CHARLOTTE – Wachovia announced today that it has provided more than $1 billion in loans to women-owned businesses in only two years.

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Small Business Administration has begun accepting applications from lenders on behalf of borrowers in its new Patriot Express Pilot Loan Initiative for military community entrepreneurs.

RALEIGH – Progress Energy (NYSE: PGN) has announced that its subsidiaries closed on the previously announced sale of its nonregulated power plants, hedges and contracts.

RALEIGH – Progress Energy Carolinas has filed a request for a slight increase in the fuel rate charged to its North Carolina customers.

RALEIGH – With its service area expanding by 25,000 to 30,000 new homes and businesses each year, and facing increased costs to ensure continued reliable electricity to accommodate that growth, Progress Energy Carolinas (NYSE: PGN) announced a goal of displacing 2,000 megawatts (MW) of power generation through demand-side management and energy-efficiency programs.

PINEHURST – Pinehurst No. 2 couldn’t have received a better gift during the course’s 100-year-old birthday celebration than word of the U.S. Open Championship returning to the North Carolina resort in 2014.

SOUTHERN PINES – Pine Needles Lodge and Golf Club, which is hosting the U.S. Women’s Open this week, has been named the No.1 course on Golf For Women magazine’s list of Top 50 Courses for Women.

HAMLET – Owens-Illinois, Inc. has announced a $10 million product line expansion at its Hamlet plant that will add more than 1.3 billion units of additional capacity and require about 12 new employees.

MOUNT GILEAD – McRae Industries, Inc. (Pink Sheets: MRINA) declared a dividend of .0825 cents per share on the company’s Class A Common Stock payable on June 29 to shareholders of record on June 15.

FAYETTEVILLE – Bill Martin, president and chief executive of the Cumberland County Business Council, resigned today, effective immediately.

ASHEBORO – Minneapolis-based Malt-O-Meal Company, the nation’s fourth-largest ready-to-eat cereal manufacturer, broke ground today on its newest manufacturing facility in the Central Piedmont Industrial Park.

NEW YORK – Freelancers Union today announced that it will begin offering a wide range of health plans to eligible independent workers and their families in North Carolina and 29 other states through a new relationship with UnitedHealthcare’s Golden Rule Insurance Company and its affiliated companies.

ASHEBORO – FNB United Corp. (NASDAQ: FNBN), the holding company for CommunityONE Bank, has announced that its board of directors declared a quarterly cash dividend of 15 cents per share, to be paid July 26 to shareholders of record July 5.

WASHINGTON – Leaders in agriculture on opposite coasts are reporting the same crisis: no workers.

SOUTHERN PINES – A good infrastructure – whether it’s roads, water systems or a telecom network – makes a region more attractive and helps ensure efficiency. The same is true for a golf tournament, and the telecom infrastructure EMBARQ has in place for the 2007 Women’s U.S. Open is poised to dazzle the players, the media and the public.

RALEIGH – The U.S. Small Business Administration has announced that federal disaster loans are available to small businesses located in all but seven North Carolina counties as a result of damages and losses to crops caused by abnormally low temperatures and freezing conditions April 6-9.

FAYETTVILLE – Cape Fear Valley Health System has announced an affiliation agreement that will allow Cleveland Clinic to be the exclusive provider of cardiac surgery services at Cape Fear Valley Medical Center.

PITTSBORO – Biolex Therapeutics, a privately held biopharmaceutical company, has announced the closing of a $30 million Series C financing.

FAYETTEVILLE – Gary Cooper, owner of All-American Mortgage in Fayetteville, has been named interim president of the Cumberland County Business Council.