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Only 1.4% of the Charleston County budget is set aside for education. 

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Josephine Quade - Underfunding in Schools 

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Josephine Quade - Underfunding in Schools 

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More often than not, resident assistants feel overworked and underpaid. A good portion may feel isolated, lonely and left without a social life as the position takes priority over much of their lives. While some may find gratitude in the job and genuinely enjoy the time they spend as an RA, the majority tend to apply with financial reasons in mind or to gain experience with people and community-building.

With over 200 RAs spread across campus, there are over 200 reasons why each individual has chosen the job. However, expectations of and pressures on RAs consistently increase, while the stipend does not. This can have a negative effect on RAs' mental health, as well as outside lives.

"I was working in the ideal situation; I loved my boss and coworkers and it was a healthy environment in the beginning," Ana Figueroa, anthropology junior, said. "When you start in the position though, you don't get any help. You get slideshows in a classroom setting (for training)."

RAs go through training every summer before fall classes and every winter before students get back from break. Often times, RAs have to cut weeks off their breaks for training. While this may be beneficial for people new to the position, returning RAs come back to sit in a classroom-like setting and go over information most already know or have lived through. This can be detrimental, as RAs have to chop time with family, friends or their relaxation.

Figueroa has a past of dealing with anxiety and depression. She said her condition was never worse than when she worked as an RA. Figueroa worked in Jackson Hall for a year and a half before submitting her resignation letter at the end of fall 2018.

"My mental health was really strong the first couple months and I was happy going into the job," Figueroa said. "Around mid-October though, I remember feeling so lonely. While you're always surrounded by people, you still feel so alone."

The Department of Housing and Residential Life, like any other large entity or company, is constantly evolving and creating new rules and policies. Considering the RA position is under DHRL's umbrella, it too has expanded from what it entailed only a couple years ago. New items are constantly tacked onto the job description. While manageable, the pressure of the position can swell. Feeling too weighed down to have time for anything else tends to clog RAs with negativity.

"The department keeps us in line by threatening our position, threatening us," Figueroa said. "A lot of us wondered, 'Am I going to get probation for this? Am I going to be in trouble for that?' They punish us for things we should not be punished for."

RAs are students before anything else. However, if a study group, homework or extracurriculars get in the way of executing the job, there is coercion to put those things on the backburner. The goal of the RA job is to aid, typically, first-year students with their transition to college. However, that goal has been taken and manufactured into so many subunits it may be hard to keep up.

Whether being required to have forced, unnatural conversations lasting 15-30 minutes with each resident, regardless of how many students an RA may be responsible for, or not being allowed to leave the building for two to three days including weekends, RAs are stretched too thin and expected to over perform for the $103 monthly stipend they receive.

"One time, I had to stay with a resident until 5 a.m., even with class the next day, because she was suicidal," Figueroa said. "I was in a really stressful situation and she was mentally unstable and we were both in danger. (RAs) shouldn't be in those positions. It really takes a toll on you and that $51.50 is not enough for the type of work we do and hours we put in."

Working as an RA is a 24/7 job that is often compared to living in a "fishbowl." No matter what an RA does or where they go, the job and all its responsibilities follow. They have to find a way to balance school, the position, extracurriculars and find time for themselves and their mental wellbeing. The latter erodes while RAs struggle to prioritize the other pieces of their lives.

"So many RAs develop severe mental health issues," Figueroa said. "You lose your social life, your friends, and that put me in a very depressive state. DHRL is not aware of the negative effects their policies have on RAs but they should be so things can be fixed and the position can be more enjoyable."

Mental health topics are often present during RA training or in-services. Rarely, however, do those sessions revolve around the employees' mental wellbeing. RAs spend hours on end learning to assist residents yet feel as if no one is there to support them in return.

"DHRL does not reach out to us to make sure (RAs) are okay," Figueroa said. "They tell us to just do all this extra stuff and if we don't, we get fired. They don't care who we are or what else we do. Our job is to help people and build community but honestly, who's helping us? No one cares about the RAs."

According to Laura Michelle Gordon at Oregon State University, student leaders, RAs in particular, may face increased pressures to be successful due to the constant expectation of upholding model behavior and being ready to respond effectively to any given situation. This makes them more susceptible to experiencing lower mental health status or mental illness.

The governing body of housing and residence life needs to make serious changes, and soon. If its student employees continue to be neglected and have their needs swept under the rug, there may not be any RAs in the future. The job is important and vital to the success of new Bobcats; an RA's prosperity and mental stability should be equally as important.
- Bayley Bogus is a journalism senior

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Working as a Resident Assistant can negatively affect mental stability

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More often than not, resident assistants feel overworked and underpaid. A good portion may feel isolated, lonely and left without a social life as the position takes priority over much of their lives.

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4 out of 10 Americans have had their packages stolen: 1.7 million per day

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Bus stops in Spartanburg, SC - Anna Grace

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Bus stops in Spartanburg, SC - Anna Grace

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Most of the bus stops in Spartanburg are right along the side of the road and have no seating area/covered area for riders. I have seen parents holding their children's hands while juggling their groceries as they wait for the bus to come at the bus stops. For many, there is no sidewalk or paved area for people to stand away from traffic, which is just unsafe.

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Pollution :(

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STD rates in Charleston

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sexually transmitted diseases and infections

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Chlamydia in Charleston so common strain is named for Holy City

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MOUNT PLEASANT, SC (WCIV) - Charleston is synonymous with many things: church steeples, carriage rides, that famous dance, and, of course, rich history. Perhaps surprisingly, it's now also synonymous among some in the medical community with a strain of a highly infectious sexually transmitted disease.

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"An epidemic of violence in Latin America"

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Femicide and International Women’s Rights

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Protecting women against gender-based violence is a human rights issue often overlooked globally. In Latin America, the laws exist to protect women, but those laws are often not uniformly implemented, and there is often a lack of political will to fully comply with the law and international obligati…

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Hayley- More poop bag stations around Charleston 

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Hayley- More poop bag stations around Charleston 

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Kill shelters. There are 347, 000 kill shelters in the US as of 2020.

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Hayley-Stray animals and overflowing shelters 

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Hayley-Stray animals and overflowing shelters 

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Every shelter in Charleston is overflowing with animals right now

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https://mkorostoff.github.io/1-pixel-wealth/
Some people have hundreds of billions of dollars while hundreds of millions of people live in poverty

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Jeff Bezos may be insanely rich, but it is a drop in the ocean compared to the combined wealth of his peers. The 400 richest Americans own about $3.2 trillion, which is more than the bottom 60% of Americans.

A trillion dollars is such a large figure, that you might as well say "eleventy gajillion zillion dollars." So in this section, we will try to understand the scale of this figure by looking at what could be accomplished with various chunks of this wealth.

Some will argue that using this wealth for public benefit is not possible, because it's "tied up" in stocks, and therefore inaccessible. This is just not true.

As we proceed, try to keep in mind: all of this wealth is controlled by a group so small, that they could fit on a single 747 airplane-with 260 seats left over.

Based on the cost of vaccines and the cost of delivery, it would take around $200 billion to vaccinate every person on earth, which is about 6% of the wealth currently controlled by 400 Americans. After paying for this vaccination program, these individuals would still be $40 billion richer than they were before the pandemic.

Even setting aside the desperate humanitarian need for a global vaccination, there is still a strong self-interested argument that wealthy countries should do it: the longer covid circulates in the world, the more chance of a vaccine resistant variant emerging, and undoing all the vaccine progress we've already made.

The World Health Organization is currently organizing a global vaccine donation program which aims to vaccinate about 20% of residents in poor countries by the end of 2021, and even that approach has substantial funding shortfalls.

Malaria is one of the worst infectious diseases ever visited on mankind, possibly killing more people than any other infectious disease in history. In the 20th century alone, malaria killed more people than the Black Death.

These figures are even more shocking when you learn that malaria overwhelmingly kills children; around two-thirds of malaria deaths each year are children under five. That's around 275,000 children.

All of these deaths are preventable. Treating and preventing malaria is a well understood science, universally practiced in the developed world.

It is estimated that malaria could be globally eradicated by 2030 for a cost around $1.84 per at-risk person per year, or around $100 billion total. This would be around 3% of the wealth currently possessed by the 400 richest Americans.

Around 800 children will die of malaria today. A small group of super rich people could stop it for a sum of money so small that they would likely never even notice its absence. But they choose not to.

Americans have about $81 billion in medical debt that is sufficiently past due as to appear on their credit report. These are generally small debts, with a median value of $207 dollars per person.

These debts hinder the credit of over 50 million Americans, and do long term damage to their housing, employment, and borrowing options. The cost of repaying this debt dollar-for-dollar would be around 2.5% of the wealth controlled by 400 Americans.

This situation looks even better once you understand that delinquent debt is often purchased for as little as 1% of its face value. This would make the total cost of eliminating all delinquent medical debt around $810 million. In 2020, the richest 400 Americans accrued this amount roughly every 29 hours.

Note that this figure includes only delinquent medical debt, not all medical debt. The value of all medical debt in America is not publicly known, but probably in the neighborhood of $300 billion, or 9% of the wealth controlled by 400 Americans.

As of 2021, around 38 million Americans lived in poverty. If Americans in poverty were a state, they would be second largest by population. There are more Americans living in poverty than the entire population of Canada.

Population of US States compared to poverty, 2021

Every single person in America could be lifted above the poverty line with a one-time cash subsidy of around $10,000 per impoverished family (and about $7,000 for impoverished individuals). The total cost would be $170 billion, a little over 5% of the wealth currently controlled by 400 individuals.

It may seem counter intuitive that a one-time subsidy could have any lasting impact on chronic poverty. But one of the surprising truths about poverty is that it's fluid. Americans move in and out of poverty many times throughout their lives, and one good year can have a massive and long lasting effect.

A wealth of data now supports the idea that one-time cash transfers can permanently transform a local economy. Given a sudden windfall, people invest in their future. They go back to school, obtain transportation, pay for childcare, pay down debilitating debts, and do any number of things to improve their career prospects and financial future.

This would not be a permanent fix for all Americans. Surely, some would quickly return to poverty, and others face debts so large that the subsidy would make little difference. But for tens of millions of Americans, this would be a life changing event. It would be a generation defining social program that reshapes our economy for decades to come.

Around 844 million people have no access to clean water of any kind. About the same number have no access to a toilet or latrine of any kind, and therefore defecate in the open.

Contaminated water is a major source of disease, including cholera, dysentery, and typhoid. It is estimated that contaminated water kills about 829,000 people every year, making it one of the world's biggest killers. The cost to provide clean water and waste disposal for everyone on earth would be about $240 billion, or 7.5% of the wealth controlled by the 400 richest Americans.

OK, now that we've established the scale of inequality in the United States, let's dare to dream a little bigger.

Paid maternity and paternity leave are estimated to cost around $12 billion per year. This is 0.39% of the wealth controlled by 400 Americans. It is 5% of the wealth they accrued in 2020 alone.

If they repeated this payment every year for the next 100 years, it would equal 39% of the wealth they control today.

This is a more complex program to estimate than the others considered on this page, because the expense would be continuous, rather than one-time, and the cost is highly variable based on the size of the benefit provided. Still, using the 5% endowment payout rule the super wealthy should be able to finance a family leave program about 12 times more generous than the one contemplated here forever and still get richer into perpetuity, even accounting for inflation.

There are about 128 million households in the United States. To give each one $10,000 would cost $1.28 trillion, or about 40% of the wealth controlled by 400 Americans.

As the coronavirus raged through America in 2020, working people were frequently presented with a seemingly impossible choice between death by premature reopening and an economic depression brought about through a continued quarantine. Unspoken in this false choice was the supposition that Americans could not pay their living expenses without either work or unsustainable government deficit spending-where else could the money have possibly come from?

These programs combined would completely transform our world. By redistributing this wealth, millions of lives would be saved. Billions would be rescued from poverty and disease. By inconveniencing just 400 people, the entire human race could advance to a new, unprecedented level of development.

And all of them would still be billionaires afterwards.

Is it really so radical to suggest that this is the right thing to do? Given the choice between millions of deaths, and slightly shrinking the fortunes of a few super rich people, how could anyone conclude that the death of millions is preferable?

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Jeff Bezos may be insanely rich, but it is a drop in the ocean compared to the combined wealth of his peers. The 400 richest Americans own about $3.2 trillion, which is more than the bottom 60% of Americans. A trillion dollars is such a large figure, that you might as well say "eleventy gajillion zillion dollars."

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By MEG KINNARD, Associated Press

CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) - South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster said Friday that he sees a city-enforced school mask mandate - intended to cover children not eligible for the coronavirus vaccine - as a violation of state law.

As educators across the state mull how to handle a resurgent coronavirus ahead of the upcoming school year, South Carolina's capital city ratified an ordinance Thursday mandating the use of masks in Columbia elementary and middle schools for at least the beginning of the school year. Columbia Mayor Steve Benjamin, the Democrat who proposed the move, said that it will help protect children who are too young to be vaccinated against.

But a state budget proviso that went into effect July 1 prohibits South Carolina educational institutions from using appropriated funds to mandate masks. It's that provision that McMaster - who served two terms as South Carolina's attorney general and was U.S. attorney during the Reagan administration - said preempts the city's action.

"I don't see how those two can coexist," McMaster told The Associated Press during an interview on Friday.

Political Cartoons

Benjamin, who is also an attorney, told the AP that he believes the mandate doesn't violate state law because he plans to use city, and not state, funds to provide masks to the city's schools. But McMaster said Friday that it's nearly impossible to entirely separate activity within public schools from state-appropriated funds.

"The state law, as part of the budget, says that funds cannot be used ... to facilitate required masking, and state funds permeate just about everything that the school does," McMaster said. "I think the state law is very clear."

McMaster, a Republican seeking reelection to his second full term next year, has long shied away from comprehensive mask mandates, refusing to issue one during the peak of the pandemic last year, but for a time ordering face coverings be worn in restaurants and state buildings.

This spring, he called it "the height of ridiculosity" for a school district to require a mask over any parent's wishes that their child go without one. But, with the delta variant again pushing case counts upward, McMaster has continued to stress personal responsibility, acknowledging the current danger but saying government-mandated action isn't the answer.

The Medical University of South Carolina said this week the variant is now responsible for 92% of its positive COVID-19 tests as hospitalizations from the disease have more than quadrupled across the state over the past five weeks.

The proviso in question has already been tested. Prompted by Attorney General Alan Wilson's declaration that, while "inartfully worded," the proviso made an on-campus, indoor mask mandate illegal, the University of South Carolina this week reversed its plan for the fall semester.

This week, an attorney with the law firm of Democratic state Sen. Dick Harpootlian argued that Wilson's interpretation should be thrown out, because he saw the proviso as a ban on mask requirements.

"If an attorney general can quite literally give entirely new meaning to otherwise plain words, and then use his own interpretation to coerce other departments of the government to conform to that view, then the power of that office is far greater than the legislature acting as a whole," wrote Christopher Kenney.

Wilson's office told the AP on Friday that its attorneys were still studying the legality of the Columbia council's decision. McMaster said he had not spoken to Wilson, who has a "solid legal question" to consider.

If Harpootlian is so sure about the intent of lawmakers when they passed the proviso, he should get them to clarify it, Wilson said in a statement.

"This is a political question for the state legislature to address, not the Supreme Court," Wilson said.

After falling below 100 cases a day in June, COVID-19 has roared back in South Carolina. The state is currently seeing an average of more than 2,000 cases a day - a rate similar to the pandemic's second-largest peak last summer.

Since the end of June, the number of people in South Carolina hospitals with COVID-19 has increased more than 400%, to over 700 people. Around 200 people are in intensive care with the virus, and close to 100 are on ventilators - both five times greater than the number reported at the beginning of the summer by state health officials.

About 45% of eligible people in South Carolina are fully vaccinated, while more than half have received at least one shot.

Meg Kinnard can be reached at http://twitter.com/MegKinnardAP.

Jeffrey Collins in Columbia contributed to this report.

Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Gov: SC Law 'Very Clear' in Banning School Mask Mandates

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By MEG KINNARD, Associated Press CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) - South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster said Friday that he sees a city-enforced school mask mandate - intended to cover children not eligible for the coronavirus vaccine - as a violation of state law.

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Traffic and increase of population in the Tri-county area

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The biggest challenge to maintaining the Charleston area's growing economy is creating affordable housing near the jobs, according to a new study.

That will also go a long way toward easing the area's growing traffic congestion, according to the 2017 Regional Economic Scorecard. The Charleston Metro Chamber of Commerce and Charleston Regional Development Alliance released the report Thursday. It measures Charleston's progress since 2005 against the national average and eight other cities of similar size.

"The good news is that the economy here is very strong," said Mary Graham, the chamber's chief strategy officer.

Compared to 10 years ago:

* Gross regional product, or GRP, per capita is up 30.1 percent.

* Exports as a percent of GRP is up 12 percent.

* Advanced industries employment is up 20.9 percent.

* Average annual pay is up 36 percent.

But most workers aren't finding housing near their jobs, and that's contributing to the area's increasing traffic congestion.

"That's kind of the No. 1 issue here," Graham said. "We're a region of commuters. People can't afford to live near where they work, so we all get in our cars every day and drive to and from work and that is making the traffic issue worse."

Melanie Stith, vice president of human resources at Roper St. Francis Healthcare, said housing and rent costs are rising quicker than wages, creating "a crisis level when it comes to attainable housing."

"We must work together to find solutions that allow our teachers, nurses, police officers and recent college grads the opportunity to live close to work," Stith said.

This is the eighth year for the economic scorecard, and each report has noted transportation and affordable housing as major concerns.

"Those messages have been in every single report," Graham said. "We have to quit talking about them and actually move to action."

Economic inequality

The report also noted that Charleston has made progress in creating more opportunities for minorities, but the black population is still lagging behind.

On the plus side, a recent Brookings Institution report noted that Charleston is one of the few cities in the nation where the economic gains have been made in every social and economic class.

In the last five years, whites gained 6.3 percent in employment rate and 3 percent in median wage. During the same period, blacks gained 11.9 percent in both employment rate and median wage.

The bad news is that blacks and Hispanics still earn significantly less than whites. In Charleston, the median wage of blacks was 62.3 percent less than for whites. That was the lowest percentage of any of the other comparison cities. The report attributed the disparity to lower educational levels, the type of jobs, living in more rural areas and to discrimination.

Worker training

A major concern the last few years has been training workers for all the industries moving into the area, including tech companies. The report noted some progress.

* The number of engineering degrees in the Charleston area grew 61 percent in the last five years, twice as fast as the national average.

* Charleston area computer and science degrees grew 198 percent in the last five years, six times faster than the national average.

The Kauffman Foundation identified metro Charleston as one of the nation's fastest-growing entrepreneurship hot spots, according to the report.

"We're seeing progress," said Steve Warner, vice president of global competitiveness for the Charleston Regional Development Alliance.

A little more than 10 years ago, Charleston's digital corridor was a fairly new idea. Now he regularly talks with representatives of foreign tech companies wanting to start here.

"It's usually a 10- to 20-year story, and we're only five years into it as far as having any significant investment and resources," Warner said. "You also have an increasing amount of venture capital coming to bear here."

Krissa Watry, co-founder and CEO of Charleston startup Dynepic, said the region's technology ecosystem has come a long way, but there's room for improvement.

"More tech talent is needed here, supported by a top-notch educational pipeline and talent recruitment at leading universities," said Watry, whose company developed an app that creates a safe, online platform for children to interact with others with parental supervision. "While Dynepic has been blessed to secure two rounds of funding, our community needs more ... investment firms with capacity to fund and connect startups with other outside networks."

The report notes that Charleston is lagging behind other cities when it comes to the number of patents issued. That doesn't mean we're less creative than everybody else; it's simply because Charleston doesn't have a major research university like most of the other cities in the report, Graham said.

The other comparison cities were: Seattle, Austin, Raleigh, Salt Lake City, Greenville, Nashville, Jacksonville and Richmond.

The complete report is on the alliance's website at crda.org/economicscorecard.

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Charleston area's economic report card: Job growth, traffic, housing problems

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The biggest challenge to maintaining the Charleston area's growing economy is creating affordable housing near the jobs, according to a new study. That will also go a long way toward easing the area's growing traffic congestion, according to the 2017 Regional Economic Scorecard.

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Too many people moving to Charleston. its overpopulated 

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Too many people moving to Charleston. its overpopulated 

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Lowcountry Local First, a nonprofit supporting Charleston-area small-business owners and the local-focused economy, has grown with three new additions, expanding its team as well as its Good Enterprises Initiative.

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Charleston can't handle an influx of new residents

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Perhaps the worst kept secret in the Charleston metro area these days is that it already seems overcrowded, yet all indications point to an influx of people that will put the metro area at the top of the population count for the state of South Carolina in the next decade.

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Horse Carriage Rides in Charleston

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Sea turtles are considered an endangered species now. Habitats are being destroyed.

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https://www.asyousow.org/our-work/waste/ocean-plastics
Plastic is polluting our oceans (and land)!!

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Plastic ocean pollution, a component of marine litter, injures and kills marine life, spreads toxins, and poses a potential threat to human health. This issue has been dramatically elevated in the past two years as better data became available:

A key 2015 study concluded that the ocean contains far more degraded plastic than previously believed. The ocean contains an estimated 150 million tons of plastic, with 8 million tons added annually-equivalent to a garbage truck load every minute.

A 2016 Ellen MacArthur Foundation study predicted oceans will contain more plastic than fish by 2050 if no actions are taken to reduce the flow of plastics into waterways.

PLASTIC SOLUTIONS INVESTOR ALLIANCE

As You Sow has launched an international coalition of investors to engage publicly traded consumer goods companies on the threat posed by plastic waste and pollution. Twenty-five institutional investors from four countries with a combined $1 trillion of assets under management have signed a declaration on plastic pollution citing plastic pollution as a clear corporate brand risk and pledging to interact with leading companies to find solutions through new corporate commitments, programs, and policies. Our initial engagements will be with four large consumer goods companies: Nestle, Procter & Gamble, PepsiCo and Unilever.

THREAT TO MARINE ANIMALS

Only a fraction of plastic ocean pollution is visible. Most of it consists of tiny degraded particles swirling in vast gyres spread across 16 million square kilometers of ocean surface, an area the size of the United States and Australia combined. Plastic particles in oceans harm marine animals in two different ways. First, they become lodged in the digestive systems of animals, leading to impairment or death. Fish, turtles, seabirds, sea lions, and whales can all die a grisly death eating or become entangled in plastic. A recent study found that a quarter of fish at markets in California and Indonesia contain plastic in their guts, mostly in the form of plastic microfibers. Second, plastic particles can absorb toxins already in the water and spread them through the marine food web, and possibly to humans. Much of plastic ocean pollution is packaging. Nine of the top 10 items recovered by the Ocean Conservancy's annual coastal cleanup are some form of packaging or fast food dining supplies.

This new video, Plastic Free Oceans, summarizes the ocean plastic pollution problem, As You Sow's unique shareholder advocacy leadership work to address it, and how your support can enable us to do more.

A 2014 report by the UN Environment Programme estimated that use of plastic consumer goods causes $75 billion of environmental harm annually to natural ecosystems, including $13 billion specifically to marine ecosystems. After a single use, 95% of plastic packaging material value ends up in landfills, as roadside litter, or in the ocean. See our related video.

Citizens and policy makers have begun to respond. More than 60 California cities have banned polystyrene foam take out containers, and in December 2015, a federal law banned the use of plastic microbeads in personal care products. But much of the debris that ends up in the ocean due to poor recycling or trash collection programs, especially from public spaces like sidewalks and parks which often lack waste or recycling bins.

Brands that are placing plastic packaging on the market need to redesign it to be fully recyclable, and most importantly, take responsibility for dramatic improvements in actual recycling of packaging through producer responsibility programs so it stays out of waterways. Through shareholder engagement, we are challenging brands to do just that - increase recyclability of packaging, and find ways to dramatically increase the effectiveness and rates of recycling and composting.

KEY SUCCESSES

Our work already has resulted in important advances. In 2013, following engagement with As You Sow, McDonald's and Dunkin' Brands agreed to phase out polystyrene foam coffee cups, which can cause havoc with marine life. In 2014 Procter & Gamble agreed to make 90% of its packaging recyclable, and Colgate-Palmolivepledged to make all packaging recyclable in three of four operating divisions and to use 50% recycled content, both by 2020.

In 2017, Target Corp. agreed to engage with its suppliers to phase out the use of harmful polystyrene foam for e-commerce packaging. Also, Unilever agreed to make 100% of its packaging recyclable, reusable, or compostable by 2025.

In 2018, we scored five big victories: McDonald's to stop using polystyrene foam cups globally by year's end, and made a bold, unprecedented commitment to recycle all packaging in its restaurants worldwide by 2025, as we had been urging. At the same time, Dunkin' Brands publicly to a schedule for phasing out foam coffee cups. In July, Starbucks responded to our shareholder proposal, supported by nearly 30% of company shares, to call for the phase out of plastic straws . In August, KraftHeinz, the third largest U.S. food company to make packaging recyclable by 2025, followed in October by Mondelez International, maker of snack foods like Oreo cookies, to do the same. Both of these latter actions were following several years of sustained engagement resulting in a high number of votes for our shareholder proposals.

To ensure the health of our oceans, many more companies need to commit to stop using harmful or toxic plastics, to design their packaging for recyclability and to commit to develop a greatly optimized recycling system, with public space recycling to prevent littered packaging from being swept into storm drains, streams, and then oceans.

STRONG VOTE RESULTS

KraftHeinz, Kroger, and Mondelez International are three major brands we are engaging on recyclable packaging and plastic ocean pollution. Shareholder proposals filed with the companies on this topic have received strong support. In 2017, our proposal to McDonald's Corp., asking it to phase out use of polystyrene foam packaging globally, received the support nearly one-third of all shares voted. A 2015 proposal to Kraft was supported by nearly 30% of shares voted, and 2016 proposals at Kroger were supported by 28% and at Mondelez by nearly 27% of shares voted. These are very high vote results - the average vote result for all social and environmental proposals in 2015 was 20%.

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Plastic ocean pollution, a component of marine litter, injures and kills marine life, spreads toxins, and poses a potential threat to human health. This issue has been dramatically elevated in the past two years as better data became available: A key 2015 study concluded that the ocean contains far more degraded plastic than previously believed.

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Hayley Eynon- Affordable Housing in Downtown Areas

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Hayley Eynon- Affordable Housing in Downtown Areas

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Need more affordable housing and why does it have to look so different from the surrounding houses

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https://www.dnr.sc.gov/news/2021/apr/apr6-nowake.php

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If you are seeing this, then your internet browser is Microsoft Internet Explorer and you are running in Compatibility mode. You will not be able to view the application with this browser and these settings.

Please remove "SC.GOV" from your compatibility view listings using your settings in the Internet Explorer options.

SCDNR News

April 6, 2021

The seasonal no-wake zone for the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway behind Isle of Palms has been extended this year. The no-wake zone will extend to the mouth of the creek that intersects the ICW near the IOP Connector. (map image courtesy Google Earth.)

Boaters in the Charleston area should note that an additional section of a busy Charleston County waterway will get a temporary, seasonal no-wake zone this year beginning April 15, the S.C. Department of Natural Resources (SCDNR) announced this week.

The seasonal no-wake zone that will be in place on the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) that runs between Goat Island and Isle of Palms during the spring and summer boating season will this year be extended southwest to the mouth of the creek that intersects the ICW near the IOP Connector (S.C.Highway 517).

The wake-zone extension is a response to increasing boater traffic and congestion in this area in recent years, and will serve to improve boater safety and reduce the potential for accidents. The temporary, seasonal no-wake zone will be in place from April 15 until September 15.

Media Contact: David Lucas, Public Information Coordinator, (843) 610-0096

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Seasonal no-wake zone on ICW in Charleston County extended this year

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Abortion Access is crucial in ALL 50 states.

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In the United States; 14,000 Climate Change refugees are being forcibly sent back to their deaths. Including men, women, and children.

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The United States has been consumed with the mass evacuation and resettlement effort for vulnerable Afghans in the wake of the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan. It's an undertaking that's demonstrated the ability of the U.S. government to bring tens of thousands of refugees to safety in America and marshal local resources to help them resettle in their new home.

Rather than bringing people to safety via transit centers and, ultimately, to countries including the United States, these flights are sending vulnerable migrants and asylum-seekers back to danger.

But at the same time, the Biden administration has been quietly engaged in another series of "evacuation" flights, this time at our southern border. Rather than bringing people to safety via transit centers and, ultimately, to countries including the United States, these flights are sending vulnerable migrants and asylum-seekers back to danger - returning them to the very places they're fleeing.

Just last week, the U.S. expelled 86 Haitians who fled the recent earthquake and political unrest, and flew them back to Haiti under this policy. Many more Haitians trying to avoid this fate are being detained in Del Rio, Texas. U.S. authorities are dedicating extra resources to pick up the rate of flights in order to remove them more quickly, saying six to eight flights a day will depart starting Tuesday.

It's a continuation of the policy begun under the Trump administration known as Title 42, which essentially bans anyone from seeking asylum at the U.S. southern border under the pretext that concerns about the spread of Covid-19 mean they must immediately be deported. Since it was first implemented in March 2020, more than 1 million migrants and asylum-seekers have been turned away.

This has meant that asylum-seekers have been expelled in violation of the United Nations' 1967 Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees, which prevents countries from returning people to places where they face threats to their lives or freedom without providing them the opportunity to apply for asylum.

The United Nations refugee agency has expressed concern over these expulsion flights, noting that those impacted are being sent back to the "very dangers they have fled in their countries of origin." Indeed, these asylum-seekers should instead be welcomed just like Afghans are being welcomed - all refugees deserve protection, not just our allies.

The consequences are devastating, as reports of violence and insecurity in their countries of origin, along transit routes and in Mexico abound. A recent report by Human Rights First documented at least 6,356 reports of kidnappings and attacks on asylum-seekers and migrants after they were turned away from the U.S. under Title 42.

In late August, my colleagues from Jesuit Refugee Service Mexico traveled to the Mexican border with Guatemala to accompany those expelled from the U.S. on one of these flights. They met a woman from Guatemala traveling with her two daughters. She said she told U.S. officers that she was a victim of violence in her home country and requested asylum at the U.S. border.

She told us that she shared the name of a family member in California, and then boarded a plane, believing she would be safe and with her family in the U.S. soon. As they began to land, she was shocked to learn from the pilot that their destination was instead Mexico. She and her daughters then found themselves on a bus back to Guatemala, the place where they had fled violence in the first place.

While a federal judge on Thursday blocked the Biden administration from enforcing Title 42 for migrant families, the administration still has 14 days to implement the court ruling, and in any case is appealing the decision. The injunction also only applies to families, so single adults can continue to be removed.

But the U.S. can easily put in place measures that manage risks to public health and still protect the legal right to asylum. The arrival of Afghan refugees, including some whose status is not materially different from asylum-seekers, proves this. The majority of Afghans evacuated to the U.S. arrive without visas as "humanitarian parolees," yet have been welcomed in the U.S.

While not able to help everyone, the U.S. ensured that more than 123,000 people were safely flown out of Afghanistan and has already accepted 64,000 evacuees. They have received medical screenings and access to vaccinations upon their arrival.

Those seeking security at our southern border should not be treated any differently. The U.S. response to both crises should be guided by international law, our moral obligations and our history. Since the passage of the Refugee Act in 1980, the U.S. has admitted more than 3.1 million refugees, and since 1990 more than 700,000 people have been granted asylum.

Asylum-seekers must not be forced back to the trauma and violence that they're so desperately fleeing. The Biden administration must immediately halt flights carrying asylum-seekers back to Mexico and Haiti and fully rescind Title 42 so that everyone seeking protection can petition for safety. If the U.S. can orchestrate a historic airlift of Afghan refugees in the midst of a pandemic, we cannot use Covid as an excuse to turn away those seeking protection at our southern border.

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Opinion | Treatment of Haitians at border exposes double standard toward refugees

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The United States has been consumed with the mass evacuation and resettlement effort for vulnerable Afghans in the wake of the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan. It's an undertaking that's demonstrated the ability of the U.S. government to bring tens of thousands of refugees to safety in America and marshal local resources to help them resettle in their new home.

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Sarah Acuff- Sinkholes and erosion from flooding downtown

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Sarah Acuff- Sinkholes and erosion from flooding downtown

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https://www.teenvogue.com/story/haiti-border-patrol-whips-refugees

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The images are shocking. U.S. border agents on horseback are whipping Haitian asylum seekers carrying plastic bags of food and clothing. They reach out to grab the shoulders of people fleeing barefoot or in flip-flop sandals.

This is what's underway in the border town of Del Rio, Texas, where an encampment of about 14,000 migrants await asylum. Over the weekend, U.S. Border Patrol agents began deporting Haitian migrants under a Trump administration-era pandemic order, flying them to Port-au-Prince or sending them fleeing across the Rio Grande into Ciudad Acuña, Mexico.

The horrifying scenes are the latest evidence that our immigration enforcement machine is operating with the same cruel logic that it has for centuries. Biden ran on a campaign that made big promises - namely, to be trusted to undo the work of the Trump administration. In July, the White House even released a fact sheet on its "Fair, Orderly and Humane Immigration System," with a particularly relevant opening line: "The United States can have an orderly, secure, and well-managed border while treating people fairly and humanely."

If it can, this isn't it. At least a dozen of the refugees forced onto planes on Sunday told The New York Times that border officials initially misled them into thinking the planes were headed to Florida. But this isn't about being disappointed by one party or another's false promises; after all, it's no secret that enforcing border security is a bipartisan priority - one that upholds our broader system of policing, poverty, and incarceration, as violent under the Obama administration as it was under Trump. Abolishing borders, or at the very least protecting migrants' basic human rights, is incompatible with leadership that sees immigration policy as a political football and a funding source.

Criticism from those within the U.S. and Haiti, as well as from human rights groups, poured out in response to the graphic and horrifying images. "So many Haitian immigrants and refugees came to this country to escape devastation - only to be greeted by being whipped and handcuffed," tweeted Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO) on Monday night. "[President Biden], you must put an immediate stop to this. We demand better. They deserve better."

Many Democrats lambasted Biden for continuing policies set during the Trump administration that Biden campaigned on moving away from. "Haitians are fleeing disaster, poverty, and political turmoil, only to be denied the legal right to an asylum claim. It's wrong - under Joe Biden or any president," tweeted former presidential candidate Julián Castro. "Asylum is a fundamental human right that the U.S. has suspended for 18 months now.... The [Biden administration] must reverse course or we risk allowing Trump's policies to become the default."

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The Treatment of Haitian Migrants at the U.S. Border Is Appalling

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The images are shocking. U.S. border agents on horseback are whipping Haitian asylum seekers carrying plastic bags of food and clothing. They reach out to grab the shoulders of people fleeing barefoot or in flip-flop sandals. This is what's underway in the border town of Del Rio, Texas, where an encampment of about 14,000 migrants await asylum.

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Flooding in Charleston

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Lack of parking Downtown

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https://www.foxnews.com/live-news/gabby-petito-autopsy-fbi-brian-laundrie

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FIRST ON FOX: The 911 caller who reported the domestic incident between Gabby Petito and Brian Laundrie in Moab, Utah, believed that the couple was fighting over a phone and that Laundrie may have been trying to ditch his fiancée, according to a witness statement obtained by Fox News."

They were talking aggressively [at] each other [and] something definitely seemed off," the witness, identified only as Christopher, wrote. "At one point, they were sort of fighting over a phone - I think the male took the female's phone. It appeared that he didn't want her in the white van."

The male, believed to be Laundrie, got into the driver's seat, according to Christopher, and the woman, believed to be Petito, followed. It happened outside the Moonflower Cooperative - an organic grocery store in downtown Moab.

Click here to read more on Fox News.

EXCLUSIVE: A Moab City Police Department statement obtained by Fox News' Michael Ruiz on Tuesday - which contains remarks from a 911 caller about what he saw on Aug. 12 - says "something seemed off" and "it appeared that he didn't want her in the white van."

"I heard her say 'why do you have to be so mean'" the witness said in describing the dispute between Gabby Petito and Brian Laundrie.

"It was as if the guy was trying to leave her, and maybe take her phone? Not sure but wanted to help out," the witness added.

The Okaloosa County Sheriff's Office in northwestern Florida said Tuesday that it is "actively" looking into a report about a trail camera capturing an image of a man resembling Brian Laundrie, the person of interest in the Gabby Petito case.

"I'm not saying this is the guy but whoever was on my trail camera this morning in Baker, Fl strongly fits the description of Brian Laundrie, authorities have been contacted but people in the North West Florida area be on the look out," a Facebook user named Sam Bass wrote last night about the picture taken at 6:17 a.m. local time Monday morning.

"Obviously we will keep everyone in the loop if and when there is anything to report," the sheriff's office added.

Francine Smetts, who says she has lived near the Carlton Reserve for more than a decade, described the area Tuesday as being "like a swamp right now because of all the rain we had.

"You can go maybe a mile in and then it's just water everywhere, lots of water," she told Fox News' Stephanie Pagones. "It's swampy. There are alligators out there, there are snakes out there, there are mosquitos -- they are relentless."

The Friends of the Carlton Reserve, a nonprofit that describes itself as being "in support of one of Sarasota County's natural lands," said in a Facebook message that "staff has notified us that effective Tuesday, Sept. 21, 2021, the Carlton Reserve is closed until further notice."

The search for Brian Laundrie in the Carlton Reserve has resumed after the FBI spent hours with his parents at their home in nearby North Port, Fla., on Monday.

Dozens of law enforcement vehicles from all around the state are at Carlton Reserve Monday, which is now blocked off at the entrance.

Search teams held a briefing at about 8:30 a.m. local time, according to Fox News' Stephanie Pagones.

The North Port Police Department said in a tweet Tuesday that the search for Brian Laundrie -- the person of interest in the Gabby Petito investigation -- will start up again in the Carlton Reserve, a 25,000-acre reserve located roughly five miles from the family's home.

"We join the FBI in asking for continued public assistance by sharing any information through the tip lines," the department added.

The search is resuming there after the North Port Police Department told Fox News on Monday that it "currently has no plans to conduct a major search of the Carlton Reserve today."

Authorities were looking for Laundrie in the reserve over the weekend, but as of Tuesday, his whereabouts remain unknown.

Melissa Hulls, a ranger at Arches National Park who responded to the Aug. 12 altercation in Utah between Petito and Laundrie, told the Deseret News that she warned Gabby her relationship had the markings of being "toxic."

"I was imploring with her to reevaluate the relationship, asking her if she was happy in the relationship with him, and basically saying this was an opportunity for her to find another path, to make a change in her life," Hulls said to the newspaper.

"She had a lot of anxiety about being away from him, I honestly thought if anything was going to change it would be after they got home to Florida," she added.

Laundrie later stayed in a hotel that night, while Petito stayed with the van, according to a police report.

"We thought we were making the right decision when we left them," Hulls said.
Fox News' Paul Best contributed to this report.

The attorney for Brian Laundrie canceled a press conference that was scheduled for Tuesday after speaking with the FBI, Fox News has learned.

Laundrie, 23, is the boyfriend of Gabby Petito, the missing Florida woman whose body may have been discovered Sunday in Wyoming.

A reporter from the New York Post, citing the attorney, tweeted that the press conference was not canceled at the behest of the FBI but rather because he said it is not in his clients' 'best interest.'

He has been named a person of interest in the case.His family told police that they have not seen him since last Tuesday.

The autopsy of the remains found in the investigation is set to be completed on Tuesday, which could confirm that the body belonged to Petito.

An apparent stone memorial has been discovered near where the likely remains of Gabby Petito were found by authorities, according to a report.

A cross made of rocks was seen on the ground in the area of the Spread Creek Dispersed Camping Area in the Bridger-Teton National Forest, where the body was also found, according to KSTU-TV.

It was unclear who placed it there, according to the station.

Petito's family reported her missing on Sept. 11, weeks after she last spoke with her mother in late August.

The camping area had reopened after the body was discovered and investigators left the scene, the report added.

Grand Teton County, Wyoming, Coroner Brent Blue on Monday confirmed to Fox News that an autopsy of the remains authorities discovered in the Bridger-Teton National Forest on Sunday would be complete by Tuesday.

The body found in the Moran Vista dispersed camping area in Moose, Wyoming, was consistent with a description of Gabby Petito, the FBI said Sunday, adding that the remains matched the description of the missing woman as the search for her fiancé intensified.

No other information about the body, such as the physical state of the remains discovered, have been released. The 22-year-old blogger was one of three people missing near Grand Teton National Park this summer.
Click here for the full story

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Gabby Petito: Brian Laundrie search resuming in Carlton Reserve as autopsy due Tuesday: LIVE UPDATES

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Officials in Wyoming told Fox News that an autopsy of the remains authorities discovered in the Bridger-Teton National Forest that may belong to Gabby Petito will be complete Tuesday. Meanwhile, a search for Laundrie has resumed Tuesday at the Carlton Reserve in Florida.

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Kaylee Gort - people throwing their masks away. They litter them everywhere

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Kaylee Gort - people throwing their masks away. They litter them everywhere

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Your Used Mask Needs to Make It to the Trash Can (Published 2020)

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They’re on beaches, in parking lots and on sidewalks. You probably won’t catch the coronavirus from a discarded mask, but the litter poses a risk to the environment.