State Stories

Swann, Turner to face off in runoff

Thomas will vacate seat he’s held for 27 years

JUNE 21, 2012 10:13 a.m. Comments (6)

With none of the five GOP candidates for state Senate District 8 earning a majority of the votes cast in last Tuesday’s primary, Joe Swann and Ross Turner, the top two vote-getters, are now preparing to face each other in a runoff election next Tuesday, June 26.

Meanwhile, the incumbent, David Thomas, is preparing to leave the Senate seat he’s held for 27 years. The bottom two vote-getters, Chad Groover and Jim Lee, have both endorsed Swann in the runoff. Continue reading...

American chestnut trees like this one at the Cataloochee Ranch in Maggie Valley, N.C., could become common once more thanks to crossbreeding techniques. Charles Sowell / Staff

Giants on the horizon

Nearly extinct for more than 50 years, the American chestnut tree is blooming again in the Carolinas

JUNE 21, 2012 10:01 a.m. Comments (4)

Judy Coker remembers the forest giants that once cloaked her father’s mile-high guest ranch above Maggie Valley in North Carolina.

“I was too young back then to think or know much about what was happening to the (American) chestnuts,” the 78-year-old Coker said. “It wasn’t until I was in my 60s that the impact of it all hit me.” Continue reading...

SC had 13th highest rate of injury deaths in US

Helmet and booster seat laws and increasing domestic violence protection may save lives, study finds

MAY 31, 2012 10:46 a.m. Comments (2)

With 10 fatalities reported on South Carolina’s roads over the long Memorial Day weekend, the statistics on accidental deaths in the state keep climbing. Preventing some of those deaths was the goal of a report released last week, which ranked South Carolina 13th among all 50 states and Washington, D.C., in the rate of accidental deaths.

The report, “The Facts Hurt: A State-by-State Injury Prevention Policy Report,” released by the Trust for America’s Health (TFAH) and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), also gave the state three out of a possible 10 points on key indicators of steps states can take to prevent injuries. Continue reading...