March 28, 2025 Capitol Beat News
Dave Williams reports that Georgia’s unemployment rate held steady last month at 3.6%, a half-percentage point below the national rate. A positive sign for the state’s economy was a gain of 7,200 jobs over the month and an increase of 28,500 over the year.
March 28, 2025 Georgia Trend – Exclusive!
Loran Smith writes, I have long been curious about Georgia’s 159 counties, stopping to read historical markers when I travel and researching famous folk who put their hometown on the map. Recently when I drove through Royston, I thought of Ty Cobb, the famous baseball player who grew up there and made it to the Big Leagues when he was 18 years old.
March 28, 2025 Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Emma Hurt reports that down an unmarked dirt road in this rural town between Atlanta and Macon, a massive metal shed quietly sits over part of a Norfolk Southern train track. But each time a train whooshes through, that shed comes alive with stadium lights as dozens of cameras take a thousand pictures of it — to try to spot defects that could lead to catastrophe.
March 28, 2025 The Brunswick News
Gordon Jackson reports that the Golden Isles Development Authority staff’s job is to showcase available properties in Glynn County with a goal of convincing them to start a business here. Ryan Moore, president and CEO of the authority, said a tour for a prospective business typically starts in downtown Brunswick.
March 28, 2025 Georgia Recorder
Stanley Dunlap reports that legislation passed by the Senate on Thursday would place the Georgia governor at the top of the list of high-paid governors in the nation and significantly increase the salaries of the attorney general, House and Senate leaders, and several other key officials. The Senate voted 45-10 to approve a revised House Bill 86 that would increase the governor’s annual salary from $182,000 to $250,000 for next year.
March 28, 2025 GPB
Sofi Gratas reports that the Georgia Department of Public Health will face some cuts to its available funding, as the federal Department Health and Human Services confirmed Wednesday that it was ending billions in Covid-era grants. On Thursday the HHS, run by Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., also announced a total restructuring of the department which includes the dismisal of around 20,000 current employees.
March 28, 2025 Athens Banner Herald
Miguel Legoas reports that President Donald Trump is making another Georgia leader part of his cabinet. On Tuesday, he announced via Truth Social that Brandon Beach is his pick to take over the U.S. Department of the Treasury.
March 28, 2025 Georgia Recorder
Maya Homan reports that a bill that would grant compensation to wrongfully convicted Georgians was just given a second chance after lawmakers spliced it into a bill inspired by President Donald Trump’s election interference case in Georgia. Senate Bill 244, which is aimed at allowing criminal defendants to recoup their legal costs if the prosecuting attorney in their case is disqualified for personal or professional misconduct, now includes the bulk of House Bill 533, which would establish a standardized process in Georgia state law for people who have been exonerated.
March 28, 2025 Capitol Beat News
Ty Tagami reports that Georgia Senate’s Republican majority voted along party lines Thursday to investigate groups founded by former Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams after they agreed to pay the largest campaign finance fine in state history. The New Georgia Project and a separate fundraising arm, the New Georgia Action Fund, agreed to pay $300,000 for failing to disclose $4.2 million in contributions and $3.2 million in spending during the 2018 election cycle on behalf of Abrams’ unsuccessful bid for governor.
March 28, 2025 State Affairs
Beau Evans reports that senators advanced a $37 billion state budget Thursday adding $141 million to fund private school vouchers and curbing deficit spending for expensive construction projects. The latest version of the fiscal year 2026 budget — which funds schools, Medicaid, road repairs, prisons, mental health treatments and other state services — cuts money for several programs to support up to 21,000 families applying for school vouchers.
March 28, 2025 Fresh Take Georgia
Juliane Balog and Jianna Anderson report that the Georgia House Education committee voted to restrict transgender student athletes from participating in gender school sports of their choosing. The proposal, The Riley Gaines Act of 2025, intends to “save girls sports” by preventing student athletes from competing against teams that may have trans athletes or playing on teams with athletes of the opposite biological sex.
March 28, 2025 Georgia Recorder
Stanley Dunlap reports that a Georgia GOP-controlled Senate panel Thursday greenlighted a revised version of a wide-ranging bill packed with controversial provisions that no longer include plans to hand voter challenge complaints to state election officials and enforce new ballot counting methods. House Bill 397, which still contains several controversial rule changes, passed the Senate Ethics Committee Thursday night with four Democratic senators voting against it.
March 28, 2025 Capitol Beat News
Dave Williams reports that legislation cracking down on the deceptive use of artificial intelligence in political campaigns cleared the Georgia House of Representatives Thursday. As introduced in the state Senate, the bill focused on obscene AI-generated images of children.
March 28, 2025 Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Greg Bluestein, Tia Mitchell, Patricia Murphy and Adam Beam report that ever since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to abortion, state and federal lawmakers have introduced a raft of legislation to protect the right to contraceptives. Now Georgia lawmakers are joining the push. Six Republican women in the state House co-sponsored a one-page bill on Thursday with a simple premise: “Females have the right to the use of any means of contraception.”
