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Govt Issues Record 2.1M Recall For Dropside Cribs

Government safety regulators say more than 2.1 million dropside cribs by Stork Craft Manufacturing are being recalled, the biggest crib recall in U.S history.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission says the recall involves 1.2 million cribs in the United States and almost 1 million in Canada, where Stork Craft is based.

Nearly 150,000 of the cribs on recall carry the Fisher-Price logo.

The agency is aware of four deaths of young children who suffocated in the cribs, which have a side that moves up and down to allow parents to lift children from the cribs more easily.

The Stork Craft cribs have had problems with their hardware, which can break, or with assembly mistakes by the crib owner.

Project Targets Violent Criminals

Raleigh resident Ieshia Hinton and her family say they feel much safer these days walking down Martin Street.

"There used to be shootings down here," she said. "Now there's less shootings and less people getting hurt. They see the police and they know not to do anything that's bad."

The Raleigh Police Department has stepped up its foot patrols and has added a mobile command unit on Martin Street.

Police are targeting that area, along with Bragg Street and Tarboro Road with their "community policing" efforts.

The move is part of a bigger effort that goes across local, state and federal levels.

The Department of Justice said during a press conference Monday that its Project Safe Neighborhood initiative is working, especially in fighting gun-related crimes.

The effort involves drafting specific crime-fighting strategies to neighborhoods, as well as combining these crime-fighting strategies with prosecuting some violent offenders at the federal level, which can result in longer prison sentences.

"You either go straight, or you go straight to prison," said U.S. Attorney George Holding.

The effort also involves giving less violent offenders a helping hand through employment and housing assistance.

"We've got to send that message to change their life and to help so many young people that so desperately need mentors," said Raleigh Police Chief Harry Dolan.

The U.S. Attorney's Office said the project has been in the state's Eastern District for about eight years and continues to spread to other parts of the state.

Huge Crowd Greets Palin At Ft. Bragg

Ft. Bragg turned away hundreds of Sarah Palin fans, but 1-thousand people walked away satisfied with a handshake and a signed copy of her new book.

In fact, Johnna Bouck and Cyndi Rice from Greensboro camped out overnight to be among the first in line to meet the former Republican Vice Presidential candidate.

"She's a voice for conservative women. You know she stands for morally what we believe in," said Bouck.

Rice added, "I absolutely think she's the real deal. I think she's somebody our young girls can look up to."

Men and women in uniform were also among the crowd.

"I believe in her values and I believe that'd be good for the rest of this country," said Sgt. David Vogelsang.

Palin thanked the soldiers for their commitment to their country, but offered no political speech.

She was on post to sell her new memoir "Going Rogue".

In her take on the 2008 presidential election, Palin discusses her lack of faith in John McCain's strategists.

Fans eagerly read portions of the book while waiting in line.

"You know I wish they had taken her muzzle off and let her speak her mind," said supporter Ed Jones of Wilmington.

To hear more reaction to Palin's visit, as well as her father's take on a potential Palin run for the White House in 2012, check out our NBC 17 News story in the monitor above.

Cam Ward Raises Money For Special Olympics

A tour of the Hurricanes' locker room by goalie Cam Ward himself is a dream come true for Andrew Fiumara and his fellow Special Olympic athletes. This event was the kick-off for this year's Cam's Champs Fundraiser Campaign for Special Olympics.

"One of the best things I've ever seen being in this locker room. It's the best memory so far," Fiumara said.

Ward will not only be asking people to donate to the Campaign but will also raffle off his private suite to the public. He will also allow his biggest fans, including Fiumara, to watch a game from the suite.

In the past three years, the organization has raised more than $30,000 and they think 2009 will be record year.

"I get a lot of enjoyment out of it, it's really important and I really appreciate it," Ward said.

The athletes were able to ask Ward questions everyone wants to know including how the goalie is feeling after seriously injuring his leg during a game.

"I'm actually feeling better. It's getting better and better very slowing but I'm excited every morning that it's making progress," Ward said.

For more information click here.

Johnston County Turkey To Be Pardoned By The President

A Johnston County turkey is headed to Washington DC to be pardoned by President Barack Obama this Thanksgiving.

The National Turkey Federation presents a live turkey to the White House each Thanksgiving. The bird selected this year is from the Worley Family Farm in Princeton.

"You talk about winning the lottery? This is one of 40 million turkeys that we grow in North Carolina every year. Now that's a pretty lucky turkey," North Carolina Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler said at a send-off ceremony Monday morning.

Troxler hopes the turkey, whose name is Courage, will draw attention to the state's agriculture industry. North Carolina is the second largest producer of turkeys in the country.

"We haven't had it all that easy in the last couple of years, especially our livestock industries have been through some turmoil. But we're hopeful that it's fixing to turn around. And we're going to get back to the days of making money and expanding and doing the things that we do best in North Carolina," Troxler said.

After his job at the White House is done, Courage will retire in Disneyland.

Re-Construction Set To Begin At Douglas Byrd

Construction will soon begin at Douglas Byrd Middle School in Fayetteville after a fire destroyed the gym and cafeteria.

The fire happened in July when police say students started the fire with a lit firecracker.

Construction crews will work through the winter break and school year to finish the project, which is expected to be done by next fall.

Insurance will cover the $1.6 million bill.

Students in the meantime are eating lunch at two other nearby schools.

Be Thankful For Lower Food Prices This Holiday Season

As long and costly as that Thanksgiving grocery receipt may look, be thankful. Last year, food cost much more, and next year prices will probably rise back up.

For a brief window, we're living in a remarkably cheap moment in grocery shopping.

A general drop in fuel prices and the awful economy have done wonders to push down prices on the basics: meat, eggs, dairy, produce and cereals. Food-price inflation is below the previous year's rate,
"a phenomenon that has not been seen in 42 years," notes a report by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

That will be important this coming week, as the days leading up to Thanksgiving are as big in the grocery stores as Black Friday is in the malls.

"Thanksgiving is the No. 1 biggest time for food buying of the year," said Geoff Waldau, vice president of merchandizing for Sweetbay Supermarkets. "This year, we've seen some good drops in prices and some stability."

But brace yourselves, shoppers. All those prices will likely reverse course and start rising in 2010.

A drop in fuel prices this year has helped farmers produce food more cheaply. (Think about all the trucks, plows and harvesters that run on diesel fuel.) That has helped grocery companies pay less to truck food. Also, those stores have felt the economic pressure as suddenly frugal consumers aggressively bargain-hunt and pick less-expensive store brands.

Those forces add up. For the moment, milk prices are down more than 18 percent compared with autumn 2008, according to grocery price tracking by The Nielsen Co. That has helped pull cheese prices down 14 percent.

Beef, pork and poultry prices are down, too, according to the Department of Agriculture. Fresh produce is down almost 9 percent and juice 8 percent, and even wrapping materials and bags are down 8 percent, according to Nielsen.

The award for biggest price drop goes to eggs, down 18.6 percent this year. That's after a 14 percent increase in 2008 and a 29 percent increase in 2007.

For the holidays, turkey prices are significantly lower. Case in point: Sweetbay's turkey prices are down almost half, to 49 cents a pound, compared with last year, and Walmart's price is 40 cents a pound for some varieties. And for fans of spiral-cut honey ham, prices are down 6.5 percent.

Local prices the past two months show some expected seasonal swings.

Strawberry prices are up 38 percent on a 16-ounce box, according to a market basket price check of five major supermarket chains by The Tampa Tribune. Tomato prices, however, are down 26 percent.

When the season shifts next year, the strawberry and tomato price trend probably will be reversed.

For the past two months, prices have been stable on items such as bread, pasta sauce, peanut butter, eggs and orange juice, which all showed no more than a 3 percent swing in the Tribune's market basket since September.

Prices may begin to pivot in a direction shoppers won't like during the holiday season.

Milk prices have flattened and started to creep upward, with the average gallon price around $3.03 among five local chains, up about 8 percent since Sept. 10. Prices also are eking up on coffee, spaghetti, lettuce, bacon and sugar, according to the Tribune's market basket data.

The USDA consumer forecast for next year doesn't look good, either.

Over the next several years, livestock producers will continue to deal with high feed prices and will push up prices, USDA analysts say.

The agency forecasts that food prices will go from falling in 2009 to rising in 2010 by 2.5 percent to 3.5 percent, with big jumps in cooking oil, seafood, cereals, nonalcoholic beverages, eggs, dairy and meat. Fresh fruit prices may go from falling about 2 percent in 2008 to increasing 3 percent to 4 percent in 2010. Sugar prices will continue a general increase to 4.5 percent.

Much of this depends on the economy. In the view of the USDA, "once the world economies recover from the current slowdown, steady economic gains support increases in consumption, trade and prices."

All in all, food prices likely will increase faster than the general inflation rate through 2011.

One final bit of news: Sweetbay officials note the prices of liquor and wine are sharply down from 2008.

Novarits Opens In Holly Springs Tuesday

The first large scale flu manufacturing plant in the U.S. will celebrate its grand opening Tuesday in Holly Springs.

The $600 million dollar Novartis plant will eventually produce 50 million doses of flu vaccine a year.

Part of the plant will be up and running by April and the full plant will be operating by October 2010.

So far, the company has hired 159 people, and hope to have a total of 350 employees by October 2011.

SC Gov Faces 37 State Ethics Charges

South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford faces ethics charges he broke state laws more than three dozen times by violating rules on airplane travel and campaign money, according to details of the allegations released Monday.

It's up to the state attorney general to decide whether to file criminal charges. Sanford's lawyers have claimed the allegations involve minor and technical aspects of the law.

The second-term Republican governor has been under scrutiny since he vanished for five days over the summer, reappearing to tearfully admit to an extramarital affair with a woman in Argentina he later called his "soul mate."

A series of Associated Press investigations into his travel showed the governor had for years used state airplanes for political and personal trips, flown in pricey commercial airline seats despite a low-cost travel requirement and failed to disclose trips on planes owned by friends and donors.

The State of Columbia newspaper also questioned whether Sanford properly reimbursed himself from his campaign cash.

The ethics commission conducted a three-month probe into the allegations, details of which have been awaited anxiously by legislators contemplating whether to force Sanford from office in
January a year before his term-limited tenure expires.

The panel announced last week that Sanford would face "several" charges but did not reveal the specifics until Monday.

The governor's lawyers last week characterized the accusations as minor and technical and predicted Sanford would face no criminal repercussions.

The attorneys also said they looked forward to mounting a defense against the charges when the ethics panel holds a hearing into them early next year. They also confirmed that Sanford - as the state investigation was being conducted - added disclosures of his private plane flights to his ethics forms.

For months, Sanford has insisted he did nothing wrong and served as a better steward of the taxpayer dollar than his predecessors. But the former congressman's penchant for riling fellow Republicans who control the Legislature has left him with few allies since the startling June news conference during which he admitted to the affair.

Four GOP lawmakers already have filed a resolution that would force Sanford from office because of "dereliction of duty," and the travel allegations play no part in that move. Their measure deals solely with Sanford's absence from the state, when he led his staff to believe he was hiking the Appalachian Trail while he was in Argentina.

A committee that will consider that measure is scheduled to meet for the first time Tuesday.

Sanford has brushed off repeated calls from his own party to step down and in the past month scored a political victory by helping land a Boeing Co. assembly plant that is expected to bring thousands of jobs to North Charleston.

Meanwhile, the first lady and their four sons moved out of the governor's mansion. While the Sanfords have said they were trying to reconcile, Jenny Sanford more recently has described the two as separated. She is writing a book about the experience.

Family, Friends To Hold Memorial Service For Kelly Currin Morris

Family and friends will finally lay to rest a Granville County woman who went missing more than a year ago.

A memorial service will be held on Saturday for Kelly Currin Morris at Bible Baptist Church in Butner. Her remains were found last week in Creedmoor, 14 months after her husband first reported her missing.

Scott Morris has been charged with her murder.

Full Coverage: Kelly Currin Morris

NC Slim Jim Plant Explosion Claims Fourth Victim

An explosion that tore through a Slim Jim plant in North Carolina last summer has claimed a fourth victim.

A spokesman for the North Carolina Jaycee Burn Center in Chapel Hill said Monday that 55-year-old Curtis Ray Poppe died last week, five months after the blast at the ConAgra plant in Garner.

An obituary posted by a Hickory funeral home said Poppe's family greeted friends there Sunday.

U.S. Chemical Safety Board lead investor Don Holmstrom would not confirm the blast had an additional death, but said four critically burned victims were among the 71 who required treatment at area hospitals.

TROSA Begins Selling Christmas Trees This Week

The crisp cold winter air is all around us, which means it's close to that time of year when we start looking for fresh Christmas trees.

The Triangle Residential Options for Substance Abusers (TROSA) has already got a head start on the season and will begin selling trees this week!

Proceeds from trees purchased at one of their five tree lots in Durham and Chapel Hill go directly to cover the costs of TROSA's treatment program.

Lots will be open from until Christmas Eve from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. Locations include:
• The Streets at Southpoint
• Northgate Mall
• 4215 University Drive
• 3301 Hillsborough Road
• 1720 N. Fordham Blvd. in Chapel Hill

Click here for a coupon and for more information.

POLL: Would You Fly Sick Or Re-Book?

Pack your bags, but leave your germs at home. That's the message from airlines this holiday season. But many travelers appear to be weighing the cost of forfeiting a ticket against the health of their fellow passengers. And the wallet is winning.

A recent survey by TripAdvisor.com showed 51 percent of travelers would fly sick rather than pay the usual $150 fee to rebook a flight.

"If you buy a ticket for $200 and the change fee is $150, you lose that value," said Tony Maupin of Raleigh's Maupin Travel. "You only have $50 to apply toward another ticket."

While trip insurance can cover the entire cost of a cancelled vacation, many travelers don't want to pay for it. But on more expensive trips, Maupin said the extra five percent may be worth it to avoid traveling sick.

"If one family member is sick, the insurance covers the whole family," he said. "So if you have a daughter who is sick, the whole family can stay at home and get fully refunded on their trip costs."

But with more and more travelers searching for low price air fares, the airlines depend on rebooking fees as an important source of revenue. And folks who don't want to lose their investment in a ticket are likely packing more than a carry-on bag when they board the plane.

"I can understand where people would want to have some kind of reimbursement," said traveler John Sissoms. "If not, then they probably would fly sick because you can't get reimbursed for your money."

Health experts say an airplane isn't any more hazardous than being in any crowded place during flu season, even with H1N1 to consider. N.C. State Epidemiologist Megan Davies said if you can't avoid being around sick people, handwashing is still your best defense.

Traveler Shruti Singhi made sure to pack plenty of hand sanitizer for a flight with her children.

"I'm going to make sure they clean their hands every time," she said. "I want to make sure none of us get sick because it will spoil our vacation."

Raleigh Rescue Mission Needs Food For Gobbles To Go Meals

This Thursday, on Thanksgiving Day Raleigh Rescue Mission expects to deliver approximately 750 meals to persons in need.

"Several years ago we started our Gobbles to Go program to provide holiday meals for those who were housebound, elderly or infirm to help reach more people in need in our community," said director of volunteer ministry Holly Cook of Raleigh Rescue Mission.

"We've never had this many meal requests before and we'll be preparing about 50 more meals than usual. This year, community support has provided all the turkeys and most of the food we need to prepare the Thanksgiving meals but we are still in need of a few items" Cook said. The Mission needs chicken broth, turkey gravy, butter, instant mashed potatoes and 800 dinner rolls by tomorrow to prepare the Gobbles to Go meals.

Begun in 2003, Gobbles to Go uses about 30 volunteers to assemble and package approximately 750 single-serving turkey dinners. Another 32 volunteers deliver the still-hot meals to Meals on Wheels recipients and others who call the Gobbles to Go hotline in the week before Thanksgiving.

To donate food to Raleigh Rescue Mission, bring donations to 314 E. Hargett Street in Raleigh during business hours. Or make a cash gift for the purchase of food. For more information, see www.raleighrescue.org or call Holly, (919) 828-9014, ext. 126.

POLL: How Do You Dispose Your Fried Turkey Oil?

During the holiday season, Raleigh residents will be able to dispose of cooking oil by setting it on the curb along with their garbage, recycling and yard waste.

Here are the Fast Facts:

The goal is to keep cooking grease out of the City's sewer system.
The collected grease will be converted to biofuels, a renewable source of energy used to power vehicles, heat homes and cook food.
The pilot program for curbside collection of unused or unwanted cooking oil will be conducted for two and a half months during the holiday season months of November, December and January.
Churches and synagogues can participate in the pilot program, which is free.
Triangle Biofuels will reimburse the City 25 cents for each gallon of cooking oil collected, and convert the material to biofuels.

The Rules:

Only animal or vegetable cooking oil is allowed. Motor oil and other petroleum products will not be accepted.
To participate, call the City's Solid Waste Services Department, 996-6890, to arrange for the curbside collection of animal or vegetable cooking oil.
The oil must be placed in a sealable and preferably clear container marked as "cooking oil."
Examples of containers that can be used are milk jugs, juice cartons with screw-on caps, coffee cans or the cooking oil's original non-glass container. Glass containers will not be accepted.
Households will place the container with grease on the curb on their designated weekly trash collection day.
The amount of cooking oil to be collected must be at least half a gallon.

The Town of Cary conducted a similar curbside grease collection pilot program during the holiday season last year. Cary officials said the pilot program was very successful.

Former Hollywood Make-Up Artist Makes Life-Like Toys

Michael Maddi's resume includes Saturday Night Live in New York and multiple Hollywood movies.

Now the former make-up artist has settled in Apex and he's using his skills to create very detailed, life-like toys for kids called Puppetoys.

Watch Penn Holderness' interview with Michael Maddi on "This Week on MyNC."

Palin Limits Crowd Interaction At Fort Bragg

Former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin promises to limit her enthusiasm during her visit to the North Carolina home of the Army's 82nd Airborne Division and Green Berets.

Palin planned to sign copies of her new memoir, "Going Rogue: An American Life," during a visit to Fort Bragg on Monday. Army spokesmen said Palin will not make a speech, pose for photos, or personalize notes in the books she signs at an on-post store.

The Army has worried Palin's appearance would prompt political grandstanding against President Barack Obama. That fear initially led post commanders to limit news organizations interested in covering Palin's appearance, though the restrictions were later dropped.

Palin on Sunday dined and prayed with the Rev. Billy Graham in Asheville, who has counseled presidents and other politicians for decades.

Graham said it was an honor having Palin in his home to join his family for dinner and that they took the opportunity to pray together.

"I, like many people, have been impressed with her strong commitment to her faith, to family and love of country," he said in a statement. "I appreciated hearing her speak of her own spiritual journey and her life in Alaska."

Palin was joined by her parents, Chuck and Sally Heath, aunt, Katie Johnson, daughter, Piper, and son, Trig.

Graham's son, Franklin, got to know Palin early this year in Alaska and he invited her to North Carolina. She accompanied him as Samaritan's Purse, a Boone-based international relief agency he heads, delivered 44,000 pounds of groceries to Alaskan families who had been hit by a harsh winter in villages along the frozen Yukon River.

Samaritan's Purse has an office in Alaska, and Franklin Graham owns a cabin in the state. He also leads the Charlotte-based Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, which his father founded decades ago.

The 91-year-old Billy Graham said he shared his memories of preaching in Anchorage in 1984. Graham, who has suffered from ill health for some time, has been dubbed "America's pastor." He has counseled U.S. presidents from Dwight Eisenhower in the 1950s through George W. Bush and is known worldwide for his preaching and activism.

"Life in the spotlight is not easy and I pray that whatever lies ahead for this family that their faith in God and His Son, Jesus Christ, would remain strong and that God would put a hedge of protection around her and all those she holds dear," Billy Graham said.

Chapel Hill Makes List Of Best Places To Retire

The Herald-Sun: Retirement Lifestyles includes Chapel Hill in its list of Top 11 Southern Retirement Hotspots.

Full Story

Durham Police Enforce Skate Park Safety

The Herald-Sun: Durham Police will soon start issuing citations to skateboarders who aren't wearing helmets.

Full Story

Reynolds Puts NC Cigarette HQ Building Up For Sale

A headquarters of North Carolina's tobacco history is up for sale.

The Winston-Salem Journal reported Monday that Reynolds American Inc. has put its historic former headquarters on the market.

The building housed the headquarters of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. since it opened in 1929. The company recently finished consolidating its downtown Winston-Salem employees into a neighboring building.

The 22-story building was designed by the same firm that later did the Empire State Building and is reminiscent of that landmark, with four tiers topped by a flagpole. Winston-Salem's building was the tallest south of Baltimore when completed.

County tax records value the Reynolds Building at about $12 million.

UNC Couple Among 2010 Rhodes Scholars

When Henry Spelman found out he'd won a Rhodes Scholarship, his first call was to his girlfriend. To share the good news, of course, but also to see whether she was a winner as well.

The couple, both seniors at the University of North Carolina, had done their final scholarship interviews apart - he in Philadelphia, she in Houston. Spelman heard the results first.

When he called with his good news, "the stakes just went way up," said his girlfriend, Libby Longino, who had to wait 45 minutes before finding out that she, too, had nabbed one of the world's most prestigious scholarships.

Now the pair are on their way to England, joining the 30 other American students announced Sunday as Rhodes Scholars, including two students who teach philosophy and poetry to inmates, three All-Americans in swimming and a U.S. Army second lieutenant mentored by Gen. David Petraeus.

One winner, Andrew McCall of St. Louis, is the first Rhodes Scholar from Truman State University in Missouri.

The winners were selected from 805 applicants at 326 schools, and join an international group of scholars.

Their expenses will be fully covered for up to three years of study at the University of Oxford in England. The scholarships, worth about $50,000 per year, are awarded for attributes that include high academic achievement, personal integrity, leadership potential and physical vigor.

Several honorees, such as recent Bowdoin College graduate and New Canaan, Conn., native William Oppenheim III, say they hope the
Rhodes Scholar honors help bring attention to the causes about which they are passionate.

Oppenheim founded and runs the Omprakash Foundation, which helps link volunteer teachers with grassroots educational projects worldwide that need their help.

Another new Rhodes Scholar, 23-year-old Tyler Spencer of Staunton, Va., started Athletes United for Social Justice to help tackle the AIDS epidemic in Washington, D.C., after learning of a similar program while studying in South Africa.

"AIDS in D.C. is just a severe epidemic," he said. "Our athletes have just about as much to learn from the South Africans as they would from us."

Eleanor "Ellie" Ott, 23, a recent University of Pittsburgh graduate from Lawrence, Kan., said her passion for working with refugees will motivate her to earn two master's degrees as a Rhodes Scholar: one in forced migration, and another that will teach her
to use rigorous evidence to base social policy on.

"I hope to help shape refugee policy in the future, and ideally that would be through using research and evidence," she said.

Columbia University senior Raphael Graybill, a native of Great Falls, Mont., plans to study political theory at Oxford. Right now, though, he's juggling life as an auxiliary police officer with the New York Police Department, his political science studies at Columbia and his responsibilities as captain of Columbia's ski and snowboarding team.

Graybill had already been approached to run for political office in Montana, but that will have to wait now that he's a Rhodes Scholar. Eventually, a political career is possible.

"The best way to live out your values is in public life," he said.

For Spelman, of Swarthmore, Pa., and Longino, of Dallas, the scholarships might even help them communicate better.

The couple avoided discussing their applications for the nine months they've been dating, a situation Spelman called "really awkward."

That changed when Longino called him with her news.

"It was probably one of the top five phone calls of my life," she said.

Fugitive From ATM Cary Shooting Case Surrenders

A fugitive wanted by the FBI and Cary Police turned himself in to police in Philadelphia Sunday night, according to Cary Police.

Phillip "Scoob" Thomas Williams was wanted for unlawful flight to avoid prosecution on attempted murder charges. Detectives said Williams is accused of shooting of a woman at an ATM on Maynard Road in Cary in June 2007.

Witnesses reported seeing Williams leaving with two other men in a burgundy Buick with a New York license tag. The other two suspects have been arrested.

Questions Linger In 911 Call In NC Shooting Deaths

Police are still investigating their handling of a 911 call from the home of a North Carolina man who shot his wife and two children before he turned the gun on himself.

The Fayetteville Observer reports that while an operator followed protocol in taking the call from the home of Billy Maxwell Jr. earlier this month, investigators want to know why it took more than an hour to dispatch an officer.

Though police haven't said whether their call center equipment could have played a role, they acknowledge that it needs an upgrade.

Fayetteville's emergency operations center saw its last major upgrade in 1999. Officials learned then that the system didn't work properly.

Those problems are expected to be fixed by mid-February, when the city begins using a new, $3.2 million computer-assisted dispatch system.

Charlotte Experiencing Influx Of Coyotes

The North Carolina city that supports Panthers and Bobcats wants no part of the real four-legged predators roaming its neighborhoods.

The Charlotte Observer reported Sunday that coyotes are terrorizing residents, who fear for their small children and animals.

Those residents are also discovering that county animal control doesn't respond to coyote calls, referring residents to state officials and private contractors who trap wildlife for a fee.

Several communities on the city's south side have been on alert. Residents in one neighborhood say a cat was eaten by a coyote several weeks ago, prompting the pet owner to circulate a flier warning residents.

Coyotes are not generally aggressive toward people, though a Union County man was bitten last year by a rabid one.

Family, Friends Say Final Goodbyes To Shaniya

The crowd was so large Sunday for Shaniya Davis's funeral, not everyone could fit inside the sanctuary at Manna Church in Fayetteville.

Family, friends and people from the community attended the service for the 5-year-old Fayetteville girl, who was taken from her home at the Sleepy Hollow Mobile Home Park. Her body was found about one week later in Lee County.

Davis's aunt, Carey Lockhart-Davis, read a poem she wrote called "My Life with Shaniya."

"I truly know now that I have been blessed, some things are so special, I felt your love the best," she read during the service.

Davis's father, Bradley Lockhart, also spoke to the crowd of around 2,000 people, saying he knew that his daughter was taken for a reason.

"God has spoken. He's spoken to us through a tragedy and it brings us here today to unite as one," he said. Lockhart later fought back tears as he touched his daughter's casket. "Daddy loves you," he said. "I know you're going to be waiting for me. I'll see you when I get there."

Davis was buried at Fayetteville Memorial Cemetery.

Church Gives Away 900 Turkeys

Hundreds of people lined up outside the Abundant Life Christian Center Church Of God In Christ on Old Poole Road in Raleigh Sunday afternoon. The church had 900 turkeys and pies to give away.

"I was really concerned about Thanksgiving. But I knew and I have faith that God was going to make a way," said Bridget Harris, a member of the church who lost her job last year.

The church plans to feed about 900 families this Thanksgiving, including church members and strangers. Donations from two businesses are making it possible.

"This is one of the ways that we reach out to the community. To say ‘we're really concerned.' More than just words, you see our works in action here," said Terry Williams, who helped organize the effort.

The people who lined up face all kinds of circumstances. Some are unemployed. Others are just having trouble making ends meet.

"Being a retired senior citizen, it will make a lot of difference as to whether or not I will have a good Thanksgiving," said Earleen Quinn, who was one of the first in line.

"I'm on workers comp right now. It's going to make a big difference," said Larry Nesby, who also picked up a turkey and pie.

"Times are hard with the way the economy is. It's a blessing to have a church do this for us," said Priscilla Hedgepth.

Harris is now looking forward to Thanksgiving.

"It's going to be great," she said. "Because when you can just gather around with your family and have food and just have fellowship, that is just the greatest gift of all that you can even ask from the Lord."

Man Injured In Assault

A man is in serious condition after being assaulted at an apartment complex in Durham, WRAL reports.

Del. State University Picks New President With NC Ties

Delaware State University has named Harry Lee Williams as its new president.

The university's board of trustees announced Friday that Williams will lead the historically black institution as its 10th president. Williams has been provost and vice president of academic affairs since July 2008.

Williams succeeds Allen Sessoms, who left last year to become president of the University of the District of Columbia.

Claibourne D. Smith, chairman of the board of trustees, has been acting president since Sessoms' departure.

Williams has held previous posts at University of North Carolina, Appalachian State University and North Carolina A&T University.

Guy Fieri's Roadshow Comes To Raleigh

The Progress Energy Center was booming with excitement Saturday night as Food Network's Guy Fieri took the stage for his first-ever rock and roll culinary tour.

Click here to read more.

Historic Health Care Bill Clears Senate Hurdle

Invoking the name of Edward M. Kennedy, Democrats united Saturday night to push historic health care legislation past a key Senate hurdle over the opposition of Republicans eager to inflict a punishing defeat on President Barack Obama. There was not a vote to spare.

The 60-39 vote cleared the way for a bruising, full-scale debate beginning after Thanksgiving on the legislation, which is designed to extend coverage to roughly 31 million who lack it, crack down on insurance company practices that deny or dilute benefits and curtail the growth of spending on medical care nationally.

The spectator galleries were full for the unusual Saturday night showdown, and applause broke out briefly when the vote was announced. In a measure of the significance of the moment, senators sat quietly in their seats, standing only when they were called upon to vote.

Republican Sen. George Voinovich of Ohio missed the vote.