RALEIGH, N.C.  – North Carolina’s treasurer is close to getting the freedom she wants to invest the state pension fund in nontraditional ways including timberland and commodities.
The House voted 64-50 on Thursday to expand the kinds of investments allowed for the retirement funds covering 820,000 state and local government employees, teachers, emergency responders and retirees.
State [...]

WASHINGTON  – President Barack Obama will host the next Group of 20 economic summit Sept. 24-25 in Pittsburgh.
The White House announced the meeting Thursday.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Obama offered Pittsburgh as a venue at the conclusion of the group’s last meeting in London in April.
Many world leaders will already be in the United [...]

WASHINGTON  – The White House says President Barack Obama is “very comfortable” that Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor shares his philosophy about the Constitution, including rights not specifically spelled out in the document.
Presidential spokesman Robert Gibbs said Obama did not specifically ask Sotomayor about the right to privacy. The debate over that right has come [...]

RALEIGH, N.C.  – North Carolina’s top consumer advocate on utility issues says he no longer opposes an effort to end state regulation of the prices consumers pay for landline telephone service.
Legislation to free telephone companies from state price oversight passed a state Senate committee on Thursday. The measure would allow AT&T and 15 smaller providers [...]

RALEIGH, N.C.  – A longtime advocate for North Carolina coastal and water-quality issues has died.
Jim Stephenson died early Thursday in Raleigh at age 57, according to Todd Miller, executive director of the North Carolina Coastal Federation.
Miller said that Stephenson was found unconscious about 2 a.m. at the apartment he rented while lobbying the Legislature. Paramedics [...]

RALEIGH, N.C.  – A Senate bill requiring North Carolina school districts to approve more detailed anti-bullying policies is moving forward.
The House Education Committee recommended the measure Thursday.
Districts would have to create policies that at a minimum list perceived characteristics of a person likely to be bullied. The list is laid out in the bill, which [...]

(Richmond Times-Dispatch)
BY NATHAN SALES
FAIRFAX — What a difference a year makes.
President Barack Obama is embracing the Bush-era counterterrorism measures that, as a candidate, he repeatedly denounced. Now that he’s nominated Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, the Senate should make sure the new justice won’t hamstring lawful efforts to keep our nation secure.
At [...]

Scientists at UNC-CH, Duke and N.C. State prepare hundreds of requests they hope will snare some of the coming federal stimulus money aimed at kick-starting academic research, the N&O reports.

RALEIGH, N.C.  – The North Carolina Bank Commission paid nearly $500,000 in bonuses to its employees last year and is asking legislators to provide money for more this year.
Employees of the commission are exempt from state salary rules. Deputy Commissioner Mark Pearce says the commission uses the bonuses to attract employees to work in bank [...]