South Carolina’s Republican Party will move its presidential primary forward to Jan. 19, sources said Wednesday, a decision almost certain to spark a cascade of calendar changes that could push the start of voting to New Year’s Day or even before Christmas.
The move, to be announced today, is likely to shift the New Hampshire primary and Iowa caucuses at least into early January. Other states are angling to stake out spots earlier in the process.
Katon Dawson, who heads the South Carolina GOP, made the shift to retain the distinction of holding the “first in the South” presidential primary. Dawson’s move was sparked by the Florida legislature’s earlier decision to upstage South Carolina by moving its primary to Jan. 29. South Carolina had been scheduled to vote Feb. 2.
Additional nation/world news briefs:
WALBRIDGE, Ohio
Two killed at trucking company; suspect held
A shooting at a trucking company left two people dead Wednesday afternoon, and a suspect was arrested in Michigan after fleeing the scene in a semitrailer cab.
It was unclear whether Calvin Neyland Jr. worked for Liberty Transportation in Perrysburg Township, said township Detective Sgt. Robert Gates.
The cab was found in a hotel parking lot in Monroe County, Mich., and Neyland, 43, of Findlay, Ohio, was taken into custody, police said. No other details were released. Police said they have not determined a motive.
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla.
Judge: Church polling places constitutional
Polling sites in houses of worship do not violate the constitutional separation of church and state, a federal judge has ruled.
Jerry Rabinowitz, a nonobservant Jew whose voting precinct is in a Catholic church, sued Palm Beach County elections officials, claiming that casting a ballot amid crucifixes amounted to a constitutional violation.
U.S. District Judge Donald Middlebrooks ruled against Rabinowitz, noting that the practice of putting polling sites in houses of worship “has a secular purpose.”
“It does not have the effect of endorsing religion, and it does not create an excessive entanglement between the church and the state,” Middlebrooks said.
NEW YORK
Group to help poor deal with warming
The Rockefeller Foundation says it will invest $70 million over the next five years to help Asian cities and African farmers withstand floods, droughts and other global-warming hazards.
Foundation officials say the help will be needed no matter what is done to limit greenhouse-gas emissions because the world faces decades of rising temperatures and sea levels as a result of the buildup of such gases. Poorer communities lacking the money or technology to deal with a ruined harvest or eroding coastline face outsize threats.
Environmental and philanthropic groups have focused on limiting greenhouse gases. But Judith Rodin, president of the Rockefeller Foundation, said helping vulnerable populations adapt to a changing climate must be a high priority.
FALFURRIAS, Texas
50 illegal immigrants found locked in truck
Federal agents at an immigration checkpoint found 50 illegal immigrants locked in a tractor trailer, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection said Wednesday.
None of the immigrants required medical attention after they were found Tuesday, though agents said the trailer was not air-conditioned. All were being processed for deportation.
The driver and passenger in the cab were arrested and charged with human smuggling.
NEW YORK
Fewer immigrants send money home to Mexico
This year, a smaller percentage of Mexican immigrants in the U.S. sent money back to their homeland than in 2006, according to a report released Wednesday by the Inter-American Development Bank.
The bank said the reduction had left at least 2 million people in Mexico without the same financial help they once received.
Bank officials, pointing to a survey of Mexican immigrants in the report, said the decline reflected a rising sense of insecurity among the immigrants and uncertainty about whether they would remain in the U.S. These immigrants appear to be saving more.
Overall, the percentage of Mexicans who regularly sent money home fell to 64 percent in the first half of this year, compared with 71 percent for all of last year, according to the report.
TOKYO
Nagasaki marks atomic-bomb attack
Nagasaki marked the 62nd anniversary of the world’s second atomic-bomb attack with a somber ceremony today and calls for the elimination of nuclear weapons worldwide.
The city was to observe a moment of silence at 11:02 a.m., when the B-29 bomber Bock’s Car dropped its atomic payload, killing about 74,000.
The attack came three days after the U.S. bomber Enola Gay dropped a bomb on Hiroshima in the world’s first atomic attack, killing at least 140,000.
