College Basketball Coach Tubby Smith Returning To High Point University
Tubby Smith is returning to his alma mater, High Point University, to coach the men's basketball team. The official announcement comes less than two weeks after Smith was fired from the University of Memphis.
High Point University President Nido Qubein shared the news amidst plenty of fanfare on Tuesday.
Smith played basketball as a student at High Point from 1969 to 1973. His coaching career includes more than a dozen trips to the NCAA tournament - among them, a 1998 championship win with the Kentucky Wildcats.
Qubein also announced plans to move up construction on a new arena and conference center that will include a hotel - at a cost of $130 million. The facility will be on campus and ready for the 2020 basketball season.
John Ehle, Author And Founder Of UNCSA, Dies At 92
The founder of the University of North Carolina School of the Arts died Saturday. John Ehle was 92 years old.
Born in 1925 in Asheville, he became an accomplished author, finishing 11 novels and a half dozen nonfiction works.
Ehle is also remembered as the special assistant to Gov. Terry Sanford who convinced the state to open a residential arts school. That idea, approved in the early 1960s, eventually became the University of North Carolina School of the Arts.
Ehle's work earned him numerous awards, including an induction into the North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame.
He's survived by his wife of 50 years, actress Rosemary Harris, and daughter, Jennifer Ehle, who herself is a graduate of UNCSA.
Green Party Now Official Party In North Carolina
The Green Party has become North Carolina's fourth official political party thanks to a new law offering more options to qualify, giving more candidate choices to some voters this fall.
The state elections board unanimously accepted the application of the Green Party of North Carolina on Tuesday. Its candidates can now automatically be put on state ballots through at least 2020. They join the Democrats, Republicans and Libertarians as official state parties for federal, state and local offices in North Carolina.
The decision also means registered voters can now officially affiliate with the Green Party.
North Carolina Will Stop Shackling Pregnant Inmates In Labor
North Carolina's prison system will no longer shackle pregnant inmates to their hospital beds while they are giving birth.
The News & Observer reports the change comes in response to a complaint about two women whose names were not released.
Prisons director Kenneth Lassiter signed the new policy Monday, preventing the use of leg or waist restraints on pregnant inmates and removing wrist restraints once the inmate is in labor, unless she's clearly a threat to herself or others or poses an immediate risk of escape.
L.A. Man Charged With Laundering Millions Stolen From App State
A federal grand jury has indicted a Los Angeles man on money laundering charges involving Appalachian State University. Nearly $2 million was stolen from the school.
The 14-count indictment alleges that 31-year-old Ho Shin Lee funneled the money through various bank accounts.
It traces back to 2016, when Lee registered Royce Hub Trading, a general merchandise corporation in California. According to the charges, he then opened bank accounts in the name of the business.
Around the same time, App State awarded a contract to Rodgers Builders to construct a new health sciences building. The High Country Press reports that later that year, someone posing as a Rodgers employee sent an email with deposit instructions, allegedly linked to Lee.
Prosecutors claim that Lee transferred funds out of his account in order to hide the nature, location, and source of the money.