VOLUME 149 ISSUE 1 | THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2026
CHATHAMNEWSRECORD.COM
THE CHATHAM COUNTY EDITION OF NORTH STATE JOURNAL
HASSAN AMMAR / AP PHOTO
Golden age Team USA forward Brady Tkachuk, foreground, takes a photo of Hurricanes defenseman Jaccob Slavin and his family after the United States defeated Canada 2-1 in overtime Sunday to win the men’s hockey gold medal at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan, Italy.
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BRIEF this week
U.S. military boards third oil tanker in Indian Ocean The Pentagon says U.S. military forces have boarded a third sanctioned oil tanker in the Indian Ocean after tracking it from the Caribbean Sea in an effort to target illicit oil connected to Venezuela. U.S. forces boarded the Bertha overnight. President Donald Trump had ordered a quarantine of sanctioned tankers near Venezuela in December to pressure then-President Nicolás Maduro before his capture. Venezuela faced U.S. sanctions on its oil for several years, relying on a shadow fleet of falsely flagged tankers to smuggle crude into global supply chains.
Supreme Court rules Postal Service can’t be sued A divided Supreme Court has ruled that Americans can’t sue the U.S. Postal Service, even when employees deliberately refuse to deliver mail. By a 5-4 vote Tuesday, the justices ruled against Texas landlord Lebene Konan, who alleged her mail was intentionally withheld for two years. Konan is black and claims racial prejudice played a role in postal employees’ actions. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in his majority opinions the federal law that generally shields the Postal Service from lawsuits over missing, lost and undelivered mail includes “the intentional nondelivery of mail.” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in dissent the immunity doesn’t apply to situations when the decision not to deliver mail “was driven by malicious reasons.”
Bear Creek’s Stevens puts his shine on Discovery Channel Chatham County farmer takes small-batch craft to national moonshine stage By Dan Reeves Chatham News & Record BEAR CREEK — Daniel Stevens spends most mornings the same way he has for years — tending poultry houses, check-
Stevens didn’t grow up in a long line of distillers. He was born in Redhouse, West Virginia, and moved to Bear Creek at age 10. His parents started the family farm, and he took it over in 2016. Farming is the family business. Distilling came later. Yet in North Carolina — See STEVENS, page A5
Armed NC man shot, killed at Mar-a-Lago never interested in politics, guns, cousin says Authorities say the 21-year-old groundskeeper purchased the shotgun while driving to Florida By Allen G. Breed The Associated Press CAMERON — The 21-year-old North Carolina man who drove through a gate at President
Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort with a shotgun before he was shot and killed worked as a golf course groundskeeper and liked to sketch. Austin Tucker Martin rare-
ly, if ever, talked about politics, seemed afraid of guns and came from a family of Trump supporters, according to Braeden Fields, a cousin who said the two grew up together. “I wouldn’t believe he would do something like this. It’s mind-blowing,” Fields said. “He wouldn’t even hurt an ant. He
Police finding criminal suspects based on online searches as courts weigh privacy concerns “Unfettered access to the thoughts, feelings, concerns and secrets of countless people” Amicus brief
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ing cattle and keeping a Chatham County farm running. On March 3 at 9 p.m., though, Stevens trades feed bins and fence lines for a national television audience. The Bear Creek farmer will appear on the Dis-
covery Channel in a competitive moonshine series filmed last June in Asheville. Out of roughly 20,000 applicants, producers narrowed the field to 200 before Discovery selected 27 new distillers across two seasons. Each episode features three competitors, with one winner advancing to potential future appearances.
Investigators work backward from search terms to identify suspects By Mark Scolforo The Associated Press HARRISBURG, Pa. — Criminal investigators hoping to develop suspects in difficult cases have been asking Google to reveal who searched for specific information online, seeking “reverse keyword” warrants that critics warn threaten the privacy of innocent people. Unlike traditional search warrants that target a known suspect or location, keyword
warrants work backward by identifying internet addresses where searches were made in a certain window of time for particular terms, such as a street address where a crime occurred or a phrase like “pipe bomb.” Police have used the method to investigate a series of bombings in Texas, the assassination of a Brazilian politician and a fatal arson in Colorado. It’s not a wild guess by investigators to conclude that people are using Google searches in all manner of crimes, as the company’s search engine has become the main gateway to the internet and users’ daily lives See PRIVACY, page A10
doesn’t even know how to use a gun.” Martin drove into the secure perimeter at Mar-a-Lago early Sunday and raised a shotgun at two Secret Service agents and a Palm Beach County sheriff’s deputy who then opened fire See MAR-A-LAGO, page A3