75 malnourished

animals found

COLUMBIA (AP) — A North Carolina woman has been arrested after authorities say they found 75 malnourished animals in her backyard.

The Virginian-Pilot reports 39-year-old Christy L. Edwards, of Columbia, is charged with animal cruelty. Tyrrell County Sheriff Darryl Liverman says deputies visited the property Friday and Saturday after receiving a tip.

He says they found animals including chickens, donkeys, horses, goats, a pig and a turkey without food or water. He says that “when you see a pig with his ribs showing, that’s pretty bad.”

Liverman says the animals have since been checked by a veterinarian and taken to a Currituck County farm.

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Man dies after

being beaten

CLEVELAND (AP) — Police say a man has been beaten outside a house in Cleveland and has died.

Cleveland police say the 33-year-old man was beaten around 11:30 p.m. Saturday. Police Sgt. Jennifer Ciaccia says first responders found the man with blunt force injuries to his head and neck and transported him to a hospital, where he died.

Authorities didn’t immediately release his identity.

Ciaccia said in a release that investigators say a suspect — possibly in his 20s or 30s — confronted the man in front of house that the victim was visiting and assaulted him. Police say the suspect left the scene. They did not immediately release any additional information.

The investigation was continuing Sunday.

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District suspends

pole-dancing teacher

RAEFORD (AP) — A middle school teacher who moonlights as a pole-dance instructor has been suspended by a North Carolina school district.

A spokeswoman for Hoke County’s public schools didn’t specify why Kandice Mason was suspended with pay pending the outcome of an investigation.

Mason tells WTVD-TV that school officials saw a video of her pole dancing that she posted to her private Facebook account. She says school officials cited a policy that says employees are role models who are “responsible for their public conduct even when they are not performing their job duties.”

Mason says she isn’t ashamed of her part-time pastime and sees pole dancing as an artform and a good way to stay in shape.

Mason was due to start teaching sixth grade at West Hoke County Middle School.

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Monuments to stay

on Capitol grounds

RALEIGH (AP) — The North Carolina Historical Commission has agreed with recommendations from a study panel to keep three Confederate monuments on the state Capitol grounds while reinterpreting them with information on slavery and civil rights.

The full commission voted 10-1 Wednesday in favor of the reinterpretation and urging construction of a memorial to North Carolina black citizens as soon as possible. The group of academics and amateur historians also recognized that monuments on the Capitol grounds are imbalanced toward the Civil War and the Confederacy.

The decision comes nearly a year after Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s administration asked the commission to relocate the statues to a nearby Civil War battlefield. The commission agreed Wednesday that a 2015 state law made it difficult to move the monuments.