Greenville County, South Carolina

The Greenville County Sheriff's Office has arrested Terron Banks, 25, charging him with four counts of first-degree burglary, two counts of unlawful firearm possession, grand larceny and voyeurism tied to a string of break-ins near Assembly View Apartments over recent months. Investigators are now examining whether Banks is connected to five separate burglaries in the same area that involved sexual misconduct, including sexual touching and intercourse, though no arrest warrants have been issued in those cases. DNA evidence has been submitted to the State Law Enforcement Division for testing. Banks was arrested Oct. 22 at a Spartanburg County bus station after evading capture days earlier, and is held without bond. Officials are urging potential victims to come forward.

Judith "Judy" G. Bainbridge, the longtime Furman University English professor widely regarded as Greenville, South Carolina's foremost historian, died Sept. 17, 2026, two weeks short of her 90th birthday. A service is planned for Oct. 17 at the Garden Room at Furman Chapel.

Bainbridge joined Furman in 1976 after teaching in Charlotte, later retiring in 2007 but continuing to write. For 22 years she authored a biweekly history column for The Greenville News, producing more than 500 installments between 1999 and 2022, and wrote seven books, including "Greenville's Heritage" and "A Short History of Greenville." Her work frequently linked the city's past to present-day issues, from a 2019 column on the 1918 Spanish flu republished during the COVID-19 pandemic to reporting on the historically Black New Washington Heights neighborhood. Colleagues and former students, including South Carolina Supreme Court Justice Letitia Verdin, credited Bainbridge with shaping careers and correcting long-held myths about Greenville's founding figures and institutions. Mayor Knox White opened a Sept. 28 City Council meeting with a moment of silence in her honor.

South Carolina reports more than 30,000 intimate partner violence cases annually and has ranked among the top 10 states for the rate of women murdered by men in 23 of the past 25 years. Since 2009, at least 37 officers and 99 civilians have been injured or killed responding to domestic violence calls statewide, including Columbia Officer Christopher DeLong, fatally shot in August by a man accused of violating a restraining order.

While overall domestic violence reports fell 5 percent in 2024, intimate partner homicide rates climbed 3.3 percent that year and 23 percent over the past two decades. Greenville County recorded the most officer-involved shootings tied to domestic calls (42 since 2009) and the most intimate partner homicides in 2024. Black women face more than twice the homicide risk of white women in these cases, and nearly half of female homicides between 2017 and 2021 stemmed from intimate partner violence. Advocates note many incidents go unreported due to fear, financial dependence, or shame. Officers now undergo extensive academy training, including scenario-based exercises, to prepare for the unpredictable nature of these calls.

Greenville County and four of its cities — Greenville, Simpsonville, Mauldin and Travelers Rest — have placed 1 percent sales tax referendums on the November ballot, and local leaders are now campaigning to convince voters to approve them. At a forum hosted by The Post and Courier, County Council member Curt McGahhey, Greenville Mayor Knox White, and OneSpartanburg CEO Allen Smith discussed the effort, which follows voters' 2024 rejection of a county road-repair tax.

The new county tax, framed as a transportation measure rather than a capital projects tax, would raise about $1 billion, mostly for road and bridge repairs, with smaller shares for green space and transit. Greenville's city tax, enabled by a new state law, would raise roughly $500 million for infrastructure and property tax relief. Officials acknowledged the challenge of asking voters to approve five separate taxes simultaneously, and since local governments cannot campaign directly for ballot measures, private groups are organizing advocacy efforts ahead of November.

South Carolina Republicans returned to the polls Tuesday to pick a nominee for the Senate seat long held by the late Lindsey Graham, who died in July after winning renomination in June. Sen. Darline Graham, appointed to fill her brother's term and backed by President Trump and Sen. Tim Scott, faced Rep. Ralph Norman in a runoff after neither cleared a majority in the Aug. 11 primary; third-place finisher Rep. Russell Fry endorsed Graham. The winner faces Democrat Annie Andrews in the fall.

In Georgia's 13th Congressional District near Atlanta, Democrats Everton Blair and Marcye Scott, daughter of late Rep. David Scott, competed in a runoff to serve the remainder of Scott's term after topping a five-candidate field in July. Neither is seeking the full term beginning in 2027; that contest will pit Democratic state Rep. Jasmine Clark against Republican Jonathan Chavez in November. Both races drew attention as tests of turnout and party strength ahead of the 2026 midterms, now 70 days off.