Email announcements at least a week in advance to community@reflector.com. Early College information Pitt County Schools will host a parent information meeting for Innovation Early College High School at 6 p.m. today at East Carolina University in the D wing of the Brewster Building. Visit pitt.k12.nc.us for more information. Prayer vigil ...

The second First Friday ArtWalk of the 2024-25 season will be held this week featuring more than 25 participants, along with an event celebrating the lighting of the Brightspeed Tower. First Friday ArtWalk is organized by Emerge Gallery & Art Center in partnership with Visit Greenville, NC and the City of Greenville. Downtown galleries, museums, restaurants, breweries and music venues will participate in the event from 5-8 p.m. with new...

Brooke Vallely, coastal program manager for the Eastern North Carolina Chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association, was guest speaker for the Greenville Morning Rotary Club on Thursday. Vallely, a graduate of East Carolina University and D.H. Conley High School, shared warning signs for Alzheimer’s, community education programs and how the workplace is impacted. Seven million Americans are diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, with about 210,000 in North Carolina. Vallely shared information on the...

Donald Trump’s tax and spending plans would add enormous amounts to the national debt, with some estimates as high as $15 trillion over a decade. But some of his tax cuts stand apart in threatening one of America’s most revered programs, Social Security. They would essentially bankrupt it by 2031. This is not some far-off worry. We’re talking like six years from now. And the source of this scary news is the reliable and nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. ...

Emerge Gallery & Art Center's African American Music Series will present singer-songwriter and cellist Shana Tucker in concert next week. "Shana Tucker: ChamberSoul Cello & Songs" will be held at 7 p.m. on Nov. 8 at the State Theatre, 110 W. Fifth St. Tickets are $10 in advance and $15 at the door. Emerge members will receive a discount. Purchase tickets at tinyurl.com/aams-shana-tucker. Tucker's "unique genre of ChamberSoul weaves together...

October is a busy month for everyone. The leaves are changing, the southern humidity is loosening its grip on humanity, fall sports are in full tilt and the temperatures are dropping. Some of the busiest times of the year are immediately inbound for emergency services agencies across the nation. We have previously worked to address proper cooking techniques because the vast majority of structural fires in the United States are caused by cooking-related issues. Fire Prevention Week was recognized in the second week of October,...

DEAR ABBY: I chaired an event with a local service organization. Many hours were exhausted with planning and decorating. During the program, a few members playfully started throwing some items from the centerpieces at the guest speakers. By the end of the program, most of the room’s centerpieces were dismantled and strewn about the floor. My committee had the job of cleanup, which was difficult and tedious. We felt the many hours we spent planning and doing hard work were disrespected because of these juvenile...

ROCKY MOUNT — Former President Donald Trump will be downtown for an afternoon campaign rally today at the Rocky Mount Event Center as the Republican presidential candidate makes a final push for the battleground state’s 16 electoral votes. Nash County Republican Party Vice Chairwoman Mary Helen Pelt confirmed Monday that Trump is staging the rally. The doors at the multipurpose facility will open at 9 a.m. today and the rally will start at 1 p.m., Pelt said. ...

Referring to the American economy, the cover of the Oct. 19 issue of The Economist proclaims: “The envy of the world.” In the last four years, the economy has added over 16 million jobs, more than in any single presidential term in history. Both unemployment in general, and black unemployment in particular, are at historic lows. In addition, over the last four years unemployment set the record for staying lower and low longer than any previous administration. The labor force participation rate has soared the last four years. ...

A Pitt County man has been charged with firing into an occupied residence after an investigation that also resulted in a drug charge against his roommate. The Pitt County Sheriff’s Office said Zyere Godley, 19, and Dominic Maurizzio, 23, both of 220 Marva Drive, Washington, were charged Oct. 25 after a search warrant was executed at their residence. An incident report from the sheriff’s office said that the shooting took...

Five people, including three juveniles, have been charged with firing into a residence on Old River Road in northern Pitt County, the sheriff’s office reported. Deputies with the Pitt County Sheriff’s Office on Oct. 26 responded to multiple reports of shots fired at 3298 Old River Road, near the intersection with Barrus Construction Road. The sheriff’s office said an investigation determined that one adult and three juveniles were inside the...

Former military officers and senior enlisted personnel last week said American democracy is in crisis and called on their fellow veterans and other Americans to protect it by electing Vice President Kamala Harris to the White House. The group that stopped in Greenville was with National Security Leaders for America, an organization that “advocates for positions, values and elected officials who strengthen the United States as a democratic nation.” The organization has 741 national security leaders who are endorsing Harris. ...

American voters love to fall in love (or hate). When it comes to assessing our politicians and their qualifications to serve, especially those seeking chief executive jobs like president and governor, we tend to vote with our hearts. Emotion-packed, reptilian brain questions — Do I like this candidate as a person? Do they look and sound like me? Do their speeches move me? What is their personal and family background? — play an outsized role in the decisions that many voters make. ...

Roy Cooper will leave the North Carolina governor’s office in little more than two months. But it’s likely that two legal battles pitting the Democratic governor against Republican legislative leaders will continue after Cooper exits the state’s Executive Mansion. Those battles could shift the balance of power between future governors and leaders of North Carolina’s General Assembly. Both conflicts are tied to lawsuits titled Cooper v. Berger. The governor serves...

“The student loan crisis,” Sabrina Cereceres writes at The Nation, “is a national emergency, and the time to act is now.” Cereceres makes a good case that the student debt situation in the United States is indeed a crisis. “Crisis” is defined in the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary as the decisive moment or turning point in a matter. Things will go one way, or they’ll go another. A lot...

With the election upon us, many voters are focused on Donald Trump's unravelling mental state and his radical plans to kill off the democracy. But there should be space to recall his scams victimizing ordinary people and his joy in pulling them off. That speaks to character. Trump's latest fishy deal involves a crypto operation. But let's start about three decades earlier, in 1995. Trump's Atlantic City casinos were going under, and he needed suckers to bail him out. He thus hawked shares of Trump...

Putting aside the question of whether he will be inaugurated as president come January, is there any chance that Donald Trump will deport millions of undocumented immigrants from the United States? To anybody who knows very much about what's actually going on in the American economy, the answer is no. Of course not. Even Trump is not that crazy. As my favorite political blogger Kevin Drum puts it: "When Donald Trump thunders about deporting every illegal immigrant in the country, it's just empty talk, red...

Blake Harrell and the Pirates met the moment. They had a plan from the beginning. East Carolina won the coin toss at midfield before Saturday’s American Athletic Conference game against Temple, but instead of trotting the offense out onto the field the Pirates elected to defer their choice to the second half and begin the game on defense. ...

The East Carolina football team was issued a sideline warning with 4:44 remaining in the fourth quarter. Just about the entire team raced from the bench area to the end zone to celebrate true freshman Ja’Marley Riddle’s interception return for a touchdown. The rout was on and the team couldn’t contain its elation after going through a range of emotions throughout the week. Who could blame the Pirates? ...

Members of the Grifton Lions club hope that a recent gift of a keyboard and amplifier to Grifton School is the start of the club making beautiful music together with the school system. Members a little under a year ago launched an initiative led by President Jerry Williams to seek donations of instruments and money to support musical programs at the local schools. A community member donated a Kawai keyboard...