The Senate Judiciary Committee has approved a bill that would allow the State Ports Authority to keep secret rates negotiated with customers.

The provision is part of a bill that makes changes to the state Freedom of Information Act. The bill would require agencies to disclose information about funds and grants that help economic growth.

Created last year in the wake of scandals at the state Department of Commerce, the bill also would require agencies to disclose details of agreements once deals are completed.

The bill moves on to the full Senate for debate.

Forest Acres mayor won't seek re-election

After eight years as mayor of Forest Acres, J.C. Rowe has decided not to seek re-election.

Rowe, 75, a longtime police chief, continues his service until his term ends in June.

There is already a race shaping up in the May 13 election to succeed him.

Frank Bunson, who has served two terms on the City Council, has filed for mayor of the bedroom community of 10,500. So has businessman Larry A. Pyle.

The deadline to file for mayor as well as for two seats on the five-member council is 4 p.m. today. Call 782-9475.

14-foot whale found dead on Isle of Palms

Isle Of Palms There were no signs that a 14-foot whale had collided with a boat or had become entangled in nets before it beached itself at Breach Inlet and died, experts say.

"More than likely the animal was sick," said Wayne McFee, a research wildlife biologist with the National Ocean Service.

The male Cuvier's beaked whale, which weighed about 1,500 pounds, likely was alive when it beached at high tide Tuesday morning.

An incoming tide and loose sand prevented authorities from removing the whale and conducting a full necropsy.

Police managed to drive a truck about halfway down the beach, allowing investigators to cart off the whale's head and other samples for study, McFee said.

Cuvier's beaked whales live mainly on squid and generally favor the Gulf Stream.

Though they tend to avoid the shoreline, one or two usually beach themselves in South Carolina each year, McFee said.

Boy sentenced in foster sister's death

ROCK HILL A 15-year-old York boy has been sentenced to a juvenile detention center until his 21st birthday in the 2002 shooting death of his foster sister.

The state Department of Juvenile Justice and prosecutors recommended the boy serve jail time, but defense lawyer Jim Boyd argued Tuesday that jail would be counterproductive to making him a better citizen.

The teen, whose name was not released because of his age, pleaded guilty in January to involuntary manslaughter after prosecutors acknowledged they could not prove murder.

Ashlee Knipp, 12, a sixth-grader at Harold C. Johnson Middle School, was one of three foster children living in the home that belonged to the boy's mother and stepfather.

Family Court Judge Wylie Caldwell said in court the boy took the shotgun shells from his biological father's home, then took the gun from his mother and stepfather's house where he lived with Ashlee.

The boy then loaded the gun, which later went off. Knipp died of a single gunshot wound to the head.

"You did everything except point it at her with the intention of shooting her," Caldwell told the boy in court.

Ashlee's aunt, Vickie Sowers, said after the hearing, "We believe this boy made a deliberate choice to play a game of terror with three young girls that day ... He didn't stop until my niece was dead."

The boy's grandfather said his grandson was remorseful.

He was unhappy with a juvenile justice evaluation brought up in court that concluded the boy was not remorseful, and that the boy allegedly told juvenile officials he used marijuana and alcohol since being placed on house arrest soon after the shooting.