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GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump is the leading choice among North Carolina Republican primary voters in a recent Public Policy Poll. Trump received 16 percent, while former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush received 12 percent. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker came in tied for second with Bush at 12 percent. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee was third with 11 percent. Dr. Ben Carson got 9 percent with Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL)80% . Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY)93% got 7 percent while Se. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX)96% got six percent. Gov. Chris Christie received five percent. Carly Fiorina followed with four percent and former...

PPP's newest North Carolina poll finds that Donald Trump's momentum just keeps on building. He's the top choice of Republican primary voters in the state, getting 16% to 12% for Jeb Bush and Scott Walker, 11% for Mike Huckabee, 9% for Ben Carson and Marco Rubio, 7% for Rand Paul, 6% for Ted Cruz, 5% for Chris Christie, 4% for Carly Fiorina, 2% for Rick Perry, 1% each for Lindsey Graham, Bobby Jindal, and Rick Santorum, and less than 1% each for John Kasich and George Pataki. Trump's favorability rating in North Carolina is 55/32, much higher than we were...

The original suspect in the murder of an America’s Next Top Model contestant and three others was scheduled to be ejected from the US in 2012 but was granted deferred deportation under President Obama’s amnesty policy, it was revealed today. Emmanuel Jesus Rangel-Hernandez, 19, was arrested last month in connection to a triple-homicide in Charlotte, North Carolina, that claimed the lives of aspiring model Mirjana Puhar, 19, her 23-year-old boyfriend Jonathan Alvarado, and 21-year-old Jusmar Isiah Gonzaga-Garcia. His alleged accomplice, 19-year-old David Ezequel Lopez, was taken into custody Thursday and jailed on three counts of first-degree murder.

Emerald Isle Police said officers responded at around 7 p.m. to reports of the collapse and multiple injuries, which ranged from cuts to possible "spinal issues," said Town Manager Frank Rush. ... Rush said the family gathered on a third of the deck for the picture during what was supposed to be their last night of a family reunion vacation, and the victims ranged from age 5 to 94. Officials said that at least two people were in critical condition as of Sunday morning. All but five of the victims had been treated and released from various hospitals by Sunday...

<p>A North Carolina mother of three young children has traveled to Iraq to join the Kurdish Peshmerga in the fight against ISIS terrorists.</p> <p>Samantha Johnston, 25, of Emerald Isle, N.C., is the only known American woman on the ground assisting in the fight against ISIS.</p>

Pro-life regulations in Texas, North Carolina, Kansas and Iowa have been stymied in court challenges. Affected are a Texas law requiring abortion clinics to qualify as ambulatory surgical centers and for abortion doctors to have hospital admitting privileges; a North Carolina law requiring doctors to show pregnant women ultrasound images before performing an abortion; a Kansas law banning dismemberment abortions; and an Iowa Board of Medicine ban on “webcam” abortions. Texas The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday issued a stay of House Bill 2, which was slated to go into effect July 1, until the justices can consider whether to...

5. Global warming Although Frank J. Schwartz, a shark biologist with the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, says there’s too much natural variability in weather cycles to blame the recent shark attacks on global warming, Burgess says the link is plausible. “Clearly global climate change is a reality and it has resulted in warmer temperatures in certain places at certain times,” says Burgess. As warming is expected to increase, it will likely bring more sharks farther north and entice more people to get into the water, which will lead to more bites.

Some time after I bought my first gun, I got a robocall from the National Rifle Association, asking me to join. After the customary “Please stay on the line. . .” from a pleasant but earnest voice, I recoiled from the barkings of an angry-sounding man: “Did I know that Barack Hussein Obama and European leaders are meeting on American soil right now, at this very moment, to plot the confiscation of my guns?” The caller continued with his insinuations of an imminent United Nations plot against America, but before I could be handed off to a live operator, I...

POLKTON, NC (WNCN) — The North Carolina Department of Public Safety and local law enforcement officers are on the lookout for an escaped inmate from a facility in Anson County. And, on Sunday, they say a woman who worked at the prison had sex with the escapee — and helped him escape. The NC Dept. of Public Safety says the inmate, Kristopher McNeil, was discovered missing just after midnight Saturday morning. Investigators believe he scaled the fence of the Brown Creek Minimum Unit in Polkton, about 45 miles east of Charlotte. McNeil, age 34, was serving a 14-year sentence for...

To keep conservative rebels in check, Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and his allies have been doling out punishments at an aggressive clip in the 114th Congress. From kicking unruly members off the Rules Committee and GOP whip team to stripping a lawmaker of his subcommittee gavel, leadership has been growing more comfortable with taking retaliatory measures to try to enforce party discipline. But several Tea Party targets haven’t gone quietly. They’ve been fighting back with help from Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan’s conservative House Freedom Caucus, which successfully pressured leaders this week to return a subcommittee gavel to one of their...

Kay Hagan, defeated senator from North Carolina, may be gearing up to make a run at Senior Senator Richard Burr (R-NC) in 2016. She narrowly defeated Senator Elizabeth Dole (R-NC), and in turn was herself narrowly defeated by Thom Tillis (R) in 2014 in what wiki called “one of the toughest re-election bids in the country.” (2) The Hagan-Ruthven family combine of real estate development and solar energy projects in central Florida and NC, just keeps finding ways to feed at the public trough! After serving in the NC state senate, Hagan launched herself into the national political arena where...

House Republicans look like they are about to cave. Oversight Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) is on the brink of restoring North Carolina Rep. Mark Meadows’ subcommittee chairmanship just days after it was taken away as punishment for crossing party leaders, according to multiple sources familiar with the decision. It would be a stunning reversal for Chaffetz — and, by extension, the GOP leadership — and could embolden the several dozen conservative Republicans who defy Speaker John Boehner, Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.). Those close to — and part of — House Republican leadership say...

Facing enormous blowback, Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) on Thursday reversed course and said he was reinstating Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) as a subcommittee chairman. Chaffetz stripped Meadows of his subcommittee gavel last week after the congressman joined nearly three dozen other conservatives in voting against leadership on a procedural motion that nearly scuttled a major trade package.

An 8-year-old boy suffered minor injuries Wednesday afternoon from what appeared to be a small shark bite, according to the Surf City Police Department. Officials said the incident happened around 12:25 p.m., near 700 South Shore Drive. Police say the wounds were superficial and the child is expected to be okay. Surf City Police and Pender East EMS responded and provided treatment on scene. According to the police chief, the victim had what looked like a bite mark on the top of the foot and a puncture wound on the heel. The bite was about 7 inches in diameter. A...

Former North Carolina Sen. Kay Hagan won’t run for Senate in 2016, disappointing Democrats counting on her to unseat Republican Richard Burr in what will be a major swing state race. Hagan was unseated by Republican Thom Tillis in 2014 after one term in the Senate, and has struggled in the polls since, but was the obvious pick to challenge Burr. She’s been calling donors and supporters to inform them she won’t run, reported Roll Call. Hagan performed relatively well in an election where Republicans secured big majorities in the House and Senate, and supporters figured she could unseat Burr...

A public school district in North Carolina is allowing the use of a controversial fairy tale about gay marriage to be read in its elementary schools despite widespread community opposition. Omar Currie, a former 3rd grade teacher at Efland-Cheeks Elementary School, read King & King—a book about two gay “princes” who fall in love and get married—to his third grade students in April after he said one student teased another by calling him “gay” in gym class. Currie resigned this week after the parents of three students filed written complaints to the school media review committee. Meg Goodhand, the assistant...

I realize we’ve been hitting the South Carolina shooting and the disgusting, racist criminal who allegedly perpetrated the murders rather often since yesterday morning. Unfortunately, nothing as serious and tragic as this can unfold in America today without immediately becoming mired in multiple levels of political muck, generally before the first facts are even verified. In this case, the process continued well into the evening and will surely roll forward in the weeks to come. One aspect of the church shooting, however, seemed to offer at least a slim ray of hope in an otherwise dismal day. A consortium of...

WILKESBORO, N.C. — Each month, Wilkesboro’s Irene Triplett collects $73.13 from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs as a pension payment for her father’s military service — in the Civil War. Triplett, 84, is the last living person collecting a pension payment for service in the Civil War. Pvt. Mose Triplett was born in 1846 and lived to the age of 92. After his first wife’s death, he married Elida Hall, nearly 50 years his junior, in 1924. In 1930, Irene Triplett was born when her father was 84 and her mother was 34.

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, a Republican presidential candidate, is set to announce his North Carolina-based leadership group, including several activists who previously worked with Lt. Gov. Dan Forest and a civil rights leader who was involved in the Greensboro sit-ins. The campaign said it had recruited evangelical and Tea Party leaders. The Cruz campaign tells Dome that Cruz was looking for leaders to add to “grassroots momentum” and to help him raise money and compete for the nomination. A formal announcement is expected Tuesday to include: ▪ USMC Lieutenant Colonel William “Bill” and Velvet Cowan (Ret.) of Mt. Airy. Cowan...

WASHINGTON — (...) The U.S. Supreme Court will soon decide whether the subsidies can continue for 6.4 million people in 34 states who use the federal insurance marketplace at HealthCare.gov. (...) More than 4.1 million people, or nearly two out of three who could lose their subsidies in the case this year, live in just 13 Southern states – Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and West Virginia. Read more here: http://www.macon.com/2015/06/16/3799971/loss-of-health-care-subsidies.html#storylink=cpy