Gov. Mike Easley visited the Mecklenburg County Courthouse on Monday to sign into law tougher penalties for drunken driving and tighter restrictions on underage drinking.

The law seeks to bring uniformity to handling of DWI cases by prosecutors and judges. The law creates new felonies for seriously injuring or killing someone while driving impaired and sets up a system for tracing keg renters.

The law goes into effect Dec. 1.

The Governor's Task Force on Driving While Impaired recommended the changes to the legislature, which passed the bill last month.

"This comprehensive legislation will better protect the public from the dangers of drunk drivers by strengthening existing DWI laws," Easley said in a statement.

"The legislation increases penalties for driving while impaired and assures that laws are applied fairly and consistently throughout North Carolina."

Scandals could hurt

Heading into the fall election, House Speaker Jim Black's troubles could be a problem for Democrats.

Most North Carolinians (74 percent) are aware of the scandals surrounding Black, compared with 48 percent back in January, according to a new poll conducted for The Civitas Institute.

Most of those polled (80 percent) think Democratic lawmakers should call on Black, a Mecklenburg County Democrat, to resign and said they would be less likely to vote for a legislative candidate who received campaign money from the speaker.

Still, more people said they were likely to vote for a Democratic candidate for the legislature (40 percent) than a Republican candidate (36 percent.)

Voters are divided on whether they think the legislature is doing a good job.

President Bush's popularity continues to slip. Only 45 percent approved of the job the president was doing, while 52 percent disapproved.

But most (58 percent) still trust Bush to do what is right for America.

The poll of 800 likely voters was conducted from Aug. 10 to 12 and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.7 percentage points.

Candidate gets N.C. help

Joe Sinsheimer, the former Democratic consultant who founded the JimBlackMustGo.com Web site, has not completely stepped away from working election campaigns. He recently told reporters that he's helping a congressional candidate in Illinois.

The candidate is Tammy Duckworth, an Iraqi war veteran who lost both legs and has partial use of one arm after a rocket-propelled grenade hit the helicopter she was piloting.

"I couldn't say no," Sinsheimer said.

Duckworth is running for a seat being vacated by veteran Republican Rep. Henry Hyde. Sinsheimer said a Chicago media firm is paying him a small amount of money for consulting work.

Dole pushes for new court

U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole has asked Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to bring an immigration court to Charlotte.

Although North Carolina is estimated to have the eighth-largest population of illegal immigrants among the 50 states, it has no court within its boundaries to hear cases. Instead, cases often are referred to the court in Atlanta.

"An immigration court located in North Carolina will have a positive impact on the U.S. government's ability to process and adjudicate immigration violations within the region," Dole, a Salisbury Republican, wrote in a letter to Gonzales this month.

The letter comes as the U.S. Department of Justice is reviewing sites across the country to establish new immigration courts. U.S. Rep. Sue Myrick, a Charlotte Republican, has been pushing for a court in the state.

Dole told Gonzales that North Carolina's population of undocumented immigrants is estimated to have risen from 170,000 to 590,000 in the past decade.

"No other state presently without an immigration court is, in my view, as adversely affected as North Carolina," she wrote. "I am confident that your review of the evidence will lead you to the same conclusion."