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North Carolina Hearing Set To Consider Voting Machines
Elections officials are deciding which voting machines are cleared to use in North Carolina and whether they must count ballots that can be checked by human eyes.
The State Board of Elections meets Friday to decide whether the only company now selling voting machines in the state can keep doing so.
Election security advocates raised concerns about the equipment marketed by Omaha, Nebraska-based Election Systems & Software because while it prints a paper ballot for voters to check, what tabulating machines actually read are undecipherable bar codes.
Cooper Vetoes North Carolina Billboard Relocation Bill
Governor Roy Cooper has vetoed legislation that allows billboard companies to relocate their signs more easily when the land upon which they stand is condemned for a highway project.
The measure got final legislative approval earlier this month, representing give-and-take by the billboard industry, the North Carolina League of Municipalities and others.
But Cooper said Thursday the measure fails to give communities authority to control tree-cutting and other clearing related to these relocations. He says local governments should have more say in billboard matters.
WFU Volleyball Coach Resigns To Focus On Federal Case
Wake Forest University's volleyball coach Bill Ferguson has resigned.
Ferguson had been on leave from the school since March when allegations tied him to a national college admissions scandal.
In a statement released by the university, Ferguson said it was time for him to step aside so he can focus on the case. He pleaded not guilty in March.
An investigation dubbed “Operation Varsity Blues” led to charges against several coaches and athletic officials at elite universities across the country.
North Carolina Man Freed As Prosecutors Decline Retrial
A North Carolina man who spent 24 years in prison has been freed because prosecutors say they won't pursue a new trial against him.
A judge ordered a new trial Thursday for 44-year-old Dontae Sharpe, who was serving a murder sentence for a 1994 shooting death in Greenville. Prosecutors then said that they wouldn't pursue a retrial.
The judge's decision came after an evidentiary hearing in Pitt County court for Sharpe, who was convicted of killing 33-year-old George Radcliffe during a drug buy.
North Carolina Man Exonerated By Panel In 1979 Dorm Murder
A three-judge panel has ruled a mentally ill man convicted of killing a North Carolina college student 40 years ago is innocent.
Ruling as part of North Carolina's innocence process, the judges agreed Thursday that 66-year-old James Blackmon didn't fatally stab Helena Payton in 1979 at what's now St. Augustine's University in Raleigh.
Blackmon was sentenced in 1988, about nine years after the slaying. The case had gone cold until 1983.
His case came before the judges through the work of the North Carolina Innocence Commission, which ruled in November there was enough evidence of Blackmon's innocence to warrant a judicial review. The judges' decision is final.
Uniformed Head Of North Carolina National Guard To Retire
The top military leader of the North Carolina National Guard is soon leaving the post he's held most of this decade.
Gov. Roy Cooper announced this week that Major Gen. Greg Lusk is retiring this winter. Lusk has been a North Carolina guardsman for 40 years and was appointed the guard's 40th adjutant general in 2010.
Cooper's office, the Department of Public Safety and guard leadership will start the process to identify a qualified replacement for the post.
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