Patrick Saunders

1 week ago | wabe.org | Patrick Saunders

A group of 14 bicyclists held a remembrance ride Sunday for Ahmaud Arbery in Brunswick. The slow 5-mile ride was organized by the Gullah/Geechee Club and BRAG Dream Team and led by Anita Collins. The goal, Collins said, was to bring people together and protect the memory of Arbery, who was murdered in 2020. The ride included a visit to the Veterans Memorial Park and honorary Ahmaud Arbery Street, as well as stopping at murals of Mrs. Georgia Gibbs and Rev. Julius Ceasar Hope.

1 week ago | wabe.org | Patrick Saunders

The Georgia Public Service Commission is set to hold a second round of hearings on Georgia Power’s controversial long-range plans. The five-member utility regulator is set to vote July 15 as the state’s largest utility expects to spend billions of dollars to meet skyrocketing energy demands attributed to new electricity-hogging data centers. Georgia Power’s 2025 Integrated Resource Plan calls for renewable energy but also more fossil fuels.

2 weeks ago | wabe.org | Patrick Saunders

U.S. House Rep. Barry Loudermilk recently walked into an International House of Pancakes in Woodstock for a meeting with constituents. Loudermilk was the featured speaker for a weekly breakfast meeting series for local conservatives. But Loudermilk says he has no plans to take part in a traditional town hall meeting with constituents. “We don’t right now,” he said in the IHOP parking lot. “I’m out in the community continuously doing things like this meeting.

2 weeks ago | wabe.org | Patrick Saunders

House Republicans stayed up all night to pass their multitrillion-dollar tax breaks package, with Speaker Mike Johnson defying the skeptics and unifying his ranks to muscle President Donald Trump’s priority bill to approval Thursday. With last-minute concessions and stark warnings from Trump, the Republican holdouts largely dropped their opposition to salvage the “One Big Beautiful Bill” that’s central to the GOP agenda.

2 weeks ago | wabe.org | Patrick Saunders

Advocates are bracing for potential cuts to Georgia’s safety net programs under the GOP’s “big, beautiful bill” moving through Congress, though it remains to be seen what changes to programs like Medicaid will end up in the final version. As is, the federal measure would cut more than $600 billion over the next decade from Medicaid, the government health insurance program for low-income Americans and people with disabilities.