Georgia

Kemp to begin second Georgia term with new pay raise pledge

Published

2 years ago

January 12, 2023

Kemp to begin second Georgia term with new pay raise pledge

ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia’s Brian Kemp is scheduled to be sworn in for a second time period as governor Thursday, promising across-the-board pay raises for state workers and public college lecturers whereas questions linger about his long-term legacy whilst he rides excessive politically.

The Republican plans to make use of his inaugural handle to suggest additional pay raises, in line with draft remarks considered by The Related Press, though the precise quantity gained’t be unveiled till he speaks Thursday.

The 59-year-old Kemp begins his second time period atop Georgia’s political world. He rode his stewardship of the financial system to a giant win over Democrat Stacey Abrams, although Abrams once more outspent Kemp.

With a brand new Home speaker and lieutenant governor, Kemp is unlikely to be challenged by the GOP-led Legislature.

The incumbent retains ticking off financial improvement bulletins, together with $2.5 billion for 2 photo voltaic panel crops introduced Wednesday by Hanwha Answer’s Qcells unit in what the corporate mentioned was the biggest photo voltaic funding ever within the U.S.

Kemp delivered $5,000 pay raises to lecturers and state workers in his first time period. He promised lecturers $5,000 when he ran in 2018, delivering in two steps, whereas state workers bought your entire $5,000 as Kemp ran for reelection final 12 months, after state revenues have been supercharged by federal spending and the financial restoration from the COVID-19 pandemic. His inaugural pledge will reprise that theme.

Kemp additionally seeks to satisfy marketing campaign guarantees to ship one other $1 billion of revenue tax refunds and a $1 billion property tax rebate. He plans to make use of Georgia’s $6.6 billion in surplus money to pay for these givebacks, in addition to refill the state’s roadbuilding coffers after suspending gasoline tax collections for 10 months.

“They despatched it to us, so as a substitute of spending it on new authorities applications, and larger authorities, we’re going to place that cash again of their pocket to assist them combat by 40-year-high inflation,” Kemp advised the Georgia Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday.

Kemp’s towering political successes have given him a nationwide political profile, thriving as a Republican regardless of Donald Trump’s emnity. Kemp even basked in a presidential boomlet within the weeks after he stomped Abrams.

After taking his oath, he’s headed to the World Financial Discussion board in Davos, Switzerland, the place his workers says he’ll discuss how his conservative governance has promoted financial success.

However Kemp has but to clinch the height achievements defining probably the most profitable Georgia governors in current historical past. Democrat Joe Frank Harris carried out the state’s present training funding system and backed Atlanta’s 1996 Olympics bid. Democrat Zell Miller created HOPE faculty scholarships and prekindergarten funded by the state lottery. Republican Nathan Deal reformed Georgia’s felony justice system and backed a tax enhance for street building.

“I feel his final 4 years would be the figuring out issue, as a result of he’s nonetheless serving. I’m undecided but,” Democratic state Rep. Al Williams of Halfway mentioned of Kemp’s legacy.

Brian Robinson, a Republican political marketing consultant who was Deal’s communications chief, mentioned the governor’s “political shackles are off,” notably if Kemp doesn’t plan to run for workplace once more.

“He has the flexibility for a time frame to enact a imaginative and prescient, to do one thing that may be a legacy undertaking. He can assume massive, he can assume daring, and ship on change,” Robinson mentioned, including that the window in all probability runs by the top of the 2024 legislative session, earlier than lame duck standing will minimize into Kemp’s affect.

Kemp to this point hasn’t rolled out any monumental second-term plans. However generally a legacy finds a governor. Robinson mentioned it wasn’t in any respect sure in late 2014 that Deal would get behind a plan to boost gasoline taxes.

“I’m sitting there on the senior workers lunch going. ‘I don’t know what our agenda is, however there’s this transportation invoice that’s effervescent up, and we will both lead the cost or we will stand within the again and never have a say on this,’” Robinson mentioned. “And finally he led the cost.”

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Georgia

Jimmy Carter Christmas ornament now available at Georgia stores

Published

3 hours ago

November 22, 2024

Press Room

Jimmy Carter Christmas ornament now available at Georgia stores

ATLANTA – The White House is honoring former President Jimmy Carter this Christmas with his own ornament, and Georgians can get their own for their tree.

The ornament is in the shape of an anchor, a symbol of hope that also represents Carter’s service in the U.S. Navy.

It also features historic moments from Carter’s life and presidency and comes with a keepsake box and illustrated booklet on Carter’s presidency.

“It is a great honor to offer the Official 2024 White House Christmas Ornament at Home Depot stores for the first time in Georgia,” said Stewart McLaurin, president of the White House Historical Association. “This year we pay tribute to President Jimmy Carter’s remarkable life and enduring legacy as he continues to be a fixture in our country’s ongoing history.”

The White House Historical Association, Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum/NARA)

Shoppers can find the ornament at around 60 Home Depot stores across Georgia and in the Washington, D.C. area.

You can also buy the ornament on The Home Depot’s website.

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Georgia

Georgia Senate study panel considers restrictions on trans women’s college sports participation • Georgia Recorder

Published

10 hours ago

November 22, 2024

Press Room

Georgia Senate study panel considers restrictions on trans women’s college sports participation • Georgia Recorder

A Georgia Senate study committee that bills itself as tasked with protecting women’s sports met Thursday for the last time before it is set to release recommendations before next year’s legislative session, and transgender Georgians are bracing themselves.

At Thursday’s hearing, transgender women and allies argued that vanishingly few transgender women participate in school sports, and those who do are largely not at the top of the competitive heap. Many said the national focus is making life difficult.

“It’s so hard to face this kind of opposition,” said Aaron Baker, a transgender woman and activist. “It’s so hard to be at a hearing like this and hear the language. It’s so hard for you to hear people describe me as a biological man because it’s not

Aaron Baker. Ross Williams/Georgia Recorder

true. I am hormonally female, I’m phenotypically female, I’m psychologically female, and that is a gross oversimplification of who I am and my identity, and it hurts.”

Committee Chair Greg Dolezal, a Cumming Republican, told members he would spend the next week or so reviewing testimony from the committee’s three hearings and plans to announce the date for presenting recommendations shortly after. Study committee recommendations could take the form of proposed legislation in time for the 2025 General Assembly, which is set to begin Jan. 13.

Dolezal indicated he is interested in considering regulations for college sports. A previous hearing featured testimony from cisgender women college swimmers who said they were placed at an unfair disadvantage when they had to compete against a transgender woman at a competition at Georgia Tech.

“A few years ago, I believe it was three years ago, the General Assembly passed a bill essentially prescribing the control to make decisions around transgender participation in sports to the Georgia High School Association, they passed a resolution that stated that participation in sports, high school sports, in the state of Georgia was based on the sex prescribed on a birth certificate. The law is currently silent on the collegiate competition level. So right now, we just have a law as it relates to high school associations,” he said.

Other Republicans on the committee suggested they would like to see legislation in K-12 schools, especially surrounding restrooms and locker rooms.

“As a father of two young daughters, we’ve got to protect women,” said Gwinnett Republican Sen. Clint Dixon. “We’ve got to protect their sports, we’ve got to protect them in changing rooms from what we heard from many of those athletes who testified, four or five of them who testified in the first committee hearing, having to change, which took 20, 30 minutes at a time, in front of a transgender female, but still had the genitalia of a male, which was horrific for them to witness that, some of them ended up changing in a storage closet, some of them waited until that athlete left the room, having to miss some of their competition, and that’s just at the college level, we’re not even talking about minors in K-12.”

Some activists indicated that they would oppose any kind of restriction on transgender participation, while speakers like Lambda Legal attorney Sasha Buchert urged the lawmakers to take a nuanced approach over a blanket ban, which could mean a committee including medical experts to consider safety or competitive concerns on a case-by-case basis. Others said such decisions should be left to athletic associations and leagues rather than politicians or political appointees.

Delfina Booth Ross Williams/Georgia Recorder

“Sports are already managed by expert organizations like the NCAA, the International Olympics Committee, and professional leagues,” said Delfina Booth, a former Georgia Tech student and high school athlete who said she has lost transgender friends to police violence and suicide.

“These governing bodies have developed policies over decades that analyze fairness based on unique needs of each sport,” she added. “Contact sports have different rules than non-contact sports, children’s sports focus more on teamwork and development than adult sports, et cetera. These nuances cannot be addressed through broad government legislation. Additionally, decisions about athletic ability involve multiple complex factors, including the signs of physical development and the specific demands of each sport. These aren’t matters that lend themselves directly or easily to blanket rules.”

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Georgia

NC State football vs Georgia Tech score: Live updates, highlights from ACC game

Published

20 hours ago

November 21, 2024

Press Room

NC State football vs Georgia Tech score: Live updates, highlights from ACC game

The N.C. State Wolfpack and the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets play in primetime on Thursday (7:30 p.m., ESPN) at Bobby Dodd Stadium in Week 13 of the college football season.

Coming off an idle week, the Wolfpack (5-5, 2-4 ACC) needs to win one of its final two games to become bowl eligible for the fifth straight season. But it won’t be an easy task taking on the Yellow Jackets (6-4, 4-3) in Atlanta, where N.C. State has lost 11 of 15 games in the series.

The Wolfpack hasn’t won at Georgia Tech since 2010.

NC State vs GT preview, prediction

Keep this page refreshed and bookmarked for live updates for N.C. State vs. Georgia Tech.

NC State vs Georgia Tech score

Live scoreboard:

What channel is NC State vs Georgia Tech today?

TV Channel: ESPN

Livestream: Fubo (free trial), ESPN+

Watch NCSU vs. GT on Fubo

N.C. State vs. Georgia Tech will be broadcast nationally on ESPN in Week 13 of the 2024 college football season. Matt Barrie and Dan Mullen will call the game from the booth at Bobby Dodd Stadium, with Harry Lyles Jr. reporting from the sidelines. Streaming options for the game include FUBO, which offers a free trial to new subscribers. Matt Chazanow, Johnny Evans and Tony Haynes will have the radio call on the Wolfpack Sports Network.

NC State vs Georgia Tech start time

Date: Thursday, Nov. 21

Start time: 7:30 p.m.

Buy NCSU vs GT tickets here

The N.C. State vs. Georgia Tech game starts at 7:30 p.m. from Bobby Dodd Stadium in Atlanta, Georgia.

NC State vs Georgia Tech history

Series record: Georgia Tech 20-11

NC State’s last win: 2020 (23-13)

Georgia Tech’s last win: 2019 (28-26)

NC State vs Georgia Tech prediction

Georgia Tech 30, N.C. State 23: The Yellow Jackets will remain undefeated at home behind a big effort from quarterback Haynes King. The Wolfpack will head to Chapel Hill for the regular-season finale, needing a win to play in the postseason.

NC State vs Georgia Tech spread, betting odds

Game lines and odds from BetMGM will be posted as they become available.

Spread: Georgia Tech is an 8.5-point favorite

Over/under: 52.5 points

Moneyline: N.C. State (+270), Georgia Tech (-350)

NC State vs Georgia Tech weather

Temperatures for kickoff will be around 44 degrees under clear skies in Atlanta, Georgia. Winds will be between 8-16 mph, with gusts up to 38 mph.

NC State vs Georgia Tech injury updates

This section will updated in the pregame.

NC State schedule 2024

Aug. 29: Western Carolina (W, 38-21)
Sept. 7: Tennessee (L, 51-10)
Sept. 14: Louisiana Tech (W, 30-20)
Sept. 21: at Clemson (L, 59-35)
Sept. 28: Northern Illinois (W, 24-17)
Oct. 5: Wake Forest (L, 34-30)
Oct. 12: Syracuse (L, 24-17)
Oct. 19: at Cal (W, 24-23)
Oct. 26: OPEN
Nov. 2: Stanford (W, 59-28)
Nov. 9: Duke (L, 29-19)
Nov. 16: OPEN
Nov. 21: at Georgia Tech (Thursday)
Nov. 30: at UNC

Georgia Tech schedule 2024

Aug. 24: Florida State (W, 24-21)
Aug. 31: Georgia State (W, 35-12)
Sept. 7: at Syracuse (L, 31-28)
Sept. 14: VMI (W, 59-7)
Sept. 21: at Louisville (L, 31-19)
Sept. 28: OFF
Oct. 5: Duke (W, 24-14)
Oct. 12: at UNC (W, 41-34)
Oct. 19: Notre Dame (L, 31-13)
Oct. 26: at Virginia Tech (L, 21-6)
Nov. 2: OFF
Nov. 9: Miami (W, 28-23)
Nov. 16: OFF
Nov. 21: NC State (Thursday)
Nov. 29: at Georgia

Rodd Baxley covers Duke, North Carolina and N.C. State for The Fayetteville Observer as part of the USA TODAY Network. Follow his ACC coverage on X/Twitter or Bluesky: @RoddBaxley. Got questions regarding those teams? Send them to rbaxley@fayobserver.com.

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