Police: Vandalism suspected in North Carolina power outage

MOORE COUNTY, N.C. (AP) — Authorities in North Carolina believe vandalism may have caused a power outage that affected thousands of customers Saturday night. The Moore County Sheriff’s Office says in a Facebook post that a mass power outage in several communities beginning just after 7 p.m. Saturday is being investigated as a possible crime. WRAL-TV reports Utility company Duke Energy says nearly 38,000 customers were without power in Moore County, while the Randolph Electric Membership Corporation reports outages affected nearly 3,000 customers in the county’s southern area. WRAL reports a Duke Energy spokesman says the power company is investigating signs of potential vandalism related to the outages.