WASHINGTON - Henry F. Floyd will be South Carolina's newest federal judge.

Confirmed by a 89-0 vote of the U.S. Senate Monday, Floyd will take his place as the 12th of 12 judges on the federal district court of South Carolina, two levels beneath the Supreme Court.

Floyd, 55, was nominated by President Bush for his new job at the suggestion of U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and was also supported by U.S. Sen. Fritz Hollings, D-S.C.

Floyd has presided for the past decade in the state's 13th judicial circuit, which includes Greenville and Pickens counties. He succeeds Dennis Shedd of Columbia, who now sits on the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

On the Senate floor Monday, Graham said of Floyd: "He will serve us well. He will make his state and nation proud."

The confirmation now goes to President Bush for his signature.

• Fort Jackson troops to join in medical drill

Eighty soldiers from Fort Jackson will participate in a medical evacuation drill today at the Columbia Metropolitan Airport.

The troops will represent wounded soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, an Army spokesman said.

The exercise will begin with 80 soldiers and 40 mannequins boarding a Charleston-based C-17 transport plane at North, in Orangeburg County.

The mannequins will represent critically injured troops who cannot walk, said Lt. Col. Gary Wilkerson, planning and operations officer of the National Disaster Medical System.

Ten soldiers and eight mannequins will get off the plane at Florence. The remaining troops and mannequins will be flown into Columbia on a C-17 transport plane and then hauled in buses and ambulances to civilian hospitals in the Midlands.

Twenty-four civilian hospitals in South Carolina are part of the system, Wilkerson said.

A similar drill is planned Wednesday for the Greenville-Spartanburg area.

• Public input sought on Main Street project

The city of Columbia will hold a public input meeting for the proposed North Main Street streetscaping project from 3 to 8 p.m. today at the Eau Claire Print Facility located at Main Street and Monticello Road.

The 2.8-mile project includes bus stop shelters, street lights, new sidewalks, landscaping and intersection improvements. The city wants to get input before finalizing its construction plans.

Interested people can stop by and write comments about the proposed plans.

• DeMint fund-raisers named for Senate bid

U.S. Rep. Jim DeMint has enlisted the co-chairs of President Bush's money-raising team in South Carolina to lead efforts to raise cash for his U.S. Senate campaign.

The Greenville Republican said Monday that his campaign finance team has 29 members, including co-chairmen Dr. Eddie Floyd, a Florence surgeon; state Board of Economic Advisors chairman John Rainey and former state GOP chairman Barry Wynn.

All three are leading Bush's campaign finance efforts in South Carolina.

The list also includes former U.S. ambassador Weston Adams, who supported Democrat Alex Sanders last year when he ran for the U.S. Senate seat of the retiring Strom Thurmond. Sanders lost to then-U.S. Rep. Lindsey Graham, a Republican.

• Plane crashes; pilot suffers minor injuries

SUMMERVILLE - A small plane crashed shortly after taking off from the Summerville Airport late Sunday and the pilot was transported to a nearby hospital with minor injuries, authorities said.

The plane was a Beechcraft King Air, a twin propeller plane, according to a spokesman for the National Transportation Safety Board, which is investigating the cause of the crash.

The pilot was the only person on board when the plane crashed about 11:30 p.m. Sunday. The plane was on its way to Barnwell.

The wreckage was located about an hour later after a Coast Guard helicopter assisted the Dorchester County Sheriff's Department.

From Staff and Wire Reports