Attorney General RoyCooper on Thursday removed Robin Pendergraft, the SBI director whom he handpicked a decade ago, and halted the work of bloodstain pattern analysts whose methods have faced mounting criticism.

This is a country that knows how to handle the cold, swaggering about during the most brutal of winters. But the heat is another story. And there has never been heat like this.

The mother of 4-year-old Teghan Skiba faces child-abuse charges after investigators determined that she saw her boyfriend abuse the child before leaving her in his care.