Here are some of the random things my brain picked up this week from various sources. - The B-29 was the most expensive undertaking of WWII, ahead of the Manhattan Project (via Malcolm Gladwell’s latest book, “The Bomber Mafia”). - A guy in 1832 wanted to be mummified after his death for scientific reasons and can still be seen on display in En ...

Jay and Tara Tatum bought the Brooklyn Arts Center events business in 2018, closing on their purchase of the downtown Wilmington venue itself in August 2020.   Although COVID-19 halted or shrank events at the BAC for several months beginning in March 2020, the center’s activity started getting back to normal as guidelines put in place to halt the spread of the ...

June 1 marked the start of the hurricane season this year.   For emergency officials – as well as local residents and businesses – that means it’s time to make plans they hope won’t be needed.   NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center forcasts another above-normal Atlantic hurricane season and a range of 13 to 20 named storms through No ...

The gift of hardship is one we would all prefer to receive without the hardship.   Anyone who has received a difficult medical diagnosis understands the very personal shift in perspective that accompanies it; maybe the pandemic is our societal version.   Individually, our epiphany is often the realization that we are not young anymore. Societally, we are reco ...

Are you having trouble filling the entry- and mid-level vacancies on your staff? If you are, one explanation might be that the talent at those income levels cannot afford to live here.   Housing expenses meet the definition of affordable when they do not exceed 30% of gross income. So, a modest two-bedroom apartment ($1,000/month) is technically affordable to those ...

In 2009, the U.S. Navy gave two directives: either make plans to scrap the USS North Carolina or set out to restore the World War II-era warship.   So launched the multi-year Generations Campaign to fund work on the aging vessel that today has racked up over $23 million in public and private funds.   “It’s the most successful public-private partne ...

In March of 1524, explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano navigated his three-masted ship La Dauphine up the Cape Fear River, sailing past the bluffs we know today as Wilmington. In the ensuing 500 years, ships have continued to make their way up and down the Cape Fear. None, however, has had a bigger local impact than the former USS North Carolina, which was towed up the river to ...

Last summer, many businesses and organizations pledged to improve their diversity efforts.   Those came in the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis while in police custody that sparked protests nationally and internationally and prompted conversations about the state of race relations around the country.   On May 25, a year after Floyd&rsqu ...

The idea of a $37 million baseball stadium on the waterfront in downtown Wilmington didn’t hit it off with Wilmington voters in a 2012 referendum. But four years later, $38 million worth of park projects did.   The crown jewel of the projects made possible by that 2016 bond referendum is Riverfront Park on the Northeast Cape Fear River, a landmark expected to ...

The cars wrapped around NourishNC’s Greenfield Street location.   It was late November 2020, and the line – three wide and 80 yards long – stretched around the corner and down the road. In the warehouse, Steve McCrossan, executive director at NourishNC, gave out boxes full of nonperishable foods, fruits, vegetables and meat and bread with a team of ...