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Before the Civil War, North Carolina was a poor, agrarian state. The people who lived here were renowned for their independence. It was a quality that would serve the state well after the war.

Washington Duke was a penniless, ambivalent Confederate soldier in the spring of 1865 when he was released from a Union prison in New Bern. Ahead of him was a 130 mile walk home to Durham - waiting for him there were 4 children, no wife, and a ransacked farm.

Judge Howard Manning heard closing statements today in a hearing convened to decide whether the newly passed state budget provides students the kind of education that's constitutionally guaranteed to them.

Gareth Higgins began to consider the meaning of spirituality while growing up amidst violence in Northern Ireland. Now, Higgins believes faith is intimately connected with the mission of social justice and with artistic creativity. He’s found a way to combine the three with the Wild Goose Festival, an event that includes music, dance and discussion about social issues.

During the Civil War, the Union Army had an increasing supply of something the Confederacy lacked: food. Canning operations in the North kept the Union’s bellies full while Southern soldiers faced starvation. In his new book, “Starving the South: How the North Won the Civil War” (St. Martin’s Press/2011), author and culinary historian Andrew F. Smith explores the role of food in the outcome of the war. Smith joins host Frank Stasio to talk about his research and the connection between the Civil War and the industrialization of America’s food supply.

The 2012 election season is gearing up to be extremely contentious. North Carolina is once again a battleground state and the gloves are already off in the fight for Tar Heel votes. Republican legislators are using a special political strategy that would allow the legislature to submit their redistricting plan to the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. instead of the Justice Department. Their tactic would also let the legislature take the State’s Attorney General, Democrat Roy Cooper, off the case.

Between 1933 and 1974, the state of North Carolina sterilized thousands of people in an effort to supposedly improve society. About 76-hundred men and women were lied to, coerced, or forced into medical procedures that left them unable to bear children, often when they were children themselves. This spring Governor Bev Perdue convened a task force to study the issue and determine how to compensate victims who are still living. That task force met in Raleigh yesterday to hear those victims’ stories.

Educational experts testified in a Wake County courtroom yesterday in a hearing over how the state's recently passed budget will affect North Carolina's schools.

Our early encounters with romantic infatuation, love and heartbreak help define who we are as adult partners, lovers and friends. Andrea N. Richesin is a writer and editor who wanted to explore the resonant effects of first crushes and first loves. The result is the new anthology, “Crush: 26 Real-Life Tales of First Love” (Harlequin/2011).

America was a highly religious nation during the Civil War era and spiritual believers on both sides of the conflict turned to their faith to understand the causes and consequences of the war. The concept of divine providence - the idea that God’s will was being played out on the battleground - was a common theme in the messages of preachers and political leaders of the day. For African-Americans in South, the freedom to worship came slowly and black ministers found themselves facing the exciting challenge of emancipation in different ways.

North Carolina's new budget cuts an estimated 2,203 state jobs, a number that doesn't include local jobs funded in whole or in part by state support. Analysts say that the jobs lost represent critical functions in local communities including community development planners, chaplains at minimum and medium prisons and specialists in well water maintenance. In addition, state agencies have estimated that 3,700 faculty positions in the University of North Carolina system and at community colleges will be lost.