G News: S.C. Ranked 49th for Working Mothers

South Carolina is one of the worst states in the country for working moms, ahead of only Alabama and Nevada, a new WalletHub analysis says. The personal finance site used factors including child care, professional opportunities and work-life balance to calculate where each state landed on the list.

South Carolina, ranked No. 49 overall, got its worst ranking in professional opportunities, where it placed No. 49 out of 51 (Washington, D.C. was included in the study). Poor rural areas in the state without many job opportunities could have contributed to that low ranking, said Drucilla Barker, an anthropology and women's and gender studies professor at the University of South Carolina.

"Considering the fact that we have so many rural areas that are so extremely poor, three aren't many professional opportunities for working moms or anyone," Barker said. "Unless you live in Greenville, Spartanburg, Columbia or Charleston, there's not much opportunity for anything."

Also considered by WalletHub when evaluating states' professional opportunities is the gender wage gap and the proportion of families in poverty. While the wage gap in South Carolina is comparable to the national average, the rate of children in poverty is higher. Twenty-six percent of children live in poverty in South Carolina, compared to 21 percent nationally, data from the National Center for Children in Poverty shows.

The Palmetto State was also ranked No. 43 for child care and No. 39 for work-life balance. 

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Trump Reaches Out to GOP Establishment

Donald J. Trump, turning his attention to the general election, has begun quietly reaching out to key elements of the Republican establishment as he seeks to unite the party behind his candidacy before his anticipated battle against Hillary Clinton.

Mr. Trump, who is expected to run on a nonideological platform of his own design, is trying to reassure party officials that he understands there are certain norms even he needs to follow as the Republican nominee, and that he is capable of producing an organization and infrastructure that can sustain a costly general election campaign.

His team, already working to transform a lean operation into a national presidential campaign apparatus, has been reaching out to members of Congress and Washington think tanks; strategizing on how best to take on Mrs. Clinton and woo supporters of her primary opponent, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont; and planning to head to Cleveland next week to help direct the party’s July convention, according to aides.

The campaign has also begun thinking about what a convention with Mr. Trump, a circus master and media savant, as the prime-time act will look like.

“The site has been chosen and the arena is fine, but I’d want to have — you know, the last Republican convention was extraordinarily boring,” Mr. Trump said in one of two phone interviews Wednesday. “And we’re going to come up with some things that will make it interesting and informative, but also smart and different.”

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Bush Ex-Presidents Refuse to Endorse Trump

Neither George HW nor George W Bush, the only two living former Republican presidents of the United States, will endorse Donald Trump.

In statements released to the Guardian on Wednesday evening, spokesmen for both former presidents said they would be sitting out the 2016 election. Freddy Ford, a spokesman for George W Bush, told the Guardian: “President George W Bush does not plan to participate in or comment on the presidential campaign.”

The statement by the 43rd president was echoed in one released by his father. Jim McGrath, a spokesman for George HW Bush, told the Guardian: “At age 91, President Bush is retired from politics. He naturally did a few things to help Jeb, but those were the ‘exceptions that proved the rule’.”

The non-endorsements come as Trump has become the presumptive nomineeand many party figures have tried to come to terms with the fact that the demagogic reality television star will be their party’s standard-bearer in November.

California Raises Smoking Age to 21

Gov. Jerry Brown on Wednesday signed a pack of bills that will raise the smoking age in California from 18 to 21, restrict the use of electronic cigarettes in public places and expand no-smoking areas at public schools.

However, Brown vetoed a bill that would have allowed counties to seek voter approval of local tobacco taxes to pay for healthcare expenses for those with tobacco-related illnesses.

“Although California has one of the lowest cigarette tax rates in the nation, I am reluctant to approve this measure in view of all the taxes being proposed for the 2016 ballot,” Brown wrote in his veto message for a bill authored by Assemblyman Richard Bloom (D-Santa Monica).

Brown did not comment on the other bills that he signed, but state Sen. Ed Hernandez (D-West Covina) said approval of his bill raising the smoking age will save lives.

Haley Not Interested in Vice President Slot

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) - Gov. Nikki Haley says she's "not interested" in serving as a vice presidential nominee.

Haley said in a statement provided to The Associated Press Wednesday that she's "flattered" to be mentioned as a possible running mate but that her "plate is full" governing South Carolina.

Haley's star has risen due in part to her response to the Charleston church shooting and South Carolina's historic flooding. She gave this year's Republican response to President Barack Obama's State of the Union address.

The statement came in response to questions about whether Haley would support Donald Trump as the GOP's nominee, now that other candidates have left the race.

Asked previously, Haley has said she'd back the eventual nominee, which she hoped would be Marco Rubio and then, after his departure, Ted Cruz.

DOJ Says N.C. Bathroom Bill Violates Civil Rights

Federal authorities told North Carolina's governor on Wednesday that a new state law limiting restroom access for transgender people violates the U.S. Civil Rights Act.

In a letter to Republican Governor Pat McCrory the Justice Department said North Carolina was "engaging in a pattern or practice of discrimination against transgender state employees." The letter, seen by Reuters, said the state had until Monday to say whether it would remedy the violations.

McCrory said in a statement that his office will review the letter "to determine the next steps."

"The right and expectation of privacy in one of the most private areas of our personal lives is now in jeopardy," McCrory said.

Republican state legislative leaders said they still supported the law despite the federal warning.

In March, North Carolina became the first U.S. state to require transgender people to use restrooms in public buildings and schools that match the sex on their birth certificate, not their gender identity.

Clemson Gets $10.5 Million NIH Grant

An interdisciplinary team of Clemson University researchers focused on fighting organisms responsible for infectious diseases that threaten the health of billions of people globally has been awarded $10.5 million from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

The Centers of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) grant will enable Clemson’s Eukaryotic Pathogens Innovation Center (EPIC) to develop a critical mass of scientists and research infrastructure that could accelerate the rate of discovery in the fight against pathogens that cause some of the world’s most devastating and intractable infectious diseases, including amoebic dysentery, African sleeping sickness and fungal meningitis.

This is Clemson’s second COBRE award and the first to the university outright. In 2009, a $9 million grant helped establish the South Carolina Bioengineering Center of Regeneration and Formation of Tissue (SC BioCRAFT), a collaboration with the Medical University of South Carolina. In 2014, SC BioCRAFT received a follow-up grant from the COBRE for $11 million.

The new grant was announced during Wednesday’s Clemson University Research Symposium at the Watt Family Innovation Center on campus.

“This grant is a force multiplier for advancing research by positioning our junior faculty and young investigators to compete for complimentary funding and by enhancing collaboration between other programs at Clemson,” said biological sciences professor and EPIC co-founder Lesly Temesvari.

The grant will provide funds for five junior faculty, four research technicians, 11 Ph.D. graduate students and administrative personnel. A portion of the grant will be used to create a network of external mentors to provide guidance and expertise to junior scientists. The funds will also help support efforts in Clemson’s Light Imaging Facility and Institute of Translational Genomics.

“The mentors’ ultimate goal is to shepherd junior researchers to a point of independence where they can secure their own funding and make even greater contributions to the science of fighting these diseases,” said Kerry Smith, EPIC director and professor of genetics and biochemistry.

While the diseases caused by parasitic and fungal pathogens seem a world away, Smith said recent Ebola and Zika outbreaks, also caused by emerging pathogens, prove otherwise.

S.C. House OKs Cell Phone Fee to Subsidize Land Lines

The South Carolina House has approved legislation that spreads the cost of phone services to cellphone customers, lowering fees on landline bills.

The 103-2 vote Wednesday follows a Public Service Commission ruling requiring cellphone companies to pay into the state's Universal Service Fund, which the Legislature created in 1996 to extend and maintain lines in rural areas.

More than 20 local telephone companies sought last fall's hearing after the bill stalled in the Legislature.

The legislation would cap rural companies' supplements at $40 million. It also requires cellphone customers to begin contributing toward services for hearing- and speech-impaired residents. That would be capped at 10 cents monthly.

House Labor Commerce and Industry Chairman Bill Sandifer says it's only fair to extend the fees to everyone who benefits from landline connections.

Senate $7.5 Billion Budget Includes Raises

The South Carolina Senate has approved a $7.5 billion state budget that puts an additional $300 million into K-12 education, covers the state's expenses from last fall's historic flooding and provides $40 million in grants to flood-devastated farmers.

Senators voted Wednesday to return their spending plans for the fiscal year beginning July 1 to the House.

The Senate version spent $11 million more on school buses, bringing the total to $28 million. But senators cut in half the amount spent on replenishing sand along South Carolina's coast, to $20 million.

The chambers' plans also differ in state employees' salaries. The Senate doubled workers' cost-of-living increase to 4 percent. That would be the largest raise given to all workers since 2005.

Senators also added $2.4 million for police body cameras.

Poll: Sabbath Losing Religious Significance in America

The percentage of Americans who believe that the Sabbath is a religiously significant day has sharply declined since 1978, according to a recent poll.

In a survey conducted by YouGov on behalf of Deseret News, 50 percent of respondents said the Sabbath had a religious or spiritual significance. This contrasts to a 1978 Gallup poll when 74 percent of respondents said the same.

In their report, titled "Sabbath Day Observance in the U.S.," Deseret noted that the trend was most prominent among the millennial generation.

"Additionally, millennials are the least likely cohort to attend church. Only 22 percent of millennials report attending church. In fact, 18 percent report working on a typical Sunday."

For the research, YouGov interviewed 1,691 individuals from April 13-15, and then matched down the sample to 1,000 with a 3.1 margin of error.

Kelsey Dallas of Deseret noted that the findings also show members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and evangelicals are disproportionately more observant of the Sabbath than the general population.

"Mormons are 28 percentage points more likely than average to spend time in religious meditation and more than 40 percentage points more likely to attend church," wrote Dallas.

"Evangelical Protestants are 15 percentage points more likely than average to go to church and read the Bible on the Sabbath, the survey reported. They are also less likely than others to work in or around the home or to participate in sports or outdoors activities."

Deseret's report on Sabbath observance and perception was part of its annual "Ten Today" series which examines how modern American society treats the Ten Commandments.

"The new survey depicts the modern Sabbath as a day focused on relaxation and errand-running rather than religious commitment," continued Dallas.

"More than 7 in 10 U.S. adults (73 percent) today say they 'take rest and relaxation' on the Sabbath, compared to 63 percent in 1978. Thirty percent of people go shopping, an 11 percentage point increase over nearly 40 years."

Medical Error Third Biggest Cause of Death in U.S.

Medical error is the third leading cause of death in the US, accounting for 250,000 deaths every year, according to an analysis released on Tuesday.

There is no US system for coding these deaths, but Martin Makary and Michael Daniel, researchers at Johns Hopkins University’s school of medicine, used studies from 1999 onward to find that medical errors account for more than 9.5% of all fatalities in the US.

Only heart disease and cancer are more deadly, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The analysis, which was published in the British Medical Journal, said that the science behind medical errors would improve if data was shared internationally and nationally “in the same way as clinicians share research and innovation about coronary artery disease, melanoma, and influenza”.

But death by medical error is not captured by government reports because the US system for assigning a code to cause of death, the international classification of disease (ICD), does not have a label for medical error. 

The ICD is also used by 117 countries, including Canada and the UK, according to the World Health Organisation.

“Sound scientific methods, beginning with an assessment of the problem, are critical to approaching any health threat to patients,” the researchers said. “The problem of medical error should not be exempt from this scientific approach.”

To determine the medical error death rate, the researchers analyzed data collected by the government and compared it to hospital admission rates from 2013. They extrapolated that information and found that 251,454 deaths in the US were caused by medical error that year.

Stacked against the annual list of most common causes of death in the US, the researchers’ calculations put medical error far ahead of respiratory disease, which the CDC lists as the third most common cause of death for killing 147,101 people in 2015.

The researchers acknowledged that human error is inevitable and said these deaths are not necessarily always the fault of doctors. 

However, they said the information shows that there is room to institute a clearer monitoring system for tracking medical error, which could inform the design of more effective, and safer, systems. 

To reduce the number of deaths from medical error, the authors offered several recommendations, including adding a field to death certificates for whether the person died of a preventable complication tied to their medical care and for hospitals to hold more rigorous and speedy investigations into these deaths. 

“The role of error can be complex,” the researchers said. “While many errors are non-consequential, an error can end the life of someone with a long life expectancy or accelerate an imminent death.”

Ga. Governor Vetoes Campus Carry Gun Law

Citing various concerns, Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal on Tuesday rejected a piece of legislation that would have made it legal for licensed persons to carry concealed firearms on campuses statewide.

Lawmakers sent House Bill 859 to Deal's desk in March, where the governor had 40 days to accept or reject it. Deal decided on the latter.

The proposed law did have restrictions, but the governor said he felt it posed too great a danger because adult age students aren't the only ones affected. Grade school and high school students, he said, also frequently visit campuses, and some include daycare centers.

"If the intent of HB 859 is to increase safety of students on college campuses, it is highly questionable that such would be the result," Deal wrote in a statement Tuesday, which outlined 15 vetoes of other legislation.

In issuing the veto, Deal cited an 1824 case during the establishment of the University of Virginia in which officials decided to bar students from "keeping or using weapons or arms of any kind." Former presidents Thomas Jefferson and James Madison were part of that decision.

Senate Budget Includes Funds for 2014 Ice Storm Cleanup

The South Carolina Senate's $7.5 billion spending plan for the coming fiscal year would finish reimbursing counties' clean-up expenses from the 2014 ice storm

The plan tentatively approved Tuesday would distribute nearly $12 million to 22 counties.including Anderson County, Senate President Pro Tem Hugh Leatherman says the $4 million provided in the current budget covered just 25 percent of expenses not paid with federal emergency aid.

That $12 million is the first priority among $40 million in spending senators added Tuesday. The supplemental list will be funded if tax collections exceed current estimates.

The state's economic advisers will update their revenue forecast in two weeks.

Other added spending includes nearly $11 million to 48 school districts slated to receive less state money beginning July 1 due to decades-old funding formulas.