Not left, not right. Just straightahead news

Hey, you’re not a hotnasty 15-year-old!
WLOSers led off the 6 on Thursday with another story about a 41-year-old Candler man getting busted for soliciting sex with an under-age female over the Internet. When are these rubes going to learn?

The 15-year-old hottie was actually a Buncombe County deputy with a pair of handcuffs. Holly Headache said police are cracking down on sex predators. To illustrate all the activity, she said this is the second arrest of an alleged sex predator “in 45 days.” Wow! That really is cracking down, isn’t it!

Holly interviewed a mommy at a bus stop who said yeah, she wants her kids to be safe. She doesn’t let her 10 and 13-year-old have MySpace accounts or use the computer unsupervised. And Holly also talked to our favorite librarian, Ed Sheary, who said the library works to keep their computers smut-free.

Live in the news center, that was Holly Headache.

The driveway shooting
Sheraldo went down to Henderson County to update us on what Larry “Bluntman” Blunt has dubbed “the driveway shooting.” That’s clever, because there was a shooting in somebody’s driveway.

Larry Ledbetter is charged with assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill for pumping five rounds from his rifle into a truck coming up his long drive. Ledbetter told the court he feared for his life, that he was shooting in self-defense. The truck was driving crazy and could have hit a propane takn and blowed us all up, he said.

But prosecutors say Ledbetter was shooting to kill. Sheraldo showed video of the courtroom dramatics, with the prosecutor holding the guys rifle and stepping toward the jury. “One. Two. Three. Four. Five,” she said, counting off the shots. “He wasn’t aiming for the tires.”

The jury deliberated about an hour and a half on Thursday. We should have a verdict Friday.

Call Heath Shuler
WLOSers said U.S. Rep. Heath Shuler wants them to call his office if they need constitutuent help. That’s because Charles Taylor, the guy Shuler beat, couldn’t pass along private records like Social Security records and health records without people’s permission. Call Shuler at 252-1651, WLOSers said.

In other Dem news, the Democrats in Congress finished up their first 100 hours and passed a minimum wage increase, 911 Commission recommendations, and a law to require Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices. On Thursday, Shuler voted to cut interest on college loans from 6.8 percent to 3.4 percent over the next five years.

In other news…
Joel Rivera pleaded guilty to murder in Henderson County. He killed his girlfriend last September and shot their 15-month-old, who survived… There was a drive-by shooting in Pisgahview. No life-threatening injuries… WLOSers brought back the Soapbox and went out and asked people what they would do with $205 million. That’s what the Powerball jackpot is up to… Haywood County could get a sales tax increase if legislators approve it… WLOSers pretty much blew off the weather after realizing it wasn’t all that. They had Terrie Foster do a dumb story about how plants that have been blooming with be just fine in the cold… Some parents in Haywood County are pissed that Friday, which was a teacher work day, was switched to a regular day of classes after schools were shut down Thursday because of the so-called storm.