Briefs

by John Temple Ligon

Bender sits in endowed J-School chair

Attorney Jay Bender has been named the Reid H. Montgomery Freedom of Information Chair in USC’s School of Journalism and Mass Communications.

Columbia Children’s Theatre

Looking for a permanent home, the Columbia Children’s Theatre is looking for possibilities in the basement below Main Street’s Rising High.

Charleston Law

The American Bar Association’s Council of the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar voted recently to grant provisional accreditation to the Charleston School of Law. The vote means the first class of students who graduate from the new school next May will be able to take the South Carolina Bar Exam.

$75 million for a new law school building

Jack Pratt, dean at the USC School of Law, has to raise a total of $75 million for the school’s new building on Senate Street between Pickens and Bull. Pratt’s appeal goes out to S.C.’s lawyers, most of whom graduated from the USC School of Law. Some of S.C.’s practicing lawyers and other private interests argue in favor of public bond financing for the building, the same money approach Richland One is using to build Dreher, while they continue their support directed at scholarships, professorships, library resources and other academic enhancements.

Rosewood Market, red wine and long-lived mice

Resveratrol, a substance in red wine, is being sold as an elixir, a dietary supplement that reportedly boosts endurance and prolongs life in laboratory mice. The mice were fed large doses of resveratrol, the equivalent of hundreds of glasses of red wine per day. No human studies have shown such benefits, but healthfood stores across the country are selling out of resveratrol supplements.

Delta Air Lines and US Airways

The $8.5 billion hostile merger of the two airlines is protested by the 6,500 Delta pilots, among other creditors. Total debt at Delta is estimated as high as $18 billion. If Delta surfaces from bankruptcy this spring as a standalone airline, it could be worth $12 billion. US Airways claims its $8.5 billion merger offer could create a healthier airline with annual cost savings of $1.65 billion. The combination would be the country’s largest airline in terms of passenger traffic. But for Charlotte and Columbia there would be a significant drop in competition chasing the passengers.

Sticky Fingers sans Jagger

Chad Walldorf, a co-owner of Sticky Fingers RibHouse Restaurant, paid more than $50,000 last week for a painted portrait of fellow Charlestonian Stephen Colbert, host of Comedy Central’s The Colbert Report. The painting will hang in Walldorf’s downtown Charleston location. The sale of the painting benefitted Save the Children.

SCE&G gets a little regulation

The cost of natural gas for 212,000 SCE&G customers in 34 counties this month goes up 7.88%.

Payday loans: S.C. is #8

The payday loan business nationwide took in $4.2 billion in revenue for 2005. The eight states that generated the most payday loan business in 2005: California, Missouri, Louisiana, Texas, Alabama, Illinois, Ohio, and South Carolina.

Expansion in Greenville County

The population of Greenville County is 407,000, and by 2030 it should be 522,000, a 28% increase. The Reason Foundation estimated recently Greenville County needs another $1.5 billion in road improvements to accommodate the growth.

Retraction in Greenville County

Hitachi Electronic Devices will close its Greenville television picture tube plant this January, ending the last 180 manufacturing jobs out of a peak of 700.

Richland County wants you

The Richland County Transportation Study Commission is inviting participation. The application deadline to be accepted as one of the 33 members is December 13 at noon. For the following 18 months, the commission will study public transit, roads, trails, and bicycle paths. The commission is expected to file its report by May 2008, in time far enough before the transportation tax ballot in November 2008.

Big ambitions at Santee

Where U.S. 301 meets I-95, near Santee, could be the new home for a 9,000,000-square-foot distribution center, a convention center, a bingo casino, and new residential and commercial development.

Peacock Hotel

Scheduled to open in the spring of 2008, downtown Greenville’s 12-story Peacock Hotel & Spa is under construction at a budget of $60 million for its 116 hotel rooms and two suites.

Midlands Tech endowment tops $5 million

The Midlands Technical College Foundation Board?s first major campaign for private support, Investing in the Future, recently reached $5.5 million.