Morning Roundup: DNC security plan released, corporations give around ban

Portions of about a dozen uptown roads will be closed to traffic and parking for at least four days during the week of the upcoming Democratic National Convention, under a security plan released early Wednesday by federal authorities. Read the full plan here and more coverage here.

Other political news:

--Hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of software from Microsoft. Computers, printers and tech support from Hewlett-Packard. Printing and supplies worth $150,000 from Xerox. And as much as $1 million worth of office space from Duke Energy. Those sorts of donations from companies to the Democratic National Convention, known as in-kind contributions, are taking on added importance this year because organizers are not accepting corporate cash to stage the convention.

--Former President Jimmy Carter won’t be coming to Charlotte but he’ll speak to Democratic convention delegates by video on the event’s first night. Officials said this morning that Carter will speak in prime time on Tuesday night, Sept. 4.

--A new law that excludes some cars from state-mandated emissions tests will cost garages about 10 percent of their annual revenue from inspections, a state report says.

--A Stanly County man left his entire estate worth more than $3 million to the North Carolina Zoological Society.

--Duke Energy turned over several thousand pages of internal corporate records to state officials Tuesday in what is expected to be the power company’s first of several responses to an investigation by the N.C. Utilities Commission.