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Jim Black, a BP incident commander for the company's Gulf of Mexico oil spill response team, died in a small plane crash near Destin, Fla., on Tuesday night, the company confirmed. "BP extends its heartfelt sorrow to the family of our friend and colleague, Jim Black, who, along with two other family members, died yesterday in a tragic plane crash," BP America CEO Lamar McKay said in a statement. 27Share 3 Comments "Jim was a devoted member of our Gulf Coast spill response team and served many years with Amoco and BP. He will be missed by all who knew...

CHARLOTTE -- Former North Carolina House Speaker Jim Black returned to Mecklenburg County on Monday after about about three years behind bars and will complete the remainder of his sentence in a halfway house or under home confinement. Welcome home signs and balloons decorated the Black residence in Matthews, North Carolina. Yellow bows also lined the mailboxes on the street, as neighbors joined in on the homecoming party. This celebration comes after the news that the once powerful Black is no longer behind bars. It is six months until to end of his sentence, but Black has left the federal...

Former House Speaker Jim Black is asking President Barack Obama for some help. WRAL-TV has reported that attorneys for Black, a Mecklenburg County Democrat, has asked Obama to commute his federal prison sentence or let him serve the remainder of his five-year sentence in North Carolina or South Carolina. Black is in a federal prison in Pennsylvania after being convicted in 2007 on a corruption charge. The television station quoted Whit Powell, an attorney for Black, saying that the former lawmaker is in poor health and that his wife has Lou Gehrig's disease.

WASHINGTON — North Carolina elections officials are investigating whether a national Democratic campaign organization violated the state's ban on corporate donations. Investigators are looking at donations by individuals and North Carolina corporations to the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, a national group that works to get Democrats elected to statehouses around the nation. The committee has given more than $750,000 to the North Carolina Democratic Party since 2004. At issue: Did the money that the group routed to North Carolina come only from individuals or did it include corporate money, in violation of North Carolina law? Michael Sargeant, the campaign committee's...

RALEIGH (AP) -- Former state House Speaker Jim Black has five months to pay a $1 million fine on state political corruption charges. That was the decision of a judge this afternoon at a sentencing hearing for the Mecklenburg County Democrat. Wake County Superior Court Judge Donald Stephens also sentenced Black to serve up to ten months in prison. That term is to run concurrently with a federal five-year sentence Black received earlier this year after pleading guilty to a federal corruption charge. Black began serving that sentence Monday. Stephens said the federal government took care of taking away the...

RALEIGH -- Former House Speaker Jim Black pleaded guilty in state court in Raleigh today to a felony charge of offering a bribe to former State Rep. Michael Decker to change his party affiliation to Democrat and keep Black in power in 2003. Black also pleaded guilty to a second charge of obstructing justice, stemming from a lengthy investigation into campaign contributions to Black from chiropractors and other interest groups. Black entered an Alford plea, in which he doesn't admit guilt but is treated the same as if he had entered a guilty plea. The charges grew out of a...

Today, an eight-year speaker of the North Carolina House of Representatives, Jim Black, will plead guilty to federal corruption charges and receive a prison sentence. It’s the latest in a series of guilty pleas related to a criminal conspiracy of lobbyists and public officials involving pay-for-play bribery deals, violations of lobbying and campaign-finance laws, regulation of the video poker industry, passage of a state-run lottery, and a general seediness in North Carolina state government. And other state lawmakers may yet be caught in the dragnet. Black, a Democrat and optometrist, had used his fundraising prowess and bare-knuckle tactics to maintain...

Black to plead guilty GARY L. WRIGHT and DAVID INGRAM and MARK JOHNSON The Charlotte Observer Former House Speaker Jim Black is expected to plead guilty to a public corruption charge in federal court in Raleigh Thursday, ending the career of North Carolina's most powerful speaker of the modern political era. Under the deal, Black is expected to plead guilty to one count of accepting illegal gratuities, according to his lawyer and an Observer source. The felony charge carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and a fine of $250,000. In response to questions from the Observer, Black's...

Get the details for our gas tax rally on May 9th at Gastaxrally.com and sign the petition at Stopthegastaxhike.com. Sign up and let your voice be heard. The summer driving season is almost here and once again gas prices are soaring. To add insult to injury, the state politicians will likely increase YOUR gas tax in July. While NC families are working longer and harder to pay these taxes, Speaker Black is asking for YOUR money to pay his legal fees. Have you had enough? North Carolinians pay the highest gas tax in the southeast, the 6th highest in the...

RALEIGH, N.C. -- Speaker Jim Black on Friday named 20 House members to a study committee that will examine how the death penalty is carried out in North Carolina. The panel also will recommend possible changes to the law for the General Assembly to consider during its session next spring. Reps. Joe Hackney, D-Orange, and Beverly Earle, D-Mecklenburg, will co-chair the House Select Study Committee on Capital Punishment. (snip) Committee members also plan to consult with representatives of victims and law enforcement during their study, Black's office said. The panel, comprised of 13 Democrats and seven Republicans, will include at...

Grass Roots North Carolina, P.O. Box 10684, Raleigh, NC  27605919-664-8565, www.grnc.org, GRNC Alert Hotline: (919) 562-4137   GRNC Alert 08-29-05: EASLEY & BLACK BYPASS LEGISLATURE  & GUT HB 1311  [Analysis]  HB 1311, GRNC’s bill enabling domestic violence victims to protect themselves with concealed handgun permits earlier passed the NC General Assembly.  Due to the maneuvering of the NC Sheriff's Association, it had already been stripped down to simply require notification to a victim of her right to obtain a Concealed Carry Permit and the procedures necessary upon the issuance of a protective order.   As it now sits on the...

Hundreds of NC FreedomWorks Members Rally in Raleigh Activists fight tobacco tax increase, demand smaller government Contact: Allen Page Phone: (336) 213-1167 Email: apage@freedomworks.org Raleigh, North Carolina - Today, Governor Mike Easley and many North Carolina legislators got a lot more than they bargained for when they proposed a massive tax increase on smokers. That’s because over 400 FreedomWorks activists traveled from all across the North Carolina to the state Capitol to tell their representatives and senators: “We Want Less”. During the 6th annual ‘FreedomWorks CSE Day at the Capitol’, activists focused on the campaign against the 900 percent increase...

RALEIGH – In the past couple of weeks, leaders of the North Carolina legislature have faced severe criticism from fellow lawmakers, think tankers, and the news media for their questionable handling of so-called “discretionary funds” within state government. For the most part, the leaders’ response has been surprisingly – and often quite disastrously – defiant. Asked about his role in a secret scheme to fund local projects requested by select legislators, and in one case to fund a state job for a former legislator instrumental in delivering him the reins of power in Raleigh, House Speaker Jim Black dismissed his...