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But proof for just how high expectations are for the team was evidenced by the Tigers’ trifecta.

Harper and Clemson’s pair of stellar running backs, senior James Davis and junior C.J. Spiller, went 1-2-3 in the player of the year voting.

It is unclear whether teammates have ever even gone 1-2 in the voting. ACC associate commissioner Mike Finn said last week the league has only found its records for the last three preseason player-of-the-year votes.

Harper collected 34 of 64 first-place votes, with Davis a distant second at 16. Spiller tallied four, and four players - Wake Forest tailback Josh Adams, Wake Forest quarterback Riley Skinner, Florida State quarterback Drew Weatherford and Virginia Tech quarterback Sean Glennon - had two apiece.

Chief executive Bob Steel, hired less than two weeks ago to bring the struggling bank back to its former glory, had hinted that he envisioned a smaller, leaner Wachovia. Today, in his first earnings announcement, he kept his word, announcing numerous other plans to preserve capital.

Wachovia, South Carolina's largest bank by deposits, also said it will cut 10,750 positions. The initiative, outlined in earnings materials released today, eliminates 6,350 active positions and 4,400 open positions and contractors.

The bank said the expense reductions come on top of previously announced job cuts in areas such as corporate and investment banking. The bank will continue its expansion in the West, where it has been building branches and hiring bankers, but at a slower pace.

At the end of June, Wachovia had 119,952 employees, down from 120,378 at the end of March.

The X6 is part of a $750 million investment in the Greer plant, which is cranking out 660 cars daily — 150 of them X6s.

The crossover — part coupe, part SUV — also represents the future of the Greer plant as BMW phases out the Z4, two-seat roadster at the end of the year.

Production of the Z4 will shift to Germany, the automaker’s home. BMW has made roadsters at the 14-year-old Greer plant since 1996.

In a few years, the facility will be known locally as the “X” plant, building four-wheel drive vehicles. The X6 is being built alongside the X5 midsize SUV and will be joined next decade by the X3 mini-SUV.

Kale Roscoe of Detroit and Robert Heath of Philadelphia — who jump-started the University of Kentucky’s Coldstream research campus — also say they will start construction of the first of two long-awaited private research buildings in four weeks.

Talks also are under way with undisclosed local firms to move to the downtown Columbia research campus, USC officials said.

“The university wants to see action, and we want to do the work,” said Roscoe, who also helped develop the University of Michigan’s research campus. “You can rest assured that we will put the buildings up.”

Innovista has lagged in both constructing research facilities and recruiting tenants.

Less than a day’s supply of certain blood types is on hand in the Midlands, according to the S.C. Blood Services Region of the American Red Cross in Columbia. And patients in some S.C. hospitals are waiting to get transfusions.

The pool of new teenage donors is critical for blood banks like the one in Columbia. But the timing of a new S.C. law allowing donors to be younger didn’t lend itself to going into schools, where the banks are most likely to get the word out to 16-year-olds.

“We’re in the process of getting that implemented now for the new school year,” said Robert de Jongh, interim chief executive officer for the agency.

The law passed in March extended blood donation rights to 16-year-olds for the first time, provided they have parental consent. Seventeen-year-olds can donate on their own.

She had looked into swimming lessons for Timothy, 9, and her daughter Kezia, 7, through the city’s Parks and Recreation Department.

But the fee — $30 for each child — was off-putting.

So for Gibson, the free Swim for Life water survival skills program, offered through the city of Columbia and the American Red Cross, is right on time.

“He’s trying. He wants to learn,” Gibson said of her son while standing outside the Maxcy Gregg Park pool Wednesday.

After a controversial vote Tuesday that killed a plan for a penny-on-the-dollar sales tax increase to operate buses for at least eight years, Columbia-area politicians were pointing fingers at each other over who should foot the bill.

“I don’t think Richland County should be the only source of revenue,” County Council chairman Joe McEachern said. “Everybody is trying to make it that way.”

McEachern wants Columbia to help shoulder the county’s $3.6 million annual contribution toward buses that transport 10,000 riders daily.

Mayor Bob Coble said the city’s hands are tied — by law. “If they are not going to extend it (the fee), there really are no other options,” Coble said.

About four out of five crashes are alcohol-related. Since January, there have been 39 deaths in 29 crashes, said S.C. Highway Patrol Capt. Leroy Taylor.

The Highway Patrol unit in charge of Lexington is using a number of strategies to combat the crashes.

Some efforts include:

• Working with law enforcement partners to set up more driver’s license safety checkpoints on the days of the week and times those crashes occurred

The campaign — calling the state “so gay” as a destination — was pulled by Gov. Mark Sanford and tourism officials after it was discussed on a political blog. The state also refused to pay the $4,942 cost of the campaign.

Andrew Roberts, the chief executive of the tour company that touted the state as a gay destination, said he toured the state because he initially was skeptical about how welcoming South Carolina would be toward gay tourists. To find out, Roberts said he met with local tourism officials in Myrtle Beach, Charleston and Hilton Head in April.

South Carolina “was not an obvious destination” for international gay tourists, Roberts told the Q-Notes Web site, saying he needed to visit the state himself.

The State newspaper’s efforts to reach Roberts for comment Wednesday were unsuccessful.

Pickens County officials voted this week to require all business to be conducted in English except in an emergency. Another vote on the issue is slated for next month, and the requirement would become official if it passes.

The law would apply only to companies doing business with the county and would not affect hospitals, schools or courts, County Council vice chairman Ben Trotter said.

“English is something that we speak,” he said Wednesday. “If we went to Mexico ... you do not dial one for Spanish or two for English. You learn theirs, or you’re out in the cold. They don’t bend over backwards for us.”

The plan to make English the official language in Pickens County is just part of the ordinance. Touted as a plan to curb hiring of illegal immigrants, the ordinance also says the county would not employ anyone who cannot document that they can work legally in the United States. It also would require vendors working for the county to certify they do not knowingly hire or employ unauthorized workers.

The cut is because of a simple lack of beds: Fort Jackson is three years into a $1 billion, eight-year barracks renovation.

Other basic training installations are picking up the slack for a time, and there will be no slide in the overall number of recruits entering the service, according to Fort Jackson’s chief operating officer.

“We are doing fewer this summer surge than in a traditional summer, about 3,000 fewer,” Stephen Pinette said in an interview.

Even with the slight dip in recruits over the summer months, Fort Jackson will retain its place as the service’s top basic training installation, Pinette said, graduating about 50,000 enlisted soldiers every year. That amounts to about 54 percent of the soldiers who enter the Army and about 74 percent of its female enlistees.

A buck in his pocket meant Pearsall didn’t have to seek another, said those who loved the tall, restless man known as “Tree.” He was found dead of natural causes Sunday at age 51 on an empty house’s porch in Atlantic Beach.

Everybody in town knew he was Michael Jordan’s cousin, but his superstar kinship was just a novelty to those who enjoyed his easygoing manner.

“Tree was a landmark,” said Atlantic Beach native Erica Lewis as she smoked a cigarette Tuesday in front of Town Hall, just a few feet from one of Pearsall’s favorite resting spots.

“He could meet you for the first time, and he’d tell you about everyone in Atlantic Beach. And everything he’d be telling you — he wouldn’t be lying.”

The Born to Read volunteer, Liz Key, held a small plastic bag filled with a bib, a diaper, handouts explaining the importance of reading, and a book. If the mothers she sees as she makes her rounds are willing to listen, the volunteer reviews the materials that emphasize the benefits of reading with children, such as increased success at school and bonding with parents.

The Born to Read program, a United Way of the Lowcountry program, has been at Beaufort Memorial for six years this week.

“It’s the best way to get a mother and family to talk, read and sing to the baby, and the baby’s mind will be stimulated so (the baby) will do better when it gets to school,” said Corinne Hargood, a volunteer with the program since it began at Beaufort Memorial Hospital.

The program also provides a list of pediatricians for parents who have not selected one and makes referrals to English, math or literacy classes for those who would benefit. Beaufort Memorial has about 2,000 deliveries a year, said Nora Kresch, hospital spokeswoman. From July 2002 to April 30, Born to Read visited more than 12,000 mothers at Beaufort Memorial and Hilton Head Regional Medical Center. The annual budget to supply the reading program is $63,000.

Chief Ed Genthert says if Dorchester County allowed Sunday alcohol sales, it would help local fire departments.

He says unincorporated parts of the county are losing because people go into towns such as Summerville to buy beer on Sunday. Genthert says that costs the county tax revenue and costs the Fire Department money to operate.

The service for Debra Baughman, who worked at Wateree Elementary School, will be at 2 p.m.

Baughman, 45, and her husband and two children were in Florida on I-95 when they were struck by a vehicle traveling in the wrong direction. The driver of the other vehicle also was killed in the Thursday accident.

Scott Baughman, 44, and son Aaron, 14, have undergone surgeries at a Jacksonville hospital. The daughter, Lindsey, 19, was reported in stable condition.

Vincent Lambert Jr., 21, is charged with assault and battery with intent to kill, two counts of auto tampering, driving under suspension and failure to stop for a blue light.

— From Staff Reports

Augusta Road, 2800 block: Police were called to a furniture store Saturday after witnesses said a man was screaming, swearing and threatening employees. When deputies arrived, they found the man in an office, where the manager said the other employees had calmed him down. The customer was upset because a pool table he was supposed to pick up wasn’t ready yet, he said. Witnesses told deputies the man went berserk and began to yell, swear and threaten employees and other customers with bodily harm. The store didn’t prosecute, and no arrest was made.

Fernandina Road, 3500 block: A man called police at 6 a.m. Sunday and said his girlfriend was locked in the bathroom with a knife and threatening to hurt herself. When officers arrived, the woman said she never intended to hurt anyone or herself; she was just trying to get the man’s attention.

RICHLAND COUNTY SHERIFF

Town Center Place, 400 block: Police were called to a movie theater at 3 p.m. Saturday after an employee found a gun with no barrel on it behind an air-conditioning unit. The employee was a minor and told his father about his discovery. The father then called police and turned in the gun.

“The lady was bitten while feeding a family of raccoons,” said Sue Ferguson of the state Department of Health and Environmental Control.

There have been 80 confirmed cases of rabies in S.C. this year.

The teen pleaded guilty last month to being a minor in possession of a handgun.

The teen apologized to Corey Brooks’ family Tuesday before being sentenced.

Authorities say Brooks, 20, was shot and killed after arguing with three people about a parking space in front of a Myrtle Beach house.

Keion Griffin, 18, and Demario Stukes, 17, are charged with murder and awaiting trial.

Larry Garvin was the first commander at the Sofa Super Store fire in June of last year.

Garvin told The Charleston Post and Courier he wanted to retire next year, but the acting chief asked him step down now.

The Canal Authority announced Wednesday the three-year agreement means the agencies will work in joint marketing efforts and exchange data and market studies.

The idea is to increase business for both the canal and South Carolina ports.

Michael Timothy Carter, 49, was sentenced Tuesday after pleading guilty in January, U.S. Attorney Walt Wilkins said.

Prosecutors say the former project manager at Force Protection Industries in Ladson sought cash from Charlotte, Mich.-based subcontractor Spartan Chassis Inc. Prosecutors also say Carter steered business to Spartan and received $1,500 for each chassis.

Contributing: Staff reports; The Associated Press

Now 84, the Columbia man still sits down to play something nearly every day, his small hands bounding across the keyboard of his Baldwin upright, covering the occasional mistake with a trill.

He’s begun to get a little arthritis, he said.

Tucker volunteers at two Columbia area nursing homes, playing piano for the Brotherhood Singers and for Wednesday night prayer meetings at his church.

He’s not a professional pianist by any means but has a real knack for following a singer’s lead.

That’s because included in the Lexington County budget for the 2008-09 fiscal year, which started July 1, is $890,000 for the Sheriff’s Department to start building its west region.

Until recently, one supervisor of master deputy rank and two deputies were assigned to a road patrol shift in the west region.

Now a total of five officers — a sergeant, master deputy and three deputies — will patrol the region. So, the number of deputies assigned to respond to calls for help in the west region patrol district will be nearly doubled.

They will serve residents of the Batesburg-Leesville, Gilbert, Hollow Creek, Summit and West Lexington communities.

He soon connected with others who shared the same passion — all of whom just wanted a place to enjoy their sport.

But, like skateboarders around the Columbia area, Blythewood teens were finding themselves shooed out of parking lots and private property.

The nearest skate parks were nearly a half-hour’s drive from the Northeast Richland town — making them out of reach for many teens.

But things might be changing for Blythewood-area skateboarders.

The practice isn’t widespread but needs to be halted before it spreads, some Town Council members say.

Stationing vans and trucks with their door signs on display on road shoulders circumvents town sign limits, councilman Hardy King said.

Some vehicles parked for weeks have “grass growing underneath them that needs to be mowed,” Mayor John Gibbons said.

The ban in the works would bar stores from leaving vans and trucks on shoulders.

Town Council members agreed Monday to start looking at use of vehicles powered by methods other than gasoline.

It’s a way to save money amid rising gas prices that also is environmentally cleaner, backers said.

The move is the first step toward meeting Mayor Randy Halfacre’s target of reducing town consumption of gas by 5 percent yearly, a savings of 3,600 gallons.

Gas at $4 a gallon “is the tip of the iceberg,” Councilman Ted Stambolitis said. “I don’t think anybody is comfortable with gas prices staying where they are.”

CATHY YOUNG-JONES of Columbia has been named 2008 Outstanding State School Nurse Consultant by the National Association of State School Nurse Consultants. Young-Jones was recognized for facilitating the development of a network of school nurse leaders for the 85 school districts in the Palmetto State. She has served as the State School Health Nurse Consultant with the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control and the S.C. Department of Education since 2002.

THE REV. MARY ANDERSON, pastor of Incarnation Lutheran Church in Columbia, has been named a Reinartz Scholar by the Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary. She will spend the week of Oct. 27-Nov. 2 on the seminary campus, where she will focus on adult catechumenate and how to incorporate rituals and liturgical process to make them more accessible to congregations and pastors.

COREY FLOYD of Lexington has been named Employee of the Year by Sisters of Charity Providence Hospitals. A data analyst for the Organizational Development department and basic life support course director for Providence Heart Institute, Floyd has been with Providence Hospitals for five years.

THE REV. VINNES ANN LEE of Gaston has been awarded the Order of the Palmetto, the state’s highest civilian honor for service. Lee was recognized for her work as founder and leader of the There is Hope Healing Center and Ann Lee Ministries.

LEXINGTON SHERIFF

Ranch Road, 100 block, between 12:01 a.m. and 11:59 p.m. July 5. Someone stole a refrigerator worth $350 from a home.

ZIP CODE 29016

PROPERTY TRANSFERS

The 15-year-old face of the billion-dollar Disney franchise is no longer a star for just the tween set: She’s intriguing people who turn the pages of Seventeen magazine, as well as Us Weekly and Vanity Fair. While “Hannah” is still very much a part of Miley, it does not solely define the singer/actress.

Nowhere is that clearer than with the release of Miley’s latest album, “Breakout,” which comes out today. While Miley has already sold millions of albums, it’s always been with the “Hannah Montana” moniker attached.

But there’s no blonde wig to be found on the cover of this CD. Instead, there’s a more mature sound that’s already finding an older audience. The CD’s first single, the rocker “7 Things,” is now No. 7 on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart) and marks her biggest success in translating her music beyond the Radio Disney audience.

“To be played on these radio stations is awesome, to be able to rock out to it in your car without planning it, without it being just a kids channel,” says Miley, who seems older that 15.

But now the start of the school year will bring back painful memories for the girls’ families.

A high-speed joy ride the trio of 14-year-olds took Monday morning ended with one of them dead and the others in a hospital, authorities said.

Saraya Monsanto, a rear-seat passenger in the Toyota Camry, was pronounced dead at the scene just behind Lugoff-Elgin High School, where the girls were to become freshmen Aug. 18. All three are from Lugoff.

Monsanto was one of two thrown from the car when it flipped several times in a neighborhood on Wildwood Lane, five miles west of Camden. A front-seat passenger was trapped inside.

As Amy Jones jogged off the soccer field of her final college game last year, she broke with a spartan way of life. The runs and weightlifting, the soccer drills and hard-earned rivulets of sweat.

Soon her hours were filled with bottled beer, smoldering joints and morals that stretched like a rubber band in a rented downtown house where drugs were dealt.

As the police rammed down the door and her face was pushed against the cool wooden planks of the living-room floor, she knew the party was over.

At 19 with three felony drug charges dangling over her head, her life got a new focus: Richland County’s Drug Court.

As Obama toured the war zones, McCain ridiculed him from afar during a visit with the first President George Bush at his summer home. At the same time, the Republican contender released an eyebrow-raising new ad flatly blaming the Illinois senator for higher gasoline prices.

McCain has resisted any timetable for withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, insisting that victory in Iraq is a necessary precursor to success in Afghanistan.

Any withdrawal of troops from Iraq “must be based on conditions on the ground,” McCain told reporters as he stood beside the 84-year-old former president.

The Arizona senator disparaged Obama as “someone who has no military experience whatsoever.”

But the Iraqis stopped short of actual timetables or endorsement of Obama’s pledge to withdraw American troops within 16 months if he wins the presidency.

The Democratic presidential contender also got a military briefing — and a helicopter tour — from the top U.S. commander in the region, Gen. David Petraeus, and he met with a few of the nearly 150,000 U.S. troops now well into the war’s sixth year.

In Washington, the White House expressed displeasure with recent public comments by Iraqi leaders on the withdrawal question and suggested they might have the U.S. election on their minds.

As Obama visited Iraq for the first time in more than two years, comments Monday by Iraq’s government spokesman roughly mirrored the Illinois senator’s withdrawal schedule and offered a glimpse of the country’s growing confidence as violence drops and Iraqi security forces expand their roles.

The fires’ victims, some of whom lost their homes and everything they owned, lined up Monday to talk about the emotional and administrative nightmares they have endured while dealing with the destruction they say will linger long after Wooten is released from prison.

“All you want to do is to go home and to be home,” said Tiffany Kelley, who lost her house. “But you can’t do that because that place no longer exists.”

Wooten, barefoot and clad in a red jumpsuit with chains around her waist, didn’t speak during the hearing but wrote a short statement her attorney read in court. She asked for forgiveness and urged her victims to let go of their anger.

“I pray that you will someday have peace that only God can give,” she wrote. “I can only move forward now. I pray that you can as well.”

WASHINGTON — Tractor-trailer and bus drivers in the United States have suffered seizures, heart attacks or unconscious spells behind the wheel that led to deadly crashes on highways.

Hundreds of thousands of drivers carry commercial licenses even though they also qualify for full federal disability payments, according to a new U.S. safety study obtained by The Associated Press.

The problems threatening highway travelers persist despite years of government warnings and hundreds of deaths and injuries blamed on commercial truck and bus drivers who blacked out, collapsed or suffered major health problems behind the wheels of vehicles that can weigh 40 tons or more.

The U.S. agency responsible for cracking down on unfit truckers, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, acknowledges it hasn’t completed any of eight recommendations that U.S. safety regulators have proposed since 2001.

But Monday’s discovery, the equivalent of a fingerprint, doesn’t solve the mystery. Authorities still don’t know where the pepper became tainted — on the farm, or in the McAllen, Texas, plant, or at some stop in between, such as a packing house.

Nor are they saying the tainted pepper exonerates tomatoes sold earlier in the spring that consumers until last week had been told were the prime suspect.

Still, “this genetic match is a very important break in the case,” said Dr. David Acheson, the Food and Drug Administration’s food safety chief.

For now, the government is strengthening its earlier precaution against hot peppers to a full-blown warning that no one should eat fresh jalapenos — or products such as fresh salsa made from them — until it can better pinpoint where tainted ones may have been sold.

The Social Security Administration unveiled its new retirement estimator on its Web site Monday. It takes just a few points and clicks and some personal information to produce benefit estimates within a few minutes.

The new calculator will be followed this fall by an updated online application for benefits that Social Security administrator Michael Astrue promises will reduce application time from the current 45-minute process to 15 minutes — and eliminate the need for follow-up visits to agency field offices.

“These initiatives will help us better handle the baby boomer wave and make it easier for the public to do business with us online,” Astrue said.

Currently, workers get an annual benefit estimate mailed to them. It’s based on prior earnings but assumes people’s salary stays the same until retirement age. The online calculator supplements the annual mailing but won’t replace it.

1796: Cleveland was founded by Gen. Moses Cleaveland.

1934: A man identified as bank robber John Dillinger was shot to death by federal agents outside Chicago’s Biograph Theater.

1937: The Senate rejected President Roosevelt’s proposal to add more justices to the Supreme Court.

1942: The Nazis began transporting Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto to the Treblinka concentration camp.

• The program, which typically lasts 12 months, consists of individual and group counseling, restitution, rehabilitation and random drug tests.

• Graduates’ records are expunged.

2006

March 20: Fire at 1633 N. Woodstream Road

March 22: Fire at 103 Bickleigh Court

March 22: Fire set at 407 Caddis Creek Road. The fire engulfs six houses, destroying four and damaging two others.

• Eligible would be nonviolent, first-time offenders who commit crimes such as grand larceny and breach of trust. Drug court would still take drug offenders.

• Those enrolled in the program would pay the $2,500 cost to attend.

• Completing the program means avoiding prison.

• McMaster also wants to abolish parole to make sure repeat and violent offenders would have to serve at least 85 percent of their sentences.

Jacob Watson, 17, a 12th-grader, practices with the drum line Tuesday.

That summer tradition of band camp is getting under way at Midlands high schools. Hundreds of talented young musicians and quick-stepping color guards will be converging on local schools to begin practicing for competitions. Whether on football fields or inside classrooms, these students and their band directors take the practice time seriously as they prepare for competition in September and October.

Shown here are members of Batesburg-Leesville High’s band; the director is Chaz Paxton.

Benedict College’s Jabari Simama had been a finalist.

The formula long has been criticized for being inflexible, ignoring the needs of poorer districts and shorting the amount paid to fast-growing districts.

A state House of Representatives panel met Tuesday, with some members leaning toward tying school money to students, not programs or school districts. The concept, known as “backpacking,” has been advocated by Gov. Mark Sanford and others as a way to give districts more flexibility, leading to more efficiency.

A Senate committee also is working on the issue.

State Rep. Jeff Duncan, R-Laurens, said he had three objectives in changing the way the state pays for public schools:

Forest Heights kindergartner Christina Bethea, 4, front, and classmate Dorothy Holiday, 5, work on a project.

Council would have to extend the vehicle registration fee past its October expiration date to keep the system afloat — or risk reducing service by 75 percent for a system that makes nearly 2.5 million trips per year.

After more than an hour of spirited debate, council members Bill Malinowski, Norman Jackson, Val Hutchinson, Joe McEachern, Joyce Dickerson and Paul Livingston voted to kill a proposal for a one-cent on the dollar sales tax increase that would have gone on the November ballot.

Those who voted against the proposal could call for the vote to be reconsidered. But they would have to do so by Aug. 15, the deadline to get the referendum on the November ballot. That appears unlikely, since council is not scheduled to meet in August.

The proposal included a plan, which council spent two years and $500,000 crafting, to spend an estimated $521 million in tax revenue that also would have paved roads, built bike lanes and removed the railroad crossings on Assembly Street.