CHARLOTTE – Effective today, Wachovia Corporation (NYSE: WB) raised its prime interest rate to 5.75 percent from 5.5 percent at all of its banking subsidiaries, including Wachovia Bank N.A. and SouthTrust Bank.

SOUTHERN PINES, NC – Trident Marketing, Inc. announced it will spend more than a million dollars to establish and operate a satellite television marketing division aimed at a national audience.

CARY – The board of directors of Crescent Financial Corporation (Nasdaq: CRFN), parent company of Crescent State Bank, has declared a 23-for-20 stock split effected as a 15 percent stock dividend payable on April 27 to shareholders of record on April 14.

RALEIGH – Gov. Mike Easley has announced that North Carolina placed second in the nation in Site Selection magazine’s annual ranking of states with the top small towns.

RALEIGH – The North Carolina Department of Commerce’s International Trade Division will take its expertise on the road April 7-14 to offer support and help educate North Carolina businesses interested in increasing their exports and expanding their presence in the international marketplace.

RALEIGH – Progress Energy (NYSE: PGN) and subsidiaries of One Equity Partners LLC, a private equity affiliate of J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., have closed on the sale of Progress Rail Services Corp.

RALEIGH – Progress Energy’s (NYSE: PGN) board of directors has voted to declare a dividend on the company’s common stock. The quarterly dividend was declared at 59 cents per share, payable on May 2 to shareholders of record as of April 11. This represents a total annual dividend of $2.36 per share.

CHARLOTTE – The latest national survey by the Employment Law Alliance reveals a nation deeply divided over regulating appearance in the U.S. workplace – from weight to clothing, hairstyles to body piercing. As the debate intensifies, more than half of those surveyed said their employers had no policy addressing employee personal appearance.

DURHAM – Payday lenders who trap people in triple digit-interest loans locate their stores in African-American neighborhoods in higher concentrations, according to a report by the Center for Responsible Lending.

SANFORD -- The Pantry, Inc. (NASDAQ:PTRY), the leading independently operated convenience store
chain in the southeastern U.S., today announced that investment funds controlled by Freeman Spogli & Co. have sold, in a privately negotiated transaction, the remaining 2.15 million shares of The Pantry common stock they had registered under the Company's existing shelf registration statement.

SOUTHERN PINES, N.C. – National Golf Club has become the first golf course in the country to offer golfing options for dialysis patients through a new partnership with DaVita, Inc., the largest independent provider of dialysis services in the United States.

RALEIGH – Gov. Mike Easley announced today that North Carolina ranks ninth in the nation among the country’s top states in nanotechnology, up from 17th last year, according to a recent ranking of states by Small Times magazine.

RALEIGH – The North Carolina Electronics and Information Technologies Association, the primary voice of the information technology industry in North Carolina, today announced that its general membership has formally voted and authorized a name change to the North Carolina Technology Association, Inc.

RALEIGH – Rockingham Dragway owner Steve Earwood and state Sen. Tony Rand of Fayetteville are among 18 individuals appointed by Gov. Mike Easley to the newly created North Carolina Motorsports Advisory Council.

PINEHURST - Business and governmental leaders of Moore County met this morning at the Pinehurst Country Club to discuss the state of the economy in Moore County.

FAYETTEVILLE, NC - Methodist College will offer a Master of Business Administration degree this fall at Pinehurst Resort for professionals in the golf, tennis and resort industries. The accredited Professional MBA at Pinehurst program, the first of its kind in the nation, is designed to allow students to continue their full-time careers while earning their degree in 24 months.

FAYETTEVILLE – The Reeves School of Business at Methodist College has been awarded two grants totaling $10,000. The monies will be used to give students, both at Methodist and in Cumberland County, practical experiences in starting and running businesses.

ASHEBORO – The Board of Directors of FNB Corp. (Nasdaq: FNBN) has declared a regular quarterly dividend of 15 cents per share, which is the same rate as paid in the prior quarter.

FAYETTEVILLE – The Downtown Development Corporation has announced that the Fayetteville City Council voted to endorse the proposal for the “Capitol” Entertainment project, clearing the way for the DDC and city staff to negotiate the final deal and execute the necessary agreements to finance and construct the project.

RALEIGH – The North Carolina Technology Association formally presented its plan today to the General Assembly’s Senate Technology Committee to create the Defense Technology Innovation Center near Fort Bragg.

SANFORD – Coastal Federal Credit Union announced today that it has been granted approval from the National Credit Union Administration to offer membership to persons who live, work, worship or attend school in an area of Sanford and Lee County that it has designated as underserved by financial institutions.

BLOOMFIELD, Conn. – CIGNA HealthCare announced that it is expanding the availability of its consumer-driven CIGNA Choice Fund(SM) Health Savings Account (HSA) plans to businesses with 51-200 employees in North and South Carolina. The CIGNA Choice Fund HSA had previously been available only to employers with more than 200 employees. CIGNA is offering the expanded availability now for plans that take effect on or after May 1, 2005.

DURHAM, N.C. - Chief financial officers are concerned about inflationary labor costs and the depreciating U.S. dollar hurting economic growth in the coming year. They are also concerned about the cost of health care, the U.S. budget deficit, high fuel costs and an increasingly competitive economic environment, all of which will slow earnings and capital spending growth in the coming year.

RALEIGH – Capital Bank Corporation (Nasdaq: CBKN) announced today that its board of directors has approved a quarterly cash dividend on its common stock of 6 cents per share.

PITTSBORO – Biolex, Inc., a privately held protein therapeutics company, has announced a broad-based, multi-leveled strategic alliance with Centocor, Inc., a leading biopharmaceutical company, to manufacture selected proteins using the Biolex LEX System.

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. - Winston-Salem, N.C.-based BB&T Corporation (NYSE: BBT) announced today that it has introduced a suite of products aimed at improving receivables management for its retailer clients.

WINSTON-SALEM – For the fifth time in the past seven years, BB&T Corporation (NYSE: BBT) is the top ranked “small business-friendly” financial holding company in the country, according to a recently released report by the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Office of Advocacy.

MOCKSVILLE – Bank of the Carolinas (Nasdaq: BCAR) announced today that its board of directors had declared a cash dividend of 5 cents per share of its common stock.

PINEHURST – The North Carolina Department of Facility Services has granted FirstHealth of the Carolinas the 23-bed Certificate of Need required to proceed with the planning and construction of a new Heart Hospital on the Moore Regional Hospital campus.

RALEIGH--The bioprocess technology program at Central Carolina Community College (CCCC) will be able to reach more people in the future because of a pair of grants totaling $77,586.

CHAPEL HILL-- To help protect members against identify theft, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina (BCBSNC) announced that it is dropping Social Security numbers as the basis for member ID numbers.

CHAPEL HILL – Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina’s net income for 2004 was down 21 percent from 2003, to $155.9 million from $196.3 million.

WINSTON-SALEM -- BB&T business clients soon will have a faster and more efficient way to make deposits with a new electronic service from BB&T subsidiary Creative Payment Solutions Inc.

WEST END – Accelerated Technology Laboratories, Inc., a leading provider of Laboratory Information Management Systems, announced today that it has purchased Zimet Associates, Inc., a privately owned IT consulting company in New Jersey.