Katie Norman said the procedure had been planned for some time. She said there were no complications during the operation.

"She's doing very well," Norman said. "It was a short procedure."

Norman said the hip had been bothering Dole, a Salisbury Republican, for a while.

"She plans to resume her Senate duties after a few weeks of recuperation," Norman said.

Black caucus flexing muscle

The state NAACP and the N.C. Black Leadership Caucus are weighing in on the race for House speaker.

They want African-American House members to unite behind one of the black candidates vying to lead the chamber. Dan Blue of Raleigh, a former speaker who is returning to the House, and Rep. Mickey Michaux of Durham are two in a large field of speaker candidates. The House will have 20 black members next year and, together, they could give a speaker candidate nearly one third of the votes needed to win.

In a letter to NAACP supporters statewide, the Rev. William J. Barber II, president of the civil rights group, points out that the state has no black elected officials in the Council of State or running the legislature.

"Why should African Americans in North Carolina accept, members of the Legislative Black Caucus accept, or even ask for secondary positions and chairs and not receive the top position?" Barber wrote. "Why should they not use their strength to demand at least one position, the Speakership, which is the pivotal position?"

The Alliance of N.C. Black Elected Officials plans to meet with black legislators today to discuss African-American leadership in state government.

"We'll ask them to unite behind the best candidate," said Carnell Robinson, chairman of the N.C. Black Leadership Caucus. "And I would hope that they view one of the two announced black candidates as the best candidate."

Extraordinary renditions

After hitting a brick wall with previous requests, anti-torture activists are broadening their efforts to pressure state and local governments into investigating Smithfield-based Aero Contractors.

The American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina and N.C. Stop Torture Now are trying to collect 1,000 signatures by Jan. 24 in support of investigations into Aero's reported role in "extraordinary rendition," or the shuttling of terrorism suspects to countries where they can be interrogated and possibly tortured. The company has hangars at Johnston County airport and the state-funded Global TransPark in Kinston.

The groups also hope to enlist more grass roots civil rights, Muslim and other faith-based organizations to express outrage.

Gov. Mike Easley, Johnston County commissioners and the Global TransPark Authority board have declined to investigate Aero. In October, State Bureau of Investigation Director Robin Pendergraft turned down a similar request from 12 state House members, including Linda Coleman, Deborah Ross and Jennifer Weiss from Wake County; Larry Hall and Paul Luebke from Durham; and Verla Insko from Orange.

Steven Watt, an ACLU senior human rights adviser from New York visiting Raleigh, said this week that both federal and local governmental bodies were obligated under a United Nations convention against torture to investigate allegations of torture.

"The prohibition against torture is not against only those who flick the electric switch or wield the baton," he said. "It's also against the people who aid and abet [torture]."

AG backs journalistic rights

N.C. Attorney General Roy Cooper has joined 24 other attorneys general who have signed on to an appeal asking the federal courts to protect reporters who do not want to divulge the identities of confidential sources.

Cooper joined a 'friend of the court' brief supporting two San Francisco Chronicle reporters who have refused to reveal who gave them copies of grand jury testimony in the BALCO investigation. North Carolina already has a law that allows reporters to protect their sources, but no such federal law exists.

"People who are trying to get to the truth so they can share it with the public should have some protections for their confidential sources," Cooper said.