Breaking News } Flash Flood Watch for Johnston county.

A Richmond County farmer sues to recoup losses in moving landmark to make way for progress.

Durham County’s last counter store for alcohol will close after Memorial Day weekend.

Commentary:  Karen Merkatz has eight sugar gliders in Raleigh and doesn’t believe they are suitable for the average keeper.

Suzanne Allen lived 60 years at 516 E. Jones St., most of it a widow, entertaining legislators and bridge hounds.

On its opening day, Raleigh's newest museum kept its doors open for 24 hours, long after Gov. Bev Perdue and various other dignitaries had their first glance, throwing 80,000 square feet of exhibits open to downtown insomniacs.

It stands 14 feet high – a 5-ton rubber ring big enough to run down a Clydesdale, squash a Volkswagen and dig a trench in a strip of asphalt.

Shaffer:  At the Wicked Chicken Auction, roughly 1,000 feathered animals are sold from cardboard boxes and milk crates every Sunday – a spectacle that draws shrewd, chain-smoking bidders from 100 miles away.

Shaffer:  Volunteers moved a pair of Confederate brothers from their graves on Trinity Road, fearing development. They will be buried at Oakwood Cemetery in April.

Shaffer:  All saluted Hubert Poole when they passed his flag-draped coffin, either with their right hands or with the words you keep for a quiet hero.

Shaffer:  Two years ago, Kurt Benrud got a full-body pat-down from the Raleigh police while standing spread-eagled against his car at night.

Shaffer:  Half the cast of a play produced by the Raleigh Inclusive Theater Company brings a cognitive disability to the stage. When it opens Friday, many of the actors will hear their first rounds of applause and get attention for something other than the conditions they've had since birth.

Shaffer:  Just outside the Target, a flock of Canada geese waddles happily around the parking lot, nibbling grass sprigs and dropping green land mines, never sensing that lop-eared terror crouches nearby.

Shaffer:  The men arrived toting crocks of wild boar gravy, trays of deer quesadilla and plastic tubs of kangaroo meat.

Shaffer:  When he was 20, Dalton Windley fetched a .22-caliber rifle from his car, aimed it from the hip and fired a single shot at Glenn Brame from about 150 yards, catching the young man in the neck. Those few seconds of wildness got him a life sentence in prison.

Shaffer:  Five days a week, Francis "Mac" McRackan swings an 86-year-old leg over the crossbar of his red Specialized, pushes an 86-year-old foot down on the pedal and scoots his 86-year-old body down the Crabtree Creek greenway - 10 proud miles at a time.

Shaffer:  Next Monday, more than 1,000 students at N.C. State University will run screaming across the Brickyard, crouching behind bushes, ducking into tunnels, firing a blizzard of fake bullets in a weeklong, campuswide war between humans and zombies - all for charity.

Shaffer:  For 57 years, the tiny coastal town of Swansboro has feasted and hobnobbed around a skinny, bony, jumping fish that shares its name with the world's ugliest haircut: The Mullet.