Andrew Young has turned over to authorities the tape that is the purported sex video featuring John Edwards and Rielle Hunter.

Young, accompanied by a security officer, retrieved the tape from an Atlanta safe deposit box, according to Wade Barber, an attorney for Hunter. The officer's presence was ordered by Superior Court Judge Abraham Penn Jones.

After Young got the tape, the N.C. Court of Appeals suspended Jones' order requiring the officer to be present and collect the contents of the safe deposit box.

Hunter filed court documents to get the tape and other documents back from Young, and the appeals court order is unclear as to whether Jones can continue to moderate the case at a hearing scheduled for Wednesday. 

Jones had given Young and his wife until today to turn over the documents or face a trip to jail. 

Barber said he believes the appeals court order only applied to Jones' order dealing with the extra security. Young's legal team disagrees.

"In my interpretation of the order, the Court of Appeals has stayed all the proceedings," said M. Gordon Widenhouse Jr., a lawyer for the Youngs.

On Sunday night, Jones ordered that the Youngs pay for a security officer to witness the opening of the safety deposit box and collect the contents as if they were evidence. Jones' order further demanded that the Youngs submit to a search of their home. The order also required the Youngs to to allow a computer expert to remove and delete family photographs of Hunter from a computer.

An attorney for the Youngs argued that Jones' order went too far and essentially required the couple to submit to an unconstitutional search of their home.

Update: Post now reflects Young turned over the tape.

U.S. Sen. Richard Burr says a planned televised bipartisan session on health care is a political play by the White House.

Burr, a Winston-Salem Republican, is helping craft the GOP strategy for the session, which is scheduled for Feb. 25. He told WPTF's Bill LuMaye on Tuesday that the event is an attempt to halt the bad news for President Barack Obama's administration.

"I think that the hemorrhaging that exists at the White House right now is so severe they're trying for a political game changer," Burr said. "I think this has very little to do with trying to reach an agreement on the policies of health care."

Burr said Republicans intend to demand that parts of the health care bill that are unacceptable be removed. They will pitch their own ideas. But as in a campaign debate, the format should be negotiated, he said. The White House has not yet formally invited Republicans, he said. 

"What's the format for it?" he said. "Are you going to have an exchange of ideas or are you going to stand up at a microphone and lecture us? This is something that the American people would be interested in watching if it's constructive."

Critical comments on a blog post prompted a Republican candidate for Congress to call out his anonymous tormentors.

Jim Morrill of The Charlotte Observer did a post on Tim D'Annunzio's "Machine Gun Social," a fundraiser for his bid to win the nomination to challenge Democratic U.S. Rep. Larry Kissell.

Plenty of the comments, most by "Anonymous" were critical of D'Annunzio. As Morrill notes, D'Annunzio fired back Monday:

"Just to clear things up," he wrote in his own post, "not that it will matter to the racist, typical red necked hicks that have now replaced 'N' word with their new bigoted hate, Jim's (gun shop) is providing the "Machine Guns" and I have organized the "Social". And yes they are real machine guns. Hiding behind these web sites as "anonymous" is the same as hiding under a the white hood, COWARDS. You wouldn't dare say these things to my face, but I wouldn't have any trouble telling you this same thing to yours, if you dared."

Today, he really vented.

"The old racist red-neck hick was somebody who used the 'n' word and focused all their attention on blacks," he said when asked about his post. "Now, it's that same type of person. The new buzz words are 'Christian' and 'Conservative' and 'Constitutionalist.' They're the targets of those same basic haters .... They're now doing their lynching via the Internet."

President Barack Obama is seen favorably by 52 percent of North Carolina voters, according to a new poll conducted for the Civitas Institute.

The poll of 600 likely voters conducted Jan. 19-21 found that 37 percent have an unfavorable opinion of Obama while 10 percent didn't have an opinion.

The Civitas poll was conducted by Tel Opinion Research of Arlington, Va., and had a margin of error of 4 percentage points.

The poll shows a slight increase in approval for Obama, a trend you can track on our new Polling Central feature which allows you to compare results from Civitas and Public Policy Polling on key political figures.

Former Gov. Jim Hunt didn't mention his successor, former Gov. Mike Easley by name Monday. 

He didn't really have to. 

Hunt, a Democrat, was introducing current Gov. Bev Perdue, also a Democrat, at the Emerging Issues Forum. As the Charlotte Observer's Jack Betts notes, Hunt piled on the praise for Perdue. But his introduction also included what Betts said had to be a dig at Easley, a Democrat who was known for being slow to help with efforts to recruit business to the state.

Perdue, Hunt said, meets with every CEO that expresses interest in moving to North Carolina.

"She never says no. She always shows up," Hunt said. "That's what you have to do" if you going to land new jobs, he added.

Former North Carolina Gov. Jim Hunt did his best Garrison Keillor imitation this week in introducing Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty.

Rob Christensen reports that Hunt paraphrasing Keillor's line about the fictional town of Lake Wobegon when he introduced Pawlenty at the Emerging Issues forum in Raleigh.

"He is one of the big reasons why in the state of Minnesota all the men are strong, all the wives are good looking and all the children are above average and if he becomes president he can do it for all of America," Hunt said.

Keillor describes Lake Wobegon as a town "where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking and all the children are above average."

Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Cal Cunningham is calling for tax breaks for small businesses as a way to help stimulate the economy.

Cunningham, a lawyer and former state senator from Lexington, proposes tax credits for businesses that hire new workers, the temporary elimination of capital gains taxes on small businesses and the creation of a new bonus manufacturing tax credit to reward companies that research and manufacture their products in this country, Rob Christensen reports.

"The private sector is the engine that drives our economy," Cunningham said in a statement. "To be sustainable, jobs must be grown from the bottom-up — from the small businesses on Main Street, North Carolina — and from the entrepreneurs who bring new ideas to the market."

He also called for extending the home buyers' tax credits through 2010.

This is the second part of Cunningham's economic plan that he has released. Details are featured on his Web site.

Cunningham is one three candidates seeking the Democratic Senate nomination in May for the the right to face Republican Sen. Richard Burr.

Republican Tim D'Annunzio knows how to get more bang for the buck -- use guns!

D'Annunzio, running for Congress in the 8th District, is having a "Machine Gun Social" Thursday night, though the event doesn't involve any actual machine guns.

The fundraiser at Jim's Guns in Fayetteville runs from 6:30 p.m. "until the ammo runs out!" the Charlotte Observer's Jim Morrill reports. For a $25 donation, participants can shoot MP-5s and Uzis. Additional magazines of ammunition are $25 each.

''It shows Tim's commitment to Second Amendment rights," says spokeswoman Lauren Slepian. "It shows he's one of the most, if not the most, conservative candidates in the race."

It also shows he needs to be more careful with his firearm terminology. A "machine gun" is a fully automatic weapon that, when the trigger is pulled, continues to fire until the ammunition is gone. The guns involved in the fundraiser, including the AR-15 that is among the door prizes, are semi-automatic, according to Slepian. That means one squeeze of the trigger fires one bullet.

Slepian says D-Annunzio, a former paratrooper, has a personal collection of firearms.

Correction: Slepian told Dome on Tuesday that the weapons available for guests to fire can be set to fully automatic. So those weapons would most accurately be described as submachine guns.

WINNER TAKE ALL: The 2010 political season formally opened Monday, with the next nine months potentially having an outsized influence on Tar Heel politics for the next decade.

Of all the elections that will be held — from the marquee U.S. Senate race to courthouse contests — none will be more closely watched than the 170 seats of the state legislature.

That is because the legislature, as required by the U.S. Constitution, will draw new district maps for the legislature and for Congress in 2011 based on the census that will be conducted this year. Whether those maps are drawn by Democrats or Republicans — or jointly by both parties — could go a long way in deciding who holds power in Raleigh and who goes to Washington. (N&O)

BIG MONEY GUYS: Conservative businessmen Bob Luddy and Art Pope were the largest contributors in fall's Wake County school board elections, which ushered in a majority pledged to eliminate the district's diversity policy. (N&O)

INNOCENT MAN? A Cary man in prison for murder will get his last shot at freedom today when he asks three judges to find him innocent. The N.C. Actual Innocence Commission found reason to believe that Greg Taylor didn't commit the crime. (N&O)

The owners of a nursing home whose recent bankruptcy filing let them avoid paying a lawsuit judgment gave thousands of dollars to political candidates over the past 18 years.

John and Janice Weeks gave nearly $30,000 to candidates from both parties starting as far back as 1992.

Last month the couple filed for bankruptcy shortly before a court hearing where they were expected to be held responsible for a $1.2 million judgment in a lawsuit against a Cumberland County nursing home they operated. The judge had found a "pattern of neglect" at the home in the case of Joe Cooper, a former Marine who suffered a head injury and concussion, respiratory failure that required a breathing tube, and the loss of several upper and lower teeth in a January 2003 incident.

Cooper's daughter, Barbara, had sued and won. The bankruptcy filing means Cooper doesn't get the money. She said her bigger frustration is that the Weeks continue to operate a nursing home.

The 2010 campaign season formally opened at noon today, with candidates lining up in the board room of the State Board of Elections in downtown Raleigh to pay their filing fee.

Among the early filers were Democratic Congressmen Bob Etheridge of Lillington and Larry Kissell of Biscoe, and Libertarian Senate candidate Michael Beitler, Rob Christensen reports. The majority of the candidates were running for judge or district attorney.

There was almost a sober atmosphere because because of the country's continued bad economic problems.

"This is a tough year for everybody in terms of what we've been through in terms of a financial crisis that rivaled the Great Depression and the challenges we face coming out of it," Etheridge said.

State Republican Chairman Tom Fetzer Monday called for Gov. Bev Perdue to fire two of her Cabinet members as a result of recent controversies.

At a news conference at GOP headquarters, he urged the governor to remove Alvin Keller, the corrections secretary and Reuben Young, the crime control and public safety secretary, Rob Christensen reports. Fetzer criticized Keller for failing to fill vacancies of parole officers and for backpedaling on his orders to release prisoners who were sentenced to life in prison. Fetzer said it was "inexcusable" that parole jobs would go vacant in the current economy. And he said Keller's comments regarding the release of inmates sentenced to life was inconsistent with what private emails have shown.

Fetzer criticized Young for his role as chief legal counsel to former Gov. Mike Easley for failing to properly investigate claims that the governor's office instructed employees to delete emails. He said Young should not be in charge charge of crime and public safety when he "twice looked the other way" when state open record laws were being broken.

"If the governor is serious about reform, if she is serious about ethics and transparency, if she is serious about filling parole officer vacancies...these are two actions she should take today," Fetzer said. He called on Perdue to appoint a panel of journalists and concerned citizens to identify obstacles that stand in the way of access to public records.

The federal prosecutors pressing the case against Ruffin Poole, a former longtime aide to ex-Gov. Mike Easley, want a trial by mid-May on the 51 corruption charges leveled against the former governor's right-hand man.

In a filing, they say they want to "move the case to conclusion with dispatch." The prosecutors, Dennis Duffy and John Bruce, are predicting a two- or three-week trial, according to a court filing, Andy Curliss reports.

But Poole's lawyer, in a court filing, is arguing for a later date, saying the case is complex, has Constitutional questions and conflicts with his schedule on some other upcoming trials. Poole's lawyer, Joe Zeszotarski, is proposing a trial to begin in August.

Read more on the N&O's investigations blog.

In an order filed late Sunday night, a judge has dispatched an Orange County sheriff's deputy to Atlanta to be present when a bank safety deposit box purported to contain a sex tape of former presidential candidate John Edwards is opened.

Superior Court Judge Abraham Penn Jones signed the order at 10:35 p.m. at the request of lawyers for Rielle Hunter, the mistress who bore Edwards' love child. The document claims that Edwards' former aide, Andrew Young, and his wife, Cheri, may be in possession of additional items of a "very private and personal" nature.

"Mr. Young shall take the Officer with him into the vault to obtain the lock box," the judge's order says. "The Officer is to secure all items contained in the lock box in bags as is customary for evidence collection."

Hunter filed a motion Jan. 28 in Orange County seeking a temporary restraining order shortly before the Youngs appeared on ABC's 20/20 to discuss Edwards' and Hunter's affair. After the Youngs refused to hand over the tape and other items, Judge Jones found the couple in civil contempt Friday and threatened them with arrest if the materials are not provided by Wednesday.

In his book, Young described finding a sex tape while packing boxes in the Chatham County home where Hunter lived with his family for a time. Young had claimed paternity of the child in an attempt to hide the affair of his boss, who was seeking the Democratic nomination for president.

The Youngs told the judge last week that the original tape is in a safe deposit box in Atlanta, and the FBI has a copy. According to the order from Sunday night, Young had intended to be in Atlanta on Monday to open the box.

UPDATE: Lawyers for the Youngs filed notice Monday that they intend to appeal Judge Jones' contempt order from Sunday. 

Rarely has a political figure risen to national prominence as quickly or imploded as spectacularly as North Carolina's John Edwards. The former U.S. senator, presidential candidate and Democratic nominee for vice president is a well-established punch line for late night comedians for his $400 hair cuts and trashy extramarital affair.

But proving the trough of public ridicule can always get sloppier, Edwards was the butt of zingers lobbed by a rodeo clown Saturday night in the politician's former home town.

During the World's Toughest Cowboy competition at the RBC Center, the clown filled dead time between bronco and bull riding by cracking mildly off-color jokes at the expense of his obese wife and extremely short sidekick.

He then turned his attention to Edwards, for whom the mere mention of his name elicited loud jeers and boos from the crowd.

"John Edwards, personal injury attorney," the clown deadpanned. "Who would have thought he'd turn out to be a sleaze ball?"

And a few moments later:

"Your man John Edwards, he's going to that same 'spa' where Tiger Woods is. You know, where there's no huggin', no kissin', no lovin', no nothin'. Yeah, it's just like my house."