State Sen. Ellie Kinnaird reports on local Occupy Wall Street-related matters in her latest newsletter to constituents.

The Orange County Democrat says  the Chapel Hill Friends Meeting provided Thanksgiving dinner for the Occupy Chapel Hill group.  "The homeless have, of course, found Occupy, so presumably some of them enjoyed it too," she says.

"At N.C. State, the CEO of Wells Fargo (John Stumpf), newly arrived in North Carolina having bought our historic Wachovia Bank, had his speech interrupted by various students and Occupiers," Kinnaird continues. 

"I wrote him a letter suggesting the protesters have a valid message and that he could take an important step by reducing his $18.9 million compensation to no more than 100 times his lowest paid worker.  Japan’s ratio is 12:1 and after the U.S., the highest is Venezuela’s at 50:1; the U.S.’s ratio is a startling 475:1.  He could also set a policy to only award bonuses for stellar performance (as opposed to driving the economic bus into the ditch and ruining the lives of families)."

N.C. State University has received one of its largest corporate grants to finance a private research project for Silicon Valley computing giant Intel.

Intel's $1.5 million contract with N.C. State pays for 13 professors, researchers and graduate students -- including an electrical and computer engineering professor from Duke University -- to improve on 3D computer chip technology.

The goal of the project is stack computer chips in a bid to boost the energy efficiency of a computer's processors by up to 25 percent. Achieving that efficiency goal would generate that much more computing power at server farms and other facilities that depend on gargantuan amounts of electricity to operate.

"We're re-architecting the computer, changing the way a computer works, to exploit the third dimension," said N.C. State electrical and computer engineering professor Paul Franzon, the lead researcher on the project.

N.C. State University's engineering job fair is expected to attract more than 265 employers and thousands of job seekers next week in Raleigh.

The biannual event is one of the nation's largest career fairs for engineering students, drawing applicants from far beyond local universities. Last year nearly 5,000 job seekers thronged to the fair.

This year's event will be held at the McKimmon Center, 1101 Gorman St.

For more info call 919-515-3263 or visit http://students.engr.ncsu.edu/careerfair/.

A group of Raleigh developers and a Washington real estate firm have been selected to build a 125-room hotel on Hillsborough Street across from the N.C. State University Bell Tower.

N.C. State officials announced the selection of Bell View Partners and The Bernstein Companies on Tuesday.

The university’s endowment fund has spent the last several years buying up property across from the tower in an effort to make the site more attractive to developers.

The project is the latest in a flurry of redevelopment activity along Hillsborough, which was given a $10 million makeover by the city last year.

Earlier this month The Brewery, a popular live music venue, was demolished to make way for a drugstore, a parking deck and apartments.

N.C. State began soliciting redevelopment proposals for the 1.3-acre of property it owns in the spring.

The hotel would include ground floor retail and a restaurant.

The project would occupy the stretch of Hillsborough between Enterprise Street and Maiden Lane, replacing both Sadlack’s Heroes and a retail center that is currently home to Schoolkids Records.

N.C. State University officials say they have patched up a leak that shut down the campus nuclear reactor nearly three weeks ago.

The small research reactor had been leaking about 10 gallons of water an hour from a 15,600-gallon pool used to cool the superheated reactor core and radioactive fuel rods. Total leakage came to about 3,500 gallons.

The leaking water was tainted with radioactivity but posed no public health risk, university officials said. The water was presumed to flow through the Burlington Nuclear Engineering Laboratory on campus and into the ground below.

N.C. State University said this afternoon it shut down its research reactor after a leak was discovered at the nuclear facility.

The small nuclear reactor is leaking about 10 gallons an hour and poses no public health risk, the university said.

N.C. State said it is not required to report leaks under 350 gallons per hour, but it chose to do so. The public notice comes five days after the leak was discovered on Saturday.

"The leak is the size of a pinhead," said N.C. State spokeswoman Caroline Barnhill.

N.C. State University has picked a speaker from Duke for its spring commencement. Duke Energy that is. James E. Rogers, chairman of the board, president and CEO of the power company will deliver the commencement address.

Rogers has more than 20 years of experience as a CEO in the electric utility industry. He was named president and CEO of Duke Energy, one of the largest electric power companies in the United States, following the merger of Duke Energy and Cinergy in April 2006.

He has served more than 50 cumulative years on the boards of Fortune 500 companies, and in leadership roles for a host of organizations and energy councils and was named to Newsweek’s “Global Elite” list of “The 50 Most Powerful People in the World” in 2009. He will receive an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree. 

During the ceremony, Chancellor Randy Woodson will also confer an honorary degree on Robert Weiss, the artistic director and chief executive officer of Carolina Ballet. 

Commencement is set for Saturday, May 14, at the RBC Center in Raleigh. The ceremony starts at 9 a.m.

Officials at N.C. State University's business school have spent the past year testing a new type of executive education program with local companies such as IBM, BASF and Eisai.

This morning in Raleigh, the university's Poole College of Management will unveil the new name for its executive education programs: Business Collaboratories. The clinics are designed to help business leaders solve challenging problems using a cross-disciplinary group of faculty.

"After three years of downsizing and with the rise of Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC nations) as major players in the business landscape, companies are feeling the pressure to refocus their business models and re-invest in their key people," said Paul Mugge, executive director of the program.

For N.C. State's Poole College, the program is an effort to attract more corporate executives amid increasing competition from a wide range of traditional and online business schools, including at local rivals UNC Chapel Hill and Duke University.

Stay-at-home moms may have been right all along when their maternal instincts told them they're best equipped to care for their children.

A new study from N.C. State University concludes that children of mothers who work outside the home have a significantly higher risk of health problems, accidents and injuries.

The study found that kids of working moms have a 200 percent increase in the risk of experiencing overnight hospitalizations, asthma episodes and injuries or poisonings.

Parenting is an intensely emotional subject that leads to feelings of guilt, inadequacy and -- just as often -- a sense of superiority among parents, particularly among moms who handle the bulk of child-rearing duties. The so-called mommy wars have heated up in recent years as the numbers of women with children under age 18 who are in the workforce has risen to more than 75 percent.

A television show produced by N.C. State University has won a regional Emmy Award.

The team that produced "In the Garden with Bryce Lane" received the award over the weekend at the 25th Annual Midsouth Regional Emmy Awards.

The show is produced by NCSU's Communication Services department.  Bryce Lane, host and instructor in N.C. State’s Horticultural Science Department, brings more than 28 years of teaching experience to television.

The production team includes videographer/editor Simone Keith, producer Sonya Williams Harris and graphic artist John Vanaman. The show airs Saturdays at noon on UNC-TV.

Williams Harris said In the Garden won the award for a show about gardening with children. The episode, from the show’s seventh season, features Lane’s grandchildren working in his home garden, as well as students from Raleigh’s Ravenscroft School and 4-H horticulture specialist Liz Driscoll demonstrating fun gardening activities for children.

In the Garden, beginning its ninth season this year, is the only show of its kind offered in North Carolina. The show is both a television series and a horticulture distance education course. Viewers can register for the course to earn college credit.