Winston-Salem Journal - A call from the top academic leader at N.C. State University to reform state law banning immigrants from attending public colleges at the same rate as their American-born peers drew a round of applause at a conference on higher education and Hispanics yesterday…. Read the full article

Asheville Citizen Times - Budget proposals from state lawmakers and Gov. Mike Easley call for heading off a coming shortage of nurses with money for college scholarships and training to get more instructors. Read the full article

Winston-Salem Journal - A simple design change with sinister implications was just one of many details talked about yesterday during an annual conference about the Holocaust. Read the full article

Asheville Citizen-Times By David Nieman, Columnist - If you are highly motivated to change your lifestyle and stick with it, there is a good chance that you can achieve normal blood pressure without using drugs.

According to the latest blood pressure classifications released by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, you have “stage 1 hypertension.” Nearly three in 10 adults has high blood pressure, a proportion that rises strongly to two in three among the elderly. Systolic blood pressures of 120-139 mm Hg, once thought normal, are now considered as pre-hypertensive and require health-promoting lifestyle modifications to prevent heart disease. Read full article

Asheville Citizen-Times - Last Thursday, local environmentalists made a strong showing at a public hearing held by the North Carolina Utilities Commission.

Utility companies hope to meet rising energy demand in our region by considering the building of new coal-burning plants and nuclear reactors. However, many people find this solution lacking. Read full article

Raleigh News and Observer Under the Dome - It was University Day at the legislature Wednesday, and there was plenty of college spirit to go around.

UNC Board of Governors members roamed the halls with talking points on index cards, outlining the system’s top budget priorities.

UNC President Erskine Bowles and UNC chancellors were introduced in the session. And UNC leaders couldn’t help but grin when the House gave preliminary approval to a bill to allow North Carolinians an income-tax deduction up to $10,000 a year for contributions to the state’s 529 college savings plan. Read full article

Knoxville News Sentinel - Stan Seals belayed from a sitting position at the edge of the cliff, a notebook in his lap and a walkie-talkie pressed to his ear. At the other end of the climbing rope was David Ballinger, a graduate student at Appalachian State University who had been on the rock face for almost two hours, surveying the vegetation and collecting samples. Every few minutes Ballinger reported his findings to Seals over the radio: lichen on the cliff wall, but also grasses, ferns and azalea bushes growing in the thin soil along the ledges. Read full article

Wilmington Star - With falling milk prices driving her family’s dairy farm into the red and her parents narrowly making ends meet each month, Brenda Crouse knew that her dream of going to college could be easily delayed, or worse, never realized.

But on several occasions as she was growing up, a man named John Woodruff had visited her school. He told Alleghany County students that if they tried hard and made good grades that each of them would get at least one scholarship for college. Read full article