Jessica Jones

Voters in Raleigh approved transportation and affordable housing bonds by about two-thirds of the vote.

Voters in Raleigh will help choose a new mayor at the polls tomorrow.

State lawmakers have wrapped up their short legislative session this week.

Voters in North Carolina will decide next May whether to add an amendment to the state constitution that would ban gay marriage. Earlier today, the state Senate voted with a three-fifths majority in favor of a proposed amendment that recognizes marriage as being between one man and one woman. The House passed the measure yesterday. Republican Senator Buck Newton says adding such an amendment to the state constitution would make it more difficult for judges to overturn bans on same-sex marriage.

Lawmakers in the North Carolina House have passed a bill to let voters decide whether to add an amendment to the state constitution that defines marriage as between a man and a woman. 75 legislators voted in favor of the bill, after three and a half hours of debate.

State lawmakers are back in Raleigh this week for a special session to vote on potential amendments to the state constitution.

The North Carolina Zoo is leading an emergency fundraising effort for the Tripoli Zoo in war-torn Libya. Political chaos there has left zoo keepers without money to buy food for the animals, and they have only a week's supply on hand. North Carolina Zoo Director David Jones has led similar international fundraising efforts for zoos in Afghanistan and Iraq. He says he's happy to help Libya's main zoo as well.

The Democratic National Committee will hold a kick-off rally in Charlotte tomorrow to prepare for its national convention in 2012.

The convention is a year away, but organizers say this event will help get things started in Charlotte. Steve Kerrigan heads the group's convention committee. He says it will be great to hold the gathering in a state that helped President Obama win the White House in 2008.

State officials plan to install a temporary bridge on Hatteras Island's North Carolina Highway 12. Hurricane Irene caused a number of breaches along the road, and the structure will be erected across the largest such impasse. Greer Beatty is a spokeswoman for the North Carolina Department of Transportation.

Greer Beatty: "We're bringing in a temporary bridge, we've already ordered it. It's being shipped right now in trucks, it'll take about 35 truckloads to get all of it here, and we'll get it assembled and put it into place."

A state panel is close to finishing a report for the governor on whether oil and natural gas drilling should be permitted off the North Carolina coast. The governor established the Scientific Advisory Panel on Offshore Energy nearly two years ago. Attorney Willis Whichard chairs the panel.

Willis Whichard: "The idea is not for us to solve the policy or political problems regarding these difficult and contentious issues, but to give her and other policymakers the information they need to process and come to decisions."