Latest news with #ColletonCounty
Al Arabiya
5 days ago
- Business
- Al Arabiya
Under a hot summer sun, South Carolina's governor says energy law will keep air conditioners humming
Under the hot South Carolina summer sun, Republican Gov. Henry McMaster held a ceremonial bill signing for a law he and other supporters said will ensure the rapidly growing state has the energy to run air conditioners and anything else well into the future. McMaster signed the bill into law more than a month ago. But Wednesday's ceremony was a chance to bring utility executives and other workers together with lawmakers to celebrate the promise from supporters that the law will clear the way to meet the power needs of the 1.5 million people the state has added this century – and its fast industrial growth. 'It is hot and promising to get hotter, so we'll be very quick here. This is, of course, to celebrate a great step for South Carolina,' McMaster said at the ceremony, which lasted less than fifteen minutes before most everyone went back into the air-conditioned mansion. The law has immediate impacts. It clears the way for private Dominion Energy and state-owned Santee Cooper to work together on a 2,000-megawatt natural gas plant on the site of a former coal-fired power plant in Colleton County, as long as regulators give their OK. Utilities now can appeal decisions from those regulators at the Public Service Commission directly to the South Carolina Supreme Court, meaning projects or rate cases won't be in limbo for years as they wind through the courts. Power companies can now ask for smaller rate increases every year instead of hitting customers with what was sometimes a double-digit percent increase to cover inflation and rising costs after four or five years. Also in this session, lawmakers cleared the way for cloud computer companies, utilities, or others to offer to take over the long-abandoned project to build two new nuclear reactors at the V.C. Summer site near Jenkinsville. Ratepayers paid billions of dollars on the project, which was abandoned in 2017 well before it generated a watt of power. The feasibility of restarting construction or whether a private entity or a utility could get the licenses and permissions that have lapsed has not been determined. The bill didn't get unanimous support. Some Democrats worried consumer protections and energy efficiency efforts were removed. Some Republicans and Democrats worried the state didn't set limits on data centers and that would allow the computer farms to suck up massive amounts of the new energy and raise costs to homeowners and others while providing few local benefits. But Wednesday was a day to celebrate for someone like Dominion Energy South Carolina President Keller Kissam, sweating in his suit and tie instead of the short-sleeved polo he would prefer to wear. 'With the heat we experience in South Carolina, and you've got to be able to produce twenty-four/seven,' Kissam said. 'Our customers expect when they flip a switch or bump the thermostat there's going to be enough electricity.'
Washington Post
5 days ago
- Business
- Washington Post
Under a hot summer sun, South Carolina's governor says energy law will keep air conditioners humming
COLUMBIA, S.C. — Under the hot South Carolina summer sun, Republican Gov. Henry McMaster held a ceremonial bill signing for a law he and other supporters said will make sure the rapidly growing state has the energy to run air conditioners and anything else well into the future. McMaster signed the bill into law more than a month ago. But Wednesday's ceremony was a chance to bring utility executives and other workers together with lawmakers to celebrate the promise from supporters that the law will clear the way to meet the power needs of the 1.5 million people the state has added this century — and its fast industrial growth. 'It is hot and promising to get hotter, so we'll be very quick here. This is of course to celebrate a great step for South Carolina,' McMaster said at the ceremony, which lasted less than 15 minutes before most everyone went back into the air-conditioned mansion. The law has immediate impacts. It clears the way for private Dominion Energy and state-owned Santee Cooper to work together on a 2,000-megawatt natural gas plant on the site of a former coal-fired power plant in Colleton County as long as regulators give their OK. Utilities now can appeal decisions from those regulators at the Public Service Commission directly to the South Carolina Supreme Court, meaning projects or rate cases won't be in limbo for years as they wind through the courts. Power companies can now ask for smaller rate increases every year instead of hitting customers with what was sometimes a double-digit increase to cover inflation and rising costs after four or five years. Also in this session, lawmakers cleared the way for cloud computer companies, utilities or others to offer to take over the long-abandoned project to build two new nuclear reactors at the V.C. Summer site near Jenkinsville. Ratepayers paid billions of dollars on the project, which was abandoned in 2017, well before it generated a watt of power. The feasibility of restarting construction or whether a private entity or a utility could get the licenses and permissions that have lapsed has not been determined. The bill didn't get unanimous support. Some Democrats worried consumer protections and energy efficiency efforts were removed. Some Republicans and Democrats worried the state didn't set limits on data centers and that would allow the computer farms to suck up massive amounts of the new energy and raise costs to homeowners and others while providing few local benefits. But Wednesday was a day to celebrate for someone like Dominion Energy South Carolina President Keller Kissam sweating in his suit and tie instead of the short-sleeved polo he would prefer to wear. 'With the heat we experience in South Carolina and you've got to be able to produce 24/7,' Kissam said. 'Our customers expect when they flip a switch or bump the thermostat there's going to be enough electricity.'
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Under a hot summer sun, South Carolina's governor says energy law will keep air conditioners humming
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Under the hot South Carolina summer sun, Republican Gov. Henry McMaster held a ceremonial bill signing for a law he and other supporters said will make sure the rapidly growing state has the energy to run air conditioners and anything else well into the future. McMaster signed the bill into law more than a month ago. But Wednesday's ceremony was a chance to bring utility executives and other workers together with lawmakers to celebrate the promise from supporters that the law will clear the way to meet the power needs of the 1.5 million people the state has added this century — and its fast industrial growth. 'It is hot and promising to get hotter, so we'll be very quick here. This is of course to celebrate a great step for South Carolina,' McMaster said at the ceremony, which lasted less than 15 minutes before most everyone went back into the air-conditioned mansion. The law has immediate impacts. It clears the way for private Dominion Energy and state-owned Santee Cooper to work together on a 2,000-megawatt natural gas plant on the site of a former coal-fired power plant in Colleton County as long as regulators give their OK. Utilities now can appeal decisions from those regulators at the Public Service Commission directly to the South Carolina Supreme Court, meaning projects or rate cases won't be in limbo for years as they wind through the courts. Power companies can now ask for smaller rate increases every year instead of hitting customers with what was sometimes a double-digit increase to cover inflation and rising costs after four or five years. Also in this session, lawmakers cleared the way for cloud computer companies, utilities or others to offer to take over the long-abandoned project to build two new nuclear reactors at the V.C. Summer site near Jenkinsville. Ratepayers paid billions of dollars on the project, which was abandoned in 2017, well before it generated a watt of power. The feasibility of restarting construction or whether a private entity or a utility could get the licenses and permissions that have lapsed has not been determined. The bill didn't get unanimous support. Some Democrats worried consumer protections and energy efficiency efforts were removed. Some Republicans and Democrats worried the state didn't set limits on data centers and that would allow the computer farms to suck up massive amounts of the new energy and raise costs to homeowners and others while providing few local benefits. But Wednesday was a day to celebrate for someone like Dominion Energy South Carolina President Keller Kissam sweating in his suit and tie instead of the short-sleeved polo he would prefer to wear. 'With the heat we experience in South Carolina and you've got to be able to produce 24/7,' Kissam said. 'Our customers expect when they flip a switch or bump the thermostat there's going to be enough electricity.' Jeffrey Collins, The Associated Press Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Daily Mail
12-06-2025
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE Alex Murdaugh's son Buster's 'bitter' life in isolation and the source of fury at his father that has nothing to do with the murders
Double murderer Alex Murdaugh 's only surviving son is bitter and struggling to escape the stain of his killer father's legacy, the Daily Mail can reveal. Four years after his mother Maggie, 52, and brother Paul, 22, were shot and killed by the disgraced legal scion, the 32-year-old still hasn't adapted to his bleak new reality. Buster Murdaugh grew up as a member of one of South Carolina's most distinguished families but the gruesome slayings carried out by his father and the publicity of the trial that followed have left him without many career opportunities. A source close to him has told the Daily Mail that, though he believes his father to be innocent of the murders, Buster is 'really angry' at the sweeping financial crimes that Murdaugh was subsequently convicted of. 'He's living his life but he doesn't really have too much going on,' a member of his inner circle said. 'He's pretty directionless, but he's figuring it out.' Buster and his family found themselves in the middle of a media firestorm in June 2021 when the elder Murdaugh, a high-profile attorney in South Carolina's Low Country, called 911 to report that he had found the bodies of his wife and son on their sprawling Moselle estate in rural Colleton County. Police arrived to find Maggie and Paul shot dead. Investigators determined that two firearms had been used. Although Murdaugh initially denied involvement, officers soon began to unravel a web of financial mismanagement, embezzlement, fraud and drug abuse. Three months later, Murdaugh - while under suspension for the alleged murders - was shot in the head as he changed a tire on his black Mercedes-Benz SUV. Authorities soon alleged that he had arranged the shooting himself by hiring distant relative Curtis Edward Smith in a failed suicide-for-hire plot so that Buster could receive a $10 million life insurance payout. 'That was a really stressful time for Buster,' the source said. 'He felt like things went from s*** to s***tier. And they keep getting worse.' The ensuing scandal ended one of South Carolina's most dominant family dynasties. A member of the Murdaugh family had served as solicitor of the 14th Judicial Circuit for 86 years, and most family members were prominent attorneys and judges. Murdaugh was ultimately charged with more than 90 financial crimes, ranging from embezzlement to money laundering - and two counts of murder. In March 2023, he was convicted after a highly publicized trial to two consecutive life terms without possibility of parole for killing his wife and son by the dog kennels of the family's hunting lodge in Islandton. He was also sentenced in federal court in April 2024 to 40 years for financial crimes involving millions stolen from clients and colleagues - a sentence that was to run concurrently with his state prison terms. He is being held in protective custody at McCormick Correctional Institution, a maximum security prison where it's likely that he will die. He continues to deny responsibility for the murders. The deaths have spawned multiple documentaries and a motion picture film is in production, with actor Jason Clarke playing Murdaugh. Buster has been trying to get back on his feet with his former long-term girlfriend and now new wife Brooklynn White, an attorney, after he dropped out of law school. The couple moved into a modest three-bedroom home in Bluffton, an hour away from the South Carolina low country estate where Buster was raised. The fallout in the two years since what local media called the 'trial of the century' has taken its toll on Buster, who is frequently confronted by angry members of the public whenever he goes near his hometown. 'You don't run into any of these people in public,' Buster once told his father on a jailhouse phone call. 'But I get stopped and yelled at all the time. I got cussed at in the gas station the other day.' Still, Buster stands by his father, insisting that he would never have murdered his wife and son. In his first and only interview since the murder trial, Buster told the Fox Nation documentary The Fall of the House of Murdaugh: 'I do not think that he could be affiliated with endangering my mother and brother. 'I think that I hold a very unique perspective that nobody else in that courtroom ever held. And I know the love that I have witnessed.' Despite this, the two rarely speak. When they do, the calls are always short and initiated by the elder Murdaugh, now 57, from behind bars. 'I don't think he's got a lot to say to his dad at the moment,' the source added. 'I mean, what's there to talk about'.
The Independent
29-05-2025
- The Independent
Tourists find 200-year-old human remains at beachfront property
Tourists have found 200-year-old human remains, including a skull, at a South Carolina beachfront property. The tourists had been exploring an area of Edisto Island, south of Charleston, when they found what was initially thought to be fossils, according to the Colleton County Sheriff's Office. When the visitors had a closer look, and realized the remains appeared to be human, they called police. 'Early indications suggest the remains may originate from a long forgotten burial site,' the sheriff's office said in a press release. The sheriff's office said the property is 'historically significant' and was a settlement called Edingsville Beach in the 1800s. The Colleton County Coroner's office recovered the remains which have since been taken to the Medical University of South Carolina 'for forensic analysis and identification,' the sheriff's office said. Coroner Rich Harvey told Newsweek the discovery is 'rare' and the remains, which include a skull and separated bones, 'could be from [the] Revolutionary War [or] Civil War." Edingsville Beach was a popular travel destination for wealthy Charleston families in the first half of the 19th century, according to The settlement included 60 houses, multiple churches, a billiard saloon, a schoolhouse and other buildings for people's fishing and boating needs. But the lavish beach was ruined by erosion, and it went uninhabited during the Civil War. The war devastated the plantation economy, which bankrupted many and forced them to abandon their summer homes. The settlement was later inhabited by Black sharecroppers and farmers, until a hurricane in 1885 destroyed most of the remaining homes, leaving only a few still standing. After the storm, the settlement was abandoned.
