Southwestern Community College just signed honors partnership agreements with NC State University, the University of North Carolina-Charlotte and the University of North Carolina-Wilmington.

Currently, Southwestern already has honors partnership agreements with Appalachian State University and Western Carolina University.

“That brings the total to five universities that now accept honors credit from Southwestern,” according to Cheryl-Contino-Conner, chair of SCC’s honors program.

Harmful pollution to be cut under federal agreement

North Carolina’s landmark clean air settlement with the Tennessee Valley Authority has received final approval from a federal court judge, Attorney General Roy Cooper said June 30.

Judge Thomas A. Varlan of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee approved a consent decree in the case, bringing to a successful close Cooper’s five-year-long legal battle to get the TVA to clean up emissions from its coal-fired plants.

New laws to better track purchases of meth ingredients and help ex-offenders avoid repeating their crimes will make North Carolina safer, Attorney General Roy Cooper said.

House Bill 12 and House Bill 641 were both signed into law Friday, June 24, by Governor Bev Perdue.

AG concerned that recent budget cuts could reverse trend

Reports of crime across North Carolina fell by 5.6 percent while violent crime dropped by 10.2 percent in 2010, Attorney General Roy Cooper announced Tuesday. It’s the lowest crime rate for North Carolina since 1977 and includes the lowest murder rate since North Carolina began collecting statewide crime statistics in 1973.

While the Attorney General lauded the drop in crime, he warned that future success will be more difficult due to recent budget cuts to law enforcement personnel and equipment.