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Cooper Administration Seeking Records Request Rules Comments

Gov. Roy Cooper's proposed guidelines for public records requests make clear his state agencies cannot charge more when there's extensive work required to comply.

The Cooper administration is seeking feedback on the draft guidelines, which also say records cannot be withheld or their release delayed simply because they may embarrass an agency.

The guidelines are part of a legal settlement last summer with media outlets and other groups that had sued predecessor GOP Gov. Pat McCrory. They had accused McCrory's administration of document delays and excessive costs for getting them.

US Sen. Richard Burr's Papers To Be Housed At Wake Forest

North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr will leave his official congressional papers, photos and other documents with his alma mater.

The Senate Intelligence Committee chairman and Wake Forest University administrators announced Monday at a ceremony their agreement to house his documents at the Winston-Salem school, where he graduated in 1978.

Wake Forest also announced that planning has started for the Richard Burr Center. Preliminary plans have center leaders bringing worldwide speakers to the campus to help scholars review Burr's papers for research.

Public Hearing On Confederate Monuments Proposal Next Week

The public can address members of a committee examining the proposal by Gov. Roy Cooper's administration in person next week to move three Confederate monuments from North Carolina's old Capitol grounds to a Civil War battlefield.

Committee members are meeting Monday by telephone to set rules for their March 21 public hearing in the auditorium of the North Carolina State Archives in downtown Raleigh. The meeting will last up to three hours, with each speaker getting one minute.

NC Bases Had At Least 39 Kid-On-Kid Sex Assault Reports

A decade after the Pentagon began confronting rape in the ranks, the U.S. military frequently fails to provide justice to the children of service members when they are sexually assaulted by other kids on base.

An Associated Press investigation finds that sex assault cases occurring where military kids live often die on the desks of prosecutors. Criminal investigators shelved an unknown number of reports.

Instead of punishment or rehabilitation, offenders may be shuffled into the civilian world.

The Pentagon doesn't know the extent of the problem. In North Carolina, records that the military acknowledges are incomplete document at least 39 sex assaults among children or teens on bases since 2007. Camp Lejeune had the most reports with 22. Fort Bragg was second at 12.

Pentagon officials promised "appropriate actions."

27 Cases Started By Officer Accused In Beating Video Dropped

A North Carolina prosecutor has dropped 27 cases initiated by a white police officer shown on video beating a black man accused of jaywalking.

Buncombe County District Attorney Todd Williams told the Citizen Times in a Monday statement that former Asheville police Officer Christopher Hickman could not be considered a credible witness.

The 31-year-old was arrested Thursday on felony assault and other charges in the August incident.

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