Timothy Shaun Taylor, 37, of McClellanville - a man with an extensive criminal record - surrendered to Myrtle Beach police Wednesday to face charges of attempted kidnapping and first-degree assault and battery, according to Capt. David Knipes.

Most of the bond - $50,000 – was for the kidnapping charge, with $20,000 for the assault and battery charge. The bond was set by a judge in Myrtle Beach Municipal Court.

Bail was set at $500 apiece for Windy Price, 39, and Darnell Price, 46, this morning at a bond hearing at J. Reuben Long Detention Center, according to court records.

The Prices spent the night in jail and are expected to be released later this morning.

Herb Hayden, the executive director of the State Ethics Commission, said the office is "reviewing what [the solicitor's office] sent us to see whether or not there are any potential violations."

There have been accusations that Booth passed inside information to a company that was bidding for restaurant space on the town-owned pier. Booth began working with television personality Cecil Chandler's restaurant company - called Surfside Beach Cafe at the Pier LLC - shortly after he left the administrator's job in May.

The accusations are included in court documents the city filed this week in its legal battle with Bailey, who is suing the city for alleged defamation and violations of his constitutional rights.

The city is accusing Bailey of fraud and defamation in counterclaims filed this week, calling his conduct "so extreme and outrageous as to exceed all possible bounds of decency."

Scott Donaldson of Carmichael, Pa., got one of the two bags of gifts donated by Beach Mart for his church-on-a-hill sculpture, reminiscent of Holden Beach Chapel, a center of island life. Scott Bogle of Salisbury, N.C., won the other prize for a sculpture of a woman sunning facedown on the sand.

The contest drew 14 sculptures, some of which weren't begun until a half-hour before the judging. The event was only advertised locally through beach cottage rental agencies and the island's website, and the entrants said they thought of an idea a day or two before the contest and went with it. That gave the contest a different air than some in larger destinations, including Myrtle Beach, where prizes can be considerable, and contestants travel a circuit of contests showing off their skills.

But Myrtle Beach City Manager Tom Leath called the report "bull."

"It's so incomplete and misleading, it's laughable," he said. "They've been whacking on us for years. They never give us a good rating, no matter what we do."

Jeffrey D. Collins, 45, is being sought by the Horry County Police Department for escape and by the Brunswick County Sheriff's Office for felony eluding arrest and felony possession of a stolen vehicle, police said.

Collins escaped Monday evening while he was being treated at the Conway hospital after being arrested in North Myrtle Beach, Kegler said. Collins was not restrained while he was treated, and when an officer went to handcuff him, Collins ran out of the hospital.

The fire was reported around 4:45 p.m. Wednesday at 401 Poinsett Road when the home's occupants heard an explosion, evacuated , and called 911, said Dan Cimini, assistant chief for the Myrtle Beach Fire Department.

The fire went through the ceiling and roof of the home, causing the heaviest damage to the dining and kitchen areas, he said.

Horry County Council met with the Solid Waste Authority board to discuss updates on the authority's ongoing projects, goals and the progress in the legal and legislative challenges to the county's trash flow laws.

Authority staff outlined the pilot plans to begin the recycling program in a small section of the county and analyze the number of people who takeadvantage of it and the kinds of waste and how much residents recycle. After that, waste authority executive director Danny Knight said the staff will look at how much and if they would need to charge per household to break even on the program before expanding it to a wider section of the county.

MYRTLE BEACH

Gunmen burst in back, shoot homeowner

The first step in what many experts predict will be among the most complex environmental cases to hit the U.S. courts begins today when an army of attorneys converges on Boise, Idaho, where a federal panel will begin to decide what judge or judges will oversee the cases and where they will be initially heard.

"The stakes here are tremendous," said Georgene Vairo, a Loyola Law School professor of civil procedure and expert in complex litigation. "For a single-event type of incident this is the biggest we've ever seen, just in the range of claims, the government and private party actions, the cost of claims, the insurance aspects. It's just the whole nine yards. It's huge."

The newspaper filed an official request Wednesday under the state's Freedom of Information law to compel the university to release public financial documents that could explain how about $25 million for transportation programs has been spent since the center was launched more than a decade ago.

The law allows university officials to wait up to 15 working days to say whether they intend to grant or deny the request. A denial could spark an extended and costly legal debate.

Three Critter Management workers removed the 11-foot-long, 500-pound alligator from a tiny lagoon just north of Pope Avenue, near theColigny area, at about 1 p.m., company operations director Billy Karijanian said.

A crowd had gathered to gawk at the massive animal, which had parked itself underneath a well-traversed foot bridge over a lagoon near Holy Family Catholic Church, Karijanian said.

Even before the state House and Senate finished work on a bill to ban the games, the industry was threatening a wave of lawsuits and technical changes that they said would keep them legal. And the day after Gov. Bev Perdue signed the ban into law, she gave parlor owners and operators reason to think they could get back in the political fight.

"I think if you have video sweepstakes, whether it is video poker or video machines in general, we really do need to have some kind of concerted, organized, unified system of regulation where they are under a standard set of rules and regulations where we can be sure that nobody is profiteering from it," Perdue told reporters last week.

COLUMBIA

Marsh tacky gets state designation

"We would have liked to have seen it all upheld, but a temporary injunction is not the end of it," said Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, who signed the legislation in April.

"I look at this as a little bump in the road."

The arrest, though, has given the missing teen's family something to cling to.

Timothy Shaun Taylor, 37, of McClellanville - a man with an extensive criminal record - surrendered to Myrtle Beach police Wednesday to face charges of attempted kidnapping and first-degree assault and battery, according to Capt. David Knipes. Taylor's bond hearing is today.

Timothy Shaun Taylor, 37, of McClellanville turned himself in to Myrtle Beach police Wednesday to face charges of attempted kidnapping and first-degree assault and battery, Capt. David Knipes said. Taylor is being held at the Myrtle Beach Police Department Jail pending a bond hearing.

The arrest brings hope to the family of Brittanee Drexel, a New York teen who was last seen on April 25, 2009, while on Spring Break in Myrtle Beach, according to Monica Caison with the CUE Center for Missing Person in Wilmington, N.C.

The accusations are included in court documents the city filed this week in its legal battle with Bailey, who is suing the city for alleged defamation and violations of his constitutional rights.

The city is accusing Bailey of fraud and defamation in counterclaims filed this week, calling his conduct “so extreme and outrageous as to exceed all possible bounds of decency.”

South Carolina State Park and Campground, Myrtle Beach, Springmaid Beach and Surfside Beach each received a one-star rating out of a possible five because, the report says, they only meet one of the quality criteria -- posting closings and advisories online and at the beach.

North Myrtle Beach received three stars for its overall water quality last year and in the past three years, plus its timely reporting of beach advisories and closings.