Category Archives: South Carolina

Weather tracker: Hurricane Idalia leaves trail of damage in Florida

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Category 3 storm causes extensive flooding in south-east US, while heavy rain and winds also hit France and Italy

Hurricane Idalia struck northern Florida on Wednesday, bringing damaging winds and torrential rain. It made landfall near Keaton Beach on Florida’s Big Bend during the morning as a high-end category 3 hurricane, bringing sustained winds speeds near 125mph (200km/h) and a storm surge of 16ft along Florida’s north-west coastline.

Due to very warm sea surface temperatures, the storm strengthened rapidly over the Gulf of Mexico to category 4 status, before weakening to category 3 as it made landfall. It brought extensive flooding as it passed through and damaged power lines, leaving thousands without electricity.

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Hurricane Idalia brings intense flooding to Carolinas as Floridians count cost – live

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More than 50,000 customers in Carolinas still without power despite category 3 tempest weakening to tropical storm

Joe Biden signed a major disaster declaration for Florida following Hurricane Idalia.

The declaration provides the state with federal resources to support clean up, rescue, and more in response to the tropical storm.

The White House shares the following: “This morning, President Biden called Florida Governor Ron DeSantis to convey that he has signed a Major Disaster Declaration and ordered all available federal resources to help with the continued response to Tropical Storm Idalia.

The President reiterated that the people of Florida have his full support as they recover from the storm

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Hurricane Idalia leaves trail of floods and wreckage in south-eastern US

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Tropical storm moves into Atlantic but torrential rain and inland flooding still likely in North Carolina, officials warn

Recovery efforts were under way in four states on Thursday as the remains of Hurricane Idalia, still a tropical storm with 60mph winds, moved into the Atlantic off the coast of the Carolinas.

Crews were sifting through wreckage across North and South Carolina, Georgia and Florida, where the storm came ashore on Wednesday as a category 3 hurricane with gusts of 160mph and sent a surge of seawater up to 16ft high inland through vulnerable coastal areas.

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Double murderer Alex Murdaugh loses phone privileges after talking to media

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South Carolina lawyer, 55, disciplined by prison after giving interviews for new TV documentary on his case

The convicted double murderer Alex Murdaugh has lost his phone privileges and his prison tablet computer after his lawyer recorded him reading his journal entries on a call for a documentary about his case, South Carolina corrections department officials said.

Prison policy prohibits inmates from talking to the media, a state prisons spokeswoman, Chrysti Shain, said in a statement. The call was for a Fox Nation documentary series called The Fall of the House of Murdaugh that is set to air on Thursday.

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‘I’m here to see the truth is being told’: inside Charleston’s museum of Black history

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The state-of-the art International African American Museum opened last month – can it effect radical change?

Sharrilyn Aiken McKinney and her daughter Shaylyn slowly scanned the colorful walls of the new International African American Museum in Charleston, South Carolina. As they perused a timeline that established the global roots of slavery in the 1400s until its US demise in the 19th century, Shaylyn paused and snapped an image of an antebellum slave tag, an object common in Charleston during that time. Worn by the enslaved who were leased to work for people other than their slaveholders, such metal badges proved they had permission to move about the city.

Meanwhile, the elder McKinney moved toward the museum’s Center for Family History, where the pair plans to seek help from in-house genealogists to find out more about their Charleston heritage. The mother and daughter know there’s a chance their enslaved ancestors may have arrived on or near the museum’s grounds, built on Gadsden’s Wharf, which received thousands of captive Africans on slave ships. Shaylyn, who self-identifies as Gullah Geechee (McKinney does not), told me she couldn’t wrap her head around the possibility that she may have been walking in the footsteps of her forebears. Her mother was in a different state of mind: “I’m here just to see that the truth is being told,” she said. “They can’t keep it away. I want to see the local stuff.”

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South Carolina woman dies after being attacked by alligator

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The 69-year-old was found dead on Hilton Head Island with the reptile appearing to guard her body and hampering rescue efforts

A South Carolina woman died on Tuesday after she was attacked by an alligator while walking her dog near a golf course, authorities said.

The 69-year-old woman, who has not been named, was found dead in the Spanish Wells community of Hilton Head Island, the Beaufort county sheriff’s office said in a news release.

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‘Help me’: South Carolina woman shops passenger to police with silent message

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Driver of Jeep stopped for running red light helps police jail man – her own passenger – suspected of attempted murder and kidnap

By mouthing the words “help me” to an officer who had pulled her over for a traffic stop, a woman in South Carolina helped authorities jail a man suspected of a shooting and a kidnapping: her own passenger, according to authorities.

The unusual encounter began when officer Kayla Wallace pulled over a woman behind the wheel of a Jeep that ran a red light during the early evening of 28 May, the North Myrtle Beach police department said in a statement this week. Wallace noticed the woman was in distress while seated alongside 29-year-old Collin Bates, the police’s statement added.

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Alex Murdaugh faces federal charges of money laundering and fraud

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Convicted murderer faces charges after being indicted over allegations he schemed to steal settlement money from clients

The convicted murderer Alex Murdaugh is facing federal charges for the first time after being indicted on 22 financial fraud counts over allegations he schemed to steal settlement money from clients.

The indictments unsealed on Wednesday do not appear to reveal any new allegations against the once-prominent South Carolina attorney now serving life without parole for killing his wife and younger son.

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South Carolina passes six-week abortion ban after heated debate

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The law, which the governor has promised to sign, will ban abortion before most people know they are pregnant

South Carolina’s state senate approved an anti-abortion bill on Tuesday that would ban most abortions at about six weeks, a period when most people are unaware they are pregnant.

During a special session to decide whether the bill advances to the governor, who has promised to sign it, the Republican-controlled senate launched into a heated debate over the ban.

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Mother of US bride killed in crash condemns driver who ‘chose to drink’

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Samantha Miller, 34, died in South Carolina after rental car driven by Jamie Lee Komoroski hit golf cart she and husband were in

The mother of a South Carolina bride killed by an allegedly drunk motorist just moments after her wedding has lashed out at the accused driver, saying she made “a conscious choice” that turned deadly.

“It wasn’t an accident,” Lisa Miller said to Fox News of the 28 April crash that killed her daughter, Samantha Miller, and led to the arrest of Jamie Lee Komoroski.

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Family of US woman killed by alligator sues over community’s water features

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South Carolina retirement community’s failure to ‘ensure against natural hazards’ led to death of Nancy Becker, 88, suit claims

The family of an 88-year-old South Carolina woman killed by an alligator in a lagoon near her home sued the owners and managers of her retirement community, alleging “manmade ponds and ponding basins” drew the animal to the area.

The lawsuit says Nancy Becker “endured excruciating pain and suffering, including severed limbs”, the Washington Post reported.

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Second autopsy performed on South Carolina teen after Alex Murdaugh case

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Stephen Smith was found dead on a highway in 2015 but lawyers for mother say no evidence links death to Murdaugh family

A second autopsy was completed this weekend on the exhumed body of a teenager found dead nearly eight years ago on a South Carolina road, according to the family’s lawyer, after the public attention surrounding Alex Murdaugh’s murder trial boosted a mother’s search for answers in the unsolved case.

Lawyers for the mother of Stephen Smith have said there is no evidence linking his death to the Murdaugh family, and state investigators have remained tight-lipped since taking the case around the same time police said Murdaugh killed his wife and son.

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Body of teenager found dead near Murdaugh property to be exhumed

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Death of Stephen Smith, 19, was ruled a hit-and-run but case was reopened after Murdaugh’s conviction of murder of wife and son

Two weeks after South Carolina lawyer Alex Murdaugh was convicted in the brutal murders of his wife and son, the body of a teenager who was found dead on a country road near the murder scene six years earlier is now set to be exhumed.

Sandy Smith confirmed that the remains of her son Stephen, 19 at the time of his death, will undergo a private autopsy after a GoFundMe campaign raised $43,000 to pay for exhumation.

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How a trip to Mexico for cosmetic surgery turned deadly for US quartet

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Deaths of two of four Americans kidnapped in Matamoros place spotlight on cartels’ impunity – and on medical tourism

Latavia “Tay” Washington McGee had scheduled an abdominal operation that many mothers have, and she chose to have the operation done in Mexico, where medical costs are cheaper – and where she had previously gone for other cosmetic procedures.

A cousin and a couple of friends joined her to share the 1,400-mile drive from her home town of Lake City, South Carolina, to Matamoros, Tamaulipas, just south of the US-Mexico frontier.

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Alex Murdaugh found guilty of murder of wife and son

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South Carolina lawyer, 54, to be sentenced on Friday after jury returns guilty verdict following three hours of deliberation

Richard “Alex” Murdaugh has been found guilty of the murders of wife Maggie and son Paul, after a six-week televised trial that culminated with the defendant unexpectedly taking the stand to plead his innocence.

The jury returned with the verdict after three hours of deliberation. Murdaugh was found guilty on two counts of murder and two weapons-related charges.

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Alex Murdaugh jurors visit crime scene as murder trial winds towards its close

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Closing arguments to be delivered in gripping case of prominent state attorney, accused of killing wife and son at family estate

After six weeks of testimony, including 62 prosecution witnesses and 14 for the defense, including the defendant himself, the closing days in the double-murder trial of Richard “Alex” Murdaugh has resembled a fairytale of dynastic corruption and deep south Gothic horror.

As the last prosecution witness stepped down from a South Carolina courtroom stand on Tuesday, closing the rebuttal phase of the trial, jurors on Wednesday headed off to tour the 1,700-acre country estate where Murdaugh’s wife Maggie and son Paul were found dead on 7 June 2021.

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Republican senator Tim Scott preparing presidential run – report

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Only Black Republican in Senate set to challenge Donald Trump for nomination, Wall Street Journal says

South Carolina senator Tim Scott is reportedly taking steps to seek the Republican presidential nomination in 2024.

Reporting the news, the Wall Street Journal cited anonymous sources “familiar with his plans”. Jennifer DeCasper, a senior adviser, said the senator was “excited to share his vision of hope and opportunity and hear the American people’s response”.

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Appeals court temporarily halts Biden’s student debt cancellation scheme

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Program has been paused as the court considers a motion filed by six Republican-led states

Joe Biden’s plan to cancel billions of dollars in federal student loans has been temporarily halted by a federal appeals court as it considers a motion from six Republican-led states to block the program.

The eighth circuit court of appeals issued the temporary stay on Friday, ordering the Biden administration not to act on the program while it considers the appeal.

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Hurricane Ian: Florida and Carolinas comb wreckage to assess deadly toll

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Twenty-seven reported dead in Florida and four in North Carolina as residents try to rebuild from one of most powerful recent storms

As Hurricane Ian upended the lives of millions along the south-eastern United States, authorities sifting through the wreckage in Florida and the Carolinas were reporting a few dozen deaths as of Saturday, and the states’ residents were early in the stages of rebuilding from one of the strongest, most expensive hurricanes in recent American history.

The storm had worked its way north after slamming into Florida and slowly weakening, gathering some of its strength back from the warm Atlantic Ocean waters before hitting South Carolina on Friday. It made its second US landfall in Georgetown, 60 miles north of Charleston, destroying parts of four popular piers, including two in Myrtle Beach.

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Hurricane Ian moves into South Carolina after rampage in Florida

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Twenty-one people dead with toll expected to rise after mega-storm carves wide path of devastation and moves north

The coast of South Carolina was hit on Friday with a direct strike from Hurricane Ian, the deadly mega-storm that carved a wide path of destruction on its earlier rampage through Florida.

The eye of the hurricane crossed over land at Georgetown, between Myrtle Beach and the historic city of Charleston, after strengthening overnight in the Atlantic.

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