The Federal Reserve's latest snapshot on this region's economy reports moderate gains in most sectors and continued weakness in a number of labor market indicators.

The so-called Beige Book report on the Richmond district, which includes the Carolinas, reflects the incremental economic improvements being made across the Fed's other 12 regions.

Manufacturing activity continued to pick up while employment growth remained anemic.

Job cuts were reported at many retail businesses.

Retail sales were flat, as many retailers said jobless customers continue to reign in spending.

Banking activity was described as weak.

Residential real estate markets continued to strengthen.

"In a striking change from recent months, several contacts noted a pickup in the high end of the market," Fed analysts wrote.

PPD, the Wilmington-based pharmaceutical research company, plans to expand its operations outside of Richmond, Va., and add 190 jobs there over the next three years.

Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell announced Friday that the state will give PPD grants worth up to $650,000 if it meets hiring targets.

"This major expansion will continue to position PPD as a strong player in the life sciences industry, a target industry for Henrico County, the Greater Richmond region and the Commonwealth of Virginia," McDonnell said in a prepared statement.

PPD, which celebrated its 25th anniversary this summer, has a large Triangle operation with about 1,400 local employees.

Schools will be in the spotlight in a pair of inter-city trips over the next two weeks.

This week, the Greater Raleigh Chamber of Chamber will host visitors from the Richmond area in Virginia. Next week, four Wake County school board members are part of a chamber-sponsored trip to the Greater D.C. area.

During next week's trip, the Raleigh group will visit Fairfax County Public Schools in northern Virginia, whose assignment system had been cited as a model that Wake can use for its community-based schools.

For the third year, Triangle athletes have an easy trip to USA Triathlon's April 24-25 National Duathlon Festival - less than three hours' drive to Richmond, Va. - but if you're planning to enter, you should hurry.

Registration for the run-bike-run competition already is near last
year's total of more than 1,700 entrants, USA Triathlon said. (The
schedule is below.)

Entries for the featured event, the USAT Duathlon Age Group National Championship - a 5K run, a 38K bike ride and a finishing 5K run -  on Tuesday reached 1,121, and entries for all events had totaled 1,432.

Corrected: With N.C. Central's NCAA status

Losing to Richmond didn't help Duke's cause, but it didn't end the Blue Devils' bowl hopes either.

It made the task more difficult, but not impossible.

DURHAM — This one is going to hurt, perhaps even more than Duke's previous loss to Richmond in 2006

Once again, the Spiders visited Wallace Wade Stadium and took a victory from the Blue Devils in a season opener. They walked away with a 24-16 win and stunned a Devils team that was convinced things would be different this time.