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Mayor: No Decision On Confederate Statue From Owners

With slightly over a week until the deadline, Winston-Salem's mayor says he hasn't heard from the owners of the Confederate monument city officials want gone.

The Winston-Salem Journal reports Mayor Allen Joines said Tuesday the United Daughters of the Confederacy haven't indicated how they intend to respond to the city's demand.

Winston-Salem told the UDC to remove the monument by Jan. 31 or face a possible lawsuit. After two vandalism incidents in less than one and a half years and confrontations over Confederate monuments elsewhere, the city attorney believes it creates a public nuisance. The owners of the land where the monument sits have sided with the city.

The city has offered to pay for the statue's relocation to a cemetery.

Davie County Announces $50 Million Industrial Complex

Davie County officials have announced a new building project to try to lure new businesses and jobs to the area that includes nearly one million square feet of industrial space.

The plan includes three spaces, one of which is already under construction. The first building will be an industrial structure comprising more than 300,000 square feet.

The $50 million project is being funded by private investors.

Davie County Economic Development Commission President Terry Bralley says having spaces ready for companies to move in can be key to winning their business.

Cooper Administration Refusing To Let Workers Be Interviewed

Gov. Roy Cooper's administration has told workers not to speak with an outside investigator from the General Assembly tasked with reviewing a side deal Cooper made with developers of a natural gas pipeline.

A legislative committee agreed recently to hire a firm of ex-federal agents to examine last year's memorandum of understanding between Cooper and utilities building the Atlantic Coast Pipeline. Firm investigators called Department of Environmental Quality workers this month seeking interviews with four workers, without success.

Kristi Jones, Cooper's chief of staff, wrote Republican lawmakers last week saying the workers are declining interviews because they aren't protected from what she calls "underhanded" or illegal interrogation. Republican leaders writing her Wednesday called those arguments "outrageous" and point out the firm is comprised of people who served the country admirably.

Audit: Managed-Care Agencies Get To Keep Too Much Profit

The state auditor says how North Carolina pays to treat the mentally ill, substance abusers and people with disabilities leaves too much money left over for regional managed-care agencies.

Auditor Beth Wood's office released a performance audit Wednesday on Medicaid rates for seven "local management entities." They're fixed monthly rates for each patient covered.

The report says while rates are "actuarially sound," the state Medicaid office should set goals for profits the entities can keep. The auditors calculate that without such standards, the entities have retained $439 million in "excess savings" over three years.

Responding to the audit, state health Secretary Mandy Cohen writes limiting savings could discourage cost efficiencies.

FBI, State Officials Join Effort To Find Missing 3-Year-Old

Hundreds of volunteers are helping authorities search for a 3-year-old North Carolina boy last seen playing near his grandmother's home.

Craven County Sheriff Chip Hughes said Wednesday afternoon that the FBI, state investigators and the U.S. Marines Corps from nearby bases at Camp Lejeune and Cherry Point are part of the effort to find Casey Lynn Hathaway.

North Carolina Lottery Winner To Use Money To Feed Homeless

A chef who cooked for President Donald Trump and former President Barack Obama says he will use his winnings in a North Carolina lottery game to feed the hungry in the Dominican Republic.

A news release from the North Carolina Education Lottery on Wednesday said Roberto Mendoza of Charlotte said he followed his mother's intuition and bought a Hit $500 ticket at a local convenience store.

Mendoza, who won $250,000 in the scratch-off game, said he would use the $176,876 he took home after taxes to finish building a cafeteria in the Dominican Republic. 

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