around the world, good night. from the station that is on your side you are watching news ^yt: >> good evening. thank you for being with us on %c9 this wednesday. i am jr berry. >> i am andrea mock. we are moments away from governor nikki haley's state of the state address. we will air the thing live but first we have to talk about sleet. >> we had sleet reported. meteorologist daniel bonds joins us with a check on what is going -- on what is going on. >> 45 degrees columbia. 42 degrees sumpter and 46 degrees orangeburg. midlands. still seeing light rain and there could be sleet pellets out there but it won't cause expecting accumulations. rain will end tonight. we are left are cloudy skies. thursday, a system will begin to develop.

showers thursday and especially thursday night. rain chances increase and that is when we will watch things closely, especially in portions of the northern midlands, friday morning an opportunity for freezing rain. i think in the northern midlands. lexington, winnsboro, saluta, richland, and orangeburg. no warnings and watches for us. warmer air movers in friday afternoon and then it is all rain. but as the rain decreases late friday there could be wrap around moisture coming in with the system and we may see a wintery mix late friday and early portions of saturday. that is something we will be watching closely. saturday, that moves out and then we are left with cloudy skies. we will take a look at the forecast coming up tonight at 11:00 p.m. and we will have update on www.wltx.com as well. guys?

it is state of the state night. governor nikki haley is walking in now. she is getting prepared to talk about her vision for 2016. as she looks back at 2015 as well. >> a different state of the state this year. last year we were talking about jobs in south carolina, but this year has been one of the busiest and most tragic years in our state's history and we expect her to address all of those topics tonight. >> she will talk about the issues in south carolina last year, what happened in north charleston, with walter scott and charleston at the mother emmanuel a.m.e. church and the floods and the issues that she has been talking about, domestic violence, education and bringing more jobs to south carolina.

confederate flag coming down and talk about the budget surplus this year and how she wants to spend the money and the roads and the bridges. we are going to listen in. >> henthe -- the lieutenant governor will introduce her. it will last 40 minutes or so. ladies and gentlemen, please be seated. ladies and gentlemen of the joint assembly and honored guests, i am proud to present to you the honorable governor nikki haley of south carolina.

>> thank you very much. [ cheers and applause ] >> thank you very much. thank you. thank you. [ cheers and applause ] >> thank you. [ cheers and applause ] >> thank you so much. thank you. [ cheers and applause ] >> mr. speaker, mr. president, ladies and gentlemen of the general assembly, constitutional officers and my fellow south carolinians each year we come together to discuss the state of our state and each year we acknowledge those who lost their lives in the service of our state and of our nation. by the grace of god this will be the first year i do not list a single active duty member of our armed forces who was taken

[ cheers and applause ] >> it is indeed a blessing but the men and women of our military are not alone in their willingness to sacrifice for us so now please join me as tee pay tribute to those who gave to service in south carolina and her people. >> officer gregory thomas, columbia. officer stacy lin case. columbia. deputies sheriff dealten daniels, firefighter stourert gregory hardy, beaufort. officer kenneth stanton senior.

on behalf of all south carolinians, to their families know we will never forget. [ cheers and applause ] >> i have always felt blessed to have the support of my family. michael has always been my most trusted adviser. this year that was even more true. he supported me through the grief, the decisions we made and the prayers as we move forward through south carolina's tragedies. please help me welcome my strength, my part and say the

[ cheers and applause ] >> hard to believe how much my little ones have grown. they have spent so much of their lives in the public eyes and they handle it in a way that makes us so proud. this is her last year at home before she goes off to college. please help me welcome my pride and joy. [ cheers and applause ] >> recently we lost a senator whose graciousness touched so many.

husband, father and grandfather for 25 years his work for the people of his district made south carolina a better play. and along with his wife gale, his son and daughter-in-law and his daughter we morn his passing. your husband was loved by those within this chamber and by so many outside of it. thank you and your family for being here and for your service to our state.

>> this has been a difficult and different kind of year for south carolina. a year that warrants a different kind of speech. while there is plenty to celebrate in our state it would be neither honest nor productive to ignore the great challenges thrust upon south carolina in 2015. ladies and gentlemen, the state of our state is bent but not broken. as i look around the chamber tonight there is a hole. it is a hole felt beyond the state house. a hole that tore through the souls of south carolina. senator pinkny served the people of south carolina in this building for 18 years. he should be sitting with us tonight. sadly he is not. this is a dimmer room because of it.

it lives on in his work, in his church, in his friends. it will soon live on in the portunate that his colleagues will raise across the hall but most of all it livers on in his family, in his wife and their two beautiful daughters. they are here tonight. please join me and all of south

respect to the family. [ cheers and applause ] >> thank you for taking the time to be with us. this is a brighter room because you are here. in the days following the tragedy at mother emmanuel in the many months sense i thought a great deal about him. i did not know him well but what i knew was that in every further action we had he was kind and respectful. a good hearted official, a senator who spoke when he did it was with great intensity and greater authority. i knew him to be a man who never spoke against anyone or anything. but instead to advocate for the people and the ideas that he believed in. the building we sit in invites disagreement. that is a good thing. a healthy thing.

believe the same things or be silent about where and when we differ but disagreement does not have to mean division. honest policy differences do not need to morph into dislike, distrust and disillusion. to paraphrase we are more than just members of political tribes but brothers and sisters and fellow south carolinians. he was more than just a senator. he was a father, a husband, a brother, a son, a reverend. we should spend more time getting to know the people behind the policies. [ cheers and applause ] >> before the tragedy of mother

tragedy of walter scott in april. we recall what happened in that case. he was stopped by a north charleston police officer for having a broken tail light. what ensued was caught on video for the world to see. mr. scott began to run from the officer who shot him repeatedly in the back, ending his life. we were betrayed by one of our own. the vast, vast majority of police officers in the nation are honorable men and women, they keep us safe. but unfortunately what happened in north charleston on april 4 was not a unique event in america today. what happened after was. in the face of video evidence that something had gone wrong south carolina did not erupt in

instead we focused on justice and progress, justice for water scott and his family and progress for our state. it began with the scott family. they started the calming of the community. their words and aces allowed south carolina -- #`qt: allowed south carolina to right the wrong as best we could. their response drove ours. and just two months after mr. scott was killed, i stood with his family and signed into law the first body camera bill in america. i was proud to stand with the scott family that day. i am proud to recognize mr. walter scott senior, his wife judy and their son and daughter-

[ cheers and applause ] >> thank you for your graciousness in a time of unimaginable sorry. soututcarolina will forever grieve the loss of your son. and be forever grateful to you and your family for helping us learn from your tragedy, grow from it and take action to make sure to the best of our ability it never happens again. south carolina was devastated by man made tragedies in 2015. as if that wasn't enough last year also saw the biggest natural disaster our state has

starting my first year in office we conducted exercises that allow us to go through disaster situations in real time. each year we work to improve our planning planning and our preparation. the disaster we always thought we were prepared for was a hurricane. thankfully that hurricane has not come this way. what did in 2014 were two winter storms that challenged our infrastructure, our although companies and our -- utility companies and our resources. south carolina shined through the storms. but this year with something neither we nor the weathermen could have ever imagined. rain at unbelievable levels. pouring from the sky for hours. enough rain according to one report to give each american

for the next 182 years. october's thousand year floods challenged our state in a way few natural disasters have. i can't give enough credit to general bob livingston, director of emergency management, secretary of transportation and the other leaders of our agency who understood that can't is not an option. this team knew they couldn't sleep till we made sure we had done everything to keep people safe. provide tied those in need. and strengthen our citizens with the information and the resources to move forward. please help me thank a group of people who didn't back down from a historic challenge.

[ cheers and applause ] >> with good reason we talk a lot about south carolina does well, the records we are breaking, the rankings that show us rising to the top, number one in foreign investments, the number one exporter of tires, one of the fastest growing economies on the east coast, the friendliest state in the country, all of south carolina should take pride in those facts. there are others however we talk about less and that we should never be proud of. there is no exexcuse for south carolina -- excuse for south carolina to rank as the state with the highest percentage of women killed by men. domestic violence is an issue

tonight i say it will plague us no more. last year the general assembly passed a very real, important bill to rid south carolina of the poison of domestic violence. thank you for all the work that went into sending that bill to my desk. but we also know domestic violence is not going to be fixed by legislation alone. in order to truly solve this problem it will take a complete callture change. so -- culture change so we established a domestic violence task force made up of 135 members representing 65 organizations across south carolina. we committed to educating ourselves and each other about every aspect that a survivor goes through and all the contact points touched when a situation occurs. contact points that could be

we looked at not just the route causes but also how the cases were being handled throughout our state. we learned a lot. and we are taking action. first, victims are not victims. they are survivors. we know domestic violence is a choice the abuser makes. not the survivor. we need a culture of empowerment rather than revictimization. second those survivors need to know we have their backs. they need lawyers, not law enforcement officers prosecuting domestic violence crimes. we need officers to be officers out in the field and we need prosecutors to be prosecutors in the courtroom. south carolina is one of only three states that allow law enforcement officers to try domestic violence crimes.

my executive budget includes this problem. no survivor deserves to show up in court and see untrained police officers arguing his or her side while a highly paid defense lawyer argues on behalf of the abuser. if you join me in south carolina no survivor ever will again. [ cheers and applause ] >> there is more that we have done and still more to do. that is why i extended the task force. but after the action we have taken together this past year survivors of domestic violence across south carolina can take comfort knowing that their government and the people of our state see them, hear them

you have heard me say it before, growing up we didn't know what we didn't have. for me that is not the case anymore. i know exactly what we didn't have. and after visiting hundreds of schools across the state i know exactly what many of today's kids don't have. i have seen the disparities and i won't stand by and allow them to continue. we want to raise our children to know they are worthy of a good education, with the confidence and resources so they believe the sky is the limit. our focus has been to right some wrongs. all of us did that together. thanks to your support we changed the funding formula so that no one can ever say again that we educate children based on where they are born and raised. thanks to your support we ever put reading coaches in every

longer pass a child out of the third grade if they can't read. thanks to your support wealthy districts are not the only ones investing in technology anymore. meaning wealthily districts are not the only ones that teach their students for the future, not the past. and thanks to your support we did it all without raising taxes. but we are not done. first, we need to let the voters of south carolina decide if they want the governor to appoint the superintendent of education. education must be a priority for every governor. and to be successful every governor must have a partner in the education department. the superintendent has been a great partner since her election but the history of south carolina shows that has

our children have suffered as a result. this is a change that will not take place till i am gone from the governor's office. so it is not for my benefit that i ask you to support this initiative. it is for our children and for theirs. second, in south carolina we have high turnover of teachers in rural and challenged school districts. that affects a child as they don't have consistency in their teachers. it affects teachers who are adopting to new environments or watching their colleagues flee so this will be the first year we start recruiting teachers to rural districts and just as aggressively incentivising them to stay there. if the student agrees to teachane challenged district for 8 years -- teach in a challenged district for 8 years we will cover their tuition at

for recent grads we will repay their student loans. for career educators who want to teach in these districts we will cover the can you say of their graduate -- the cost of their graduate course work. children deserve to know teachers believe in them enough to stay. we have to slow this revolving door. i know we can. and now i know we will. finally, we cannot into ignore that in much of our state we have a facilities problem. children can't learn as well when the walls of their classrooms are clumbling around them. teachers -- crumbling around them. teachers can't teach as well. our students and our teachers deserve no lesson to go to school each day in a place that is safe and clean. over the last year there have

floating a bond bill. i am not opposed to using south carolina's bonding capacity to sever the most critical needs of our state. there are times it makes sense. it is why i signed a bill in 2012 to use that capacity to invest a billion dollars in our roads. it is why i have supported using that capacity for extraordinary development projects and it is why i oppose any effort to bond out hundreds of millions of dollars to fill a wish list for a bloated higher education system. no one can look that tuition hikes parents and students have seen over the last decade and tell me that higher education doesn't have enough money. and no one can drive the campuses of clemson and south

see the new facilities and new construction projects and tell me that they represent our greatest needs. that is not true of elementary school, middle and high high schools. here is what i propose. let's pass legislation permanently, dedicating 1% of our state's capacity to k-12 education facilities. now i do not propose that all school districts in south carolina are eligible for state support. nor do i propose the school districts determine whether or not they qualify. this must be a thorough priority based process by which those districts that truly need our help get it and those that don't don't. it starts with a complete evaluation of the facilities in

currently attending school. it includes the development of a strick set of building standards so school districts will be able to build age and size appropriate schools. but not break the bank or waste millions on architects and blue prints, dollars that would be better spent if the money touched a child and a teacher. and finally it includes restrictions on local government. we are not helping school districts construct a school so they could raise taxes on their people to build another one or worse a more exstrav good night one. we have the opportunity to help those children in south carolina who need most. we have the opportunity to give dedicated teachers a safe place that allows them to do what they have always wanted. impact the lives of their students. we have the opportunity to do

we can waste that opportunity if we so choose on high rise dorms, new graduate centers and world class administrative buildings. but if we don't focus on k-12 and focus on it now, higher education won't be a possibility for far too many south carolina children. >> we talked about ethic reform for years and we weren't asking that much. just for common sense good