An investigation is underway into how a man working at a Georgia lumber plant ended up in its wood chipper, according to investigators.
The victim was identified as 63-year-old Ralph Pickens of McCormick, South Carolina, the Columbia County Sheriff’s Office in Georgia told McClatchy News.
He died on the job at Pollard Lumber Company in Appling, Georgia, 20 miles northwest of Augusta. The incident happened the afternoon of Monday, Feb. 5, The Augusta Chronicle reports.
Investigators say Pickens died after entering “an industrial conveyor wood chipper” at the plant, which manufactures southern yellow pine for wholesale.
Details of how Pickens got onto the conveyor belt have not been released.
His home in McCormick is about 30 miles north of the plant, across the state line.
Conveyor wood chippers come in various forms, but are designed to feed wood into a machine that breaks it into pieces. The wood typically rides atop a conveyor belt before dropping into the machinery.
Mark Price is a National Reporter for McClatchy News. He joined the network of newspapers in 1991 at The Charlotte Observer, covering beats including schools, crime, immigration, LGBTQ issues, homelessness and nonprofits. He graduated from the University of Memphis with majors in journalism and art history, and a minor in geology.
Legal analyst and former U.S. Attorney Harry Litman warned that there is “blood in the water” in the developing Fani Willis-Nathan Wade investigation, despite his belief that their relationship presents “no conflict” to Willis’ case against Donald Trump.
While he is still the leading candidate for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, Trump is also facing four criminal indictments at the state and federal levels, adding up to 91 criminal charges that are the first ever leveled against a former president. Among those indictments is one from Fulton County, Georgia, where an investigation led by District Attorney Willis has charged Trump and others with racketeering over allegations that they attempted to interfere with the results of the 2020 presidential election in the state. Trump himself has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
One of Trump’s co-defendants, Michael Roman, filed a motion last month alleging that Willis was having a “personal relationship” with Wade “during the pendency” of the investigation into Trump. Roman’s motion alleges that Willis personally profited from the case against him, claiming Wade was paid in excess of $650,000 and that he used the earnings to pay for them to take vacations together.
In a filing from Friday, Willis acknowledged the past relationship with Wade, but denied that it presented any conflict of interest on her part, writing that “any personal relationship among members of the prosecution team does not amount to a disqualifying conflict of interest or otherwise harm a criminal defendant.”
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is seen delivering a criminal indictment against Donald Trump. Legal analyst Harry Litman on Friday warned that there could be “blood in the water” with regard to Willis’s relationship… Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is seen delivering a criminal indictment against Donald Trump. Legal analyst Harry Litman on Friday warned that there could be “blood in the water” with regard to Willis’s relationship with attorney Nathan Wade, which Trump’s team has decried as improper and called for her removal.
Joe Raedle/Getty Images
“Defendants have done nothing to establish an actual conflict of interest, nor have they shown that, in the handling of the case, District Attorney Willis or Special Prosecutor Wade have acted out of any personal or financial motivation,” the filing reads, later adding that, “District Attorney Willis has no financial conflict of interest that constitutes a legal basis for disqualification.”
During a Friday appearance on MSNBC‘s All In with Chris Hayes, Litman, who previously served as a U.S. attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania and deputy assistant attorney general at the Department of Justice (DOJ) during the Clinton administration, discussed recent developments in Trump’s various criminal trials.
During the discussion, Litman touched on the situation with Willis, stating that while he believes her relationship with Wade did not present any conflict, there is still now “blood in the water” surrounding the case.
“It’s 100 percent true under Georgia law, she needed to do it. The law of these kinds of scandals is to get it all out early,” he explained. “The thing is, by now, there’s sort of blood in the water. You have one of these phoney baloney special investigative commissions in Georgia, none other than [House Judiciary Chair] Jim Jordan subpoenaed her today. [Judge Scott] McAfee’s going to have a hearing on the 15th and oddly, even before this, he styled it an ‘evidentiary hearing.’ So what sort of evidence is it going to take? It could be a bit of a circus.”
Newsweek reached out to Willis’s office via email for comment on Saturday.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
As allies of Donald Trump schemed to seize voting machines in swing states after the 2020 election, Sidney Powell proposed issuing preemptive pardons—which the team described as “hunting licenses”—to shield them from legal liability, according to a new book by investigative reporters Michael Isikoff and Daniel Klaidman.
“I need six to eight pardons,” the former Trump attorney said in a Virginia planning meeting, according to Find Me the Votes, excerpts of which were reviewed by Vanity Fair ahead of its January 30 publication date. “What we need is a ‘hunting license’ that provides top cover for ops,” a member of Powell’s team wrote to Lin Wood, another Trump lawyer involved in the effort to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 victory, according to Isikoff and Klaidman.
According to Isikoff and Klaidman, the team asked Michael Trimarco, an associate of Rudy Giuliani’s, to get the former New York City mayor to approve the pardon proposal. But Giuliani “dismissed the idea as over the top,” according to the book. Trimarco apparently agreed, recalling that he thought, “What the fuck?” as the group mulled the idea.
Nevertheless, Giuliani, Powell, and other Trump allies would work to seize Dominion voting machines in an illicit effort to prove the election had been “stolen” by the Democrats. “We got a big project working in Georgia right now,” Giuliani said on Steve Bannon’s podcast on December 19. Three weeks later, on January 7—the day after a MAGA mob stormed Capitol Hill to prevent the certification of Biden’s win—Trump supporters breached the voting system in Coffee County, Georgia.
“Trump’s operatives were so obsessed with proving their theories that they were willing to go to extreme, even extra-legal lengths to get their hands on the evidence,” Isikoff and Klaidman write.
Powell and 18 others, including Trump and Giuliani, would eventually be charged in the racketeering case brought last year by Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis. In October, Powell pleaded guilty to six misdemeanor counts of conspiracy to commit intentional interference with the performance of election duties; Trump has maintained his innocence, and Giuliani has pleaded not guilty to all charges against him. (Representatives for Powell, Giuliani, and the Trump campaign did not return Vanity Fair’s request for comment. Wood, who was named as a state’s witness in the Fulton County case in September, said in an email that he does “not recall” receiving an email about the so-called hunting licenses and that he had “no involvement” in the matter.)
The Georgia case is one of four Trump is facing as he runs to return to power. But the proceedings have been thrown into uncertainty amid recent allegations that Willis was romantically involved with Nathan Wade, a consultant she hired to work as a special prosecutor in the election subversion case. (Vanity Fair has reached out to Wade and Willis for comment.)
Taxpayers in 14 states could get some financial relief this year thanks to lower individual tax rates enacted in 2024, according to an analysis from the Tax Foundation, a think tank that focuses on taxes.
The reductions represent a continuation of “tax cut fever,” as termed by the left-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP). The drive to cut state taxes began during the pandemic when many states found themselves flush with tax revenue. With coffers fat, lawmakers sought to provide some relief to their constituents, typically through tax rebates or rate reductions.
The states that are reducing taxes in 2024 tend to be controlled by Republican lawmakers, although there are some Democratic-controlled states that are also jumping on the tax cut bandwagon. Connecticut, for one, is reducing its tax rates for low- and middle-income residents, while keeping its highest marginal rate unchanged.
Lowering tax rates can help make a state more competitive, potentially drawing remote workers and businesses within their borders, noted Manish Bhatt, senior policy analyst with the Center for State Tax Policy at the Tax Foundation.
“The last few years have been incredibly fast-paced in the world of tax rate cuts, and they are to find a competitive edge over either neighboring states or around the country,” Bhatt told CBS MoneyWatch.
That logic begs the question of whether people and businesses are incentivized to move in pursuit of lower tax rates. The evidence is mixed: While some researchers have found that Americans shifted to low-tax states in recent years, it could be that some of those taxpayers moved because they were in search of a new job, better weather or lower housing costs.
Other research has found little evidence that lower tax rates drive migration. For instance, even if people move to lower-tax states, they are often replaced in their higher-tax states by new people moving in, noted the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities in a 2023 research paper.
Red state tax cuts
Many of the tax cuts will benefit the states’ richest residents, with 12 of the 14 states reducing their top marginal rate, or the tax rate that impacts their highest earners.
Take Arkansas, which is reducing its top marginal rate to 4.4% in 2024, from 4.7% last year. To be sure, the top marginal rate applies to any taxpayer earning more than $24,300, or about 1.1 million residents — a broad base of low-, middle- and high-income earners, according to the Arkansas Advocate.
But about 70% of the tax cut’s benefit will be enjoyed by the 20% richest households in the state, or those earning more than $264,000 annually, the newspaper noted, citing data from ITEP.
In the eyes of Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the cut will help draw people to the state. If you are “a young family looking for a new place to settle down, moving to Arkansas has never been better,” Sanders said when signing the bill to lower tax rates last year, the Arkansas Advocate reported.
There are also longer-term issues that could tarnish the allure of tax cuts. For instance, these tax-cutting states could face a financial pinch when a recession hits — which could lead to hits to essential services, from education to road maintenance.
One such example of a tax cut that backfired occurred in Kansas over a decade ago. In 2012, state lawmakers cut income tax rates for top earners by almost one-third and reduced some business taxes to zero. The idea was that lower taxes would kickstart economic growth.
Instead, the state was forced to slash spending on services, including education, and the state actually underperformed neighboring states economically. Eventually, the tax cuts were reversed.
Aimee Picchi is the associate managing editor for CBS MoneyWatch, where she covers business and personal finance. She previously worked at Bloomberg News and has written for national news outlets including USA Today and Consumer Reports.
With a runup in home values sparking higher property taxes for many Georgia homeowners, there is a groundswell among state lawmakers in this election year to provide relief.
Georgia’s Senate Finance Committee plans a hearing on Monday on a bill limiting increases in a home’s value, as assessed for property tax purposes, to 3% per year. The limit would last as long as the owner maintained a homestead exemption. Voters would have to approve the plan in a November referendum.
Meanwhile, Republican House Speaker Jon Burns of Newington proposes doubling the state’s homestead tax exemption, a measure likely to cut tax bills by nearly $100 million statewide.
But Georgia is far from the only state where lawmakers are reacting to voter discontent over higher levies.
“Property taxes are likely to be the biggest tax issue in many states this year,” said Jared Walczak of the Tax Foundation, a group that researches taxes and is often critical of increases.
In Texas, voters in November approved a plan cutting property taxes by $18 billion. Kansas’ Democratic governor and its Republican-majority legislature are both endorsing larger exemptions for homeowners to cut taxes by $100 million annually. Colorado lawmakers meeting in a November special session approved higher residential deductions and a lower assessment rate. Pennsylvania is using lottery proceeds to cut property taxes and subsidize rent for seniors and people with disabilities.
In Georgia, supporters say a cap on homes’ taxable value would keep school districts, cities and counties from increasing tax revenues by relying on rising values. Republicans have long pushed local governments to roll back tax rates to keep bills level, even requiring advertisements labeling a failure to do so as a tax increase.
Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Hufstetler, the Rome Republican sponsoring Senate Bill 349, says many school districts and governments are instead pocketing higher revenues based on value.
“I’ve seen some increases where, just in a couple of years, their collections have gone up 40%,” Hufstetler told The Associated Press on Friday. “And they haven’t dropped the millage rate and they are using it for a backdoor tax increase. And I think there needs to be some moderation on that.”
Statistics show overall property tax collections rose 41% from 2018 to 2022 in Georgia. During that same period, total assessed value of property statewide rose by nearly 39%. Those Georgia Department of Revenue figures represent not only existing property but also new buildings. So they don’t clearly state how much valuations rose on existing property.
Many governments and school districts have spent the windfall from rising values to increase employee pay and cover inflation-swollen expenses. A 3% cap could mean that governments would have to raise tax rates instead. In states including California and Colorado, property tax limits have been blamed for hamstringing local governments.
Already, at least 39 Georgia counties, 35 cities and 27 school systems have adopted local laws limiting how much assessed values can rise, according to the Association of County Commissions of Georgia. Some of those limits only benefit homeowners 65 or older.
Republican Lt. Gov. Burt Jones is backing Hufstetler’s bill, saying it will prevent “large surprise increases in home values.” It’s also supported by at least one Democrat, Atlanta Sen. Jason Esteves.
“A key piece of this bill is trying to ensure that people are able to stay in their home,” Esteves said, saying higher taxes are forcing owners to sell and move.
But state House leaders are cool toward imposing valuation caps statewide, saying that choice should be left to local communities. They instead back Burns’ increased tax exemption.
“Our hope is to preserve local control,” House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Shaw Blackmon, a Republican from Kathleen, said Friday.
Because the caps could hold down values more the longer someone owns a home, they could result in long-term residents paying lower taxes than newcomers. That’s already the case in some Georgia communities with local caps.
Suzanne Widenhouse, chief appraiser of the Muscogee County Board of Assessors, told a House committee in October that one Columbus homeowner paid $7.79 in property taxes last year, while a more recently arrived neighbor in a similar house paid $3,236.19. That owner would have paid more except for a $950 million property tax rebate championed by Gov. Brian Kemp.
More than $2 billion in property value in Columbus is shielded from taxation by homestead exemptions which don’t allow for any rise in value. That shifts the tax burden commercial and industrial property owners, as well as renters, Widenhouse said.
“Any time that you start capping values, you create inequality,” Widenhouse said.
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While appearing on the ABC talk show “The View” on Wednesday morning, Vice President Kamala Harris admitted to the liberal co-host Joy Behar that she is “scared as heck” of the former President Donald Trump ahead of this year’s presidential election.
Harris Is ‘Scared As Heck’
At one point in the interview, Behar asked Harris about concerns over the state of Joe Biden’s presidential campaign.
“President Obama reportedly has said that he thinks the Biden campaign is too complacent when it comes to Trump,” she began. “Representative Jim Clyburn has said the campaign isn’t breaking through the MAGA wall. Michelle Obama says she’s terrified, as we are, about the potential outcome of the election.”
“Now, are you scared?” Behar asked. “What could happen if Trump ever became, God forbid, president again? And what are you going to do to stop the crazies?”
“I am scared as heck!” Harris bluntly responded. “Which is why I’m traveling our country.”
“You know, there’s an old saying that there are only two ways to run for office: Either without an opponent or scared,” she continued. “So on all of those points, yes, we should ALL be scared.”
This is evil.
The sitting Vice President of the United States is fearmongering about their political opposition on national television.
Harris went on to bring the interview back to the issue of women and children.
“But as we know, and certainly this is a table of very powerful women,” she said. “We don’t run away from something when we’re scared. We fight back against it. Right. Yeah. So many of us know when we are scared for the future of our children, do we then stay in bed with the covers over our head? Nope. No we can’t. We cannot. We cannot. And this is where this election requires brightly that President Biden and I and and all of us who are part of this administration, we got to earn reelection.”
“There is no question,” she concluded. “We got to be on the road. Listen, since the in the last two weeks I’ve been to Georgia, I’ve been to Nevada, I’ve been to North Carolina, I’ve been to South Carolina twice. In the first two weeks of this year, I will be out on the road. We have to earn the reelect and we have to communicate what we have achieved, and that is going to be one of our big challenges. We’ve done a lot of good work. We need to let people know who bring it to them.”
Harris’ Unpopularity ‘Could End Up Being A Difference-Maker’
Harris has good reason to be “scared as heck,” as her approval rating fell from 41.7 percent to 36.3 percent last year while her disapproval increased from 51.7 percent to 53.7 percent, according to analysis by polling website 538. Thomas Gift, who heads up the Centre on U.S. Politics at University College London, told Newsweek last month that Harris’ unpopularity “could end up being a difference-maker” in the 2024 presidential election.
“To realize just how unpopular Kamala Harris is, you have to keep in mind the historical significance of it all,” Gift said. “No one in her position has had this low of favorabilities in a first term since Dan Quayle. That’s saying something. So it’s no surprise, especially with Biden’s age, that Republicans keep hammering home a simple point: a vote for Biden is a vote for Harris.
“While it’s usually the top of the ticket that drives voting, and that will be true again in 2024, Harris’ abysmal popularity will matter on the margins,” he added. “And with next year’s election poised to be close, those margins could end up being a difference-maker.”
What do you think about this? Let us know in the comments section.
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An Ivy leaguer, proud conservative millennial, history lover, writer, and lifelong New Englander, James specializes in the intersection of… More about James Conrad
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More than three years after the 2020 election, former President Donald Trump is claiming, again, to have definitive proof the election was stolen. But this new “evidence,” an anonymous 32-page document, is built on many of the same flimsy claims he’s endorsed since he lost to Joe Biden.
“It has often been repeated there is ‘no evidence’ of fraud in the 2020 Election,” the document says. “In actuality, there is no evidence Joe Biden won. Ongoing investigations in the Swing States reveal hundreds of thousands of votes were altered and/or not lawfully cast in the Presidential Election. Joe Biden needed them.”
The proof from swing states, it says, is enough to change the outcome.
Trump shared the unsigned document on TruthSocial, declaring it “fully verified.”
Stop us if you’ve heard this before: It’s not.
Trump lawyers cited Trump’s post in a federal court document arguing Trump has immunity from prosecution in the federal election interference case. The report details dozens of claims about the 2020 election from Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. Some allegations overlap with falsehoods previouslydebunked by PolitiFact or other fact-checkers. The report misleads about how election officials count ballots and arrive at final results.
“Nowhere is there a smoking gun, conclusive evidence that there was fraud or illegal ballots cast for Joe Biden,” said Justin Grimmer, a Stanford University political science professor who researches elections. “Instead, the report relies upon innuendo, implication and poor data analysis to reach a conclusion about fraudulent votes being cast when the evidence supposedly supporting that conclusion simply cannot justify that conclusion.”
The 2020 election’s outcome was verified in many ways. States certified the results. Congress accepted the results. Trump and his allies lost more than 60 lawsuits. A group of conservatives, including former federal judges, examined every fraud and miscount claim by Trump and concluded that they “failed to present evidence of fraud or inaccurate results significant enough to invalidate the results.”
On the same day Trump shared this report, USA Today published an op-ed by Ken Block headlined: “Trump paid me to find voter fraud. Then he lied after I found 2020 election wasn’t stolen.” Block, a former Rhode Island gubernatorial candidate who founded Simpatico Software Systems, was hired by the Trump campaign to try to back up Trump’s allegations after the election. His work is now in the hands of prosecutors who have charged Trump with crimes for actions leading to the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack.
“What these claims don’t take into account is that voter fraud is detectable, quantifiable and verifiable,” Block wrote in USA Today. “I have yet to see anyone offer up ‘evidence’ of voter fraud from the 2020 election that provides these three things.”
We fact-checked a sample of the allegations in the report Trump shared. Trump campaign spokespeople and his lawyers didn’t answer our emails asking to identify the report’s author.
This May 6, 2021, photo shows contractors for Florida-based Cyber Ninjas examining and recounting Maricopa County, Arizona’s 2020 general election ballots at Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix. (AP)
Arizona
The allegations about Arizona largely focus on Maricopa County, the jurisdiction with more than half of the state’s voters. State Senate Republicans ordered a review of the ballots and found that Biden beat Trump by about 45,000 votes — virtually the same as the county’s official canvass.
The report Trump shared repeats some debunked claims. For example, it said that Maricopa County accepted 18,000 mail ballots the day after the 2020 election from the U.S. Postal Service. The Associated Press concluded that the claim was wrong. The number referred to a form showing when early ballots received before the deadline were handed to a private vendor for scanning, a Maricopa County Elections Department spokesperson told the AP.
“In our legal system, there comes a time when questions are finally settled,” Paul Bender, an Arizona State University law professor, told PolitiFact “That time has come with regard to the validity of Biden’s election.”
In this Oct. 19, 2020 file photo, a voter submits a ballot in an official drop box during early voting in Athens, Ga. (AP)
Georgia
The report said “countless irregularities emerged” and cited “water main breaks” in reference to Georgia.
State Farm Arena in Atlanta reported that one room being used for ballot counting had a 6 a.m. water leak. There was a brief delay in tabulating absentee ballots during the two hours required to repair the leak, which resulted from an overflowing urinal. No ballots were damaged, the arena said.
In June 2023, the State Election Board dismissed a case about alleged malfeasance at the arena concluding “there was no evidence of any type of fraud as alleged.”
The Trump document cites questionable sources, including True the Vote about ballot drop boxes — the focus of the “2,000 Mules” documentary by Dinesh D’Souza. The 2022 film alleged massive voter fraud involving ballot drop boxes and cellphone location data, based on several hundred phones passing by drop boxes.
“These assertions are part of a dancing fountain of lies that have been disproven by the count, the recount, and the audit of the 2020 vote in Georgia, and for which not one single shred of evidence has been offered,” said Mike Hassinger, a Georgia Secretary of State spokesperson. “Sixteen individual lawsuits were brought to challenge the validity of Georgia’s 2020 election results, of which 12 were dismissed by the courts, and four withdrawn by former President Trump’s own lawyers.”
Voters wait in line Nov. 2, 2020, to fill out a ballot on the last day of early absentee voting before tomorrow’s general election at the Northwest Activities Center in Detroit. (AP)
Michigan
One of the report’s allegations about Michigan centered around suspected voter irregularities in Muskegon, a city of about 38,000 people. The report claimed police documented “a fraudulent voter registration scheme,” but this was kept “hidden” for almost three years.
The report’s source is The Gateway Pundit, and in August we rated the underlying claim False.
Here’s what happened: The Muskegon city clerk alerted police after noticing irregularities on some of the 8,000 to 10,000 voter registration forms dropped off by a canvasser. Local and state police referred the case to the FBI, because the canvasser’s employer, GBI Strategies, was operating in multiple states.
Danny Wimmer, press secretary for Michigan’s attorney general, told PolitiFact that officials hadn’t ruled out the possibility that a crime may have been committed, but none of the agencies involved in the investigation found any evidence of successful fraudulent voter registrations.
Philadelphia election workers scan ballots for the general election Nov. 3, 2020, at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia. (AP)
Pennsylvania
The report repeated a false claim Trump and his supporters pushed about ballot counting in Philadelphia in the days following the election. It alleged that in Pennsylvania’s largest city, “hundreds of thousands of mail-in ballots were unlawfully counted in secret,” and Republican poll watchers were barred from observing the vote count.
Election observers representing the Trump campaign and the Republican Party were allowed to observe the ballot-counting process, alongside Democrats. In Philadelphia, a judge allowed observers from both parties to view the process from 6 feet away.
“Nothing was done in secret or against a court order,” said Nick Custodio, a Philadelphia City Commissioners office spokesperson.
A ballot drop box sits outside City Hall in Milwaukee ahead of the 2020 election. (Rick Wood / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)
Wisconsin
After losing Wisconsin to Biden, Trump allies filed lawsuits seeking to invalidate votes cast by drop box. The report cites the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling in one of the lawsuits, which prohibited the use of drop boxes, except inside election offices.
This ruling was announced one month before the state’s primary election for the 2022 midterms and applies to future elections; it does not retroactively apply to the 2020 election.
An AP analysis found that the state’s expanded use of drop boxes in the 2020 election did not trigger widespread fraud. The Wisconsin Elections Commission saw no instances in which ballot drop boxes were damaged or used to submit fraudulent ballots.
Our ruling
If there was definitive evidence that Biden’s 2020 victory was secured on fraud, we would have it by now. The document shared by Trump is a lot of smoke — so much that we rate its central claim Pants on Fire!
EAST POINT, Ga. (Atlanta News First) – East Point has now joined a small but growing list of Georgia cities that have voted to decriminalize marijuana possession of an ounce or less.
Of the 535 cities in the state, East Point is just the 13th to make the move.
Now, people arrested for possession of one ounce or less of marijuana will be given a $75 fine or community service, but will not be punished with jail time.
The ordinance, unanimously approved by the East Point City Council on Dec. 19, almost identically mirrors a similar ordinance down the road in Atlanta.
East Point is the second city to decriminalize this year, following Camilla.
“Georgia is very, very behind the times when it comes to (decriminalization),” said Scotty Smart, a marijuana policy advocate with the group New Georgia Project.
Smart notes that Georgia has the fourth highest rate of simple marijuana possession in the entire country, and Black and brown residents are three to four times more likely to be arrested on that charge.
“Enactment of an ordinance concerning the offense of simple marijuana possession is further intended to prevent young people from entering the criminal justice system and avoiding the enduring stigma associated therewith,” reads part of the ordinance language.
The ordinance also states that decriminalization will also help open up police resources and eliminate costs “by reducing the amount of time police officers spend in connection with the arrest, processing and…
Savannah, Georgia — If historic homes are the fabric of Savannah, Georgia, Mae Bowley is the thread, salvaging precious materials from those about to be torn down.
“I got bit by the old building bug, and the next thing I knew, I was a warrior for these old building materials, trying to do everything I could to keep them out of the landfill,” said Bowley, who is the executive director of the nonprofitRe:Purpose Savannah.
Bowley showed CBS News an example of irreplaceable wood, hundreds of years old. It’s the kind of wood Re:Purpose Savannah salvages when it convinces owners to deconstruct a building instead of demolish it.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the construction and demolition industry in the U.S. sends an estimated 145 million tons of waste to U.S. landfills, accounting for a quarter of all waste.
“Construction and demolition is the single biggest contributor to American landfills,” Bowley said. “So this is an urgent, urgent area to address our current practices.”
From hinges and doorknobs to clawfoot tubs, window frames and that incomparable wood, it’s all sold at their warehouse. In five years, they’ve kept 3,000 tons of material out of landfills.
What’s old often ends up in new construction.
“The built environment holds so much of our history,” said Katie Fitzhugh, director of deconstruction for Re:Purpose Savannah. “And so when you lose it, we lose a lot of the stories and the connections that go with that.”
The nonprofit is an all-women plus venture in a male dominated industry. More than 90% of construction workers are men.
“There are barriers, whether they’re formal or informal,” Bowley explains. “And removing those barriers helps women break into a really rewarding industry, and start really long, productive, healthy careers.”
And it serves as an alternative to bulldozers and wrecking balls.
“There is light and there is beauty in what we’re able to do,” said Kelly Lowe, director of salvage for Re:Purpose Savannah. “And I think, you know, the broader message of what we’re doing is that we’re doing something with intention.”
It’s the nuanced work of preserving history, piece by precious piece.
Janet Shamlian is a CBS News correspondent based in Houston, Texas. Shamlian’s reporting is featured on all CBS News broadcasts and platforms including “CBS Mornings,” the “CBS Evening News” and the CBS News Streaming Network, CBS News’ premier 24/7 anchored streaming news service.
Thinking about planning a trip to Blairsville, GA? This small Georgia town is full of fun things to do, amazing restaurants, and beautiful scenery. Kidding Around team members have been to Blairsville, GA many times, and we’ve combined our experiences in this guide just for you. Check out all our recommendations for where to stay, what to eat and things to do in Blairsville, GA!
If you’re looking for an off-the-beaten-path destination with the perfect mix of southern charm and amenities, this is it. At just about 3 hours from the South Carolina Upstate, Blairsville makes the perfect weekend destination from Greenville, SC and Atlanta, GA.
First Impressions of Blairsville, Georgia
The drive to Blairsville takes you through national forests
and state parks. It was a peaceful, beautiful drive and if I’d been able to
leave earlier in the day, a roadside picnic would have made a perfect lunch.
Once I arrived, the first thing I wanted to do was take
photos of all the beautiful mountain views I saw while driving. You’ll be glad
know I abstained, for safety reasons. Plus there would be plenty more
opportunities for photos in the coming days.
Where To Stay in Blairsville, Georgia
This article contains Stay22 affiliate links.
Shady Rest
My accommodations for this trip were just outside of Blairsville in a neighboring town called Hiawassee. Shady Rest is a rental home on Chatuge Lake, owned Barry and Tricia White. The story behind this home and how this couple came to own it is a beautiful and touching tale of high school sweethearts who were blessed by the generosity of loving friends.
The house is beautifully decorated and has all the things you
would need to be comfortable away from home. The rental has three bedrooms with
three king size beds, each with their own master bathroom. The walkout basement
floor-plan includes one of the bedroom/bathroom combos and a private living
room area. This would be perfect for a multi-generational trip, when giving
grandparents the privacy of the ground floor accommodations. Shady Rest also
includes a fully equipped modern kitchen, dining room, washer and dryer and
private boat dock. The views of the mountain of the back porch are incredible,
no matter the time of day.
Shady Rest 50 Lakeview Circle Hiawassee, Georgia 30546
The Ridges Resort
I also got to tour The Ridges Resort, located in Young
Harris. The resort is located on Chatuge Lake, with boat rentals and an
inflatable obstacle course located next to the resort. With an on site
restaurant, saltwater pool, fire pits and nightly S’mores by the fire – this
option is a better fit for when you want to kick back and let someone else do
everything for you.
I was very pleasantly surprised to so many delicious and unique dining options in Blairsville. I definitely did not think that the options in this small town were typical. A BBQ place that could have very easily been part of this year’s Sunday Brunch at Euphoria, a home cooking restaurant that has a seasonal menu, and gets most if not all of its ingredients locally. I could go on and on, but I’ll just say this would definitely make for a fun foodie couples weekend get-away!
If I had to choose a favorite dining option in Blairsville,
which would be no small feat, this would be it.
Owners Shawn and Amy Kight have created something really special here with The Sawmill Place. The way Chef Shawn Kight lovingly showed off the locally procured hydroponic lettuce they use, I thought he had gotten in his start in LA or Atlanta. The Sawmill Place takes pride in everything they send out of the kitchen, and it shows. I got a VIP tour of the walk in cooler, to see the fresh seasonal produce they receive and how it’s processed. It was impressive to see a farm to table restaurant like this thriving in such a small town.
Their menu offers salads, wraps, sandwiches, locally raised beef burgers, meat and three options, a kids menu and an extensive breakfast menu. They even have a coffee bar located in the attached market. I’d be doing readers a disfavor if I didn’t mention the morning glory muffins they make. They are freshly made and incredible, just like everything else served. Chef Shawn saw how much I liked them and ran back to throw some in a box for me take on the road.
Thought and concern even goes into the items offered that aren’t made in the kitchen, like the drink offerings. They serve Coke brand fountain drinks, for those that favor more traditional flavors. However, I discovered a craft brand of soda there, that I just realized, I never sought out once I returned to the Upstate (I need to get on that ASAP). Grape Waynesville Soda was the perfect thing to go along with my Southwestern salad at lunch. It was made from real grape juice and, there were also other seasonal flavors that looked interesting!
I can’t say enough good things about this restaurant, and I hope you decide to visit the Kights when you make your way to Blairsville.
People are always saying what a small world it is. I don’t
think that ever felt more true until I met the owners of Jim’s Smokin’ Que. In
talking to them while I was there, they mentioned they had moved to Blairsville
from the same place in Florida that I grew up in. Ok, plenty of people have
moved away from Florida, no big deal. The reason this is even noteworthy, is
because Jim Guess worked about a mile from my childhood home and for a business
that I would frequently ride my bicycle past. It has nothing to do with how the
food tastes (Spoiler-it’s awesome!), but I think it’s a fun example of how
funny the world works.
Back to the reason I was there, the food.
One of the first things the Guess’ will tell people is that things sell out, and you should call ahead to reserve what you want or risk not getting it. I’m here to tell you it’s true. But in my opinion, that’s just a testament to how well received the food is by guests, and that everything is fresh. Two hours before closing and all that we had left to order was the pulled pork. It was amazing, and only made me upset I couldn’t try everything else. The sides are all made in house, and I opted for the coleslaw. The macaroni salad looked really good, and I’m still lobbying for places to do side dish flights, so I can try a little of everything.
If you go during the warmer months, leave time to play mini golf across the street. Pigs Gone Amok is open May through October, and is $5 per person.
Overlooking the beautiful Union County golf course, the View Grill offers everything from sandwiches to steaks on its menu, along with a full bar. We enjoyed a dinner at sunset on the outdoor patio and it was picture perfect. The chicken salad croissant sandwich with onion rings hit the spot, with a drink from the bar.
The desserts are made by a local bakery and the cake slices they brought out could easily be shared by two people. If you enjoy golf, this course should be on your itinerary. If not, it’s OK you can still enjoy a meal at The View Grill.
Wrapped around the historical society are a handful of restaurants and shops that make up the town square. One of the dining options with the most history is Hole In The Wall. There’s so much history, in fact, that a book has been written about it. Rumors of hauntings and more are included in the history of the nearly 100 year old building partially occupied by the restaurant.
While I do love myself a good ghost tale, do you know what I love more?
Cheesecake for breakfast.
Yup, you heard me correctly.
The Hole In The Wall serves up a stuffed french toast. They take two slices of bread and stuff it with fruit and cheesecake. It is glorious. If for some unknown reason cheesecake for breakfast isn’t your cup of tea, they have more traditional menu items, too. Eggs Benedict, banana nut pancakes and steak and eggs are just some of the savory options on the menu. But, I’m guessing you’ll just want the cheesecake for breakfast.
Located in the re-purposed Chevron gas station on the square, this coffee shop is where locals get the fuel they need to get through the day. Fresh roasted beans translate into some really great cups of coffee. They have all the traditional coffee drinks you are used to, along with frappes that are insanely good. Lets just be honest, they are more like a caffeinated dessert in a cup.
I enjoyed the most indulgent of the bunch, the Mississippi Mud Frappe. A mixture of Chilled espresso, Ghiradelli dark chocolate, hazelnut flavor blended with ice, and topped with MORE chocolate and espresso powder.
You can pair one of their drink offerings with a breakfast sandwich, bakery item, sandwich or soup. I chose the breakfast bagel sandwich and enjoyed it a lot! You can even purchase the house roasted coffee to bring back home with you.
This mother and son run restaurant is the perfect place for a date night while in Blairsville. Michaelee’s imports ingredients from Italy, like olive oil and coffee. The Isle of Capri appetizer included fresh burrata mozzarella and roma tomato slices on a bed of arugula with basil pesto. It is served with sliced warm crusty bread and an aged balsamic vinegar. I thoroughly enjoyed it!
A menu item that owner Lisa Collins said took locals a while to warm up to, is the Chocolate Shrimp appetizer. Pan sauteed shrimp are encrusted with shaved white chocolate, served with a chocolate balsamic sauce. My travel companions were raving about this dish!
That shrimp dish isn’t the only place that chocolate shows up on the menu! The chocolate chicken salad includes a chocolate encrusted chicken breast drizzled with the same chocolate balsamic sauce used on the shrimp.
I enjoyed Pasta Sorrento as my main course and it was so good, I continued to eat it way after I was full. Be sure to save room for the dessert, like the cheesecake we enjoyed.
Secluded on a mountainside sits the husband and wife-run Vineyard of Paradise Hills. Among the award winning varietals here is something unique that I don’t think you’ll find anywhere else. “Jacked Up Red” is aged in barrels straight from the Jack Daniels Distillery after the whiskey has been emptied out.
You can visit the distillery and enjoy a tasting accompanied by live music on the weekends or have it shipped to your home via the website. Paradise Hills offers more than just a glass of wine to visitors. You can enjoy a relaxing spa treatment there, and even stay the night in one of their rental cabins.
Enjoying a glass of wine overlooking the vineyard was the
first stop on our trip, and I highly recommend enjoying the view and a glass of
wine there.
Tommy Townsend, a Grandson of Grandaddy Mimm aka Jack McClure, began commercially producing corn whiskey in 2012. Jack McClure was a Moonshiner from 1930, until the day he succumbed to cancer in 1969. Not being raised in the deep south, Moonshine is a new experience for me. Nothing like jumping into the deep end of the pool right off the bat! My very first taste of moonshine was straight out of the still at Grandaddy Mimm’s. In retrospect, I probably should have worked my way up to the 160 something proof stuff that was dripping out of the still. But, you only live once right?
For the less adventurous drinker with $5 to spend, you can step
up to the tasting bar and sample their retail offerings. The moonshine they
offer ranges from stronger unflavored corn whiskeys (140 proof – 100 proof), to
lower proof flavored moonshines in fruit flavors (96 proof – 40 proof). That bar that your leaning on just happens to
be from the movie “Coyote Ugly”, and no, sadly they don’t allow you to hop up
and dance on it.
The nice thing about shopping a small business, is that the people working there are very familiar with the items on the shelves. That’s important when you are looking at buying a bottle of wine. The Wine shoppe has a great selection of wines and the knowledge about each of them to help you find something you’re going to love.
We were treated to a wine tasting and I highly recommend it if you are making the trip to Blairsville sans kids. A wine tasting there and then dinner at Michalee’s Italian Life Caffe would make for a perfect date night. You can even purchase a bottle of your favorite to bring next door to Michaelee’s.
This little county store located on the side of the highway, has been there for almost a century. The owners keep it stocked with local produce, jam and more. Do yourself a favor and buy more than one of those locally made hand-pies located by the register. They are delicious and you’ll wish you had more when you come to the last bite.
I love bringing home a locally made item as a souvenir, and this trip I chose a bar from the Wick And Wash collection of handmade soaps in the store. Jessica Clemmon’s is one of the owners and her line of soaps greets customers as they enter the building.
Outside the store you will find huge bubbling pots full of peanuts for sale, along with fresh local produce.
This little shop is in the town square is chock full of cute souvenir options. They have a really nice selection of children’s books that would make the little person in your life very happy! Grab a piece of jewelry, a soy candle or home décor to remember your trip with.
Things To Do in Blairsville, GA
Lake Chatuge provides all different types of fun during the warmer months. Boat rentals, swimming, aquatic obstacle courses and more. Blairsville offers so much more than lake life for visitors though.
Vogel State Park
One of my family’s favorite stops, we love the easy hike around the lake and down to the waterfall at Vogel State Park. In the summer you can swim in the lake at the sandy swimming beach. The mountan views are magnificent. We make sure to stop here everytime we’re in the area and we think you’ll love the peaceful trails just as much as we do!
Pro-tip: Stop for a coffee at Cabin Coffee Company on your way to the park and enjoy it with your walk on the trail.
I was excited and scared to see horse back riding on my itinerary this trip. It’s been more years than I care to admit since I regularly rode a horse. So long in fact that I checked off “novice” on the waiver form. I asked my horse to be “a good boy” and I climbed into the saddle. I immediately remembered what I loved about riding, and it was just like they say about riding a bicycle. It all came rushing back to me.
Trackrock Stables
Everyone at Trackrock was so patient and nice, it helped to ease everyone’s jitters about hopping on a horse. Our hour long ride stretched way longer than planned because we were just enjoying the view on the trail. At the point where you double back, the trail opens in to a field that overlooks the mountain range. It’s a breathtaking view and a great spot to stop for photos. It doesn’t matter how experienced you are, you’ll have a great time at Trackrock Stables.
The local national forest is home to more than just trees. Among the trees of the Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest hides the ancient Trackrock Petroglyphs. These patterns are carved into the soapstone. We passed this trailhead on the way to the stables and its definitely worth a stop when the site is open.
Lasso The Moon is a unique experience where you can spend time with some cute and fluffy alpacas and see what artist Holly Williams does with the wool the alpacas provide.
If you are a regular fan of Kidding Around, you know we have a weakness for cute and fluffy animals. All these cute alpacas in one place was almost too much to handle! We got to spend time with, pet and feed the animals, then we headed upstairs to the artist workshop. Holly makes beautiful things from the wool, and you can even take a class to learn how to create things like she does.
This small town is blessed to have such a beautiful park at
it’s disposal. It has everything you could want in a park! Hiking trails, a
playground, batting cages, skateboard park, swimming pool, tennis courts, a dog
park and the beautiful Butternit Creek and Nottley River. This park is also
host to the Scottish Festival in June and the Sorghum Festival in October.
Al Garnto, the artist responsible for the Appalachian Sculpture project chose Meeks park to place several of his kinetic sculptures. His sculptures are made from reclaimed and recycled materials, that he sources locally. His sculptures can be found all over town, and you can arrange a tour of his studio through his website contact info.
I can not wait to return to this unique little town in the North Georgia Mountains, to re-visit the places from this trip and explore new places. If you are looking for a place to escape and explore, this is it!
Looking for more places to spend the day with your family? Here’s our list of Day Trip Towns, just a short drive from the Upstate.
Rudy Giulianifiled for Chapter 11 bankruptcy Thursday as he seeks to appeal a jury’s stunning $148 million judgment to two Georgia election workers whom he defamed after the 2020 presidential election.
The filing came a day after the federal judge who oversaw the case handed down an order that would immediately force Giuliani to pay out the judgment awarded to Ruby Freeman and Wandrea “Shaye” Moss, election workers in Fulton County, Georgia in 2020.
The women said the former New York City mayor’s false comments against them after Republican Donald Trump lost Georgia by a narrow margin to Democrat Joe Biden led to death threats that made them fear for their lives.
The judge, Beryl A. Howell, wrote that Giuliani would not be given the typical 30 days out of concern that the former New York mayor would “conceal his assets.”
Giuliani’s political adviser, Ted Goodman, said in a statement that the bankruptcy filing “should be a surprise to no one” because “no person could have reasonably believed that Mayor Rudy Giuliani would be able to pay such a high punitive amount.”
The filing “will afford Mayor Giuliani the opportunity and time to pursue an appeal, while providing transparency for his finances under the supervision of the bankruptcy court, to ensure all creditors are treated equally and fairly throughout the process,” Goodman said.
The filing lists over $152 million in debts, which include, in addition to the $148 defamation judgment, more than seven figures in back taxes, and over $1.5 million in debt to two law firms.
The filing also lists “unknown” amounts of debt from several pending lawsuits, including ones filed by election technology companies Smartmatic and Dominion Voting Systems, Hunter Biden, and a former employee who accused Giuliani of sexual assault and abuse earlier this year.
Once referred to as “America’s Mayor” in the wake of 9/11, the one-time GOP presidential candidate is now in a financial and legal morass of investigations, fines, and lawsuits because of his work helping Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election.
Freeman and Moss’s attorney, Michael Gottlieb, told the Washington Post that Giuliani’s “maneuver is unsurprising, and it will not succeed in discharging Mr. Giuliani’s debt.” Under bankruptcy law, debts stemming from a “willful and malicious injury” cannot be discharged. In an appeal, Giuliani is likely to try to relitigate whether his actions qualify as such.
Since the jury handed down its verdict last week, Giuliani has continued to repeat conspiracy theories about Freeman and Moss while denying the jury’s conclusions in the defamation suit.
In an episode of his radio show Thursday, the former Trump advisor and personal attorney called the jury’s $148 million punitive judgment “an irrational amount of money,” adding that the judgment “is so irrational it tells you the trial was irrational because the result is the result of a completely unfair trial.”
Giuliani’s claims led Freeman and Moss to file another lawsuit Monday, seeking a court order to keep Giuliani from repeating the election conspiracies. Giuliani’s statements, written by Freeman and Moss’s attorneys, “make clear that he intends to persist in his campaign of targeted defamation and harassment. It must stop.”
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For nearly two decades, Georgia has lured big-time Hollywood movie studios with the promise of lucrative tax breaks for filming in the state.
And here’s a predictable plot twist: Handing out welfare to wildly successful movies—like Avengers: Endgame, which earned more than $2 billion at the box office but nevertheless also qualified for tax credits because it was filmed in Georgia—hasn’t been a good deal for taxpayers.
A new audit of Georgia’s Film Tax Credit program found that the state “loses money” on the program. A lot of money, actually: about $160,000 for every job the program creates. Georgia is now spending about $1.3 billion annually on the program, but it generates a return on investment of just 19 cents per dollar, the auditors conclude.
“This program should be halted immediately,” J.C. Bradbury, an economics professor at Georgia’s Kennesaw State University and a longtime critic of government subsidy schemes, posted on X (formerly Twitter). In a 2020 paper, Bradbury estimated that the state’s film tax credit program cost about $110,000 per full-time job created and that every Georgia household was on the hook for about $230 in additional taxes every year because of the program’s existence.
In addition to highlighting the tax credit program’s costs, the new audit also suggests that the film industry has inflated the supposed benefits of the program. Georgia’s film tax credit is responsible for creating about 34,000 jobs annually in the state, according to the new audit, but that’s well short of the 59,700 annual job-creation figure that a recent industry-funded study claimed, reportedVariety.
Created in 2005, Georgia’s subsidies for movie and TV production are the biggest such pot of cash available anywhere in the country. Production companies that spend at least $500,000 in the state during a single year are eligible for tax credits equal to 20 percent of their in-state expenditures. There is no cap on qualifying expenditures for production companies, and there is no aggregate cap for annual or lifetime tax credits, according to the audit report.
There’s no doubt that Georgia’s program has influenced where movie and TV production takes place. The new audit concludes that the program has induced “substantial economic activity in Georgia,” but that’s simply evidence of the fact that lighting a lot of money on fire will eventually produce some heat. The underlying numbers suggest that Georgia’s subsidies are doing a poor job of generating economic growth or creating jobs.
It’s been the same story pretty much everywhere else, though many states have gotten wise to the film tax credit scheme. In 2009, 44 states subsidized movie and TV production with some combination of rebates, tax credits, and grants. Today, just 22 states and Washington, D.C., offer those programs.
Even though Georgia’s program has a long history of bipartisan support, changes could be coming. As Reason‘s Joe Lancaster reported earlier this year, Lieutenant Gov. Burt Jones and Georgia Speaker of the House Jon Burns (R–Newington) have pledged to undertake a thorough review of the state’s tax credit programs, including the film tax credit, with an eye toward “ensuring a significant return on investment for Georgia’s taxpayers.”
With this new audit in hand, Jones and Burns should do their best Thanos impressions and turn Georgia’s deeply flawed movie welfare program to dust.
For this edition of “The Takeout,” Major Garrett heads to DeKalb County, Georgia, to investigate the increase in voter registration challenges since the 2020 presidential election. Citizens can now legally file an unlimited number of challenges if they presume there are errors in the voter rolls. The practice has yielded a fair amount of proponents and critics, and with 2024 around the corner, every vote in this state could decide the next election.
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BRUSSELS — Western leaders are grappling with how to handle two era-defining wars in the Middle East and in Ukraine. But there’s another issue, one far closer to home, that’s derailing governments in Europe and America: migration.
In recent days, U.S. President Joe Biden, his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron, and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak all hit trouble amid intense domestic pressure to tackle immigration; all three emerged weakened as a result. The stakes are high as American, British and European voters head to the polls in 2024.
“There is a temptation to hunt for quick fixes,” said Rashmin Sagoo, director of the international law program at the Chatham House think tank in London. “But irregular migration is a hugely challenging issue. And solving it requires long-term policy thinking beyond national boundaries.”
With election campaigning already under way, long-term plans may be hard to find. Far-right, anti-migrant populists promising sharp answers are gaining support in many Western democracies, leaving mainstream parties to count the costs. Less than a month ago in the Netherlands, pragmatic Dutch centrists lost to an anti-migrant radical.
Who will be next?
Rishi Sunak, United Kingdom
In Britain, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is under pressure from members of his own ruling Conservative party who fear voters will punish them over the government’s failure to get a grip on migration.
U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak speaks during a press conference in Dover on June 5, 2023 in Dover, England | Pool photo by Yui Mok/WPA via Getty Images
Seven years ago, voters backed Brexit because euroskeptic campaigners promised to “Take Back Control” of the U.K.’s borders. Instead, the picture is now more chaotic than ever. The U.K. chalked up record net migration figures last month, and the government has failed so far to stop small boats packed with asylum seekers crossing the English Channel.
Sunak is now in the firing line. He made a pledge to “Stop the Boats” central to his premiership. In the process, he ignited a war in his already divided party about just how far Britain should go.
Under Sunak’s deal with Rwanda, the central African nation agreed to resettle asylum seekers who arrived on British shores in small boats. The PM says the policy will deter migrants from making sea crossings to the U.K. in the first place. But the plan was struck down by the Supreme Court in London, and Sunak’s Tories now can’t agree on what to do next.
Having survived what threatened to be a catastrophic rebellion in parliament on Tuesday, the British premier still faces a brutal battle in the legislature over his proposed Rwanda law early next year.
Time is running out for Sunak to find a fix. An election is expected next fall.
Emmanuel Macron, France
The French president suffered an unexpected body blow when the lower house of parliament rejected his flagship immigration bill this week.
French President Emmanuel Macron at the Elysee Palace in Paris, on June 21, 2023 | Ludovic Marin/AFP via Getty Images
After losing parliamentary elections last year, getting legislation through the National Assembly has been a fraught process for Macron. He has been forced to rely on votes from the right-wing Les Républicains party on more than one occasion.
Macron’s draft law on immigration was meant to please both the conservatives and the center-left with a carefully designed mix of repressive and liberal measures. But in a dramatic upset, the National Assembly, which is split between centrists, the left and the far right, voted against the legislation on day one of debates.
Now Macron is searching for a compromise. The government has tasked a joint committee of senators and MPs with seeking a deal. But it’s likely their text will be harsher than the initial draft, given that the Senate is dominated by the centre right — and this will be a problem for Macron’s left-leaning lawmakers.
If a compromise is not found, Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally will be able to capitalize on Macron’s failure ahead of the European Parliament elections next June.
But even if the French president does manage to muddle through, the episode is likely to mark the end of his “neither left nor right” political offer. It also raises serious doubts about his ability to legislate on controversial topics.
Joe Biden, United States
The immigration crisis is one of the most vexing and longest-running domestic challenges for President Joe Biden. He came into office vowing to reverse the policies of his predecessor, Donald Trump, and build a “fair and humane” system, only to see Congress sit on his plan for comprehensive immigration reform.
U.S. President Joe Biden pauses as he gives a speech in Des Moines, Iowa on July 15, 2019 | Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
The White House has seen a deluge of migrants at the nation’s southern border, strained by a decades-old system unable to handle modern migration patterns.
Ahead of next year’s presidential election, Republicans have seized on the issue. GOP state leaders have filed lawsuits against the administration and sent busloads of migrants to Democrat-led cities, while in Washington, Republicans in Congress have tied foreign aid to sweeping changes to border policy, putting the White House in a tight spot as Biden officials now consider a slate of policies they once forcefully rejected.
The political pressure has spilled into the other aisle. States and cities, particularly ones led by Democrats, are pressuring Washington leaders to do more in terms of providing additional federal aid and revamping southern border policies to limit the flow of asylum seekers into the United States.
New York City has had more than 150,000 new arrivals over the past year and a half — forcing cuts to new police recruits, cutting library hours and limiting sanitation duties. Similar problems are playing out in cities like Chicago, which had migrants sleeping in buses or police stations.
The pressure from Democrats is straining their relationship with the White House. New York City Mayor Eric Adams runs the largest city in the nation, but hasn’t spoken with Biden in nearly a year. “We just need help, and we’re not getting that help,” Adams told reporters Tuesday.
Olaf Scholz, Germany
Migration has been at the top of the political agenda in Germany for months, with asylum applications rising to their highest levels since the 2015 refugee crisis triggered by Syria’s civil war.
The latest influx has posed a daunting challenge to national and local governments alike, which have struggled to find housing and other services for the migrants, not to mention the necessary funds.
The inability to limit the number of refugees has put German Chancellor Olaf Scholz under immense pressure | Michele Tantussi/Getty Images
The inability — in a country that ranks among the most coveted destinations for asylum seekers — to limit the number of refugees has put German Chancellor Olaf Scholz under immense pressure. In the hope of stemming the flow, Germany recently reinstated border checks with Poland, the Czech Republic and Switzerland, hoping to turn back the refugees before they hit German soil.
Even with border controls, refugee numbers remain high, which has been a boon to the far right. Germany’s anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany party has reached record support in national polls.
Since overtaking Scholz’s Social Democrats in June, the AfD has widened its lead further, recording 22 percent in recent polls, second only to the center-right Christian Democrats.
The AfD is expected to sweep three state elections next September in eastern Germany, where support for the party and its reactionary anti-foreigner policies is particularly strong.
The center-right, meanwhile, is hardening its position on migration and turning its back on the open-border policies championed by former Chancellor Angela Merkel. Among the new priorities is a plan to follow the U.K.’s Rwanda model for processing refugees in third countries.
Karl Nehammer, Austria
Like Scholz, the Austrian leader’s approval ratings have taken a nosedive thanks to concerns over migration. Austria has taken steps to tighten controls at its southern and eastern borders.
Though the tactic has led to a drop in arrivals by asylum seekers, it also means Austria has effectively suspended the EU’s borderless travel regime, which has been a boon to the regional economy for decades.
Austria has effectively suspended the EU’s borderless travel regime, which has been a boon to the regional economy for decades | Thomas Kronsteiner/Getty Images
The far-right Freedom Party has had a commanding lead for more than a year, topping the ruling center-right in polls by 10 points. That puts the party in a position to win national elections scheduled for next fall, which would mark an unprecedented rightward tilt in a country whose politics have been dominated by the center since World War II.
Giorgia Meloni, Italy
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni made her name in opposition, campaigning on a radical far-right agenda. Since winning power in last year’s election, she has shifted to more moderate positions on Ukraine and Europe.
Meloni now needs to appease her base on migration, a topic that has dominated Italian debate for years. Instead, however, she has been forced to grant visas to hundreds of thousands of legal migrants to cover labor shortages. Complicating matters, boat landings in Italy are up by about 50 per cent year-on-year despite some headline-grabbling policies and deals to stop arrivals.
While Meloni has ordered the construction of detention centers where migrants will be held pending repatriation, in reality local conditions in African countries and a lack of repatriation agreements present serious impediments.
Italy’s Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni at a press conference on March 9, 2023 | Tiziana Fabi/AFP via Getty Images
Although she won the support of Commission President Ursula von der Leyen for her cause, a potential EU naval mission to block departures from Africa would risk breaching international law.
Meloni has tried other options, including a deal with Tunisia to help stop migrant smuggling, but the plan fell apart before it began. A deal with Albania to offshore some migrant detention centers also ran into trouble.
Now Meloni is in a bind. The migration issue has brought her into conflict with France and Germany as she attempts to create a reputation as a moderate conservative.
If she fails to get to grips with the issue, she is likely to lose political ground. Her coalition partner Matteo Salvini is known as a hardliner on migration, and while they’re officially allies for now, they will be rivals again later.
Geert Wilders, the Netherlands
The government of long-serving Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte was toppled over migration talks in July, after which he announced his exit from politics. In subsequent elections, in which different parties vied to fill Rutte’s void, far-right firebrand Geert Wilders secured a shock win. On election night he promised to curb the “asylum tsunami.”
Wilders is now seeking to prop up a center-right coalition with three other parties that have urged getting migration under control. One of them is Rutte’s old group, now led by Dilan Yeşilgöz.
Geert Wilders attends a meeting in the Dutch parliament with party leaders to discuss the formation of a coalition government, on November 24, 2023 | Carl Court/Getty Images
A former refugee, Yeşilgöz turned migration into one of the main topics of her campaign. She was criticized after the elections for paving the way for Wilders to win — not only by focusing on migration, but also by opening the door to potentially governing with Wilders.
Now, though, coalition talks are stuck, and it could take months to form a new cabinet. If Wilders, who clearly has a mandate from voters, can stitch a coalition together, the political trajectory of the Netherlands — generally known as a pragmatic nation — will shift significantly to the right. A crackdown on migration is as certain as anything can be.
Leo Varadkar, Ireland
Even in Ireland, an economically open country long used to exporting its own people worldwide, an immigration-friendly and pro-business government has been forced by rising anti-foreigner sentiment to introduce new migration deterrence measures that would have been unthinkable even a year ago.
Ireland’s hardening policies reflect both a chronic housing crisis and the growing reluctance of some property owners to keep providing state-funded emergency shelter in the wake of November riots in Dublin triggered by a North African immigrant’s stabbing of young schoolchildren.
A nation already housing more than 100,000 newcomers, mostly from Ukraine, Ireland has stopped guaranteeing housing to new asylum seekers if they are single men, chiefly from Nigeria, Algeria, Afghanistan, Georgia and Somalia, according to the most recent Department of Integration statistics.
Ireland has stopped guaranteeing housing to new asylum seekers if they are single men, chiefly from Nigeria, Algeria, Afghanistan, Georgia and Somalia | Jorge Guerrero/AFP via Getty Images
Even newly arrived families face an increasing risk of being kept in military-style tents despite winter temperatures.
Ukrainians, who since Russia’s 2022 invasion of their country have received much stronger welfare support than other refugees, will see that welcome mat partially retracted in draft legislation approved this week by the three-party coalition government of Prime Minister Leo Varadkar.
Once enacted by parliament next month, the law will limit new Ukrainian arrivals to three months of state-paid housing, while welfare payments – currently among the most generous in Europe for people fleeing Russia’s war – will be slashed for all those in state-paid housing.
Justin Trudeau, Canada
A pessimistic public mood dragged down by cost-of-living woes has made immigration a multidimensional challenge for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
A housing crunch felt across the country has cooled support for immigration, with people looking for scapegoats for affordability pains. The situation has fueled antipathy for Trudeau and his re-election campaign.
Trudeau has treated immigration as a multipurpose solution for Canada’s aging population and slowing economy. And while today’s record-high population growth reflects well on Canada’s reputation as a desirable place to relocate, political challenges linked to migration have arisen in unpredictable ways for Trudeau’s Liberals.
Political challenges linked to migration have arisen in unpredictable ways for Trudeau’s Liberals | Andrej Ivanov/AFP
Since Trudeau came to power eight years ago, at least 1.3 million people have immigrated to Canada, mostly from India, the Philippines, China and Syria. Handling diaspora politics — and foreign interference — has become more consequential, as seen by Trudeau’s clash with India and Canada’s recent break with Israel.
Canada will double its 40 million population in 25 years if the current growth rate holds, enlarging the political challenges of leading what Trudeau calls the world’s “first postnational state”.
Pedro Sánchez, Spain
Spain’s autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla, in Northern Africa, are favored by migrants seeking to enter Europe from the south: Once they make it across the land border, the Continent can easily be accessed by ferry.
Transit via the land border that separates the European territory from Morocco is normally kept in check with security measures like high, razor-topped fences, with border control officers from both countries working together to keep undocumented migrants out.
Spain’s autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla, in Northern Africa, are favored by migrants seeking to enter Europe | Pierre-Philippe Marcou/AFP
But in recent years authorities in Morocco have expressed displeasure with their Spanish counterparts by standing down their officers and allowing hundreds of migrants to pass, overwhelming border stations and forcing Spanish officers to repel the migrants, with scores dying in the process.
The headaches caused by these incidents are believed to be a major factor in Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s decision to change the Spanish government’s position on the disputed Western Sahara territory and express support for Rabat’s plan to formalize its nearly 50-year occupation of the area.
The pivot angered Sánchez’s leftist allies and worsened Spain’s relationship with Algeria, a long-standing champion of Western Saharan independence. But the measures have stopped the flow of migrants — for now.
Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Greece
Greece has been at the forefront of Europe’s migration crisis since 2015, when hundreds of thousands of people entered Europe via the Aegean islands. Migration and border security have been key issues in the country’s political debate.
Human rights organizations, as well as the European Parliament and the European Commission, have accused the Greek conservative government of Kyriakos Mitsotakis of illegal “pushbacks” of migrants who have made it to Greek territory — and of deporting migrants without due process. Greece’s government denies those accusations, arguing that independent investigations haven’t found any proof.
Mitsotakis insists that Greece follows a “tough but fair” policy, but the numerous in-depth investigations belie the moderate profile the conservative leader wants to maintain.
In June, a migrant boat sank in what some called “the worst tragedy ever” in the Mediterranean Sea. Hundreds lost their lives, refocusing Europe’s attention on the issue. Official investigations have yet to discover whether failures by Greek authorities contributed to the shipwreck, according to Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.
In the meantime, Greece is in desperate need of thousands of workers to buttress the country’s understaffed agriculture, tourism and construction sectors. Despite pledges by the migration and agriculture ministers of imminent legislation bringing migrants to tackle the labor shortage, the government was forced to retreat amid pressure from within its own ranks.
Nikos Christodoulides, Cyprus
Cyprus is braced for an increase in migrant arrivals on its shores amid renewed conflict in the Middle East. Earlier in December, Greece sent humanitarian aid to the island to deal with an anticipated increase in flows.
Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides has called for extra EU funding for migration management, and is contending with a surge in violence against migrants in Cyprus. Analysts blame xenophobia, which has become mainstream in Cypriot politics and media, as well as state mismanagement of migration flows. Last year the country recorded the EU’s highest proportion of first-time asylum seekers relative to its population.
Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides has called for extra EU funding for migration management | Ludovic Marin/AFP via Getty Images
Legal and staffing challenges have delayed efforts to create a deputy ministry for migration, deemed an important step in helping Cyprus to deal with the surge in arrivals.
The island’s geography — it’s close to both Lebanon and Turkey — makes it a prime target for migrants wanting to enter EU territory from the Middle East. Its complex history as a divided country also makes it harder to regulate migrant inflows.
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Sapelo Island, Georgia — Sapelo Island is deeply rooted in West African Gullah Geechee culture.
Forty-four families, all formerly enslaved people with Gullah Geechee heritage, settled on the Georgia island after the Civil War.
Among the descendants living there today is Nikki Williams.
“This is the closest thing you can get to being in Africa,” Williams told CBS News.
The Sapelo Island community of Hog Hammock is a little more than 400 acres in size and has fewer than 30 full-time families. There is no main street, just scattered homes. Scattered, just like more and more of the original families of this historic enclave.
In September, the McIntosh County Commission changed Sapelo Island’s zoning laws so that home sizes can double. That move could potentially lead to million-dollar properties, raise property taxes and price out current homeowners.
“They have an extreme uphill battle,” said McIntosh County Commissioner Roger Lotson — one of only two commissioners who voted against the new zoning laws.
Lotson was the only commissioner who agreed to talk to CBS News. He sees the situation “in part” as a battle of rich versus poor.
He also believes racial disparity could play a role as well, “Simply because there are not as many rich Black folks as there are rich White folks.”
It means one of America’s last intact Gullah Geechee communities is at risk.
“I can’t see how you can’t see how that hurts,” Williams said. “And it’s not just me. It’s all of the descendants.”
A community born in blood and tears is now sweating out its future.
The Merriam-Webster dictionary named the word “authentic” as its 2023 word of the year, with the word being among the year’s most searched and many contrasting its definition with the rise of AI usage in everyday life. What do you think?
“How can we trust a dictionary that picks favorites?”
Georgia Wittich, Digital Foreman
Amazon Fires Employee Who Tested Positive For Having Food In Their System
First, a trip to a camp for grieving Ukrainians in the Austrian Alps. Then, a visit to Sealand: the world’s smallest state. And, a look at Georgia’s 8,000 years of wine history.
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Georgia, considered the birthplace of wine, has been making wine for 8,000 years. Producers are restoring the country’s ancient grape varieties and introducing Georgian wines to the rest of the world.
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