September is Prostate Cancer Awareness Month. South Caroline lies in the middle for the number of newly diagnosed cases of prostate cancer each year, but it has one of the highest death rates from the disease. That’s according to Dr. Mark Merlin of RC Cancer Centers of Atlanta. Merlin appeared in Lexington recently speaking before a “Men with Purpose Group” about the importance of the early diagnosis of the disease. Merlin says the dispartiy of the disease between African American and Caucasion males is significant.

Merlin says there are many factors that are presumed to lead to advanced prostate cancer for all men regardless of race. Merlin says challenges to early detection include lack of screening, lack of awareness of options, and patients not getting into the healthcare system soon enough.

Merlin says the main message is that men need to get tested annually because prostate cancer can be treated successfully if detected early. Testing options are predicated primarily on a man’s age, race, and family health history.

Merlin says apprehension, fear, and lack of time are the primary reasons men don’t get screened periodically for the disease.

 AUDIO: Dr Merlin says ealry detection is key to successfully treating prostate cancer 1:55

A local festival billed as a “generation-to-generation” event in South Carolina’s Atlantic Beach has recently undergone changes that officials say brings back a time and place that was once enjoyed by generations gone by.

Atlantic Beach Reunion, a brand new event, has been joined with the Gullah Geechee Festival, now in its eighth year.  Together they’re being held Saturday and Sunday, September 4 and 5.

The Atlantic Beach Town Manager William Booker says they are ready to show off their community.

We just want to invite people back to the beach to see some of the changes that have occured. We’re going to recreate some of the things that existed back in its heyday.  We’re going to have some food vendors and some entertainment for the kids, and of course, we have the beach!

Booker says they’re working hard to position Atlantic Beach as a Gullah Geechee site.

The U.S. Congress has designated that area from Jacksonville, Florida, to Jacksonville, North Carolina, as a Gullah Heritage Trail, and plans are to place various heritage sites along that path.  And the hope is that Atlantic Beach can be selected as one of those sites.

When some people think of good times at the beach, dancing comes to mind. Booker says that they’ll be celebrating the re-creation of what was once a local institution of Atlantic Beach:  Punk’s Patio.

Punk’s Patio is basically a dance floor with color, where people in the day, back in the day, used to go. There were several patios. Punk’s Patio. And it’s really basically a dance hall.

Booker says there’s a lot to see and do during the weekend celebration.

For those who used to come to Atlantic Beach, they’re all invited back. For those who never came because they weren’t here, because of the social environment in the day when Atlantic Beach was in its heyday, you’re also invited. So everyone’s invited.  Bring the family. We got the beach, we got activities on the beach, activites on the town, we’re looking to have a good time.

After the last wave of state budget cuts cost teacher jobs and grew the size of some classrooms, financial help would be appreciated by any South Carolina schools.

Spartanburg Charter School is vying for half a million dollars through a competition on the Facebook internet social network. Anyone can vote for the school online, but only until 12:59 a.m. Saturday. The Spartanburg school was ranked 20th in the nation and is the only South Carolina school in the top 100.

It’s sponsored by Kohl’s department stores. Facebook users can connect to The Kohl’s Cares for Kids contest.  Information is also available on the education department’s website.  The school has already received more than 112,000 votes.

Clay Eaton, director of special programs for the South Carolina Public Charter School District, says charter schools in South Carolina are in a statewide charter school district and it receives the least funding of all charter schools in the nation.

In this state we don’t have “backpacking” where the money follows the child.  We don’t do that here meaning that when a child goes to a charter school the funding stays in the district that child came from.

Eaton says Spartanburg Charter School survives on per-student funding which is one third of the state average and one fourth of the national average.

Eaton says Spartanburg Charter is competing largely against private schools and is one of only 20 public schools in the competition.

AUDIO: Eaton on school competition (1:00)

Eaton says a group of Spartanburg County parents took an old school building that was built in the 1930s and refurbished it using much of their own money to open a public charter school in 2009.

Spartanburg Charter School currently serves 300 students and would use the prize money to renovate the second floor of the school to add more grades for next year.

The South Carolina Forestry Commission sent out an alert today to residents and visitors in all counties of especially favorable conditions for wildfires this weekend due to dry conditions and increased outdoor activity.

Fire Chief for the State Forestry Commission Darryl Jones explains the facilitating weather conditions:

In the wake of the hurricane Earl coming through, we do have low relative humidity, and we’ve kind of gotten in a dry period, so that means a lot our fuels–the things where wildfires start, straw and grass–are really dry.

What makes this weekend particularly liable for wildfire ignition is holiday activity: Labor Day bonfires, football season grilling, firecrackers–all of which provide more opportunities for wildfires to start.

Jones says the best precautionary measure would be to postpone any outdoor burning plans because of the weather conditions. However, if burning is inevitable, Jones says you must notify the Forest Commission when and where you’re burning.

You have to have a fire break around it. You have to have some kind of equipment there–a water hose or a tractor or two–help you keep the fire from escaping. And you need to stay with the fire, and just make sure somebody is there supervising that fire the whole time.

Recent budget cuts have also reduced the Forest Commission’s capacity. “The fire may get a little bigger before we can get there, just because we have fewer people to respond.”

Aging firefighting “dozers” also worry Jones.

The older the equipment it is, the less reliable it is, and we just haven’t had funds in the last three to four years to replace the end of these tractors. So, about half of our fleet or so is beyond the 15-year replacement cycle.

Jones says firefighters are doing their job, but people do need to be particularly careful starting fires this holiday weekend.

A group appointed to help fix the way the state taxes it citizens is getting closer to the end of its work. The South Carolina Tax Realignment Commission was appointed by state government to study and make suggestions to improve a tax code that has been described as antiquated.

Charles Way, a former South Carolina Secretary of Commerce and now a major resort developer, says he has been pleased with what TRAC has done so far. “I think we have tried to be very, very open and transparent and I think that we have been,” says Way.

At the meeting, Way told commissioners that he thought they would have heard from more of the industries to be affected by tax changes. He mentioned car dealers in particular as not having weighed in during this study committee process.

TRAC Commissioner Don Weaver, a realtor, says they did not hear from the service sector, who under their proposal, would be subject to taxes for the first time. Review list of services to be taxed

Weaver says, “I was a little disappointed that they (the subcommittee) had not heard testimony and that we, the whole committee had not heard from the service industries.”  He says if service providers mobilize a lobbying effort, it will most likely focus on legislators when the issue comes up in early 2011.

Weaver was the lone “no” vote on the sales tax plan, because of its taxes on residential utilities. “We are already taxing two necessities, groceries and gasoline and to add two more, water and electricity. That was my main concern,” he says.

The commission Thursday moved forward on approving a sales tax plan lowering the overall rate to five percent and eliminating sales tax exemptions on dozens of industries. The plan also puts back into place a grocery tax at 2.95 percent.

The commission passed two recommended options for a fuel tax: a general five cent increase or one that adjusts with the cost of fuel.  Both options will be capped, says Commissioner Kenneth Cosgrove, so that South Carolina’s rate would always be lower than North Carolina’s.  “So that no matter what the price of fuel does, we will not allow the tax to go over 29.9 cents and the key there is that it keep us underneath the floor of North Carolina’s tax,” Cosgrove explains.

The committee members also suggested, but did not formally recommend, that lawmakers look at ways to tax alternative fuel. Federal and state lawmakers, as well as business interests,  have been more outspoken in the past few weeks about the need for road repairs throughout South Carolina. The fuel tax would apply to those fixes.

TRAC next takes up individual income taxes and property taxes.

The state legislature will have consider the recommendations and decide how to act on them–when the new session begins in January. Even members of the commission say that major reform is not likely.

“They may do 20 percent of what we recommend,” says Weaver, “but that’s a start.”

If you vote in November, you’ll see gubernatorial candidate Morgan Bruce Reeves name listed on the ballot twice, under both the Green Party and the United Citizens Party.

South Carolina Election Commission spokesman Chris Whitmire explains that doubling up on the ballot is allowed. It’s called “fusion voting.”

How that works is that a candidate may be nominated by more than one political party. If they are they go on the ballot twice, once for each party. When the votes are totaled, if the addition of two sets of votes would result in a candidate winning, then they win.

Whitmire says while there is no section of law addressing the practice, there is no state or federal law against it, either.

There’s no prohibition against being nominated more than once. State law doesn’t address fusion law directly. So basically the law doesn’t say you can’t do this, so by default you can.

Whitmire says any votes a candidate receives counts toward a win.

If a candidate needed the total votes to win an election, we would report that as a total. But normally you would see that candidate listed twice, with each party’s totals under the candidate’s name.

Triple-A Carolinas predicted on Wednesday that Labor Day travel in the state would go up by 7.7 percent this year. The report estimated 32-thousand more South Carolina residents would drive at least 50 miles or more this weekend than at the same time last year. The group also reported a 26 percent increase in the number of travel bookings for the weekend. They say more than 92 percent of travelers would drive to their weekend destinations.

If you have plans to be at the beaches over the Labor Day weekend, forecasters say Sunday and Monday will be the best days for a dip in the ocean.

Public safety officials are urging people to stay out of the water along the South Carolina coast through much of the weekend to avoid dangerous rip currents caused by Hurricane Earl. The Myrtle Beach Sun News reports that hotels are receiving many calls about their cancellation policies, but few visitors have used them so far.

The Tea Party movement, earlier labeled by U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham as unsustainable, has focused its anger and energy toward Graham whose is not up for re-election until 2014.  Graham has been criticized by members of the Tea Party and other conservative groups as being a liberal.  They cite his efforts to work with democrats for compromises on issues like immigration and health care, and his vote to confirm Obama nominee Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court. Graham met with Tea Party members in Charleston Thursday night to listen to their concerns and to drive home the point that he is still very much a conservative. Clemson Political Science Professor David Woodard says Thursday night’s meeting and any subsequent meetings with Tea Party members indicate that Graham now sees the Tea Party as a force to be reckoned with.

Woodard suspects that Graham got a “wake up call” on the growing power and influence of the Tea Party after one of his South Carolina GOP congressional colleagues, 4th District Congressman Bob Inglis, was soundly defeated in the Republican primary by South Carolina 7th Circuit Solicitor Trey Gowdy.

Following Thursday night’s meeting that was closed to media microphones and cameras, Graham told Charleston’s WCBD-TV that his message to Tea Party members is that he is a conservative, but he realizes that the strength of the country is compromise, finding common ground. Woodard considers Graham a very skilled politician and he thinks that his skills will be put to a stringent test as he attempts to lay out his positions on various issues to Tea Party members.

Graham said he wanted the meeting closed to media recording devices so that people would be more comfortable and open to express their views and ask questions. Woodard says from a politically strategic standpoint, Graham’s move to approach the Tea Party is a prudent one.

AUDIO: Woodard says Graham’s communicating with the Tea Party shows he has tremendous confidence in his political skills 2:01

Congressman Joe Wilson’s government-funded travel spending is being called into question by the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) as it enforces its new role on Capitol Hill.  A handful of lawmakers from both parties are reportedly under scrutiny by the House Ethics Committee at the urging of OCE.

At issue for Wilson is approximately $12 spent on small goblet souvenirs at $1.66 each for South Carolina servicemen in Afghanistan during one of his congressional delegation (CODEL) visits there. In an email sent to supporters, Wilson’s campaign manager shows the item and explains the reasons for purchasing.

AUDIO: Congressman Wilson explains his spending procedures, says items that he buys that are personal, he pays for with his money (2:23)

Wilson’s opponent Rob Miller introduced the topic of per diem tracking as a major part of his platform in late July. He calls Wilson’s recent trip to the Afghanistan war zone a “junket”  and documents sent to SCRN by the Miller campaign accuse Wilson of “misusing hundreds of thousands of taxpayer money for his personal use.”  Wilson responds that CODEL trips are important in his role on the House Armed Services Committee.

AUDIO: Wilson stands by visits with the troops (:28)

Wilson says his per diem for Afghanistan was $13 a day for canteen purchases at the embassy. Various Washington, D.C.  media outlets report that other lawmakers under scrutiny are Rep. G.K. Butterfield (D-NC), Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-FL), Rep. Solomon Ortiz (D-TX), Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-AL) and former Rep. Mark Souder (R-IN).  See how the process works.

When OCE sends the complaint to the House Ethics Committee, that marks the second phase of the review, which is then completed in 45 days.

The issue was broached by a March article in the Wall Street Journal in which Wilson mentioned the goblet purchase. In a follow-up article this past Wednesday, the WSJ reports that the probe began after the story was published.

Tracking this activity is difficult, as few records and no receipts have been required for per diem stipends.

Senator Lindsey Graham spoke with about 150 Charleston Tea Party members Wednesday at the North Charleston City Hall. One member, Charles Early, says Graham had some good things to say, but-

Bottom line is when he said he doesn’t believe in the Constitution of the United States, I’m done. We have nothing else to talk about at that point because that sets up the parameter by which we are going to deal with things and run this country.

Overall, Senator Graham says he was pleased with the outcome of the meeting– a meeting with NO media allowed.

 There’s an element of the media out there that wants to make the Tea Party people and anybody who has a strong opinion about a controversial topic look less than flattering. I think the people at the meeting were very respectful, had good questions. We had good exchanges. Sometimes they agreed, sometimes they didn’t.

These exchanges were after Graham actually kicked members of the media out, after they arrived uninvited. Early gives his thoughts:

I believe he pushed the media out and made a big deal out of it to appear to be one with us.

But, that’s not what Graham says.

A lot of people feel intimidated at big meetings, and some people don’t want to be on the front page of the newspaper or on TV asking a question or giving me a piece of their mind.

It was a piece of Graham’s mind that Early didn’t want to hear.

And so what he is basically saying: ‘We have the right to do whatever we want to do in Washington D.C. and you’re just going to have to live with it because we are smarter than the founders of this country and we see things differently from what they saw.

Early says he left with questions:

What are we following? What game are we playing? Are we in Lindsey-ville? Where are we? If there are no rules to the game, I don’t know how to play. He (Graham) said the Tea Party is a bunch of angry people and we need to turn anger into policies or whatever else.

An Anderson county station is one of seven coal-fired power plants that may close in five years, a major utility says. In its annual planning document, Duke Energy told the North Carolina Utilities Commission it might have to close seven coal-fired units within five years, due to tough new environmental regulations.

The utility said it would cost less to ”retire” the plants than to install new sulphur oxide controls, called scrubbers. The news comes as federal regulators are expected to stiffen limits on the pollutants that can form smog and acid rain. New rules on coal ash and mercury emissions are also anticipated.

One of the affected plants is the Lee Steam Station in Anderson County. Duke said all seven plants would be shut within five years, but it’s thinking of converting Lee from coal into natural gas fuel. Natural gas is cleaner and the letter estimates its cost to go down as new deposits are discovered.

Four other plants were already scheduled to close, but Duke added Lee to the list Wednesday, along with two more stations in North Carolina.

Duke Energy Status Report