VOLUME 11 ISSUE 29 | THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2026
NSJONLINE.COM
COURTESY NORTH CAROLINA WILDLIFE FEDERATION
Critics say North Carolina’s fisheries are being severely impacted by inshore shrimp trawling.
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State shrimp industry faces new pressure after ruling
BRIEF this week
Berger Jr. won’t seek reelection to N.C. Supreme Court Raleigh North Carolina Supreme Court Associate Justice Phil Berger Jr. announced Sept. 3 that he will not seek reelection to his seat in 2028, fueling speculation he could instead run for chief justice. The Republican justice, elected to the court in 2020, said he is “giving serious thought to other ways I might serve the people of this state” but declined to elaborate. He plans to continue teaching as an adjunct law professor. The announcement comes six months after his father, longtime Senate Leader Phil Berger Sr. (R-Eden), lost his Republican primary by 23 votes to Rockingham County Sheriff Sam Page.
4 Renoir paintings stolen in France; 2 still missing Paris Thieves stole four valuable Renoir paintings Tuesday from a small museum on the French Riviera but abandoned two of them as they fled, the local mayor said. Police are searching for the perpetrators. A group of “well-equipped” and “well-informed” thieves entered the Renoir Museum in Cagnes-sur-Mer via the garden, officials said, slicing through a fence and entering through the ground floor before cutting the clips securing the artwork frames. Two of the stolen works were found in the museum garden, but “Portrait of Madame Colonna Romano” and “Young Woman at the Well” are still missing. Authorities haven’t provided the names of the recovered paintings.
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FEMA announces $137M more in Helene recovery Federal assistance now totals more than $7.5 billion By Jessica Taylor For North State Journal THE FEDERAL government has awarded $137 million for 114 hurricane recovery and mitigation projects in North Carolina. Assistance from the Fed-
eral Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) now totals more than $7.5 billion for Hurricane Helene and other recent disasters across the state. “By empowering FEMA to reimburse state and local governments for public assistance projects quickly, President (Donald) Trump and Secretary (Markwayne) Mullin are delivering on their promise to See FEMA, page A3
North Carolina is the only Atlantic state still allowing bottom trawling in nursery waters By A.P. Dillon North State Journal RALEIGH — North Carolina has 2.1 million acres of estuaries and is the only Atlantic coastal state still permitting large-scale inshore shrimp trawling in sounds and estuary waters. Over time, the practice has had a devastating effect. According to the North Carolina Wildlife Federation (NCWF), inshore bottom trawling uses “heavy chains and doors to drag nets across an underwater landscape already stripped bare by decades of this practice.” The activity, critics say, is destroying juvenile fish nurseries such as those in Pamlico Sound and stirs sediment that smoth-
Fauci diaries revive Cooper’s K-12 COVID-19 actions “We need to do this in a collaborative way.” Then-Gov. Roy Cooper in 2020 on not using an executive order to reopen schools
The former governor discussed school reopening with the nation’s top federal immunologist By A.P. Dillon North State Journal RALEIGH — More light has been shed on former Gov. Roy Cooper’s decisions during the COVID-19 pandemic, in particular, his school closure orders. Cooper, now the Democratic candidate for the state’s U.S. Senate seat, has already faced questions over his past COVID-19 orders. Pushback has included a settlement agreement he made in 2020
that released more than 4,200 prisoners from the state’s prisons, many of whom had violent offense records for murder, rape or assault, and included over 50 prisoners with life sentences. Dr. Anthony Fauci’s recent appearance before Congress, marked by him taking the Fifth Amendment over 110 times, has revived scrutiny of Cooper and his administration’s pandemic actions. Fauci’s recently released personal diaries have shown a link between the former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director and Cooper on school closures. On July 1, 2020, Cooper announced he was delaying a See COOPER, page A2
ers seagrass and oyster beds in an effect similar to forestry clear-cutting. “The shrimp trawl fishing is a well-known, well-established destroyer of fishes worldwide,” NCWF’s CEO Tim Gestwicki told North State Journal. “There’s no debate about that outside of North Carolina legislature and the North Carolina Fisheries Association.” Last year’s very public legislative fight over the bill to curb the practice ended up maintaining the status quo. House Bill 442 would have banned shrimp trawling in all inshore waters, including sounds, estuaries, rivers and within a half mile of the Atlantic shoreline. Shrimp industry groups like the North Carolina Fisheries Association and Southern Shrimp Alliance protested the bill, which eventually died See SHRIMP, page A3