The Fayetteville Observer
Cameo Art House
Monday, I visited my old loft apartment on the second floor of the Cameo Art House Theatre in downtown Fayetteville. I lived there circa the late 2000s. People looked at me kind of funny when I said I lived “in” the theater, but the description mostly...
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The high cost of U.S. health care
In announcing its “Great Healthcare Plan” in January, the Trump administration became the latest in a long history of efforts by the U.S. government to rein in the soaring cost of health care. h As a physician and professor studying the intersection of...
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Residents say ‘no’ to data centers
When folks in Fayetteville and Cumberland County are given a chance to speak publicly about data centers, they show up strong and from all walks of life. And from what I’ve seen so far, they are unanimously against the idea of having more of these...
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Former N.C. Gov. Cooper speaks at Senate campaign event
RIGHT: U.S. Senate candidate Roy Cooper speaks to a small crowd during a campaign event in downtown Fayetteville on April 7. The Democratic former N.C. Gov. will face Republican Michael Whatley in November for the seat being vacated by Sen. Thom...
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Community approach aims to prevent violence
Gun and youth violence continue to resist a downward crime trend in Fayetteville. One way the city is trying to deal with violence is to stop it before it starts. “Violence interruption” is a common designation for this approach. And it is where The...
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TSA sharing data with ICE elicits concern
The deportation of a Guatemalan mother and daughter who were detained before boarding a flight raises new questions about how the Trump administration is using government databases for immigration enforcement. The Transportation Security...
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STUFFY SEASON
If you think 2026 has been a horrible allergy season so far, you aren’t alone. h Officials say a combination of weather events coupled with a changing climate have made this year’s pollen season, always a challenge in pine-heavy North Carolina,...
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‘This is going to be a jewel in their crown’
Local and state officials held a topping-off ceremony March 31 for the NC History Center on the Civil War, Emancipation & Reconstruction. This is an event where the builder, in this case Balfour Beatty Construction, places the final steel beam. People...
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SNAP-Ed saved money, helped Americans eat healthier
If the government had found a way to save $10 for every dollar it spent helping low-income people get healthier, wouldn’t it make sense for it to keep doing that? Well, that’s exactly what the U.S. government did when it piloted the SNAPEd program in...
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How to read conversion therapy ruling
How big of an impact will the U.S. Supreme Court’s March 31 ruling on speech-based conversion therapy have on the First Amendment? That will depend on how states across the nation have drafted their laws regulating the practice, legal experts say. In...
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Judge: Trump NPR, PBS cuts are unconstitutional
A federal judge said the Trump administration can’t enforce the president’s order to ax federal funding for National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service, saying in a March 31 decision that the White House can’t “extinguish speech” the...
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240+ new homes will locate near Fayetteville area pub
Dirtbag Ales, a brewpub, taproom and family-centered social gathering spot on Corporation Drive in Hope Mills is getting more company — and a lot of it. Trees have been cleared along a huge swath just south of the business to make way for a...
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‘Birth tourism’ enters immigration debate
WASHINGTON – The practice is called “birth tourism.” Companies with names like USA Happy Baby and Star Baby Care offered to shepherd pregnant women from China – or any other country – into the United States to give birth to children recognized as U.S....
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Phylicia Rashad visits Fayetteville
Phylicia Rashad, who played iconic TV mom Clair Huxtable, said a surprise decision made by her own late mother when Rashad was a teenager helped her land that role. Rashad, a stage, film and TV actress, who costarred in the “The Cosby Show,” and more...
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‘A rising tide lifts all ships’
On a recent Thursday morning, the Arts Council of Fayetteville/Cumberland County on Hay Street was quiet. Two women — grandmothers — moved slowly through the gallery’s exhibit by Cumberland County high schoolers. h They were there to see their...
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‘Trump slump’ hit U.S. tourism in 2025
With an upcoming FIFA World Cup being staged across the nation, 2026 was supposed to be a bumper year for tourism to the United States, driven in part by hordes of arriving soccer fans. And yet, the U.S. tourism industry is worried. While the rest of...
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Pentagon says some 82nd Airborne troops deploying
Part of the 82nd Airborne Division headquarters and some soldiers with the division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team will be deploying to the U.S. Central Command’s area of authority, a Department of War official told The Fayetteville Observer on March...
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Residents demand pause on data center
More than 25 speakers appeared before Cumberland County commissioners March 23, united in the same request — that the county impose a moratorium and put regulations in place for data centers seeking to locate here. Some of the same speakers, some...
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County seeks state funds for schools
Earlier this month, Cumberland County officials asked the county’s legislative delegation to consider a $92.5 million state allocation, with funding for E.E. Smith High School emerging as a talking point. On March 19, Cumberland County commissioners...
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ICE agents to be deployed at airports
Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers began deploying at some U.S. airports March 23 as travelers faced significant disruptions and Transportation Security Administration agent absences soared amid the partial government shutdown. President...
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‘Bad news for our native environment’
Drive into pretty much any neighborhood in the Fayetteville area in late winter or early spring and you’re likely to see ornamental trees in yards and along streets covered with blooming white flowers. The Bradford pear − and other varieties of the...
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‘A living symbol’
As the country prepares to mark the 250th anniversary of its founding, what better time to visit the legend of the good ol’ Liberty Tree in downtown Fayetteville? If you’ve ever walked Hay Street, you cannot have missed this striking, live oak tree...
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Troops deployed to Middle East region
Despite President Donald Trump’s promises of the war with Iran ending soon and broad domestic disapproval of further involvement, the United States is sending more troops to the region, a defense official said. The 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit,...
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Cookman’s lasting legacy at WIDU and in Fayetteville
To say Sandy and Wes Cookman were two peas in a pod is to understate it. The Cookmans, co-owners of the WIDU radio network, were seen everywhere together. And it was together that they built WIDU from a single AM station in which gospel music was only...
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Veteran organization saves an injured dog
Earlier this month, Fayetteville resident Stacey Buckner was on her way to grab dinner when she saw something that made her immediately stop her car on the side of the road near Hummingbird Place in Eastover. h Buckner, the director of local veteran...
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Requests begin for Trump documents
Reporters want to know what the president was first told about COVID-19, researchers want to know more about Jan. 6 riot text messages and others want to see who held the president’s ear. On Jan. 20, five years to the day after Trump first left...
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Debate swirls over USPS’ financial future
Six months after getting a new postmaster general, the U.S. Postal Service faces significant challenges as it tries to cut costs and stem massive losses while hand-delivering mail to virtually every address six days a week. The service’s woes come as...
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Wanted: Volunteers to host nuclear waste
WASHINGTON – The Trump administration’s plan to unleash a wave of small futuristic nuclear reactors to power the AI era is falling back on an age-old strategy to dispose of the highly toxic waste: bury it at the bottom of a very deep hole. But there’s...
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‘Should not be pushed in the dust’
More than 450 parents and community members filled the auditorium at South View High School on March 10 to oppose the Cumberland County Board of Education’s recent recommendations to close nine schools, build three new one and eliminate year-round...
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6 U.S. service members killed in midair crash
Six more U.S. service members were killed when their refueling aircraft crashed after a midair collision over western Iraq, officials said March 13, as the joint U.S.-Israeli war on Iran reached the two-week mark with few signs of slowing down. The...
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Kinlaw’s in smaller space as it awaits insurance
More than a year after a fire gutted its main building, Kinlaw’s Supermarket is still waiting on its insurance — but the family-owned store has kept its doors open at a temporary location while it waits to rebuild. “Things are at a crawl and a...
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Action filed over U.S. researcher visa ban
A group of technology researchers filed a lawsuit on March 9 alleging that President Donald Trump’s administration has adopted an unconstitutional policy that targets foreign nationals who study disinformation and hate speech on social media for visa...
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Experts weigh in on U.S. approach to Iran
The United States’ bombing campaign in Iran amounts to a war launched without congressional authorization, according to many legal and defense experts. But they also say courts likely won’t step in, leaving Congress as the only potential check on the...
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Oil prices soar as Iran names leader
As the U.S.-Israel war with Iran entered its 10th day on March 9, oil prices soared over fears of a prolonged conflict, President Donald Trump demanded “unconditional surrender” and the Pentagon made public the name of the seventh U.S. service member...
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HACKING THE GRID
The darkness that swept over the Venezuelan capital in the predawn hours of Jan. 3 signaled a profound shift in the nature of modern conflict: the convergence of physical and cyber warfare. While U.S. special operations forces carried out the dramatic...
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‘We invite you to come ride with us’
The city is in line to receive five new buses, and that is just a small part of a major expansion sought by Fayetteville leaders that would see the Fayetteville Area System of Transit, aka FAST, become a regional system with a new operations facility...
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New autism panel to examine causes
WASHINGTON – A U.S. autism advisory board remade by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to include vaccine skeptics aims to steer federal research spending toward investigating causes of the condition, as well as other issues...
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Senate war powers resolution falls short
WASHINGTON – The Senate failed to advance a war powers resolution to halt military hostilities against Iran and end American involvement in the escalating war. The measure needed to pass the 60vote threshold to survive. The Senate voted 53 to 47 not...
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Incumbent loses primary for Sheriff
Troy McDuffie, the former longtime police chief in Spring Lake, defeated Cumberland County Sheriff Johnathan Morgan in the Democratic primary for sheriff March 3. Morgan has been in the role since August, when the Cumberland County Board of...
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Dubai’s safe-haven status put to the test
DUBAI – For decades, Dubai’s sales pitch featured gleaming skylines, taxfree salaries, ease of doing business and something far more intangible: the unspoken promise that whatever was happening elsewhere in the Middle East, this city was different. The...
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Whitted’s legacy lives on in Fayetteville and HBCU sports
I ran into Fred Whitted most often in the Headquarters Library on Maiden Lane in downtown Fayetteville. He was never without a satchel or a bag or books or something else that denoted serious research. The public library was one of his offices — as it...
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Iran air strikes mark Trump’s biggest gamble
WASHINGTON – With his large-scale attack on Iran, President Donald Trump has seized a legacydefining moment to demonstrate his readiness to exercise raw U.S. military power. But in doing so, he is also taking the biggest foreign policy gamble of his...
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Vitriol. Profanity. Politics. Experts warn about role social media has played
WASHINGTON – Most of this story isn’t fit for a family newspaper. The country’s political discourse has deteriorated to the point – or become so robust – that the president can drop an f-bomb and get one lobbed back in return. Of course, caustic...
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Foster hometown pride to grow civic engagement
Eileen Higgins won a historic victory in December. She became the first woman ever elected mayor of Miami, as well as its first Democratic mayor since 1997. h Although the stakes in the city’s Dec. 9, runoff election were high, interest was not − 4 in...
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Trump presents Fort Bragg pilot with Medal of Honor
A special operations pilot who was involved in the January capture of Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro was presented with the Medal of Honor during President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address Feb. 24. Maduro was captured Jan. 3 during U.S....
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Trump touts economic gains
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump declared the country is booming, his opponents are “crazy” and his administration is engaged in unprecedented levels of “winning” in a marathon State of the Union address that comes as polls showed deep skepticism of...
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NC electricity bills could jump
With rising affordability concerns, especially surging electricity bills, a growing political hot potato in North Carolina, Gov. Josh Stein in August 2025 formed a task force to “develop recommendations for how to manage increasing electricity demand...
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Cumberland forum heats up as differences emerge
Mario Benavente, a former Fayetteville City Council member known for shaking things up on that body, indicated he would pursue a similar path if elected as an at-large Cumberland County commissioner, as he turned an otherwise low-key candidates’ forum...
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Adoption pause extended
Cumberland County said the animal shelter will continue its now-monthlong pause on owner surrendersand adoptions amid an outbreak of an upper respiratory illness. This is the third time the pause has been extended since it took effect Jan. 17, after...
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J. Cole’s ‘The Fall-Off ’ is a love letter to Fayetteville
J. Cole’s latest project, “The FallOff,” is an “if you know, you know” album. The 24-track project is a collection of stories from in and around Fayetteville. From the beginning to the end, the Terry Sanford graduate displays his pride for the...
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Alleged trade leaks led to Andrew’s arrest
WASHINGTON – It wasn’t Jeffrey Epstein’s illicit past that led to the stunning arrest of Andrew MountbattenWindsor on Feb. 19. It was the alleged leak of confidential information from the former prince to the convicted sex offender while Andrew acted...
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STUDY: PLANET IS IN WATER BANKRUPTCY
The world is now using so much fresh water amid the consequences of climate change that it has entered an era of water bankruptcy, with many regions no longer able to bounce back from frequent water shortages. h About 4 billion people – nearly half...
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Salvation Army shelter reopens after closure
Amid negotiations with the county, the Salvation Army decided to open the doors to its shelter on Alexander Street ahead of unseasonably cold January nights when ice hit the area and as much as 6 inches of snow fell Jan. 31. Some eight months earlier,...
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Civil rights icon ‘kept the dream alive’
The Rev. Jesse Jackson, a towering civil rights icon who battled alongside the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., negotiated global hostage releases and shamed corporations for their lack of diversity and failure to support voting rights, died on Feb. 17. He...
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National Guard fully withdrawn from 3 cities
National Guard soldiers have fully withdrawn from Los Angeles, Chicago and Portland, Oregon, military officials said, ending federalized troop operations in half of the cities where the Trump administration launched them last year. The troops competed...
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AI COMPANIES GEAR UP TO SELL ADS
Eighteen months ago, it was plausible that artificial intelligence might take a different path than social media. Back then, AI’s development hadn’t consolidated under a small number of big tech firms. Nor had it capitalized on consumer attention,...
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‘Unmatched bravery’
FORT BRAGG — Speaking to hundreds of soldiers at Fort Bragg on Feb. 13, President Donald Trump’s nearly 30-minute speech touched on renaming Fort Bragg, political endorsements and the January capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. Trump spoke...
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Student informants spur academic freedom debate
Texas A&M University told philosophy professor Martin Peterson in early January that he could not teach some of Greek philosopher Plato’s writings that touch on “race and gender ideology.” The university’s local chapter of the American Association of...
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Deadline looming for DHS reforms
WASHINGTON – Congress and the White House are locked in negotiations over potential reforms to the Department of Homeland Security as a deadline to shut down the agency approaches. Lawmakers have until the end of Feb. 13, to reach an agreement or risk...
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Barber rallies crowd with a call to ‘love forward’
Social justice advocate Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II and his Repairers of the Breach movement are touring North Carolina with a message of love, timed to Valentine’s Day — and the election primaries. At Crossroads Church of Fayetteville on Feb. 5,...
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Elections board: Clerk may have affected Godwin race
The Cumberland County Elections Board unanimously ruled Feb. 6 that an elections law violation by the Godwin town clerk may have affected the town commission race and sent its findings to the state board — which could order a new election. The hearing...
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Residents challenge data center push
Fayetteville residents Jan. 29 were confirmed in what many of them have already seen: Data centers, the powerhungry facilities that fuel Artificial Intelligence and other online activity, are closely eyeing our city and region. Robert Van Geons,...
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MAGA vs. Bad Bunny splits Super Bowl
Sen. Tommy Tuberville was thrilled to attend the Super Bowl in 2025 when he hitched a ride on Air Force One, joining President Donald Trump and several other Republican lawmakers for the big game. “Happy Super Bowl Sunday,” the Republican senator for...
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MLK Ride hopes to bring youthful energy to park
Joe McGee wants young people to embrace Fayetteville’s Martin Luther King Jr. Park. He believes getting young people invested in the park will help safeguard the future of the site, which is anchored by a statue of the Civil Rights icon and has been...
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Pedestrian deaths by trains persisting
In 2018, high-speed passenger trains branded as Brightline started running along the formerly freight-only Florida East Coast Railway. Initial service from Miami to West Palm Beach was extended to Orlando in 2023. h Unfortunately, the southern end of...
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Who should control no-parking zones
Having children means their social calendar is your social calendar. That means parties, among other commitments. A common text exchange between parents who otherwise might not have ever met is: “What would he (or she) want for his birthday?” meaning...
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Spring Lake residents work, play through rare snowfall
SPRING LAKE — It may have been five hours later than the regular start time, but Charity Geiger and one other employee managed to open 7 Brew in Spring Lake by 10 a.m. Sunday. Despite the nearly 4 inches of snow a winter storm dumped on the...
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Media advocates decry Lemon’s arrest
Press advocacy groups criticized President Donald Trump’s administration over its arrests of former CNN anchor Don Lemon and independent journalist Georgia Fort in connection with a Minnesota church protest, calling the moves unconstitutional. Lemon...
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Meet this year’s Future Black History Makers
I’ve spent the past few weeks learning about a group of exceptional young people. Today, on the first day of Black History Month 2026, I am honored to introduce them to you. They are the 28 Cumberland County Schools students who make up The...
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Consumer-driven future seen for GLP-1 drugs
LONDON – Ask executives in the health care industry about the future market for weight-loss drugs and the analogies are telling: monthly GLP-1 medicine subscriptions like a streaming video membership; dose decisions managed on a smartphone app; access...
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Can ‘Trump Accounts’ help boost savings ?
NEW YORK – “Trump Accounts” are tax-advantaged investment accounts designed to boost the savings of U.S. citizens under the age of 18. More than 500,000 families have signed up for the program. The government will launch the program in July. The U.S....
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Neighbors urged to seek help through Fayetteville sign program
Maybe your neighborhood entrance sign has seen better days. Out-of-control vehicles seem to love them, as discovered by neighbors in Loch Lomond and Glenn Reilly. Both neighborhoods are on Reilly Road, and sports utility vehicles damaged signs at...
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Judge orders ICE director to court
MINNEAPOLIS − Minnesota’s chief federal judge ordered the acting head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement to appear in court over what he says is the Trump administration’s repeated failure to grant detained immigrants bond hearings despite judicial...
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‘They didn’t leave us anything at all’
DEIR DIBWAN, West Bank – The Jewish settler outpost of Or Meir is small. A handful of prefabricated white shelters, it sits at the end of a short dirt track on a hill leading up from Road 60, a major route that dissects the Israeli-occupied West...
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Is ICE violating Fourth Amendment?
Immigration and Customs Enforcement is facing scrutiny over its assertion that federal officers can forcibly enter a home without a judicial warrant – a move constitutional scholars, immigration experts and a federal judge say is a clear violation of...
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