The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Georgians make final preparations for ice storm
Georgians spent Saturday preparing to hunker down, readying themselves in the final hours of calm before a storm that is expected to bring significant ice and potentially dayslong power outages to large parts of the state. Light frozen rain started...
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Brace for ice, wind, power outages
Much of metro Atlanta is now included in an ice storm warning that extends into the rest of North Georgia as the state braces for treacherous winter weather arriving this weekend. It’s the first time an ice storm warning has been issued in Georgia in...
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Ready or not, the cold is coming
Imagine the Titanic if it were measured in salt. The ocean liner’s hull weighed 26,000 tons, a total slightly less than the amount of salt used by the Georgia Department of Transportation to keep roads clear of snow and ice last year. All that salt...
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For the first time since 2019, Atlanta homicides fall below 100
Santos Wyatt loved two things more than anything: his young son and working on cars. After a long weekend of work in July 2025, Wyatt went to Atlanta’s Sweet Auburn neighborhood to hang out. He never made it home. Wyatt was killed in a shooting that...
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Georgia colleges see more employee departures after return-to-office mandate
Some of Georgia’s largest public universities saw a significant uptick in employee resignations last year, shortly after the University System of Georgia announced a “return-to-office” mandate. From July to mid-october, there was an increase in...
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Atlanta airport looks to stay ahead now and in the future
One hundred years ago, when Atlanta built its airport, city leaders had high hopes it would quickly become a top air hub. Already in the airport’s second year, city council debated spending $50,000 on lights to allow overnight flying — to keep ahead...
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Teen fighting cancer gets a football title game trip
Fourteen-year-old Burke Bowie has been fifighting cancer longer than he’s been watching football. Both have led him on trips of a lifetime. After 10 years of battling neuroblastoma, a cancer that starts in immature nerve tissue, and another year...
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‘Fiscal restraint’ part of Kemp’s priorities
Gov. Brian Kemp on Thursday unveiled plans to put more than $2 billion back in the pockets of taxpayers through tax cuts and rebates. If approved by the General Assembly, the tax relief and budget proposals would cement Kemp’s legacy of returning...
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Kemp proposes $2B in highway expansions
Gov. Brian Kemp rolled out a sweeping infrastructure proposal Wednesday anchored by multibillion-dollar improvements to some of Georgia’s most congested highways, new rural roadwork and a $50 million initiative addressing homelessness. Kemp revealed...
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Welcome back, Georgia Legislature
The state’s lawmakers returned to Atlanta on Monday to kick off the second year of the two-year legislative session. Hundreds of bills that didn’t cross the finish line last year remain in play, including a change to how school speeding zone cameras...
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DATA CENTER FRENZY RAISES COMPETITION FOR DEVELOPMENT SITES
Real estate is expected to appreciate in value, but it’s rare to see a property’s price quadruple in only three years. But that’s exactly what happened in Alpharetta for an aging data center formerly used by BlackBerry. The 16-year-old facility at...
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Shutdown is a ‘cold dose of reality’ for public media
After more than five decades of helping fund public radio and television stations in Atlanta and across the nation, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s board of directors has voted to dissolve the organization. The finality of the decision,...
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Atlanta mayor shares his vision at inauguration
Mayor Andre Dickens was sworn in to office for a second term Monday, along with all members of the Atlanta City Council. Thousands of people crowded into Georgia State University’s Convocation Hall for the inauguration ceremony — including top...
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Venezuelans in Atlanta imagine post-maduro life
Andrea Paiva was brought to tears Saturday morning as she caught up on overnight messages from loved ones informing her that Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and his wife had been captured in a U.S. operation. The 32-year-old, who moved to metro...
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U.S TO 'RUN' VENEZUELA AND CONTROL ITS OIL
CARACAS, VENEZUELA — Hours after an audacious military operation that plucked leader Nicolás Maduro from power and removed him from the country, President Donald Trump said Saturday that the United States would run Venezuela at least temporarily and...
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‘We’re trying to get them to see that they can do it’
Krista Sanders’ Advanced Placement Calculus students at Atlanta’s Mays High School have their eyes set on a big graph displayed at the front of the classroom. Sanders has drawn a line on the graph that has two slopes. She asks her class to identify the...
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Will suburban voters ever support transit expansion?
Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens sees expanding MARTA into Cobb and Gwinnett counties as a key step toward better regional connection, while metro Atlanta residents continue to struggle with traffic congestion that’s both frustrating and dangerous. But his...
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2026 could again reshape Georgia's political identity
It was supposed to be a quieter year in Georgia politics — a pause between election cycles, a chance for both parties to regroup before the 2026 onslaught. Instead, 2025 became a prelude to what is sure to be a political tempest. President Donald...
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'They're just humble folks trying to bring awareness to peace'
Amanda Furgason first became familiar with Buddhism when she was around 12 or 13, after becoming disillusioned with her experiences in the Southern Baptist church. So when she learned a group of Buddhist monks who are walking to promote peace would be...
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Carter Center navigates politics a year after namesake's death
Carter Center CEO Paige Alexander remembers her Atlanta nonprofit still was grieving the loss of its namesake at the beginning of this year when it was faced with a new challenge to its mission of advancing health, human rights and peace around the...
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Coke's first ad appeared in its hometown paper
Hometown Coca-Cola has long been a marketing behemoth, from Super Bowl spots to its iconic holiday ads featuring Santa Claus and precocious polar bears. But Coca-Cola’s first advertisement was far more modest, about the size of a pair of postage...
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East Lake mural honors beloved community leader
For muralist Chastain “Chaz” Clark, brick is not just a blank canvas. He uses brick to tell a story about Atlanta, the city he grew up in. It’s a story about history, identity and power. “Bricks are important for a lot of reasons in Atlanta and in...
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Why Kwanzaaa still matters
In 1981, Kenneth Zakee was grieving. His mother, Marjorie Hardaway, had died earlier that year, and the holidays arrived carrying more absence than comfort. Christmas, once anchored by the familiar rhythms of his mother and sister in the kitchen,...
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'This, once it's all set up and wired up, is magical'
As Christmas curb appeal goes, Don Mathis’ house won’t appear on ‘The Great Christmas Light Fight’ anytime soon. The white lights twinkling from the roofline, shrubbery and a set of wire reindeer in the yard suggest a measured Yuletide gaiety. But the...
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God's Acre reveals complex Cherokee history
SPRING PLACE — Near the edge of this tiny North Georgia community lies a grassy field topped with rustic split-rail fences and weathered gray stone monuments. Called “God’s Acre,” this is the final resting place for a diverse group of people who shared...
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Grieving mom calls on GSP to rein in pursuits
Kate Schoenke can count on one hand how many holidays, major milestones or special occasions have passed without both her children at home. Now, she and her 16-yearold daughter are trying to process what an endless string of Christmases and birthdays...
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Philanthropy helped shape Atlanta and state. Here’s how that legacy endures.
In this giving season, Atlanta’s leading philanthropists are helping fund efforts that are reshaping the city, the state and the world. On Friday, international and U.S. philanthropic partners, including the Sandy Springs-based James M. Cox...
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College player killed in DeKalb fire 'just a good kid to be around'
His size — 6 feet, 5 inches tall, roughly 280 pounds — made Izaiah Taylor a force on the football field. But off the field, the 21-year-old was respectful and kind, his grandfather told The Atlanta Journal-constitution. “He was a gentleman, very...
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UPS leaders plot comeback after 'most' challenging year'
While a company’s stock price doesn’t always tell the whole story, Sandy Springs-based UPS’ shares certainly have been telling one in 2025. This year, the global shipping giant’s stock reached lows it hadn’t seen since the COVID19 pandemic first...
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Dekalb extends pause in data center growth
Dekalb County commissioners on Tuesday extended a moratorium on the development or expansion of data centers for six months, after hearing from residents who are fiercely opposed to the facilities. However, county officials said the moratorium could...
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What happened to hiker on Blood Mountain? Charles Hosch, 67, went for a walk Nov. 11 in North Georgia, then vanished.
BLAIRSVILLE — Charles Hosch went to Blood Mountain to take a small amount of dirt. The 67-year-old and his older brother, Heyward, last year began gathering soil from places they considered sacred — Gettysburg among them — and sealing each sample in...
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With a $38B budget in his last year, will Kemp swing big or play it safe?
Brian Kemp never lacked for ambition. In seven years, he has rewritten Georgia’s abortion law, expanded gun rights, cut taxes, engineered a Medicaid alternative and pushed through a bruising civil litigation overhaul. Now he has one year left and one...
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Atlanta’s past echoes in the Gulch. The city’s future rises from the depths.
On a recent chilly Thursday, a pair of cranes swung girders over a place soon to become a bustling plaza at the doorstep of State Farm Arena. Above, sunlight glinted off the façade of the new Hotel Phoenix, with a name evocative of myth but also...
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Who pays when Waymo cars ignore stopped school buses?
A disturbing pattern of driverless cars rolling past stopped school buses has revealed a new kind of dilemma on Atlanta’s streets. Since May, Atlanta Public Schools has reported six cases in which Waymo’s autonomous vehicles drove past school buses...
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Midtown cuts holiday lights, but there's still 'plenty of pop'
As he drove along Peachtree Street in Midtown Atlanta on Tuesday, David Posluszny glanced toward the famed Margaret Mitchell House and noticed that a typical white glow was missing. The Midtown resident, who lived about a block away until June, was...
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City kicks off $1B Civic Center project in Old Fourth Ward
City officials broke ground at the Boisfeuillet Jones Atlanta Civic Center on Tuesday, kick-starting a massive, $1 billion mixeduse redevelopment that’s been years in the making but plagued by delays. Atlanta Housing CEO Terri Lee said the first phase...
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Let there be lights! The Capitol turns festive
Gov. Brian Kemp and first lady Marty Kemp, along with daughter Amy Porter Kemp, lit the Capitol Christmas tree Monday in a ceremony at the Gold Dome. Other state leaders were in attendance, and the Spelman Glee Club performed Christmas carols. This...
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'All we owe to them now ... is to never forget.'
SAVANNAH — Judy Roddy feels the emotional pull of Pearl Harbor every day of her life, not just on the anniversary of the attack that led the United States to enter World War II 84 years ago. So as she stepped to a lectern Sunday to read a poem as part...
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Georgia's special ed program promised help. Families say it delivered them harm.
The Richards’ mission to rescue their son came with an unthinkable price tag. Over the course of a decade, the Georgia couple moved across three counties and enrolled him in more than a dozen schools. In desperation, they even tried homeschooling and...
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Hey FIFA! Atlanta says it's ready for the World Cup
Six months before Atlanta hosts its first 2026 FIFA World Cup match, fans and fanatics gathered in Buckhead to witness history. On Friday, the Atlanta World Cup Host Committee threw a block party outside Fado Irish Pub in Buckhead Village to witness a...
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Civil rights museum opens new gallery on Reconstruction
“Lynching. 1918. Twenty-one. Pregnant. Burned. Publicly. Day. White. Eleven. Died. Against.” The 11 words stamped into the 400-pound iron plate created by the artist Lonnie Holley could each stand alone, fragments of violence and loss. Taken...
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Walmart launches drone delivery service in metro Atlanta
Why, yes, that is a Walmart package buzzing through the air. The ubiquitous big-box retailer on Wednesday launched drone delivery service in metro Atlanta. Walmart has partnered with drone provider Wing, owned by Google parent company Alphabet. The...
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New charter school aims to guide students to success
The ride for many students to the Movement School near Hartsfield-jackson Atlanta International Airport leads past several closed-off spaces, such as barbed-wire roads and parking lots with high fences. The school grounds are different. The building...
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Don't like to shop? Hey, let AI do it for you.
Despite trade uncertainty, inflation and the government shutdown, the National Retail Federation anticipates sales in the 2025 holiday season will hit $1 trillion for the first time ever. But a different forecast shows average consumer spending is...
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Twice the gift
The Lewis family’s annual Christmas dinner with the Marasco family was in full swing when Jennifer Lewis, milling in the kitchen, glanced at the open doorway and stalled. Her childhood friend, Angela Marasco Cassandra, was there. Angela’s kidneys were...
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Youth orchestra serves as refuge amid immigration crackdown
On a recent Wednesday, retired music teacher Juana Alzaga drove to an immigrant-serving nonprofit along Buford Highway and tried to get a room full of third graders to harmonize — and also sit up straight. “You and your instruments are one,” repeated...
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Vietnamese sisters give thanks, pay it forward
The classic Thanksgiving origin tale tells the story of a group of courageous pilgrims who sailed across the ocean in search of freedom and a new beginning. Along the way, the travelers are aided by the kindness of strangers in a strange land. The...
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Retail spending is up but some feel its pinch
Like a game of Tetris, delivery drivers hurried to place packages in every inch of their vehicles before a 20-minute clock ran out. Trunks were popped open and doors ajar inside this Target sortation center in Lawrenceville, which handles the...
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Invention has 'changed the sound of the game'
In homes across the U.S. this holiday season, a familiar sound will likely be heard beneath the din of pots and pans — the crack of football helmets colliding. A day of gratitude, Thanksgiving and the days surrounding the holiday are intertwined with...
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A scary elevator rescue. with a Spider-Man touch
Johnny Jones said he tried to calm himself once the elevator he often rides in his family’s downtown Atlanta high-rise suddenly came to a halt amid near-freezing temperatures this month. During the season’s first blast of frigid air, the 13-year-old...
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Major cleanup underway at UPS crash site in Kentucky
One week after the fatal UPS cargo plane crash in Louisville, a major environmental remediation effort is underway in Kentucky to minimize the effect of hundreds of thousands of gallons of fuel, oil and other chemicals involved in the...
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Fulton balks at request for 2020 election records
Fulton County officials are approaching a deadline to comply with a request by President Donald Trump’s Justice Department for a slew of records related to the 2020 election with resistance. Fulton County Commission Chair Robb Pitts said the county...
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Veteran beat cancer, vowed to help others
Raquel Durden received news that would radically alter the course of her life. Nine years ago, she was diagnosed with a form of advanced stage uterine cancer. Durden knew it could be fatal. Drawing on the mental toughness she developed during her 25...
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Closing Georgia’s gap in civil justice
For decades, low-income and rural Georgians have fought civil court battles on their own, too poor or remote to hire a lawyer. Now, the state’s legal community has a new solution. Judges, lawyers and court staff across Georgia have been studying how...
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Norfolk Southern got safer. Unions say merger could upend progress.
In the two and half years since Norfolk Southern’s devastating train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, the company has undergone what it calls a “safety transformation.” The 2023 derailment was a wake-up call for Norfolk Southern and the industry....
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FAA begins flight cuts at Hartsfield-Jackson
The first day of broad flight cuts triggered by the federal government shutdown had travelers on edge at the world’s busiest airport on Friday. From vacationers to road warriors to famous performers, just about everyone at Hartsfield-jackson Atlanta...
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Atlanta airport faces flights cuts
American transportation regulators will cut flights by 10% across 40 of the nation’s busiest airports if the government shutdown continues. The list includes Hartsfield-jackson Atlanta International Airport. Capacity reductions will begin at 4%...
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Search for victims continues following UPS plane crash
The search for victims continued Wednesday after the fiery crash of a UPS wide-body cargo plane at the Louisville, Kentucky, airport on Tuesday afternoon, with 11 confirmed dead so far and operations disrupted at the shipping company’s global air...
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Mostly smooth day as Georgians go to polls
Georgia voters experienced few problems Tuesday as they headed to the polls for a variety of local and state races. The secretary of state’s office reported more than 650,000 voters had cast ballots Tuesday as of 4:30 p.m. Another 640,000 voted early...
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Botanical garden plan stirs debate in College Park
As College Park officials held a ceremonial groundbreaking for a botanical garden Thursday, critics were questioning the city’s allotment of more than $13 million for a project they say is moving forward without enough transparency. Additionally, the...
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Unearthing hidden graveyard 'a delicate balance' for Atlanta
Just inside Atlanta’s northern I-285 perimeter sits an untouched cemetery — larger than the city’s Oakland Cemetery, and home to thousands of graves lost to time. The expansive 70-acre property is almost entirely invisible from outside the tree line...
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A last request
Eurie Martin walked down Deepstep Road in rural Middle Georgia to visit his sister. He never made it to her front door in Sandersville. The July heat drew Martin up an unfamiliar driveway in search of water. Martin was a big man, standing 6 feet tall...
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For metro Atlanta couples, it’s ‘till death do us part’
Morticia Addams pulled her new husband in close Friday morning and kissed him on the lips after the two exchanged vows. As she did, the severed hand perched atop Gomez’s left shoulder fell to the carpeted floor of the courthouse chapel. The newlyweds,...
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Atlanta food bank taps $5M in reserves
The Atlanta Community Food Bank will take $5 million out of its reserves to prepare for what it expects will be surging demand across metro Atlanta as federal government workers go unpaid during the shutdown and food assistance is paused. The food...
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Caribbean begins works of rebuilding
SANTIAGO DE CUBA, CUBA — Hurricane Melissa left at least dozens dead and widespread destruction across Cuba, Haiti and Jamaica, where roofless homes, toppled utility poles and waterlogged furniture dominated the landscape Wednesday. A landslide...
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Dickens is urged to work closer with local leaders
Andre Dickens, in a probable second term as Atlanta’s mayor, should use his political heft to improve collaboration among municipalities in tackling the metro area’s biggest challenges, say elected leaders across the region. Some officials, like...
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Advocates urge Kemp to back protection of Okefenokee
Next year’s legislative session still is months away, but conservationists already are ramping up the pressure on Gov. Brian Kemp to support measures they say would permanently protect the Okefenokee Swamp from mining. A group of Okefenokee advocates...
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Great Dunes fairway swings back to life
JEKYLL ISLAND — Legend has it a Ford Model T is buried somewhere among the sands and brush of the nearly century-old Great Dunes golf course that overlooks the Atlantic Ocean. If so, the antique car is the rare treasure not uncovered in a yearlong...
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CRITICAL MOMENT FOR MARTA
MARTA is at a crossroads. Its top official resigned earlier this year, an unexpected departure that, while welcomed by some after months of mounting service issues, nevertheless thrust the transit agency into uncertainty at a critical time. MARTA is...
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HBCU homecomings are 'a revival of spirit'
HBCU homecoming season makes the long trips short. For Rasheed Dennis, that means flying from Playa del Carmen, Mexico — where he’s lived for 12 years — to his alma mater, Clark Atlanta University, for this weekend’s festivities. Dennis said coming...
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Transit tops Dicken's proposed project list
A more than 200-item project list sent to Atlanta City Council members this week gives the first look at how Mayor Andre Dickens wants to spend more than $5.5 billion generated by a citywide tax allocation district extension. The first-term mayor’s...
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Atlanta’s Stitch project is a go, despite federal cuts
The leaders of an ambitious effort to cap Atlanta’s Downtown Connector with an elevated park on Wednesday say their project remains in motion and released their clearest vision yet of what they aim to build. They also want Congress to see what...
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Atlantic Station looks to the future after reshaping Atlanta
Atlantic Station is known today as one of the South’s largest livework-play districts, filled with glassy towers and shops around every corner. But the project almost never came to be. Before his partners could put a shovel in the ground, Jim Jacoby,...
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Eats, beloved for its comfort food, closes after 32 years on Ponce. Crowds turn out for one last plate from 'restaurant for the people'
In a city constantly changing, Eats stayed the same. For 32 years, the restaurant on Ponce de Leon Avenue served affordable comfort food. It was no frills, come are you are, customers said, with heaping plates of food served on red cafeteria...
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Construction on ‘dicey’ interchange won’t end soon
MACON The construction-gnarled nexus of two interstates that link Atlanta and Savannah has been a perilous, yearslong jumble of snaking lane shifts and traffic chutes that travelers and locals alike in this Middle Georgia city can’t wait to see...
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