Carolina Beach, N.C. — The rare sight of a gray seal along the North Carolina coast is making quite a splash with beach-goers and prompting officials to issue a warning to those who may want to approach the animal.
The seal was first seen May 16 on the north end of Wrightsville Beach and has moved to Carolina Beach, then Kure Beach.
“This is the furthest south sighting we have had of this species in North Carolina,” said Ann Pabst, a marine biology professor with the University of North Carolina at Wilmington.
She said the seal is spending time on land while it molts, or replaces its fur coat.
“This seal is a rare visitor to our waters, and it is apparently going to enjoy the holiday weekend with us,” Pabst said. “It has chosen our beaches for its molting rest, and we need to respect its needs for space.”
Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev has been buried in a cemetery in central Virginia, infuriating some members of the area's Islamic community who say they weren't consulted and flooring at least one neighbor who said she didn't even know she lived near a burial ground.
The secret interment this week at a small Islamic cemetery ended a frustrating search for a community willing to take the body, which had been kept at a funeral parlor in Worcester, Mass., as cemeteries in Massachusetts and several other states refused to accept the remains.
Tsarnaev, 26, was killed April 19 in a getaway attempt after a gun battle with police. His younger brother, Dzhokhar, was captured later and remains in custody. They are accused of setting off two shrapnel-packed pressure-cooker bombs April 15 near the marathon finish line, an attack that killed three people and injured more than 260.
Their uncle, Ruslan Tsarni of Montgomery Village, Md., took responsibility for the body after Tamerlan's wife, Katherine Russell, said she wanted it released to her in-laws. He said his nephew was buried in a cemetery in Doswell with the help of a faith coalition.
"The body's buried," said the uncle. "That's it."
Tsarni has denounced the acts his nephews are accused of committing and has said they brought shame to the family and the entire Chechen community.
The person said Jordan will detail the timetable for the change to be completed at a news conference the Bobcats have scheduled for Tuesday. The person spoke to The Associated Press Monday on condition of anonymity because the name change has not been publicly announced.
NBA deputy commissioner Adam Silver previously said it would take "about 18 months" for the Bobcats to change their name. That means Charlotte could once again become the Hornets by the 2014-15 season.
The Hornets resided in Charlotte from 1988
The National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting is a program of Investigative Reporters and Editors, Inc. and the Missouri School of Journalism. Since 1989, NICAR has trained thousands of journalists in the practical skills of getting and analyzing electronic information and also maintains a library of databases containing government data on a wide array of subjects, available for purchase by IRE members. See the Database Library FAQ for more info.
Search our data below or filter to see databases by agency or by topic. Click "updated" to see which databases are updated weekly, monthly and quarterly, and click it again to see which annual updates we've most recently completed. For each database, a record layout is available, as well as code sheets, when they are required. You can also download a 100-record data sample from each database.
On Friday, police said, a man reported being assaulted by four men near Carolina Coffee Shop shortly after 8 p.m. One suspect was arrested following that assault, but his name was not released.
A woman said she was leaving the Pita Pit around 1:30 a.m. Saturday when three men shoved her, knocking her to the ground, police said.
Around 1:30 a.m. Sunday, a man said he was assaulted by four men in their late teens or early 20s near Gumby's Pizza.
Crime
statewide reached its lowest rate in 42 years, with Broward and Palm
Beach counties following the downward trend, the Florida Department of
Law Enforcement reported Thursday.
Broward's overall crime rate dropped by nearly 4 percent in 2012 compared with 2011, and Palm Beach County's rate was down by more than 3 percent during the same period, according to the agency's annual statistics.
David Karp, the 26-year-old founder of
blogging site Tumblr, has just made to make a lot of money - almost in
spite of himself.
Yahoo's
board of directors agreed on Sunday to buy his wildly popular blogging
platform, which boasts 100million users and 90million posts per day, for
$1.1billion cash.
The deal could make the native New Yorker the latest 20-something tech billionaire, even though he was publicly opposed, even just last year, to selling the company he founded out of his mother's small Manhattan apartment in 2007.
On Sunday afternoon, it was revealed Yahoo's board approved the purchase of Tumblr, despite its revenue of only $13million last year. Even that figure was only made possible after $125million in capital investments.
The crew from Sant’Agata has lost its collective mind. There’s no other explanation for the Lamborghini Egoist concept.
Only Lamborghini, a company that has no interest whatsoever in subtlety, could, and would, name a car “The Egoist.” This rolling compensator is a single-seat, four-wheeled birthday present to itself in honor of its 50th anniversary. Start racking up the decades and odd things can happen to your mental faculties. This is 600 horsepower worth of proof.
It represents hedonism taken to the extreme, it is a car without compromises, in a word: egoista,” said Walter De Silva, the VW Group’s head of design, at a private unveiling in Italy.
Mr. De Silva: “Extreme” is putting it incredibly lightly....................
Hedgepeth was found dead Sept. 7, 2012, in
her Hawthorne at the View apartment on Old Chapel Hill Road. Chapel
Hill investigators still have not released a cause of death.
A judge said previously the documents were sealed to keep information confidential that only investigators and the suspects might know. Police did release some information in January about DNA evidence gathered from the scene.............
So the good news is that threat of domestic political violence in the U.S. is extremely low, according to the latest Terrorism and Political Violence risk map from Aon, a risk management firm and insurance broker.
The bad news is that terrorism is still a real threat to America.
Meanwhile, as the following map clearly indicates, the safest havens in the world are Denmark, Finland, Japan, Australia, Iceland, Uruguay, and Botswana...........
Northwestern University’s Associated Student Government rejected the nomination of Stephen Piotrkowski for associate vice president of diversity and inclusion last week. The student-run committee “oversees diversity initiatives that stem from the undergraduate student body.”
Piotrkowski’s nomination sparked a heated discussion during an ASG meeting – described by a student reporter as “contentious.”
“This university is not ready, in any capacity, for a heterosexual white male to be in charge in any way of diversity and inclusion,” said Ian Coley, a member of the diversity committee. “I don’t know if any university is.”
ASG president Ani Ajith refused to answer questions about the matter. When asked by Fox News if he agreed with Coley’s remarks, Ajith hung up his phone.
“Piotrkowski was rejected on the basis that he is a white, heterosexual male".
Guccifer is the pseudonym used by a hacker who is responsible for a number of high-level security breaches involving both current and former members of the United States government. The hacker first appeared in news media after The Smoking Gun reported he was responsible for hacking the AOL account of Dorothy Bush Koch, sister of former president George W. Bush.[1] Family photos of former president George H. W. Bush, who was in the hospital at the time, were circulated to the internet. He also circulated a self-portrait painted by George W. Bush, depicting the former president taking a shower. Guccifer has gone on to hack a number of AOL, Yahoo, Flickr and Facebook accounts, giving him access to information about current and former high-level government officials.
Guccifer later hacked Colin Powell's website and accessed years worth of his correspondence from another AOL account. The correspondence included personal financial information as well as e-mails to George Tenet, Richard Armitage, and John Negroponte.[2]
The hacker also targeted U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski, a senior UN Official, members of the Rockefeller family, former FBI and Secret Service agents,[3] as well as the brother of Barbara Bush, CBS sportscaster Jim Nantz, and former Miss Maine Patricia Legere.[4]
On March 20, 2013, USA Today reported that Guccifer had successfully hacked the e-mail account of former aide to president Bill Clinton, Sidney Blumenthal.[5] He distributed private memos sent to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton involving recent events in Libya, including the September 11, 2012 Benghazi attack.[6] Before distributing the memos, he copied and pasted the text into his own new documents, then reformatted them with pink backgrounds and comic sans font.[6] The hacker's IP address was traced to Russia, however there was no certainty as to whether this was his actual location or whether he had used a proxy to hide his true location.
In early May 2013, Guccifer hacked into online accounts owned by two members of the Council on Foreign Relations, as well as accounts owned by Adam Posen and his wife and another owned by a former Federal Reserve Board official.[7]
TSG reported on May 7, 2013, that Guccifer had hacked the Twitter feed and e-mail account of Sex and the City author Candace Bushnell.[7] Bushnell spent several hours fighting for control of the accounts, while Guccifer publicly posted portions of an unpublished manuscript to Bushnell's Twitter feed. Guccifer sent an e-mail to TSG claiming responsibility for the hack using the AOL account of actor Rupert Everett.[7]
They’ve supported him through some major personal challenges.
“I had cancer, and the cancer ended up leading to heart disease,” Gilmore said.
As he continues to recover from two heart attacks, he faces another
major setback: After 15 years, the V.A. is pushing his coffee business
out and bringing in a Starbucks instead.
“The government is supposed to support small business, and the agreement with Starbucks and the V.A. really just smashes small businesses nationwide,” he said.
The decision doesn’t just affect Gilmore. The deal with Starbucks affects 150 medical centers nationwide.
That’s what Whitaker was now: a cooperator. It felt surreal. One year ago he was in Mexico, living the most fulfilling life he’d ever known in his chaotic, troubled years on the planet. He had been bringing in obscene amounts of money by selling black-market steroids and human growth hormone online. He had a multimillion-dollar apartment in a country club in Guadalajara. He had a cabin in the mountain town of Mazamitla. He had lots of cars—an orange 4Runner, a BMW, a Jeep. He’d even funded the construction of a local hospital. Sure, he had to live under an alias and was on the run from US Secret Service agents who were trying to nail him for a long-standing multicount fraud complaint. But he had a lawyer on retainer, and at least the local cops were easy to pay off.
That life ended on March 19, 2008, when a Mexican immigration agent nabbed Whitaker and brought him back to LAX, where the Secret Service promptly arrested him. He was facing a potential sentence of 65 years in prison. Sixty-five years. That meant spending the rest of his life behind bars. The thought was unbearable.
Whitaker filled vials with water and sold them as steroids for $1,000 a pop.
Whitaker began thinking of ways to knock years off his sentence. He considered providing the names of the drug users, pushers, and doctors who had patronized his online steroid business. They were mostly easy marks, and Whitaker was quick to take advantage of them. For a while he bottled sterile water in 1-milliliter vials, marketed it as a steroid called Dutchminnie, and sold it for $1,000 a pop. Not only did clients fall for the scam, they sent back photos showing how they’d bulked up after using the “drug.”
Court links have been updated. Since I'm no longer in, or helping cover, Florida, I will probably not be keeping the rest up (although I am checking for corrections). Try the public records directories at top of this page to find other records, especially county records.)
Criminal/Courts (This section updated 2/28/08)
Miscellaneous:
Marriages, etc. (This section updated 3/1/08)
For the second time in six years, a southeast Charlotte abortion clinic has reopened a short time after the state forced it to shut down because of safety issues, most recently the improper administration of a drug that terminates pregnancies.
A Preferred Woman’s Health Center on Latrobe Drive will be allowed to open at 9 a.m. Wednesday after the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services lifted its order suspending clinic services, according to an official with the state agency who provided information on background.
The clinic’s reopening comes only four days after it was ordered
to suspend operations. In April state investigators determined that
clinic staffers were orally administering the drug methotrexate, which
is used to induce abortions. The drug is meant to be injected, according
to the state report.
Amazon has launched its own currency called Amazon Coins.
It's currently only available in the States for Kindle Fire owners, but the Coins can be used to pay for games, apps and in-app purchases from the Amazon Appstore.
One Amazon Coin is worth one US penny, and Kindle Fire owners are getting 500 Coins ($5) for free as part of the launch.
Amazon has launched its own virtual currency called Coins in the US. It is only available for Kindle Fire users, for the time being, but can be used to buy games, apps and in-app purchases from the Kindle Appstore, as well as buy items from Amazon's retail store
Microsoft
Points are the currency of the Xbox Live Marketplace, Games for Windows
Marketplace, Windows Live Gallery, Xbox Music and Video online stores.
Points can be used to buy content from the respective stores.
They can be bought using a credit card and the credit card can then be removed.
This means parents can buy their children Points to spend on games and upgrades, and control how much they spend without adding a credit card to the account.
However, in
October 2012, Windows 8 began support local currency in the Xbox Video
Store instead of relying on Microsoft Points.
This suggests that Microsoft may move away from its virtual currency, in the same way Facebook did with its Credits scheme last year.
The Coins will also be able to be used on the company's retail site when they become more widely available.
Amazon has not yet confirmed when the scheme will be launched outside of the US, or if it will be available to non-Kindle users.
Amazon Coins can be bought in batches of 1000, 2500, 5000 and 10,000.
The more you buy, the bigger the discount and 10,000 Coins costs $90, for example.
Customers will also get a 10% discount on items bought using Amazon Coins.
Amazon isn't the first company to introduce it's own currency; Microsoft Xbox and Windows Live customers can use Microsoft Points to pay for games, upgrades, bonus levels and so on.
A representative for Dwolla told Betabeat that the company is “not party” to this matter and encourages those with questions to reach out to Mt. Gox or the DHS.
“The Department of Homeland Security and U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland issued a ‘Seizure Warrant’ for the funds associated with Mutum Sigillium’s Dwolla account (a.k.a. Mt. Gox),” he said. “In light of the court order, procured by the Department of Homeland Security, Dwolla has ceased all account activities associated with Dwolla services for Mutum Sigillum while Dwolla’s holding partner transferred Mutum Sigillium’s balance, per the warrant.”
The proposed rule, unanimously approved by the state's Senate Commerce Committee last week, would make it illegal for any automaker to bypass dealerships and sell cars directly to consumers.
As Will Oremus at Slate points out, Tesla is the only American automaker whose business model is based on selling cars directly to consumers.
The bill is sponsored by Republican Sen. Tom Apodaco, and supported by the NC Automobile Dealers Association, according to Raleigh's News & Observer.
Pediatricians are taking on the gun lobby by seeking to reframe the debate as a public safety issue and by trying to make it less difficult to collect data on gun violence.
As part of their lobbying push, they're also championing robust gun control measures that Congress has shown no appetite for — including an assault weapons ban, a high-capacity ammunition limit and waiting periods for gun purchases.
Most of the changes are simplification of the legalese. But one in particular caught our eye. According to LinkedIn, thou shalt not:
i. Even if it is legal where you are located, create profiles or provide content that promotes escort services or prostitution.
What surprised us was that this was even necessary. On a site where every action you take is tied to your professional identity, would anyone really take the risk of advertising adult services?
Mario Andrette McNeill, 32, is charged with murder, kidnapping and rape in the death of Shaniya Davis. He could face the death penalty if convicted of murder.
Shaniya was found on Nov. 16, 2009, in a kudzu patch off N.C. Highway 87 on the Lee-Harnett county line, six days after her mother reported her missing from their Fayetteville mobile home.
RALEIGH — North Carolina groups that want to protect the funding for traditional public schools are trying to raise opposition to legislative proposals to expand private-school vouchers and charter schools.
Public Schools First NC on Monday holds the fifth of its meetings across the state to talk about sustaining and increasing public schools funding.
The group says proposed state budget cuts
would cause the loss of 3,000 teaching assistants in second- and
third-grade classrooms.
Bang With Friends, a mobile application that facilitates casual encounters among friends, has a simple pitch: “Your friends will never know you’re interested unless they are too.”
Well, that’s not quite true, at least in all cases.
They–that being any of your Facebook FB +1.46% friends, including co-workers and parents–may, at the very least, know you’re using the app. On Thursday, Facebook users began sharing a link that purported to show a user which of their friends are using Bang With Friends.
Whole Foods Market Inc. says labels on a chicken salad and those on a vegan version of the salad were reversed at some of its cold food bars in the Northeast.
Charles Ramsey, whose 911 call and subsequent TV interviews have made
him a microcelebrity, was once a repeat spousal abuser whose marriage
ended in divorce following a 
2003 felony conviction for battering his wife.
Ramsey, 43, has said that when he heard captive Amanda Berry screaming and trying to escape from neighbor Ariel Castro’s home on Monday, "I figured it’s a domestic violence dispute.” Ramsey has also reportedly said that he went to help Berry because he “was raised to help women in distress.”
Ramsey’s first domestic violence charge came in February 1997. He entered a no contest plea a year later and was found guilty of the count by a Cleveland Municipal Court judge. While waiting to be sentenced, Ramsey was again arrested for domestic violence.
MORBIDLY OBESE PITTSBORO MAYOR SAYS GOP LEGITIMATELY RAPING NORTH CAROLINA, THEN TRIES TO PRY HIS OVER SIZED HEAD OUT OF HIS HUGE GAPING ASSHOLE
The top Democratic Party official in North Carolina compared Republican actions in the state to rape Thursday. Randy Voller, the North Carolina Democratic Party chairman and mayor of Pittsboro reportedly said, "the GOP that's leading us – we don't know where they're taking us, but they're raping us along the way."
Voller was speaking to the Democratic Women of Guilford County at their annual President's Spring Banquet according to the News-Record.
The University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill has removed the word “freshman” from official university documents, citing as their reason an attempt to adopt more “gender inclusive language.”
We are “committed to providing an inclusive and welcoming environment for all members of our community,” reads a statement administrators sent to Campus Reform on Monday.
The University of North Carolina (pictured above) dropped the term “freshman” in an effort to adopt more “gender neutral language.”
“Consistent with that commitment, gender inclusive terms (chair; first year student; upper-level student, etc.) should be used on University Documents, websites and policies,” it continues.
A spokesperson for UNC declined to further elaborate on the university’s reasoning for implementing the language change.
Some students, however, expressed discontent over the change in policy.
Brandon Hartness, Executive Vice Chair for the school’s college Republicans chapter, told Campus Reform he feels the university is allowing political correctness to drive their decisions.
“I feel like they are making a big deal out of nothing,” said Hartness. “Girls are not going to deem the word [freshman] as sexist.”
“I feel like most people don’t even think about it,” he added.
Karen Moon, Director of UNC News Services, did note that the policy change occurred in 2009. It has recently garnered attention after the libertarian news personality, John Stossel, highlighted it in his show earlier this month.
RALEIGH — U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder’s brother, William Holder, apparently employs illegal foreign workers at one or more of the four McDonald’s restaurants he and his wife Deborah purchased last year in Wake County, a Carolina Journal investigation has found.
A CJ reporter made approximately 30 visits in September to observe and talk with workers at the restaurants, at least one of which has been visited by the attorney general. The reporter was present during a conversation at which some employees stated they did not have a Social Security number, a green card, or any other document that would give them the legal authority to work in the United States.
One employee said he was planning to go through the “
Commentary: Mo has said it before and it bears repeating: Stay The FUCK out of Durham unless you want to get shot, stabbed or robbed. Anyone who lives in, visits or just wanders into Durham is a moron who gets what the deserve. If you don't believe this, go and hang out in Durham at night. It doesn't have to be to late, nine or ten o'clock will do nicely. Have a nice funeral.
Durham police are investigating an attempted robbery and assault on the American Tobacco Trail Monday afternoon, the 13th reported crime on the trail this year.
A man told police he was walking on the trail near Fayetteville Road and Woodcroft Parkway when a man attacked him, demanded money and punched him several times before fleeing empty-handed.
The victim was treated at the scene for minor injuries.
Tavare Shaw talked with the victim after the attack.
"He was going to work that way, and he said somebody attacked him," Shaw said. "He had a couple of bruises. He was fine, and said he didn't actually get robbed – he got beat up a little bit."
Anyone with information about the assault is asked to call Crime Stoppers at 919-683-1200.
reclusive sect that literally went underground to stop contact with the outside world kept 27 children in dark and unheated cells, many of them for more than a decade, prosecutors said Wednesday. The children have been freed and the parents charged with child abuse.
Some of the children, aged between 1 and 17, have never seen daylight, health officials said. The sect's 83-year-old founder Faizrakhman Satarov, who declared himself a Muslim prophet in contradiction with the principles of Islam, has also been charged with negligence, Irina Petrova, deputy prosecutor in the provincial capital of Kazan, told The Associated Press.
No members of the sect, who call themselves "muammin" after the Arabic term that means "believers," have been arrested, she said.
The children were discovered last week when police searched the sect grounds as part of a probe into the recent killing of a top Tatarstan Muslim cleric, an attack local officials blame on radical Islamist groups that have mushroomed in the oil-rich, Volga River province.
We all know it's smart to start a print publication in the age of instant news covering events such as the nice gardens and chickens in the backyard of local residents while touching on a few local left wing poltical events. Apparently it didn't work for the publisher. The real question from the sale is why would anyone buy a newspaper from someone who states plainly that the enterprise has been a "financial burden"?
Buy this newspaper
After almost five years and 281 consecutive weekly issues, the time has come for me to pass the baton. So consider this your own personal Request for Proposal to own and operate The Carrboro Citizen.
What has led me to this point you ask? While there are a number of reasons, the one that stands out is that my energy and enthusiasm for this newspaper have waned under the constant assault of all the worries associated with running a small business. And I’ve been actively operating small businesses since 1977. I guess I’m just tired.
This is a highly non-traditional method of seeking new ownership, but unlike any other publication with which I’ve been involved The Citizen belongs mostly to the readers, and it’s the readers who should have first crack at continuing what we’ve begun.
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