The Herald Sun
Could AI make Duke business school students more human?
If an artificial intelligence agent informed you that you were talking over your peers too often in group discussion, would you heed its advice? Some Duke business school students do. It’s part of an experiment in which Duke professors and students...
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Downtown Raleigh campus to unite state education offices
The massive construction site in downtown Raleigh, covering a city block, is taking shape as the new North Carolina Education Campus. The News & Observer has the exclusive first look at all the images of the campus that will bring together the UNC...
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Alumni demand transparency amid St. Augustine bankruptcy
When St. Augustine’s University, Raleigh’s 160-year-old HBCU, announced last week that it was bankrupt and losing its accreditation, the leader of its young alumni association, Olivia Huckaby, was shocked she hadn’t received any advance notice. She...
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Wakemed leaders begin to make case for merger with Atrium Health
Wakemed leaders say they’ve got a lot of work ahead to sell skeptics on the benefits of merging with Charlotte-based Atrium Health but are confident they will win people over. The two nonprofit health systems announced the planned combination late...
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NC teachers warn they may leave without raises, survey says
North Carolina teachers are trying to spread the message that they could leave the profession if they don’t get enough of a pay raise from the state. Compensation and school funding were concerns that the state Department of Public Instruction said...
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Wake County may delay vote on Wakemed, Atrium Health merger
The Wake County Board of Commissioners may delay its vote to approve Wakemed’s merger with Charlotte-based Atrium Health. It is on the “consent agenda” portion of Monday’s meeting agenda. The consent agenda is supposed to consist of noncontroversial...
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North Carolina won’t regulate ‘fairy hair’ after earlier enforcement
Fairy hair was the reason regulators sent inspectors out to warn at least one artist she needed to be licensed by the state. Now, they say the hair accessory falls outside their purview. The North Carolina Board of Cosmetic Art Examiners reviewed the...
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Durham seniors demand safety changes at apartment complexes
When Shelva Washington moved into Ashton Place two years ago, she thought she had found a sanctuary. For many seniors like her, the apartment building on Jackson Street promised community and stability in the heart of downtown Durham, steps from the...
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NC lawmakers drop land acquisition plan after backlash
North Carolina lawmakers on Tuesday scrapped a hotly contested proposal to allow one county to unilaterally acquire land in three others amid fierce opposition from local leaders. The bill, Senate Bill 214, would have allowed Franklin County, located...
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NC sees record low infant mortality, drop in OD deaths
North Carolina’s infant mortality rate hit an all-time low and overdose-related deaths plummeted in 2024, the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services announced Monday. A new report shows the infant mortality rate dropped 8.7% from 6.9 to 6.3...
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Wake SPCA expands services to curb pet euthanasia
Seymour’s tail wagged excitedly and his frowny, pitbull face broke into a near-grin as he padded into a new center meant to keep pets like him healthy. He came to Wake County from the Stanly County animal shelter, and before that was a stray. “His...
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Y’all Means All offers alternative to Brewgaloo festival
Gray Mitchell enjoyed Brewgaloo the last few years she went. She would have gone again this year. But after Shop Local Raleigh’s executive director, Jennifer Martin, made a transphobic comment on an anonymous Facebook account in December, Mitchell,...
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Pharma giant Abbvie plans to invest $1.4B in Durham facility
An American pharmaceutical giant plans to create hundreds of jobs at a new manufacturing site in Durham. On Wednesday, North Carolina awarded Abbvie a job development investment grant to open a Durham campus, where the company pledges to hire 734...
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NC lawmakers reach deal on Medicaid funding
On the first day of this year’s session, North Carolina House and Senate lawmakers appear poised to take action to provide funding for Medicaid. This follows a months-long standoff over the funding dating back to summer between the Republican-led...
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Stein pitches new budget on General Assembly opening day
North Carolina’s legislature is back, and the governor is making a new budget pitch. Democratic Gov. Josh Stein wants 15% raises for law enforcement and nurses, and starting teacher pay to be the highest in the Southeast. Stein announced his third,...
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Thousands of teachers expected to march in Raleigh on May 1
Teachers across North Carolina are submitting requests to take May 1 off to participate in a protest in Raleigh organized by the North Carolina Association of Educators. May 1 is a Friday so principals and district administrators are scrambling to...
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4 weather-watching tips from Raleigh NWS meteorologists
Remember back in elementary school when you learned about the water cycle? Evaporation. Condensation. Precipitation. It’s one of the few things about the weather still rattling around my mind left from school. So, now when I hear or read forecasts...
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Raleigh enforces water restrictions amid severe drought
Raleigh residents and businesses face water-usage restrictions starting Monday as central North Carolina enters a severe drought. The city announced the new restrictions Wednesday in a news release. WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR RESIDENTS? People with...
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PRACTICING AT SUNDOWN
Jose Arias Garcia, a first-year student at Unc-chapel Hill, practices dribbling a soccer ball as the sun begins to set at Hooker Fields on Tuesday, April 14, 2026.
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Record number of NC high school students do college courses
A majority of North Carolina’s high school graduates are now taking and passing college-level courses, state leaders said Thursday. A report presented by the state Department of Public Instruction shows that 56% of graduates took at least one college...
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Apartments, townhomes planned for 27-acre Cary mobile home park
For decades, Chatham Estates Mobile Home Park has been a quiet pocket of affordability for hundreds of families, seniors and immigrants in Cary. But fears of displacement have loomed over the 27-acre mobile-home community, and now with a planned sale...
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NC’S first mosque gets historic marker in Durham
When she was just 5 years old, Dr. Rhonda Muhammad followed her father south to Durham, where he led North Carolina’s first mosque from a storefront on Pettigrew Street — an outpost for Islam and civil rights in the thick of Jim Crow. “It was scary,”...
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Leandro lawsuit tossed, NC public school fight continues
Public education supporters are livid that the North Carolina Supreme Court threw out the Leandro school funding case, but they say they aren’t giving up the fight for more public school funding. Last week, the Supreme Court dismissed the 32-yearold...
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UNC approves contract for new men’s basketball coach
Michael Malone officially became the new Tar Heels men’s basketball coach Tuesday after the UNC Board of Trustees approved his new contract. “Michael was the first coach we engaged with as part of the search process because of his reputation as a...
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Recent rain wasn’t enough to make a dent in statewide drought
Locally heavy downpours may have washed a layer of pollen from cars and patio pavers on Sunday, but they weren’t enough to get the Triangle or much of anywhere else in North Carolina out of drought. As of March 31, all 100 counties of the state were...
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Duke Gardens reopens April 8 with upgraded amenities
For years, the entrance to one of the Triangle’s most picturesque landscapes was a stretch of asphalt and a single building. But as the gates swing open this week, the $30 million Garden Gateway project will reveal a Sarah P. Duke Gardens that has...
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Western NC Helene rebuilding program faces funding shortfall
It’s been just over a year and a half since the remnants of Hurricane Helene struck Western North Carolina, and so far, 30 homes out of more than 3,500 active applications have been completed through the state program that uses federal funds to...
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NC State alum Gainey returns home as men’s basketball coach
Justin Gainey bought a Tshirt, but he couldn’t get Final Four tickets. He watched the game from his hotel. Gainey, despite coaching at Tennessee, wanted a piece of his alma mater’s historic run in the 2024 ACC Championship and NCAA Tournament. Almost...
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Raleigh Ponzi scheme mansion reborn as $6M luxury home
A sprawling North Raleigh mansion that was once owned by a real-estate fraudster, then abandoned to squatters and graffiti artists, has been reborn as $6 million palace featuring its own helipad, basketball court and floating spiral staircase. At...
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Helene-ravaged Nolichucky River faces pollution from illegal mine
Tessa and Leo Sharp figured things couldn’t get much worse than Hurricane Helene, which dropped up to 2 feet of rain across mountainous Mitchell County in September 2024. The storm and resulting rethe cord flooding sent so much debris down the...
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END OF THE ROAD FOR THE BLUE DEVILS
Duke guard Cayden Boozer covers his face as he leaves the court with his teammates after falling to Connecticut, 73-72, on Sunday in Washington. The No. 1-seeded Blue Devils were just a few seconds from a trip to the Final Four when their season came...
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No Kings demonstrations fill downtown Raleigh streets
Protesters carrying signs moved silently through the streets of downtown Raleigh Saturday afternoon. Their destination: the State Capitol. And while they may have moved incognito on their way to the state’s seat of power, they showed up to bring the...
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Davis out after five years as UNC’S head basketball coach
Hubert Davis will not return for a sixth season as North Carolina’s head coach, the program announced Tuesday night, marking the end of a five-year tenure defined by both historic highs and mounting inconsistency. Details of the separation were not...
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‘Fairy hair’ brings clients joy, but is she breaking a law?
State officials warned Leslie Stern with a letter. Then they sent inspectors to shops and events she was working at in Wilmington, Durham and Winston-salem. It wasn’t illicit contraband they were after. It was information about glittery threads of...
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Can Chapel Hill add housing density without losing its past?
Historic properties don’t always stay frozen in time, instead growing and changing to meet modern needs, a process that can lead to renovation and demolition. That means anything is possible with a 1.24-acre site composed of four lots and five homes...
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Wake County teachers, parents protest proposed special-ed cuts
Teachers and parents protested across Wake County Thursday morning against special education cuts that would lead to the elimination of 130 teaching positions. The Wake County school system plans to cut $18 million from the special education budget...
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Raleigh to place new stop signs intersections on Clark Avenue
The city will erect stop signs at three intersections on Clark Avenue near N.C. State University, including the one with Pogue Street where a biology professor was hit and killed in a crosswalk last fall. The signs, due to go up within the next week,...
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Wake County schools planning more budget cuts as costs go up
Wake County Superintendent Robert Taylor plans to ask for a local funding increase of around $25 million this year along with higher school meal prices and budget cuts in areas such as special education. Taylor will preview on Tuesday the budget...
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THE MADNESS OF MARCH BEGINS
Duke’s Nikolas Khamenia (14) and Dame Sarr (7) celebrate as time runs out in Duke’s 74-70 victory over Virginia in the finals of the 2026 ACC Men’s Basketball Tournament at the Spectrum Center in Charlotte on Saturday.
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How to feed and attract hummingbirds this spring
Migrating hummingbirds will soon arrive in North Carolina, to the delight of birdwatchers. In the coming weeks, you may see the fluttering creatures around your feeder or flower garden. If you want to attract the birds, now is an ideal time to get...
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Housing, transportation, school bonds on tap in Raleigh
Voters in Raleigh could see a trio of bonds totaling more than $1 billion on this fall’s ballot, forcing local leaders to balance how much household budgets can bear. The Raleigh City Council is weighing whether to ask for $203 million, split between...
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Why are so many homes getting torn down in Raleigh?
You’ve likely seen them: The orange silt fencing protecting a smattering of trees. First the red clay, then concrete. The dumpsters in driveways and yards. Modest, single-story ranch homes torn down to make way for massive towering new homes, doubling...
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RED SKY AT MORNING IN RALEIGH
A brilliant orange sky greets early risers in Raleigh on Tuesday morning as clouds over downtown are illuminated by light from the rising sun.
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Asylum seeker’s month in custody still weighs on her
During the week, Fatima Issela Velasquez-antonio gets up early, eats breakfast, and then it’s off to work. The location varies day by day, as Velasquez-antonio works for an HVAC company with projects across the Triangle. On Sundays — often her only...
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Growth in NC homeschooling leads to more programs for them
Bennett Place is often filled with school groups, but on Friday it was dozens of homeschool students who walked through the rural farm site to learn more about North Carolina history. More than 100 homeschool students and their parents visited the...
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Displaced NC families finally return home post Storm Chantal
Nearly eight months after tropical storm flood waters ravaged Carrboro’s Weatherhill Pointe neighborhood near Morgan Creek, Peter and Catherine Burke, both in their 80s, have finally returned home. Despite torrential rain, movrepair ers pulled up to...
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2 votes separate Senate leader Berger and Sheriff Page
It’s not over yet. In unofficial results with all precincts reporting, just two votes separate the leader of the North Carolina Senate, Phil Berger, and his challenger in the Republican primary election, Rockingham County Sheriff Sam Page. “We are...
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NC’S voucher program changing how private schools operate
North Carolina’s Opportunity Scholarship program has exploded in growth with many private schools either encouraging or requiring families to apply for a taxpayer-funded voucher to help cover tuition costs. A News & Observer analysis of state data...
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UNC System’s new definition of academic freedom approved
The UNC Board of Governors authorized a new definition of academic freedom on Thursday, a move that enshrines an explanation of the concept into UNC System policy — but also places key limits on what kind of faculty activity it protects. Academic...
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FBI raises terrorism alert over fears of retaliation by Iran
FBI Director Kash Patel said he put the bureau’s counterterrorism and counterintelligence teams on high alert Saturday after the U.S. and Israel launched a sweeping military assault on Iran. Iran retaliated with strikes on U.S. military bases and...
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Mrbeast’s team stopped answering ECU emails, records show
East Carolina University appeared eager to keep the conversation going. In an email last March to a Mrbeast representative, school chancellor Philip Rogers requested they meet to advance the content creator training partnership that both sides had...
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Crews put people first during apartment fire, chief says
Investigators have not yet determined the cause of a fire that injured six people and displaced 70 residents at a Morrisville apartment complex Monday night, officials said at a news briefing Tuesday afternoon. The fire appears to have begun around...
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6 injured, dozens displaced in Morrisville apartment fire
person was taken to the hospital and five people were treated on the scene for smoke inhalation after a fire broke out at a Morrisville apartment complex on Monday night, Feb. 23. The three-alarm fire ignited around 6 p.m. at the Camden Westwood...
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No snow at RDU, but Northeast blizzard cancels 116 flights
The blizzard in the Northeast is causing travel problems in the Triangle, as airlines cancel flights and Amtrak cuts back on rail service. By 9 a.m., 116 flights at Raleigh-durham International Airport had been canceled Monday, most involving cities...
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New luxury hotel could block main street view
Twenty years ago, almost to the day, Raleigh blew up the hulking gray Convention Center at the south end of Fayetteville Street, bidding explosive farewell to a boxy eyesore that occupied downtown with the grace of a high school gym. And when the dust...
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NC forests to get $290 million for recovery, feds say
It takes a “geologic event” to reroute rivers, reshape mountains and alter ecosystems, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture says that happened when Hurricane Helene hit Pisgah and Nantahala national forests in 2024. The USDA won’t argue that the...
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A RIVALRY GAME FOR THE AGES
N.C. State’s Jordan Snell and Matt Able celebrate following the Wolfpack’s 82-58 win over North Carolina on Tuesday, Feb. 17, 2026, at Lenovo Center in Raleigh.
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Civil rights leader the Rev. Jesse Jackson dies at 84
The Rev. Jesse Jackson, the civil rights leader, Baptist minister and two-time presidential candidate, died Tuesday morning, his family said in a statebecame ment. He was 84 years old. “Our father was a servant leader — not only to our family, but to...
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Judge allows protesters back on UNC campus
Hill banned four protesters from campus after they were arrested for refusing to clear out of a propalestinian encampment in April 2024. Last week, a judge ruled that this was likely a violation of their First Amendment rights, ruling against...
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NC State superfan Ketchie, 14, remained true to the end
N.C. State mascot Ms. Wuf sat on the edge of Grayson Ketchie’s bed Wednesday and held his hand as he lay with a wash cloth across his forehead. He curled up under a “Tuffy” blanket, surrounded by a stream of visitors — most of whom wore red — in his...
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Is there land for a Wake County landfill? Leaders weigh options
Could a new landfill be in Wake County’s future? It’s one option Wake leaders are considering as they try to figure out what to do with the county’s trash once the South Wake Landfill is full. “We fully expected there to be no land that met our...
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Defense points to acne medication in shooter’s hearing
Defense lawyers for the Raleigh teen who killed five people in a mass shooting began presenting their evidence in his sentencing hearing Tuesday, depicting a seemingly normal child subjected to a sudden mental episode brought on by his acne...
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Lawmakers bring local leaders to Raleigh for grilling
Local officials from across North Carolina are being called to Raleigh to be grilled by lawmakers on two state House committees. Contentious exchanges between local and state government officials in a hearing room in Raleigh have become more common in...
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ACC announces fine for UNC court storming
The ACC fined UNC $50,000 for violating the league’s event security policy after fans rushed the court following the Tar Heels’ 71-68 win over Duke on Saturday at the Dean E. Smith Center, the conference announced Sunday night. Blue Devils coach Jon...
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Farewell to whimsical N&O illustrator Grey Blackwell
In its final years in its old office on Mcdowell Street, The News & Observer occupied a dingy labyrinth of mostly empty rooms and dusty hallways where ghosts floated past with green eyeshades and inky finjoke gers, operating machines nobody had turned...
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Mother of confessed Hedingham shooter testifies at hearing
The mother of the confessed killer in Raleigh’s deadliest mass shooting took the witness stand Wednesday and testified that she “may never know why” Austin Thompson killed five people in their Hedingham neighborhood. “Austin,” she said, addressing her...
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Grant will allow removal of dozen abandoned boats in NC waters
The N.C. Coastal Federation has received a grant from a national boating organization to remove a dozen abandoned boats from waterways in five coastal counties. The money will help continue a years-long effort by the nonprofit, the state Wildlife...
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Cooper’s hurricane recovery record under scrutiny in Senate race
As former Gov. Roy Cooper campaigns for U.S. Senate, Republicans argue that hurricane recovery under his administration took too long for many families. The issue has taken on new political relevance as disaster response and recovery become a point of...
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Residents brave cold temps for Dix Park winter wonderland
With powdery snow underfoot and a bright sun overhead, hundreds of Raleigh residents flocked to Dorothea Dix Park on Sunday to enjoy the results of the second winter storm in as many weeks. At Harvey Hill, parents formed a line at the top of the hill...
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Picturesque, problematic: Snowstorm blankets NC
A winter storm moved across North Carolina on Saturday, crowning the landscape from the mountains to the sea in powdery snow nearly two feet deep in places, but also leaving thousands without power or stranded on unnavigable roads. High winds and...
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Vigil held at VA after Pretti’s death ‘hit home’ for nurses
When she watched video of the moments before a Border Patrol agent shot Alex Pretti, Libby Manly could see the nurse in him. Manly saw Pretti helping a woman after federal agents shoved her to the ground. She saw, true to the demeanor of a nurse, how...
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Budd joins Tillis in call for investigation of Minn. killing
U.S. Sen. Ted Budd of North Carolina called for an investigation into the fatal shooting of 37-year-old Alex Pretti by federbut al agents in Minneapolis, saying his death was “a tragedy that should never have happened.” In a lengthy statement released...
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KEEPING A WINTRY WATCH
A bald eagle perches on driftwood in a pond near the Crabtree Creek Boardwalk in Raleigh on Jan. 27, 2026, as the morning sun begins to melt snow and ice from the weekend.
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