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DEVELOPING: Two students and a teacher were wounded in a shooting Wednesday at a South Carolina elementary school. Anderson County deputies said a teenage suspect was taken into custody after a shooting at Townville Elementary School in Townville, S.C. Two students were shot and airlifted to Greenville Memorial Hospital and a female teacher was taken by ambulance to AnMed, according to authorities. An official said the students' injuries do not appear to be life-threatening.

A 17-year-old black teenager on probation assaulted a 5-year-old girl on a school bus, but the school’s superintendent later tried to defend the behavior as normal. The girl’s father, Terry Peters, said he noticed a mark on his daughter’s face when he picked her up from the school bus last week. “People came out and they began to state to me that she got slapped on the school bus,” said Peters told WAGT. “I’m very upset, I’m mad.” Surveillance footage shows 17-year-old Tavon Walters reach over a bus seat and use another student’s hand to hit 5-year-old Jasmine Peters on...

<p>GREENVILLE, S.C. (AP) - Deputies in South Carolina have increased patrols after getting new reports of people dressed as clowns trying to lure children into the woods.</p> <p>News outlets report that Greenville County sheriff's deputies were called to an apartment complex about 8:20 p.m. Monday that is about 20 minutes from a complex where people reporting seeing clowns last week.</p>

What are the odds of Hillary Clinton winning South Carolina in November? Getting better, according to one numbers-cruncher. Nate Silver of the FiveThirtyEight website currently lists Donald Trump as a heavy favorite in South Carolina, saying the Republican has a 58.8 percent chance of winning the state. But that number has dropped precipitously in the past week. On July 30, Trump had a 84.9 percent likelihood of winning South Carolina in FiveThirtyEight’s projections. Since then, however, the odds have dropped steadily, a loss of more than 25 points over a nine-day period. At the same time, FiveThirtyEight projects a tightening...

Alligator responsible for death of woman who was reported missing from a senior facility in West Ashley was found in a nearby retention pond Wednesday. Authorities continue to look into her death. Alligator responsible for death of woman who was reported missing from a senior facility in West Ashley was found in a nearby retention pond Wednesday. Authorities continue to look into her death. FILE/LEROY BURNELL/STAFF × A 90-year-old woman’s death this week is the first alligator-related fatality in state history, according to the S.C. Department of Natural Resources. Bonnie Walker was reported missing Wednesday morning from Brookdale Charleston, the...

FN Manufacturing rented advertising space in the Columbia, SC Airport. The Richland-Lexington Airport District approved the billboard. It didn't see anything inappropriate about the ad. Twenty percent of the travelers through the airport are soldiers. Then the political pressure started.From thestate.com: Columbia Metropolitan Airport has removed a billboard-sized advertisement of a firearms manufacturer from its concourse.The decision comes a day after The State newspaper reported the ad, featuring eight firearms from FN Manufacturing, upset some travelers. It touted, “Yeah, we carry.” “I pulled in the commission, and really, they felt that given the negative feedback that it’d probably be...

COLUMBIA, SC A Columbia-area conservationist died after suffering a snake bite at a Clarendon County wildlife preserve over the weekend. Wayne M. Grooms, a 71-year-old West Columbia resident, was a Lexington County Soil and Water Conservation district commissioner who was locally well regarded for his knowledge of the natural world. A rattlesnake bit Grooms late Sunday afternoon while he was visiting Santee National Wildlife Refuge, according to the Clarendon County Coroner’s Office. Grooms died within 15 minutes of the snake bite, but a cause of death has not been determined. Grooms had a medical condition and an autopsy is to...

The 2016 tropical storm season is making its mark with an unusually early start. Tropical Storm Bonnie promises to wash out coastal plans for the Carolina coast. Public Advisories

Quintonio Porter Felons do not give up their right to self defense simply because they have committed crimes in the past.  They often live a very dangerous lifestyle, and as the most common victims of homicide, they may need effective self defense more than other people.  A recent case in South Carolina shows that the justice system is realizing this truth.  It investigated the shooting where Quintonio Porter, a convicted felon, shot and killed his friend, Jarrius Harding, in the middle of a gunfight. From heraldonline.com: Jarrius Harding, 18, was killed in the midday shootout near the intersection of...

UPSTATE SOCIAL CONSERVATIVE CITES IMMIGRATION ISSUE Michelle Wiles – one of the Palmetto State’s most influential conservative activists – is leaving the South Carolina leadership team of Ted Cruz and joining the campaign of Donald Trump, sources close to both campaigns told us this week. The Upstate social conservative – widely known and respected in evangelical circles – had been one of Cruz’s most articulate, well-connected South Carolina supporters. Now her support will go to “The Donald.” If this scenario sounds familiar, it should … This isn’t the first time an influential female Cruz supporter has gone over to Trump’s...

Think Hillary Clinton has a lock on Hawaii’s presidential preference poll this coming Saturday? Maybe not. Two enthusiastic Honolulu receptions on Sunday for the wife of Clinton’s chief opponent, Bernie Sanders, suggests that supporters of the Vermont senator believe the Democratic primary process is far from over, despite the substantial delegate lead for the former secretary of state. Jane Sanders flew into town to meet privately with about two dozen veterans at Tommy Kakesako Hall on Nimitz Highway, an event well covered by local media.

According to a GreenvilleOnline news report, a transformer exploded and burned at Oconee Nuclear Station. The article can't be linked but should you choose to search on it, includes cell phone footage. The fire burned a power line that connected the transformer to a switch yard (sends power to the grid). This triggered an alert classified as the "second least serious" level of emergency for a nuke plant. The level of severity was due to its capacity to affect plant operations. They shut down Unit 1 because without the damaged transformer, other transformers would not have been able to carry...

It looks like Rubio carried the state’s wealthy northern suburbs, and Trump took the rest. (SNIP) Rubio’s strongholds overlapped heavily with those that lifted Barack Obama to his second straight win in the state in his 2012 reelection race.

People who pride themselves on rational thinking know there are few feelings worse than being wrong about something, especially something that they made a big noise about at the time. What helps lessen this intellectual humiliation is understanding that, given the information available at the time, the decision was a rational one at the time. The remedy for the initial error is to use the newly available information to reach a more reasoned decision. As the campaign season goes forward, we're learning more about Donald Trump's politics and seeing his initial ebullient puckishness too often give way to self-referential arrogance...

TRUMP HAS WON SOUTH CAROLINA

MSNBC just projected Donald Trump winner of SC priimary

Who turned out in today's South Carolina Republican primary and what motivated their votes? For all the answers, bookmark this page or save it in the ABC News app now and come back shortly after 5 p.m. ET for the first wave of South Carolina primary exit poll results. Polls close at 7 p.m. ET. The ABC News Analysis Desk will be updating this page with live analysis of the exit polls.

Augusta Chronicle 2/18 - 2/19 780 LV MOE 3.5 Trump 27 Rubio 24 Cruz 19 Bush 11 Kasich 7 Carson 8

Updates being posted throughout the day from SC. Some typical anecdotal quotes from voters included.

Inman and Travelers Rest police officers gathered at Los Cabos Bar & Grill on Friday night for dinner with their families.... . . Paris said a woman had walked into the restaurant to pick up a to-go order and noticed the officers dressed in uniform. The customer paid for the entire group's meal and left the note to pass along.