FRANKLIN - Mission Health’s chief executive offered a somber apology to the people of Macon County on Friday as he announced plans to build a new $43 million replacement community hospital with no labor and delivery services.

Dr. Ronald Paulus, president and CEO of Mission Health, speaking at a news conference in Asheville, said the nonprofit regional health care system was faced with two bad alternatives in an increasingly regulated and expensive health care environment.  “We are very sorry that we cannot keep this program open," he said. "We looked at every possibility that we could conceive of ... We just couldn't find a way."

​Read more here. 

LEICESTER - Dozens of rabbits discovered living in what a local animal welfare center says was an inhumane environment have been rescued.

Brother Wolf Animal Rescue recently took care of more 120 rabbits after it got notification from a neighbor of a hoarding situation in Leicester.

​Read more here. 

FOREST CITY - Sthefany Flores Fuentes spent last week studying for final exams and wrapping up class projects. Until late Monday she had no idea whether she would see the payoff for her hard work.
​
The 20-year-old honors student at Gardner-Webb University had planned to drive to Charlotte Wednesday morning for an immigration meeting that could lead to her deportation to Honduras.

​Click here to read more. 

ASHEVILLE - A man was charged with one count of assaulting a government official with a deadly weapon after authorities say he lunged toward a sheriff's deputy with a knife displayed. The crime is a felony.

Joshua D. Gibson, 30, of Canton, was arrested Friday. Warrant documents allege he displayed a knife and moved toward Deputy R. Fisher while the officer was trying to escort him out of a building.

​Read more here.

ALEXANDER - A Candler man was arrested Saturday, charged with defrauding an innkeeper, breaking and entering and simple assault.
​
Authorities say Cory A. Jackson, 21, broke into a building on Dry Leaf Road in Alexander. Warrant documents allege he caused more than $200 of damages and struck a person inside. 

​Read more here. 

​CASHIERS – Authorities in Jackson County continued the search for a missing Atlanta teen who was camping with a group near Cashiers on Monday. After of week of mostly ground searches, a helicopter was sent out for a second time Friday morning to try and get a better aerial view of the forest.

Starting Friday evening, a 24-hour command post will be established at the Cashiers Glenville Fire Department. An operations post closer to the search location will also continue. There are no major updates other than a vest was found in the woods near the camping area where the teen was last seen, reported Major Shannon H. Queen of the Jackson County Sheriff's Office.

Read more here. 

RALEIGH – The chief administrator of North Carolina's courts says Republican party leaders may have misled magistrates on whether they could refrain from performing same-sex marriages.

John Smith, director of the N.C. Administrative Office of the Courts, detailed his concerns in a three-page letter to Senate leader Phil Berger, who along with more than two dozen Senate Republicans had asked in an Oct. 24 letter that he revise a directive ordering magistrates to perform civil weddings for gay couples or face losing their jobs.

Several magistrates have quit rather than perform same-sex marriages since two federal judges last month blocked enforcement of the state's gay marriage prohibition approved by voters in 2012. The rulings came when the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear a case that overturned Virginia's similar ban.

Read more here. 

ASHEVILLE – While most people stayed inside and kept warm during the first snowfall of the year, Kym Schifino got up Saturday morning for a run.

A nine-time contestant in the 18-mile Shut-In Trail Race, there was no way she was going to let a little snow keep her from one of the Southeast's premier trail runs, a leg-numbing, single-track ascent from the North Carolina Arboretum toward the peak of Mount Pisgah.

"I'm not going to lie," said Schifino, 33, of Mills River. "There was part of me that thought maybe they would cancel the race, but I knew they wouldn't."

Read more here. 

BRYSON CITY – Swain County Magistrate Judge Gilbert Breedlove resigned Monday because of his personal objection to same-sex marriage. 

"It was my only option," said Breedlove, 57. "We were directed we had to perform the marriages, and that was just something I couldn't do because of my religious beliefs."
​
Breedlove has been a magistrate for nearly 24 years. He started in 1990 and became ordained as a pastor in 1997.

Read more here. 

ASHEVILLE – Area register of deeds offices said officials would issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples regardless of their own beliefs. "Same-sex marriages are against my Christian beliefs, but I have taken an oath, and I have to uphold my oath and do what the law tells me to do," Polk County Register of Deeds Sheila Whitmire said.
​
A memo sent Friday by the NC Values Coalition, encouraging state officials with "sincere religious or moral beliefs" to refrain from issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples, went to register of deeds offices throughout the state following a court ruling that North Carolina's gay marriage ban was unconstitutional.

​Read more here. 

ASHEVILLE – Police and bomb-sniffing dogs responded to a bomb threat at the William H. Stanley Center on Woodfin Street Monday morning, after a caller made disparaging comments about the issuance of same-sex marriage licenses, said Natalie Bailey, spokeswoman for the Buncombe County Sheriff's Office. No explosives were found and the building was not evacuated.

"We have protocols and procedures in place to keep everybody safe, and in this particular instance everything worked the way it should," Bailey said. "Our folks went out and checked and nothing was found. Once they did that, people were able to go on and get their licenses."

​Read more here.