South Carolina

Skechers has agreed to pay $40 million to consumers who purchased its  rocker-bottom shoes under the mistaken belief that the shoes would help give them Kim Kardashian's booty or Joe Montana's stamina. So how do you get your piece of the payout if you purchased the shoes months, if not years ago, and don't have a receipt? No problem. This refund relies largely on the honor system. Anyone who purchased the company's line of Shape-Up shoes -- or its Resistance Runners, Tone-ups or Toners -- is entitled to a partial refund whether they have proof of purchase or not, officials said Thursday.

Re "Mark Sanford is back in the game," May 8 South Carolina proved that it is possible to talk a dog off of a meat wagon with its election of disgraced former Gov. Mark Sanford to his old House seat in Congress. The Republican candidate proved to the world that you can have your cake and eat it too with his undeserved victory. Bill Clinton has nothing on him. And now the party of family values has a new standard-bearer in South Carolina for ethics, integrity, duty, responsibility and family loyalty.

Rapper DMX was arrested in South Carolina early Wednesday on a charge of driving without a license. The rapper recently completed a stint behind bars after his probation was revoked for the same reason and because he refused to submit to a drug test. The 42-year-old entertainer, whose real name is Earl Simmons, was arrested after police said they saw him leaving a gas station in Greer, in northwestern South Carolina, around 1 a.m., the Associated Press reported. He was taken to jail, then released after paying a fine.

WASHINGTON - Two years after Mark Sanford left the South Carolina governor's office tarred by an adultery scandal, he has completed an unlikely political comeback to win a special congressional election, holding the seat for Republicans. Sanford defeated Democratic neophyte Elizabeth Colbert Busch, sister of the late-night satirist Stephen Colbert, in the Republican-leaning 1st Congressional District on Tuesday. He reclaims a House seat he once held for three terms. The bitter race had been expected to be tight, but the Associated Press called it just 90 minutes after the polls closed.

Tyler Webb and Matt Price combined for seven innings of shutout relief, and two-time defending national champion South Carolina returned to the College World Series finals with a 3-2 win over Arkansas on Friday night at Omaha. The Gamecocks (49-18) took the lead in the bottom of the seventh inning on Barrett Astin's two-out, bases-loaded walk to Adam Matthews. South Carolina will play Arizona in the best-of-three finals beginning Sunday. The Gamecocks are trying to become the first team to win three titles in a row since that other USC, the one in Los Angeles, won five in a row from 1970-74.

Mitt Romney still holds a double-digit lead in South Carolina ahead of the state's potentially decisive Republican primary, but Newt Gingrich has narrowed the gap some, according to a new CNN/Time poll. Romney has the support of 33% of likely Republican primary voters in South Carolina, good for a 10-point advantage over Gingrich. That's down, however, from an 18-point lead Romney held over Rick Santorum in a poll earlier this month. Santorum is now down to 16% in the new poll, followed by Ron Paul at 13% and Rick Perry at 6%. For Romney, a win in South Carolina on Saturday could essentially end the GOP nominating race.

We're down to the final five. With Jon Huntsman Jr.'s decision to go no further, the GOP presidential field has been pared down to front-runner Mitt Romney and four others desperate to find some way to slow his momentum. South Carolina remains the best hope for Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, Ron Paul or Rick Perry to pull off an upset. But to do it, they'll need to knock Romney off his game at Monday evening's debate in Myrtle Beach, S.C. There's risk involved. Gingrich and Perry have found that some conservatives haven't warmed to their attacks on Romney's work at Bain Capital.

The cost of executions is soaring, especially in the state that conducts the most: Texas. The reason? The necessary drugs have become increasingly hard to get. A year ago it cost the Texas Department of Criminal Justice $83.55 for the drugs used to carry out an execution -- sodium thiopental, pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride. Then last March the state was forced to replace sodium thiopental with pentobarbital after the U.S. supplier of the former drug halted distribution amid international protests.

South Carolina star running back Marcus Lattimore appeared to suffer a serious right knee injury during Saturday's game against Tennessee. Lattimore missed the last six games last season after tearing ligaments in his left knee. Saturday's injury hushed the crowd at Williams-Brice Stadium in Columbia, S.C., as players for both teams expressed their concern for one of the SEC's top backs. "It looked severe on the field," South Carolina Coach Steve Spurrier said. "But we'll have to wait and see. " The junior back became an instant star as a freshman when he rushed for 1,149 yards and 17 touchdowns.

There was a reason Alan Moore's "Neonomicon" was shelved in the adult section of the library in Greenville County, South Carolina: It contains adult content. And it was checked out with an adult library card -- but that adult library card was in the hands of a 14-year-old girl. When the girl asked her mother about an unfamiliar word she found in "Neonomicon," the trouble started. The mother, Carrie Gaske, filed an official challenge against the graphic novel in June. An official decision has now been made to ban it from the library.

The high-profile House race between former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford and Democrat Elizabeth Colbert Busch is going down to the wire as a dead heat, according to a Democratic poll released Sunday night. The survey, by Public Policy Polling, shows Republican Sanford with a statistically insignificant 47%-46% advantage heading into Tuesday's special election.  Green Party candidate Eugene Platt, whose campaign symbol is a frog and whose slogan is "leap of faith," is getting 4%, according to the poll.

CHARLESTON, S.C. - At a harborside reception overlooking Ft. Sumter, where the Civil War began, Mark Sanford batted away a TV reporter's question about the latest insult to his comeback campaign: an unwanted endorsement from pornographer Larry Flynt. Hours earlier, the former governor had been asked about a billboard message on a South Carolina interstate from a marital infidelity website. Under a blowup of a grinning Sanford, the site advised him to use its online service to find his next "running mate.

Brian Cashman , the New York Yankees' general manager, said this in spring training: "The story that we're too old gets written so much that at some point they'll be right. " This appears to be that point. The Yankees learned last week that Derek Jeter's left ankle had fractured once again, and he'll be 39 when he returns after the All-Star break. Then again, the Yankees thought he might be ready for opening day. Mariano Rivera is 43, and he says this season is his last.

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court was asked Tuesday to decide who should raise a 3 1/2-year-old girl who was given up by her single mother: the South Carolina couple who adopted her at birth or her biological father, who invoked his rights as a Cherokee Indian to claim his child. The justices spent part of the morning as family court judges, and they did not envy those who must decide such emotionally trying disputes every day. "Domestic relations pose the hardest problems for judges," said Justice Anthony M. Kennedy.

CHARLESTON, S.C. - With election day just over two weeks away, the road from the Appalachian Trail to redemption is starting to get a little muddy for former Republican high-flier Mark Sanford. Sanford was a popular governor and promising presidential prospect until a sex scandal derailed him. And no run-of-the-mill scandal: While governor, Sanford disappeared from view and a spokesman claimed he was hiking the Appalachians - only to have it become known that he actually was making a clandestine visit to his mistress in Argentina.

Authorities on Friday were searching for a 20-year-old man wanted in connection with the fatal shooting of a Coastal Carolina University student in the parking lot of the South Carolina school's residence complex. Marquis Spencer McDonald, 20, was named as the suspect in Tuesday's shooting that left Anthony Darnell Liddell , 19, dead, according to the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division. Liddell, a sophomore from Bennettsville, S.C., was shot once in the chest, the county coroner said.

Reporting from Myrtle Beach, S.C. -- If Mitt Romney is a moderate, he's learned to hide it well, as evidenced in the Republican presidential debate Monday night. While his prime opponents, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich, have traveled the state trying to convince GOP primary voters that the former governor from Taxachusetts is a weak-kneed moderate, they have been undercut by Romney's consistent hard right rhetoric. He's got the most aggressive position on illegal immigrants -- "send 'em all back!"

South Carolina Lt. Gov. Ken Ard resigned Friday morning, declaring it was in the "best interest" of the state after a months-long probe into abuses of his campaign war chest, including allegations that he spent the money on a video game console and expensive clothing for his wife, among other things. Ard, who was elected in November 2010, had his resignation letter delivered to the office of fellow Republican Gov. Nikki Haley Friday morning. In a separate statement, Ard issued an apology to his staff, family and the people of South Carolina.

Coastal Carolina University resumed classes Wednesday after a sophomore was shot to death outside his dormitory building, officials said. Anthony Darnell Liddell, 19, a sophomore from Bennettsville, S.C., died after the shooting around 7:20 p.m. Tuesday at a residence hall complex near the campus, school spokesman Doug Bell told the Los Angeles Times by telephone. There was no immediate motive in the shooting, Tom Berry of the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division told The Times.  "Our thoughts and prayers go out to the family and friends of Anthony Liddell," school President David DeCenzo said in a prepared statement.

A South Carolina man has filed a lawsuit in the Superior Court of California against the founders of Snapchat, claiming he originally came up with the idea of the popular mobile app. Snapchat lets users send each other photos and videos that disappear within seconds after the recipient opens the content. The app has been gaining traction and was recently copied by Facebook, which released an app called Poke that functions similarly. Frank Reginald Brown IV, 23, filed his lawsuit against the Los Angeles-based company as well as co-founders Bobby Murphy and Evan Spiegel, alleging Murphy and Spiegel betrayed him and shut him out of the company after they began working on it while students at Stanford.