South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott has launched his presidential campaign. At an event in his hometown of North Charleston on Monday, Scott offered an optimistic message he hopes can contrast the two figures who have used political combativeness to dominate the early GOP primary field: former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. Scott is the Senate's only Black Republican. His team acknowledges the challenge but notes that the political environment can change, that Scott won reelection by a commanding 20 points in November and that he has more money to start his campaign than any presidential candidate in history.

South Carolina Republicans have selected Drew McKissick as their chairman for a fourth term at a convention where some of the party's 2024 presidential hopefuls made pitches to voters in the first-in-the-South primary state. McKissick has led the party since 2017 in a state where the GOP holds all statewide-elected positions, all but one U.S. House seat and control of both legislative chambers. He defeated three challengers. Among the 2024 GOP presidential contenders, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy addressed the convention, while former President Donald Trump, Sen. Tim Scott and a super PAC supporting Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis sent videos.

Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina made it official Friday: He's running for president. The Senate's only Black Republican has filed paperwork with the Federal Election Committee declaring his intention to seek his party's nomination. His candidacy will test whether a more optimistic vision of America's future can resonate with GOP voters who have elevated partisan brawlers in recent years. The deeply religious 57-year-old former insurance broker has made his grandfather's work in the cotton fields of the Deep South a bedrock of his political identity. Scott is scheduled to make a formal announcement on Monday in his hometown of North Charleston.

As more Southern states pass new restrictions on abortion, Virginia is poised to become an outlier in the region for its relatively permissive laws. That could set up Virginia as a destination for women seeking abortions and raise questions about providers' capacity to meet demand. South Carolina is among the last bastions in the region for those seeking legal abortions, but that status could end soon. Access would be almost entirely banned after about six weeks of pregnancy under a bill expected that passed the House Wednesday but still needs Senate approval. And most abortions after 12 weeks will be banned in North Carolina after the state legislature successfully overrode the Democratic governor's veto Tuesday.

Legislation banning most abortions after 12 weeks of pregnancy is becoming law in North Carolina after the state's Republican-controlled General Assembly successfully overrode the Democratic governor's veto. The House completed the second and final part of the override Tuesday night after a similar three-fifths majority voted for the override earlier Tuesday in the Senate. The outcome represents a major victory for Republican legislative leaders who needed every GOP member on board to enact the law over Gov. Roy Cooper's opposition. The vote comes as abortion rights in the U.S. faced another tectonic shift with lawmakers also debating laws to sharply limit abortion in South Carolina and Nebraska.

The Republican-controlled South Carolina House is expected to debate a bill that would ban abortion as soon as cardiac activity is detected. The debate on Tuesday comes after the state Senate rejected a proposal to nearly outlaw the procedure as soon as conception. The chambers' disagreement over restrictions epitomizes fault lines that have developed between Republicans nationwide since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade. The measure in the House would ban abortion when an ultrasound detects cardiac activity, around six weeks and before most people know they are pregnant. Opponents say a ban around six weeks is essentially an "outright abortion ban."

The Supreme Court has agreed to decide whether South Carolina's congressional districts need to be redrawn because they discriminate against Black voters. The justices said Monday they would review a lower-court ruling that found a coastal district running from Charleston to Hilton Head was intentionally redrawn to reduce the number of Black Democratic-leaning voters to make it more likely Republican candidates would win.

A U.S. agency is agreeing to participate in an in-depth study on whether dredging a Georgia shipping channel in the spring and summer would pose threats to rare sea turtles. The Army Corps of Engineers' announcement prompted a conservation group to dismiss a federal lawsuit that asked a judge to order such a study.

Black voters in South Carolina rescued Joe Biden's bid for the presidency during the 2020 Democratic primary, and he rewarded them by moving the state to the head of the party's nominating calendars in 2024. But interviews two years into his presidency with more than a dozen Black voters representing a variety of ages and backgrounds reveal mixed views, especially between older and younger voters. Those conflicting views in South Carolina, a state that was pivotal to Biden's ascent in 2020, provide an early snapshot of the opportunities and challenges the president will have to navigate with a core Democratic constituency as he seeks a second term.

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