North Carolina

• After a gunman in North Carolina killed eight people in a nursing home yesterday, police are investigating whether his estranged wife's employment there had something to do with it. The man faces eight counts of first-degree murder. — ABC News
• The Obama administration pushed out GM's chairman yesterday, and urged Chrysler to form a partnership with Italian car maker Fiat if it wants more government aid. — New York Times
• The stimulus package has lobbyists bustling with ample amount of work. — Washington Post
• A spy network working mostly from government computers in China has been able to infiltrate over a thousand computers in 103 countries, including those at embassies and foreign ministries. — BBC News

The intuitive trend in America to move to where the land is open and the climate warm has hit a road bump. Thanks to the housing crisis, which makes the idea of taking on a new mortgage scary and risky, people are staying put.

The population slowdown specifically hit the western and southern states, which had seen huge growth and migration over the last decade. While this trend could mean less traffic and more space for those already living there, it could also lead to less political influence. Based on current projections, California might lose a seat in Congress for the first time ever following the 2010 Census.

Still, a population slow down in the South and West doesn't mean other regions are growing faster. In 2008, Utah was the fastest growing state, followed by Arizona, Texas, North Carolina, and South Carolina. And Michigan and Rhode Island actually lost population.

Have tough times made you shelve any plans for moving?

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Fallout from Hurricane Ike and Gustav has spiraled into massive gas shortages in the Southeast. Drivers in Nashville, TN, where the problem is the worst, wait in long lines and some follow tankers around in hopes of being the first to fill up before a station goes dry.

In western North Carolina local governments have been forced to cancel programs, since there's not much gas to travel to activities. One city canceled athletic events, and another county has limited all municipal travel to emergency vehicles for the past few weeks. Many workers in the region have been told to work four 10-hour days, or telecommute.

In Atlanta, one of the nation's largest commuter cities, many stations have run out of gas, and they have no idea when more will come. Once residents find a station with fuel, they often must dole out $5 a gallon, and wait in 40-car lines. What would you do if your city ran out of gas?

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ROFL, OMG, etc. So North Carolina's DMV has to get cracking to cook up 10,000 replacement license plates after one 60-year-old grandmother got clued in by her text-savvy grandchild that her standard-issue plate, contained an acronym that expresses disbelief in an explicit fashion. As in, WTF.

The DMV (Look! Another acronym in the neighborhood of WTF!) says that although they try to keep up with all the latest acronyms, this one slipped by their censors. They've offered to replace the offending plates free of charge. Oh, but the best part of this story? That they'd been using one of the WTF plates on their website as an example. They're now "trying to remove the plate" from the site.

I'm no entrepreneur, but I imagine that they could resell the turned in plates for quite a profit to those who might want a little more color in their vehicle identification? It's like those super-expensive vanity plates, or the political ones, or the religious ones, but way, way better. Would you turn yours in, or flaunt it?

Citizens all over the world are not safe from Peeping Toms. Venice police just caught a man who had photographed the backsides of over 3,000 women, as they strolled around San Marco square. The man tailed the women wearing short skirts, carrying a bag with a camera, and filming their tails through a small hole in the bag.

Apparently, the Peeping Tom wasn't who you would imagine — authorities say he is a working professional with two young children and a wife. The man faces six months to four years in prison. The Venice case might be the tip of a Peeping-Tom trend. To see who else has been sneaking around, read more

I wonder if anyone is as exhausted as CBS must be this morning after having called Indiana so early, and then having to wait — alone— as Hillary's lead shrunk. They must have been sweating it to say the least. But when the counting was done, Hillary indeed took Indiana by a thin, two-point margin. Obama won North Carolina, 56 percent to Hillary's 42.

Here's what I'm wondering about this morning. Though the New York Times is calling Obama's win in North Carolina "decisive," it's far from big enough to call off the race altogether (Hillary is moving on to West Virginia this morning) and yes, winning by 14 points is sizeable, though it's hardly overwhelming? Earning 42 percent of the vote doesn't make you a Ron-Paul-five-percenter if you know what I mean. Oh, I'm just warming up, read more

CNN is projecting that Barack Obama has lit up the ballot boxes and scored a win in the contest for North Carolina's 134 delegate votes.

He was expected to do well, and the exact number of delegates he'll take from the contest will be determined at the end of the counting, though it seems like he won by a sizeable margin. This is his first big state win in several contests.

Interestingly, CNN exits polls in both IN and NC are showing that less than half of Clinton's supporters would support Obama if he was declared the nominee.

Though the drawn out race worries some, it hasn't hurt voter registration numbers — quite the opposite. A new study shows that one in 66 Americans registered to vote in the first three months of this year. North Carolina expected a turn out of 50 percent in today's voting - double the rate of past primaries.

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