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Democratic leaders at the legislature say they're unhappy with the Republican-authored Senate budget proposal that would cut Smart Start. It's a nationally recognized early childhood program for low-income families across the state. The Senate plan would strip funding for the program by 20 percent, as does the House budget proposal passed a few weeks ago. But the Senate proposal would also dissolve the parent organization that oversees Smart Start and shift its administration to the Division of Child Development. Democrat Joe Hackney is the Minority Leader in the House.

A statewide advocacy group is launching a new program to raise awareness of pool safety. The campaign by "Safe Kids North Carolina" aims to improve safety at pools and encourage simple steps that can save lives. Director Kelly Ransdell says about 400 kids under the age of 14 drown in pools and spas each year in the United States.

On a night in 1994, Patricia Young of Nashville, Tennessee was asleep in her bed when she was startled awake by a masked man who had broken into her house. The man, undressed from the waist down, brutally attacked Young and attempted to rape her. Young, an attorney, put up a fierce struggle, biting off a piece of his finger. Eventually the man left, but not before sexually violating Young with his hands.

In the first decades of the 20th century, the eugenics movement led scientists and policy makers to embrace radical tenets of genetic engineering. This movement included involuntary sterilization of criminals, poor people, the mentally impaired and minorities – in hopes of breeding out undesirable traits. Most Americans refuted eugenics after World War II, but a small contingent of influential researchers and social engineers remained devoted to the flawed science. Their persistence led to state-supported, involuntary sterilizations as late as the 1970s. In 2002, then-Governor Mike Easley issued an apology for the atrocities the state committed in the name of eugenics.

The future of the state’s Tobacco Trust Fund, which provides financial compensation to North Carolina’s former tobacco farmers, remains in question. Budget proposals for the multi-million dollar program diverge widely between the state House and Senate. Senators have suggested continuing the distribution of funding dollars. State House members have suggested cutting funding all together. Small farmers and the organizations supporting them worry that losing this money could mean the demise of many enterprising agricultural projects.

  More young adults are developing high blood pressure - that's the finding of research from UNC Chapel Hill. 

Since 1995, researchers around the country have been interviewing groups of adolescents and then following them and their health as they grow into adulthood. The study - calledAdd Health - is lead by demographer Kathleen Mullen Harris, from UNC.  Harris says they found about one-in-five people in their twenties and early thirties had high blood pressure. And that's worrisome. 

The recession has highlighted the need for a more educated workforce. That's according to "The State of the North Carolina Workforce 2011-2020" report. Kenneth Poole is CEO and President of the Center for Regional Economic Competitiveness.

Wayne Early Middle College High School will hold its graduation tonight in Goldsboro. The school is one of many early college high schools graduating students who already have some college credit. 

State health officials have approved reinstating of the bachelor's program in nursing at Fayetteville State University. Chancellor James Anderson suspended the program two years ago due to low test scores and conflicts among nursing instructors. Nursing Department Chair Afua Arhin says there are now safeguards to prevent those issues.

Skin color is the most influential factor behind racial identity, but determining race has never been black and white. A new book by legal scholar Daniel Sharfstein called “The Invisible Line: Three American Families and the Secret Journey from Black to White” (The Penguin Press/2011) reveals that there was a time when the legal definition of race was so blurry that families considered African-Americans in one part of the country could be classified as white in another.