Briefs
by John Temple Ligon

SCBT drives north South Carolina Bank & Trust and its parent company, SCBT Financial Corp., are penetrating the N.C. banking market by buying TSB Financial Corp and its $192.9 million in total assets for $43.4 million. TSB is the parent company of The Scottish Bank, which has five branches in Charlotte. The deal is subject to regulatory approvals and the vote of the shareholders of TSB. South Carolina Bank and Trust has 45 branches and almost $2.3 billion in total assets.

We're No. 1 From 2000 to 2005, the foreign population in S.C. grew faster than the foreign population in any other state. From 1990 to 2005, the state's Latino population grew by 350%.

SCANA takes the freeway by- pass,Duke stays downtown As SCANA deserts downtown Columbia for I- 77, Duke Energy is expanding in downtown Charlotte to the new 48- story Wachovia Corporate Center, taking floors 36 through 45.

Business court S.C. Chief Justice Jean Hoefer Toal is expected to sign the order to create a pilot business court before the end of September. A specialized forum of the N.C. State Courts' trial division, the N.C. Business Court is a positive influence on S.C., according to Toal.

Lottery Since the start of the S.C. Education Lottery on Januart 7, 2002, the legislature has appropriated more than $1.73 billion in lottery proceeds for K- 12 programs, the Endowed Chairs Program at S.C.'s three research universities, and higher education scholarships.

Happy Labor Day Other than Norway, the U.S. output per worker is the highest in the world, worth about $90,000, but Americans work longer and take shorter vacations than most. On a different comparison with the same rich countries, output per hour, the U.S. worker is ranked fifth, behind France, Netherlands, Belgium, and Norway. The U.S. output per hour is worth about $50, while in Norway the output per hour is good for $73.

Seat cost USC is looking into the cost of adding seats on the north end of Williams- Brice. In East Rutherford, N.J. the NFLJets and Giants are planning on a new 84,000- seat stadium for $1.3 billion. Scheduled to open in 2010, the stadium appears to be the country's most expensive at almost $15,500 per seat.

Dropout cost According to the S.C. Policy Council, each school dropout, on average, costs the state an extra $3,193 per year. Dropouts account for a collective annual wage loss of $2.8 billion and a collective annual tax- revenue loss of $277 million.

Plenty of wine, cheap wine By 2012, the wine surplus for the entire European Union could hit 655 million gallons. The E.U. wants to spend more than $1.4 billion from 2008 to 2013 to pay farmers to get out of winemaking. By 2014, the E.U. should drop all regulation over how many vines can be planted, opening the industry to world market forces.

Sylvia Plath Drawings and paintings by the poet Sylvia Plath will be published in October by Oxford University Press. The art was produced before Plath was 20, when she began concentrating on writing. She visited Paris in the 1950s and ran with older men, all who claimed to be veterans of the Resistance during the German occupation.

Citadel opens for the fall semester With 720 freshmen, including a record 54 women, The Citadel is admitting its largest freshman class since 1976.

Start a vet school in S.C. Among the students of the country's 28 veterinary schools, 79 percent are women. Boston- area Tufts University's Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine this fall entered a first- year class if 89 percent women.

Damien Hirst passes S.C.'s Jasper Johns British artist Hirst sculpted For the Love of God, a diamondencrusted skull with 8,601 diamonds that cost $24 million in raw materials. The skull and its diamonds recently sold for $100 million, $20 million more than the previous record price for a work by a living artist, last fall's $80 million for Jasper Johns's False Start.

FPoorwbeesr magazine's list of the world's most powerful women recognized German Chancellor Angela Merkel as No. 1 for the second year in a row. China's vice premier, Wu Yi, was No. 2, and No. 3 was Singapore's Ho Ching, chief executive of Temasek Holdings. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was named the world's fourth most powerful woman.