Charleston Currents – Commission

GOOD NEWS: USS Charleston to be commissioned March 2

Staff reports | The Columbus Street Terminal in Charleston will host a March 2 commissioning of the new USS Charleston (LCS 18), an Independence-class littoral combat ship built in Mobile, Ala.

The $440 million ship is a state-of-the-art trimaran designed to go into shallow waters that other ships can’t. Awarded in December 2010, the ship was named by then-Navy Secretary Ray Mabus in January 2015 with Charlotte Riley, wife of former Mayor Joe Riley, serving as the ship’s sponsor. Launched in September 2017, the 418-foot ship with a speed of 44 knots (50.6 mph) was delivered in August 2018. It will be homeported in San Diego, Calif.

by Charleston Currents · 12/31/2018 · Comments are Disabled · Good news, News briefs

BRACK: S.C. should buy new voting machines now

By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | State legislators should be demanding, in the loudest possible voices, that our state acquire new voting machines now to assure citizens their votes count. To do otherwise would give a silent nod to a state and national political culture marked by unacceptable levels of spineless do-nothingness.

A call for new machines is not to suggest South Carolina’s 13,000 touchscreen machines don’t work. They do. They’re safe, as we’ve written in the past. But they’re old and past their lifespan.