Stroman on Sports: Medal Count vs. Mental Health

Written by JAMES ELLINGWORTH The gold medalist said she felt empty. The silver medalist pledged never to skate again. The favorite left in tears without saying a word. After one of the most dramatic nights in their sport’s history, Russia’s trio of teenage figure skating stars each enter an uncertain future. Her Olympics and life turned upside down by […]

Written by STEPHEN WADE and GRAHAM DUNBAR For two weeks and more, China’s stance on questions about its politics and policies has been straightforward: It’s the Olympics, and we’re not talking about these things. That changed Thursday at the Beijing organizing committee’s last regularly scheduled daily news conference, three days before the end of the […]

Written by DAKE KANG and SAM McNEIL As a speedskating team was winning China’s first Olympic gold medal of the Beijing Games, all seemed quiet in the villages that line the eastern edge of the Tibetan plateau. A bus flew past gold-roofed monasteries on freshly paved asphalt. Red-robed monks rode motorcycles over windswept plains under […]

Written by BRIAN CAROVILLANO and TED ANTHONY Be it sports, politics, hacking or war, the recent history of Russia’s relationship with the world can be summed up in one phrase: They get away with it. Vladimir Putin’s Russia has perfected the art of flouting the rules, whether the venue is the Olympic arena, international diplomacy […]

Written by DAVE SKRETTA Nathan Chen remembers making the long drive with his mother from his home in Utah to Rafael Arutyunyan’s training base in Southern California. He had started out in figure skating just a few years earlier, using his sister’s skates and sleeping in the car to follow his Olympic dreams. Ten years […]

Written by EDDIE PELLS Long before the global pandemic upended sports and the world in general, the 2022 Winter Olympics faced unsettling problems. It started with the fact that hardly anybody wanted to host them. Beijing ended up solving that problem, but only after four European cities thought about it and dropped out, mostly because […]

This Week: Sheriff Mike Roberson has been Chatham County Sheriff for 10 years and recently announced his bid for election as a County Commissioner in 2026. A dedicated law enforcement officer who promoted integrity, teamwork, and community involvement by supporting local businesses, churches, and community events, Roberson has training and experience in public safety, crisis response (including group crisis intervention), terrorism response, protecting and serving children, leadership and supervision, communication, diversity (including organizing against racism) and responding to medical emergencies. As a lifelong resident of Chatham County he is passionate about serving his community and is married to his high school sweetheart.

Hundreds of federal employees working on mental health services, disease outbreaks and disaster preparedness were among those hit by the Trump administration’s mass firings over the weekend.

In western North Carolina, recovery continues from Hurricane Helene last fall. UNC officials are working to harness their resources to help.

Transgender youth have flooded crisis hotlines since the election of Donald Trump, who made anti-transgender themes central to his campaign.