Electricians in York, SC

COLUMBIA, S.C. – PDM US, a manufacturer of pre-insulated copper pipes, today announced plans to expand operations and establish its world headquarters in York County. The company’s $18.5 million investment will create 25 new jobs.

PDM US is a leading global pipe manufacturer and copper tube supplier. The company’s Rock Hill operations serve as its main production facility and will now also serve as its world headquarters. PDM US specializes in innovating, manufacturing and delivering quality pre-insulated copper pipes for the heating, ventilation, air conditioning and refrigeration (HVAC/R) industry. Today, the company is one of the fastest growing companies in the HVAC industry.

Located at 640 Celriver Road in Rock Hill, PDM US plans to expand its current state-of-the-art production facility with an additional 19,999 square feet. The company is upfitting its facility with large generators, a mezzanine, extensive cooling systems, reinforced concrete foundations, and other required modifications to support new casting and drawing equipment. The expansion will allow PDM US to cast copper tubing in-house at the Rock Hill facility, using only American-made parts for production. When complete, PDM US will be the only fully integrated insulated copper tube manufacturer in the United States.

The expansion is expected to be complete by April 2023. Individuals interested in joining the PDM US team should visit the company’s careers page.

The Coordinating Council for Economic Development awarded a $50,000 Set-Aside grant to York County to assist with the costs of infrastructure improvements.

QUOTES

“We are thrilled to announce the completion of our most recent investment in the Rock Hill, S.C. plant. With the expansion and cutting-edge machinery for the manufacture of copper tubes, PDM will be the only fully integrated insulated copper tube manufacturer in the U.S.! The new process is elegant, innovative and gentle on the planet. Thanks to South Carolina’s favorable industrial environment, we have been able to become a magnet for people who bring their precious gifts to a place where values, vitality and strengths are welcomed and appreciated. All together we are writing a page in the book of the American industry. The best is yet to come!” -PDM US President and Chief Executive OfficerPasquale De Martino

“Today’s announcement is further proof that manufacturers are seeing the benefits of doing business in South Carolina. We celebrate PDM US’ expansion and appreciate their commitment to our state.” -Gov. Henry McMaster

“After almost a decade in the York County business community, it’s exciting to see PDM US expand operations and establish their world headquarters. South Carolina continues to attract businesses that are eager to expand, and our state provides a great foundation for that growth. We congratulate PDM US on their success in the state and look forward to continuing our long-standing partnership.” -Secretary of Commerce Harry M. Lightsey III

“On behalf of York County, we congratulate PDM US on their announcement today. We couldn’t be more pleased that they chose to grow here in South Carolina. We are proud to see this global manufacturer expand its footprint, bringing additional valuable jobs and investment into our county and state.” -York County Council Chairwoman Christi Cox

“PDM US is a valuable partner in sustaining manufacturing jobs in Rock Hill. Expanding its plant to include American parts for production and creating additional opportunities for employment for our people is a testament to the strength of our local economy and our workforce. We look forward to the successful completion of this expansion and the continued growth of the business.” -City of Rock Hill Mayor John Gettys

FIVE FAST FACTS

YORK COUNTY, S.C. — What started as TikTok videos for a York County teen is taking him to the Golden State as a contestant on "American Idol."

Aiden Adair, a 19-year-old from Clover, is a chef at a senior living center in Charleston. In recent years, though, he's become somewhat of a social media celebrity thanks to his golden voice.

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On Sunday night, Adair received the golden ticket and congratulations from "American Idol" judges Luke Bryan, Katy Perry and Lionel Richie. The Clover High School grad says while he's always loved singing, it was his TikTok followers that pushed him to audition.

According to the Post and Courier, Adair almost backed out of the audition but got over his cold feet on the last day.

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To make sure people's wallets aren't poached, some have turned to buying chickens, raising them, and getting eggs the old-fashioned way.

YORK, S.C. — Egg prices continue to leave shoppers baffled, so some have turned to find a different solution -- raising their own chickens.

At the Carmichael Farm in York, South Carolina, it's been a full scramble. You know the saying, "Don't count your chickens before they hatch?" Crystal Carmichael is having to disregard that.

"So far we're booked out until mid-April," Carmichael said. "Every egg in my incubator is already pre-sold. The order I just put in is 96 eggs.”

Egg prices are skyrocketing. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, they are up over 70% from last year.

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So to make sure people's wallets aren't poached, some have turned to buying chickens, raising them, and getting eggs the old-fashioned way.

“This time of year, normally we don’t hatch as many because the demand is really not that high, we actually close the incubator down to hatch emus because chicks aren't really a thing in the weather -- but now with the whole egg industry, it’s booming," Carmichael said.

She cranks out over 200 eggs a week.

“Ours range from $8 up to $30 a chick," Carmichael said.

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Swetha Kolli is among the first-time chicken buyers. She said with how egg prices are, this was a no-brainer.

“I know it’s already doubled," Kolli said. “I just go in the coup, get the eggs right then and there... and then we cook it and I even share all the eggs with my neighbors.”

While the demand is high and it's a mad rush, Carmichael said her business is on the sunny side.

A new study is the first step in an effort to understand how exposure to chronic, low-level radiation has affected the area’s dogs.

After the disaster at the nuclear power plant in Chernobyl, Ukraine, in 1986, local residents were forced to permanently evacuate, leaving behind their homes and, in some cases, their pets. Concerned that these abandoned animals might spread disease or contaminate humans, officials tried to exterminate them.

And yet, a population of dogs somehow endured. They found fellowship with Chernobyl cleanup crews, and the power plant workers who remained in the area sometimes gave them food. (In recent years, adventurous tourists have dispensed handouts, too.)

Today, hundreds of free-ranging dogs live in the area around the site of the disaster, known as the exclusion zone. They roam through the abandoned city of Pripyat and bed down in the highly contaminated Semikhody train station.

Now, scientists have conducted the first deep dive into the animals’ DNA. The dogs of Chernobyl are genetically distinct, different from purebred canines as well as other groups of free-breeding dogs, the scientists reported Friday in Science Advances.

It remains too soon to say whether, or how, the radioactive environment has contributed to the unique genetic profiles of the dogs of Chernobyl, the scientists said. But the study is the first step in an effort to understand not only how long-term radiation exposure has affected the dogs but also what it takes to survive an environmental catastrophe.

“Do they have mutations that they’ve acquired that allow them to live and breed successfully in this region?” said Elaine Ostrander, a dog genomics expert at the National Human Genome Research Institute and a senior author of the study. “What challenges do they face and how have they coped genetically?”

Before the researchers could tackle these questions, however, they had to get the lay of the canine landscape.

“You have this region where there’s different levels of radioactivity, there’s dogs living everywhere,” Dr. Ostrander said. “We had to know who was who and what was what before we could begin our hunt for these critical mutations.”

The project is a collaboration among scientists in the United States, Ukraine and Poland, as well as the Clean Futures Fund, a nonprofit based in the United States that works in Chernobyl. The nonprofit, which was established in 2016, began as an effort to provide health care and support to the power plant employees, who still work in the exclusion zone.

But the organization soon realized that Chernobyl’s canine residents needed help, too. Although the dog population boomed during the summer, it often crashed in the winter, when food became scarce. Rabies was an ongoing concern.

In 2017, the Clean Futures Fund began holding veterinary clinics for the local dogs, providing care, administering vaccines, and spaying and neutering the animals. The researchers piggybacked on these clinics to collect blood samples from 302 dogs living in different locations in and around the exclusion zone.

Nearly half of the dogs lived in the immediate vicinity of the power plant, while the other half lived in Chernobyl City, a lightly occupied residential area about nine miles away. (A small number of samples came from dogs in Slavutych, a city built for evacuated power plant workers, nearly 30 miles away.)

Although there was some overlap between the canine populations, in general, the power plant dogs were genetically distinct from the Chernobyl City dogs, the researchers found. There appeared to be little gene flow between the two groups, suggesting that they rarely interbred. (Physical security barriers around the power plant may have helped keep the dogs apart, the researchers noted.)

“I was completely surprised by the near total differentiation between the two populations, the fact that they’ve existed really in relative isolation for quite some time,” said Timothy Mousseau, a biologist at the University of South Carolina and the other senior author of the study.

The researchers also traced kin relationships, connecting parents and offspring to identify 15 different family groups. Some dog families were large and sprawling, while others were tiny, with more defined geographic territories. Three family groups shared a storage facility for spent nuclear fuel, the scientists found.

“I don’t think anybody has looked at a single, free-breeding dog population genetically at this level of detail before,” said Adam Boyko, a canine geneticist at the Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine, who was not involved in the research.

The study will be a good starting point for further investigation of the effects of radiation, Dr. Boyko added. “They find where the interesting populations are,” he said, “where the interesting family groups are.”

The power plant dogs and the Chernobyl City dogs had mixed breed ancestry, but both shared stretches of DNA with German shepherds, as well as other Eastern European shepherd breeds. The dogs from Chernobyl City also had variants that are common in boxers and Rottweilers.

These segments of shepherd DNA might yield particularly useful data in future studies, the scientists said. Comparing these sequences from the power plant dogs, the Chernobyl City dogs and purebred shepherds living in nonradioactive environments might help the researchers identify radiation-related changes in the genome.

“This is a unique opportunity,” Dr. Mousseau said, “a unique population of animals.”

St. Louis, a city with a rich soccer history dating back more than a century, will finally get its Major League Soccer team this year. But to watch it, and the league’s other 28 teams, armchair supporters will have to make the transition from television to streaming, whether they like it or not.

Here’s what is happening with M.L.S. in 2023.

What’s new?

For the seventh straight season, M.L.S. is expanding. St. Louis City S.C. will be the league’s 29th team — a total that may grow in the next few months — and play in a new stadium downtown, Citypark.

St. Louis had long been a target for expansion; the city had a pioneering professional soccer league in the early 1900s and N.A.S.L., indoor and minor league teams more recently. But previous efforts all failed, torpedoed either by inadequate financing or, in 2017, a public referendum in which voters rejected a plan to finance a stadium for an expansion franchise.

Even when St. Louis did finally get a team, its debut was put on hold for a year because of delays brought on by the coronavirus pandemic. Now, though, the team that M.L.S. and St. Louis fans have long coveted is here.

The new team includes Roman Burki, a 32-year-old Swiss goalkeeper with seven years at Borussia Dortmund under his belt, and Klauss, a Brazilian striker. But if recent M.L.S. history is any indication (not you, Atlanta United), St. Louis City is likely to suffer typical expansion woes as it tries to build a winner.

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It may not be the lowest team on the M.L.S. totem pole for long, however: Commissioner Don Garber has made clear that the league’s expansion will not stop at 29. “We do need more teams,” Garber said this week in New York. A 30th franchise will be announced by the end of the year, he said, with San Diego and Las Vegas currently leading the contenders. Garber also cited Phoenix, Sacramento, Detroit and Tampa, Fla., as possibilities for further expansion in the near future.

What will Week 1 bring?

Thirteen games will be played on Saturday, starting with New York City F.C.’s visit to Nashville on Saturday afternoon. The big game comes later in the day: M.L.S. is expecting a crowd of more than 70,000 in the Rose Bowl on Saturday to watch the Los Angeles Galaxy, now playing second fiddle in the city they once ruled, take on the defending league champion, L.A.F.C.

The Philadelphia Union, which lost last season’s M.L.S. Cup championship game in an excruciating manner, will kick off against Columbus at home. And Atlanta United, which led the league in attendance again last season, expects another big crowd inside Mercedes-Benz Stadium for its opener against San Jose.

How can I watch?

M.L.S. is banking on its younger fan base’s familiarity with technology (and its aversion to traditional TV) as it moves the bulk of its games to Apple TV+ as part of a 10-year, $2.5 billion broadcast contract.

For hard-core M.L.S. fans, that will mean a deluge of content: every game, including the playoffs and the Leagues Cup tournament with the Mexican league; English and Spanish broadcasts; a Red Zone-style whip-around show hitting the highlights of games as they happen; and no blackouts for out-of-market games.

The cost is $79 a year with an Apple TV+ subscription and $99 without, but several games each week will be broadcast free throughout the season.

As for traditional television, ESPN is out of the mix, as are all local broadcasts around the country. Fox and FS1 will broadcast roughly one game a week, part of a conscious effort to keep one foot in the traditional broadcasting world as the league dives headlong into something new. “We didn’t want to go cold turkey and shut it all down,” said Gary Stevenson, the league’s deputy commissioner.

Who is going to win the M.L.S. Cup?

The list of favorites has to start with L.A.F.C., which won the Supporters’ Shield with the best regular-season record last season and then added the M.L.S. Cup title, becoming the first team to pull off that double since Toronto F.C. in 2017. The Welsh star Gareth Bale, whose tenure was known for limited minutes and stunning goals, has retired, and the team’s top scorer, Cristian Arango, has moved to the Mexican league, so expect more of the load to fall on the club legend Carlos Vela, now 33.

Philadelphia had the same number of points as L.A.F.C. last season and a much better goal difference (plus-46 to plus-28), but it lost the Shield because it had fewer wins and then the final in the most agonizing way possible.

The Union are well equipped to find their way back. Andre Blake is the reigning goalkeeper of the year, Jakob Glesnes was last season’s defender of the year and Dániel Gazdag will again provide the goals.

Nashville should rely on last season’s league most valuable player, Hany Mukhtar, who led M.L.S. with 23 goals. After a shaky first season, Austin took a huge step forward by reaching the Cup semifinal last season and now will look to improve even more. Inter Miami was a .500 team last season, but it has added Josef Martínez, who had 98 goals in six years with Atlanta United. If he can regain his past scoring form, he makes any team a title contender.

The playoffs changed again. How will they work?

Expansion and playoff tinkering are two time-honored M.L.S. traditions, and this week the league announced yet another new postseason format. This season, 18 teams will make the playoffs, up from 14, and there will be a new play-in round for the lowest-ranked two in each conference. After four years of strictly one-and-done games, M.L.S. will introduce a best-of-three format for the round of 16. But the quarterfinals and beyond will revert to single-game eliminations. Confused? Here’s some supplemental reading with all the rules.

What about side competitions?

The Concacaf Champions League, the regional championship that was won by an M.L.S. team, the Seattle Sounders, for the first time in 22 years last season, begins in March with L.A.F.C., Philadelphia, Vancouver, Orlando and Austin participating. The two-legged final ends on June 4.

League games will be halted from mid-July to mid-August for an expanded 77-game Leagues Cup that will include every team from M.L.S. and Mexico’s Liga MX. Those games all will be held in the United States and Canada.

And the American M.L.S. teams will join the venerable U.S. Open Cup, which dates back to 1914, in April, with the final scheduled for Sept. 27. The defending champion is Orlando City F.C., but the safest of bets is that an M.L.S. team will win it again. The last non-M.L.S. team to win the Open Cup was the Rochester Raging Rhinos in 1999.