A North Carolina environmental board whose recent membership alteration by the General Assembly is being challenged by Gov. Roy Cooper can cancel its own lawsuit over pollution limits while the governor’s broader litigation about several state commissions continues, judges ruled Friday. The decision from a three-judge panel — a setback for Cooper — dissolves last month’s order from a single judge to temporarily block the Environmental Management Commission...

Paul Powell, the southern Illinois political powerhouse who died and left behind $800,000 in cash in the notorious “Shoebox Scandal,” used to say, “The only thing worse than a defeated politician is a broke one.” For more than half a century, a Powell-established $250,000 trust sustained his legacy, for better or worse. But the account that maintained his birthplace as a museum will soon run dry. The fate...