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.