If you haven't heard by now, President Bush will visit North Carolina Friday to rally support for the Central American free trade agreement.
According to our friends at the AP, the "White House confirmed Tuesday that Bush will tour the Helms plant of R.L. Stowe Mills, then make a speech on behalf of the Central America Free Trade Agreement at Gaston Community College in nearby Dallas."
U.S. Rep. Mel Watt, who represents North Carolina's 12th District, has scheduled a series of town hall meetings for Congress' August recess.
The 12th District meanders all over the central part of the state, starting in Charlotte and slicing into parts of both Winston-Salem and Greensboro. Is Watt your congressman? Use the handy-dandy locator at the top of the U.S. House page to check. (You'll need your Zip+4 postal code.)
A reader called in after seeing the results of a state audit on food assistance in Thursday's paper.
The results showed that the incidence of people using Social Security numbers that are invalid, fake or from a dead person are pretty low: less than 200 were found in about 86,000 people receiving benefits from Guilford County's food assistance program. Read the report from the N.C. Office of the State Auditor here.
The caller had a basic question: If North Carolina can audit its food assistance by cross-checking a Social Security number, then why don't they do that to find immigrants working under a phony SSN in the United States?
Complex answer.
Turns out that the Social Security Administration does audit for that. Here's the SSA annual report from Nov. 7 that explains how. The part on immigrants is 10 pages down.
As we mentioned in the newspaper column this week, Republican Congressman Howard Coble of Greensboro spent some time at the Grammy Awards this past weekend.
He brought back some snapshots and Scoop thought we'd share:
First up, here's Coble sitting with fellow North Carolinian Earl Scruggs, who was getting a lifetime achievement Grammy from The Recording Academy.
In this next picture, Coble is reading from a just-passed congressional resolution honoring The Recording Academy on its 50th Anniversary. Joining Rep. Coble were Reps. Linda Sanchez (D-CA), Darrell Issa (R-CA), Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Michael McCaul (R-TX).
What - no poses with Kellie Pickler?