When I first read this story, I thought it was a joke. Alas, it is not.

From Associated Press

A South Carolina man caught on video having sex with a horse was sentenced Wednesday to three years in prison after pleading guilty for the second time in two years to abusing the creature.

Rodell Vereen was also ordered never to go near the stable where the horse’s owner caught him and held him for authorities at shotgun point over the summer. He apologized to the woman and to himself after admitting to buggery at the Horry County courthouse.

“I’m sorry about what I’ve done. I didn’t mean to do it. It’s my fault. I’m sorry for what I’ve done to myself,” Vereen said during Wednesday’s court hearing.

Vereen was arrested in July after Barbara Kenley caught him entering the barn at Lazy B Stables in Longs, about 20 miles northeast of Myrtle Beach. She had been staking out the stable for more than a week after setting up a surveillance camera and videotaping Vereen’s assault on her 21-year-old horse named Sugar.

Kenley said she became suspicious because her horse was acting strange and getting infections, and she noticed things were moved around the barn and dirt was piled up near the horse’s stall.

Vareen was sentenced to probation in 2007 for having sex with the same animal.  He was sentenced to a five-year prison stint with the possibility of release in three years.

An estimated crowd of more than 1,000 South Carolina teachers, students and other supporters gathered at the state House to demand the governor accept more than $700 million in stimulus funds for their state.  Click for more.

South Carolina’s top congressional leader is furious with the governor for rejecting stimulus dollars, which would allow the state to create jobs, increase unemployment benefits and offer tax credits for college tuition. Read More.

Uncle Tom or Racial Healer?

 You be the judge: A Black South Carolina senator is pushing for an official Confederate holiday, saying it will improve race relations in the state – is he tomming or doing what’s necessary to bring Blacks and Whites together? Democratic Sen. Robert Ford is pushing a bill that would force county and municipal governments to give workers off on May 10 to honor Confederate war dead, as does Mississippi and Alabama. Ford, who also fought for a Martin Luther King, Jr. paid holiday, says a second paid memorial day would help people understand the history of both the Civil Rights Movement and the Confederacy. Read the rest.

Second-grader Passes Heroin at Recess
How do know when you’re living in a tough neighborhood? When, in true Bebe’s-kids fashion, a second-grader brings in packets of heroin and passes them out on recess. No, that’s not a joke; that’s what happened in Philadelphia recently and led to the arrest of a 35-year-old father, Robert Parks. He was charged with possession of narcotics, endangering the welfare of a child and reckless endangerment of another person. “I don’t think he cooperated with the investigation. He didn’t tell us where he got the drugs from,” said Philadelphia Police Lt. Frank Vanore. After interviewing teachers and students at Delaplaine McDaniel Elementary School in South Philadelphia, it was clear that Parks’ son was the student who brought the heroin to school, Vanore said. A gym teacher said he witnessed five second grade boys, including Parks’ son, passing around the heroin packets during gym class. The boys told police they thought it was candy, Philly.com reports. One youth tasted the drug and spit it out at school, police told the Web site. The youngsters were taken to Children’s Hospital for observation and later released. Parks’ son and an unknown number of other siblings have been now been placed by the Department of Human Services in the custody of a maternal aunt, Vanore said. “Police pretty much zeroed in that his (Parks’) son, one of the children, brought the narcotics to school,” Vanore said. “Based on the interviews they did, police determined probable cause that the narcotics came from Mr. Parks.”

A Black teen has lived 118 days without a heart. A South Carolina teenager survived for nearly four months without a heart before being released from the hospital on Thursday. The young woman was kept alive by a custom-built artificial blood-pumping device, until she was able to get a heart transplant, doctors in Miami said on Wednesday. The patient, D’Zhana Simmons, 14, of South Carolina Simmons, suffered from cardiomyopathy, a condition in which her heart doesn’t pump blood properly. Read more here.