He had managed to free himself from leg restraints and, with his hands still handcuffed, ran into adjacent woods.

Alston is described as a Black man with friends and family in the area.

The Orange County Sheriff’s Office that serves the Hillsborough area said he was last seen wearing a gray T-shirt, brown pants and white New Balance tennis shoes. His handcuffs are connected to a belly chain.

A “massive” ground search operation has been launched in a 1-2 mile radius around the UNC Hospitals Hillsborough Campus, the sheriff’s office said, with residents being informed that they are likely to see a “heavy” law enforcement presence in the area.

Officers from multiple agencies have been checking outbuildings, ravines, unlocked vehicles and any area that may provide Alston with cover, it said.

“While the number one objective is to locate where Alston is, it is also imperative that we determine where he is not,” Emergency Services Director Kirby Saunders said in a statement. “Efforts will continue until Alston is in custody.”

Police are urging people in the area to keep cars, doors and windows locked.

A $25,000 has been offered for information that leads to his recapture.

Alston escaped as he was serving a life sentence at Bertie Correctional after being convicted of first-degree murder in 2018 for the Christmas Day killing of 1-year-old Maleah Williams three years prior.

Former President Donald Trump’s campaign was forced to pay more than $82,000 in advance for this week’s rally in Asheville, North Carolina.

Trump is set to take the stage at Asheville’s Thomas Wolfe Auditorium on Wednesday after paying $82,247.60 to the city for a “last-minute” rally, according to Blue Ridge Public Radio (BPR). The campaign, struggling to effectively blunt the momentum of Vice President Kamala Harris, reportedly first contacted the city about the rally on August 8.

City of Asheville spokesperson Kim Miller told BPR that $22,500 of the amount paid is a two-day rental fee for the auditorium, while “the remainder of the funds go to cover additional costs such as house support, production staff, production equipment rental, and exterior items like queue stanchions and port-a-loos.”

While the campaign paid in advance due to Asheville’s policy for short-notice bookings, Trump has a long history of failing to pay cities for billed rally fees, leaving the White House in January 2021 with at least $850,000 in unpaid rally debt. Most of the bills are still unpaid, including more than $500,000 owed to the city of El Paso, Texas.

Newsweek reached out for comment to the Trump campaign via email on Tuesday.

The Trump campaign booked the smaller of two venues at the same complex in downtown Asheville for Wednesday’s rally. The Thomas Wolfe Auditorium has a capacity of just 2,431 people, while a larger arena next door that is not hosting Trump has a capacity of 7,200.

Trump has long been fixated on the size of his rally crowds, boasting about attendance numbers—which were artificially inflated—on more than on occasion. Well-attended rallies for Harris and her running mate Tim Walz have seemingly prompted the former president to become particularly sensitive about the issue recently.

During a news conference at Mar-a-Lago last week, Trump falsely claimed to have held a rally with 100,000 spectators, while also complaining about the press going “crazy” for reporting on high attendance figures at Harris rallies.

In a recent Truth Social post, the former president also pushed a false conspiracy theory that claims images of a Harris rally used artificial intelligence to generate large crowds that “didn’t exist,” pointing to an event last week in Michigan that drew an estimated 15,000 Harris supporters.

Trump campaigning in North Carolina is likely part of an effort to secure victory in a state that has voted solidly Republican in presidential elections since the 1980s, with the lone exception being former President Barack Obama winning the state by a tiny margin in 2008.

But President Joe Biden lost to Trump in North Carolina by less than 100,000 votes in 2020 and a poll released this week shows that Harris is now tied with the former president in The Tar Heel State.

A federal judge has ordered the state Board of Elections to put presidential candidate Cornel West on the November ballot.  

In an order issued Monday, U.S. District Judge Terrence W. Boyle wrote that the state Board of Elections’ decision last month to deny certification of West’s Justice for All party infringed on voters’ constitutional rights. 

In a 3-2 party line vote last month, the state elections board declined to certify Justice for All as a political party. The Democratic majority questioned the validity of petition signatures submitted for the group. 

County elections boards from a handful of counties reported fraudulent signatures, which prompted state board members to direct staff to contact more signatories. 

State office staff tried to reach 250 people by phone and spoke with 49. Of those, 18 said they didn’t sign and three didn’t remember signing. 

The board majority used these results, as well as questions about a third party that collected signatures on Justice for All’s behalf, to deny party certification.

Three petition signers sued. 

Boyle said using results of a limited telephone survey to conclude that “a substantial portion” did not sign and “many others” were not informed of the petition’s purpose “defies reason.”

Though West is a left-of-center candidate, well-known GOP lawyers represented the Justice for All voters. The Republican National Committee and the North Carolina Republican Party submitted a court brief supporting Justice for All.

Justice for All’s court win marked Monday’s second victory for alternative party candidates seeking ballot access. On Monday afternoon, a Wake Superior Court judge turned back the North Carolina Democrats’ attempt to keep Robert F. Kennedy Jr. off the ballot.