In the News

The Senate on Friday confirmed Lloyd Austin as the nation's first Black defense secretary, the second nominee of President Joe Biden to be confirmed by the chamber.

Austin is a retired four-star Army general and former Fort Bragg commander who will be the first Black secretary of defense. He was the first Black general to command an Army division in combat and also the first to oversee an entire theater of operations as the commanding general of U.S. forces in Iraq.

He is a 1975 graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and served 41 years in uniform.

The year 2020 saw Americans across political and demographic lines embrace their Second Amendment rights in unprecedented numbers. Last week, Representative Richard Hudson (R-NC) reintroduced H.R. 38, the Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act, which would give more meaningful effect to those rights by ensuring they stay intact as travelers crossed state lines.

The National Rifle Association and other supporters of Second Amendment gun rights have hailed a recent decision by the Trump administration to reverse course on planned guidance regarding pistol-stabilizing braces.

The initial guidance – proposed via the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) – could have effectively banned the braces, which resemble gunstocks and attach to handguns to help improve a user's aim, according to The Washington Times.

Gun rights activists are claiming victory after the Trump administration withdrew new guidance that could have effectively outlawed stabilizing braces, which resemble gunstocks and attach to pistols to steady the shooters' aim.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) had said the devices can transform pistols into short-barreled rifles subject to federal regulation and taxation — a perpetual fear of gun owners.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (FOX 46 CHARLOTTE)– Bipartisan anger on Capitol Hill continues to grow as military families, whose loved ones were injured or killed due to medical malpractice, are left in limbo.

In a letter to Acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller, Fort Bragg Congressman Richard Hudson (R-Concord) calls the Defense Department's delay in processing medical malpractice claims "unacceptable."

After a hard-fought campaign, Congressman Richard Hudson said that during his fifth term representing the 8th District he is going to "roll up his sleeves" and address pressing issues of the district.

Among them: working to find a vaccine for the coronavirus, lowering the price of prescription drugs, and continuing the fight to bring resources to soldiers and their families at Fort Bragg, he said.

The district includes a large portion of the southern Piedmont area of the state from Concord to Spring Lake.

The coronavirus has laid bare a number of critical needs, but those needs are not limited to public health alone.

Internet access — the great digital divide between "haves" and "have nots" — has risen to the forefront these past six months. For all the talk about connectivity — everyone's bragging these days about 5G — it can be pretty hard for some communities to get reasonable, reliable speeds sufficient enough to see a doctor over the computer or have a kid log in to his classroom remotely.

On top of the health impact the COVID-19 pandemic felt across the nation, rural areas have experienced another type of crisis: internet connectivity.

With work and school increasingly shifting to a virtual world, those who live out in the country are finding urgent challenges to the access for high-speed digital connections.

A $3 million project that will provide broadband to 1,300 homes in rural Moore County was announced Thursday by the U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, Randolph Communications and U.S. Rep. Richard Hudson.