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Bruce Smith

North Main Street in Waterbury, Vt., is underwater in the wake of tropical storm Irene on Monday, August 29, 2011. Almost 50,000 Vermont utility customers were without power Monday, hundreds of roads were closed and a number of bridges destroyed by the "epic" flooding caused by by the remnants of Hurricane Irene. (AP Photo/Burlington Free Press, Glenn Russell)

Irene cleanup could take days along East Coast

Bruce Smith, Tom Breen The Associated Press

Last updated Monday, August 29, 2011 - 9:52am

WILMINGTON, N.C. -- With Irene gone, cleanup crews began pumping water out of soggy subway tunnels, fixing traffic lights in the nation's capital and clearing debris from hundreds of roads as the East Coast readied for the workweek. While early indications were that the damage was not as bad as feared, it will be days before things get back to normal in many places.

More than 4 million homes and businesses along the coast still did not have power Sunday. Roads were impassable because of high water, fallen trees and downed power lines. And while the full extent of the damage was not known, early estimates put it in the billions of dollars.

Hurricane, Hurricane Irene, Severe weather, National Read more Comments

In a Thursday, Aug. 18, 2011 photo, pastor Dale Richardson awaits a bond hearing in Summerville, S.C. Richardson is charged with sexually assaulting three women. A magistrate denied bond Thursday for Richardson. (AP Photo/Bruce Smith)

Preacher accused of raping women behind church

Bruce Smith The Associated Press

Last updated Monday, August 22, 2011 - 9:58am

LADSON, S.C. -- Dale Richardson was saved at a tent revival 32 years ago, was called to preach the Lord's word in 2006 and, for the past year, had served as pastor at Freedom Free Will Baptist Church, a modest red brick structure on a South Carolina side road running along a railroad track.

Now he's in jail, charged with kidnapping and raping three women at gunpoint -- two of them in a trailer behind the church -- and kidnapping a fourth who was not sexually assaulted.

Crime, Religion, National, Rape Read more Comments

(ALICE KEENEY/The Associated Press) Reenactors fire mortars from the Pitt Street Bridge toward Fort Sumter to commemorate the moment the first shots of the Civil War were fired 150 years ago in Charleston, S.C. on Tuesday.

The cost of unity: 150 years later, America remembers the start of the Civil War

Bruce Smith, The Associated Press

Last updated Tuesday, April 12, 2011 - 9:10pm

CHARLESTON, S.C. -- Booming cannons, plaintive period music and hushed crowds ushered in the 150th anniversary of America's bloodiest war on Tuesday, a commemoration that continues to underscore a racial divide that had plagued the nation since before the Civil War.

The events marked the 150th anniversary of the Confederate bombardment of Union-held Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, an engagement that plunged the nation into four years of war at a cost of more than 600,000 lives.

Several hundred people gathered on Charleston's Battery in the pre-dawn darkness, much as Charleston residents gathered 150 years ago to view the bombardment of April 12, 1861.

Civil War, National Government, News, US Civil War, US History, Featured, History Read more Comments

Cruise line: 350 sick aboard ship in Caribbean

Bruce Smith The Associated Press

Last updated Tuesday, February 23, 2010 - 11:54am

CHARLESTON, S.C. -- About 350 people who got sick a week into a Caribbean cruise were responding well to medicine, the cruise line said Tuesday.

Business, Health, Travel Read more Comments

SC first lady files for divorce from cheating gov

Bruce Smith The Associated Press

Last updated Friday, December 11, 2009 - 2:21pm

CHARLESTON, S.C. -- South Carolina's first lady, a former Wall Street vice president who helped launch her husband's political career, filed for divorce Friday more than five months after his tearful public confession of an affair with an Argentine woman.

Politics, National Read more Comments

SC first lady: I wouldn't have stood with governor

Bruce Smith The Associated Press

Last updated Tuesday, December 8, 2009 - 2:53pm

CHARLESTON, S.C. -- Even if her straying husband had asked her to, South Carolina first lady Jenny Sanford says she wouldn't have stood with Gov. Mark Sanford when he faced cameras to tell the world about his affair with an Argentine woman.

Politics, National Read more Comments

Pilot sought after 2 F-16s collide off SC coast

Bruce Smith

Last updated Saturday, October 17, 2009 - 12:44am

CHARLESTON, S.C. -- Crews searched more than 750 square miles of the Atlantic on Friday for an F-16 fighter pilot whose plane hit another fighter mid-air during night training exercises off the South Carolina coast.

F-16 Jets, Accident, Military, National Read more Comments