The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Scams hit record high. Victims face new low.
Virtually every American has been targeted by scammers in some way, exclusive new polling data shows. Scams in the U.S. have surged to a record high, causing billions in losses for Americans. But the U.S. still lags behind some other countries in...
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A year later, more than 500 Georgia National Guard troops remain in D.C.
A s the black van edged its way down the street in front of Wheatley Education Campus, a pre-K-8 school buffered by row homes, the parents and activists gathered on the sidewalk began to chant loudly. “Guard. Out. Now.” Jaime Fearer, who has a third...
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Remote study program opens world to its students
On a recent Sunday night at Nakato Japanese Restaurant near Buckhead, a group of students and faculty gathered for dinner, celebrating the students’ recent completion of a unique academic achievement. It’s time for the second-to-last course: sukiyaki,...
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Amazon plane barrels off Miami runway, killing 5
MIAMI — An Amazon cargo plane barreled off a runway at Miami International Airport on Sunday, killing at least five people as it struck vehicles and burst into flames, authorities said. The aircraft overran the runway at about 2 p.m. after arriving...
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Roundabouts calm traffic but make some drivers anxious
At the Hyundai Metaplant test track, newly assembled EVs and hybrids bump over a cobblestone road, turn figure eights on a skid pad and brake squeal through a hairpin turn. The course challenges drivers as well as cars. Another test, though, lies just...
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Seven countries could shape governor's race
In a tightening race for governor, the path to victory could wind through the margins of some densely populated metro Atlanta counties and the leftward trends of previously reliable Republican areas. Recent polls show a toss-up between Democrat Keisha...
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Leaders agree Flock needs guardrails — but not on how far to go
Georgia’s political leaders are endorsing new guardrails around Flock cameras and other license-plate readers after a cascade of reports of law enforcement officers improperly using the technology. Georgia’s nominees for governor — Republican Rick...
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Freedom II will soar again. We just don't know when.
STATESBORO — You hear Freedom II before you see her, the shrill squawk echoing from the bald eagle enclosure near the heart of Georgia Southern’s campus. For years, such a call has communicated one thing around here: It’s time for football. Eagle...
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Alpharetta asked whether an NHL arena is feasible. Here’s the report.
Could a professional hockey arena make financial sense if placed in Alpharetta, an affluent suburb 25 miles north of Atlanta? The city is giving the idea a shot, voting last week to clear the way for North Point Mall’s redevelopment into a...
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Cumberland Island can now welcome more visitors
Cumberland Island is on many a nature lover’s bucket list. Soon, would-be visitors will have more flexibility in planning their trips to the remote Georgia barrier island. The National Park Service on Friday adopted a new visitation policy for the...
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Georgia has a powerful lieutenant governor. Will it stay that way?
Whoever wins Georgia’s lieutenant governor race in November will lead the state Senate chamber for the next four years, but the scope of his power will rest in the hands of the likely Republican majority. Many lieutenant governors across the country...
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South Georgia residents take up arms to eliminate this invasive species
Jim Gillis lowered the big tailgate on his F-250, revealing a cooler that might accommodate a picnic lunch. With a slight flourish, he flipped open its lid. It revealed a creature, mottled black and white, its obsidian eyes glowing even in death. It...
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After freezes, furloughs, Robins hiring 600 people
ROBINS AIR FORCE BASE — In an office a few blocks from the flight line here the other day, a patch of yellow sticky notes, one from an area mayor, one from a local city councilman among others, sat clumped near the phone on Tim Lawrence’s...
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Marietta man wins $4.3M against law firm
A Marietta man who hired Morgan & Morgan after being injured in a rearend collision has won $4.3 million in a legal malpractice fight against the law firm, which he accused of settling his crash lawsuit for $45,000 without his permission. Robert...
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Mayor’s legacy of revitalizing Atlanta hinges on school board
The fate of Mayor Andre Dickens’ signature legislation aimed at tackling Atlanta’s massive wealth divide now rests largely in the hands of the local school board. Dickens’ Neighborhood Reinvestment Initiative would extend the life of six of Atlanta’s...
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Dolly Parton
Born in abject poverty, her drive, talent and irrepressible optimism turned her from ‘Backwoods Barbie’ into a global superstar and beloved icon. Dolly Parton, the rhinestones-to-riches daughter of Appalachia who for six decades ruled country music...
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A real-life family feud: Coca-Cola heirs sparring
David Ball is readying for his annual late-summer trip to High Point, his family’s private retreat on Cumberland Island. He’s cleaning and rigging his fishing gear, collecting supplies and foodstuffs — there’s no grocery or convenience store on the...
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Ga. restaurants prep to post origin of shrimp they serve
Coastal Georgia is known for its hospitality as well as its shrimp-abundant waterways and estuaries. However, not all restaurants along the coast source their seafood from local waters, while allowing people to assume they do. Foreign imports have...
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Could it now slide back?
The schools helped bring Charles Rousseau to Fayette County — and the schools are what drew him to the political front lines. It all started with a tense phone call his wife received from their son’s middle school principal that felt unfair and...
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‘Soccer in Sanford’ shatters NCAA attendance records
At the University of Georgia, football often dominates the headlines. Thursday night, though, a different kind of football stole the spotlight at Sanford Stadium. With an attendance of 25,433 for Georgia’s 6-0 win against James Madison on Thursday,...
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Activist group pushes for ICE schools policy
Amid the start of a new school year and reports of more ICE arrests in Georgia, some community groups are advocating for rules in a few metro Atlanta school districts that would make it tougher for the federal agents to remove a student from a public...
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More solar projects heading to rural Ga.
A trio of new renewable energy projects could soon cover thousands of more acres of rural Georgia in solar panels, according to filings submitted in recent days to state regional planning authorities. The proposals come as Georgia seeks to keep up...
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His Waffle House song went viral. Then the company fired him.
A Gwinnett County man whose song celebrating Waffle House went viral has been fired by the Atlanta-headquartered restaurant franchise for violating its policy. Edric Riley, whose musical moniker is Rockstar Riley, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution...
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Savannah’s homebuilding boom reshapes the coast
SAVANNAH— The roads bear names like Little Neck and Fort Argyle, Belfast Keller and Blue Jay, Pine Barren and Quacco. They stretch through the countryside just beyond the grip of Savannah’s sprawl, but there are signs that this frontier is soon to be...
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Ossoff wants more than win over Collins
U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff is showing no mercy. The Democrat leads Republican challenger Mike Collins in every major public poll, holds a massive fundraising advantage and now is trying to peel away GOP voters. At his Sunday rally in Atlanta, Ossoff made...
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Inside the online realm where the Apalachee school shooter spent his time How parents and teachers can identify children who may be developing an unhealthy obsession with mass killers.
The Apalachee High School shooter didn’t have friends and didn’t attend school his entire eighth-grade year, court hearings showed. But online, he found a community that prosecutors said led to him carrying out his attack, which became the deadliest...
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GOP pushes politics of past, including communism, Shariah
ROME — Republicans’ annual Tillman Rally has graduated from a sweltering airport hangar to a swanky lakeside venue, but it still acts as a gauge for the mood of Georgia’s grassroots conservatives. This year, it sometimes felt like a walk back in...
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MARTA interim CEO gets job permanently
MARTA’s next general manager and CEO will be Jonathan Hunt, a familiar face who has been with the agency for more than a decade, including spending the past year as its interim leader. Hunt was the unanimous selection of MARTA’s board of directors,...
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Population growth slows slightly amid tight housing
While metro Atlanta is adding thousands of new residents, population growth is slowing, hampered by housing supply, a new study found. The 11-county metro added 53,690 residents between April 2025 and April 2026 — the slowest pace of population growth...
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Honey, call the bee vet!
At the University of Georgia’s veterinary teaching hospital, aspiring animal doctors learn to minister to a menagerie: dogs with dermatitis and horses with colic, diabetic cats and malnourished parrots, bleeding rabbits and wheezing snakes. “Whatever...
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Study: Nearly 150 acres of tree canopy lost a year
In the years since the Great Recession, many of Atlanta’s intown neighborhoods have been transformed by a building boom aimed at keeping up with the city’s growing population. But for “the city in the forest,” that development has come at the expense...
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What’s behind state’s rising home insurance costs?
Georgia homeowners are continuing to feel it in their wallets as insurance costs climb, driven by stronger storms and higher rebuilding costs. A recent LendingTree analysis showed that home insurance costs in Georgia increased by an average of 7.3% in...
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The food pantry line at a suburban Atlanta church is as long as it is diverse
Financial situations can change quickly. An illness or lost job can lead to an emergency. And some recipients here at the church may just be delivering food to others in need. Snapshots of American life, taken from vehicles rolling through a...
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RFK Jr. marks CDC attack with visit to Atlanta
U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. visited the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday to mark the one-year anniversary of a shooting that locked down the federal facility for hours and killed a police...
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Inside Rivian’s next phase of construction
Vertical construction doesn’t just mean buildings rising above Georgia’s clay-stained dirt. It also includes subterranean work, and there’s plenty of that taking place an hour east of Atlanta at the site of Rivian’s future $5 billion electric vehicle...
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Wanted: Buyer for historic downtown mansion
If walls could talk, the Rufus M. Rose House might cry out for help. The circa-1901 Victorian mansion has sat vacant along Peachtree Street in the shadow of the Southeast’s tallest skyscraper for at least two decades. Ivy crawls up its red-brick...
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A magnolia tree falls in Atlanta, but its baseball legacy lingers
With sawdust on the asphalt and splintered wood on the hillside, one of the city’s most venerable trees was torn apart on Monday. Not many people saw it happen. Those on the Beltline above could have run or bicycled past without knowing anything was...
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A picture-perfect day to go back to school
Monday was the first day of school in many districts across metro Atlanta, including Cobb County, where a group of third graders gathered for a photo at Pickett’s Mill Elementary School in Acworth. For more back-to-school coverage, go to AJC.com.
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Access to free, low-cost school lunches tightening
Changes to federal safety net programs could mean many Georgia children will start the new school year without access to subsidized school meals, a recent report from the Center for American Progress says. The longtime policy research nonprofit, based...
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Inspections uncover violations at Georgia med spas and IV clinics
Anew inspection program examining Georgia’s med spas, IV clinics and other healthcare businesses has found numerous problems that threaten public safety. The unannounced checks by the Georgia Composite Medical Board discovered medical services being...
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South Downtown slows growth after World Cup fever
South Downtown has been a whirlwind of construction in recent months to get ready for the World Cup, but it’s about to switch from offense to defense. The owners of dozens of historical buildings in the 10-block neighborhood say they’ve pumped $140...
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Apalachee High shooter’s father gets 15 years
WINDER — The father of Apalachee High School shooter Colt Gray was sentenced Thursday to 15 years in prison, two days after his son was without the possibility of parole for Georgia’s deadliest school shooting. Colin Gray, 55, is the first Georgia...
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Atlanta Public Schools unveils tactical, drone security teams
Atlanta Public Schools is bolstering its school security this year by adding tactical and drone teams to its police force. District officials debuted the new units recently, running practice drills at a school district property in the Polar Rock...
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Apalachee school shooter to serve life with no parole
WINDER — Colt Gray was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole Tuesday after three days in court hearing testimony from victims, experts and other witnesses after he pleaded guilty last week to all 55 charges in the Apalachee High School...
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World Cup brought surge in use of e-bikes, scooters
Residents and visitors racked up nearly 1 million miles on one company’s scooters and e-bikes over the six weeks Atlanta hosted World Cup matches. Lime said Friday that it saw the number of rentals skyrocket during the soccer tournament, especially in...
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Andruw jones' greatness now affirmed forever
Former Braves star Andruw Jones, a five-time All-Star and 10-time Gold Glove-winning outfielder, became the first player from Curaçao to be inducted into the Hall of Fame on Sunday in Cooperstown, N.Y. Jones played for Atlanta from 1996-2007. Among...
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Okefenokee Swamp now is a UNESCO World Heritage site
The Grand Canyon. The Great Barrier Reef. The ancient temples of Angkor. For decades, these iconic places and many others have graced the UNESCO World Heritage List, a collection of the planet’s most treasured natural and cultural sites. Now, a new...
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Apalachee shooting suspect pleads guilty
Apalachee High School shooting WINDER — suspect Colt Gray pleaded guilty Friday, almost two years after two of his classmates and two teachers were fatally gunned down on the Barrow County campus. Gray, 14 at the time of the shooting on Sept. 4,...
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'In my mind, I just had a date with destiny' in 1976
On the afternoon of Sunday, July 25, 1976, Edwin Moses wasn’t wondering whether he would win Olympic gold. He was on the clock. Months before arriving in Montreal for the 1976 Summer Olympics, the 20-year-old Morehouse College student had memorized the...
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Trump's policy pitch turns into a campaign rally
President Donald Trump vowed Iran would never obtain a nuclear weapon. He boasted about his crackdown on illegal immigration and the stock market’s “skyrocketing” gains. He attacked the “fake news,” repeatedly blasted communism, praised the U.S....
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Oakland Roots Academy
It’s 9:30 on a summer morning near East Atlanta. One student pushes a wheelbarrow across the Oakland Cemetery grass while others break up soil, rakes in hand. “Of course it’s still a work in progress, but you can see where we’re going, where we’re...
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Pro sumo wrestling in Atlanta? A new league says yes.
A former Turner Entertainment executive has announced a new professional sumo wrestling league based out of Atlanta. He believes the Japanese sport could take off in North America. Dubbed the Sumo Championship League, organizers hope to start touring...
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¡CAMPEONES!
A story that started in Atlanta with a surprising 0-0 draw with Cape Verde — and was followed by a dominant 4-0 win over Saudi Arabia here — was capped in style in New Jersey. Spain, through Ferran Torres’ 106-minute banger, provided a fitting finale...
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FEDERAL PRISON SEEMS TO HAVE DISREGARD ITS OWN SECURITY PROTOCOLS WITH PRISONER
When Arthur Lee Cofield Jr. escaped from the federal prison camp in Jesup, it was not a moment destined to become part of prison break lore. Minimum security prison camps like the one in Jesup generally do not have perimeter fencing, nor do they...
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Obscure board holds key to $1.36B jail funding plan
Fulton County’s $1.36 billion financing plan for its jail project rests in the hands of five board members of a little-known jail authority created decades ago, and controlled by current and former officials of Union City and Palmetto. County...
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1050 Brickworks example of buildings going bust
“Build it and they will come” often acts as a slogan among optimists in commercial real estate. But what happens if they don’t come? Without enough tenants paying rent to help pay off a project’s debt, developers often will hand over the keys to cut...
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Fitting finale for Atlanta's World Cup matches
Lionel Messi and Argentina rallied (what’s new, huh?) to beat England 2-1 Wednesday in Atlanta and move to Sunday’s World Cup final against Spain. It was the fourth match in a row in which Argentina scored late to win (and the second time in ATL)....
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Georgia gas prices increasing as U.S.-Iran war resumes
After months of decline, gas prices across the country are steadily increasing after the fragile ceasefire between Iran and the United States broke down last week. On Monday, oil prices increased by 9%. The surge is coming right at the peak of the...
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High Museum’s former COO pleads guilty to felony theft
The High Museum of Art’s former chief operating officer pleaded guilty Monday to a single felony theft charge, accused of stealing more than $600,000 from the organization while entrusted with its assets. Brady Lum, 59, appeared in court before U.S....
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Cars with modern bones but classic looks
For someone who grew up with his bedroom plastered in classic car posters, Chau Nguyen doesn’t have much nice to say about his experience once he made that dream come true. Sure, nothing on the road turns heads quite like a hot rod or vintage vehicle...
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Federal plan OKs mansions on ‘primitive’ Cumberland Island
Among the otherwise unspoiled natural beauty of the Cumberland Island National Seashore stand reminders of the Georgia barrier island’s opulent gilded past. The ruins of Dungeness, a 59-room, 37,000-squarefoot estate house dating to the mid-1880s,...
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Georgia students scramble as Grad PLUS loans end
Mackenzie Hickson graduated from Spelman College this spring and looked forward to a restful summer before starting her graduate degree classes this fall at Emory University. That was until her mentor said she’d have to be enrolled by July 1 to get the...
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World Cup misses goal for some vendors
The stadium has been packed, the FIFA World Cup Fan Festival downtown has seen record attendance, and watch parties and other events have spread across the region. But for some Atlanta businesses, the major soccer tournament has fallen far short of...
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Human touch doesn’t get lost in the sea of robots
ELLABELL — Car bodies glide across polished factory floors from one assembly station to another, as if thrust by telekinesis, in a mechanical dance. Automated sleds ferry stamped metal to lines of robotic arms, lifting everything from car doors to...
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Thrills. Chills. Heartbreak. A match no one expected.
Argentina completed a stunning comeback to defeat Egypt 3-2 in the World Cup round of 16 match at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta on Tuesday. Egypt had a 2-0 lead with goals from Yasser Ibrahim and Mostafa Ziko. Cristian Romero started the comeback...
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GOAL IS DEVELOPING DOWNTOWN TO KEEP IT BUSY ALL THE TIME
Downtown Atlanta is abuzz when concerts, conventions and sports are taking place — look no further than this summer’s jam-packed World Cup events. But what does downtown look like between large events? How can a sliver of that game day vibrancy be...
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Federal Government could sell aging 'money pits' in Georgia
Some buildings have leaky roofs or frequent basement flooding. Others feature malfunc tioning elevators, parades of rats or still use air circulation systems from World War II. Some aging workplaces aren’t exactly welcoming to the federal...
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Peachtree sees big turnout as runners beat worst of the heat
Heat and humidity couldn’t take down the Northside Hospital Peachtree Road Race and its 45,000-plus runners, one of Atlanta’s most enduring traditions. Atlanta Track Club, which oversees the annual race in its 57th running, had sent out a red flag...
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THE MODEST ROOTS of GEORGIA'S THREE DECLARATION SIGNERS
Button Gwinnett didn’t want to be in Philadelphia for the Second Continental Congress in the summer of 1776, and not just because a heat wave gripped the city and delegates dressed in wool and powdered wigs. Gwinnett, one of three Georgians in...
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July 4 reopening of MLK’s childhood home is symbolic
As the nation marks its 250th anniversary, the birthplace of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. will reopen to the public Saturday after a three-year restoration, offering visitors a new way to experience the home where America’s most influential civil...
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'Pop-up' power plant stirs pollution worries
COVINGTON — Some people dream of living off the grid, controlling their own supply of electricity. A data center racing to open about 40 miles east of downtown Atlanta plans to do just that, assembling natural gas-powered generators on-site to provide...
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Cannons buried in Savannah River tell big Revolutionary War story
Cannon thunder often echoes in this coastal Georgia city, both from historic forts turned tourist attractions and from artillery training exercise fields at nearby Fort Stewart, home to the U.S. Army’s 3rd Infantry Division. Cannon talk is also...
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Get ready for more soccer and hotter temperatures
Since it was announced the 2026 FIFA World Cup would take place in North America during summer — one made even hotter by climate change — the potential impact of heat on the tournament has been a concern. In Atlanta, players taking the pitch inside...
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‘If ... you want to snatch up some folks just let me know’
Federal agents working to fulfill President Donald Trump’s mass-deportations agenda have benefited in Georgia from a powerful tool: local traffic enforcement. Footage of three traffic stops in northeast Georgia obtained through the Georgia Open...
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And a crash that keeps punishing Oak Grove.
Once upon a time in Oak Grove, someone had a terrible idea. It involved a revving engine and a curving road. It was in some ways a commonplace idea, given the ubiquity of cars in America and the primitive impulses of American teenagers. But in other...
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