Sorted by date Results 1 - 16 of 16
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — A North Carolina charter school promoting traditional values engaged in unconstitutional sex discrimination by requiring girls to wear skirts, a federal judge has ruled. U.S. District Judge Malcolm Howard ruled that Charter Day School can't enforce the skirts-only rule as part of its dress code that punishes violations with suspensions and even expulsion. No child has been expelled for violating the dress code since the school opened in 2000, Howard said in a decision filed on Thursday. But girls are clearly treated d...
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — A federal judge has declared unconstitutional a North Carolina law banning women from having abortions after the 20th week of pregnancy except in an urgent medical emergency. The decision Monday by U.S. District Judge William Osteen in Greensboro gave state legislators 60 days before his ruling takes effect to allow them to amend abortion restrictions or appeal his ruling to a higher court. The U.S. Supreme Court has protected abortion as a constitutional right until a fetus has developed enough to live outside the m...
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Smithfield Foods was found responsible Friday for a fifth time for nuisances neighbors suffered from waste generated by thousands of the company's hogs. Jurors determined the pork giant should pay $420,000 after four previous juries awarded nearly $550 million in penalties. Most of the damages awarded were intended to punish Smithfield Foods for its actions, but a state law limiting the size of punitive awards means they are automatically capped. Friday's verdict was the second time a jury heard about intense smells, c...
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — With a new election ordered in North Carolina's disputed congressional race, a key question remains unanswered: Who could face criminal charges after a state elections board hearing exposed evidence of ballot fraud? Among those in potential legal trouble are the central figure in the scandal, political operative Leslie McCrae Dowless, and some of those working for him. According to testimony heard by the board, they illegally gathered up voters' absentee ballots and, in some cases, filled in votes and forged signatures. T...
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Legislation quickly passed by North Carolina's lawmakers this week would prepare a path for Republicans to dump their nominee in a still-undecided U.S. House race marred with ballot fraud allegations. "I think (legislators are) worried that Mark Harris might be damaged goods and they want to have the opportunity to have a different Republican nominee," said Carter Wrenn, a Republican operative and consultant to former U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms and others for more than 40 years. "That's how I read those tea leaves." If the s...
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — A federal jury is punishing the world's largest pork producer with a $25 million verdict after jurors decided that two neighbors of a hog farm suffered unreasonable nuisances from flies, buzzards and rumbling trucks tied to an industrial-scale hog grower. The jury's verdict Friday ends a five-week trial where attorneys for Smithfield Foods expected to present their best arguments. It's the second in a series of cases in which more than 500 neighbors of industrial-scale hog farms have targeted the Virginia-based, C...
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Legislators in the country's No. 2 hog-growing state on Tuesday stepped up efforts to shield industrial hog operations from neighbors who have complained for decades about the smell, noise and flies generated by housing thousands of animals together. The state Senate's Agriculture Committee unveiled and approved language that would protect the low-cost but much-criticized method of handling hog waste. The proposed changes to a state farm-protection law would block lawsuits alleging negligent or improper operations that c...
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Thousands of teachers filled the main street of North Carolina's capital Wednesday demanding better pay and more funding for public schools, hoping to achieve what other educators around the country accomplished by pressuring lawmakers for change. City blocks turned red, the color of shirts worn by marchers chanting "We care! We vote!" and "This is What Democracy Looks Like!" An estimated 19,000 people joined the march, according to the Downtown Raleigh Alliance, which based its number in part on aerial photos. "I feel t...
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Americans have grown accustomed to hearing apologies from everyone from cheating car-makers to cheating presidents, but a Fortune 500 chemical company with a pollution problem in North Carolina is following a different model: don't apologize, don't explain. For six months, Wilmington, Delaware-based Chemours Co. has faced questions about an unregulated chemical with unknown health risks that flowed from the company's plant into the Cape Fear River, which provides drinking water for hundreds of thousands of people. The c...
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — A Marine Corps drill instructor has been sentenced to 10 years behind bars after being convicted of tormenting and abusing young recruits, especially Muslim-Americans, including one who later killed himself. A military jury also ordered Gunnery Sgt. Joseph Felix, a 34-year-old Iraq veteran, to forfeit all pay, be demoted to private and given a dishonorable discharge. Friday's sentencing at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, came after Felix begged for forgiveness before the eight-member jury, which a day earlier convicted him o...
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — A Marine Corps drill instructor was sentenced Friday to 10 years in prison for choking, punching or otherwise tormenting recruits, especially three Muslims — one of whom ultimately killed himself by leaping down a stairwell. A military jury handed out the punishment to Gunnery Sgt. Joseph Felix a day after convicting him of abusing more than a dozen trainees at the Marine boot camp at Parris Island, South Carolina. Among other things, he taunted the Muslims as "terrorists" or "ISIS" and ordered two of them to climb int...
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — The country's largest electric company says it will publish federally mandated maps that it previously refused to publish, showing what could happen to neighboring properties if a coal-ash pit burst. Duke Energy Corp. said Friday it will now post online the maps and emergency responder contact information. Two environmental advocacy groups had said Wednesday they planned a lawsuit to force disclosure of the information withheld for more than a dozen Duke Energy sites in Indiana, Kentucky and North Carolina. The groups said...
Raleigh, N.C. (AP) — A startup company is giving up plans to build boxcar-sized batteries that help power companies save energy or shift to wind and solar power. Alevo Manufacturing Inc. informed state officials Friday that it was immediately shutting down its factory inside a massive, former Philip Morris USA cigarette plant and filing for bankruptcy protection. The company said it was terminating 245 workers Friday and laying off the remaining 45 by the end of September "due to unforeseen business circumstances." The company had said in 2...
DURHAM, N.C. (AP) — As questions about the Trump administration's direction on race and college admissions swirled this week, the new president of Duke University said his tenure would seek to expand diversity at the elite private campus while preserving fairness. Diversity of views and knowledge is fundamental to higher education's task of pushing the limits of research and training problem-solvers, Vince Price said in an interview a month after starting his job July 1. Price, 60, won awards as a political science and communications p...
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Dozens of insurance companies say they're not obligated to help pay for Duke Energy Corp.'s multi-billion dollar coal ash cleanup because the nation's largest electric company long knew about but did nothing to reduce the threat of potentially toxic pollutants. The claim is in a filing by lawyers for nearly 30 international and domestic insurance companies that were sued by Duke Energy in March to force them to cover part of the utility's coal ash cleanup costs in the Carolinas. The 57 policies generally promise to help D...
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — The plunging cost of solar power is leading U.S. electric companies to capture more of the sun just when President Donald Trump is moving to boost coal and other fossil fuels. Solar power represents just about 1 percent of the electricity U.S. utilities generate today, but that could grow substantially as major electric utilities move into smaller-scale solar farming, a niche developed by local cooperatives and non-profits. It's both an opportunity and a defensive maneuver: Sunshine-capturing technology has become so cheap,...
