Stay up to date with WRAL’s First Amendment news and reporting coverage
WRAL anchor/reporter Dan Haggerty answered viewer questions about President Donald Trump's executive order banning burning of the American flag.
Efforts to have people fired from their jobs for criticizing slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk are raising questions about free speech and local government policies.
Donald Trump signed an executive order that appears to make burning the American flag illegal. The order faces legal challenges, as the Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that flag burning is a form of protected free speech under the First Amendment.
WASHINGTON -- TikTok asked the Supreme Court on Monday to temporarily block a law that would effectively ban it in the United States in a matter of weeks.
Adam Liptak and Sapna Maheshwari, New York Times
Legal experts say it's unlikely that North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson's defamation lawsuit against CNN will yield new information for voters before the Nov. 5 election. Some don't think it'll even reach a jury. Here's why.
Paul Specht and Wlil Doran, WRAL state government reporters
TikTok and its Chinese parent company ByteDance are suing the U.S. over a law that would ban the popular video-sharing app unless it’s sold to another company, arguing that it vaguely paints it as a threat to national security to get around the First Amendment.
Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. accused President Joe Biden of being a greater "threat to democracy" than former President Donald Trump, arguing that Biden censored him.
Amy Sherman, PolitiFact reporter
Critics of the sell-or-be-banned ultimatum argue it violates TikTok users’ First Amendment rights. The app’s China-based owner, ByteDance, has already promised to sue, calling the measure unconstitutional.
A look at how North Carolina members of Congress voted during the previous week.
Targeted News Service
Friday, Sept. 1, 2023 --- Capitol Broadcasting Company's editorial cartoonist.
Thursday, Aug. 31, 2023 -- It's time we tell politicians to cut these extremist proposals from the budget and stop using our judicial commissions as a cudgel against honest, hard-working judges. It's time we take back our courts.
Anita Earls, the only Black woman on the North Carolina Supreme Court, says she is being improperly investigated for criticizing the court's lack of diversity.
Will Doran, WRAL state government reporter
In a March 8 discussion about the 2020 election, Whoopi Goldberg said: "The First Amendment doesn't allow you to willingly lie." PolitiFact checks her claim.
Louis Jacobson, PolitiFact reporter
In an impassioned address to worshippers at a Colorado church, Republican U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert said: "The church is supposed to direct the government. The government is not supposed to direct the church." PolitiFact checks her claim about the founders.
Jeff Cercone, PolitiFact reporter
A family who lives in a Raleigh townhouse said they were told by their neighborhood's homeowner's association to take down a Black Lives Matter sign from inside their window. They believe they are being targeted because they are an interracial, same-sex couple.
Bryan Mims, WRAL reporter
Steve Baker, of Durham, describes himself as an "independent journalist" who merely followed the crowd to record history as hundreds breached the U.S. Capitol. Federal authorities may not see it that way, a free speech expert told WRAL Investigates.
A national watchdog organization is asking for a North Carolina sheriff to remove a bible verse from the walls of its office.
Maggie Brown, WRAL multiplatform producer
Gov. Roy Cooper on Friday vetoed two bills authored by GOP legislative leaders that would have prohibited the teaching of critical race theory in North Carolina public schools and would have increased the penalties for rioting.
Laura Leslie, WRAL Capitol Bureau chief, & Travis Fain, WRAL statehouse reporter
The Supreme court has dismissed a ruling Donald Trump violated the First Amendment when he blocked followers from his Twitter account.
A draft bill circulating among Senate Republicans would allow lawsuits against social media platforms for "censoring" political or religious speech.
Laura Leslie, WRAL Capitol Bureau chief
A homeowner's choice to fly a flag with an expletive written twice on it is causing some controversy in Wilson.
Indira Eskieva, WRAL Eastern North Carolina reporter
It was property owner David Scott Young who posted a Nazi flag along Old Falls of Neuse Road. His extended family, some of whom live just across the street, are calling his actions "despicable."
