Holiday Lights Come Alive

A helicopter pilot and a meteorologist who worked for a North Carolina television station died following the crash of the station’s helicopter next to an interstate highway in the Charlotte area. WBTV broadcasters who had been reporting on the crash identified their colleagues on air Tuesday about three hours following the deadly incident. The men were identified as meteorologist Jason Myers and pilot Chip Tayag. The crash occurred along Interstate 77. Johnny Jennings, chief of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department, said no vehicles were involved in the incident. The chief said preliminary witness accounts indicate that the pilot made some “diversionary” maneuvers and “probably saved some lives."

A historically Black university in North Carolina says it has filed a complaint with the Department of Justice seeking a review of a search of a bus carrying students during a traffic stop in South Carolina last month. Shaw University President Paulette Dillard has accused law enforcement officers of racially profiling students traveling to a conference in Atlanta. Spartanburg County Sheriff Chuck Wright called the accusations false, saying officers stopped the bus because it was swerving. Dillard says the issue is how the alleged minor violation turned into a drug search. The complaint states that a lane violation would be insufficient justification for a search and students’ privacy was violated because they didn’t consent to a luggage search.

Police say a vehicle towing a float for a holiday parade in North Carolina crashed, killing a girl participating in the event. A Raleigh Police Department news release says the driver who lost control of the vehicle and struck the child was charged with reckless driving and other offenses. Witnesses told WTVD-TV that people attending the Raleigh Christmas Parade heard the truck’s driver screaming that he had lost control of the vehicle and couldn’t stop it before the crash. Nobody else at the parade was injured in the collision.

Democrats celebrated winning North Carolina's lone toss-up race for the U.S. House this month as Wiley Nickel won the 13th District seat. The victory creates a 7-7 split in the state’s delegation — the best showing for Democrats in a decade. But there’s a good chance Nickel’s district and others will be altered for the 2024 elections, returning the advantage to Republicans. The current lines are only being used for these elections. New lines will be drawn by Republicans, who still control the General Assembly. And a new GOP majority on the state Supreme Court likely will be more skeptical of legal challenges that scuttled previous boundaries.

Highlights from the seventh day of the World Cup in Qatar on Saturday.

Environmental groups are once again at odds with politicians and fishermen in New England in the wake of a decision by high-end retail giant Whole Foods to stop selling Maine lobster. Whole Foods recently said that it will stop selling lobster from the Gulf of Maine at hundreds of its stores around the country. The company cited decisions by a pair of sustainability organizations to take away their endorsements of the U.S. lobster fishing industry. The organizations, Marine Stewardship Council and Seafood Watch, both cited concerns about risks to rare North Atlantic right whales from fishing gear. Entanglement in gear is one of the biggest threats to the whales.