RALEIGH, N.C. – The head of the Federal Reserve Bank branch that includes North Carolina visits with state lawmakers who are in the middle of grappling with steep budget cuts, high unemployment and slumping businesses.

Jeffrey Lacker addresses the Senate’s budget-writing committee in Raleigh on Wednesday. He’ll talk about the Federal Reserve’s economic outlook for North Carolina and take questions from lawmakers.

The Senate is watching as the House wrestles with how to make billions of dollars in spending cuts and raise taxes to close a $4 billion spending gap for the budget year starting next month.

Lacker’s North Carolina trip includes visits to Fort Bragg and Johnson Air Force Base, plus meetings with business and community leaders.

RALEIGH, N.C.  – A House colleague of Rep. Becky Carney and two General Assembly police officers are being honored for saving her life when she went into cardiac arrest.

The American Red Cross is slated to present Tuesday lifesaving awards to Rep. Bob England and officers Forrest Johnson and Will Smith at a Legislative Building news conference.

England is a physician who said Carney had no pulse after collapsing in her legislative office April 2. The Mecklenburg County Democrat was revived thanks to CPR and the building’s defibrillator.

Carney was hospitalized for the heart arrhythmia and has since recovered at home. She’ll attend the event and mark her return to work at the House for the first time since her collapse.

CHARLOTTE, N.C.  – North Carolina Rep. Nick Mackey said he supports a judge’s order that he turn over 11 years of his tax records to the State Bar because he wants to resolve the organization’s investigation.

A judge in Wake County ordered the state to turn over tax records for the Charlotte Democrat from 1997 to 2007.

“I requested them on my own, and when we didn’t get them (the Bar) filed that. You can only wait so long for people to give you something after you ask for it. And that’s what we did,” Mackey told The Charlotte Observer.

A State Bar spokeswoman would not talk about the request, saying any complaints against its members are confidential unless they result in disciplinary action.

Mackey said the complaint accuses him of not filing or paying taxes and surfaced after his the race for Mecklenburg County sheriff in 2007. Mackey won a disputed party election, but county commissioners eventually appointed his rival to the position.

Along with tax returns, the order issued Thursday also asks the state Revenue Department to turn over copies of any tax liens, tax payments or agreement to pay taxes owed.

Mackey filed for bankruptcy in 2005, the same year he had a federal lien filed against him that claimed he owed Internal Revenue Service $12,153 in taxes and penalties.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. – An incoming North Carolina lawmaker no longer faces a criminal charge after turning over business documents.

The Charlotte Observer reported Thursday the Mecklenburg County District Attorney’s Office has dropped a misdemeanor against Charlotte Rep. Nick Mackey.

The Democrat was charged last week in connection with a July judgment against his law firm for unpaid rent, attorneys fees and other costs totaling about $100,000. Mackey said it was a misunderstanding and thought the documents had been sent. He said he plans to pay the debt.

Mackey has sparked controversy since 2007, when he lost his bid to become sheriff after state Democratic Party officials threw out the results of a special election. Mackey also has appealed a 2008 contempt of court conviction for failing to show up for a client’s trial.

WASHINGTON – Rahm Emanuel knows what it’s like to work in the White House, and while the Illinois congressman says he’s honored that President-elect Barack Obama wants him to be his chief of staff, he also says he’s got “a lot to weigh.”

Emanuel served as a political and policy aide in the Clinton White House, and he says he knows “something about what it means to a family.” He tells Chicago’s WLS-TV that the most important factor in his decision will be what he and his wife want to do as parents.

Meanwhile, speculation swirls over who else might be in line for positions. President Clinton’s former chief of staff John Podesta is heading up the Obama transition team, along with friend and campaign adviser Valerie Jarrett and Obama’s Senate chief of staff Pete Rouse. Several Democrats says the operation is well under way, though it was kept quiet to avoid the appearance of overconfidence ahead of Tuesday’s election.

WASHINGTON – A federal grand jury has indicted the son of a Democratic Tennessee state lawmaker in connection with the hacking of the e-mail account of Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.
 
David Kernell, 20, of Knoxville, Tenn., the son of state Rep. Mike Kernell, was scheduled to be arraigned Wednesday before U.S. Magistrate Judge C. Clifford Shirley, according to a statement from the Justice Department.
 
David Kernell was indicted Tuesday by a federal grand jury in Knoxville for intentionally accessing without authorization the e-mail account of Palin, Alaska’s governor, the Justice Department said.

Kernell, an economics major at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, faces a maximum of five years in prison, a $250,000 fine and a three-year term of supervised release.

His father, a Memphis Democrat, is chairman of Tennessee’s House Government Operations Committee. Mike Kernell has said he had nothing to do with the hacking incident.

The indictment against David Kernell alleged that on Sept. 16 he reset the password to Palin’s personal e-mail account to gain access to it. Authorities say Kernell then read the contents of the account and made screenshots of the e-mail directory, e-mail content and other personal information, later posting some of the information to a public Web site.

The Justice Department said the case was being prosecuted by section chief Michael DuBose and trial attorney Mark Krotoski of the criminal division’s computer crime and intellectual property section and Assistant U.S. Attorney Greg Weddle of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Tennessee. The FBI’s Anchorage and Knoxville field offices investigated the case.