An experienced broadcast executive who used to play football for the University of South Carolina has been named the new president and general manager of WYFF-TV in Greenville.Hearst Television Inc. announced John R. Soapes' new job Wednesday. He takes over for Michael J. Hayes, who was recently named president and general manager of WTAE-TV in Pittsburgh.Soapes spent the past 10 years as the gene...

North Carolina's Republican majority wants Democratic Gov. Beverly Perdue to join neighboring states in working toward offshore energy exploration it says would give the state the chance to cash in on energy royalties and create thousands of jobs in the long term.Senate Republicans, holding a news conference Wednesday exactly one year after the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Me...

An Aiken County man has been sentenced to 40 years in prison for killing a man in his mobile home in Pickens.The Greenville News reports that it took a jury less than an hour Wednesday to find 21-year-old Christopher Murray guilty of murder in the death of 21-year-old James GibsonMurray was arrested in January 2010 after Gibson was found dead in his home with a gunshot to the chest.Investigators s...

Click here to explore a news graphic showing the tornadoes' paths.It’s as if a giant beast raked the eastern half of North Carolina with its claws.As teams of National Weather Service meteorologists drive and walk the paths of Saturday’s tornadoes, a picture is emerging of long, parallel stripes of damage where storms started near the South Carolina border and ripped diagonally north and...

Richland deputies have arrested Earl Graham, a 53-year-old Richland County resident, charging him with two counts of making a false complaint to an officer.Sheriff Leon Lott said Graham filed false reports Feb. 7 and again March 25, accusing one of Lott’s deputies of adultery involving Graham’s wife. Graham named Dan Johnson, now the 5th circuit solicitor, in complaints to both SLED and ...

Orangeburg County officials say a man whose car crashed into a building at South Carolina State University had been shot and died from his wounds.Orangeburg County Coroner Samuetta Marshall told The Times and Democrat of Orangeburg that 22-year-old Jonathan Bailey of Holly Hill died early Saturday morning.The university said in a news release that emergency medical workers first responding to the ...

A construction company widening part of Interstate 385 in Greenville has come up with a way to keep from closing lanes of the highway when moving around heavy equipment.The Greenville News reports Lane Construction has built a temporary ramp from an overpass down to the median where the new lanes are being built.Federal rules require crews to shut lanes when moving heavy equipment and the contract...

The House has passed a Republican budget blueprint proposing to fundamentally overhaul Medicare for future beneficiaries while combating out-of-control budget deficits. It would impose sharp spending cuts on social safety net programs like food stamps and Medicaid.The GOP proposal passed 235-193, with every Democrat voting "no." The nonbinding plan lays out a fiscal vision cutting $6.2 trillion ov...

The possibility of severe thunderstorms and heavy rain could put a damper on one of the major outdoor-event weekends of the year in the Midlands. The national Storm Prediction Center says there’s a slight risk of severe thunderstorms in the Midlands from Friday night through Sunday morning. The last two possibly severe fronts that moved through the state tossed trees onto hundreds of houses A...

A former math teacher in Florence faces a second sex charge.The Morning News of Florence reported that 44-year-old John Kyle King of Lamar is charged with second-degree criminal sexual conduct.Police Maj. Carlos Raines says the crime involved a 13-year-old girl and occurred in early 2008, when King was teaching at Florence Christian School.The girl told investigators that King had asked for the gi...

U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham vowed Tuesday to hold up the business of the U.S. Senate until he gets funding for a study to deepen the Port of Charleston.Graham and fellow Republican, U.S. Rep. Tim Scott, spoke at a news conference in Charleston about $50,000 in federal matching funds to move along the process of deepening Charleston Harbor to 50 feet to allow the next generation of larger cargo ships ...

Celebrity chef Giada De Laurentiis is scheduled to spotlight a Rock Hill schools program that gets food to hungry children on the “Today” show this week, according to the district.The segment, which focuses on the “Back the Pack” program, is expected to air between 7 and 9 a.m. Thursday on NBC.“As of this moment, it's scheduled,” Rock Hill schools spokesw...

Some — but not all — drivers who have had their licenses suspended will have a chance at getting them back during a special amnesty week, state Department of Motor Vehicles officials said Monday.Amnesty week will run May 16-20. Details will be announced today at a news conference.The program will not be open to drivers who have had licenses suspended for serious offenses, such as those i...

A strong new earthquake rattled Japan's northeast Monday as the government urged more people living near a tsunami-crippled nuclear plant to leave, citing concerns about long-term health risks from radiation.The magnitude 7.0 aftershock, which trapped some people in collapsed homes, came just hours after residents bowed their heads and wept in ceremonies to mark a month since a massive earthquake ...

Myrtle Beach lawyer Harry Pavilack has contacted local police and the FBI about an alleged hit man that he thinks has been sent here to kill him over a real estate debt that has been tied up in a complicated bankruptcy case.Pavilack, who was forced into bankruptcy by a trio of banks in August, told police and The Sun News that he has been threatened over a nearly $80,000 debt that is tied to an ou...

Deputies have arrested one man and are searching for two others in a shooting in Boiling Springs that left one man dead and a teenager injured.Spartanburg County sheriff's Lt. Tony Ivey said in a news release that 41-year-old Ronnie Lee Metcalf was killed in the shooting late Friday night. The teen was taken to a local hospital for treatment. His condition was not available.Police have charged 18-...

Greenville deputies have charged a man with murder and attempted murder after one man was killed and two were injured in a large crowd fight.Greenville County sheriff's Master Deputy Sam Cureton said in a news release that 33-year-old Oscar Eduardo Munoz-Portella was arrested moments after officers arrived at the scene of Saturday night's fight.Munoz-Portella was being held without bail at the Gre...

Duke Energy officials say tritium releases from its Oconee nuclear power plants into South Carolina waterways pose no health threat.The Greenville News reported Sunday that the Oconee Nuclear Station routinely discharges water contaminated with radioactive tritium into the Keowee River that flows into Lake Hartwell.Duke Energy spokeswoman Sandra Magee says the releases are safe, well below federal...

One budget deal down, President Barack Obama and Congress began to pivot Sunday from the painful standoff over this year's spending to a pair of defining debates over the nation's borrowing limit and the election-year budget.Much will be revealed at midweek, when the House and Senate are expected to vote on a budget for the remainder of this fiscal year and Obama reveals his plan to reduce the def...

A coalition of 100 Lexington County political and business leaders is championing a state tax incentive for Amazon to ensure the online retailer will open a distribution center near Cayce that is expected to bring more than 1,200 jobs to the Midlands.The group, which held a news conference Thursday, is working to persuade some of its own to back the proposal, since county lawmakers remain split.Th...

A jury has decided that the state and not a private real estate company owns channels in the marsh in North Myrtle Beach.The Sun News of Myrtle Beach reported the verdict Thursday clears the way for the city to dredge channels in the Cherry Grove area that have been filling with sediment.City spokesman Pat Dowling says the jury ruled the city owns the channels.Cherry Grove Realty attorney Gene Con...

A claim by a 15-year-old boy that he was kidnapped from Fort Jackson, and which led to an Army and FBI investigation, might have been false.The Army released a news release this morning saying the teenager has admitted making up the kidnapping story because he did not have permission from his parents to leave the base. However, the body maintains that he was robbed and left in a parking lot.He rep...

A highly venomous Egyptian cobra that went missing at the Bronx Zoo was found Thursday after nearly a week on the lam in the reptile house, zoo officials said.The approximately 24-inch snake was found coiled in a dark corner of the reptile house, about 200 feet from where it had escaped from a holding cage outside the exhibit into a space described by officials as a labyrinth of pipes and equipmen...

A Libyan opposition leader says the rebels will accept a U.N.-demanded cease-fire if Moammar Gadhafi pulls his forces from all cities and allows peaceful protests.Mustafa Abdul-Jalil spoke Friday during a joint press conference with U.N. envoy Abdelilah Al-Khatib. Al-Khatib is visiting the rebels' de-facto stronghold of Benghazi in hopes of reaching a cease-fire and political solution to the crisi...

An attempt to steal a pressure washer from a St. Helena Island resident ended with the alleged culprit's passenger being held at gunpoint by the homeowner and the pressure washer falling out of the vehicle as the suspect drove away.The Beaufort County Sheriff's Office is looking for Sherman Myers, 41, of St. Helena, who is accused in an attempted robbery Wednesday at a home on Vaux Road.Deputies a...

Setbacks mounted Wednesday in the crisis over Japan's tsunami-damaged nuclear facility, with nearby seawater testing at its highest radiation levels yet and the president of the plant operator checking into a hospital with hypertension.Nearly three weeks after a March 11 tsunami engulfed the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant, knocking out power to the cooling system that keeps nuclear fuel rods from overhe...

Rebels say ground forces loyal to leader Moammar Gadhafi are closing in on opposition fighters holding the key oil port of Ras Lanouf along the coastal road leading to the capital, heavily shelling the rebels and reversing their advance toward Tripoli.Warplanes, apparently part of the NATO force that has intervened to weaken the regime's superior military power, buzzed Wednesday over the zone wher...

Update, 10:35 a.m.The S.C. Forestry Commission said at a news conference this morning the large McClellanville wildfire is still only 95 percent contained this morning, with the main attack by some 40 commission personnel in the "troublesome" bay where the fire began. Mutual aid fire departments are patrolling for hot spots elsewhere.The commission is predicting full containment today or tomorrow...

A man who pleaded guilty to having sex with a horse in Horry County has been released from prison after serving 16 months in prison.The Sun News of Myrtle Beach reported Monday that 51-year-old Rodell Vereen of Longs now must serve two years of probation and register as a sex offender.Vereen pleaded guilty in 2009 to buggery and trespassing after a Conway woman found him in her barn in the Wampee ...

A man who pleaded guilty to having sex with a horse in Horry County has been released from prison after serving 16 months in prison.The Sun News of Myrtle Beach reported Monday that 51-year-old Rodell Vereen of Longs now must serve two years of probation and register as a sex offender.Vereen pleaded guilty in 2009 to buggery and trespassing after a Conway woman found him in her barn in the Wampee ...