For some, the so-called “thousand-year rain” and the floods that followed it in October 2015 may seem an event long past, but many are still recovering from the storm’s devastation. For some businesses in Richland County, the after effects of the floods continue to pose particular difficulties. Take the Four Paws Animal Clinic , which was forced to operate out of a temporary location for more than two years after the flood, when the business' original building bordering Gills Creek was ruined.

The instance of sexual assault in the United States is growing at a rate that would surprise, even alarm, many people. According to Shannon Nix, associate director of sexual assault and violence intervention and prevention at the University of South Carolina, one in four women - and one in six men – will be sexually assaulted at some point in their lives. This high number doesn’t mean more assaults are happening, however. Nix said it seems that way because more people are reporting it. That’s a

The United States Attorney's Office announced the arrest of fourteen employees of South Carolina correctional facilities who are now facing Federal charges to bribery and bringing contraband in the state’s prisons. U.S. Attorney for the District of South Carolina, Beth Drake, says the charges resulted from an investigation that has been ongoing for years. Drake went on to detail three cases from recent years in which criminal defendants had been conducting illegal activities from inside prison

For more than a year, the Williamsburg Regional Hospital has been serving patients from a temporary facility located right next to their old building. The hospital was damaged beyond repair during the thousand-year floods. Eventually, the hospital determined that they had to move out of the old building. With a combination of insurance coverage and FEMA funding, they began their efforts to open first a temporary ER in the spring of 2016 , followed by the temporary hospital later that year .

Earth Day is held each April to remind people of the importance of caring for our world, according to USC Environmental Health Sciences Professor Joe Jones. He practices what he preaches, as he regularly takes his students outdoors to pick up trash that has washed into a campus creek from Columbia’s Five Points area, where many students eat and drink. He tells them that if trash could wash from one part of town to another, it could also get into the Congaree River and thus to the coast, and,

You know it’s spring in Charleston when the cars are thick with yellow pollen, as well as a colorful array of out of state license plates. Porta- Potties line the streets, novice runners sport bright, new shoes and college kids seeking sun and warmth stretch out behind the beach dunes. Typically, the signs appear in April, alongside two annual events; the Cooper River Bridge Run and the Volvo Car Open. This year, women’s tennis kicked off the unofficial start of tourist season. Beginning March

People picture coral reefs as bursting with color and teeming with a variety of undersea life, which many are. But their number is shrinking, says College of Charleston biologist Phil Dustan, because they are hyper-sensitive to temperature changes, and climate change is warming the ocean to intolerable levels for many reefs. In his 40-plus years of studying reefs, Dustan said, the Florida Keys, for example, have probably lost 90 to 95 percent of their living coral reefs. Dustan was featured in

The SC Senate approves next year's $8 Billion state budget, and a major setback for proponents of solar energy in the state.

How do you raise a large, historic home? Better yet, how do you put it back down? Should such an old home be raised at all? All are tough questions in a city that until recently had never lifted one before. “There’s a lot of head scratching going on,” said long-time contractor Gary Walters. He’s been working on a massive home at 42 Rutledge Avenue in Charleston, S.C. since last fall. That’s when its owner, Jack Margolies, finally got approval from the city’s Board of Architectural Review to

State Superintendent of Education Molly Spearman declared a state of emergency in the Williamsburg County School District and will now take over day-to-day operations. During a press conference in Columbia, Spearman cited financial mismanagement, systemic programmatic issues, and poor student academic performance for her decision. “The management decisions of the Williamsburg County School District have led to a high financial risk rating, years of deficiencies in special education and other