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South Carolina GOP leaders are scheduled to hold a news conference to discuss the U.S. Justice Department's challenge to the state's new voter ID law.

Shrugging off a disappointing showing in Iowa's caucuses, Rick Perry said Tuesday he would compete in South Carolina regardless of the final tallies here and bought television time to back it up.Perry encouraged supporters to keep the faith in his national aspirations as his advisers cast the coming contest in South Carolina as the first real test of his presidential campaign. Before Iowans met at...

Police say eight people have been injured in a 41-vehicle pileup that shut southbound Interstate 75 for hours on a day when scattered snow showers pelted northern Kentucky.Kentucky's Kenton County police department issued a statement saying six of the injured were taken to hospitals, but none of the injuries was life-threatening. It said cars and other vehicles collided on southbound lanes at 12:2...

A Republican state senator from Spartanburg is joining his local sheriff and prosecutor to talk about his bill that he says will give longer prison sentences to repeat offenders.South Carolina Sen. Shane Martin approached Spartanburg County Sheriff Chuck Wright last month after Wright complained bitterly about how a suspect charged with shooting one of his deputies was free despite a long criminal...

Beaufort County authorities are searching for a 31-year-old man accused of fatally shooting a man accidentally on Christmas Day.The Island Packet of Hilton Head reports ( http://bit.ly/sXDuDc) that Andrew Bogart of Bluffton is wanted for involuntary manslaughter in the death of Adrian Hilliard.The Beaufort County Sheriff's Office says Bogart, Hilliard and two other men believed to be under the inf...

A company in Horry County is expected to announce plans to hire 150 people.The Sun News reports ( http://bit.ly/sakfKJ) that the identity of an expanding company will be revealed Thursday.Brad Lofton of the Myrtle Beach Regional Development Corp. says local and state economic development officials will make the announcement. The newspaper reports it represents the first major job announcement in H...

U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson is unveiling his agenda for 2012 in a series of news conferences across the 2nd congressional district.The South Carolina Republican is talking about his agenda Thursday. He has events planned at automotive shops in West Columbia and Beaufort and at a gas station in Orangeburg.Wilson is in his fifth full term. The 64-year-old real estate attorney served in the South Carolina s...

Officials are still working to determine the cause of sinkholes that opened up in Georgetown last month, including one that forced several businesses to close their doors.The Sun News of Myrtle Beach reports ( http://bit.ly/sKFNa7) that city and state officials are relieved that no major sinkhole has opened since that one.But they still aren't sure what may have caused them. Since the large sinkho...

The 15th Bi-Lo Myrtle Beach Marathon is looking to be a little more crowded next year.The Sun News of Myrtle Beach reports ( http://bit.ly/sRRNb8) that the city has approved the addition of 1,000 runners to the half-marathon, and an additional 250 runners for the full course. That brings the total capacity to 8,000 for the races on the weekend of Feb. 16.Organizers say they expect the half-maratho...

The U.S. Justice Department has blocked South Carolina’s controversial voter ID law, saying it would prevent black people from voting.It was the first voter ID law to be refused by the federal agency in nearly 20 years.The decision means voters will not have to show a Department of Motor Vehicles-issued driver’s license or photo ID card, a U.S. military ID or a U.S. passport. And it mean...

After weeks of bickering and doubt, Congress delivered a last-minute holiday tax cut extension to 160 million American workers Friday along with further unemployment benefits for millions laid off in the nation's fierce recession and weak economic recovery. It was a convincing victory for President Barack Obama, a humbling retreat for House Republicans.Obama quickly signed the legislation, declari...

U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, has called for a federal investigation into “whether Gov. Nikki Haley exploited taxpayer dollars for political purposes” by allegedly dictating the findings of a nonpartisan health care panel, according to a news release.Harkin cited a report last week from the (Charleston) Post and Courier in which Haley told leaders of the S.C. Health Planning Committe...

U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, has called for a federal investigation into “whether Gov. Nikki Haley exploited taxpayer dollars for political purposes” by allegedly dictating the findings of a nonpartisan health care panel, according to a news release.Harkin cited a report last week from the (Charleston) Post and Courier that Haley told the South Carolina Health Planning Committee in an e...

Gov. Nikki Haley says her office will stop deleting staff emails as part of a new records retention policy.In a news release, Haley said her office is working with the Department of Archives and History to come up with a new records retention policy, which will be finalized and released in January.However, Haley's office noted that the new policy "will include retaining all records, including the ...

South Carolina’s economy got an early Christmas present on Tuesday, as the unemployment rate dropped under 10 percent for the first time since April. The plunge came as retailers beefed up sales staff for an unexpectedly good holiday shopping season and others dropped out of the job search.More strikingly, the drop to 9.9 percent from October to November was the largest monthly drop in the 35...

A Conway man has been sentenced to 17 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to charges in the shooting death of a Myrtle Beach man last year.The Sun News of Myrtle Beach reported (http://bit.ly/rJzTOM) that 20-year-old Jimmy Darrell Gagum pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and third-degree arson.Police say 21-year-old Edwin Salters of Myrtle Beach was shot in the head several times on May ...

The New York Times Co. has agreed to sell its regional newspapers, which include the Spartanburg Herald-Journal, it was reported by several media outlets Monday.Halifax Media Holdings is acquiring the 15 papers, according to reports. Others in the group include The Times-News in Hendersonville, N.C.; The Dispatch in Lexington, N.C. and The Star-News in Wilmington, N.C. Other papers in the group ar...

Kim Jong Il, North Korea's mercurial and enigmatic leader, has died. He was 69.Kim's death was announced Monday by state television from the North Korean capital, Pyongyang.Kim is believed to have suffered a stroke in 2008 but appeared relatively vigorous in photos and video from recent trips to China and Russia and in numerous trips around the country carefully documented by state media.The leade...

Gov. Nikki Haley has endorsed Mitt Romney for president, according to a news release from Romney’s campaign. “He is a conservative businessman who has spent his life working in the economy, and he understands exactly how jobs are created,” Haley said in a news release. “He is not a creature of Washington, and he knows what it means to make decisions – real decisions –...

A South Carolina parole board on Thursday revoked the early release granted the day before to an executive involved in one of the state's biggest bankruptcies because the Attorney General's office was not notified.The Department of Probation, Parole and Pardon Services made a mistake when it didn't notify Attorney General Alan Wilson's lawyers that HomeGold chief executive Ronnie Sheppard was goin...

"The Protester" has been named Time's "Person of the Year" for 2011.The selection was announced Wednesday on NBC's "The Today Show."The magazine cited dissent across the Middle East that has spread to Europe and the United States, and says these protesters are reshaping global politics.Last year, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg got the honor.Time's "Person of the Year" is the person or th...

Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and aerospace pioneer Burt Rutan are building the biggest plane ever to haul cargo and astronauts into space, in the latest of several ventures fueled by technology tycoons clamoring to write America’s next chapter in spaceflight. Their plans, unveiled Tuesday, call for a twin-fuselage aircraft with wings longer than a football field to carry a rocket high into...

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began taking public comment Monday on a multiyear study of a $300 million project to deepen the Charleston Harbor shipping channel to 50 feet so Charleston can handle the larger containerships that will routinely be calling once the Panama Canal is widened.About 100 people turned out for what is called a scoping meeting on what a feasibility study of the project sh...

Horry-Georgetown Technical College is doubling the size of its culinary arts program in the next three years to serve the needs of hundreds of restaurants on South Carolina's Grand Strand.The Sun News of Myrtle Beach reports ( http://bit.ly/v9qP35) the number of culinary students will double to 300.The college is building a new two-story building on its Grand Strand campus to house classrooms, kit...

Retired NBC “Nightly News” anchor Tom Brokaw congratulated the nearly 2,700 students who picked up their degrees from the University of South Carolina Monday by challenging them to rely more on their humanity and less on emerging technology to meet today’s challenges (click here to watch a USC-produced video about Brokaw's speech and visit).“You’ll not solve global warming...

Mitt Romney on Monday aggressively criticized rival Newt Gingrich and called on him to return the estimated $1.6 million he received for providing strategic advice to Freddie Mac, the quasi-government agency that guarantees home mortgages."One of the things that I think people recognize in Washington is that people go there to serve the people and then they stay there to serve themselves," Romney ...

The Florence County library system has received a grant of more than $37,000 to create a virtual museum that will include an online tour of collection of the Florence Museum.The Morning News of Florence reported (http://bit.ly/vvykdj) that the library system received the grant recently from the Library Services and Technology Act. The money will be used to create a collaboration among the Florence...

Surveillance videos publicly aired for the first time Thursday show Dominique Strauss-Kahn leisurely checking out of a New York hotel where he was accused of committing sexual assault and show his accuser appearing to act out the alleged attack.It was not immediately clear how France's BFM television acquired the minutes-long segments. The clips were the basis of recent news reports suggesting Str...

State officials have fined a Liberty company more than $3,200 for the death of a worker earlier this year.The Greenville News reported ( http://grnol.co/sQde18) the state Occupational Safety and Health Administration office has issued two citations against Liberty Denim.Forty-one-year-old Lewis Edward Smith II died Aug. 31 when he fell into a machine and died at the textile plant.Liberty Denim hum...