Mitt Romney embraced a killer instinct and leveraged a dominant political machine to crush chief rival Newt Gingrich in Florida's Republican presidential primary.Click to Continue »

They worship at the political altar of Ronald Reagan, but Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney ignore one part of his creed: his so-called 11th Commandment forbidding criticism of fellow Republicans.Click to Continue »

S.C. House Speaker Bobby Harrell wants to bar S.C. political parties from scheduling their presidential primaries after any other Southern state.Click to Continue »

A political and legal battle is brewing between politicians in York County who are advocates of economic development but oppose the Catawba Indian Nation?s plan to open a casino on…Click to Continue »

Italy's cruise liner tragedy turned into an environmental crisis Monday, as rough seas battering the stricken mega-ship raised fears that fuel might leak into pristine waters off Tuscany that are…Click to Continue »

The objections of community and political leaders led state officials to withhold a liquor permit for a new nightclub along Richland County’s redeveloping Decker Boulevard.Samantha Cheek, spokeswoman for the S.C. Department of Revenue, said Wednesday a letter denying the license will go out next week to Ruben Guardiola of the Blue Willow Group Corp. of Myrtle Beach. She said the company ope...

An Irmo financial advisor and political activist has died after a rock-climbing accident in North Carolina.William “Bill” McAfee, 40, died Monday afternoon after falling about 30 feet off a rock face, said Detective Ricky McKinney of the Rutherford County (N.C.) Sheriff’s Department. McAfee was in an area popular with rock climbers near Rumbling Bald, which is north of Lake Lure, Mc...

An Irmo financial advisor and political activist has died after a rock climbing accident in North Carolina.William “Bill” McAfee, 40, died Monday afternoon after falling about 30 feet off a rock face, said Detective Ricky McKinney of the Rutherford County (N.C.) Sheriff’s Department. McAfee was in an area popular with rock climbers near Rumbling Bald, which is north of Lake Lu...

Iowa hosts the nation’s first Republican presidential nominating contest tonight, goosing one presidential candidate into frontrunner status and sending him — or her — roaring into New Hampshire and then South Carolina.Similarities between Iowa and South Carolina make tonight’s caucuses a must-watch event for those who will vote in the Palmetto State’s Jan. 21 GO...

The Romney machine is slowly coming to life in South Carolina, with the Republican presidential candidate retaining two veteran S.C. political consultants Friday to help guide his campaign down the three-week stretch leading to the state’s Jan. 21 primary.Warren Tompkins, who has guided candidates to victory four times in South Carolina’s GOP primary, and Luke Byars, the state direct...

Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign has hired veteran S.C. political consultants Warren Tompkins and Luke Byars to help boost his presence in South Carolina in the three weeks leading up to the state’s pivotal primary.Tompkins has guided four candidates to wins in South Carolina’s Republican primary, including Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bob Dole and George W. Bush. Byars is a ...

Asian stock markets strengthened Friday on the last day of trading for 2011, following a brisk session on Wall Street, but the uptick could not blunt the effects of a grueling year in which investors booked sharp losses.Benchmark oil rose to near $100 per barrel and the dollar weakened against the yen and the euro.Japan's Nikkei 225 index, after three straight days of losses, rose 0.4 percent to 8...

A diary with a lifesaving bullet hole from Gettysburg. An intricate valentine crafted by a Confederate soldier for the wife he would never see again. A slave's desperate escape to freedom.From New England to the South, state archivists are using the sesquicentennial of the Civil War to collect a trove of wartime letters, diaries, documents and mementoes that have gathered dust in attics and baseme...

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...

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...

As a proud son of South Carolina I must address recent unsubstantiated rumors published in The State that I, Stephen Colbert, tried to buy the naming rights to the 2012 Republican primary. First, never trust anything in a newspaper — except this column, and possibly “Mallard Filmore.” And second, these outrageous and scurrilous rumors border on libel, even if they are, technically,...

Attorney General Eric Holder vowed Tuesday to fully enforce civil rights protections in next year's elections amid a flurry of activity by states to redraw political boundaries and impose requirements that could reduce voting by minorities who enthusiastically supported Barack Obama in the 2008 election.Giving his most expansive speech on civil rights since taking office, the nation's chief law en...

The Iowa political director for former House Speaker Newt Gingrich's presidential campaign resigned Tuesday for suggesting that evangelicals stood ready to help God "expose the cult of Mormon." Craig Bergman had been with Gingrich's campaign for only a week and now he's out of a job for speaking disparagingly about former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney's Mormon faith. Bergman, a "tea party...

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...

The Virginia Tech police officer who was shot dead at his parked cruiser was a trained firearms and defense instructor with a specialty in crisis intervention. His death leaves investigators puzzling over how and why a gunman walked up to the patrol car during a traffic stop, killed the officer and wound up dead himself in a nearby parking lot.The campus shooting prompted officials to lock down th...

Stephen Colbert, a South Carolina native and host of Comedy Central’s “The Colbert Report,” is not giving up on his quest to influence the South Carolina Republican presidential primary.After state Republican officials declined to let Colbert become the primary’s official sponsor -- and the state Supreme Court threw out the advisory questions Colbert had put on the ballot -- th...

President Barack Obama delivered a sweeping indictment of economic inequality in the U.S. on Tuesday as he summoned the memory of President Theodore Roosevelt and pledged to fight for fairness at a "make or break moment for the middle class."Only a month before Republican voters begin choosing a presidential nominee, Obama traveled to small-town Osawatomie, Kan., where Roosevelt delivered his "New...

Former Vice President Dan Quayle is endorsing Mitt Romney for president, Republican officials told The Associated Press Monday.Quayle plans to announce his support for the former Massachusetts governor Tuesday afternoon at an event in Paradise Valley, Ariz., where Quayle has a home.Quayle served as vice president under President George H.W. Bush. He was a House member from Indiana for two terms an...

Four of Gov. Nikki Haley’s staff members will testify about a state agency’s controversial decision to allow a Georgia port to expand after a state Senate panel took the unprecedented step Friday of subpoenaing them.“Yes, we will testify,” Rob Godfrey, Haley’s spokesman, said Friday. “And these senators will confirm, again, what they already know to be tru...

The University of South Carolina’s winter graduates will hear from longtime NBC news anchor Tom Brokaw, who will receive an honorary doctorate of humane letters from the university.A projected 1,771 students from all eight university campuses will receive degrees at 3:30 p.m. Dec. 12 at the Colonial Life Arena. Doctoral hoods will be conferred earlier, at 1:30 p.m. at the Koger Center of th...

Major central banks around the globe took coordinated action Wednesday to ease the strains on the world's financial system, saying they would make it easier for banks to get dollars if they need them. Stock markets and the euro rose sharply on the move.The European Central Bank, U.S. Federal Reserve, the Bank of England and the central banks of Canada, Japan and Switzerland are all taking part.As ...

A strong start to the U.S. shopping season and fresh proposals for a far-reaching solution to Europe’s debt crisis sent stocks sharply higher today. The Dow Jones industrial average soared 300 points in afternoon trading, making up more than half of the ground it lost last week.Initial reports show a record number of shoppers hit the mall or bought gifts online during the holiday weekend. ...

A special deficit-reduction supercommittee appears likely to admit failure on Monday, unable or unwilling to compromise on a mix of spending cuts and tax increases required to meet its assignment of saving taxpayers at least $1.2 trillion over the coming decade.The panel is sputtering to a close after two months of talks in which the members were never able to get close to bridging a fundamental d...

Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain says Republicans took back control of the House in 2008 - when that really happened in 2010.Cain misspoke during a rally Wednesday in West Palm Beach, Fla.The former businessman said when Americans' spirit is ignited - in his words - "they make things happen, just like they made things happen in 2008, when the Republicans took back control of the House...