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Education Power Lawsuit Taken By NC Supreme Court
North Carolina's top court has decided to hear a suit over new laws transferring power from the State Board of Education to the schools superintendent.
The state Supreme Court announced Friday it would review July's trial court ruling upholding 2016 legislation giving Superintendent of Public Instruction Mark Johnson more control over running the public schools.
The justices will step in rather than let a lower appeals court hear the case.
The education board successfully argued the case was so important that it should bypass the intermediate-level Court of Appeals. Lawyers for Johnson disagreed, arguing the board wanted to avoid the Court of Appeals because it had lost a separate case there recently.
Chief Justice Mark Martin was recused from deliberations leading to the order released Friday.
GOP Legislators Unhappy With Outside Expert's New Maps
North Carolina Republican legislative leaders remain unhappy with how an outside expert redrew some House and Senate districts at the behest of federal judges, saying there's no lawful justification for lowering their black populations.
The GOP legislators' lawyers filed their critique of the special master's redistricting plans Friday, a week after Stanford University law professor Nathaniel Persily gave his proposal to the judges.
The lawmakers previously complained about Persily's preliminary maps. They also say the judges were hasty hiring him because they haven't ruled whether districts the legislature approved in August fixed racial gerrymanders.
New State Crime Lab To Focus On Drug, DNA Evidence
A new crime lab in North Carolina aims to increase efficiency within the state's criminal justice system, particularly in regard to drug and DNA evidence.
The News & Observer reports that state Attorney General Josh Stein attended the inauguration of the State Crime Lab office for western North Carolina in Edneyville this weekend. The new regional crime lab, unlike the one in Asheville, relieves the burden of DNA evidence testing from the main lab in Raleigh, which was previously the only facility with that capacity.
Around 20 new employees will help the lab focus on drug evidence, as well as DNA evidence, which could help reduce the backlog of untested evidence from rape kits.
Western North Carolina has been the area hardest hit by the opioid epidemic in the state.
Wake Forest University President Tops List of Earners
A new survey shows Wake Forest University president Nathan Hatch is the highest-paid private college leader in the country.
The study has found America's private university presidents saw their pay increase by 9 percent in 2015.
The Chronicle of Higher Education's annual survey of 500 schools found the average chief made nearly $570,000, including salary, bonuses and benefits.
Among the top earners were 10 who made more than $2 million, up from eight the year before.
Wake Forest University's Nathan Hatch topped the list with $4 million, including $3 million as a perk for leading the Winston-Salem school for 10 years.
Boston University's Robert Brown was paid a base salary of $883,000 but made another $1 million for reaching 10 years at the helm.
Great White Shark Tagged By Group In North Carolina Sound
A juvenile great white shark tagged by a research group has surfaced inside Pamlico Sound west of the Outer Banks.
The Virginian-Pilot reports a satellite ping sent to Ocearch.org on Saturday located the shark named Bruin just off Swan Quarter on the Hyde County mainland.
The shark was 5-foot, 5-inches long and weighed 101 pounds when it was tagged in August off Montauk, N.Y. On Tuesday, Bruin sent a ping from just inside the sound around Avon. But because the satellite pings have a variance of about 20 miles, it was likely that the shark was still in the ocean, just off the beach.
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