Initial filings for unemployment benefits in Georgia dropped last week compared with the week prior, the U.S. Department of Labor said Thursday.

New jobless claims, a proxy for layoffs, fell to 4,570 in the week ending April 20, down from 5,867 the week before, the Labor Department said.

U.S. unemployment claims dropped to 207,000 last week, down 5,000 claims from 212,000 the week prior on a seasonally adjusted basis.

Rhode Island saw the largest percentage increase in weekly claims, with claims jumping by 231.4%. Virgin Islands, meanwhile, saw the largest percentage drop in new claims, with claims dropping by 60.9%.

The USA TODAY Network is publishing localized versions of this story on its news sites across the country, generated with data from the U.S. Department of Labor’s weekly unemployment insurance claims report. 

Back in 2019, the Green Bay Packers revamped their safety position by signing Adrian Amos in free agency and using a first round pick on Darnell Savage.

Those two moves gave the Packers solid safety play during their run of three straight NFC North titles and two conference title appearances between 2019-2021.

The Packers have overhauled that position again, and hope it leads to high level production in 2024 — and beyond.

Green Bay signed safety Xavier McKinney in free agency last month. The Packers then selected Georgia safety Javon Bullard in the second round of Friday’s draft.

Now, there’s a good chance McKinney and Bullard will be Green Bay’s starting safeties when the Packers face Philadelphia in Week 1 in Brazil.

“Yeah, he’s a good football player. He’s very smart, knows how to play, knows how to make plays,” Pat Moore, the Packers’ Assistant Director of College Scouting said of Bullard. “I don’t think we took him with a specific spot in mind other than a good secondary player who can help us.”

Bullard is 5-foot-10 ½ and weighs 199 pounds. He ran the 40-yard dash in 4.45 seconds and had a terrific 20-yard shuttle time of 3.98 seconds.

Bullard played mostly slot corner in 2022 when the Bulldogs won the national championship. He had 3.5 sacks and seven tackles for loss that season, and was named Defensive MVP of the 2022 national championship game

The Bulldogs moved Bullard to safety in 2023 where he finished with career highs in tackles (56) and passes defensed (seven). He was also voted the top safety at the Senior Bowl.

While most teams view Bullard as a safety, his versatility made him attractive to the Packers.

“I can play all three positions in the secondary,” Bullard said. “Whatever you need me to play. I feel like I proved my versatility throughout this process, man, being able to cover slot guys and being able to cover tight ends and being able to get down in the box and get down-and-dirty with your running backs, things like that. so I feel like I can play all over.”

Decatur, Ga. – A judge upheld the disqualification of a candidate who had had planned to run against the judge presiding over former President Donald Trump’s 2020 Georgia election interference case.

Tiffani Johnson is one of two people who filed paperwork to challenge Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee. An administrative law judge earlier this month found that she was not qualified to run for the seat after she failed to appear at a hearing on a challenge to her eligibility, and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger adopted that decision.

Johnson last week filed a petition for review of that decision in Fulton County Superior Court. After all of McAfee’s colleagues on the Fulton County bench were recused, a judge in neighboring DeKalb County took up the matter and held a hearing Thursday on Johnson’s petition.

At the end of the hearing, DeKalb Superior Court Judge Stacey Hydrick upheld the decision that said Johnson is not eligible, news outlets reported. A representative for Johnson’s campaign did not immediately respond to an email Friday seeking comment.

The ruling leaves McAfee with a single challenger, civil rights attorney Robert Patillo, in the nonpartisan race for his seat.

With early voting set to begin Monday for the May 21 election, it’s likely too late to remove Johnson’s name from the ballot. The law says that if a candidate is determined not to be qualified, that person’s name should be withheld from the ballot or stricken from any ballots. If there isn’t enough time to strike the candidate’s name, prominent notices are to be placed at polling places advising voters that the candidate is disqualified and that votes cast for her will not be counted.

Georgia law allows any person who is eligible to vote for a candidate to challenge the candidate’s qualifications by filing a complaint with the secretary of state’s office within two weeks of the qualification deadline. A lawyer for Sean Arnold, a Fulton County voter, filed the challenge on March 22.

Arnold’s complaint noted that the Georgia Constitution requires all judges to “reside in the geographical area in which they are elected to serve.” He noted that in Johnson’s qualification paperwork she listed her home address as being in DeKalb County and wrote that she had been a legal resident of neighboring Fulton County for “0 consecutive years.” The qualification paperwork Johnson signed includes a line that says the candidate is “an elector of the county of my residence eligible to vote in the election in which I am a candidate.”

Administrative Law Judge Ronit Walker on April 2 held a hearing on the matter but noted in her decision that Johnson did not appear.

Walker wrote that the burden of proof is on the candidate to “affirmatively establish eligibility for office” and that Johnson’s failure to appear at the hearing “rendered her incapable of meeting her burden of proof.”

Walker concluded that Johnson was unqualified to be a candidate for superior court judge in the Atlanta Judicial Circuit. Raffensperger adopted the judge’s findings and conclusions in reaching his decision to disqualify her.

A lawyer Johnson, who said in her petition that she has since moved to Fulton County, argued that Johnson failed to show up for the hearing because she did not receive the notice for it.

Without addressing the merits of the residency challenge, Hydrick found that Johnson had been given sufficient notice ahead of the hearing before the administrative law judge and concluded that the disqualification was proper.