South-Carolina
‘It’s almost not feasible:’ SC DJJ Director addresses potential influx of newly-arrested Richland County teens in coming months
COLUMBIA, S.C. (WIS) – As unanswered questions swirl about how the South Carolina Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ) will handle a potential influx of teenagers at its detention center in the coming months, the agency’s executive director is providing more insight into the plans.
After approval from the Richland County Council, the Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center will not take in any more newly arrested juveniles come August 1.
Instead, they will be sent to DJJ.
Eden Hendrick, DJJ’s Executive Director, said in a Friday interview that the agency is working closely with jail officials to ensure a smooth transition.
But, she said, DJJ is trying to make the best of a difficult situation that will likely only make its overcrowding problems worse.
“We’re put in a situation to figure out solutions when it’s almost not feasible, but we’ve so far tried to do what we can,” Hendrick said. “It creates a terrible situation for the employees and the youth, though.”
Hendrick wishes that the agency did not need to house additional youth; however, she understands that it is completely outside of her control.
“In a perfect world, every county would have their own juvenile detention facility,” she said. “That’s what is ideal if you think about – so if a youth is arrested in Horry County or Anderson County, law enforcement has to drive all the way to Columbia, drop them off, drive all the way back, drive again 48 hours later, pick them up, drive all the way back again. That is a lot of law enforcement time wasted on transporting juveniles.”
Richland was one of just two counties left in the state to house youth at their facilities.
The law stipulates that DJJ is responsible for all juvenile detention services.
“Juvenile justice is way more complex than anyone really knows and understands,” Hendrick said. “This is not a simple fix. There’s no short fix. If this state really wants to fix our juvenile justice system and this agency, it’s going to be long-term commitment of significant funds and some real difficult changes.”
The Juvenile Detention Center (JDC) on Shivers Road in Columbia, where these teenagers will go, has a 72-person capacity.
Hendrick said, though, that over the past few years, it has always been above that number.
On Friday, 93 teens were housed there, according to Hendrick.
“Five extra causes an issue so you can imagine how many when you’re actually in double capacity causes,” she said.
One thing driving the uptick in juvenile detention is a significant increase in violent gun charges over the last few years, Hendrick said.
The county jail’s juvenile wing will not close immediately.
As many as 32 juveniles are currently being housed at Alvin S. Glenn, and are expected to be moved in November.
However, Hendrick suggested that the number may shift.
“Juvenile cases move significantly faster than general sessions cases,” she said. “So hopefully some of 32 cases will be resolved, meaning that they could come to our other facilities, be on probation, be at an alternative placement so we’re not going to get the same 32 kids that are there on August 1 on November 1.”
The main issue at the JDC, Hendrick said, is that there is not enough space.
“JDC was not designed to hold youth longer than maybe 60 days,” she said. “We have a very limited number of classrooms, very, very limited recreational space, there’s not even a gym. The cafeteria is tiny. The medical place is absolutely not functional, intake is not functional. It’s a very, very difficult building to operate just because of the way it’s designed and the actual space we have is so limited.”
If the number of juveniles at the detention center rises above 110, Hendrick said there are ongoing discussions to possibly move some of the teenagers with more serious charges to an old facility at its Broad River Road Complex (BRRC), which has not been used in decades.
Greenville’s detention facility has sat vacant since it closed in 2022.
The state has allocated funds for DJJ to use to house additional youth, but that process is not near completion.
Any adjustments are likely only temporary solutions, Hendrick said.
“Ultimately, we need a new detention facility,” she said. “There’s no way around it.”
DJJ is currently undergoing renovations at its facilities, consolidating resources and has completed a master plan.
No construction timeline has been established for a new facility, and DJJ is still seeking more money from the legislature to make that happen.
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Did anyone want this? A slick remake of Star Fox 64, minus the “64.” The same rickety rail-shooter from nearly three decades ago, glossed up with gorgeous environments and uncanny photorealistic animals. A modern game peeks through the haze of this nostalgia. But it’s not altogether worth the $50 pricetag ($60 if you want a physical cartridge).
The Star Fox campaign begins with a cinematic dramatization of the original game’s opening text crawl — the scene of Fox McCloud’s father betrayed by an ally into the hands of the evil Dr. Andross. Three years later, Fox commands his dad’s mercenary band against Andross. Each successive mission briefing gets reworked from its original clipped dialogue into fully animated mini-movies.
James Mastromarino/Nintendo /
But the visuals are a mixed bag. Detailed as the planets and ships might be, fans objected to Fox’s unflattering appearance after the game’s trailer dropped. His original character designer, who wasn’t involved in the new game, admitted to preferring the Super Mario Galaxy Movie version of Fox to this remake’s. For my money, the lighting is more of a problem than the models. In nearly every scene, the cockpit illuminates Fox in a gross green glow.
This campaign doesn’t take long to complete — between an hour to two hours, depending on how often you die and reload. But to reach the game’s true ending, you’ll have to restart and hunt for secret paths, easily quadrupling the runtime. You can also play cooperatively on two systems if you’re in the same room, or you can split your Joy-Cons to have one player steer and the other use mouse controls to fire lasers (an example of Nintendo sacrificing ease for a new gimmick). I’d have loved this mode much more if you could have a second player aim with a joystick, as in Donkey Kong Bananza.
Battle Mode makes for a more entertaining multiplayer experience, but you can’t play it on the same system. I tried it through an online session Nintendo set up, diving and gunning my way through 4v4 matches that required us to capture points or collect energy from meteorites. If you’re hooked up to a webcam, you can use an augmented reality feature to puppet a character’s portrait in GameChat. The facetracking is pretty good: raise your eyebrows, and your character will raise their eyebrows back. Open your mouth to speak and they’ll do the same. If you’re playing as Slippy Toad and puff out your cheeks, you’ll see him inflate his chin.
But even with these charming flourishes, Star Fox remains awkward. It’s got the production values of a modern blockbuster, but the sensibility of a 1990s arcade game. The campaign feels particularly antiquated, even with its expanded script and cutscenes. Perhaps I shouldn’t have expected more. This story’s already been reheated three times since the 1990s, after all.
If you’ve got buddies to battle or a tolerance for odd co-op, go for it. Otherwise, you’re better off skipping this remake and saving up for an original game.
Copyright 2026 NPR
A three-star navy rear-admiral fired by Pete Hegseth last year in the defense secretary’s purge of senior US military officials has won the Democratic primary in a closely watched congressional race.
Nancy Lacore secured the party’s nomination for the US House of Representatives in South Carolina’s first congressional district on Tuesday after defeating Mac Deford, a US Coast Guard veteran, in a runoff.
Lacore’s focus will now turn to November, when she will lead an ambitious Democratic bid to flip the Republican seat in the US midterm elections.
The district is currently represented by the Republican Nancy Mace, who chose to forgo seeking re-election to focus on her failed challenge for South Carolina governor. Jenny Costa Honeycutt, a member of Charleston county council, secured the Republican nomination for the election on Tuesday.
Lacore was among dozens of officers fired during Hegseth’s ongoing elimination from senior military roles of those considered to have crossed the Trump administration, or who do not fit the US defense secretary’s vision for the makeup of the armed services.
She is backed by several veterans’ groups, and Emilys List, which supports Democratic pro-choice candidates running for office. She raised $500,000 in her first two weeks as a candidate, and more than $1.4m through late May, according to a New York Times analysis of federal campaign finance records.
She is also one of 12 House candidates backed by the Bench, a Democratic strategy group advising candidates in districts seen as harder to win, the outlet said.
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