Law

  Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega was a infamous figure on the international stage during the 1980s. Before he became a caricature of the "crazy" dictator, he was on the payroll of the CIA and helped the United States gain information on Cuba.

Free speech is considered a hallmark of universities across the nation, but in the 1960s, that wasn't always true. At least not for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In 1963, the North Carolina legislature passed a speaker ban, prohibiting communists from speaking on campus.

Students on campus bristled at the notion that they could not listen to anybody they chose.

State Attorney General Roy Cooper says he's concerned about an increase in domestic violence deaths in North Carolina last year. 

State law requires police agencies to report domestic violence deaths to the SBI.  Cooper says the 122 deaths last year are 16 more than in 2011.  He called the increase "disturbing" and urged the state to do more to stop these crimes before they happen. Wake County had the highest number of domestic violence deaths at 11, followed by Mecklenburg and Guilford counties with eight and six respectively. 

In 1976, Joseph Sledge was accused of murdering a mother and daughter in Bladen County, NC. Because of the many limits of scientific evidence at the time, hairs found at the scene of the crime were identified as "Negroid." And because Joseph Sledge was a Black man, the hairs were linked to him. Over 34 years later, the use of DNA testing has been used to prove that those hairs were not Sledges'.