Meals on Wheels Spaghetti Fundraiser March 10

Meals on Wheels of Anderson will hold its annual Spaghetti Fundraiser March 10, with lunch available from 11:30 a.m. – 1:30 p.m, and  dinner from 5 – 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $8 for adults and $5 for children (12 and under.) Meals include spaghetti, salad, bread, dessert and tea. 

Tickets are available in advance at the office or pay at the door on the day of the fundraiser. Lunch and dinner will be served in Meals on Wheels dining room or meals can be boxed for take-out at 105 S. Fant Street. For more information, visit our website at www.acmow.org or call the office at 225-6800.

During the lunch-time service, Meals on Wheels is again offering delivery to local businesses ordering 10 or more plates. To place a delivery lunch order, please email april@acmow.org or call 225-6800 no later than 3 p.m. on Tuesday, March 8. 

All proceeds from the Spaghetti Fundraiser will be used to provide hot, nutritious meals for approximately 600 homebound elderly and disabled of Anderson County. Meals on Wheels-Anderson receives no federal or state funds. It operates solely on donations from individuals, churches and businesses in the community. Please join us for this fundraiser and support our mission of delivering meals to individuals in need in the Anderson community.

Council to Hear Committee Reports Tuesday

Anderson County Council will hear reports from the Finance Committee and the Planning and Public Works Commitee as part of Tuesday's 6:30 p.m. meeting in the historic courthouse downtown.

Full Agenda Here

Report: S.C. Second Worst Women-Friendly State

With March being Women’s History Month and women outnumbering men in all but nine states today, the personal-finance website WalletHub conducted an in-depth analysis of 2016’s Best & Worst States for Women.

To identify the most women-friendly states, WalletHub’s analysts compared the 50 states and the District of Columbia across 15 key metrics. The data set ranges from “median earnings for female workers” to “women’s preventive health care” to “female uninsured rate.”
 
Women’s Quality of Life in South Carolina (1=Best, 25=Avg.): 

• 37^th – Median Earnings for Females (Cost of Living-Adjusted)
• 41^st – Unemployment Rate for Women
• 44^th – % of Women Living in Poverty
• 22^nd – Share of Women-Owned Businesses
• 21^st – High School Dropout Rate for Women
• 37^th – Female Uninsured Rate
• 42^nd – Women’s Life Expectancy at Birth
• 32^nd – Women’s Preventive Health Care

Spotlight Takes Best Picture Oscar

LOS ANGELES, Feb. 28 (UPI) -- Director Tom McCarthy's Spotlight was declared the Best Picture of 2015, marking the second year in a row the top award went to a movie starring beloved actor Michael Keaton.

Last year's prize was presented to Birdman, which was helmed by Alejandro G. Inarritu.

Inarritu won the Best Director Oscar for Birdman, then repeated the accomplishment Sunday for The Revenant, the film that also netted Leonardo DiCaprio his first Oscar. The Revenant was recognized for Best Cinematography, as well.

Brie Larson took home the Best Actress Oscar for her performance in Room and Mark Rylance scored the Best Supporting Actor trophy for his work in Bridge of Spies, beating out Sylvester Stallone, who was favored to win the honor for his turn in Creed.

Alicia Vikander picked up the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her work in The Danish Girl.

Another big winner Sunday was Mad Max: Fury Road, which swept the technical categories and garnered the Oscars for Best Costume Design, Best Production Design, Best Sound Mixing, Best Film Editing, Best Sound Editing, and Best Hair and Makeup.

The award for Best Adapted Screenplay went to The Big Short, while Spotlightreceived the Best Original Screenplay title.

The prize for Best Visual Effects was given to Ex Machina, another film that co-starred Vikander.

Inside Out was deemed Best Animated Feature Film, Amy Best Documentary and Son of Saul Best Foreign-Language Film. Ennio Morricone won the Oscar for Best Score for The Hateful Eight.

Chris Rock hosted the ceremony, which aired on ABC.

Clean Start Soup Lunch Set for Thursday

Clean Start, a hygiene and resource center for those in need in Anderson, is hosting their nineth annual “Scoop Some Soup Day” Thursday at the organizatiion's location at 219 Townsend Street.  This event is dine-in or carry-out and will run from 11 a.m. until 1:30 p.m.  Chili or Vegetable soup will be available along with cornbread or crackers, dessert and tea.  Price for this event will be $7 per meal.  All proceeds go to benefit Clean Start.  Please call 716-0766 for details and/or tickets.

Clean Start serves between 95 and 120 people each week, offering showers, laundry service, and referrals to other service in the Anderson community for their clients.  This is the only fundraiser held each year. 

For more information, visit their Facebook page.

Clinton Wins Big in S.C.

With more than 70 percent of the vote, Hillary Clinton scored a resounding victory over Sen. Bernie Sanders in Saturday's South Carolina Democratic primary, a rout expected to create a glide path for her through a number of southern states that vote on Tuesday.

Her overwhelming triumph in the Palmetto State, where African-Americans made up a larger percentage of the electorate than they did in 2008, gives Clinton a significant boost heading into March 1, when a number of states with large black populations cast their votes. Clinton's win over Sanders in South Carolina was dominant, with her margin of victory approaching 50 points.

Clinton's win is her third of the campaign. A week ago, she captured the Nevada caucuses and won the Feb. 1 Iowa caucuses by a razor-thin margin.

"Today you sent a message," Clinton said during a victory speech in Columbia. "When you stand together there is no barrier too big to break," she said. "Tomorrow, this campaign goes national."

South Carolina Rep. James Clyburn, who introduced her, called it a significant victory that "starts Hillary Clinton on her way" to the presidency.

In a statement after Clinton's win was announced, Sanders said, "This campaign is just beginning. We won a decisive victory in New Hampshire. She won a decisive victory in South Carolina. Now it’s on to Super Tuesday."

Bracing for the loss, Sanders has been hitting Clinton on issues important to African Americans. With merely days before larger, delegate-rich states like Texas and Georgia vote on March 1, the Vermont senator needs to expand his support among minorities.

S.C. Democratic Primary Today, Some Polls Combined in Anderson

South Carolina Democrats now get their say. If you are voting in Anderson, remember some polling places will be combined. 

Voters go to the polls today to choose a Democratic presidential nominee just a week after the state's GOP presidential primary. The polls are open from 7 a.m. until 7 p.m.

Most polls indicate Hillary Clinton has a sizeable lead heading into the primary, but she wasn't taking any chances.

She has appeared frequently around the state in recent days, including a number of appearances before audiences of predominantly black voters among whom she is expected to do better than rival Bernie Sanders. Former President Bill Clinton and their daughter, Chelsea, also campaigned in South Carolina.

Sanders has spent some time in recent days campaigning in the Midwest where several states hold primaries next month.

GOP Congress Fears Trump Victory

Fear and loathing is striking congressional Republicans faced with the distinct possibility of Donald Trump as their presidential nominee.

South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham says his party has lost it and calls Trump a "nut job." Graham maintains that the billionaire businessman would inflict as much damage to the GOP as the iceberg did to the Titanic.

Republicans share a palpable fear that Trump would alienate Hispanics, minorities, independents and women, driving them to vote Democratic in November. That would cost the GOP the presidency, its Senate majority and suddenly competitive House seats. With the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, the ideological balance of the Supreme Court for decades also is at stake.

GOP incumbents clearly understand that the only option is to run a flawless campaign.

Alabama Blocks Cities Attempts to Raise Minimum Wage

Alabama’s governor and legislature Thursday blocked Birmingham’s attempts to raise the city’s minimum wage as they swiftly approved legislation to strip cities of their ability to set hourly pay requirements.

The Alabama senate passed the legislation on a 23-11 vote that largely broke along party lines. Governor Robert Bentley signed the bill into law about an hour later. The legislation voids a Birmingham city ordinance attempting to raise the city’s minimum wage to $10.10, the city’s legal department said Thursday afternoon.

Alabama has no state minimum wage and uses the federal minimum of $7.25. The federal minimum wage has been $7.25 an hour since July 2009. An American working full time – 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year – at that wage would earn about $15,080 a year.

According to the Economic Policy Institute, 29 states have raised their minimum wage above the federal minimum wage. There are also 23 local governments that have increased their wages – including those in Berkeley, Oakland, and San Francisco in California, Chicago in Illinois, Portland in Maine and Seattle in Washington. Only cities have made efforts to raise their minimum wage as high as $15 an hour.

The Obama administration has been supportive of efforts to raise the minimum wage at the local level, the US labor secretary Tom Perez told the Guardian in an interview last year. The administration also supports a proposal currently stuck in Congress that would raise the federal minimum wage to $12 an hour by 2020. 

“We believe that the federal floor should be $12 by 2020 [and that] would be just enough to get a family just above the poverty line. They are not going to be rich, but they will be just above the poverty line,” Perez said in 2015. “Some states and local governments are going beyond that and that’s just fine ... Seattle is in a better position to know how much above that federal floor they should go. That’s been our position and continues to be our position.”

Birmingham is not the only city that has had to face off with the state government in order to raise its minimum wage. Back in 2014, Oklahoma passed a bill preventing cities and towns from raising their minimum wage. A similar law passed in Arizona in 2013, but it was overturned in court last June.

Full Story Here

Bill Seeks to Clarify Prayer Rules at Public Meetings

A bill that would clarify how local government bodies in South Carolina could open their meetings with prayers took its first step at the Statehouse Thursday. A Senate subcommittee passed the bill unanimously, so it now goes to a full committee. The bill says groups like city and county councils and local school boards could start meetings with invocations as long as one religion was not advanced and no one was coerced into participating.

Sen. Chip Campsen, R-Charleston, is the main sponsor of the bill and chaired the subcommittee meeting. He says the bill would put into state law a 2014 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that allows local government groups to begin their meetings with invocations.

Dr. Oran Smith, president and CEO of Palmetto Family, says it’s been a problem in the past. “Spartanburg County, the city of Woodruff, … the city of Aiken, and the Savannah River Site all were having prayer and received hot letters that said they couldn’t have prayer anymore. But since then they’ve adopted policies that are right down the line with this new statute,” he says.

Sen. Campsen says he hasn’t heard any opposition to the bill yet, since it follows what the Supreme Court has already said in the Town of Greece v. Galloway case. But the national Freedom From Religion Foundation says it is against the bill. 

A spokesman for the group says the bill would allow members of the governmental bodies to give the prayers, but there are no Supreme Court rulings that say that’s acceptable.

Report: Decline of Pollinators Threatens Food Supply

The birds and the bees need help. Also, the butterflies, moths, wasps, beetles and bats. Without an international effort, a new report warns, increasing numbers of species that promote the growth of hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of food each year face extinction.

The first global assessment of the threats to creatures that pollinate the world’s plants was released by a group affiliated with the United Nations on Friday in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The summary will be posted online Monday.

Pollinators, including some 20,000 species of wild bees, contribute to the growth of fruit, vegetables and many nuts, as well as flowering plants. Plants that depend on pollination make up 35 percent of global crop production volume with a value of as much as $577 billion a year. The agricultural system, for which pollinators play a key role, creates millions of jobs worldwide.

Many pollinator species are threatened with extinction, including some 16 percent of vertebrates like birds and bats, according to the document. Hummingbirds and some 2,000 avian species that feed on nectar spread pollen as they move from flower to flower. Extinction risk for insects is not as well defined, the report notes, but it warned of “high levels of threat” for some bees and butterflies, with at least 9 percent of bee and butterfly species at risk.

The causes of the pressure on these creatures intertwine: aggressive agricultural practices that grow crops on every available acre eliminate patches of wildflowers and cover crops that provide food for pollinators. Farming also exposes the creatures to pesticides, and bees are under attack from parasites and pathogens, as well.

Climate change has an effect, as well, especially in the case of bumblebees in North America and Europe, said Sir Robert Watson, vice chairman of the group and director of strategic development at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of East Anglia.

A warming world changes the territories of plants and pollinators, and changes the plants’ time of flowering, as well, leading to a troubling question, posed by Dr. Watson: “Will the pollinators be there when the flowers need them?”

The group issuing the report, the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, is made up of 124 countries, including the United States, and was formed through the United Nations in 2012. It resembles in some ways the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, with a focus on providing analysis and policy proposals to promote biodiversity.

U.S. Launches New Cyberattacks on ISIS

The U.S. military has launched a newly aggressive campaign of cyberattacks against Islamic State militants, targeting the group's abilities to use social media and the Internet to recruit fighters and inspire followers, U.S. officials told The Associated Press.

The surge of computer-based military operations by U.S. Cyber Command began shortly after Defense Secretary Ash Carter prodded commanders at Fort Meade, Maryland, last month to ramp up the fight against the Islamic State group on the cyber front.

U.S. officials confirmed that operations launched out of Fort Meade have focused on disrupting the group's online activities. The officials said the effort is getting under way as operators try a range of attacks to see what works and what doesn't. They declined to discuss details, other than to say that the attacks include efforts to prevent the group from distributing propaganda, videos, or other types of recruiting and messaging on social media sites such as Twitter, and across the Internet in general.

Other attacks could include attempts to stop insurgents from conducting financial or logistical transactions online.

Several U.S. officials spoke about the cyber campaign on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it publicly. Much of the effort is classified.

Feb 25, 2016: Music, Plays and the Singing First Amendment