Ongoing efforts to better manage the growth of hotels on the Charleston peninsula aren’t about blocking new hotels entirely, but about giving city officials the tools they need to protect a delicate but crucial mix of uses downtown.
A federal court recently and wrongly frowned on the right to smile, but we hope that smiling is eventually awarded the constitutional protection it deserves. What is the point of pursuing happiness if you can’t express it freely?
A request by state water regulators to limit Mount Pleasant Waterworks’ groundwater withdrawals to about what it drew in 2018 should be a wake-up call for all coastal residents. We all need to be mindful about water use.
Our nation clearly is in the midst of a civic crisis. Even many of our best-educated citizens don’t understand the basic tenets of U.S. government. But requiring students to pass an advanced course in U.S. history in order to graduate from a state-owned college, as the SC Legislature is poised to do, isn't the way to fix that.
A privately funded analysis of the SC Commerce Department's justification for a $108 million incentive package for the Carolina Panthers reinforces long-simmering questions about whether we are frequently squandering money on economic development incentives by, as Sen Chip Campsen put it Wednesday, “paying people to move to paradise.”
Almost everything about the plan to build a new high school in Awendaw stinks.
Frankly, we’re a little tired of people who masquerade as conservatives whining because the marketplaces of goods, services and ideas work in a way that they find inconvenient.
Some Charleston roads clearly need to be "complete roads," and Maybank Highway on James Island is an obvious example.
The long-awaited Mueller report finally spilled into public view Thursday, concluding there was no criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia but leaving unanswered the question of obstruction of justice by President Donald Trump.
First Circuit Solicitor David Pascoe gathered substantial evidence on the alleged misdeeds of South Carolina political kingmaker Richard Quinn and several others in his orbit over a years-long investigation.
It’s too early to say for sure how helpful efforts to address flooding along Church Creek will end up being in the long-term, but there are some encouraging signs.
The prolonged silence surrounding the tragic death of Walterboro fifth-grader Raniya Wright following a fight at her school certainly isn’t helping anyone.
We empathize with the challenge facing the City of Light. But we also know that the cathedral will rise once again.
The popularity of Charleston County’s charter and magnet schools means that nearly half of the 6,331 kids who applied for slots next year will be turned down — and the application process is causing unnecessary anxiety for children as early as elementary schools.
South Carolina can't attract enough teachers, prison workers and social workers, but in a state where people wait in line for years or decades to be allowed to serve on the bench, the Legislature plans to give its biggest pay raises to judges. This does not make sense.
The flap over President Trump’s threat to bus migrants to so-called sanctuary cities if Congress does not act quickly to reform immigration law has generated a lively debate that is mostly beside the point.
State legislators have never thought voters were smart enough to decide how to run their own local governments. For decades, senators ran the counties. They eventually allowed county councils to do this, with significant restrictions. Ditto cities.
A video link between the Berkeley County jail and the county bond court will improve safety by keeping inmates separate from the judge, attorneys, family members and bondsmen. It’s a good idea that has other potential benefits for everyone involved in the system.
Two offshore oil-related bills in the state House of Representatives seem to be stuck until next year. In an ideal world, the issue would be moot by then. Indeed, any debate ought to have ended some time ago.
SC legislators are on track to approve the largest spending increase per public school student since 2006, directing that additional money to much-needed teacher raises. But state funding still will lag what state law requires. The Legislature can and should do more - and also pass education reforms that will improve what is taught in classrooms.
The abandoned, half-sunken sailboat just off Waterfront Park rightly will be among the city’s top priorities in getting rid of derelict vessels with a $47,500 grant it just received.
The United States owes a huge thanks to the government of Ecuador for putting an abrupt end to the 7-year asylum in Ecuador’s London embassy of Julian Assange.
If you try to get an informal extension or rack up some credit-card rewards by paying your federal income taxes with a credit card, you’ll pay nearly 2 percent extra.
The worsening crisis at the southern border that led to the forced resignation this week of besieged Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen is the product of two conflicting federal policies controlled by Congress that have the effect of encouraging mass migration from Central America.
There’s good evidence coastal South Carolina is winning the battle over banning single-use plastic bags.
Charleston doesn’t have any glaciers, but ice melting hundreds or thousands of miles away can have a big impact here in the form of rising sea levels.
President Donald Trump’s options for dealing with this dangerous development are limited. But if he cannot find a way to modify Iran’s behavior, the prospects of a major Middle East war will become a serious national security problem.
Gov. Henry McMaster and lawmakers should demand that Santee Cooper and Westinghouse Electric Co. set aside their legal differences to take advantage of a time-sensitive chance to sell tens of millions of dollars worth of stockpiled nuclear reactor parts.
Charleston officials have been admirably busy since the last Tourism Management Plan update was finalized in 2015. Many of the specific objectives laid out in that document have been carried out or at least started:
State and local officials should take away some valuable (and expensive) lessons from the disaster that grew out of luring a tire recycling operation to Berkeley County. Economic development officials need to be more cautious when offering incentives to new businesses, and more regulatory ov…
State law says public schools have to operate 180 days a year. Unless it snows. Or rains. Or gets too hot. Or too cold. Then, if the school district closes the schools for more than three days — those first three days off have to be made up — it can start lopping days off the calendar.
Ideally, Charleston County Greenbelt funds should preserve the greatest amount of land in the most impactful places at the greatest value to county taxpayers. Boone Hall Plantation would seem to fit that description perfectly.
Charleston County can find the money to pay for the rest of I-526 across James and Johns islands. That’s the message county representatives conveyed in depth at a special subcommittee meeting of the legislative Joint Bond Review Committee on Wednesday.
As governor, senator and private citizen, Ernest F. “Fritz” Hollings left a record of public service unmatched in South Carolina.
The Naval Hospital building in North Charleston needs to come down.
The area around MUSC, Roper Hospital and the VA Medical Center in downtown Charleston floods frequently and severely. It’s a longstanding problem and a major public safety risk in the event of a major storm.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization celebrated its 70th birthday Thursday in Washington, not with a summit of national leaders but with a low-key meeting of foreign ministers struggling to define the alliance’s role in today’s much-different world.
Giving police five days to check state and federal records to see if that’s a bad guy who’s trying to buy a gun seems like the least lawmakers could do.
A welcome bipartisan move is underway in Congress to find ways to curb what has become one of the biggest shortcomings in the American medical system: the pernicious practice of obscuring the price of medical services, allowing outrageous overcharges and demanding that they be paid.
After years of inaction and debate, Congress finally has a bill to allow prison officials to electronically jam prisoner cellphones and put an end to the many problems that arise from having cellphones behind bars
One of the first things we teach our children is to never, ever get into a stranger's car. In the age of Uber and Lyft, we all need to relearn that lesson. Along with: The later you’re out at night, the greater your chances of running into the wrong person. And: It’s always safer to travel in groups.
A week after the death of a 10-year-old student in an apparent fight with another student at Forest Hills Elementary School in Colleton County, the public still has too few answers from district officials or law enforcement officers.
Charlie Condon was a controversial attorney general, and at least in some eyes, he’s been a controversial chairman of the state-owned Santee Cooper electric utility.
‘We just have to work through the obstacles. There won’t be many,” said Gov. Henry McMaster at a meeting on transportation last week in Charlotte, according to The Charlotte Observer. He was talking about building a light rail line.
Let’s see if we’ve got this straight: Santee Cooper executives were either complicit or derelict in stopping SCE&G from running up a $9 billion combined debt on the failed construction project at the V.C. Summer nuclear station. Their attempts to answer legislators’ financial questions h…
Eight S.C. school districts have fewer than 1,000 students, another five fewer than 1,500 students. These tiny districts each spend money for a superintendent, a finance director, a human resources manager and the other administrative professionals who are the most expensive personnel on the…
The Catholic Diocese of Charleston on Friday released the names of 42 priests it says are credibly accused of child sexual abuse. But it will take more than a list of names for the church to regain the trust of the faithful.
Charleston’s $10 million investment to help build the Charleston Place hotel on King Street 35 years ago has by almost any measure paid for itself many times over. That project, although controversial at the time, helped spur a broader revitalization of downtown Charleston that continues today.
The U.S. Supreme Court heard two cases Tuesday involving partisan drawing of congressional district lines in Maryland favoring the Democratic Party and in North Carolina favoring the Republican Party. Justice Brett Kavanaugh rightly declared what was clearly on the minds of most of his colle…
Last year, in a frenzy to do something — anything — to look tough on illegal immigration, Gov. Henry McMaster demanded and the Legislature passed a law requiring SLED to hunt down and root out all the “sanctuary” cities (and counties) in South Carolina.