Speaker Shares “Hopeful” Budget Timeline

House Speaker Tim Moore said Wednesday that he hopes to get a House/Senate consensus state budget to Gov. Roy Cooper next week so that the next stage of negotiations can begin. "The plan right now is for the House and the Senate to come up with an agreement ... that would then be shared confidentially with the governor to give the governor an opportunity to either say whether he would sign it as is, or if there are changes he would like to see," Moore, R-Cleveland, said. "And then to have those negotiations," he said.

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Federal Programs Expire – Weekly Claims Drop 20%

The number of North Carolinians filing initial unemployment-insurance claims dropped 20% in the first week following the expiration of two key federal pandemic relief programs. The U.S. Labor Department reported Thursday that North Carolina had 4,013 claims for the week that ended Sept. 11, compared with a revised 5,050 the previous week. By comparison, the state’s highest weekly total for claims related to the COVID-19 pandemic has been 172,745 for the week that ended March 28, 2020.

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Name Changer?

Fayetteville and Cumberland County residents weighed in Tuesday on the process to rename Fort Bragg, with suggestions to keep the name, rename it after Braxton Bragg's cousin or consider naming it after a woman. Camp Bragg was established in 1918 as a field artillery installation and named after North Carolina native Braxton Bragg, an artillery officer known for his role in the 1847 Battle of Buena Vista, Mexico, said Linda Carnes-McNaughton, Fort Bragg's curator and archaeologist. He later served as a Confederate general.

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