Go HERE to read the story. Durham is featured prominently in the story.

Are The New York Times and local Republicans overstating the role that Obama for America played in this fall's Wake County election results?

The Sunday Times Review analysis piece cites the Raleigh and Charlotte mayoral races and the Wake school board races as examples of how successful the Obama campaign was locally. The article goes on to quote local Republicans to buttress the assertions in the piece about a mass Obama for America organizing effort in Wake.

“It was very scary,” said Chris Sinclair, a strategist for Billie Redmond, the Republican candidate for mayor in Raleigh. “You don’t know what’s going on until you wake up after Election Day and go, ‘Oh my gosh, what happened?’ ”

Is the rest of the nation watching this fall's Wake County school board elections?

As noted in today's article, that's an assertion made by state Rep. Paul Stam, the House Majority Leader, in explaining why he's endorsing school board chairman Ron Margiotta in his re-election bid in District 8.

"I support Ron Margiotta because this election represents a national litmus test in education reform," Stam said in an invitation to a July 14 fundraiser for Margiotta. "From the New York Times to the Washington Post, the Wake County School board elections will be analyzed on a national scale."

In case you missed The New York Times' latest love letter to Durham's dining scene, go HERE to read it.

Go HERE to read last year's story.

And Durham made the list of 41 places to go in 2011 in the New York Times travel section.

The national press is shining spotlights on challenges facing two icons of the Triangle business scene.

On Monday, Business Week wrote about the planned evolution of Research Triangle Park from an industrial park dominated by large companies to a mixed development with more shops and housing. And on Sunday, the New York Times wrote a meaty profile of SAS and the challenges the Cary-based software company faces.

The Business Week article, "Reimagining the Science Park in North Carolina,"  focuses mostly on Rick Weddle, CEO of the Research Triangle Foundation, which manages RTP, and his ideas for making the park feel livelier. That includes adding more amenities that cater to RTP workers.

"Over time, this will tip to where it's even more about the people," says Weddle, left, who has run the foundation for five years.

It wasn't until Emily Banks got to Chapel Hill that she realized she had to hate Duke.

No way around it. You're a Tar Heel now, Emily. You hate Duke.

Writing this week in the education section of the New York Times this week, Banks, a rising UNC-CH sophomore, tells the story of how she figured out the Tar Heel thing. She's a New Yorker, from Brooklyn, and had never been much for basketball.

But that changed for her when she got to college.

She writes: "U.N.C. was quite the transition. Basketball players are treated as deities, and students quote Coach Roy Williams. Professors let class out early when it's evident students are too distracted by the NCAA tournament to concentrate on poetry. If the Heels are playing, no one is asking if you're watching the game, just where and with whom."

Banks, who is studying English, also wrote about the community feeling of the national championship won by the basketball game and the craziness of the Franklin Street aftermath.

I called Banks this week to hear a little more about this view, that a basketball game can create a sense of community.

"When you're watching the game, you realize everyone is feeling the same thing at the same time," she told me. "It's like this group emotion."

 You can read Banks' column here.