HENDERSONVILLE, N.C. — The Henderson County Sheriff’s Office has two new puppies to join its K-9 corps.
GREENSBORO — Look around North Carolina. If you’re with a group of 
20 or more people, chances are one of them is carrying a handgun.
Since 1995, when the state gave the general public the right to carry concealed handguns, a half-million people exercised that right.
Much of this surge is among women, who make up 8 percent, or 36,667, of permit holders.
Why people want to carry concealed handguns varies, according to the State Bureau of Investigation. But for most women, carrying a handgun is a matter of personal safety.
GRAHAM, N.C. — Alamance County has closed part of its jail because of a decline in inmates.
The Times-News of Burlington reported (http://bit.ly/1ONGFrT) that the sheriff’s office decided to temporarily close an annex that had housed 30 female inmates.
A declining jail population prompted officials to move the women inmates back to the main jail in Graham.
Sheriff Terry Johnson says the county has up to 520 inmates a day under normal circumstances. Johnson says the jail has topped out around 340 inmates for the past couple of months.
Wake County Sheriff Donnie Harrison plans to hire three new 
investigators to halt the increase of heavy drugs circulating in the area.
At this week’s meeting of the Wake County Board of Commissioners, Harrison cited the U.S. Justice Department’s findings that Mexican drug trafficking organizations are expanding from Atlanta into North Carolina.
Commissioner Matt Calabria says he supports beefing up the team, which now has 11 drug investigators.
“These officers were very, very busy making street level arrests and investigating drug activity in general. But as we grow as a county and as we grow as a region, drug activity is naturally going to increase.”
With only a year left in his second term as president, President Barack Obama is looking to toughen up gun laws in the United States through an executive order.
“This is not a plot to take away everybody’s guns,” Obama said in a ceremony in the East Room on Tuesday. “You pass a background check, you purchase a firearm. The problem is, some gun sellers have been operating under a different set of rules.”
Under current law, only federally licensed gun dealers are required to conduct background checks on buyers. Through websites, at gun shows and flea markets, though, sellers can sidestep the background checks by not registering as licensed dealers. The new federal guidance from the Obama administration clarified that it applies to anyone “in the business” of selling firearms.
ASHEBORO, N.C. — Randolph County Sheriff Maynard B. Reid Jr., who served in the post since 2006, has died of complications from pneumonia. He was 69.
Lt. Jason Chabot said Reid died at 9:40 p.m. Tuesday at Randolph Hospital, where he had been since Dec. 18.
Chabot said Deputy Chief Ed Blair will become interim sheriff until a new sheriff is appointed.
GREENVILLE, N.C. (WNCT) – The Pitt County Sheriff’s Office will be working to improve the state of mental health in jails across the country thanks to a grant.
Deputies have been keeping track of 25 inmates in Pitt County that have been in jail more than 480 times in the last 15 years. These 25 people have cost tax payers $1.5 million. The hope is the grant will allow researchers further insight into the faulty system to help find solutions to the problems many jails are seeing in relation to mental health.
Currituck County Sheriff Susan Johnson on Friday awarded medals to five deputies for their actions during recent events that saved the lives of several people.
Deputies James Simpson, Timothy Holub and Michael Holub all responded to medical calls and provided lifesaving CPR to each patient which kept them alive for further medical treatment.
Holub was honored for two such events involving CPR.
Deputy Randy Jones and Deputy Thomas Voorhees responded to medical calls and assisted with lifesaving application of a tourniquet to patients involved in an industrial accident and with a gunshot wound which kept both alive for further medical treatment.
RALEIGH – The NC Law Enforcement Torch Run® for Special Olympics received a Diamond Award for raising $1,190,592.00 for Special Olympics North Carolina in 2014, according to Keith L. Fishburne, president/CEO of Special Olympics North Carolina. The award was presented by the executive council of the International Law Enforcement Torch Run and was given during its 2015 international conference held in September in Nassau, Bahamas.
The North Carolina Law Enforcement Torch Run® for Special Olympics unites officers from law enforcement agencies and corrections facilities across the state in an annual effort to raise funds and awareness for Special Olympics North Carolina. A statewide committee of officers from various agencies oversees the annual activities of the NCLETR. The 2014 fundraising efforts by the NCLETR ended December 31, 2014.
“Law enforcement officers risk their lives everyday protecting and serving the citizens of our communities, and I applaud their dedication to helping people with intellectual disabilities involved in Special Olympics through the Law Enforcement Torch Run® for Special Olympics,” said Fishburne.
North Carolina’s political leaders refuse to decide whether a 16-year-old is a child or an adult and they are unlikely to make a decision until 2017 at the soonest.
Until they do, North Carolina teens age 16 and 17 are caught in a strange zone between adulthood and childhood: They are adults when they commit crimes, but, because they are younger than 18, they are children when they are the victims of crimes and for most other aspects of life.
The teens’ in-between status recently drew national attention when it came to light that the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office in February charged a 16-year-old of being an adult maker of child pornography for making a nude photo of herself with her cellphone last year.
The teen faced two felony charges and would have had to register as a sex offender if convicted of them. These were later dropped in a plea bargain to a misdemeanor charge in July.