South Carolina will hold its Republican presidential primary Jan. 21, moving the date forward to stay ahead of Florida.

Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada are all expected to now move their caucuses and primaries up as well to maintain their traditional early spots in the presidential-nominee selection process calendar.

Ever wonder where your food came from? No, I mean where it really came from — as in, where did humans first find the plants that we now depend on for survival, like potatoes or wheat or corn, and what made those plants such generous providers of food, anyway?

Neither reports signals a sharp turnaround for the sluggish economy, but:

-- The manufacturing sector "expanded in September for the 26th consecutive month," the Institute for Supply Management says. An index it calculates that measures such things as orders, production and employment stood at 51.6 in September vs. 50.6 in August. A reading above 50 is supposed to signal an expanding factory sector. The index has been at 50 or above for those 26 months.

ABC News and Yahoo! announced today that they are teaming up in a "strategic online news alliance" they hope will reach 100 million U.S. users a month. And they're not starting small: George Stephanopoulos will interview President Obama at 2:35 this afternoon for a webcast on ABCNews.com and Yahoo.com. The partnership will make ABC News, according to the press release, "the premier news provider on Yahoo! News." The press release says that Yahoo!

Linda Holmes over at Monkey See will be looking at the pluses, minuses and other issues related to the news that Yahoo and ABC News are launching "a strategic online news alliance."

If there's been a worse week and a half for a presidential candidate, it's hard to remember when.

"Work produced by a person since deceased shall not be considered for an award. If, however, a prizewinner dies before he has received the prize, then the prize may be presented."

That's one of the rules in the Statues of the Nobel Foundation, and it's suddenly pertinent because it's just been announced that Rockefeller University scientist Ralph Steinman died on Friday.

A Wood County man is pronounced dead following an accident near Lake Quitman over the weekend.

GREENVILLE - Yet another lawsuit has been filed by L-3 against the City of Greenville, claiming Majors Field Municipal Airport is in violation of regulations dating back more than 60 years.