Greenville, South Carolina

Aiken City Council unanimously approved a resolution asking the South Carolina Supreme Court to authorize a homeless court for the city. The next step is a Dec. 3 presentation to the state's Access to Justice Commission, which will recommend whether the chief justice should sign an order creating the court. Similar courts already operate in Charleston, Columbia, Greenville, Rock Hill, Myrtle Beach and Gaffney, handling non-violent misdemeanor cases for unsheltered residents through service-based alternative sentencing rather than traditional prosecution.

City officials, including the city manager, solicitor and public safety director, back the plan, which is projected to cost $50,000 to $60,000 annually; $30,000 has already been budgeted. If approved, the court would launch in 2027 amid a growing local unsheltered population.

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.

South Carolina schools Superintendent Ellen Weaver is running for reelection, facing Democrat Sylvia Wright in a race that is competitive in fundraising but has favored Republicans since 2011. Weaver touts gains in reading and math, a push for school safety, and expanded career pathways, while defending the state's three-year-old voucher program that provides over $7,600 per student for private school or homeschool expenses. Critics, including Wright, say the program lacks accountability and mostly benefits families who could already afford private schooling; a recent cyberattack froze vendor payments. Weaver's tenure has also drawn controversy over book bans, cutting AP African American Studies, and aligning with conservative groups like PragerU amid broader public-school enrollment decline.

The South Carolina Arts Commission has been engulfed in controversy after board members moved to deny operating grants to the Greenville Gay Men's Chorus and Proud Mary Theatre Company, citing concerns tied to a Trump executive order on gender identity. The board required only the two LGBTQ+-focused groups to re-prove their artistic merit, later adopting a vague resolution barring funding for work that "promotes any ideology." After months of delay and an accelerated, lightly attended vote, the commission denied both groups' funding on Oct. 1. The ACLU and arts advocates called the process discriminatory. Board chair Flavia Harton and commissioner Russell Parks, who had pushed the policy, both resigned. The commission later also denied a grant to an emerging Mexican-American artist under the same ideology rule.

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.

Greenville City Council voted 5-1 on Sept. 29 to adopt nonpartisan primaries as the city's new election method, ending decades of partisan "D" and "R" labels on local ballots. Under the new system, all candidates will run in a single primary each June, with the top two advancing to the November general election. Council member Lillian Brock Flemming cast the lone dissenting vote in protest, while Wil Brasington recused himself due to his mayoral campaign.

The switch was mandated by a state law passed this year abolishing partisan primaries for cities with populations over 39,000, affecting only Greenville and Florence. Many council members said they weren't opposed to nonpartisan elections in principle but resented the decision being made in Columbia rather than locally, citing South Carolina's home-rule tradition. Greenville had considered the same change in 2015 before public backlash reversed it. The new rules take effect as the city heads toward its first open mayoral race in 32 years, with observers split on whether nonpartisan contests will favor well-funded candidates or broaden the field of contenders.

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.