The phone belonged to 19-year-old Janice Reeves who with her twin brother Francis “Frank” Marion Reeves IV was hosting a party at a lakefront Chapin home where Clark was shot Friday night, authorities said Tuesday.

Reeves’ father, Francis Marion Reeves III, 62, has been charged with murder in Clark’s death. He was released Tuesday afternoon on $125,000 bond.

In court Tuesday, Deputy 11th Circuit Solicitor Rick Hubbard said Janice Reeves’ boyfriend, who was not named, accused Clark of taking the phone.

A fight broke out and Clark, 17, was knocked unconscious twice, Hubbard said. Clark left with friends, but said he would be back with more people.

But in many Midlands districts, those days are over.

In fact, many school officials are turning to students for suggestions they hope ultimately will boost breakfast and lunch traffic — and, in turn, bring more money to improve meal programs.

School officials traditionally have monitored the basics: How much food is tossed into trash cans? What foods never left the serving line? How many students actually paid for meals?

They’re beefing that up with food surveys, panels — and even upgrades to the cafeterias themselves.

PICKENS — His face twitching occasionally, a shackled Jerry Buck Inman barely glanced at the pictures of the off-campus apartment where Clemson University student Tiffany Souers was raped and strangled.

But after a nearly two-hour hearing Tuesday afternoon in a Pickens County courtroom, the 37-year-old registered sex offender from Tennessee — facing the death penalty — admitted to committing crimes that shocked the Clemson community and made national news.

Inman pleaded guilty to murder, first-degree criminal sexual conduct, first-degree burglary and kidnapping in the May 26, 2006, slaying of the 20-year-old Souers, a rising junior from a wealthy St. Louis-area family.

“I just want to enter the plea to get it over with ... to go on with the sentencing phase,” Inman, dressed in an orange jail jumpsuit, quietly told Circuit Judge Ned Miller.

Members didn’t disappoint.

One by one, parents, grandparents and retired teachers rose to tell Percy Mack their not-so-rosy appraisal of a school system that has failed to meet expectations.

“I was so discouraged last year that I decided I couldn’t do anything this year except work with my boys’ teachers,” Jay Whitmore said.

He is guardian of two teenage nephews who attend C.A. Johnson Preparatory Academy, one of five Richland 1 schools the state Department of Education has deemed as failing to meet minimum educational standards.

At an estimated $100 million to relocate railroad tracks and streetscape, it would be the largest, most expensive project in Columbia’s history.

Coble said he is appointing the group to identify funds because County Council decided not to hold a referendum on a sales tax proposal that would have — if approved — provided some money to do the work.

“Assembly is the gateway to Columbia,” the mayor said. “In light of the fact there is no referendum, we need to go ahead and start planning” how to raise funds.

Assembly Street is downtown’s main thoroughfare. But with up to eight lanes of traffic at some major intersections, it is the equivalent of a freeway running through the center of the city.

The announcement came after a meeting with parents, teachers and staff at the Irmo area school.

Efforts Tuesday to reach Cole, whose resignation was effective Monday, were unsuccessful.

District spokeswoman Michelle Foster said she was unaware of specific reasons Cole noted in her resignation letter.

Assistant principal Boyd Hainsworth is in charge at River Springs, preparing for the new school year that begins Thursday, Foster added.

But the proposal is running into opposition from a majority of City Council members.

Mayor Bob Coble is pushing the ordinance, which was first discussed several weeks ago as potentially applying to all city apartment complexes.

Coble said the 1 percent rule was added so apartments who don’t have crime problems wouldn’t be forced to fix anything.

“They’re only going to have to fix something if there is a problem needing to be fixed,” Coble said. “This is an appropriate way to start.”

Farmers and the managers of shrinking Upstate reservoirs were optimistic earlier in the week when the five-day forecast track for Tropical Storm Fay had it slipping up the Savannah River area. But Fay lingered around Cuba and South Florida, and a high pressure system pushing down over the Southeast now is expected to steer the wet system back across Florida on Thursday.

That translates into a chance of outer bands of rainfall hitting South Carolina in the next few days, said Chris Liscinsky, a forecaster at the Columbia office of the National Weather Service.

Rainfall in those bands can be heavy, which is why Columbia officials gathered Tuesday afternoon for a flash flood briefing. City leaders want to make sure storm drains are cleared in flood-prone areas, said Mayor Bob Coble.

Winds might reach the 15-25 mph range along the immediate S.C. coast, and beach erosion is expected.

“It’s been drastic. Who’d ever thought that we used to have to push and pull tobacco on a buggy to sell, now that everything is automatic and air-conditioned?” said Easler, who farms about 300 acres with his son near Kingstree.

Easler was one of several flue-cured tobacco growers who sold their crops Tuesday at a new mobile receiving station at S&P Tobacco warehouse in Lake City. It is the first time such a mobile station — a tractor-trailer specially designed for Philip Morris USA — has been used in the state.

This year is a test run for the tractor-trailer at the site. More mobile stations could be used in the future to reduce the time and miles farmers must travel to sell their crop to the company, officials said.

“It’s not like the auction system; that’s gone. We don’t have much choice in it because that’s the way the companies are going,” said Jimmie Lynch, owner of S&P Tobacco warehouse.

Three adults and three children from a Boiling Springs family have begun a series of injections to treat the disease, said Adam Myrick, spokesman for the state Department of Health and Environmental Control.

A baby raccoon the family adopted in early June bit one of the children Aug. 8, Myrick said.

He would not identify the family from the rural community in central Lexington County, nor provide the ages of its members. Myrick said federal medical privacy laws prohibit disclosure.

The Boiling Springs case is the sixth this year compared with eight in all of 2007, the spokesman said.

The makers of a new sports drink are embarking on their first national advertising campaign, banking on his most recent swimming glories.

Phelps — the biggest Olympic athlete in years, if not ever — is everywhere this summer. And companies want to share in his fame. They’re taking out ads, pitching endorsements and giveaways.

The 23-year-old from Baltimore has proven himself in the pool, but will he sink or swim as a long-term pitchman on Madison Avenue?

“He is in the top tier of athletics and now he’s going to get his tryout as a personality,” said John Sweeney, director of sports communication at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication. “And Tiger Woods sure passed, but Mark Spitz didn’t. And there are plenty of people who they try to develop the whole persona around and two years later it’s gone.”

The former Charleston Southern University professor, whose investment firm’s Web site showed him as a cartoon character called “Economan,” filed a sealed financial affidavit with the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday.

The form is used by those seeking an attorney, expert or other court services for free.

Parish, known for his flashy clothes and cars, was sentenced in June to 24 years in prison and ordered to repay the money he took from hundreds of investors. He is now in federal prison in North Carolina.

Authorities say he spent the money on loud clothes, paintings, diamond-studded pens and guitars once owned by rock stars like Jimi Hendrix.

The first major new BlackBerry model in more than a year, the Bold is a high-end BlackBerry that has twice the screen resolution of current models made by RIM.

The Bold, or 9000, matches the resolution, but not the size, of the screen on Apple’s iPhone, which has emerged as a potent competitor in the smart-phone category.

AT&T says it will be the exclusive U.S. carrier for the Bold, as it is for the iPhone.

But Peter Misek, an analyst with Canaccord Adams, said he expects AT&T to start selling it Sept. 15 and Rogers Communications in Canada to release it Aug. 18.

The former House of Raeford Farms workers pleaded guilty to identity theft in federal court Tuesday. They each face up to two years in prison.

Prosecutors say the men used invalid alien registration and Social Security numbers, or listed other people’s numbers as their own.

The Charlotte Observer reported in February that plant workers were in the country illegally and that managers at the North Carolina-based company knew about it.

The men are to be sentenced in about two months. The trial of a human resources manager accused in the case has been delayed until later this year.

The Labor Department reported that wholesale prices shot up 1.2 percent in July, pushed higher by rising costs for energy, motor vehicles and other products. The increase was more than twice the 0.5 percent gain that economists expected.

Core prices, which exclude food and energy, rose 0.7 percent. That increase was the biggest since November 2006 and more than triple the 0.2 percent rise in core prices that had been expected.

The bad news on wholesale prices followed a report last week that consumer prices shot up by 0.8 percent in July, leaving consumer inflation rising at the fastest pace since 1991.

The July price pressures reflected in part the big surge in energy costs during the month that pushed crude oil prices to a record of $147.27 per barrel and sent gasoline pump prices to an all-time high of $4.11 per gallon.

Kendall “Kent” Wannamaker grows cotton, peanuts, corn, soybeans and wheat on 2,800 acres of rented farmland.

He also invested in Carolina Peanut LLC in Cameron, a peanut buying station, and was part of a group that bought Farmers Gin Co. in St. Matthews.

Wannamaker’s nomination also said he was willing to use innovative farming techniques to improve crop production.

The overall winner of the Southeastern Farmer of the Year award will be named on Oct. 14 at the Sunbelt Ag Expo in Moultrie, Ga.

For years, Miller Lite drinkers, including notables such as comic Rodney Dangerfield and football coach John Madden, bickered back and forth. Some said the drink tasted great. Others said it was less filling.

Well, now they’ll have a chance to debate again.

MillerCoors is reviving its “Great Taste, Less Filling” tag line, which was created more than 30 years ago. The company, a newly formed joint venture between SABMiller’s U.S. unit and Denver-based Molson Coors Brewing Co., told distributors in a letter Tuesday the campaign is back.

The tagline will appear starting Sept. 1 in revised spots of last year’s “More Taste League” — an ad campaign that airs during football season.

The Detroit automaker said it will offer employee prices on all 2008 vehicles except its medium-duty trucks. It also will extend the incentive on a handful of 2009 models.

Employee discounts generally are 10 percent below the invoice price but vary by model.

GM has offered limited employee pricing in the past, but Tuesday’s announcement is the first time since 2005 that the automaker extended the incentive to all buyers. The sale was wildly successful then, boosting its June U.S. sales 41 percent, July sales 19 percent, and prompting Ford and the Chrysler Group to unveil their own employee-pricing plans.

— The Associated Press

Wolfe, 60, found her solution about a month ago: an electric bicycle. It gets her to work quickly, is easy on her arthritis and is better for the environment than a car.

“I’m not out to win any races,” she said. “I want to get a little fresh air and exercise, and cut my carbon footprint, and spend less money on gas. And where I live, I can ride my bike seven months out of the year.”

The surging cost of gasoline and a desire for a greener commute are turning more people to electric bikes as an unconventional form of transportation. They function like a typical two-wheeler but with a battery-powered assist, and bike dealers, riders and experts say they are flying off the racks.

Official sales figures are hard to pin down, but the Gluskin-Townley Group, which does market research for the National Bicycle Dealers Association, estimates 10,000 electric bikes were sold in the United States in 2007, up from 6,000 in 2006.

The building near the intersection of Devine and King streets is notable for its arts and craft architecture and the name “Timothy” above the doorways — believed to be the nickname of owner Jesse Reese when the building was erected in 1936, said developer Hubert Shuler IV, of The Shuler Group.

Other features include original hardwood floors and glass doorknobs. But worker installed modern central heating and air, electrical and plumbing.

“Most of the renovations were behind the walls,” Shuler said.

The company paid $955,000 for the building and invested an additional $600,000 on renovations.