Ashvegas Hot Sheet: Charges dropped against Marzelle

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More of what’s going around:

-The Mountain Xpress reports that two misdemeanor charges filed against Terry Marzelle last week during a bomb scare in West Asheville will be dropped by District Attorney Todd Williams. Community activist Jodi Rhoden had organized a legal defense fund to support Marzelle. She called his arrest “racist” and unjust. The statement from Asheville Police Chief Tammy Hooper doesn’t specifically address those charges. Rather, Hooper’s statement implicitly supports her police officers’ actions through its detail recounting of the incident.

-The Buncombe County Tourism Development Authority formally approved a $ 2.25 million grant for the Woodfin Greenway & Blueway project on Wednesday. The Woodfin Greenway & Blueway project has an estimated total cost of $13.9 million. The TDA grant brings financial commitments to $11.6 million. A long way still to go on fundraising. Stay up with the project and do your part to help it become a reality by making a donation today at woodfingreenwayandblueway.org

-WLOS scored a viral video when a television news camera crew as sent to Walmart on Bleachery Boulevard on Wednesday to do a story about the cost of fireworks. Instead, a WLOS camera got video of an SUV running down a shirtless man in the Walmart parking lot. The woman driving the SUV told police the man had broken into her vehicle. The man, who suffered minor injuries, has been charged with breaking-and-entering. The woman has been charged with assault with a deadly weapon, according to WLOS.

-Ruth Bell Graham died 10 years ago this month, but her influence lives on, reporter Tim Funk writes for the Charlotte Observer. More:

It’s there in the ways scholars are re-telling the story of her famous evangelist husband, Billy Graham, now 98. In new books, they credit her with key contributions to the success of a worldwide ministry that spanned nearly 60 years. Her continuing impact is also evident in the ways their son Franklin Graham, also a preacher, keeps making headlines: with his prayer rallies, with his humanitarian work and with conservative Facebook posts that often echo his mother’s criticism of an American culture she felt was in the throes of moral decay.

-Walt Dickinson of Wicked Weed thinks the Brewer’s Association’s certified indy craft seal for beer is a waste of time. The Brewer’s Association, a trade group representing small breweries, unveiled the seal as a way to help consumers tell the difference between independent breweries and those that have sold to big-time brewing operations. Anheuser-Busch recently acquired Wicked Weed.

-Here’s this week’s Asheville City Council meeting, in case you’re just dying to watch the action.

-Asheville City Council considers divesting from banks that are invested in fossil fuels, writes Asheville Unreported.