Understand SC

A little black bird may be here, underneath these bouncing dragonflies, somewhere in these sparkling green waves. A rare bird called the eastern black rail. A bird so difficult to see that John James Audubon never saw one in the wild. A bird so stealthy that even the most ardent birders haven’t seen one, though they may have heard their calls. So rare that Christy Hand, a biologist, asks — no, ple...

Earlier this year, Charleston got a first looks at plans for what would be the city's biggest and most complicated flooding mitigation program yet: a sea wall that would wrap eight miles around the peninsula.  The wall was the preferred path chosen by the Army Corps of Engineers, which was tasked with figuring out a way to better protect the city from life-threatening storm surge during hurricanes...

Before the University of South Carolina brought some 35,000 students back to Columbia for classes, the school spent all summer preparing. They installed cameras to monitor face mask usage, put out a promotional campaign promoting social distancing and hand washing and even launched a COVID-19 testing program that would give students results in 24 hours.  But that didn't make the university immune...

For many music lovers, what may have felt like a normal night out catching a local band's set in early March turned out to be a kind of 2020 milestone: their last pre-coronavirus live concert.  For the first few months of the pandemic, live music largely disappeared as Americans started to shelter in their homes, and bars and concert venues were ordered to close. Some bands found success staying c...

This week marked 100 years since the 19th amendment was ratified, giving women the right to vote. Full electoral equality was still decades away, but Aug. 18, 1920 is still a major milestone in U.S. women's history.  To celebrate, The Post and Courier interviewed 19 women from around South Carolina. We talked with women in politics and business, activists and thought leaders.  This week on the pod...

Last week, Hurricane Isaias brushed past the Lowcountry but left a mess in the Grand Strand. And while it didn't prompt evacuations or major panic, Isaias was a clear reminder of the kind of storm season that's been brewing in the Atlantic Ocean. It was the earliest "I" storm on record, meaning eight other named storms had already formed before it this year. During a typical year, named storms wou...

In South Carolina, renters have to be armed with cash to fight an eviction.  When tenants facing removal from their homes want to have their case heard in a higher court, they're often required to come up with thousands of dollars in a matter of days. Ambiguities in the law make the issue particularly murky and lead to wide disparities in what tenants are required to pay. It could be as little as...

At this time last year, parents and students were picking up fresh packs of pencils and notebooks, starting up fall sports practices and gearing up for another first day of school in August.  But in 2020, the traditional back-to-school period has become a ticking clock on major decisions facing school boards, teachers and parents about how and when to bring students back to the classroom amid the...

In the couple weeks leading up to the primary runoff for South Carolina state Sen. Luke Rankin's seat, televisions in the Myrtle Beach area were flooded with political ads — at least $785,000 worth of them, to be exact.  The ads were paid for by three different groups but, beyond those groups' names, not much else is known about them. That's because they're so-called "dark money" organizations tha...

Racial disparities in who contracts coronavirus have played out across the U.S., and South Carolina is no different.  A few months ago, data started to show that Black South Carolinians were getting sick and dying from COVID-19 at disproportionately high rates. And more recently, it's become clear that the Spanish-speaking population in the state has been particularly hard hit, too. During a recen...

While health officials urging South Carolinians to wear masks in public is nothing new, mandatory masking ordinances in the state are.  Greenville made the first move when it required people to wear masks in retail stores, groceries and pharmacies on June 23. Columbia followed suit with an ordinance that took effect June 26. Charleston's mask-wearing rule officially began Wednesday.  And Myrtle Be...

After more than 17 hours of sawing, slicing and tethering, the 12-foot-tall statue of John C. Calhoun that's towered over Marion Square for more than a century came down on Wednesday.  While that may seem long — many hours longer than city officials had anticipated it — efforts to remove it are really as old as the monument itself, which Black Charlestonians have seen as a physically imposing symb...

Variations of the same announcement have been coming out a steady clip this month: Restaurants that recently reopened after coronavirus restrictions were lifted said they were closing up shop again. The reason? Their employees tested positive for COVID-19.  While some Charleston restaurant owners have adopted the unofficial course of action for businesses with a coronavirus case — post a message o...

When we recorded this episode, the seven-day moving average of coronavirus cases in South Carolina had hit a new high for 11 days in a row.  Then, after new case totals were released later in the afternoon, Tuesday became the 12th consecutive day with a record seven-day average.  Coronavirus cases are climbing, and with nearly all state-mandated restrictions lifted and  no second wave of shutdowns...

Last Saturday, South Carolinians took the streets, joining protesters across the U.S. and world who are — again — calling for the killings to stop.  The protests were sparked by the death of George Floyd, a black man who was killed at the hands of police in Minneapolis. But they're also the product of a gross lack of change.   That frustration came through over the weekend when thousands gathered...

Images and videos from protests against racism and police brutality have been filling our news feeds and social media pages for days now.  It can be overwhelming to scroll through it all — and much more overwhelming, and sometimes dangerous, for the protesters who are actually on the streets — but sometimes one moment cuts through it.   That was the case for video that was captured during a protes...

When rain pummeled Charleston last Wednesday, a team of reporters and photographers fanned out across the region, assessing damage and talking to people as they waded through the floodwaters. Streets were closed, cars stranded and parking lots turned into ponds.  The next day, The Post and Courier published the first package of  Rising Waters , a new effort to cover the serious effects of sea leve...

In South Carolina, the decision of whether or not to wear a mask has fallen on individuals. Politicians and public health officials have been urging people to wear face coverings to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, but some are concerned people are ignoring the advice. One poll found that South Carolinians lag behind 40 other states in mask use. That's pretty clear on a trip to the grocery s...

In late March, when it seemed like nearly everything had closed, South Carolinians continued to come to the beach. It felt like one of the last things to do, and especially for people who live a quick walk or drive from the ocean, a day at the beach was the answer to their cabin fever.  But, as the number of COVID-19 cases in the state grew, so did the concerns about people congregating on coastli...

Restaurants have become a marker of sorts during the coronavirus pandemic. They were among the first businesses to close, and the first to announce mass layoffs.  Diners have seen their favorite spots pivot to takeout or wait out the crisis. Some have already  shuttered for good .  Bars, limited to selling beer and wine to-go, have scrounged for other ways to bring in revenue. The state's craft br...

News about the coronavirus pandemic in South Carolina can change at a rapid pace.  When we recorded this podcast early Tuesday afternoon, it was believed that the state had reached its peak of deaths caused by the coronavirus earlier this month. Health officials were optimistic that the state's disease curve was starting to flatten.  Just a few hours later, it was reported that 15 South Carolinian...

Early last year, even before Jaime Harrison officially declared his candidacy, it was clear that U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham's challenge had shifted from the right to the left.  Now, the race between Graham and former S.C. Democratic Party chairman Harrison is shaping up to be the most expensive in the state's history.  The Post and Courier  reported last week  that Harrison outraised Graham durin...

Two years ago today, America's deadliest outbreak of prison violence in 25 years broke out at a maximum-security prison in South Carolina. The public was told very little about what happened that night, so the Post and Courier set out to change that. The resulting project, which was published in December, exposed flaws in the state's prison system that lead to the deaths of seven inmates in one ni...

Students, teachers and parents across South Carolina have been adjusting to a "new normal." Most colleges canceled in-person classes for the rest of the semester, and K-12 students in the state will be learning from home at least through April 30. With those changes come a slew of new challenges, from coordinating virtual lectures on Zoom to making sure students from low-income households still ha...

So much has changed since we last discussed the coronavirus on this podcast. When we recorded our special COVID-19 episode on March 11, South Carolina had only a few confirmed cases of the novel strain of coronavirus. That number has now swelled to more than 1,000, and all of our lives have changed.  Health editor Lauren Sausser and health and business reporter Mary Katherine Wildeman joined us ag...