June 5, 2023
ATLANTA – The state has awarded a $3 million grant to Chatham County to help acquire and preserve Green Island, Georgia Rep. Jesse Petrea, R-Savannah, announced Wednesday. Petrea has been working for the last two years with the county, the Georgia Department of Natural Resources and Savannah lawyer and philanthropist J. Curtis Lewis III. The Lewis family owns the 450-acre island in the southern end of Chatham County.
LAGRANGE, Ga. (AP) — Human bones found inside a submerged car near the Georgia-Alabama state line in 2021 have been matched to a college student who had been missing for 47 years, according to a Georgia sheriff. Kyle Clinkscales, 22, of LaGrange, vanished in January 1976 after leaving the Georgia club where he worked as a bartender to return to school at Auburn University in neighboring Alabama.
RINCON, Ga. (AP) — A company that stamps metal auto parts will invest $300 million to build a 740-employee plant near Savannah, becoming the fifth Hyundai Motor Group supplier to locate in the region. Sewon Precision Industry Co. said Tuesday that it would locate its plant in Rincon, a Savannah suburb in Georgia's Effingham County. Sewon already has a stamping plant in LaGrange, near the Kia plant in West Point and the Hyundai plant in Montgomery, Alabama. The South Korean company expects to have 1,600 employees between the two plants once the Rincon factory is complete.
ATLANTA – Moving up Georgia’s presidential primaries to put the Peach State fourth in the primary calendar would reap huge economic benefits, according to a new study. Early Democratic and Republican presidential primaries next year could generate nearly $220 million in economic impact and create more than 2,200 jobs, Emory University finance professor Thomas More Smith concluded in a study released last week.
ATLANTA – The state Senate Thursday approved a wide-ranging bill aimed at stemming the tide of gang-related crime in Georgia. Sponsored by Sen. John Albers, R-Roswell, the 10-page bill makes a number of changes to Georgia’s criminal law to address gang violence.
ATLANTA (AP) — Two more pieces of Gov. Brian Kemp's tax cut agenda are advancing in the state House. The House Ways and Means Committee voted Thursday to pass bills that would give income tax filers another $1 billion in tax refunds and to ratify the Republican governor's decision to waive tax collection on gasoline and diesel fuel for months.
ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia Power Co. has again delayed the projected startup for two new units at its Vogtle nuclear power plant near Augusta, saying its share of the costs will rise by an additional $200 million. Southern Co., the utility's Atlanta-based parent, announced the delays and higher costs on Thursday as it announced its yearly corporate earnings for 2022.
ATLANTA – The state Senate unanimously approved a bill Wednesday that would expand Georgia’s law governing telemarketing calls. The bill would allow Georgians to hold companies liable for telemarketing calls made by third-party contractors as well as pursue class-action lawsuits against telemarketers.
CANTON, Ga. (AP) — A woman who was headed to a dinner party with friends over the weekend but vanished has been found dead. The Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office told news outlets that Laura Ann Linden, 65, texted friends at 6 p.m. on Feb. 11 that she was headed their way, but never made it.
LAWRENCEVILLE, Ga. (AP) — A suburban Atlanta police officer has been charged with concealing the death of a teenage girl whose body was found six months after she went missing.
