$500 Reward Offered to Catch Starr-Iva Playground Vandals

A $500 reward is being offered for information leading to the individual or individuals who vandalized the playground at the Starr-Iva Walking Track, an area built in honor of fallen Anderson County Deputy Alex Burdette.

The Anderson County Sheriff's Office is investigating the incident.

The playground, located on Bowie Street, was damaged between the hours of 10:15 pm, Monday and 7 am, Today, still closed until repairs can be make. was damaged recently said they found overturned trash, swings wrapped around poles and the rock climbing wall ripped off.

Starr mayor Ed Sokol was at the playground Tuesday helping to clean up trash. Sokol said he is contacting the manufacturer about replacement parts for the things damaged.

Jessica Blanton, an Upstate mom whose son, Jackson, helped raise money to build the new playground, said they saw the damage while visiting the park Tuesday. Blanton said Burdette's family lived near the walking track and after his death in 2005, his wife and daughters put up the playground in his honor.

After several years, the playground had suffered wear so Jackson and a group of friends nicknamed "The Starr Kids" raised money in the community to buy all new equipment.

"Starr is, like I said, a tight-knit community," Sokol said. "I feel like that someone that knows something about it would come forward."

A $500 reward is being offered for information leading to an arrest. Call 864-352-2138 or the Anderson County Sheriff's Department.

Trump Puts Freeze on Collecting Voting Records

U.S. President Donald Trump's commission to investigate possible election fraud on Monday put a freeze on its effort to collect sensitive voter data from states in the face of growing legal challenges.

In an email, the panel's designated officer, Andrew Kossack, asked state elections officers to "hold on submitting any data," the commission said in court filings. 

Several state elections officials confirmed receiving a letter from the panel stating that it would provide further instructions after a federal judge had ruled on a complaint filed by a watchdog group, the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), which is seeking a temporary restraining order.

Earlier on Monday, the American Civil Liberties Union sued the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, alleging violations of federal law requiring transparent government.

The bipartisan panel, led by Vice President Mike Pence and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, asked the 50 U.S. states for a host of voter data, including birth dates and the last four digits of voters' Social Security numbers. 

Most U.S. states have rejected full compliance, which many called unnecessary and a violation of privacy. 

“This has been a misadventure from the get-go," Massachusetts Secretary of State William Galvin, who had refused to give the commission any data, said by phone.

7-11 to Offer Free Slurpees Today

7-Eleven is celebrating its 90th birthday by hosting a free Slurpee Party Today.  Customers are invited to enjoy a free small Slurpee beverage from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday as part of the celebration.

7-Eleven estimates that US stores will give away an estimated 9 million free Slurpees during the birthday party.

July 16 Foodie Fest to Benefit Foothills Alliance

On July 16, the Foothills Alliance is hosting Foodie Fest 2017 at the Anderson County Civic Center.

More than 15 food trucks from the tri-state area will line the perimeter of the event, which will also feature music from the band "Hot as a Pepper," country recording artist Hailey Whitters, and former "Glee" cast member Noah Guthrie.

Tickets are $5, for entry into Foodie Fest 2017 food truck area, and $10 for all events including concerts. Children 12 and unders will be admitted free. Parking is also fee. Non pets allowed. 

The concert schedule is as follows:

"Hot As A Pepper" - 2-3:30 p.m.

Hailey Whitters - 4-5:30p.m.

Noah Guthrie - 6-8:00 p.m.

Profits from Foodie Fest 2017 will benefit Foothills Alliance, a non-profit agency that serves child and adult victims of sexual abuse and sponsors child abuse prevention programs. 

Downtown Dog Park Dedication Ceremony Wednesday

Anderson County’s first off-leash dog park will celebrate with a ribbon-cutting and dedication ceremony Wednesday at 6 p.m. at the site downtonw near the library.

The dog park is on county-owned land bordered by North Manning Street, East Society Street, East Orr Street and North Fant Street. The property is located on land near the Anderson County Library.

The park is a joint effort of Anderson County, the City of Anderson, AnMed and the Community Foothills Foundation.

Haley: "Everybody Knows Russia Meddled in Our Elections"

US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley says Russian President Vladimir Putin denied Moscow interfered in last year's US election in order to "save face."

"This is Russia trying to save face, and they can't, they can't," Haley told CNN's Dana Bash on "State of the Union" Sunday. "Everybody knows that Russia meddled in our elections. Everybody knows that they're not just meddling in the United States' election. They're doing this across multiple continents, and they're doing this in a way that they're trying to cause chaos within the countries."

When asked about what happened behind closed doors during Trump and Putin's highly anticipated face-to-face meeting at the G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany, on Friday, Haley said Trump wanted to look Putin "in the eye."

"What he did was bring up right away the election meddling, and he did that for a reason," Haley said. "One, he wanted him (Putin) to basically look him in the eye, let him know that, 'Yes, we know you meddled in our elections. Yes we know you did it. Cut it out.' And I think President Putin did exactly what we thought he would do, which is deny it."

Asked why, if everyone knows Russia interfered in the US election, Trump hasn't said so in such an unequivocal way publicly, Haley reiterated that Trump's meeting was confrontational.

"Everybody's trying to nitpick what he says and what he doesn't, but talk is one thing, actions are another," she said. "He confronted President Putin. He made it the first thing that he talked about. And I think we have to now see where it goes from here."

Trump and Putin met for more than two hours Friday afternoon, ending with an agreement on curbing violence in Syria.

Trump also met with Chinese President Chinese President Xi Jinping on Saturday amid questions about how the two countries will work against the nuclear threat posed by North Korea.

Of the meeting, Haley said China "has a choice to make" about what kind of international player it wants to be.

"I think that there are a lot of options on the table when it comes to dealing with China, and now the ball's in their court," she said. "We are pushing for a resolution that has very harsh sanctions on North Korea. And so China has a choice to make. They're either going to go along with us and the rest of the international community and say, 'Yes, we think that what North Korea did was wrong,' or they're not."

Haley added that military action against North Korea is an option, as are increased sanctions "in a way that really presses their hard currency." However, Haley said China would have to go along with the sanctions plan since it is North Korea's largest trading partner.

"If they go along with that, that's fine," she said. "If they don't go along with that, the President has made it clear that he will start looking at trade relations with China."

Trump urged action on North Korea in the brief public portion of his meeting with Xi on Saturday.

"Something has to be done about it," Trump argued ominously.

There will "eventually be a success" against Pyongyang, Trump said. "It may be longer than I like, more than you like, but there will be a success ... one way or the other."

Greenville Zoo Orangutan Escapes, Returns to Enclosure

An orangutan escaped from its enclosure at the Greenville Zoo on Sunday, according to zoo officials.

Jeff Bullock with the Greenville Zoo said the male orangutan was able to break one of the wires that held the enclosure netting together and slipped through the hole around 11:30 a.m. The orangutan then sat on top of the roof holding area, Bullock said.

The zoo was then placed on lock down and all visitors were moved inside of the gift shop and various other safe areas.

Soon after, the orangutan returned to its enclosure through the hole and a curator brought in several pad locks to secure the netting where the hole was created.

Bullock says crew members then used water hoses and fire extinguishers to get the orangutans to retreat into the den area long enough for that crew member to secure the net using the pad locks. This is a tactic also used when animals attack, he said, but that was not an issue on Sunday. The orangutans were just excited, he said.

A dart gun was also present, but was not needed and not used.

The female orangutan did not try to escape.

Greenville Zoo crew members are trained to deal with animal escapes, Bullock said. However, it's something they work to avoid, especially with curious orangutans like Kumar, the one who escaped.

"He is, personality wise, just young and curious. Orangutans are just so smart it’s like a really smart teenager who’s always gotta look for anything they can get into," Bullock said. "Anytime we build anything in the exhibit we have to make sure its locked down tight, the bolts are tight, because they’re just so strong and so smart they take things apart.

Visitors were released from their safe areas within about 30 minutes, Bullock said.

No animals, no crew members and no visitors were harmed. Bullock said no one came into physical contact with the orangutan.

"I'm proud of the way the staff handled it, they did their jobs."

Wild (and Strange) Animals Popping Up in South Carolina

(AP) - David Jachowski was looking for a completely different animal when he ran into the elusive spotted skunk.

The Clemson University ecology professor and his students were hoping to study the migration patterns of golden eagles, so they put out deer carcasses in South Carolina's Upstate, trying to attract the birds. Instead, their cameras captured another rarely seen creature - the spotted skunk, a shy inhabitant of the Upstate's hills.

"I don't know if they were eating (the carcasses) or just came to investigate the smell," Jachowski said. Spotted skunks were widespread in the Palmetto State before their population dropped off in the middle of the last century for unknown reasons.

"This is a species we don't know much about," Jachowski said. He now heads a two-year study of the critters, which are baited for study with sardines, rather than stags.

The skunk isn't the only rare, unusual or odd creature to pop up occasionally in the state.

In May, someone reported releasing a boa constrictor into Congaree National Park. Park officials never found the tropical snake and are not sure one ever was released.

But other animal-world oddities have been confirmed.

• Fishing trips to S.C. lakes have turned up an omnivorous, freshwater relative of the piranha.
• A South American kangaroo-like rodent has made appearances in the Upstate.
• The S.C. Department of Natural Resources has been called in when pet turtles from Africa have escaped, having grown to weigh 100 pounds.
• And, in 2010, a 6-foot-tall emu - a large, flightless Australian bird - caused a commotion when it got loose in downtown Rock Hill.

'You could bruise a knuckle'

Wildlife officials suspect many of the exotic animals that have been found in the state were released by their owners or escaped captivity.

For example, pacu, a tropical fish related to piranha that sometimes is sold in the pet trade, occasionally have been found in Lake Hartwell.

"I think people keep them for a few years and they outgrow the aquarium, and then they just release them," said Ross Self, Natural Resources' chief of freshwater fisheries, hastening to add it is illegal to let pet fish go in the state's waterways.

The pacu is noteworthy because, like its piranha cousins, it has teeth. Not pointed teeth, but eerily human-looking molars.

"It eats fruits and nuts that fall into the water, so it has crushing teeth," Self said. "It's not an aggressive predator."

But, he added, "If you stick your finger in its mouth, you could bruise a knuckle."

Self doubts the pacu are reproducing, since the tropical fish probably couldn't survive a South Carolina winter.

'Souped-up jackrabbit'

Another likely escapee from pet-dom was the Patagonian cavy, an animal that Natural Resources officers used to find occasionally in parts of Edgefield County.

More than a decade ago, wildlife agents got reports of a "souped-up-looking jackrabbit" in the western parts of the county, said Jay Butfiloski, a DNR wildlife biologist.

Natural Resources officers finally identified the "jackrabbit" as being a cavy - a rabbit-like rodent from Argentina that has long hind legs and long ears - from photos snapped by the public and, on at least one occasion, a dead animal found on the side of the road.

Butfiloski thinks the cavy sightings in Edgefield could be the result of someone in the area keeping the animals. But he said it's been six or seven years since the last cavy was reported to Natural Resources.

'Little tanks'

More frequent are reports of the African spur-thighed tortoise, an animal that gets its name from the spiky scales on its legs.

The tortoises are sold as pets but can grow to be much larger than their owners might expect, often exceeding 100 pounds.

"They're sold when they're about golf ball size, then grow to be like little tanks," said Will Dillman, a Natural Resources herpetologist, a scientist who studies amphibians and reptiles. "People put them in the yard, and they can dig out into the adjacent lot."

The tortoises don't pose a danger to humans and are caught fairly quickly. But, Dillman said, "They are surprisingly fast."

Other exotic animals are better suited to life in the S.C. wild.

For instance, the Texas horned lizard, a desert dweller, has made a home for itself in the Lowcountry's sandy soil.

Not new here

Not all of South Carolina's stranger creatures have escaped from captivity.

Some are fairly common, but maintain such a low profile that their presence - when confirmed - can cause a commotion.

Butfiloski recently received a photo from Anderson County showing an ermine weasel peeking out of a woodpile.

Weasels are common in South Carolina, but they don't come to the attention of Natural Resources very often - unless they get into a chicken coop.

"They can be quite aggressive to small animals," Butfiloski said. "Sometimes, weasels go on a killing spree."

Shortage of Wasp, Bee Venom Extract Worries Allergists

A shortage of honeybee, wasp and hornet venom extract has allergists concerned.

The extract treats people who have potentially life-threatening allergies to stings by these insects. It is given in immunotherapy shots to help build up tolerance to the stings.

Manufacturing problems at one of two companies that produce the extract has reduced the U.S. supply by up to 35 percent, according to CNN.

The shortage is expected to continue through the summer -- peak sting season, researchers warned.

"Allergy immunotherapy is one of the best therapies that we have. This treatment can be protective in 99 percent of patients. So, for those patients who cannot be treated or whose treatment is delayed, it's scary and they may limit their levels of outdoor activity," said Dr. Juan Guarderas. He is an allergist-immunologist at University of Florida Health Allergy in Gainesville.

Despite the shortage, patients are still getting treatment, the allergy specialists noted in a university news release.

Dr. Mario Rodenas-Medina said that "there's no need to panic. Patient care has not been affected. We just need to be aware that there are resources despite the shortage." He is a clinical assistant professor of allergy and clinical immunology at the UF College of Medicine.

Patients who are allergic should keep up-to-date epinephrine injectors, or EpiPens, handy, the doctors advised.

The American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology and the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology recommend reducing maintenance doses of the extracts, increasing time between shots and delaying treatment for patients at the lowest risk of a bad reaction.

"We have to be diligent and we have to be careful about misuse of these extracts because they're highly valuable right now," Rodenas-Medina said.

More information

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has more on bug bites and stings.

Study: Laughter Helps Build Social Bonds

Sharing a laugh can make you feel closer to someone else, and that quick-forming social bond may have been a big evolutionary boon to human survival, a small study suggests.

The act of laughing out loud triggers the brain to release its very own "feel good" neurotransmitters, known as endorphins, the study's brain scans showed.

Endorphins are naturally occurring opioids that may produce a sense of euphoria, calmness and stress reduction, the researchers said.

And once laughter causes endorphin levels to go up, so too do feelings of closeness and connection between those "in" on the giggle.

For many animals, primates especially, mutual grooming helps boost social bonds. And humans do this, too. But laughter may work quicker.

"Touching is probably the most powerful way of bonding in humans," said study author Lauri Nummenmaa, "but it is very time-consuming, as an individual can touch a maximum of [only] two people at the same time."

Nummenmaa is an associate professor of modeling and medical image processing at Turku PET Centre and the department of psychology at the University of Turku in Finland.

Laughter, on the other hand, gets the job done faster and more efficiently, Nummenmaa said, noting that it's "highly contagious, and may occur simultaneously in large groups.

"Such contagion," he added, "allows the endorphin responses to spread throughout the group, increasing the effectiveness of this type of 'vocal grooming.' Thus, the evolution of laughter may have enabled humans to significantly expand their social circles."

The Finnish study included 12 healthy men between the ages of 20 and 32. First, they completed mood questionnaires to determine their usual levels of happiness, tension, pain, pleasure and calmness.

Two opioid-tracking brain scans were then conducted. The first took place after each participant spent a half-hour alone in a room, with the goal being to get a snapshot of routine opioid levels. The second took place after each participant watched a half-hour of pre-chosen comedy clips with two close friends.

Audio recordings indicated that, during the comedy screenings, "social laughter" outbursts among the participants and friends clocked in at an average of a little more than one per minute.

Brain scans indicated that as social laughter increased so did the levels of endorphins and other brain opioids similarly linked to arousal and emotions.

"Also," said Nummenmaa, "we found that the more opioid receptors the participants had in their brain, the more they laughed during the experiment. This suggests that individual differences in the brain's opioid system could underlie individual differences in sociality."

But one thing that everyone has in common, said Nummenmaa, is that "laughter is also highly contagious. And we often have a hard time resisting laughing when we hear others doing so, even when we know that the laughter is fake or intentional, as in canned laughter [and] laughter tracks in sitcoms."

S.C. Denies Trump Request for Voter Data

The South Carolina State Election Commission is refusing to turn over voter information to a White House panel investigating voter fraud.

The commission on Thursday posted on its website the reasons it is rejecting the request from the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity.

The state commission said it has reviewed state laws and consulted with the South Carolina Attorney General's Office before making the decision.

The Election Commission said it cannot share voter data without anyone outside South Carolina.

The presidential commission was seeking the names, dates of birth, party affiliation, voter history, any felony convictions, and the last four digits of voters' Social Security numbers.

South Carolina has no party registration. The commission said it would never provide any part of a Social Security number to anyone.

National Study: Anderson "Well Being" 382nd of 3,235 Counties

"By analyzing social media, we can get unexpected, in-depth insights into the processes that drive happiness and illness," said researcher Anneke Buffone.

Anderson County ranks 382nd overall out of 3,235 counties nationwide in overall personality traits effecting well-being, according to a study just released by the University of Pennsylvania. 

Among the findings on the good side of the nationwide rankings, Anderson County ranked 31st in High School Graduation Rate, 39th in Median Household Income (although the statistics used are from 2014, and Anderson County has seen a marked increase in wages since that time), 51st in Openness to Experience (intellectually and emotionally curious and open to new things), 57th in Unemployment (althought this ranking is based on statistcs for 2015, the county has certainly moved up since that time with a current rate of 3.4 perccent), 75th in Extraversion ("the degree to which one feels energized by interactions and sociability, 82nd in Trust (believing others mostly good, honest),  85th in Agreeableness (social harmony, compassion, cooperation), 89th in the PERMA scale (Positive emotions-Engagement-Meaning and Accomplishment), and 94th in concientiousness ("the degree one is disciplined and organized rather than impulsive and spontaneous"). 

Anderson 4th lowest in the nation in both Depression and Neuroticism (defined as experiencing "emotional instability or negative emotions").

Compared to other counties in South Carolina, Anderson consistently ranked in near the top in all the postive categories.

The bad news is, in the categories of concern, Anderson County ranked, 32nd in Heart Disease Mortality and 74th in Diabetes Diagnosis.

Compared to other counties in the state, Anderson was in the middle of the pack statewide in each of the negative categories.

Scientists at the University of Pennsylvania created the new interactive map revealing the well-being and personality traits of communities across the United States.

The map is the culmination of five years of compiling and analyzing Twitter data. Researchers mined more than 37 billion publicly shared, geo-tagged tweets for evidence of personality traits like openness and extraversion.

Researchers reinforced the Twitter analysis with government-reported socioeconomic and health data like rates of unemployment and heart-disease mortality. Scientists organized the information for further analysis and comparisons using county boundaries.

The newly published map is the grand finale of the World Well-Being Project.

"The World Well-Being Project was established on the idea that we can measure psychological states of large populations in real time by analyzing their social media content," said project co-founder Johannes Eichstaedt, a Penn postdoctoral fellow. "To get here, we collected huge data sets, built language-based prediction models, ran those models over tweets and demographic information and extracted language patterns associated with specific traits."

Researchers hope other social scientists, as well as lay people, will use the map to explore and investigate the diversity of personality traits across American communities.

"I hope people will just want to play around with it. If I were considering moving somewhere in the U.S., I would want to know how happy people are there," said Lyle Ungar, project co-founder and Penn professor. "County-level psychological profiles are really, really important. What people are like in different areas affects economic and health outcomes as well as happiness."

The map could help governments, businesses and other organizations more effectively deploy resources to places where they are most needed.

Identifying places were heart disease and diabetes are most concentrated can help policy makers deploy exercise and other health and wellness programs in the right areas.

"We're looking for areas where we, as a country, can do better," said Anneke Buffone, WWBP's lead research scientist. "By analyzing social media, we can get unexpected, in-depth insights into the processes that drive happiness and illness."

State: Fire-Hazard School Buses Still on Road in S.C.

Hundreds of fire-hazard school buses will continue to take S.C. students to school this fall.

Midlands school districts have 113 of the dangerous buses – out of more than 1,000 statewide – assigned to bus routes. 

The state’s Republican-controlled Legislature approved spending $20.5 million to replace about 250 of those buses with new ones. 

However, state education officials say they cannot order the new buses because Gov. Henry McMaster vetoed the money. Lawmakers are refusing to come back to Columbia to override the veto. 

South Carolina’s aging buses are proving to be a fire hazard for S.C. students. Seventeen buses have caught fire or dangerously overheated since August 2015. In some cases, children were on board. 

Republican leaders say the S.C. Department of Education could use other money to order buses. 

Surplus money could pay for the new buses “before the start of the school year, if it truly were a priority,” S.C. House Speaker Jay Lucas, R-Darlington, said Tuesday.

But the state’s schools agency says it already has used money set aside for other purposes to buy new school buses in an effort to park the dangerous buses for good.

Meanwhile, some Democrats are pushing for legislators to return to Columbia to approve spending the money to replace the buses, including state Rep. James Smith, D-Richland. 

“The fleet ... is a legitimate concern for the safety of our children riding these buses,” Smith said.

“We have school this fall, and we have a chance to be prepared for that with safer buses,” he said, adding “It’s a long overdue priority.” 

Bus purchases on hold 

Lawmakers have no plans yet to return to Columbia to deal with McMaster’s vetoes of the state budget that started July 1. 

They could wait to consider budget vetoes when the next legislative session starts Jan. 9, 2018. 

“Wasting taxpayer funds and calling the Legislature back into session is not the answer to a problem that has an existing responsible solution,” Lucas, the House speaker, said.

S.C. House Majority Leader Gary Simrill, R-York, agreed, pointing to $105 million the Department of Education had available last year. 

“This problem is efficiently remedied without holding an expensive special legislative session at additional cost to taxpayers,” Simrill said. 

But the Department of Education disagrees. 

That money already is designated for other uses, including spending at other state agencies and school districts, the agency said. In addition, the money cannot be spent on school buses because lawmakers directed the agency to send those dollars to poor rural school districts that are suing the state. 

S.C. Superintendent of Education Molly Spearman also said safety and replacement of the aging S.C. bus fleet has been a top priority since she took office in 2015. 

Spearman said she has used all means available to her to purchase 1,424 new school buses, nearly twice as many as required by the Legislature. 

“We have purchased 156 new buses from fuel and operational savings just in the past few days and will continue to identify and exhaust all options available to ensure students have a safe means of transportation to and from school,” Spearman said.

The Department of Education has spent $2 million out of its budget that began July 1 to purchase new buses, Spearman spokesman Ryan Brown said. After all the buses under order come in, about 900 of the fire-prone buses will remain on the road, he said.

Lottery money at issue 

Gov. McMaster vetoed the school bus money last month, slated to come through a surplus of the state’s education lottery sales. Though often spent on other education expenses, lottery money should be spent solely on the scholarships the lottery was created to fund, McMaster said in his June veto message.

Spending money before it is available “is not a responsible budgeting practice,” he added.

McMaster also said if the lottery makes more money than expected next year, that money should go to pay for future scholarships for S.C. students.

State officials have not yet said how much extra money the state’s education lottery earned in the budget year that ended June 30. 

Last year’s lottery surpluses totaled $59.3 million, state officials said, adding this year’s surplus will be announced late next month or in September.

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