--The state's largest civil rights group, the NAACP, is asking voters to reject what it says is an invitation to discriminate. A prominent Raleigh minister, meanwhile, says that same invitation is an opportunity to strengthen the state's stance against relationships that go against the Bible.
These are just two examples of how well-known institutions with significant African-American followings are on opposite sides of a hot-button political and social question that all of North Carolina's voters will be asked to decide May 8: whether a ban on gay marriage and civil unions should be written into the state constitution. Read today's story about how black voters factor into the debate.
--Lawyers for John Edwards on Friday issued statements that said the hundreds of thousands of dollars in expenditures incurred last year by the campaign committee of the former presidential candidate were above board.
The statements were issued in a response to a widely distributed report by the Associated Press raising questions about $836,712 in expenditures reported for 2011 on a finance report filed last month. The money spent last year, the lawyers said, was related to expenses the committee incurred recovering campaign email messages that were subpoenaed by federal investigators or to flying campaign staffers from one coast to the other for investigative interviews related to the probe. Get more details here.
--Former House Speaker Richard Morgan looks at old photos of himself from when he weighed 265 pounds and sometimes cries. "I don't understand ... why I would ever let myself get in that shape," he said this week.
Morgan, 59, who is just under 6 feet tall, now weighs 164 pounds. He used to have trouble carrying his big briefcase - and himself - up a flight of stairs to his Raleigh apartment. Now he hops over fences at his farm near Pinehurst. Read the full story and see before and after photos here.
