Today's Spotlight
Newer stories | Older stories
Thursday, Nov. 27, 2008 |
Cash-strapped shoppers looking for bargains this holiday season may turn to thrift stores and online sellers for deals on secondhand toys and other gifts.
But consumer safety advocates warn that buyers should be cautious when considering such items because they might have been recalled or banned for dangerous defects or toxic materials.  Read More |
Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2008
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Students might not get into college with bad grades and low test scores; job candidates face tough odds if they have criminal records. But it's a different story when it comes to South Carolina's treatment of polluters.Read More |
Sunday, Nov. 16, 2008
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About two years ago, while reviewing designs for the new College of Charleston basketball arena, Bobby Marlowe suddenly realized something was missing — a president's suite.
"I had always assumed there would be some type of box there for entertaining and donor cultivation," said Marlowe, chairman of the university's board of trustees.Read More |
Saturday, Nov. 15, 2008
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MOUNT PLEASANT — George Cercopely couldn't believe his ears: Tickets were $15 for Veterans Day ceremonies at Patriots Point Naval & Maritime Museum.
He double-checked just to make sure he understood correctly. Read More |
Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2008
| Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer's Office on Aging has paid about $85,000 in state funds to Senior Shield LLC, a company it formed to investigate and certify "senior safe" businesses. Bauer's chief of staff, former Secretary of State Jim Miles, created Senior Shield and is the organization's registered agent in South Carolina. Read More |
Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2008
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Troubled cleaning company operator Edward Pero can no longer work as a contractor in South Carolina while state officials investigate whether he lied on a licensing application about past criminal convictions, a labor official said this week.Read More |
Tuesday, Nov. 11, 2008
| p>A new state-funded program aimed at shielding seniors from unethical businesses runs the risk of violating the standards it pledges to uphold. Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer's Office on Aging has paid about $85,000 in state funds to Senior Shield LLC, a company it formed to investigate and certify "senior safe" businesses. When first asked about the financial arrangement last week, Bauer's director of communication Frank Adams said the use of state funds was a non-issue because Miles established Senior Shield as a non-profit organization. In fact, Miles had registered Senior Shield as a for-profit limited liability corporation, The Post and Courier Watchdog found. After the newspaper inquired about the discrepancy last week, Miles re-registered Senior Shield as a non-profit organization with the Secretary of State's Office. Read More |
Sunday, Nov. 9, 2008
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Rev. Charles Glover gazes at the dense forest along the intersection of Parkers Ferry and Old Jacksonboro roads and sees a park for neighborhood people. In the woods across the street, he sees a new fire station.Read More |
Sunday, Nov. 2, 2008
| Four mostly sunny days after the record-setting Oct. 24 deluge, water had yet to recede in an area west of the Ashley, and Dirk Kuznik says he knows why.Read More |
Thursday, Oct. 30, 2008
| As one of the two main passageways from the West Ashley area into the peninsula, the northbound U.S. Highway 17 drawbridge may seem to backup traffic. But when it does, it's usually just for eight minutes. That is the federal regulated time it takes to run maintenance on that bridge.Read More |
Thursday, Oct. 30, 2008
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The owner of a dilapidated and mostly vacant shopping center in Summerville has painted over graffiti that has long irked some town residents and triggered complaints to The Post and Courier Watchdog.Read More |
Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2008
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GEORGETOWN — At Santee Cooper's Winyah generating station, powerful generators make enough electricity to light 577,000 homes. In the process, the plant creates vast amounts of ash, and for years, hundreds of thousands of tons ended up in nearby retention ponds. No more.Read More |
Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2008
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On the banks of the Great Pee Dee River, Santee Cooper wants to build a giant power plant that would consume 410 tons of coal every hour and generate enough electricity for 600,000 homes. Burning all that coal also will generate huge volumes of potentially harmful ash, and Santee Cooper plans to store it in a landfill and holding pond on a bluff above the river. Read More |
Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2008
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Near Moncks Corner, in the quiet Whitesville community, SCE&G operates an ash landfill for its Williams generating station. For years, wells drilled to monitor groundwater around the landfill didn't reveal any pollution problems — until 2004 when engineers put them in places where contamination was more likely to occur. Read More |
Monday, Oct. 27, 2008
| On a rainy night in the early 1990s, William Hopkins was at a contaminated coal-ash pond at the Savannah River Site near Augusta when he heard thousands of croaking frogs. Hopkins was a graduate student at the time, and he began to wonder how these frogs, which happened to be breeding at the time, might be affected by the pollution. "It was a pivotal moment for me."Read More |
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Watchdog Video
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Tony Bartelme
Parking Privileges: The Post and Courier Watchdog team recently hit the streets of Charleston to gauge the abuse of handicapped parking system.
Post and Courier Investigations
A collection of award-winning Post and Courier special reports
Toxic Ash: A License to Pollute
Across South Carolina, leaking coal ash dumps are creating new pollution headaches, a new Watchdog investigation shows. What are state officials doing about it?
The Great Train Debate
Eight-day series wrestles with the question: Should we build
a commuter train between Summerville and Charleston?
Parking Cheaters
A growing number of hospital workers, downtown merchants and others are using parking placards for the handicapped to cheat the city out of thousands of dollars in parking meter revenue.
Day Care Roulette
An analysis by The Post and Courier of state inspection reports for day care facilities reveals that parents often roll the dice with their children's health and safety when they leave them in the custody of many day care centers.
The Mercury Connection
Health officials have warned for years that many of the state's lakes and rivers are tainted with mercury and cautioned people not to eat certain fish. But the state never checked to see if people were being poisoned, too.
The Sofa Super Store Fire
A special section with every story, photo galleries and audio & video clips from the fire that killed nine fire fighters.
A three-day series of articles on why South Carolina's public school buses are the nation's oldest, most polluting and least safe.
Under Fire
An ecological jewel north of Charleston, the Francis Marion National Forest faces unprecedented pressure from developers, road-builders and other forces. The Post and Courier's award-winning series, "Under Fire," examines and exposes these and other threats.
Cops who commit crimes can remain on patrol across South Carolina because the system to stop them is broken at every stage.
The nation's volunteer firefighting system is collapsing because it can no longer keep up with demands for service, training and manpower.
Doug Pardue/The Post and Courier
Howard Chapman, head of the Charleston Area Regional Transit Authority, said he often pulls into a Hampton Inn's no-parking/loading zone on John Street, across from CARTA's office, when he is in a hurry. He said he does not consider it illegal parking because 'I pay my tickets,' including two in September 2008 for $8 each.If you have your own "Smoking Gun" photo, video or document, send it to Watchdog.
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