Tattle tales.

• Position: Tar Heel Tattler - Various briefs - Brief Article

Frank Maley

* Swirl or hurl?: Salisbury neighbors Food Lion, the grocery chain, and Cheerwine, the soft-drink maker, have teamed up to produce and sell an ice cream called Cheerwine Swirl.

* Weed digger: Investigators have figured out what happened to some of the 5,000 pounds of marijuana seized in a Pittsboro bust. At least what remained after 3,000 pounds of it was stolen from an unattended truck parked behind the Chatham County Sheriff's Department. A backhoe operator who had been ordered to bury the rest in the county landfill has been indicted on charges that he came back, dug it up and sold it.

* Auto-immune disorder" Timothy Greene, a Watauga County gospel singer and pastor, sued General Motors and a local dealer, claiming his $49,000 Cadillac Escalade makes him sick. In court papers, he blames toxic mold in the carpeting---caused by leaks--for $200,000 in doctor bills.

* Second chancellor: After winning a campus raffle to switch places with UNC Wilmington Chancellor James Leutze, sophomore Jonathan Guggenheim missed two of his first three appointments. He fared no worse than Leutze, who cut Guggenheim's philosophy and sociology classes. Like many students, the chancellor said he was sick.

* Worth every penny: Cities pay consultants handsomely for studies that recommend radical remakes of downtowns. Not Chapel Hill. "Everything looks fine," its consultant concluded. "In fact, it looks pretty darned nice." His findings fit his fee -- he did the study for free as a favor to university administrators.

* Perchance to dream, y'all: The star of the Royal Shakespeare Company had a request while in Charlotte--to visit Lowe's Motor Speedway and drive a race car. His reaction? "To actually get to drive one of these puppies and open it up--that's great!"

* Help wanted: Bonnie Whiting wouldn't say why...