Teen charged after Vine video spreads online
A video posted on Vine led authorities to file animal cruelty charges against an Orangeburg County teen, The State reported.
The video shows Walter Easley, 17, speaking to the camera before showing an orange cat walking by. The cat is then kicked into the air by what appears to be Easley’s foot. It lands on the ground and stands up.
Police found Easley Monday at his school. He told officers the video made it appear he had kicked the cat harder than he actually did and that he actually threw the cat off his porch to make it appear like he kicked it.
Easley told police the video was inspired by a stand-up comedy routine he watched.
— Amanda Coyne, News editor
McPartland, host of NPR’s ‘Piano Jazz,’ passes
The host of NPR’s “Piano Jazz,” produced by South Carolina ETV radio, died Tuesday, the radio network reported.
Marian McPartland was a jazz pianist who hosted the weekly show. She died at the age of 95 in her Long Island home. “Piano Jazz” was the longest-running performance show on public radio, according to NPR, and is rerun every Saturday night.
McPartland’s show began at the end of “American Popular Song,” another ETV program on which she was originally a guest.
McPartland was married to cornetist Jimmy McPartland, a soldier she met entertaining and performing with American soldiers during World War II. Before hitting the national airwaves, she was a lecturer on college campuses and played jazz records at a New York radio station.
— Amanda Coyne, News editor
High school seniors’ ACT scores on the rise in South Carolina
ACT exam scores have improved slightly in South Carolina over the past four years, The Associated Press reported.
Students who graduated in the spring had an average composite score of 20.4 on the college entrance exam, which grades on a 36-point scale. In 2009, that average was 19.8.
The national average ACT score is 20.9, two-tenths of a point lower than the 2012 average.
The difference between the South Carolina and national averages is the smallest it’s been since at least 2007. More students nationally have taken the ACT since 2009.
Average scores in Midlands high schools were largely down. Only the Kershaw County School District and Lexington County School District 2 improved their average scores, by 0.3 and 0.2 percent, respectively.
—Amanda Coyne, News editor