From Campus to Classroom: Stories That Shape Education
- QTS plans up to 12 million square feet of server warehouses in Blakely, creating a major new data center hub.
- Dr. Jay Bhattacharya named interim director of the CDC while also overseeing the NIH.
- Foreign students spent over $1 billion on tuition in Georgia; fewer consular visas now threaten that education export.
- U.S. Senate passed a bill to limit large corporations from owning multiple homes, with a provision backed by Sen. Raphael Warnock.
- Senate Bill 220 passed the House stage; it expands medical cannabis access, adjusts possession limits, and allows vaping for patients.
March 13, 2026 WABE
Emily Jones reports that Georgia farmers can soon apply for more than $500 million in federal funding to help recover from Hurricane Helene. Applications open next week. Many farmers are still rebuilding after Hurricane Helene devastated the state in 2024.
March 13, 2026 Georgia Trend Exclusive!
Sucheta Rawal writes, buying chicken was once straightforward, but now the grocery aisle is filled with labels like organic, cage-free, free-range, air-chilled, and pasture-raised. These labels sound good, but they don’t always explain everything.
March 13, 2026 Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Zachary Hansen reports, in a small southwest Georgia city that touts itself as “The Peanut Capital of the World,” a new proposal focuses on planting rows of something else: high-security computer servers. Data center giant QTS plans to build up to 12 million square feet of server storage warehouses in Blakely, about 200 miles south of Atlanta, according to a state infrastructure review filing made public Tuesday.
March 13, 20206 Union-Recorder
Billy Hobbs reports that a small tornado may have touched down in parts of Milledgeville and Baldwin County Thursday morning, The Union-Recorder has learned. No injuries were reported, according to Baldwin County Emergency Management/Homeland Security Director Wayne Johnson.
March 13, 2026 Savannah Morning News
Vanessa Countryman reports, Georgia continues to rank among the nation’s top destinations for movers, and new data shows exactly where they’re landing. A recent analysis by StorageCafe, using U.S. Census data, highlights the top 10 Georgia counties for net migration, revealing clear patterns in who is moving and why.
March 13, 2026 WABE
Jess Mador reports, the CDC has been without a permanent director for more than six months. Recently the Trump administration said that Dr. Jay Bhattacharya will become the CDC’s interim director for now — while also running the National Institutes of Health.
March 13, 2026 GlobalAtlanta.com
Trevor Williams reports, for the second straight year in 2024-25, foreign students spent more than a billion dollars on tuition in Georgia, but that run could be in jeopardy as U.S. consulates abroad issue fewer student visas. Education has long been an impactful service export for the state, but it eclipsed $1 billion for the first time in the 2023-24 Open Doors Report, issued each November on a one-year lag by the Institute of International Education.
March 13, 2026 Valdosta Daily Times
Staff reports that AT&T has awarded a new Connected Learning Center (CLC) to The Boys & Girls Club of Valdosta to provide connectivity and digital skills training to the community. The new CLC will receive an investment of up to $50,000 from AT&T, high-speed internet, Dell computers, and access to digital literacy training and resources.
March 13, 2026 Gainesville Times
Danny McArthur reports, U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff has secured $1.8 million in federal funding to help the Salvation Army of Gainesville renovate parts of its facility. The funding, included in bipartisan government spending legislation signed into law Feb. 3, will go toward improvements at the organization’s homeless shelter.
March 13, 2026 Georgia Recorder
Alander Rocha reports, theU.S. Senate passed a bill Thursday with a provision backed by U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock that would ban large corporations from owning too many homes. The legislation, sponsored by Massachusetts Democrat Sen. Elizabeth Warren and South Carolina Republican Sen. Tim Scott, passed the Senate on an 89-10 vote, an overwhelming show of bipartisanship on a proposal aimed at tackling recent concerns over affordability.
March 13, 2026 Capitol Beat News
Ty Tagami reports that Georgia lawmakers declined to tighten regulations for clinics that administer Ketamine and other drugs used for psychedelic therapy, but the debate is not over yet. The 73-88 vote against House Bill 717 on the House floor Tuesday was a rejection of a request by the Georgia Composite Medical Board to require that only specially trained physicians be allowed to have majority ownership of such clinics.
March 13, 2026 State Affairs
Beau Evans reports, vaping may soon be available for medical cannabis patients in Georgia, including people with severe arthritis or insomnia. House lawmakers passed legislation Thursday allowing patients to inhale vaporized forms of doctor-prescribed cannabis, rather than only having access to it as low-dose oil tinctures.
March 13, 2026 Georgia Recorder
Maya Homan reports that a bill aimed at modernizing Georgia’s medical cannabis program passed the Georgia House with broad bipartisan support, marking another step in lawmakers’ yearslong effort to incrementally increase patients’ access to the program. Senate Bill 220, introduced by Newnan Republican Sen. Matt Brass, would expand the conditions eligible to receive a medical cannabis card, change the limits on the amount of cannabis that someone can possess and enable patients to vape the product.
March 13, 2026 Capitol Beat News
Mark Niesse reports, forget paper money. Georgia senators want to legalize using gold and silver for everyday purchases. The Senate passed a bill last week that would set up a system for Georgians to buy gold, store it in a depository, and use a debit card to spend it on items such as fast food or milkshakes.
March 13, 2026 Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Greg Bluestein, Tia Mitchell, Patricia Murphy and Adam Beam report, Republican U.S. Senate candidate Derek Dooley is rolling out what he calls a “Georgia First Contract,” a five-part pledge meant to underscore his outsider credentials as he fights for a spot in an expected GOP runoff. The former football coach is traveling the state over the next several weeks asking supporters to sign the pledge with him, pitching it as a promise to “fire the politicians and elect new leadership.”
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