Because rate increases over the past several years weren’t enough…

BCBS wants 23% rate hike on ACA plans in North Carolina for 2018

(Raleigh News & Observer) Blue Cross and Blue Shield, the state’s largest health insurer, is proposing a 23 percent rate increase on Affordable Care Act plans in 2018, in what will be the fifth year of the federal health insurance mandate.

The steep rate request follows a 24.3 percent rate increase for this year and a 32.5 percent increase in 2016. The company’s ACA rates have more than doubled since the law made health insurance mandatory in 2014.

Read the full story HERE>

Miss me? I tapped out for a bit.

I tried an interesting experiment over the past couple months. I disengaged with my website. I shut off the news. I stripped my social media feeds of all things political. I picked up my guitar and got on a public stage for the first time in forever. I wrote some new songs and poetry. I soaked myself in the lives of the people I love and immersed myself into where I was at. When I stuck my head back up I realized that nothing had really changed. Angry people were still angry. Happy people were still happy. Politicians were still splitting people apart. And good deeds were still, for the most part, being ignored by the media.

You know what I came to understand from this little pop culture hiatus? I care way too much about being present in my daily life to care about what’s dominating social and broadcast media anymore. Am I alone in this feeling? I really don’t care if I am or not. That said, I would love to engage with as many people in my community as care to engage with me in a genuine and vulnerably honest way. I find myself motivated to volunteer around town again. I’ve already agreed to a few big events over the next several weeks. I think the election season got me so jaded that I retreated to my bubble of family and friends just to maintain some semblance of sanity. It was like people didn’t know how to shut it off. All the drama was effecting my spirit.

So here’s where I’m at. I love the hours that fill my day. I love the people I encounter in my daily routine. I love the work I’m doing these days. And most of all, I just simply love. From where I sit, it seems a lot more people could use a two month unplug. If you can’t find it in yourself to do that, that’s cool. Do what feels right for you. But if you see me politely turn away and not engage, it doesn’t mean I don’t care. It means I don’t care to hit my head against a wall.

#Love

Nonverbal Boy with Autism Shares Special Bond with Deaf New Shelter Dog

(Good News Network) Connor Guillet may only be 6 years old, but he’s already found his soul mate in a deaf adopted boxer pup named Ellie. Since Connor is a nonverbal boy on the autism spectrum, he usually only communicates through signs and gestures. The boy’s parents found Ellie at a boxer rescue event near their home in Cocoa, Florida. When the trainers explained that they would have to use sign language in order to communicate with Ellie due to her deafness, the couple knew she would make a perfect companion for their son.

Read more HERE>

Michael Jordan to receive Presidential Medal of Freedom

(Raleigh News & Observer)  President Barack Obama will bestow the Presidential Medal of Freedom on basketball superstar Michael Jordan, now the principal owner of the Charlotte Hornets NBA franchise, the White House announced Wednesday. Jordan is among 21 individuals who will receive the nation’s highest civilian honor on Nov. 22. In the announcement, the White House described Jordan as “one of the greatest athletes of all time.” In 15 seasons in pro basketball, Jordan led the Chicago Bulls to six National Basketball Association championships. Earlier, as a freshman at the University of North Carolina, he led the Tar Heels to a national championship in 1982.

Read this years complete list of recipients HERE>

Bill Murray celebrates Cubs World Series win in glorious fashion, for all to share

(USA Today) The Chicago Cubs won the World Series on Wednesday night in Cleveland in an incredible 10 innings vs. the Indians. It put an end to the Cubs’ 108-year title drought, and superfan Bill Murray, who was one of many celebrities at the game, couldn’t believe it. Murray’s celebration was glorious. He tried honking MVP Ben Zobrist’s new car on the field, then he went into the locker room and acted as a Fox Sports reporter. Murray gave Dexter Fowler drinking tips in his interview: “Pace yourself. You’re gonna be doing this for a few years. You don’t want to start drinking too hard too early.”

See multiple video clips HERE>

Horror in the highlands: Asheville’s ghostly legends provide a glimpse into city’s past

(Mountain XPress) The large crowd that packs the back room of West Asheville’s new Byrish Haus & Pub isn’t unusual for a Wednesday evening, but its purpose there might be a little strange, even for this town. “Tonight, we will be conducting an investigation and seance in a way that’s never been done in Asheville,” says Joshua P. Warren, Asheville native and nationally renowned paranormal investigator. Employing a host of electrostatic detectors and traditional instruments of the occult, Warren, forensic historian Vance Pollock and a host of paranormal investigators, “sensitives” and mediums are about to attempt to identify and draw out a spirit said to be plaguing the new bar. Like any good Southern city, Asheville’s history is steeped in the gothic and the paranormal. While the facts and claims behind these legends vary from story to story (and storyteller), Asheville’s “ghosts” play an often unheralded role in capturing and preserving the city’s past.

Read the full article HERE>

13-Year-old Receives Google Science Prize for Ingenious Medical Solution

(Good News Network) This 13-year-old just revolutionized an age-old problem in medicine using a remarkably simple method. Anushka Naiknaware from Beaverton, Oregon became one of the top eight finalists of an international Google-run science competition after she invented bandages that notify doctors when they needed to be changed. Using graphene nanoparticles and ink, the bandages start to display fractal patterns when they detect that moisture levels have dropped. Bandages need to be dampened in order to properly heal wounds, but changing bandages too often can be harmful to an injury. This way, medical officials no longer have to rely on guesswork.

Read the full story HERE>

Where is the line between your property and theirs? Congressional hearing on houseboats raises questions

(Smoky Mountain News)  The Tennessee Valley Authority leadership fielded some tough questions from members of Congress last week in Washington, D.C., during a Subcommittee on Government Operations hearing. There were some questions TVA wasn’t able to answer regarding its recent board decision to get rid of 1,800 houseboats on its 49 reservoirs within the next 30 years. Even though more than 3,700 people have signed an online petition opposing the TVA’s decision to sunset all floating homes, TVA President and CEO Bill Johnson couldn’t tell the committee how many complaints it received regarding houseboats staying on the lakes.

Rep. Mark Meadows, R-Cashiers, who also chairs the subcommittee, told Johnson that a decision to displace 1,800 families who invested thousands into their homes usually isn’t made lightly. After closely examining the legislation that created the TVA as a federal corporation in 1933, Meadows also said he thought the TVA was overstepping its authority and was punishing many homeowners when the TVA hasn’t enforced its own houseboat regulations since 1978.

Read the full report HERE>

Medal of Honor recipients might get their own national museum

(The State Newspaper) – A museum being built in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, to showcase the nation’s highest military honor should officially be designated the National Medal of Honor Museum, South Carolina Republicans in Congress say. Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., introduced a bill to formally make the museum in Patriots Point, on the eastern shore of Charleston Harbor, the national destination for Americans wanting to learn more about Medal of Honor recipients.

According to plans, the 107,000-square-foot museum will include a 240-seat auditorium, a 140-seat chapel and event spaces. The National Medal of Honor Foundation is still raising funds for the $98 million building, which could be completed in 2018.

Read more HERE>

Cherokee give $50,000 to Standing Rock Sioux pipeline fight

(Smoky Mountain News) The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians threw its support behind the cause of the Standing Rock Sioux in North Dakota when Tribal Council voted to give $50,000 toward a legal battle to prevent construction of an oil pipeline north of Standing Rock Sioux land. “This is an issue of tribal sovereignty. This is also an issue of honoring a treaty. More importantly, it’s an issue of water rights,” Vice Chief Richard Sneed told council at its Sept. 6 Budget Council meeting. “Where this pipeline is set to cross just north of the reservation, when there is a break that will pollute the only water source.”

Sneed was quick to express his appreciation for council’s unanimous vote and endorsement of the $50,000 figure — in the resolution he submitted, he’d left the dollar amount blank for council to fill in. “I’m humbled. I’m honored. Today you demonstrated why we are leaders in Indian Country,” he said. “I had no idea or even expected a move of that much. It’s impressive.” Sneed told council that he’d like to hand-carry the check to North Dakota. When Principal Chief Patrick Lambert addressed council at another meeting two days later, he concurred with Sneed’s appreciation of council’s actions and pledged a swift signing of the resolution.

Read the full story HERE>

Tensions Rise as Prairie Tribes Move to Block a Pipeline Through Sacred Grounds

Photo courtesy of BBC.

(New York Times) Horseback riders, their faces streaked in yellow and black paint, led the procession out of their tepee-dotted camp. Two hundred people followed, making their daily walk a mile up a rural highway to a patch of prairie grass and excavated dirt that has become a new kind of battlefield, between a pipeline and American Indians who say it will threaten water supplies and sacred lands. Local officials are struggling to handle hundreds of demonstrators filling the roads to protest and camp out in once-empty grassland about an hour south of Bismarck, the state capital. This month, a line of sheriff’s officers retreated in the face of riders on horseback circling and yipping through the grass. (Tribal members said that the display was a Lakota gesture of introduction, and that they have no quarrel with law enforcement.)

Read the full report and see videos HERE>