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NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCSC) - Trident United Way’s Young Leaders United Annual School Supply Drive is in full swing.

The nonprofit purchased around 1,200 backpacks for hundreds of deserving students from low-income families in the Tri-County.

Volunteers have been packing supplies for two days with the process coming to an end today.

Students can expect the typical supplies like paper, pencils and a special note written by a volunteer wishing them a happy school year.

Trident United Way’s Young Leaders United annual school drive started at the end of June and went through mid-July.

Parents and schools in need had the opportunity to apply for these essential backpacks.

The packing process began at the beginning of August to ensure each bag is ready just in time for the new school year.

Purchasing the supplies is a collective effort of sponsors and organizations.

Items purchased were delivered to an area UPS warehouse facility and packed by volunteers.

UPS will then deliver the backpacks to those students in need by next week.

The backpacks will also find their way to Trident United Way Resource Connection Centers in Berkeley and Dorchester counties.

The three-day process will end with a sip-and-serve packing event from 5:30-7:30 p.m. Thursday at Segra at the RiverDogs stadium.

Trident United Way Advancement Officer Danielle Trauth-Jurman says providing the supplies not only helps those parents struggling but also gives students confidence.

“There are parents who are struggling to keep a roof over their child’s head, you know they’re fighting eviction and so having to not worry about getting, you know the tools for the start of the school year, because supplies that their kids need is really, you know, it’s something that really helps families out,” Trauth-Jurman said. “You don’t need to worry about where they’re going to get those supplies, and then kids going back to school, you know, they don’t need to worry about their friends making fun of them or that I’m not having the supplies that they need.”

Campaign Cabinet Chair at Trident United Way Micheal Samuel says their goal is to improve the supply drive each year.

“From this year to last year, I would say kind of focusing on one getting new donors in and also figuring out how to make it more efficient. So, this year we’re having four different shifts so people come in packs, pop in for two hours, that way it’s not too much of a lift for your day,” Samuel said. “You come in for two hours volunteer, you go back to work, or end your workday here.”

If you are interested in volunteering opportunities with Trident United Way, click here.

Copyright 2023 WCSC. All rights reserved.

CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCSC) - The South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control confirmed two dogs were exposed to a bat that tested positive for rabies in downtown Charleston.

The bat was found near Drake and Amherst Streets, the agency said.

The dogs are being quarantined as required in the South Carolina Rabies Control Act.

DHEC said no people were known to have been exposed.

The bat was submitted to DHEC’s lab for testing on Wednesday and was confirmed to have rabies on Thursday.

“Rabid bats have been known to transmit the rabies virus,” Rabies Program team leader Terri McCollister said. “People don’t always realize they or a pet have been bitten since bat teeth are tiny and bites are easy to overlook.”

DHEC says you should always assume a person or pet has potentially been bitten when:

You cannot tell if a bat, or any other animal, has rabies by simply looking at it. Rabies must be confirmed in a laboratory. Unusual behavior in bats that might indicate the animal has rabies includes daytime activity, inability to fly and being found in places they are not usually seen, like in your home or on your lawn. An exposure is defined as direct contact (such as through broken skin or mucous membranes in the eyes, nose or mouth) with saliva or brain/nervous system tissue from an infected animal. Immediately wash any part of your body that may have come in contact with saliva or neural tissue with plenty of soap and water and seek medical attention.

If you believe you, someone you know or your pets have come in contact with this bat or another animal that potentially has rabies, call DHEC’s Public Health Charleston office at 843-953-4713, which is open Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.; or 888-847-0902 after hours and on holidays.

DHEC says you should never handle a bat or any wild or stray animal, alive or dead, with your bare hands.

Any bat that could have had potential contact with people, pets or livestock should be safely trapped in a sealed container and not touched. Never release a bat that has potentially exposed a person or pet. Once a bat is released, it cannot be tested for rabies.

“Although bats can carry rabies, not every bat is infected with the virus,” McCollister said. “Bats are an important part of South Carolina’s ecosystems and deserve a healthy degree of respect just like all wild animals.”

It is important to keep pets up to date on their rabies vaccination, as this is one of the easiest and most effective ways to protect against the disease.

This bat is the second animal in Charleston County to test positive for rabies in 2023. There have been 42 cases of rabid animals statewide this year.

Since 2002, South Carolina has averaged approximately 148 positive cases a year. In 2022, three of the 83 confirmed rabies cases in South Carolina were in Charleston County.

Copyright 2023 WCSC. All rights reserved.

A local dockworkers union’s recent federal appeals court win in a labor dispute with the S.C. Ports Authority (SPA) is part of a historic battle over the handling of cargo that began after the Civil War.

Following a series of unprecedented post-Civil War strikes on Charleston’s waterfront, newly freed men organized in 1869 the Longshoremen’s Protective Union Association (LPUA).LPUA set a legacy for today’s International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) Local 1422, an affiliate of the International Longshoremen’s Association based in New Jersey.

In a 2-1 decision, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals recently sided with the ILA and Local 1422 in a dispute that centers on whether union workers only or a mix of state employees and union members can load and unload container ships at North Charleston’s new Hugh K. Leatherman Terminal.

While the court battle drags on, the $1.5 billion port has been mostly idle, making some wonder about how wise the state was in using taxpayer dollars.

In denying the SPA’s appeal, the court affirmed the union’s right to hold every job at the Leatherman terminal under a master contract the ILA signed earlier with the shipping lines. The state, however, wants a hybrid model of state-employed crane and machinery operators and union workers for all other positions. The hybrid model is used at the Wando Welch and North Charleston terminals.

The union and court maintain the Leatherman terminal is exempt from the hybrid model because it is a new facility that opened in March 2021 and is not part of a revised 2018 master contract that expires next year.

The ILA sued the United States Maritime Alliance (USMX), an association of shipping companies, after slightly more than 100 ships docked at the Leatherman terminal and non-union crane operators unloaded the vessels. That led to a lawsuit over the union’s collective bargaining agreement with the shipping lines. The union wants $300 million in damages.

The port then filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board, which sided with the union in December 2022. The SPA appealed and the court ruled in the ILA’s favor. After the lawsuit, USMX ships avoided the Leatherman terminal. Those ships are now calling on the Wando and North Charleston terminals.

Brandon Charocak, communications director for S.C. Gov. Henry McMaster, said, “The governor remains committed to defending South Carolina’s ports, jobs, and businesses against big labor unions and their threatening tactics, which have hamstrung the economies of many other states across the country. He will continue to support efforts to appeal this ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court as quickly as possible.”

In the appeal, the ports authority calls the ILA lawsuit an illegal move to get “lift work” at the Leatherman terminal and crane operator jobs that ILA members have never held and the USMX was powerless to give.

“We are disappointed in the 4th Circuit’s majority opinion,” SPA president and CEO Barbara Melvin said. “We are reviewing the opinion and weighing all options for appeal.”

Melvin said the “Leatherman Terminal is a significant supply chain asset for all port-dependent businesses in South Carolina and beyond, and our longstanding hybrid operating model works.”ILA 1422 president Charles Brave, however, boasted state workers “can’t beat us at what we do.

When we get that Hugh Leatherman terminal, it is going to put pressure on the Wando and North Charleston terminals because we are going to save the state a ton of money because they won’t be able to compete with us.

“We are getting people certified for the [crane operator] jobs at the Hugh Leatherman terminal,” Brave revealed. The SPA and the governor “are making the public think we are going to displace people at all of the terminals. That is not so,” Brave explained. “We are only talking about the master contract jobs at the Hugh Leatherman terminal. We walk by faith but not by sight,” he said, citing 2 Corinthians 5:7.

The ILA 1422 is part of a group of ILA local affiliates that represents longshoremen and office workers — clerks and checkers — and maintenance employees who work on ships at port terminals from Maine to Texas. The predominantly Black members of ILA 1422 once unloaded cargo by hand before the 1970s advent of containerized cargo. They labored in jobs few wanted because the work involved lifting and rolling heavy cotton bales, banana stalks, rawhide bundles and other loose cargo called “break bulk.”

If the appeals court had not ruled in the union’s favor, the ILA was prepared to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, Brave said. With ILA support, Brave said ILA 1422 is in a much better position to wage a prolonged court fight with the state than the longshoremen who gained their freedom after the Civil War.

After a series of unprecedented strikes on Charleston’s waterfront, newly freed men and other free men of color chartered the LPUA with bipartisan support from the S.C. General Assembly during Reconstruction that ushered Black representation in state government after 1865.

In 1875, The News and Courier called the union “the most powerful organization of the colored laboring class in South Carolina.” By 1900, the union lost its charter. But in 1936, Charlestonian George Washington German organized Black longshoremen to establish ILA 1422, according to the South Carolina Encyclopedia.

German, a third-generation dock worker who served as president until 1969, got support from ILA attorney William Morrison, whose grandfather owned German’s grandfather until freeing him in 1861. Morrison served as Charleston’s mayor from 1947 to 1959.

German helped move ILA 1422 into the city’s business and political circles as it became the backbone of Charleston’s Black middle class.

German was a visionary, said Pastor Kenneth J.J. Edmondson, German’s grandson who joined the union in 1976. German started the pension plan for the workers he called “my boys,” Edmondson said. It has grown into one of the largest private pension funds in South Carolina.

Clarence Baxter of Charleston, who joined the union when he was 19 years old, said German’s leadership defined ILA 1422 as one of the most efficient port labor forces in the world.Baxter said, “If you didn’t do your job, [German] would tell the foremen to get another man because we want to live up to the contract.”

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Three years after the pandemic closed South Carolina bars and restaurants, owners are facing off against a new foe.

Rising liquor liability insurance rates are wreaking havoc on a food and beverage industry with notoriously tight profit margins. In the last six years, the average liability policy in South Carolina has ballooned from $5,000 to $25,000, with some struggling to find rates under $100,000.

Recent efforts by the grassroots Save SC Venues have targeted a legislative change to the statewide problem. The group, comprised of mostly small music venues and bars from around the state, has been pounding the pavement through more than 20 town halls, social media posts and rallies spreading the word that the problem is very real.

At 7 p.m. Aug. 14, the SC Venue Crisis will bring its town hall series to Frothy Beard Brewing Co. at 1401 Sam Rittenburg Blvd. in Charleston. The town hall is open to the public and free to attend.

The organization is led by Asheton Reid, Sheila Merck and Kynn Tribble, whose insurance rates at Tribble’s Bar & Grill in the Upstate have skyrocketed in recent years. In May, SC Venue Crisis held its first town hall meeting at Tribble’s to solicit support from other business owners.

“All of our town halls that are open to the public are a way to rally help and get people to contact their representatives,” Reid said. “The team and I have been putting a lot of foot to pavement to make sure everyone is aware of this issue statewide.”

The problem, the group contends, stems from a 2017 law, Senate 116, that requires all bars, restaurants and venues that serve alcohol after 5 p.m. to carry a $1 million liability insurance policy. Six years after the bill was signed into law, insurers are paying out two dollars for every dollar they collect for liquor liability due to a rise in civil lawsuits, said Russ Dubisky, executive director of the South Carolina Insurance Association.

In South Carolina, personal injury and wrongful death lawsuits involving alcohol can have a defendant who is found to be only 1 percent responsible paying the entire verdict. As a result, as many as 14 insurance carriers have stopped writing liquor liability policies in South Carolina over the last six years.

The insurers that do write South Carolina policies have raised their rates significantly. Recovery Room owner Chris DiMattia, who is helping the SC Venue Crisis drum up support for the Charleston town hall, says his rates have increased by 400 percent since 2016.

“It’s still going up, and my other bars are going up,” said DiMattia, who also owns Bangkok Lounge and Lucky Luchador. “You’re going to lose your nightlife scene in South Carolina. You lose the nightlife, that’s going to be a big hit to the tourism dollar.”

Some establishments, including Smiley’s Acoustic Café in Greenville, have been unable to afford the rising liquor liability rates. Smiley’s permanently closed its doors at 111 Augusta St. in July.

Multiple statehouse bills could offer some relief to South Carolina establishments. The SC Justice Act, for instance, would ensure businesses are only required to pay damages equivalent to their share of fault in civil lawsuits. The SC Venue Crisis is asking South Carolina residents to contact state lawmakers to show their support for this legislation.

Leaders of the group say the situation is more urgent than the general public may realize, and more businesses could close before lawmakers return to Columbia in January.

The National Weather Service issued a heat advisory for Charleston County for today from noon to 7 p.m. Heat indices are expected to reach 110 degrees along the U.S. Highway 17 corridor, with other parts of the Lowcountry remaining nearly as hot.

Lowcountry residents should take extra precautions to prevent heat- and weather-related illnesses and deaths, as WCBD-TV reported three-weather related deaths in Dorchester County since the end of 2022.

The National Weather Service urged people to drink plenty of fluids, stay in an air-conditioned space and stay out of the sun. People who work or spend time outside should take extra precautions:

Meanwhile as the Lowcountry struggles with sweltering heat, the Farmers’ Almanac looks ahead to the winter, predicting a “shivery, wet and slushy” season for the southeastern region of the United States. Stay cool now; keep warm later.

Also in the news today:

CP NEWS: Charleston Co. ranks 3rd in Atlantic hurricane vulnerability study. South Carolina and Florida dominated the list of most vulnerable counties for hurricanes along the Atlantic coast in a new study by Gutter Gnome. Charleston County ranked third overall among counties most at risk.

CP FOOD: Kultura proves Filipino is here to stay in Charleston. Charleston chef Nikko Cagalanan, known for Filipino pop-up Mansueta’s, opened his first brick-and-mortar in downtown Charleston, serving Filipino food to the masses.

S.C. lawmakers study cost, collaboration opportunities to give free meals for K-12 students. South Carolina lawmakers are exploring the expense of offering free meals to all K-12 students statewide by looking at how to maximize various nutrition programs funded by the federal government to feed more students, while increasing collaborations with local farmers.

Nightly lane closures set for Glenn McConnell Pkwy. Charleston County Public Works will be working on the eastbound inside travel lane and select left turn lanes from Bees Ferry Road to Magwood Drive along Glenn McConnell Parkway. Closures begin at 7 p.m. and the lanes will reopen by 6 a.m through August 16.

Charleston to hear public input in downtown road safety plan. The South Carolina Department of Transportation identified downtown Charleston as having four of the top ten most dangerous roadways in the state. The audit has prompted Charleston leaders to gather feedback from the public to help make changes to the dangerous roads and intersections. Meanwhile, Charleston cycling advocates push for a bike lane proposal on King Street.

Charleston Beerfest returns in September. Charleston Beerfest will return to North Charleston in September, with over 60 breweries from North and South Carolina and Georgia set to participate. The festival will feature a vendor village and musical performances from the Grammy-award-winning Rebirth Brass Band.

Charleston hosts 20th First Day Festival. The city of Charleston will host its 20th annual First Day Festival to hand out school supplies 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday at the Gaillard Center and the South Carolina Aquarium.

New buildings coming to Charleston’s downtown historic district. Two mixed-use buildings in historic districts are coming to downtown Charleston near the intersection of Meeting Street and Horlbeck Alley at the old Days Inn site and on King Street near the I-26 overpass. However, some members of the community are worried about the new buildings, citing concerns of the volume of the building compared to others and lack of design coordination with neighboring properties.

New Charleston restaurants opening this month, later this year. The Habit, offering American cuisine with an international flavor, officially opens Aug. 10 on East Bay St. Meanwhile, Woodhaven Pizza is slated to open in Mount Pleasant and Sweatman’s Garden is slated to open in the old Florence’s Lowcountry Kitchen location in the South Windermere Shopping Center.

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