Two former judges and a former U.S. senator have been named to investigate the disappearance of state Highway Patrol records pertaining to then Gov. Mike Easley's travels in 2005.

N.C. Crime Control Secretary Reuben Young said today that Willis Whichard, a former state Supreme Court justice and former Campbell University law school dean; Robert Morgan, a former U.S. senator, former SBI director and former state attorney general; and Ralph Walker, a former superior and court of appeals judge and former director of the Administrative Office of the Courts, will conduct the probe, reports Dan Kane.

"Governor Perdue and I are determined to do everything in our power to find the answers regarding the 2005 records," Young said in a statement. "These three are dedicated public servants and have a history of impartiality and fairness."

The missing records are part of wide-ranging state and federal investigations into perks provided to Easley and his family. The patrol's records have helped show that Easley received free air travel from fundraisers whom he appointed to important positions in state government.

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N.C. Supreme Court candidates Bob Edmunds and Suzanne Reynolds stayed away from partisan messages or hot-button social issues at a forum Monday night.

So how did those attending get a sense of the candidates they would be voting for? By asking a lot of questions about personal favorites, Dan Kane reports.

Former N.C. Supreme Court Justice Willis Whichard, the moderator, even had some fun with it, asking the candidates if the court survived a nuclear attack, what one book would they each bring?

Reynolds said she'd bring a law school staple: "The Nature of the Judicial Process" by Benjamin Cardozo, a U.S. Supreme Court justice who died in 1938. Edmunds said he'd bring a book of Alfred Tennyson's poetry.

Whichard then asked that if the laws of nature had been suspended by the attack and they could talk to any one person (he excluded Jesus and the Apostles), who would that be?

Edmunds said Abraham Lincoln; Reynolds said Eleanor Roosevelt.

Edmunds, 59, a Greensboro Republican, is seeking his second, eight-year term on the court. He is a former N.C. Court of Appeals judge and a former federal prosecutor.

Reynolds, 59, a Winston-Salem Democrat, is making her first run for political office. She has been a law professor at Wake Forest University for 27 years and is a recognized expert on family law.

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Who's in the crowd at Barack Obama's Raleigh event?

Several big-name North Carolina legislators, judges and candidates are at the Kerr Scott Building to hear Obama speak.

Hampton Dellinger, a Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor, is sitting with his father, former U.S. Solicitor General Walter Dellinger.

Other notables include U.S. Rep. G.K. Butterfield, who has campaigned for Obama, Reps. Dan Blue and Ty Harrell, former state Auditor Ralph Campbell, Wake County Commissioner Harold Webb, former N.C. Supreme Court Justice Willis Whichard, state appeals court judge Jim Wynn and former UNC Board of Governors Chairman Brad Wilson.

A group of North Carolina lawyers and business leaders has a launched a $1 million fundraising campaign for a nonprofit agency that provides legal services to the poor.

The money will go to Legal Aid of North Carolina, which has faced a funding crunch as demand rises for its free legal services.

Legal Aid provides services for victims of domestic violence, abused and neglected children, the working poor, the disabled and the elderly. Its clients' average income is $9,000 a year.

In a statement, lawyers A.P. Carlton Jr. of Raleigh and Willis P. Whichard of Durham - a former president of the American Bar Association and a former state Supreme Court justice, respectively - said they were motivated to become involved by the dire circumstances of most legal aid clients.

Legal Aid officials say their federal funding has been stagnant. Legal Aid also gets funding from the interest on lawyers' trust accounts, but low interest rates have hurt the agency.