Women make up the fastest growing segment of inmates in the U.S. correctional system.

According to a 2016 study conducted by the Vera Institute of Justice, the number of women in jail grew from under 8,000 in 1970 to over 110,000 in 2014 and nearly half of them are in small county jails. 

A Cherokee resident will spend four years in federal prison for his involvement in the 2015 stabbing death of 25-year-old Tyler Gaddis, of Whittier. 

Two defendants in a marriage fraud case set to go to trial Monday, May 14, have opted to enter a guilty plea instead. 

It’s been a difficult couple of weeks for Macon County as school administration and law enforcement try to get to the bottom of a student-led suicide pact and a student-made hit list. 

Howard “Howdy” White Jr., a former episcopal priest who served in Waynesville until 2006, was indicted last week by a Haywood County Grand Jury on sexual abuse charges.

A bail bondsman who the FBI accused of accepting sexual favors in lieu of monetary repayments pleaded guilty to one count of forced labor, a felony that carries a maximum sentence of 20 years and a $250,000 fine. 

Plans to build a crisis stabilization unit in Cherokee for people battling addictions stalled this month when Tribal Council, for the second month running, voted to delay approval of the $31.5 million expenditure. 

Ruth Marie Sequoyah McCoy, former deputy superintendent of the Bureau of Indian Affairs Cherokee agency, pled guilty to conspiracy to commit marriage fraud during a hearing at the U.S. District Court in Asheville Friday, March 2.

The first weeks of 2018 have seen some offbeat books shamble across my desk and into my fingers.

First up is John Buchan’s Mr. Standfast, also known as Mr. Steadfast. Buchan, a Scottish novelist and politician who served as Governor General of Canada from 1935 to 1940, is best remembered for his suspense novel The Thirty-Nine Steps, a grandfather in the genre of intrigue. Alfred Hitchcock later made Buchan’s tale of a manhunt, a precursor to “The Bourne Identity,” into a film. 

(Editor’s Note: Readers should be cautioned that several of the descriptions of scalping and related practices presented in this column are graphic.)     

When I was a boy, incidents of scalping by Native Americans were a staple in the old-time movies about the “Wild West.” And there is no doubt whatsoever that the western tribes utilized that practice. But what about the Cherokee, Creek, Catawba and other southeastern tribes — to what extent was scalping a part of their warfare and ritual?