The Aiken City Council voted unanimously during tonight's meeting to eliminate the two hour downtown parking restrictions. Existing 30 minute parking spaces will remain as they are. The City Council plans to reevaluate the downtown parking situation in six months.

The Outback Steakhouse near the Aiken Mall on Whiskey Road will now be open for lunch on Sunday. This change from the chain's usual business hours has been based solely on customer feedback, according to manager John Griffin.

Stephen Shunn, a deputy with the Aiken County Sheriff's Office, rescued an elderly woman from a house fire while he was off-duty. The fire occurred at her Wilson Drive home just before 10:00 AM.

Darley of America has recently closed a deal purchasing 360 acres of land near Montmorenci for the development of a thoroughbred training facility. The facility will include a one mile dirt track, train 130 horses and employ 50 people. This will be a significant expansion of Darley's current Aiken operations, which are located near the Aiken Training Track. The new facility will be located approximately six miles from the Aiken Training Track.

No, this isn't the 1987 movie starring Matthew Broderick and Helen Hunt about a US Air Force program to train primate pilots. Aiken's Project X has been the rather quiet investigation by an unnamed company to potentially locate operations in Aiken County coupled with efforts by the Economic Development Partnership and Aiken County Council to attract them here. We now know that the previously unnamed company is MTU Detroit Diesel Incorporated.

The Aiken County Public School District held a meeting last night in the gymnasium at Aiken High School to present parents with two options for renovating the school's facilities. Aiken High School is one of six schools in the district which require extensive repairs and renovations. The two options presented to parents last night have an estimated cost of $170 million and $224 million.

The movement opposing the 2008 implementation of a two hour time limit on downtown parking has gained considerable momentum and organization during the past week. Movement organizers have created a facebook.com group which currently has 179 fans, recruited supportive downtown business owners to display "Free Parking" signs in their business windows and garnered the attention of several local news outlets. Today revealed a front page story in the Aiken Standard about the opposition and an afternoon news recording outside of Plum Pudding by WJBF which aired at 6:00 PM.

Gresham Barret, currently serving as US Representative for the Third Congressional District, has announced that he will run for SC Governor in the 2010 election.

Shane Massey, who was elected to Tommy Moore's vacated State Senate seat, has announced that he'll be running for the Third Congressional District US House seat. This seat is currently occupied by Gresham Barrett.

A new bill going through the State House could remove the requirement for some counties to have administrative areas within a school district. Aiken is one of these counties.

The school board met on March 3rd to discuss what the bill could mean for Aiken.