Julie Rose

The Charlotte Knights baseball stadium now under construction Uptown nearly didn't happen because of Jerry Reese.  He's a local attorney who filed a series of lawsuits to block the stadium deal just as the recession hit and funding for the project became harder to find. Reese has now agreed stop fighting the stadium in court. 

Jerry Reese is not against having a baseball stadium Uptown – he just thinks it should be for a Major League team, rather than a Minor League one like the Charlotte Knights.

More homeowners in Charlotte have mortgage debt than in most other major metro areas around the country.  Are we just prone to big spending, or is something else at play in the housing market here?  

Almost 21 million Americans – nearly a third of the nation's homeowners – own their homes outright.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police officers are paying personal visits to all "sweepstakes parlors" in the area this week urging proprietors to make sure they're complying with a new ban on the electronic games. WFAE's Julie Rose reports:

CMPD Deputy Chief Vicki Foster estimates there are about 100 free-standing sweepstakes parlors in Mecklenburg County. Most shut down about a week ago when a state ban on the games went into effect, but Foster expects many to reopen in the coming days.

Since the NASCAR Hall of Fame opened in 2010 it has fallen far short of attendance projections and had annual deficits of more than a million dollars. But now, for the first time, CRVA CEO Tom Murray says the Hall of Fame is ahead in something. 

We've already established that Bank of America's 2008 acquisition of Countrywide was a costly move – and a mistake in the view of many. The Charlotte bank has spent tens of billions of dollars on settlements and losses tied to that mountain of messed-up mortgages. On Monday, Bank of America made some important progress.

Another day, another settlement - or really two,  in the case of Bank of America. And these are far from the last we'll expect to see. 

2012 was a banner year for guns in U.S. airports. The Transportation Security Administration seized more than 1,500 firearms at security checkpoints last year. That's up 14 percent over the previous year. 

Atlanta led the list with 115 firearms seized at security checkpoints in 2012, according to preliminary TSA numbers.  That makes some sense, since Atlanta is the busiest airport in the country. 

North Carolina's new members of Congress will take the oath of office Thursday in Washington, including Republican Robert Pittenger who was elected to fill retiring Representative Sue Myrick's seat in Charlotte and Republican Richard Hudson who beat Larry Kissell to represent the 8th District.

Charlotte is a bank town – known for banks in the traditional sense – like Bank of America and Wells Fargo that offer checking accounts, credit cards and loans, if you can qualify. But in the last week, a very different kind of bank opened in Charlotte offering what's known as microloans to small businesspeople who couldn't qualify for a traditional one.