Mary Green
Reporter
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Mary Green reports for the KCRG-TV9 News at 10 p.m. — though you might also catch her at 4, 5, or 6, depending on the day.
Before moving to eastern Iowa, Mary started her career as a multimedia journalist at WFXL in Albany, Georgia, where she covered local government, tornadoes, hurricanes, and even a bit of snow.
Despite being born and raised in Tampa, Florida, Mary is no stranger to the Midwest. She graduated from the University of Notre Dame and loves to cheer on the Irish!
If you see Mary and her dog, a beagle named Chris Bosh, around town, please say hi! You can also reach her at Mary.Green@kcrg.com, or through Facebook or Twitter.
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Despite the abrupt death of the bill to legalize medical marijuana in South Carolina this year, supporters and advocates say their hope for the legislation is still alive.
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At the end of last week, House members moved to create a statewide task force to hold hearings and figure out how to recruit and retain more teachers in South Carolina.
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All registered voters will have this early, in-person option, and they do not need to provide an excuse or reason for why they are voting early, as they previously had.
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With a few exceptions, including the budget and redistricting legislation, any bill that had not passed both chambers by that point died for the year, needing to be refiled and reintroduced at the start of next year.
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Before putting a close on the legislative session, lawmakers agreed to a sine die resolution, which outlines the reasons for which they can come back to Columbia once the regular session is over.
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The bill would provide for 5,000 students a year to receive $5,000 for an Education Scholarship Account.
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According to the U.S. Department of Labor, nearly 3,000 people with disabilities in South Carolina were being paid less than the minimum wage just before the pandemic began.
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With just three days left on the calendar in South Carolina’s legislative session, it will be a race to the finish to advance bills to the governor’s desk by the end of next week.
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The House Ways and Means Committee advanced a version of S.2 to the House floor Thursday, after amending the bill with significant changes that would pump the brakes on its progress.
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The decision shocked leaders in the state Senate and may have repercussions well beyond failing to make South Carolina one of about 40 states allowing patients to use marijuana as medicine.
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Last year, McMaster signed the “Fetal Heartbeat Bill” into law, which bans most abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected, typically around six weeks, making it one of the most restrictive anti-abortion laws in the country.
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Sponsors of this bill have held that DHEC, overseeing the state’s health and environmental control operations, has become unwieldy and ineffective at times.
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Members of the South Carolina House of Representatives elected Rep. Murrell Smith, R - Sumter, to serve as their next Speaker on Thursday in a unanimous vote.
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Supporters argued this would give women information about options they may not know they have.
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Senators started debate on the upcoming state budget Tuesday with a $12.6 billion spending plan proposal before them.
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Supporters argue it would save women time and money by saving them additional trips to the physician.
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South Carolina is hoping to get everyone in the state connected to high-speed internet at home and work within the next few years, thanks in large part to a major influx of money coming in from the federal government.
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After a routine vote in the state Senate on Thursday, a significant early voting bill has now passed both chambers of the South Carolina State House with bipartisan backing and without getting a single vote against it.
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Jay Lucas, SC Speaker of the House, said he won’t run for re-election this November.
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SC’s anti-vaccine mandate legislation is on its way to Governor Henry McMaster’s desk after the House voted 76-34 to agree with the changes the Senate made in early April.
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The office tasked with broadband expansion and investment in South Carolina estimates it will cost more than $600 million at this point to ensure everyone in the state is connected to the internet.
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The push has gained renewed effort recently after contentious hearings between current trustees seeking to keep their seats and the lawmakers who decide if that will happen.
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The Democratic National Committee is shaking up its nomination process to allow any state to make the case they should be one of the first to hold a primary or caucus.
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A proposal moving through the South Carolina Senate aims to incentivize students to take those jobs.
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One of the key markers of school accountability across the country is the percentage of students who graduate high school in four years.
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A slightly cool yet sunny spring morning on the water provided the ideal setting to catch a few fish Saturday, as dozens of kids grabbed a pole and huddled around a pond near the Kershaw-Sumter county line.
The end of this week marks the close of “crossover week” at the capital, the deadline by which bills have to pass one chamber and cross over the lobby to be considered in the other chamber.
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Some supporters shared that concern, but ultimately, several echoed the sentiment that they believe this bill will help the people of South Carolina and give them more healthcare options.
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As the bill works its way through the House, it now sits with the Medical, Military, Public and Municipal Affairs, or 3-M, Committee and on Monday, members of that committee heard six hours of public testimony on the legislation as they consider advancing it.
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South Carolina lawmakers have less than two months left to pass one of the highest-profile bills at the State House this year: legislation to legalize medical marijuana.
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The bill would require athletes at the middle school, high school, and collegiate levels compete based on the gender they were assigned at birth, prohibiting transgender girls and women from competing in girls’ and women’s sports.
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It would also set aside $100 million for applications that were approved by the end of last year but have not been able to use the tax credits since the state moratorium went into effect.
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Supporters of the legislation are under a tight deadline, as it needs to pass the House by the end of next week to beat a key deadline, or else the legislation dies and has to be refiled next year.
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The governor said $227 million more overall would go to schools.
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To celebrate 100 years on the earth, Thomas Rew took a trip above it.
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“It’s concerning because very recently, within a very short time period within about a week, we had in the two different ends of the state two outbreaks reported,” DHEC Public Health Director Dr. Brannon Traxler said.
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South Carolina’s Labor Force Participation Task Force launched this week with the goal of trying to figure out why such a discrepancy exists between those figures and aims to have the answer by year’s end.
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Under the proposal, families would receive $6,000 a year per student.
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The controversial “Save Women’s Sports Act” is now closer to becoming law in South Carolina than it has ever been.
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While parental leave might be more common in the private sector, state workers currently have to tap into their sick days or vacation if they want to spend time at home after their child is born or adopted.
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State lawmakers are considering putting limits on the amount of funding allocated to the Workforce and Senior Affordable Housing Act’s tax credit program
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South Carolina lawmakers now have less than three months to change the state’s law on sex offenders, and if they don’t, all of the more than 17,000 registered sex offenders in the state could apply at that point to be taken off the registry.
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The second-longest-serving Democrat in the South Carolina House of Representatives announced Friday he will not seek re-election for his seat and instead is running for state Superintendent of Education.
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The Senate will next have a chance to change the budget, and senators could opt to take out the NIL proviso.
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The Republican governor filed for re-election in Columbia on Wednesday, the first day of the two-week filing period.
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During the bill’s first day of debate Wednesday at the State House, some lawmakers said the split was long overdue.
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In the budget, House members approved a 3% raise and one-time bonus for all state employees, along with more raises for state law enforcement and correctional officers.
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Republican Senator Lindsey Graham and Rep. Joe Wilson, R – Springdale, took part in a roundtable discussion at the University of South Carolina’s School of Law, titled, “Assessing the Conflict in Ukraine and Possible War Crimes,” with UofSC’s Rule of Law Collaborative.
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About half of the reports of intimate partner violence in South Carolina, including murder and assault, are between people who are dating.
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The “Save Women’s Sports Act” says the gender of students on their birth certificates will determine whether they can play on a boys team or a girls team.