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The Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office’s Emergency Management Division has a simple message as Hurricane Irma approaches: monitor the storm and make plans for possible evacuation.

While thoughts and prayers are with our Texas FRiends and neighbors, we are at the peak of the Atlantic Tropical Storm season. Hurricane Irma continues its trek from Cape Verde across the pond and toward the Hebert Box (see below). People with interests in the Southeastern U.S. and Gulf of Mexico should be alert to the forecast path updates for this powerful storm. It is important to note that the average NHC track errors are about 175 and 225 statute miles at days 4 and 5, respectively. Hurricane Irma originally had a small wind field. In the past 24 hours,...

Big Upstate manufacturers stand ready to challenge Duke Energy if the Charlotte-based power company asks South Carolina regulators for permission to raise rates on its Upstate customers. Duke announced Aug. 25 that it planned to cancel decade-old plans to build the two-reactor Gaffney plant. Scott Elliott, a Columbia lawyer who specializes in utility regulation, has already picked out arguments he intends to make on behalf of manufacturing clients in opposition to the expected rate hike request. Elliott represents the S.C. Energy Users Committee, a group of manufacturers that buy a lot of electricity. The group includes big Upstate employers such...

Statement From U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham On DACAWASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) released this statement today on Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA).“If President Trump chooses to cancel the DACA program and give Congress six months to find a legislative solution, I will be supportive of such a position.“I have always believed DACA was a presidential overreach. “However, I equally understand the plight of the Dream Act kids who -- for all practical purposes -- know no country other than America. “If President Trump makes this decision we will work to find a legislative solution to their...

Irma spun into a monster storm Tuesday morning with sustained winds topping 180 mph, becoming the strongest Atlantic hurricane ever recorded outside the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean, National Hurricane Center forecasters said in their 11 a.m. advisory. As the hurricane churns closer to the U.S. coast, its path becomes more certain, with South Florida, particularly the Keys, increasingly likely to take a hit. Tropical storm force winds could arrive as early as Friday. Gov. Rick Scott has declared a state of emergency for all 67 counties and has all 7,000 members of the state’s National Guard to report to...

That curve to the north – and eventually out into the Atlantic – that everyone in South Florida was hoping to see Hurricane Irma take isn’t happening as quickly as earlier models had predicted. The National Hurricane Center’s 8 a.m. update Monday drives the storm’s path in a flatter, westbound path that puts it closer Cuba’s shores by early Saturday morning.

Beginning Jan. 22, 2018, travelers from nine states will no longer be able to travel with only their driver’s licenses. Residents of Kentucky, Maine, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Washington will have to use alternate ID forms (passport, military ID, or permanent resident card) to pass TSA security checkpoints—even for domestic travel.

0 The disgraced former leader of state-owned power company Santee Cooper – an entity which just wasted billions of dollars on an abandoned nuclear power plant – will receive a whopping $16 million payout from South Carolina taxpayers. You read that right … the former CEO of this colossally mismanaged public utility is being rewarded to the tune of $16 million for his role in perhaps the biggest command economic debacle in the history of the Palmetto State.

Tropical Storm Irma picked up strength Wednesday and is expected to become a hurricane by Thursday or Friday, making it the fourth hurricane of an increasingly busy season. In their latest advisory, National Hurricane Center forecasters said sustained winds had reached 60 mph as the storm rolls west at 15 mph. While it’s too early to tell what threat Irma may pose to Florida or the U.S. Coast, it has the potential to gain significant strength as it crosses warm tropical Atlantic waters — sea surface temperatures are more than 2°F above normal — and encounters weak wind shear. Irma...

As the conversation on what to do with Confederate monuments continues across the nation, a group of activists decided to take a stand at State House Thursday.

If you're a student at Clemson and a Republican, you might want to avoid assistant professor of human-centered computing Bart Knijnenburg's class.  Chances are, taking the course will bring down your grade point average. That's because Professor Knijenbyrg has a decided bias against Republicans and Trump supporters, as he made perfectly clear in a series of Facebook posts.

The first combat submarine to sink an enemy ship also instantly killed its own eight-man crew with the powerful explosive torpedo it carried, new research has found. The HL Hunley fought for the confederacy in the US civil war and was sunk near North Charleston, South Carolina, in 1864. Speculation about the crew's deaths has included suffocation and drowning, but a new study claims that a shockwave created by their own weapon was to blame.

When it comes to spending and infrastructure, one of South Carolina’s great white whales rose from the deep with news last week that the Army Corps of Engineers approved a permit to begin work on the South Carolina leg of I-73. Ultimately, the interstate highway could take motorists from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula straight down to Myrtle Beach.The permit covers the whole state length, slicing across its northeastern corner, starting near Bennettsville. Construction could begin within two years, supporters say, on a project first contemplated in 1982.The southern half alone, linking I-95 to the Conway Bypass, is estimated to cost more...

President Trump went on the offensive against Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) on Thursday morning. The president blasted Graham, his former rival for the 2016 Republican nomination, over comments Graham had made criticizing Trump's response to the violence last weekend in Charlottesville, Virginia. Follow Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump Publicity seeking Lindsey Graham falsely stated that I said there is moral equivalency between the KKK, neo-Nazis & white supremacists...... 6:19 AM - Aug 17, 2017 11,760 11,760 Replies 9,005 9,005 Retweets 32,549 32,549 likes ***SNIP***Graham said Wednesday that Trump was "dividing Americans" with his post-Charlottesville comments. "Mr. President, I encourage you...

Publicity seeking Lindsey Graham falsely stated that I said there is moral equivalency between the KKK, neo-Nazis & white supremacists......— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 17, 2017 ...and people like Ms. Heyer. Such a disgusting lie. He just can't forget his election trouncing.The people of South Carolina will remember!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 17, 2017 The public is learning (even more so) how dishonest the Fake News is. They totally misrepresent what I say about hate, bigotry etc. Shame!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 17, 2017 Great to see that Dr. Kelli Ward is running against Flake Jeff...

President Donald Trump has taken a swipe at a fellow Republican, calling Sen. Lindsey Graham a "publicity seeking" lawmaker. In a daybreak post on his Twitter account Thursday, Trump faulted the GOP senator for statements Graham has made about the president's stance on the violence and death of a woman in Charlottesville, Virginia. Trump said in his tweet: "Publicity seeking Lindsey Graham falsely stated that I said there is moral equivalency between the KKK, neo-Nazis & white supremacists and people like Ms. Heyer." He was referring to Heather Heyer, the woman who was killed when she was struck by a...

At Tuesday's combative press conference in Trump Tower, President Donald Trump questioned the removal of statues of Confederate leaders, but at the start of his presidential campaign, Trump publicly expressed his approval of South Carolina's decision to remove the Confederate battle flag from the State Capitol. “I would take it down, yes,” said Trump in June 2015 at his first news conference following the declaration of his presidential candidacy. “I think they should put it in a museum and respect whatever it is you have to respect.” The long-running debate over whether the Confederate flag should be flown over the...

A spokeswoman for House Speaker Jay Lucas, R-Hartsville, said Monday that Lucas maintains there will be no further changes to Confederate monuments as long as he is speaker, reiterating Lucas' 2015 statement that said, "Debate over this issue will not be expanded or entertained." Gov. Henry McMaster echoed the desire for the remaining monuments to stay put. "We have been over these issues over the years," McMaster said, speaking Monday at a job fair for laid-off workers from the now-cancelled V.C. Summer nuclear project. "I think our people are different."

ANDERSON, S.C. (AP) — Authorities say a South Carolina man died trying to get his cellphone from a burning mobile home. The 22-year-old man and two women were inside the mobile home when the fire broke out about 3 a.m. Friday. He says all three made it out safely, but the man went back in to get his cellphone and didn't make it back out.

A college student in Columbia, South Carolina was kidnapped by three men at gunpoint. Fearing the worst, she used some Jason Bourne level-problem solving and her manual transmission car to get away safely. According to newspaper The State, 20-year-old Jordan Dinsmore found herself in one of the worst situations possible when three men approached her, pushed her to the ground and put a gun to her head. The publication reports that they forced her to drive her car and withdraw money from an ATM and then told her that she was going to be taken to a location to be...