Under the Dome:Gov. Mike Easley's administration is still having trouble turning over copies of the e-mail messages of its officials.

Under the Dome:Legislation that would require state and local governments to pay reasonable legal fees when they lose a public records lawsuit cleared a Senate judiciary committee Tuesday after an attempt to gut the bill.

Senate Majority Leader Tony Rand, a Fayetteville Democrat, could not cite a reason under the public meetings law why a reporter would be excluded from a meeting of House and Senate leaders. But he said the meeting had nothing to do with the budget.

The White House on Friday asserted executive privilege in denying a congressional request for documents related to the federal government's rejection of California's efforts to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions.

A top state official and a long-serving mayor weighed in three years ago on behalf of a proposed ethanol plant that is at the center of a federal corruption investigation.

Fear of fees may deter complaints.

Durham City Council members have not been taking minutes of their closed meetings to discuss who will be the next city manager, possibly a violation of state law.

The panel's suggestions, if implemented, will do nothing to prevent employees from knowingly circumventing the law -- the very accusation that triggered the group's creation.

Gov. Mike Easley argued Tuesday that a judge should throw out a public records lawsuit because the newspapers that sued him haven't shown they've been denied records.

Members of a panel formed by Gov. Mike Easley appear headed toward approval of a plan that would require training on the public records law for most state employees and improvements to government e-mail servers that would archive messages for a number of years.

Charlotte City Attorney Mac McCarley said Thursday that public information requests for e-mail had become so burdensome that top officials had quit sending sensitive messages for fear they might become public.

Records released by the Easley administration show that until recently, several public information officers deleted most of their e-mail messages to and from top officials in the governor's press office.