AP-NC Newswatch

Latest North Carolina News:

ELECTION 2024-LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR
Robinson fairly sure he’ll run for NC governor in 2024
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) – Republican North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson says he’s fairly certain he will run for governor in 2024, rather than seek a second term in his current post. He said in a public conference call posted this week that he was “95% sure” of a gubernatorial run. Robinson was elected lieutenant governor last November in his first bid for political office. Current Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper can’t seek reelection again due to term limits. Robinson has faced recent resignation demands after comments he made about sex education in schools that critics say disparaged LGBTQ people. Robinson said he was talking about reading materials, not people.

CONGRESS-STOCK TRADING-BURR
Sen. Burr under investigation again for pandemic stock sales
WASHINGTON (AP) – North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr and his brother-in-law are under investigation for insider trading. Recently filed federal court documents show the Securities and Exchange Commission is probing their abrupt sales of financial holdings during the early days of the coronavirus pandemic. Burr is among a group of lawmakers from both parties who stirred outrage over their aggressive trading in the early days of the pandemic, before the economic threat of the virus was widely known. He has denied wrongdoing and was previously cleared by the Justice Department for offloading $1.6 million from his portfolio in February 2020.

COUPLE KIDNAPPED
Eight charged after North Carolina couple kidnapped
HICKORY, N.C. (AP) – A North Carolina sheriff’s office says eight people face charges after a North Carolina couple was kidnapped and assaulted. The Hickory Daily Record reports the Caldwell County Sheriff’s Office says in a news release that deputies responded to a call from a local hospital after a 24-year-old man was dropped off at the emergency room after being shot twice in the torso. The man told the deputies he and his girlfriend were tied up, blindfolded and taken to a spot where the assailants shot at them. The woman was not hit. The sheriff’s office says four of the eight people arrested were charged with attempted murder.

FATAL SHOOTING-COLLEGE CAMPUS
Man jailed on murder charge accused in fatal campus shooting
DURHAM, N.C. (AP) – Police say a North Carolina man already jailed on a murder charge is facing another murder charge in connection with the shooting deaths of two men on a college campus. The Herald-Sun of Durham reports 19-year-old Dezmond Armond Harper was indicted by a Durham County grand jury on Monday on two counts of first-degree murder. On Sept. 20, police found Shamori Brown and Tavis Rhodes had been shot in a parking lot. Both were taken to a hospital, where they died. The shooting took place during a home football game at N.C. Central University, and it prompted police to lock down the stadium

CHILD SEX CRIMES-CHARGES
Two from North Carolina facing child sex crime charges
TAYLORSVILLE, N.C. (AP) – A North Carolina sheriff’s office says a man and woman are facing multiple child sex crime charges. The Hickory Daily Record reports the Alexander County Sheriff’s Office says 44-year-old Colan Lewis Swink of Newton is charged with 109 felony counts of sex acts by a substitute parent or custodian and 25 felony counts each of statutory rape and sex offenses. Swink was given a $5 million secured bond. The sheriff’s office also says 49-year-old Tammy Reedy Brown of Taylorsville is charged with conspiracy of a sex act by a substitute parent or custodian. She is jailed on a $75,000 secured bond.

NEIGHBOR SHOT-MAN CHARGED
Police: Man accused of shooting neighbor, firing at police
LENOIR, N.C. (AP) – Deputies in a North Carolina county say a man shot and wounded his neighbor and fired at police and nearby homes before he was taken into custody. The News Herald of Morganton reports the Caldwell County Sheriff’s Office says 52-year-old Toby Alan Horne of Rhodhiss faces multiple charges, including discharging a firearm into an occupied dwelling. The sheriff’s office says Horne went to his home after his neighbor was shot and then threatened to kill any law enforcement officer who tried to get into his house. A SWAT team fired chemicals into the home and Horne was taken into custody without injury. 

INNOCENCE COMMISSION-MAN INDICTED
South Carolina man indicted for 1985 North Carolina murder
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. (AP) – A grand jury in North Carolina has indicted a man who admitted to an innocence panel that he broke into a woman’s house 36 years ago and killed her, adding that the man sent to prison for the crime was not at the scene. The Winston-Salem Journal reports 55-year-old Darren Leak Johnson of South Carolina confessed to investigators with the North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission that he alone killed Blanche Ragins Bryson. On Monday, Johnson was indicted for first-degree murder in Bryson’s death. Johnson told investigators and police that Merritt Drayton Williams, currently serving a life sentence for Bryson’s death, wasn’t at the scene in 1985.

NANNY-CHILD ABUSE CHARGE
N. Carolina nanny seen on video trying to force-feed child
NEW BERN, N.C. (AP) – Police in North Carolina say a woman was charged after the parents she works for as a nanny caught her on video trying to force-feed their toddler and at one point restraining one of the child’s arms. News outlets report the woman was arrested Wednesday by New Bern police on a misdemeanor child abuse charge. Max and Laura Oglesby said they were at work on Tuesday. During a break, they turned on their nanny cam to check on their son. The video showed the nanny putting and holding food into the child’s mouth as he screamed and tried to get out of a high chair.