ECU football: Pirates headed to Birmingham Bowl, will play Coastal Carolina

Two power substations in a North Carolina county were damaged by gunfire in what is being investigated as a criminal act. A spokesman for Duke Energy said at a news conference with local officials on Sunday that the damage caused the night before could take days to repair. Power was out for roughly 37,000 customers Sunday. In response, officials announced a state of emergency that included a curfew from 9 p.m. Sunday to 5 a.m. Monday. County schools will be closed Monday. Moore County Sheriff Ronnie Fields says authorities have not determined a motivation.

The nation’s largest public utility is recommending replacing an aging coal burning power plant with natural gas, ignoring calls for the Tennessee Valley Authority to speed its transition to renewable energy. TVA on Friday announced the completion of its environmental impact statement for replacing the Cumberland Fossil Plant near Cumberland City, Tennessee. TVA says in a news release that solar and battery storage would be more costly and time-consuming than gas. The recommendation still needs the approval of TVA President and CEO Jeff Lyash. He has previously spoken in favor of gas. The announcement drew immediate backlash from groups that include the Center for Biological Diversity, which calls the plan “reckless.”

Eight years into a U.S. program to control damage from feral pigs, the invasive animals are still a multibillion-dollar plague on farmers, wildlife and the environment. They've been wiped out in 11 of the 41 states where they were reported in 2014 or 2015. And there are fewer in parts of the other 30. But in spite of more than $100 million in federal money, officials estimate there are still 6 million to 9 million hogs gone wild nationwide and in three U.S. territories, doing at least $2.5 billion a year in U.S. damages. Estimates in 2014 were 5 million hogs and $1.5 billion in damages. Experts say the bigger figures are due to better estimates, not increases.

Since the recovery of sunken treasure began decades ago from an 1857 shipwreck off the coast of South Carolina, tens of millions of dollars worth of gold has been sold. But scientists, historians and collectors say that the real fortunes will begin to hit the auction block on Saturday in Reno. For the first time, hundreds of Gold Rush-era artifacts entombed in the S.S. Central America, known as the “Ship of Gold,” will go on public sale. A few of the items from the pre-Civil War steamship, which sank in a hurricane on its way from Panama to New York City, could fetch as much as $1 million.

Tensions over gender identity and sexual orientation pervade the campuses of hundreds of U.S. Catholic and Protestant universities. The Christian teachings they ascribe to hold that God created humans in unchangeable male and female identities, and sex should only happen within the marriage of a man and a woman. But today’s students are used to far different values. The majority of Christian colleges and universities list “sexual orientation” in their nondiscrimination statements, and half of them also list “gender identity” – a big increase from even a decade ago. But translating that into practice creates struggles affecting most campus life — curriculum, enrollment at single-gender institutions, housing, restroom design, and pronoun use.

Tensions over gender identity and sexual orientation pervade the campuses of hundreds of U.S. Catholic and Protestant universities. The Christian teachings they ascribe to hold that God created humans in unchangeable male and female identities, and sex should only happen within the marriage of a man and a woman. But today's students are used to far different values. The majority of Christian colleges and universities list “sexual orientation” in their nondiscrimination statements, and half of them also list “gender identity” – a big increase from even a decade ago. But translating that into practice creates struggles affecting most campus life — curriculum, enrollment at single-gender institutions, housing, restroom design, and pronoun use.

Two power substations in a North Carolina county were damaged by gunfire in what is being investigated as a criminal act. A spokesman for Duke Energy said at a news conference with local officials Sunday that the damage caused the night before could take days to repair. Power was out for roughly 35,400 customers Monday morning, down by several thousand from the peak of the outages. In response, officials had announced a state of emergency that included a curfew from 9 p.m. Sunday to 5 a.m. Monday. County schools are closed Monday. Moore County Sheriff Ronnie Fields says authorities have not determined a motivation but it appeared gates were breached at both sites.

U.S. futures dipped and oil prices rose after the European Union and the Group of Seven democracies agreed on a boycott of most Russian oil and committed to a price cap of $60 per barrel on Russian exports. Futures for the Dow Jones Industrials and the S&P 500 were each down about 0.4% before the bell Monday. It was unclear how much Russian oil the two sanctions measures might remove from the global market, tightening supply and driving up prices. U.S. benchmark crude oil picked up $2.17 to $82.15 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.