What To expect At The NC Folk Festival
Downtown Greensboro is getting ready for one of the city’s busiest weekends of the year, the North Carolina Folk Festival. Thousands of people are expected to come to the event. There are a few things you’ll want to know before heading out there this weekend. The tents are already going up in downtown Greensboro. Festival organizers said they’re preparing for record crowds this weekend, and they want people to come ready with a plan for parking, using the new app and knowing where to find help.
“This weekend is going to be amazing. We are expecting record numbers for the amazing weather and the amazing lineup, plus the 40 food trucks and over 40 artisans that we have at the North Carolina Folk Festival. Let’s talk about the need to know right now. People need to be aware of when they’re coming to downtown for these events,” said Jodee Ruppel, North Carolina Folk Festival executive director. The North Carolina Folk Festival stretches across Church Street from the depot to the children’s museum, offering free music, and several choices for food and fun.
From slavery to pollution, National Park employees flagged material deemed ‘disparaging’ to US
The Trump administration is reviewing material about slavery, the destruction of Native American culture, climate change and more at federal parks after employees flagged information that could be “disparaging” to Americans, according to screenshots shared with The Associated Press. President Donald Trump signed an executive order in March directing the Interior Department — which manages parks, monuments and other designated land — to ensure public property doesn’t contain elements that “inappropriately disparage Americans past or living.” Instead, it said to “focus on the greatness of the achievements and progress of the American people” and “the beauty, abundance, and grandeur of the American landscape.”
The National Park Service had until July 18 to flag “inappropriate” signs, exhibits and other material, according to a document shared with the AP by the National Parks Conservation Association, which obtained internal information from an anonymous source within the Interior Department. The public was also encouraged to participate.
NATO allies close airspace along Russia, Belarus borders after drone incursions
Latvian Defense Miniter Andris Spruds announced Thursday that the country will become the latest NATO ally to close its airspace along its eastern borders with Russia and Belarus, following the intrusion of at least 19 Russian drones into Polish airspace this week.
“There is no immediate threat,” the minister said, adding that the border airspace will remain closed for at least one week until Sept. 18. The country’s armed forces are “on heightened alert” during the “Namejs” military exercise, which began on Sept. 2 and will run until Oct. 8, Spruds said. “Russian unmanned aerial vehicles in NATO airspace are a warning signal, and we must do everything possible to prevent an escalation of drone attacks,” the minister said in a statement published by the Defense Ministry. “The closure of the Latvian airspace zone will allow us to fully control the restricted airspace, facilitate the detection of unauthorized flying objects, free up the restricted zone for NATO Baltic Air Policing mission fighter jets and our air defense,” Spruds said.
The closure will also “enable enhanced testing of acoustic airspace monitoring systems, conduct drone and counter-drone simulations, deploy additional mobile combat units and provide training,” he added. Latvian forces “are permanently on duty in the eastern border area to shoot down aggressor-state drones if necessary,” the ministry said in its statement. The Latvian announcement came hours after Poland’s Operational Command issued notification on Thursday of the closure of Polish airspace all along the 260-mile border with Belarus. Airspace was closed from late on Wednesday and will remain so until Dec. 9, the command said in a statement posted to X. Last month, neighboring Lithuania declared a no-fly zone along its 56-mile border with Belarus from Aug. 14 until Oct. 1, with the option to extend the closure if deemed necessary. The restrictions there go up to 12,000 feet, meaning high-flying commercial aircraft can still transit the airspace.
