Joe Killian

2 weeks ago | theassemblync.com | Joe Killian

The N.C. Folk Festival will return to downtown Greensboro September 12-14 with an eclectic roster of Grammy award-winning headliners, up-and-coming stars, home-grown talents, and world music legends. This year’s theme: “Find Common Sound.”Jodee Ruppel is the festival’s executive director and ethnomusicologist Savannah Thorne its programming chair. We caught up with them to talk about what that means and how the festival, held in Greensboro since 2015, continues to evolve.

1 month ago | theassemblync.com | Joe Killian

Three months into President Donald Trump’s second administration, Americans across the political spectrum say they’re concerned about a constitutional crisis, according to the latest Elon University Poll. The poll, released last week, showed two-thirds of respondents (67 percent) are very or somewhat concerned that the executive and judicial branches may reach a point where neither side will back down, creating a crisis over who has the final say on an issue.

1 month ago | theassemblync.com | Joe Killian

When UNC Greensboro and Elon University’s School of Law held a joint symposium on the rule of law Monday, it shouldn’t have been remarkable. But David Levine, associate dean and professor of law at Elon, felt compelled to point out it was. “[Legal scholar] Mark Lemley at Stanford [University] has been a mentor and colleague,” Levine said. “And he said, ‘Institutions need to stand for truth now more than ever’—and that’s what this has been about.”“Everyone has opinions,” Levine said.

1 month ago | theassemblync.com | Joe Killian

When journalist Brian Goldstone set out to write a book about homelessness in Atlanta, he thought he knew some things. He’d lived in Atlanta for years, and been a reporter writing about poverty and inequality for publications like Harper’s and The New York Times. In reality, he told a crowd at an event at First Lutheran Church last week, he found himself confronting even his own misguided assumptions about who becomes homeless, how, and why.

2 months ago | theassemblync.com | Joe Killian

When a group of state senators filed a bill last week to earmark $500,000 to study building a professional wrestling hall of fame in North Carolina, it made national headlines and went viral online. That wasn’t an accident. Sen. Jay Chaudhuri (D-Wake) filed a similar bill two years ago. In wrestling parlance, it did not “get over.” It got no real media attention or public buzz, and there was little chance of it passing or inspiring a private effort to get the hall off the ground.