SC STATE PRESIDENT
SC State trustees consider new president's salary
ORANGEBURG, S.C. (AP) - South Carolina State University trustees are meeting to approve the salary of the school's new president.
State officials have approved the university to pay Thomas Elzey up to $326,000 when he takes over on June 15. Trustees have put Elzey's salary on the agenda for Tuesday's meeting.
Elzey's state salary will be $170,000, with an additional $131,000 coming from a South Carolina State foundation along with a housing allowance.
Trustees picked Elzey as the school's new president last month. He is currently a finance and operations executive at The Citadel.
Former South Carolina State president George Cooper earned about $250,000 annually, while interim president Cynthia Warrick is making $156,000.
Lawmakers kicked five trustees off the university's board earlier this month, but the new trustees won't replace them until July.
SC SENATE
Budget debate scheduled to continue in SC Senate
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) - The budget debate in the South Carolina Senate enters week two.
Senators are scheduled to resume discussions Tuesday on their state spending plan for the fiscal year that starts July 1.
They have yet to tackle on the floor two issues expected to bring prolonged debate: Medicaid expansion and private school choice.
Republican legislators have repeatedly refused Democrats' efforts to insert an expansion of Medicaid eligibility in the 2013-14 state budget. But Democrats promise to try again. The expansion called for in the federal health care overhaul would extend Medicaid to hundreds of thousands of additional poor adults in South Carolina.
Proposals that use tax credits and deductions to help parents send their children to private schools have died repeatedly in the Legislature over the last decade.
SHOTGUN SLAYING
SC woman charged with shotgun killing of boyfriend
SPARTANBURG, S.C. (AP) - Spartanburg County's coroner is planning an autopsy after a man was killed by a shotgun blast to his chest.
Spartanburg police say 20-year-old David Allen Moholland was shot to death on Monday. His girlfriend was charged with murder. She is 21-year-old Erika Michelle Sutelman. Jail officials could not be reached Tuesday to find out whether she had an attorney.
Coroner Rusty Clevenger says an autopsy was scheduled for Tuesday.
Police say the couple had been staying at a Spartanburg apartment as guests of another couple.
A police report says Sutelman told officers they were playing with a 12-gauge shotgun inside the apartment and she thought the gun's safety was on so she pulled the trigger, hitting Moholland.
RETAIL STORE FRAUD
Feds: Man stole $600K at Carolinas, Georgia stores
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) - A South Carolina man faces federal fraud and conspiracy charges after authorities say he masterminded a 3-year scheme that faked store refund transactions totaling more than $600,000 from Wal-Mart stores in the Carolinas and Georgia.
The Charlotte Observer reports that 49-year-old Robert Michael Milton of Blacksburg, S.C., was arrested earlier this month. His Charlotte attorney did not immediately return a call seeking comment Tuesday.
A Department of Homeland Security investigator in Charlotte says Milton's operation included $115,000 in fraudulently returned computer software, $95,000 in DVDs, and $46,000 in cheap fishing rods that were exchanged for costly ones.
The break in the case came when Milton's storage unit in the Cleveland County town of Grover was left open and a worker looked inside.
OCEAN WINE AGING
Wine aged in Charleston Harbor being recovered
CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) - A California winery is recovering four cases of Cabernet Sauvignon that have aged on the floor of Charleston Harbor for the past three months.
Mira Winery of St. Helena, Calif., placed the bottles of wine in yellow steel mesh cages and then submerged them offshore in an undisclosed location back in February.
On Tuesday, the divers head out to recover the wine so the winery can judge the effects of ocean aging. Winemakers have long known wine recovered from sunken ships has a unique taste and the ocean is thought to have something to do with that.
There have been similar experiments with ocean aging of wine both in Europe and on the West Coast.
ANSONBOROUGH HOMES
Low-income housing goes up on SC site hit by Hugo
CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) - After almost a quarter century, the city of Charleston is again building low-income housing in an area that was ravaged by Hurricane Hugo.
The Category 4 storm back in 1989 destroyed the low-income Ansonborough Homes near the Cooper River. Since then, the land has remained an empty field.
But on Tuesday, Mayor Joe Riley and city officials will complete a land transfer allowing the city Housing Authority to proceed with construction of 55 new apartments for low-income senior citizens.
The units are scheduled to open by Christmas of next year.
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