Adjournment In Sight At North Carolina General Assembly
The North Carolina General Assembly sounds prepared to leave town for the year by this weekend.
The House and Senate planned to keep working Friday and resolve outstanding differences they have in their annual work session that began in late April. Work has been happening on compromises for competing regulatory and environmental changes, as well as on high school math curriculum.
Lawmakers Consider Boosting Funds To Defend LGBT Rights Law
North Carolina lawmakers are taking steps to set aside a half-million dollars for the legal defense of a law limiting protections for LGBT people.
The funds received preliminary approval from a Senate committee Thursday as the yearly legislative session neared its end.
Republican lawmakers have gathered to map out the end of the session, including possible changes to portions of the law known as House Bill 2.
So far, there's no appetite among GOP lawmakers to change the provision requiring transgender people to use restrooms corresponding to the sex on their birth certificate in many public buildings.
Coal Ash Clean-Up Changes Clear North Carolina Legislature
North Carolina legislators have given final approval to a new process to allow Duke Energy to use less expensive alternatives to clean up coal ash pits at seven sites while ensuring drinking water is piped to residents near the ponds in about two years.
The House voted late Thursday for legislation developed after Gov. Pat McCrory vetoed another bill that also would have reinstated a state Coal Ash Management Commission that he never supported and sued over. That commission is gone in the bill that surfaced this week and already cleared the Senate. The bill now goes to McCrory's desk.
Delays Possible Near I-85 At Virginia-North Carolina Line
Transportation officials say motorists traveling between Virginia and North Carolina on Interstate 85 during the Fourth of July holiday can expect heavy delays because of construction near the state border.
A statement from the N.C. Department of Transportation says there are two sections of the interstate where four lanes of traffic are reduced to two because of work to reconstruct the northbound lanes. Traffic has been shifted onto the southbound side of I-85 in those two locations, creating a two-lane, two-way pattern.
One shift is between mile markers 213.5 and 218.5, about 20 miles from the state line. The other is just a few miles south of the state line, between mile markers 226 and 230.
CDC: Whitewater Center Systems Inadequate To Filter Water
A federal health official says chlorination and filtration systems at the U.S. National Whitewater Center, where a rafter was infected by a deadly amoeba, were inadequate to properly clean the facility's waters.
The Charlotte Observer reports that Dr. Jennifer Cope of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says results of all 11 water samples detected the presence of an amoeba that infected and killed an Ohio teenager who had rafted at the center. Lauren Seitz had visited the center in Charlotte with a church group and died June 19.
Cope called the results "significant" and at levels the CDC had not previously seen.
The center has suspended whitewater rafting and says it will drain all the water from its whitewater system.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.