Today’s headlines: Duke Energy decides to buy Piedmont Natural Gas

– Duke Energy will buy Piedmont Natural Gas. The deal, worth $4.9 billion, is expected to close by the end of 2016. The marriage advances a growing reliance on natural gas — it burns cleaner and its price has dropped sharply — by an electric utility long rooted in coal. Together the companies would serve 8.8 million electric and gas customers in seven states.

– The city of Charlotte wants to sell 12 acres of the former Eastland Mall site to Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools next month to build a K-8 school. This would be step No. 1 in redeveloping the currently unused property. The next steps: Building a 22-acre park and selling land to private developers.

– Speaking of schools, North Carolina’s 2015 list of low-performing schools based on low test scores and insufficient student growth named 581 schools. On that list are 37 Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools and nine charter schools in Mecklenburg County.

– And anyone with a slightly offbeat, slightly crude sense of humor can freak out now. Comedian Amy Schumer is coming to town in December. Tickets go on sale tomorrow. 10 a.m.

Photo: Mark Hames.

This story was originally published October 26, 2015 at 10:00 PM with the headline "Today’s headlines: Duke Energy decides to buy Piedmont Natural Gas."