Goldsboro News

They went to actual birds. Standing underneath the North Portico at the White House, Obama spared two turkeys, Courage and Carolina, from becoming Thanksgiving dinner entrees.

Mayor Al King, right, flips the switch to turn on the Goldsboro Christmas Tree, left, while Geoff Hulse finishes the countdown.

After 10 months in office, President Barack Obama granted his first pardon Wednesday to "Courage," a 45-pound turkey spared from the Thanksgiving table.

Recently, Walter 'Gator' Pelletier, the chairman of the National Turkey Federation and an executive at Butterball, the nation's largest turkey producer, approached Wes Pike, his go-to bird handler, with the secret mission of raising two well-mannered birds that would not trash a room at the Willard Hotel or go ballistic on President Obama when pardoned in the White House Rose Garden on Wednesday.

Pike, 54, accepted the challenge. From Butterball pens in Goldsboro, N.C., he picked 22 15-week-old toms from a flock of 52,000 poults and moved them to a safe barn across the road. There, the birds were hand-fed a diet of 57 percent corn, 30 percent soy beans and a mix of grains and vitamins. The birds walked on a fresh bed of kiln-dried pine shavings and gobbled, clucked and putted freely with humans, to better prepare them for the crowd of first-family members, administration officials and reporters attending the ceremony.

An autopsy shows a North Carolina man just discharged from a state psychiatric hospital died from a massive overdose of a painkiller given to him by the facility.

Cpl. Sheldon Rhodes was ambushed on Saturday by a group of Confederate soldiers who snuck around through the woods to cut him off while he was walking near Taberna.

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With its public school system in the toilet despite massive funding increases and unfulfilled promises of "accountability," perhaps South Carolina should consider following the lead of a Goldsboro, N.C. middle school, which was busted last week trying to sell grades.

Attorneys for both sides gave arguments and took testimony Monday as a lawsuit filed by county residents against the city of Kinston to stop its annexation of them entered the trial phase.

The election is still a year away, the primary isn't until May, but Kenneth Lewis of Chapel Hill is already on the campaign trail as he hopes to unseat incumbent Republican U.S. Sen.

The Job: Firefighter The Company: Goldsboro Fire Department The Location: Goldsboro "We're fixing to go on a call right now," said Assistant Fire Chief Eric Lancaster.

An audit shows six North Carolina hospitals owe the state more than $2.5 million for overcharging the health plan for teachers and state employees.

According to highway patrol 10 year old Dakota Medlin was staying at a frienda s house.

A 10-year-old Goldsboro boy suffered life-threatening injuries when he got hit by an SUV while running across a street to a school bus stop Friday morning.

A Goldsboro man has pleaded guilty in federal court to possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking offense.

A middle school in North Carolina is selling test scores to students in a bid to raise money.

A Goldsboro man is wanted for a kidnapping and rape that happened Saturday in Wayne County.

The information on vehicles provided in this service is supplied by the seller or other third parties; The Goldsboro News-Argus is not responsible for the accuracy of such information.

In honor of National Diabetes Month and the launch of the American Diabetes Association's new "Stop Diabetes" campaign, Gold's Gym in Goldsboro is hosting a first-of-its-kind calorie "Burn-a-thon" to promote diabetes awareness on Saturday.

Three Onslow County students have been given the chance to sing their hearts out at a conference in Winston-Salem. More than 1,000 middle school students auditioned statewide but only 160 - the top 5 percent of middle school singers - were accepted into the Middle School Honors Chorus, said Sonja Williams, the music teacher at Jacksonville Commons ...