RALEIGH, N.C.  – The North Carolina House speaker says he wants to know more about allegations another lawmaker embraced a teen volunteer and drank alcohol before speeding to work this week. The lawmaker took to the House floor to defend himself.
Speaker Joe Hackney said Thursday he asked the House sergeant-at-arms to look into the actions [...]

RALEIGH, N.C.  – North Carolina lawmakers say coastal regulators should allow waterfront communities to install a kind of hardened structures designed to keep shoreline sand from floating into the water.
The state Senate voted Thursday to give the Coastal Resources Commission authority to grant construction of what’s called a terminal groin.
Such a structure runs perpendicular to [...]

RALEIGH, N.C. – The North Carolina Senate has put off debate on a bill that would ban smoking at most work sites, restaurants and public places because some Democrats aren’t sold on the idea.
Democrats on Thursday pulled the bill from the Senate floor until the middle of next week. Majority Leader Tony Rand of Cumberland [...]

RALEIGH, N.C.  – A performance audit says North Carolina lawmakers should consider shifting their oversight of the state employee health insurance plan to the executive branch.
The State Auditor’s Office released a report Thursday making the suggestion while explaining how the State Health Plan missed projections by $138 million last year. That turned a $58 million [...]

RALEIGH, N.C. – A North Carolina House committee has cleared legislation that would allow people who are illegally denied requests for public documents to get their legal fees paid by the offending government agency.
The House judiciary committee on Thursday unanimously approved a bill that in most cases would eliminate the discretion of judges whether or [...]

WASHINGTON  – President Barack Obama says he supports Chrysler’s decision to seek bankruptcy protection and that its looming partnership with Fiat will save one of America’s “most storied automakers.”
Obama said he believes the bankruptcy filing will put the struggling company back on its feet and that the process for recovery will be relatively fast.
During an [...]

WASHINGTON – Joe Biden said Thursday he advised his family to stay off airplanes and subways because of the swine flu, a remark that forced the vice president’s office to backtrack, the travel industry to cry foul and other government officials to try to massage Biden’s message.
“I would tell members of my family – and [...]

NEW YORK  – Elizabeth Edwards writes in a new memoir that news of her husband’s affair made her vomit in a bathroom.
In the book scheduled to be published May 12, Edwards says her husband, John, admitted to the betrayal just days after declaring his run for president in 2006. She says she wanted him to [...]

RALEIGH, N.C.  – A Senate panel has quietly approved separate bills telling North Carolina public schools to change how they teach sex education and to adopt detailed anti-bullying policies.
The Senate Mental Health and Youth Services Committee recommended the legislation Wednesday to the full Senate.
The sex education bill passed the House just two weeks ago. It [...]