Among the casualties of Hurricane Irene even before it hits North Carolina will be The Brittany Soccer Showcase. That means Carrboro's boys soccer match with a talented Swansboro team, originally scheduled for Friday night in Wilson, is cancelled.

Most Triangle high school football teams are still scheduled to play Friday night, but many of those playing farther east or south are opting to play Thursday night or postponing for a later date to avoid the heavy rainfall expected along the I-95 corridor over the weekend.

For example, Durham Hillside at Fayetteville E.E. Smith has been moved to Thursday.

The Brittany for the Boys soccer showcase in Wilson, which was scheduled for Friday and Saturday, was also canceled. It's traditionally been a major draw for prep soccer, bringing in scores of teams every year.

Mike Petty, a spokesman for The Brittany organizing committee, said the decision to cancel was made so that traveling teams would be able to change their motel reservations, chartered buses and dining plans.

“To allow them to make their cancellations in time to avoid charges, it is necessary to make our ‘go, no go’ decision now rather than waiting for later weather updates and the right decision is to cancel,” Petty told the News & Observer. “If we err, we choose to err on the side of caution.”

The Chapel Hill News and the News & Observer's Preps Now blog will update you on changes to high school schedules as they are received.

Voith Paper Fabric and Roll Systems has laid off 22 workers at its facility in Wilson.

Tyler Wiggs, a human resources generalist with the company, said all the people let go worked in production.

The Wilson facility makes felts that go on paper-making machines. It is the North American headquarters of Voith, a German company.

Wiggs said Voith employs 159 salaried and hourly workers at its Wilson facility.

The state's cable TV industry is once again trying to quash what it deems unfair competition from local governments that provide their own TV and Internet services.

For the third consecutive year, the cable TV lobby has succeeded in getting legislation introduced in the N.C. General Assembly that would hamper competition from local governments. In the past two years the controversial bills got bogged down in legislative committees as supporters said that municipal broadband increases competition and Internet access.

The most recent incarnation of the bill, introduced last week in the state House and Senate, says it's contrary to good public policy to let a government agency compete with private industry for the provision of goods and services. 

What the legislators have in mind are super high-speed Internet services offered by the cities of Salisbury and Wilson. Wilson's Greenlight and Salisbury's Fibrant service offer Internet speeds 10 times faster than the current top speed offered by Time Warner Cable. Municipal broadband also offers e-mail service, phone service and hundreds of television channels.

Supporters of a proposed chicken plant in Nash County are creating their own nonprofit to advocate for the project.

At an event in Rocky Mount this morning, local business leaders announced a new non-profit and previewed an advertising campaign that was created to help bring Sanderson Farms to Nash County.

The group says Sanderson's plant will create a $5.5 billion economic impact in the region and create more than 2,000 jobs.

Opponents of the Sanderson project earlier created their own group, Nash County Landowners Association, which hired a Raleigh PR firm to to do polling and messaging.

The city of Wilson is contributing $1 million to fight the project.

A group against a proposed chicken plant in Nash County has hired a Raleigh PR firm to help construct its message.

Campaign Connections, a firm run by PR veteran Brad Crone that is best known for its work with politicians, has begun polling and messaging work on behalf of the Nash County Landowners Association.

The landowners are working with both the City and the County of Wilson to pay the tab, said Con Ward, chairman of the landowners group.

"We recognize this is a David and Goliath battle," Ward said of the decision to engage a PR firm. "They can hep us create better strategies."

Sanderson Farms, a publicly traded company based in Mississippi, has been working with Nash County officials in an effort to build a new plant off I-95 in southeastern Nash County.

Triangle golfers from Raleigh, Durham, Morrisville and Apex on
Wednesday were among the 23 competitors to advance to the 50th N.C.
Amateur Championship from sectional qualifying hosted by the Lonnie
Poole Golf Course on N.C. State's Centennial Campus in Raleigh.

Henry Zaytoun III of Raleigh led the Triangle contingent, shooting a
3-under-par 69 and sharing second place with Daniel Claytor of Rocky
Mount. They finished two shots behind event winner Harold Varner III of
Gastonia, who shot a 67.

Chapel Hill defeated Western Alamance 4-1 Tuesday night to win its NCHSAA East 3-A baseball sectional. CHHS (23-5) advances to host Wilson Hunt (24-4) for a best 2-out-of-3 regional series Thursday-Friday-Saturday. The winner of that will play for the NCHSAA 3-A state championship the following week.

Chapel Hill and Hunt will play their first games at 7 p.m. Thursday and Friday at Tiger Stadium, located near the corner of Seawell School and High School Roads. The third game, if necessary, will be played Saturday at a time yet to be determined.

Triangle golfers took three of the top 10 spots in a sectional
qualifying tournament played Friday for next month's North Carolina
Amateur Championship.

Zach Edmondson of Morrisville won the qualifier at River Landing's
River course in Wallace by shooting a 3-under-par 69 for a one-stroke
victory over Fayetteville's Jack Keefe and Hampstead's David Donovan,
who each shot a 70.

Raleigh's Cyrus Stewart shared fourth place with three other golfers at
71, and Keith Waters was in a three-man group tied for eighth place at
par 72.

Wilson is about to lose another employer.

The Smurfit-Stone Container Corp. is closing its manufacturing facility on April 30 and letting go 97 workers. The sites makes corrugated packaging.

Smurfit-Stone makes boxes, packages and store displays. The company is in the midsts of a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing and is restructuring operations.

The company notified the N.C. Department of Commerce of the pending layoffs last week. Smurfit-Stone has dual headquarters in Chicago and near St. Louis, Missouri.

Wilson, about 50 miles east of Raleigh, is also losing its only Sears store. The store is closing its doors May 9 and letting go 54 workers.