Across the southeast

Mayor supports ban on gold teeth, saggy pants

JACKSONVILLE, FLA. - Jacksonville's mayor has signed a proclamation at the request of local church members to favor a citywide ban on gold teeth and drooping trousers.

Church members say the styles stop young black men from getting jobs and help make them pawns of the prison-industrial complex.

"If you look like a thug, walk like a thug, dress like a thug, guess what? You're a thug," said the Rev. William Robinson, the interim pastor of Epiphany Baptist Church, the predominantly black church that proposed the ban in June.

Mayor John Peyton signed the nonbinding decree weeks after the idea died without discussion in the city council.

There is virtually no chance the city will turn its law enforcement officers into fashion police. But church officials see Mr. Peyton's signature as a symbolic victory.

Out-of-state students get taxpayer money

RALEIGH, N.C. - A provision in the state budget means North Carolina taxpayers will pay part of the bill for hundreds of out-of-state students who attend University of North Carolina campuses on scholarship.

The provision, which allows out-of-state students on full scholarship to be considered North Carolina residents for tuition purposes, originally said no state money would be spent to offset the cost. That language was dropped from the final version of the bill.

Out-of-state students pay about $12,000 a year more than in-state students to attend North Carolina State University and about $14,000 more a year to attend the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.

Campuses will not have to count out-of-state scholarship students toward the UNC system's 18 percent limit on students from outside the state.