By BRUCE SICELOFF, Raleigh News and Observer

DURHAM, N.C. - Three federal safety inspectors were standing in the dark just after 5 a.m. Thursday as a white Sky Express coach from New York City rolled to a stop. The skinny driver bounded down the steps.

"Are you ready to see my driver's license?" he asked. A few of his 51 passengers stepped from the bus and waited to retrieve their bags.

Wendy and Robby Haun had to sell their home near Cary, N.C., to make way for a state highway project, but the comfortable ranch house did not go to waste.

It went to Builders of Hope, a pioneering Raleigh nonprofit that has found new life and new families for more than 60 discarded dwellings in the past four years.

Be careful that you don't poison your car with ethanol, the alcohol fuel made mostly from corn.

Phil Sielatycki came close to an accidental overdose at a Shell station in Apex, N. Car.

He parked his Audi, swiped his credit card and lifted a yellow fuel nozzle on a blue pump marked "E85 -- 85 percent Ethanol."