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Fresh off an appearance with Fox News, Republican Congresswoman-elect Nancy Mace talks to us by phone as she heads to Washington, D.C. for orientation to serve South Carolina's first congressional district.

"It still feels a little surreal," says Mace.  "We made possible what so many said was going to be impossible to do."

This episode of the South Carolina Lede for November 21, 2020, features recommendations from state leaders on how to have a safe Thanksgiving, plans for rapid testing in schools, the latest South Carolina unemployment and jobs numbers, and much more.

Picture the stereotypical army drill sergeant we've seen on television and movies for decades:  screaming, ranting, cruel, hounding recruits until they're ready to break.   These abusive images once reflected most drill sergeants, but in the 21st century, that image and behavior is rapidly fading.  

When Kati Durkee got a sore throat, she went to the pharmacy.

A week later, she found out that it wasn't a cold. Or allergies. And that food poisoning that settled in, that wasn't food poisoning either. 

A week later still, Durkee's son (Durkee has a son in 11th grade and a daughter in 10th, but did not want their names in this story) got what she had -- COVID-19. 

"We were not the two-week people," she says. 

There were bouts of dizziness, migraines, tachycardia, and extreme fatigue. 

This episode of the South Carolina Lede for November 17, 2020 features: a continued look into the 2020 election with two of South Carolina's top political science professors; insight from one of the country’s most outspoken voices on anti-racism, Prof. Ibram X. Kendi, director of the Center for Antiracist Research at Boston University; a profile of one restaurant chain growing amid the pandemic; and more.

Lindsey Graham won the most watched (and expensive) U.S. Senate race of the year. By a lot. He wasn’t supposed to. Not by a lot, anyway. Not if you paid attention to public opinion polls leading up to the election. Most polls gave him the odds, but not big odds.

Some polls even gave his challenger, Democrat Jamie Harrison, a slight chance to unseat him.

When Gov. Henry McMaster suspended Chester County Sheriff Alex Underwood due to federal corruption charges last year, he appointed Max Dorsey in his place. That touched off a long and complicated story that involved, among other things, Underwood vying to keep his seat on the 2020 ballot.

Eighteen months after assuming the office by appointment, Dorsey got his election victory. He won the sheriff's race by a nearly two-to-one margin and in the process became the county's first elected Republican sheriff since about the time Abraham Lincoln was the party's main face.

On this episode of the South Carolina Lede for November 10, 2020, features: the latest on presidential election, including comments from Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Majority Whip Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC); a look at Pfizer's promising COVID-19 vaccine; an update from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell on the health of the US economy; and more.

As the COVID pandemic continues, it also continues to alter virtually every aspect of life and work in South Carolina as well as the nation.  For some, working at home or wearing a mask to the store is a minor inconvenience.  For others, however, the isolation of working from home, or sometimes the worry of unemployment or other stressors can be major traumas and have catastrophic results, including suicide.