A federal appeals court is backing the U.S. government’s decision not to release photos and video taken of Osama bin Laden during and after a raid in which the terrorist leader was killed by U.S. commandos.

The three-judge panel of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia turned down an appeal Tuesday from Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group, which had filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the images.

The court said that the CIA properly withheld publication of the images. The court concluded that the photos used to conduct facial recognition analysis of bin Laden could reveal classified intelligence methods — and that images of bin Laden’s burial at sea could trigger violence against American citizens.

A state senator has resigned from the North Carolina General Assembly and is joining a Raleigh law firm to help clients on economic development, regulatory and other government policy issues.

Five-term Republican Sen. Richard Stevens of Cary resigned effective last Friday, and the Smith Anderson law firm announced his hiring Monday.

Stevens already had announced in February he wasn't seeking re-election this fall. He served in the budget-adjusting session that ended in early July. Stevens is a former Wake County manager who once served as the trustee board chairman at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

It's unclear whether Wake County Republican leaders will choose someone to serve out the remaining four months of Stevens' term, since there are no plans for the Legislature to reconvene this year.

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