Articles labeled: north carolina

A North Carolina teen has been ordered by his school to cut off the “controversial” design he has in his hair.

The celestial scene on Jay Cowell’s head, “[is] for God and all the stuff he made on the earth.” But Elizabeth City school officials didn’t agree. The 8th grader at River Road Middle School was ordered to change his hair because the star shape is also a gang symbol.

“It was a really nice design and they’re going to make me take it out of my head,” says Cowell.

He was back at the barber Tuesday morning because school administrators said the star is a gang symbol. Barber Rondell Parker designed it with a very different meaning in mind.

“His mom told me he’s an A/B student, so I thought of something that could be in the sky for him, reaching for the sky.”

Two North Carolina birthing centers are being applauded by breastfeeding advocates for refusing to accept free infant formula to pass on to their patients.

UNC Health Care stopped distributing the bags in late June. The Women’s Birth and Wellness Center in Chapel Hill never gave away the bags.

The Golden Bow Awards are from the nonprofit N.C. Breast-feeding Coalition, a group of lactation consultants, nurses and other women’s health professionals.

Coalition members started the campaign, a version of a national effort to ban the bags, in February. Four other hospitals in North Carolina received the award earlier this year.

Studies show that the free bags make it easier for new moms to stop breast-feeding.

Emily Taylor of the the Center for Infant and Young Child Feeding and Care at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill said mothers perceive the free bags and formula as an endorsement of a particular brand from the hospital.

A 16-month-old girl in Greensboro, North Carolina, fell two stories from a balcony over the weekend, and miraculously survived.

[Tiffany Robertson, the girl’s mother] remembers the moment it happened… her 16-month-old daughter was right next to her when she slipped through the railing, going after a toy.

“She hit the cement, that’s all you heard was her head hit the cement,” says Robertson. The child dropped from the second story. “It could’ve killed her, yeah it could’ve killed her.”

The fall fractured part of Cordai Dearmon’s skull but left her with no other broken bones. Robertson hopes other parents will learn from what her daughter survived. “I want them to know it could’ve happened to them, watch their kids while they are playing. ‘Cause just a little inch you look that way they could be gone any second.”

Note to criminals — do not bring your 1-month-old son with you when you’re being chased by the cops, he’ll only slow you down.

Timothy Hartford Jr., 38, and Ashley Smith, 26, are suspects in the Thursday shooting deaths of a man and woman in Winston-Salem, N.C., police said. The victims were a 77-year-old Meals on Wheels volunteer and a man she was serving lunch. Another volunteer, the dead woman’s husband, was wounded.

The suspects’ 1-month-old son was with them during the chase and ensuing standoff and was taken into the custody of child protective services. He was not injured, Virginia State Police Sgt. Michelle Cotten said.

A state police officer saw Hartford and Smith’s vehicle in Suffolk at about 2 a.m. Friday and attempted to stop it. Smith drove on and police pursued the vehicle into Norfolk and used road spikes to shred its tires, officials said.

The couple pulled into a shopping mall parking garage and were negotiating with police, but didn’t surrender until about five hours later.

A soldier comes home only to find that his 11 month old daughter is missing. The truth is, her mother knew exactly where she was…

SPRING LAKE, N.C. — Authorities on Saturday found the body of a missing 11-month-old girl hidden in the attic of her home.

Harmony Creech had been dead for three or four weeks, Harnett County Sheriff Larry Rollins announced Saturday night.

Charges were expected soon against the child’s mother, Johni Michelle Heuser, Rollins said. On Saturday, she told investigators she had found the baby dead in its crib and concealed the body in the attic of her home.