South-Carolina
Trump enters South Carolina's Republican primary looking to embarrass Haley in her home state
CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) — Former President Donald Trump is looking to win his fourth straight primary state on Saturday over Nikki Haley in South Carolina, aiming to hand a home-state embarrassment to his last remaining major rival for the Republican nomination.
Trump went into the primary with a huge polling lead and the backing of the state’s top Republicans, including Sen. Tim Scott, a former rival in the race. Haley, who served as U.N. ambassador under Trump, has spent weeks crisscrossing the state that twice elected her governor warning that the dominant front-runner, who is 77 and faces four indictments, is too old and distracted to be president again.
In all but one primary since 1980, the Republican winner in South Carolina has gone on to be the party’s nominee. But Haley has repeatedly vowed to carry on if she loses her home state, even as Trump positions himself for a likely general election rematch against President Joe Biden.
Trump’s backers, including those who previously supported Haley during her time as governor, seemed confident that the former president would have a solid victory on Saturday.
“I did support her when she was governor. She’s done some good things,” Davis Paul, 36, said as he waited for Trump at a recent rally in Conway. “But I just don’t think she’s ready to tackle a candidate like Trump. I don’t think many people can.”
Trump has swept into the state for a handful of large rallies in between fundraisers and events in other states, including Michigan, which holds its GOP primary Tuesday.
He has drawn much larger crowds and campaigned with Gov. Henry McMaster, who succeeded Haley, and Scott, who was elevated to the Senate by Haley.
Speaking Friday in Rock Hill, Trump accused Haley of staying in the race to hurt him at the behest of Democratic donors.
“All she’s trying to do is inflict pain on us so they can win in November,” he said. “We’re not going to let that happen.”
In some of those rallies, Trump has made comments that handed Haley more fodder for her stump speeches, such as his Feb. 10 questioning of why her husband — currently on a South Carolina Army National Guard deployment to Africa — hadn’t been campaigning alongside her. Haley turned that point into an argument that the front-runner doesn’t respect servicemembers and their families, long a criticism that has followed Trump going back to his suggesting the late Sen. John McCain, a prisoner of war in Vietnam, wasn’t a hero because he was captured.
That same night, Trump asserted that he would encourage countries like Russia “to do whatever the hell they want” against NATO member countries who failed to meet the transatlantic alliance’s defense spending targets. Haley has been holding out that moment as evidence that Trump is too volatile and “getting weak in the knees when it comes to Russia.”
After one of Haley’s events, Terry Sullivan, a U.S. Navy veteran who lives in Hopkins, said he had planned to support Trump but changed his mind after hearing Haley’s critique of his NATO comments.
“One country can say whatever it wants, but when you have an agreement, among other nations, we should join the agreements of other nations, not just off on our own,” Sullivan said. “After listening to Nikki, I think I’m a Nikki supporter now.”
Haley has made an indirect appeal to Democrats who in large numbers sat out their own presidential primary earlier this month, adding into her stump speech a line that “anybody can vote in this primary as long as they didn’t vote in the Feb. 3 Democrat primary.”
Some of those voters have been showing up at her events, saying that although they planned to vote for Biden in the general election, they planned to cross over to the GOP primary on Saturday as a way to oppose Trump now.
In any other campaign cycle, a home state loss might be detrimental to a campaign. In 2016, Sen. Marco Rubio dropped out shortly after losing Florida in a blowout to Trump, after his campaign argued the political winds would shift in his favor once the campaign moved to his home state.
And Haley’s campaign can’t name a state in which they feel she will be victorious over Trump.
But in a speech this week in Greenville, Haley said she would stay in the campaign “until the last person votes,” arguing that those whose contests come after the early primaries and caucuses deserved the right to have a choice between candidates.
Haley also used that speech — which many had assumed was an announcement she was shuttering her campaign — to argue that she feels “no need to kiss the ring,” as others had, possibly with prospects of serving as Trump’s running mate in mind.
“I have no fear of Trump’s retribution,” Haley reiterated. “I’m not looking for anything from him. My own political future is of zero concern.”
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Weissert reported from Washington.
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Meg Kinnard can be reached at http://twitter.com/MegKinnardAP and Will Weissert can be reached at https://twitter.com/apwillweissert.
South-Carolina
No. 1 Tennessee Baseball at South Carolina: How to Watch, Complete Preview | Rocky Top Insider
Tennessee baseball is back in action this weekend as they head on the road to face South Carolina in a three-game series at Founders Park.
The Vols are coming off of a series victory over Alabama and are looking to pick up their third straight series win to open up conference play. Here’s how to watch, pitching matchups and other details ahead of the three-game series in Columbia.
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How to Watch: No. 1 Tennessee baseball (23-2, 5-1 SEC) at South Carolina (17-9, 1-5 SEC)
Game One:
First pitch time: 7 p.m. ET
Announcers: PxP: Dave Weinstein, CC: Grayson Greiner
Watch: SEC Network+
Game Two:
First pitch time: 4 p.m. ET
Announcers: PxP: Dave Weinstein, CC: Grayson Greiner
Watch: SEC Network+
Game Three:
First pitch time: 5 p.m. ET
Announcers: PxP: Tom Hart, CC: Chris Burke
Watch: SEC Network
Pitching Matchups
Game One:
Vols LHP Liam Doyle: 6 GS, 3-1, 2.03 ERA, 31 IP, 0.84 WHIP, 62 K, 11 BB
vs.
Gamecocks LHP Jake McCoy: 6 GS, 2-2, 6.57 ERA, 24.2 IP, 1.46 WHIP, 45 K, 12 BB
Game Two:
Vols RHP Marcus Phillips: 6 GS, 2-0, 1.47 ERA, 30.2 IP, 0.91 WHIP, 35 K, 9 BB
vs.
Gamecocks LHP Jarvis Evans Jr: 5 GS, 3-0, 3.42 ERA, 26.1 IP, 1.18 WHIP, 27 K, 7 BB
Game Three:
TBD vs. TBD
What To Know About South Carolina
Tennessee baseball faces off with ole friend Paul Mainieri this weekend. The former LSU coach is in his first year leading the South Carolina program after the Gamecocks’ fired Mark Kingston last offseason.
It’s been a pretty rocky start to Mainieri’s first season in Columbia. In pre conference play, Clemson swept a three-game weekend series against South Carolina. The first two weeks of SEC play haven’t been any kinder to the Gamecocks. They dropped two of three at home to Oklahoma before Arkansas swept them in Fayetteville last weekend.
At the plate, Ethan Petry has been fantastic this season and is hitting .359 with six home runs, 15 extra-base hits and 23 RBIs. Nathan Hall is off to a stout start to his season too, hitting .398 with four home runs, 11 extra-base hits and 23 RBIs.
On the mound, Dylan Eskew has been South Carolina’s top bullpen arm. In 20.1 IP this season, Eskew is posting a 1.77 ERA though he has been a bit erratic at times.
Quick Prediction
Life on the road in the SEC is never easy and I don’t expect Tennessee to waltz into Founders Park and coast to a series sweep. But Tennessee is a much better team and South Carolina has been largely unimpressive to this point in the season.
The Vols should win this series and sweeping is very much on the table. But my respect for the difficulty of sweeping SEC series, especially on the road, is keeping me from predicting it.
Tennessee wins two out of three
Wildfires continued to rage in North and South Carolina on Thursday, leading to states of emergency and evacuations as firefighters deployed from other parts of the US to help bring the blazes under control.
In North Carolina, progress was being made in containing two of the largest wildfires burning in the mountains, but officials warned that fire danger remained from dry and windy conditions.
The news was worse in South Carolina, where two fires nearly doubled in size on Wednesday.
Hundreds of people have been asked to leave their homes in the two states as a half-dozen large fires burn in the Blue Ridge mountains, spreading smoke into places like Greenville, a city of about 70,000 people in South Carolina.
Wednesday’s dry weather led to several new fires in western North Carolina and prompted the state’s governor, Josh Stein, to declare a state of emergency in 34 western counties. At least nine fires were active in that part of the state, officials said.
Quick Guide
US wildfire terms, explained
Show
Acres burned
US wildfires are measured in terms of acres. While the size of a wildfire doesn’t necessarily correlate to its destructive impact, acreage provides a way to understand a fire’s footprint and how quickly it has grown.
There are 2.47 acres in a hectare, and 640 acres in a square mile, but this can be hard to visualise. Here are some easy comparisons: one acre equates to roughly the size of an American football field. London’s Heathrow airport is about 3,000 acres. Manhattan covers roughly 14,600 acres, while Chicago is roughly 150,000 acres, and Los Angeles is roughly 320,000 acres.
Megafire
A megafire is defined by the National Interagency Fire Center as a wildfire that has burned more than 100,000 acres (40,000 hectares).
Containment level
A wildfire’s containment level indicates how much progress firefighters have made in controlling the fire. Containment is achieved by creating perimeters the fire can’t move across. This is done through methods such as putting fire retardants on the ground, digging trenches, or removing brush and other flammable fuels.
Containment is measured in terms of the percentage of the fire that has been surrounded by these control lines. A wildfire with a low containment level, such as 0% or 5%, is essentially burning out of control. A fire with a high level of containment, such as 90%, isn’t necessarily extinguished but rather has a large protective perimeter and a rate of growth that is under control.
Evacuation orders and warnings
Evacuation warnings and orders are issued by officials when a wildfire is causing imminent danger to people’s life and property. According to the California office of emergency services, an evacuation warning means that it’s a good idea to leave an area or get ready to leave soon. An evacuation order means that you should leave the area immediately.
Red flag warning
A red flag warning is a type of forecast issued by the National Weather Service that indicates when weather conditions are likely to spark or spread wildfires. These conditions typically include dryness, low humidity, high winds and heat.
Prescribed burn
A prescribed burn, or a controlled burn, is a fire that is intentionally set under carefully managed conditions in order to improve the health of a landscape. Prescribed burns are carried out by trained experts such as members of the US Forest Service and Indigenous fire practitioners. Prescribed burns help remove flammable vegetation and reduce the risk of larger, more catastrophic blazes, among other benefits.
Prescribed burning was once a common tool among Native American tribes who used “good fire” to improve the land, but was limited for much of the last century by a US government approach based on fire suppression. In recent years, US land managers have returned to embracing the benefits of prescribed burns, and now conduct thousands across the country every year.
The so-called Black Cove complex fire is currently the highest-priority wildfire in the US, according to an update from the North Carolina department of agriculture, with hundreds of firefighters working to battle the flames. States such as Oregon have already sent dozens of firefighters to assist with the efforts, deploying an additional 11 people on Wednesday.
The fires are burning in an area that were hit hard by Hurricane Helene in September. Millions of fallen trees from that storm are both providing fuel for the wildfires and hindering firefighters’ use of logging roads and paths.
The North Carolina forest service said that the Black Cove fire and the Deep Woods fire were each more than 10% contained on Wednesday night, after days of reporting zero containment for the two blazes. The fires have scorched nearly 6,400 acres (2,590 hectares) combined, but the size of the area burned has largely remained the same since the previous day.
Firefighters have managed to save most of the structures near the fires. Only one injury has been reported: a firefighter in North Carolina got his leg caught under a tree, officials said.
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There is rain in the forecast for the weekend, but it isn’t the kind of soaking downpour that can knock a fire out on its own, said the National Weather Service meteorologist Ashley Rehnberg in Greer, South Carolina.
“Hopefully that will at least calm things down briefly,” Rehnberg said.
The bright spot in the forecast for the next week is there is not expected to be an especially dangerous day when winds and dry weather reach potentially disastrous levels like they did in Los Angeles in January or Gatlinburg, Tennessee, in 2016.
Forestry agencies in North Carolina and South Carolina are already figuring out how to rotate teams of firefighters into and out of the mountains for what could be a long fight.
The fires in South Carolina were caused by humans. Authorities from local fire chiefs all the way to South Carolina’s governor are urging people to heed burn bans in both states and stop setting fires at campsites or burning garbage.
“We have people going out in the woods and in their back yards and starting fires when the wind is blowing and everything is dry,” said South Carolina’s governor, Henry McMaster. “We just have to use common sense. People get out in nature and they forget how dangerous it can be.”
The Associated Press contributed reporting
The widespread damage and loss of life caused by Tropical Storm Helene was unprecedented. The storm’s impact on the Upstate is still being felt — and will be for years to come.
Here are some numbers that illustrate the storm’s magnitude and devastation:
50: Number of fatalities in South Carolina as a result of the storm.
21.66: Inches of rain measured at Sunfish Mountain in Greenville, the highest total in the state.
77: Wind gusts, by miles per hour, recorded in Laurens County, the highest in South Carolina.
22: Sites in South Carolina that experienced record river flooding.
1.3 million: Homes without power in South Carolina during and after Helene.
2,500: Homes in the state that were destroyed or sustained significant damage due to the storm.
3 million: Total debris, in cubic yards, collected by the South Carolina Department of Transportation as of January 29. This does not include debris removed from county-maintained roads. Crews with Greenville County, for example, have collected 1.1 million yards.
1.3 million: Homes without power in South Carolina during and after Helene.
(Sources: the SCDOT, the SC Forestry Commission, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.)
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