the new estimates, Concord has grown by 2.57%, from a population of 87,643 in 2015 to 89,891 in 2016 – the biggest growth rate among the state’s 15 largest cities – the next closes was Durham with a growth rate of 2.13%. Concord is now about 2,000 residents shy of Greenville, NC’s 10th largest city, and about 15,000 residents shy of High Point, NC’s 9th largest city.
Charlotte, the largest city in the state, grew by over 15,000 residents in the past year alone (with a current population of 842,051).
These new population estimates show a continued migration away from the small rural town, and toward the large metro cities and their surrounding suburb towns and cities. Huntersville is one of the most stark examples of this trend, the small suburb had a population of 3,014 in 1990, and has since become home to 54,839 people – it’s now larger than the entire city of Hickory.
The suburb of Indian Trail is another example, which had a population of about 1,000 in 1990 census, it’s now home to 38,222- larger than the cities of Monroe, Shelby, and even Statesville.
Our region’s top growth rate was seen in Fort Mill, SC at 9.44%, followed by Waxhaw at 5.07%, and Huntersville at 4.04%.
It’s certainly an exciting time to live in the Charlotte region!
There is a debate currently going on in the U.S. over the state of the corn harvest. “The improvement in corn ratings raised our forecast of yields an average of .7 of 1% last week,” said Bryce Knorr the senior grain market analyst for Farm Futures. “Yields range from 168 to 170.4 bushels per acre. Big gains in Iowa and Nebraska accounted for much of the improvement.”
Harvest experts estimated a 44% completion rate for corn, but the USDA begs to differ. According to the government body’s crop progress report, corn yields were only at 38%, which was way below the estimates made by industry analysts. Trade estimates were ranged between 40% – 49%.
Bad harvest weather throughout late September and early October made the harvesting of the crop slow. However, farmers are hoping that they can catch up with their harvest now that the skies are clearer. Some major corn production states have harvested less than 1/4 of their crops including Iowa (23%), South Dakota (19%), Colorado (18%), North Dakota (17%), Wisconsin (15%), and Minnesota (14%). North Carolina, however, led the way in corn production and is estimated to be already at 95% completion.
Stink bugs and July’s strong heat waves may have slowed down corn production in North Carolina but farmers are now expecting slightly better yields during the last leg of the year. Early corn harvest results for North Carolina show a better than average corn yield, which are 200 or more bushels per acre.
Apart from farmers who grow and export corn, the sluggish production of the staple commodity seems to have affected the financial industry as well. In a report by Nadex, economists predict that corn prices may not rally soon given the low harvest numbers. According to the chart below, corn's futures prices are hitting at the bearish line (orange) at $353.50, and the mid-October high at only $354.00.
The condition of corn in some states marked as good to excellent went up from 1% to over 60%. The number of corn rated as good steadily settled at 50%. On the other hand, excellent grade corn improved from 1% to 16%. The harvested percentage of excellent-grade corn is 20% higher in some states including North Carolina, Nebraska, Colorado, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Wisconsin, and Texas.
Last year’s USDA crop summary report showed that 2016 was a good year for North Carolina’s corn production. Even if the average yield of 129 bushels per acre in the state fell a bit shorter from the state's all-time high record, which was 142 bushels per acre in 2013, the total corn production was at 121 million bushels. Last year’s record was 47% higher than what was recorded in 2015.
Yesterday in Tampa Bay, we saw an impressive touchdown throw by Cam, an even more impressive interception by Luke, and perhaps the most impressive pickup technique in football history by our kicker Graham Gano.
Right before the end of the half, with the Panthers up by 10 points and 17 seconds left on the clock, Graham walked up to the ball, step-kicked it to the ref, and nonchalantly turns around.
Spectrum News reporter Mike Solarte tweeted out the video of the mind-blowing trick yesterday afternoon;
As impressive as it was, however, it still may not be as good as some of the ‘pick-me’ tricks of other NFL greats;
Graham kick-flip is actually a very well-executed freestyle soccer trick that’s been translated to American football. The Soccer Freestyle Master Guide lays out step-by-step instructions on how to do the trick…but you will need some epic footwork skills, and a decade or two of practice.
The NCDOT will be making some major changes to I-85 this week as part of the I-85 widening project.
They will be closing all lanes on I-85 North in Concord between Exit 55 and Exit 58 between midnight and 6am tonight, tomorrow night, and Wednesday night (10/31-11/2).
They will also be closing 1 southbound lane between the same exits between 9am-6am, also for the next 3 nights (10/31-11/2).
All traffic traveling northbound on I-85 over the next 3 nights will be detoured via 73 and 29;
via maps.google.com
The NCDOT is encouraging all motorists “to pay attention when approaching the work zone, obey the posted speed limit, follow posted detours and allow extra time to reach their destinations safely.”
The Carolina Panthers have just traded Kelvin Benjamin, our #1 wide receiver, to the Buffalo Bills in exchange for 3rd and 7th round draft pick in next year’s season.
Not only is Concord seeing its 
Dr. Ron Heiniger a professor of Crop Science and Cropping Systems Specialist at the North Carolina State University
