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North Carolina Early Voting Ballots Already Exceed 2014 Total
With four days of early in-person voting remaining, North Carolina already has cast more early ballots than it did during the last midterms in 2014.
The North Carolina elections board announced over 1.22 million people had voted at early voting sites or by traditional mail-in ballots as of Monday afternoon. Board spokesman Pat Gannon said the 2014 early-vote total of 1.18 million was exceeded earlier in the day.
Early in-person voting began Oct. 17 and ends Saturday.
Governor Aims For Cut In North Carolina Greenhouse Gases
North Carolina's governor says he's trying to lessen the force of erratic and powerful storms like Hurricane Florence by ordering state agencies to work at cutting greenhouse-gas emissions.
Gov. Roy Cooper said Monday he wants state agencies that he controls to prioritize electric vehicles when they buy or lease, with the aim of encouraging a market that gets 80,000 zero-emission vehicles on the state's roads in six years.
Cooper also is ordering the administration, health and other agencies under his control to cut greenhouse gases by 40 percent before 2025, compared to a starting point of 2005.
Appeals Judges: Gag Order In Hog Smells Cases Went Too Far
A federal appeals court panel says a trial judge went too far with a gag order that forbid lawyers or virtually anyone with knowledge of conditions at North Carolina hog operations from sharing information with reporters or on social media.
The U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, ruled Monday that judges overseeing lawsuits in the Carolinas, Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia can issue gag orders only as a last resort. The ruling was sought by farm and journalism groups, including The Associated Press.
Pork giant Smithfield Foods challenged a North Carolina federal judge barring involved parties and "all potential witnesses" from discussing dozens of lawsuits claiming industrial-scale hog farms create unreasonable nuisances.
Authorities Identify High School Shooting Victim
Police have identified the North Carolina high school student who authorities say was fatally shot by a fellow student just before classes began.
Matthews Police Department Capt. Stason Tyrrell said at a news conference that 16-year-old Bobby McKeithen was shot Monday and died at a local hospital. McKeithen was a 10th-grader at Butler High School in Matthews, southeast of Charlotte.
Tyrrell said 16-year-old ninth-grader Jatwan Craig Cuffie is charged with first-degree murder. He is charged as an adult and is being held in the Mecklenburg County jail.
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools Superintendent Clayton Wilcox said the shooting appears to have stemmed from a case of bullying "that escalated out of control." Neither Wilcox nor Tyrrell said which student was being bullied.
Mother Charged After 1-Year-Old Son Died In Hurricane
The mother of a 1-year-old who was swept into floodwaters created by Hurricane Florence has been charged in the boy's death.
The Union County Sheriff's Office said on its Facebook page 20-year-old Dazia Ideah Lee of Charlotte is charged with involuntary manslaughter and driving on a closed or unopened highway.
Lee told news outlets she wasn't from the area and was unfamiliar with the roads. Authorities said the water from a rain-swollen creek pushed her car off the road and left her stuck in a group of trees on the night of Sept. 16. Lee said she was able to get Kaiden Lee-Welch out of the car, but the water caused her to lose her grip.
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