* U.S. Sen. Kay Hagan signs on as cosponsor of Virginia Sen. Jim Webb's big prison-reform study commission bill.

* Red Oak is asking the legislature to raise the number of barrels a brewery can distribute on its own without a distributor.

* Lt. Gov. Walter Dalton announces creation of the Small Business Assistance Fund to give low-interest loans to small companies.

* A state bill to regulate child beauty pageants gets some love from Jezebel, a nationally known feminist blog.

A bill would study regulating child beauty pageants.

Rep. Annie Mobley, a Bertie County Democrat, introduced the bill to study pageants whose contestants are younger than 13.

The bill was highlighted by the conservative Civitas Institute's "Bad Bill of the Week" feature:

I am excited about the prospect of government forming the North Carolina Agency to Regulate Beauty Pageants for Girls Under Thirteen (they need to come up with a better acronym, though; NCARBPGUT isn’t catchy enough). Good thing there aren’t any real problems the government should be spending time or money on; like double-digit unemployment, a $3 billion budget deficit, or our state’s 70 percent graduation rate.

Speaking of acronyms, Executive Director Francis De Luca suggests calling the bill "Tots in a Regulatory Environment" — or TIARA.