DURHAM - A Durham woman was killed and three others injured in traffic accidents that shut down Interstate 85 on Wednesday evening for about three hours, police said.

Construction is almost finished on the final leg of the N.C. 98 bypass around the south side of Wake Forest, and state Department of Transportation engineers hope to open it to traffic by the end of next week.

RALEIGH - A second teenager accused of taking part in the 2008 overdose and beating death of Matthew Silliman, an Eagle Scout from Apex High School, admitted to participating in the crime.

SALT LAKE CITY - A Las Vegas man injured in Raleigh, N.C., while performing submersion baptisms in the name of the dead has sued The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for medical expenses.

KENLY - Deputies are hunting for two other male suspects after arresting two Raleigh teenagers Thursday morning. The arrests followed the shootings of two convenience store clerks in robberies about 20 minutes apart in Johnston County, authorities said.

RALEIGH - A group of North Carolina business, education and political leaders wants Gov. Bev Perdue to endorse turning the Dorothea Dix Hospital property into a public park once it's emptied of patients and state workers.

CARY - The town has found a possible antidote to an outbreak of tiny insects that threatens an unusual stand of trees in Hemlock Bluffs Nature Preserve.

Republican Sen. Richard Burr, his campaign flush with cash, is scheduled to begin his fall TV advertising campaign Monday.

DURHAM - Crystal Gail Mangum is jailed under $150,000 bond after court officials accused her of sharing a home with her children in violation of a pretrial release order.

Craft beer that comes in a can? Are you serious?

In Garner, husband and wife team Colleen and Nathan Roby are taking the leap from corporate chain kitchen to a kitchen of their own.

GREENSBORO - Wake County school board Chairman Ron Margiotta held firm Thursday that the school system will no longer mandate diversity in student assignments even as he lobbied for the support of business leaders who are wary of the changes.

Traditional calendar students rang in a new school year Wednesday with events that ranged from the serious to the silly.

Once again, the University of North Carolina is poised to name as its new leader a native son with deep ties to the state's political establishment.

The only outsiders invited to review the work of the State Bureau of Investigation's lab for the past 20 years missed all the problems revealed this month by two former FBI agents and newspaper reporters.

Some researchers at UNC-Chapel Hill may have to abandon their human embryonic stem cell research projects after a federal district judge blocked a 2009 presidential executive order that expanded such studies, saying it violated a law banning federal money from being used to destroy embryos.

University scholars and the state NAACP have joined death row inmates' legal battle to have their sentences converted to life in prison on the basis of claims of racial bias.

RALEIGH - Turn the key and lights come on to tell you the silent, electric-powered Tesla Roadster is ready to go.

CHAPEL HILL - The opening of the newest Krispy Kreme store has once again shown the lengths North Carolinians will go to get their hands on the hot, golden rings.

JACKSONVILLE - An Ohio man vacationing in Emerald Isle drowned Tuesday after apparently being caught in a rip current.