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State lawmakers made their presence known Tuesday in two different contexts: a move to overhaul the UNC Health Care system and another to require the legislature's authority to sell Dorothea Dix Hospital. The UNC Health Care bill was rushed through a legislative committee but Senate Republicans are suggesting its dead on arrival. The plan for the Dix property is a blow to Raleigh and Gov. Bev Perdue, who is pushing for its sale.

In other headlines:

--John Edwards repaid $2.1 million in public matching funds he received after dropping out of the 2008 campaign amid a sex scandal.

--Rick Santorum's exit from the GOP presidential race recasts the N.C. primary May 8, political observers say.

--A Republican congressional candidate in the hotly contested 9th District race announced his opposition for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, striking out on unfamiliar territory in a campaign for conservatives' support.

--Condoleezza Rice told a Duke University crowd that one of the biggest regrets of her tenure in the Bush administration is the failure to pass immigration reform.

Rick Santorum's surge in the Iowa GOP presidential caucus is drawing comparisons with fellow U.S. Sen. John Edwards' 2004 campaign.

At The Washington Post's politics blog, writer Aaron Blake suggests that the two men -- who served together in the U.S. Senate -- are making similar bids in the all-important first presidential contest.

"Like Edwards, Santorum has spent hundreds of hours working the state with almost no press attention. And, like Edwards, Santorum is clearly the momentum candidate in the field — benefiting from the fact that former House speaker Newt Gingrich is fading and many Iowa Republicans remain unconvinced of former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney’s conservative credentials."

Read more here.