Voters in two metro Atlanta counties will decide on a tax to support transit when they head to the polls for November’s presidential election.
On Tuesday, Cobb County commissioners voted 3-2 to place the 1% 30-year Mobility SPLOST on the Nov. 5 General Election ballot. Officials previously said a 1% SPLOST could generate $10.9 billion in tax revenue for the county over 30 years.
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Georgia transportation officials appear to be letting fewer road projects and paying more for them, a possible sign of inflation’s toll on construction spending.
Georgia Department of Transportation officials previously sounded the alarm that inflation was driving up the cost of projects.
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Staffer and his friend have a watch stolen, punch another attacker in the robbery
Georgia GOP Rep. Mike Collins says a member of his congressional staff was robbed at gunpoint this past weekend in Washington D.C’.s Navy Yard neighborhood.
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A federal judge has sentenced a former assistant Atlanta city attorney to prison following her conviction on charges she fraudulently applied for and received Paycheck Protection Program loans.
In December, a jury convicted Shelitha Robertson, 62, of Atlanta, of one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, one count of money laundering and three counts of wire fraud. U.S. District Judge Steven D. Grimberg sentenced Robertson to seven years and three months in prison followed by three years of supervised release.
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A Georgia state lawmaker who says she was silenced when she switched parties last year convened a hearing to showcase how social media companies can de-platform people to manipulate messaging.
Rep. Mesha Mainor, R-Atlanta, said she called the “First Amendment, Free Speech Rally” at the Georgia State Capitol to showcase what she sees as a lack of respect for dissenting opinions.
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Georgia officials approved $16.9 million in loans and grants for five transportation infrastructure projects across the state
Republican Gov. Brian Kemp and the State Road and the Tollway Authority Board of Directors approved the funding from the Georgia Transportation Infrastructure Bank. The latest round of funding includes the fourth-largest loan amount in the program’s history.
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Several Georgia study committees will explore various agricultural issues facing the Peach State, including the potential impact of sustainable aviation fuel.
The Senate Advancing Forest Innovation in Georgia Study Committee, created by Senate Resolution 786, will examine how public policy can encourage continued investment in facilities that create sustainable manufacturing components, practices, energy sources and other high-demand products derived from Georgia’s forest products.
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The Atlanta City Council has unanimously approved a more than $2.7 billion fiscal 2025 budget, which officials termed “historic.”
The spending plan, passed as the city grappled with a series of water main breaks, is roughly 8.8% more than the fiscal 2024 budget the council adopted and about 9.2% higher than the actual fiscal 2023 budget.
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Georgia’s attorney general wants a federal agency to lift its ban on cell phone jammers that bars state officials from using the devices to block contraband cell phones in jails and prisons.
The Federal Communications Commission currently bars cell phone “jammers” within prisons and jails, a prohibition Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr’s office said extends to state and local governments. Carr made his request to reconsider the prohibition in a Tuesday letter to FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel.
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The federal government announced a pair of airport grants for Georgia, including money for an airport in middle Georgia and a statewide grant program.
The funding is part of nearly $187 million in taxpayer-backed grants for 90 airport-related projects in 34 states that the Federal Aviation Administration announced on Friday. The funding was included in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which some call the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
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Georgia could see a more than $1 billion reduction in how much federal money it receives for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
According to the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute, the Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2024 includes a $30 billion reduction in SNAP funding. The group pointed to a Center on Budget and Policy Priorities finding that Georgia would see a nearly $1.1 billion reduction over a decade.
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The man accused of killing Georgia nursing student Laken Riley pled not guilty during an arraignment hearing on Friday.
Jose Ibarra, a Venezuelan national living unlawfully in the United States, pled not guilty to charges that he killed Riley during his arraignment hearing in a Clarke County courtroom, according to local reporters on the scene. The not guilty plea now means the case will head to trial.
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The global news organization Reuters claimed on Friday that women voters in Pennsylvania may now have second thoughts about voting for former President Donald Trump after he was convicted in the controversial New York hush money trial on Thursday.
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Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger says Democrats have tipped their hand to their desire to unleash noncitizen voting by opposing his state’s citizenship verification in court and he is urging elections chiefs in other states to fight such lawsuits.
Georgia’s citizenship verification system has prevented noncitizens from getting on state voter rolls, but the state had to defend it in court against a group founded by former Georgia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams.
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A whistleblower who worked in the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office says she was fired after raising concerns about the misuse of federal grant funds.
Amanda Timpson worked with the office from 2018 until 2022 and served as the director of gang prevention and intervention under previous District Attorney Paul Howard. Timpson told the Senate Special Committee on Investigations she faced retaliation under District Attorney Fani Willis after raising concerns about how the office planned to spend a federal grant.
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A series of Georgia Senate study committees will probe hot-button issues, ranging from safe firearm storage to preserving Georgia’s farmlands to artificial intelligence.
Lt. Governor Burt Jones appointed members to seven 2024 Senate Study Committees. The committees will make recommendations that could guide lawmakers’ actions during next year’s legislative session.
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Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes on Sunday joined a number of his counterparts from other states for a Meet the Press panel discussion, and the top state election official claimed that artificial intelligence (AI) will pose new “mis- and disinformation” threats during the 2024 elections.
Fontes told Meet the Press host Kristen Walker, “AI is not a new weapon. It’s an amplifier and a magnifier of mis- and disinformation,” and revealed that his office held a “tabletop exercise” that apparently involved both election officials and members of the media.
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Whistleblower Amanda Timpson, who recently disclosed Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis potential misconduct allegations, told The Georgia Star News on Friday that DA Willis “abused her authority.”
“I am glad that the hearing gave me an opportunity to tell the truth about my experiences with DA Willis,” Timpson told The Star News. “She abused her authority and once anyone hears the actual fact, that allegation becomes an unmistakable truth.”
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Georgia’s Regional Commissions saw their unemployment rates tick downward in April.
Statewide, the Georgia Mountains Regional Commission, which includes 13 counties around Gainesville and the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, reported the lowest unemployment rate at 2.3% in April, up from 2.1% last year.
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Federal authorities are giving up to $75 million in federal tax dollars to a private company to help Georgia semiconductor manufacturing.
The money, part of the roughly $54 billion CHIPS Act of 2022, will go to Absolics, a subsidiary of South Korea’s SKC, to support the construction of a 120,000-square-foot facility in Covington. Officials said the project should create roughly 1,200 manufacturing and construction jobs.
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Promoting the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center as a way of militarizing the police is a “false narrative,” Gabriel Nadales, national director of Our America, told The Georgia Star News on Tuesday.
The “safety center is about improving all first respondents. This means having better trained firefighters, EMTs, and yes that includes police officers,” Nadales said.
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Voters turned out to cast their ballots in the high-stakes primary election on Tuesday to decide who will represent them in the general election in November.
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Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who is prosecuting the racketeering case against former President Donald Trump and his co-defendants, won the Democratic primary election for district attorney Tuesday against opponent Christian Wise Smith, according to The Associated Press.
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The Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority re-opened its Airport Station on Monday following a six-week closure as part of a multi-million-dollar station update.
The $55 million upgrade to the station connected to Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport is part of a systemwide, roughly $1 billion multi-year Station Rehabilitation Program initiative to overhaul all 38 stations. The transit agency is paying for the upgrades using State of Good Repair Funds from its capital budget.
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A Cobb County School District (CCSD) spokesperson told The Georgia Star News on Friday that a complaint from the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC) to the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) repeats “made-up narratives espoused and circulated by a small community group which includes candidates for local office.”
NWLC’s complaint accused the school district of violating students’ civil rights by removing inappropriate books from school libraries. The complaint was filed on Monday against CCSD for creating a “hostile environment” for students by allegedly “censoring” books written by or about LBGTQIA people and people of color (POC).
The spokesperson said, “Local political candidates, including those running for Board, repeating a made-up narrative doesn’t make it true and community groups who want to promote access to sexually explicit content for minors, doesn’t make it right.”
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A new campaign ad for District Attorney Fani Willis says that Fulton County is safer now than it was four years ago. However, year-end data from the Atlanta Police Department shows that crime rates have increased in southwest Atlanta and that car theft continues to skyrocket. Willis released the campaign ad on Monday.
In a post on the X platform, the campaign ad for Willis, currently running for re-election, states, “The last four years, we’ve made Fulton County safer for everyone — and we’re just getting started.”
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After pressure from lawmakers, the United States Postal Service (USPS) Postmaster General and CEO Louis DeJoy agreed to pause changes to mail processing operations until after January 1, 2025.
The pause would put on hold USPS plans to change operations in multiple areas nationwide that are undergoing Mail Processing Facility Reviews (MPFR).
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As Fulton County officials reportedly consider a sales tax to fund a $1.7 billion Fulton County Jail replacement, some groups have an idea to save taxpayers money: keeping people out of jail.
The Georgia Senate Public Safety Subcommittee on Fulton County Jail is preparing to file a report with recommendations that could guide legislative action when lawmakers return to Atlanta next year. WSB-TV reported county officials plan on asking state lawmakers to allow a new sales tax to pay for a jail replacement.
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Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority officials are weighing a proposed $654.5 million operating budget for fiscal 2025.
The budget anticipates roughly $386.5 million in sales tax revenue, nearly $82 million in passenger revenue and $80 million in federal operating assistance. The $654.5 million operating expenses are roughly $23 million more than the agency’s fiscal 2024 budget.
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Voters will go to the polls for Georgia’s general primary election on May 21 to choose the candidates representing them in the November election for U.S. House of Representatives, State Senate, State House of Representatives, district attorney, and court justices.
Some congressional races are already set for November, but many are still to be determined based on primary election results.
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A new “blue ribbon” committee will probe reported issues with the Secretary of State’s Professional Licensing Boards Division, with backers saying the office is failing Georgians and the agency’s head saying it needs more of the money it takes in for the state.
House Speaker Jon Burns, R-Newington, and Republican Lt. Governor Burt Jones announced the committee and sent a letter to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.
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Georgia tax officials collected more than $3.9 billion in April, a decrease of 5.4 percent or $225.7 million from last year.
So far this fiscal year, net tax revenue of more than $27.4 billion is down about 1.2 percent or $341.3 million from last year. While fiscal 2024 collections have decreased from fiscal 2023 and fiscal 2022 numbers, they remain higher than they were at the same time in fiscal 2019, fiscal 2020 and fiscal 2021, according to unaudited numbers released at the time.
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Georgia’s hospitals ranked 23rd nationally, according to a new review.
According to the spring 2024 Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grades, which graded 80 Georgia hospitals, 21 received an “A,” 22 achieved a “B,” 31 attained a “C,” and 6 earned a “D.” The grades are based on preventable medical errors, accidents, injuries and infections that together kill more than 500 people a day in the United States.
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Republican Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp signed a measure to allow Georgia voters to decide whether to increase the threshold for paying the state’s tangible personal property tax.
House Bill 808 sets a Nov. 5 referendum, the same day as this year’s presidential election, for Georgia voters to decide whether to increase the tangible personal property tax exemption from $7,000 to $20,000. If approved, it would apply to all tangible personal property except motor vehicles, trailers and mobile homes.
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The Georgia Supreme Court dismissed a lawsuit on Thursday that challenged the constitutionality of the Cobb County Commission’s authority to draw its own electoral map, overturning the boundaries previously created by the State Legislature.
Cobb County Board of Commissioners Chairwoman Lisa Cupid said she was “pleased” with the case outcome.
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The Georgia State Election Board voted 2-1 on Tuesday to send a Letter of Reprimand to Fulton County for numerous violations of state law during the 2020 election and recount and direct the establishment of a monitor for the November 2024 general election, which, if not completed by July, would require referral to the Georgia Attorney General.
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A Georgia grand jury has formally indicted the man accused of killing 22-year-old student Laken Riley on ten charges, including murder, kidnapping and being a peeping Tom.
Jose Ibarra is charged with malice murder, three counts of felony murder, kidnapping, aggravated assault, aggravated battery, tampering with evidence and interfering with a 911 call for help, Superior Court of Clarke County records show. The 26-year-old Venezuelan national was also handed down a “peeping Tom” charge related to his activities the day of Riley’s murder.
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The Georgia Court of Appeals granted former President Donald J. Trump’s request for an interlocutory appeal in the disqualification case against Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis on Wednesday.
The official document from the Court of Appeals of the State of Georgia states, “Upon consideration of the Application for Interlocutory Appeal, it is ordered that it be hereby GRANTED.”
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GF Casting Solutions, a producer of lightweight components for the mobility and energy sectors, will invest over $184 million in a new manufacturing facility in Augusta Corporate Park. The facility, which is anticipated to start operations in 2027, will bring 350 additional jobs to Richmond County.
“Georgia is proud to carry the title of the No. 1 state for business to companies across the globe, bringing opportunities to communities in every corner of the state,” said Governor Brian Kemp in a press release last week.
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Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp signed off on the state’s fiscal 2025 budget, a spending plan that includes pay raises for public school teachers and state law enforcement officers.
“This budget in particular will help us further promote economic prosperity in communities all across the state, provide Georgia students a quality education, care for the health and wellbeing of our families, and ensure the safety of our neighborhoods,” Kemp, a Republican, said during a Tuesday signing ceremony, according to his prepared remarks. “And because we’ve budgeted conservatively and refused to spend beyond our means, we’re able to invest in these core areas while cutting taxes at the same time.”
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A Republican-led Senate Special Committee on Investigations focused on Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ use of county tax dollars to investigate former President Donald Trump.
The work of the Senate Special Committee on Investigations, created with the passage of Senate Resolution 465, could rank among the most-watched state committees of the year, especially considering its potential impact on this November’s presidential election. The committee’s focus includes allegations that Willis had an affair with Nathan Wade, a special prosecutor formerly on the case.
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Emory University declared on Monday it will not hold its 2024 commencement ceremony on the university’s campus, instead relocating all events to the Gas South District in Duluth, Georgia amid the anti-Israel protests at the school.
University President Gregory Fenves confirmed the move in a Monday announcement to the university’s website, confirming Emory would hold its commencement despite protests, but nonetheless acknowledging “concerns about safety and security” prompted a total relocation of all commencement events.
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Taxpayers could be on the hook if electric vehicle (EV) manufacturer Rivian fails to resume progress on its multi-billion dollar Georgia plant.
Rivian announced on March 7 that it would be pausing construction on its $5 billion manufacturing plant that is supposed to be built just east of Atlanta, Georgia, worrying lawmakers and taxpayers in the state that the plant may never be built. However, local authorities had given the company up to $1.5 billion in subsidies and tax incentives with the expectation that Rivian would bring in jobs and tax revenue.
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School Library Journal (SLJ) promoted We Are Kid Lit Collective’s 2024 summer reading list, which includes recommendations for books about gender identity for children as young as three to five years old.
SLJ, a professional resource for school librarians and educators, shared the release of We Are Kid Lit Collective’s recommendations for their yearly summer reading book list in a post on the Facebook platform on Thursday.
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Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr sent a letter to the City of Savannah on Friday which declared their new gun ordinance “void” due to its failure to adhere to state laws precluding local governments from establishing their own firearm regulations.
The Savannah firearms ordinance in question, which reportedly had the support of Moms Demand Action, legally mandated firearm owners to report stolen or missing firearms within 24 hours, keep guns under lock and key while when they are transported in generals and required guns be kept out of sight and locked up if left in an unattended vehicle.
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Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr filed a lawsuit on Monday to safeguard women athletes from competing against biological males and to protect freedom of speech in schools against the Biden administration’s changes to the Title IX rule.
“Today we have taken action to defend women’s rights to fair competition,” Carr said in a press release on Monday, “and we will keep fighting until we end this absurdity once and for all.”
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Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp signed a series of bills aimed at growing the state’s workforce, including measures aimed at making it easier for Georgians to get occupational licenses and job training.
“As our state continues to grow, measures like this will help us stay ahead of the curve and cut red tape,” Kemp said during a bill signing at the Jordan Vocational High School in Columbus.
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Republican Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp signed a new immigration enforcement bill Wednesday, months after a Georgia college student was allegedly murdered at the hands of an illegal immigrant.
Kemp signed into law House Bill 1105, which requires sheriffs in the state to cooperate with federal immigration authorities, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The legislation mandates local jailers hold any foreign national in their custody who is suspected of being in the U.S. illegally and wanted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
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A federal civil rights investigation into Emory University was confirmed on Thursday, with Biden administration officials asked to determine whether the university discriminated against Muslim students following the devastating October 7 surprise attack by Hamas fighters against civilians in Israel.
The Department of Education is now investigating Emory University to determine whether it violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act in its treatment of Muslim students following the October 7 attack.
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A Pro-Palestine rally and march are scheduled in Snellville on Saturday, and a car caravan is planned for Sunday in Alpharetta, Atlanta’s Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL Atlanta) announced on social media.
PSL Atlanta wrote in a Facebook post that Saturday’s “Stand with Gaza – Solidarity with the Nationwide Student Movement Rally and March” event for Georgia students will be held at 2:00 p.m. at Snellville Towne Greene.
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