by Ty Tagami | Jun 25, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — When younger students return to Georgia public schools this fall, they will learn an old-school skill: handwriting.
New changes to the state standards for English Language Arts will require the teaching of cursive writing in elementary school. The state Board of Education approved the standards overhaul two years ago but gave teachers until this fall to prepare.
Georgia is joining other states, from Alabama to Texas, that are resurrecting a skill that had seemingly gone the way of the dodo after the proliferation of laptops and touchscreen devices. Even California, the cradle of computer keyboards, passed a law requiring cursive in schools in 2023.
Compulsory cursive writing has been tucked into dozens of pages that describe the standards for English in elementary school.
The state board approved the revised standards in a 13-1 vote in May 2023.
In third grade, students will have to learn how to read phrases and sentences in cursive, and they will practice forming letters and word connectors. By fifth grade, they will be called on to write whole texts in cursive, “legibly and efficiently,” with appropriate spacing throughout. All along, they will be working on fine motor skills that some feared had gone extinct.
At a state school board meeting last month, Richard Woods, the elected state school superintendent, introduced a new initiative to promote those loopy letters: the John Hancock Award will go to schools that demonstrate excellence in cursive.
“Cursive writing is more than just a skill — it strengthens fine motor development, improves literacy, and connects students to historical documents in their original form,” the award description says.
Woods got big applause when he mentioned the new requirements at the Republican state convention in Dalton in early June.
People clapped when he announced that students would have to learn about personal finances. But the audience erupted when he said cursive writing was back.
“Every student will own their signature. Every student will know how to read our original documents in their original script,” Woods said, adding that children should be able to read the U.S. Constitution, the Declaration of Independence and other texts handwritten by the nation’s founders.
by Dave Williams | Jun 25, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Georgia’s two U.S. senators have reintroduced legislation to declare Atlanta’s West Hunter Street Baptist Church a National Historic Site in honor of the late civil rights leader Ralph David Abernathy Sr.
Sens. Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, both Democrats, got the bill through a Senate committee two years ago with bipartisan support, but it didn’t reach the full Senate for a vote.
Abernathy, a Baptist minister, began his pastoral service at West Hunter Street Baptist in 1961 and served there for nearly three decades until his death in 1990. He was a close friend of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
Abernathy co-founded the Atlanta-based Southern Christian Leadership Conference and assumed its leadership after King as assassinated in 1968.
“Ralph David Abernathy Sr. was a great Georgian, a great American, and a titan of the civil rights movement,” Ossoff said.
“As a pastor of Dr. King’s spiritual home, I remain committed to preserving Georgia’s history and uplifting the power of faith in action,” Warnock added.
The bill received bipartisan backing in 2023, with members of both parties from Georgia’s congressional delegation signing on as cosponsors. U.S. Rep. Nikema Williams, D-Atlanta, introduced the 2023 legislation on the House side and is doing so again this year.
by Ty Tagami | Jun 24, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — When Kaycee Maruscsak’s baby died before birth, she had to carry the infant’s corpse in her womb for more than a week because, she said, doctors refused to remove it for fear of violating Georgia’s abortion restrictions.
“I should not have had to wait eight days to have a dead baby removed out of me,” she said at the state Capitol Tuesday.
The story of the 31-year-old Lilburn woman was part of the bitter testimony during a state Senate Urban Affairs Committee hearing that Democrats hope will galvanize Georgia voters against Republicans, who backed the state’s new limits on abortion. They scheduled the hearing on the third anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision striking down the decades-old legal precedent that had guaranteed women’s right to abortion.
No Republican officials appeared for the hearing, including Attorney General Chris Carr. He had declined the Democrats’ invitation to talk about Georgia’s abortion law, which bans the procedure once a fetal heartbeat is detected, typically around six weeks from conception.
The Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization allowed Georgia’s 2019 abortion restrictions to take full effect last year, after a delay caused by a lawsuit.
Pregnant women have subsequently been denied medical care in Georgia during miscarriages because of uncertainty among doctors about whether they could face prosecution for it.
In one highly publicized case, Amber Nicole Thurman died after doctors delayed removing remnants of her fetus after she self-aborted the baby by taking pills.
Her mother, Shanette Williams, asserted her death was caused by doctors.
“She didn’t just die. She was murdered by the people who took the oath to do no harm,” said Williams, who testified at Tuesday’s hearing via Zoom. She said her daughter died of sepsis, which she said could have been avoided with a 3-minute procedure that she said was withheld for 20 hours.
She described taking her grandson, now 8, to scatter Skittles over his mother’s grave — one of her favorite snacks — on a rainy Mother’s Day.
Democratic senators and others who testified blamed a “vague” Georgia abortion ban that they said creates an “air of criminality” around women who miscarry or need an abortion for a medical reason. They skewered Carr, who is running for governor, saying he could reduce the number of these incidents by issuing an opinion clarifying when abortion is legal under the law.
Senate Minority Leader Harold Jones II, D-Augusta, called Carr’s absence “shameful.”
At a press conference after the hearing, the Democratic senators drove home their point with a poster showing Carr’s smiling portrait on a milk carton, under the word “missing.”
Carr’s office told Capitol Beat that he informed the committee weeks ago that he had longstanding commitments and could not attend the hearing.
“It’s disappointing to see a serious topic overshadowed by partisan theatrics,” Carr’s office said.
Maruscsak, who had to carry her daughter, Sawyer, in her womb for a week after the baby’s heartbeat stopped, described her struggles to find medical care.
She said she visited multiple doctors and abortion clinics and even waited seven hours in an emergency room overflow bed, while bleeding, and couldn’t get the fetus removed despite symptoms of sepsis.
Maruscsak said she had placenta previa, whereby the placenta attaches to the wrong part of the uterus. She said she had to leave the emergency room to find a doctor who was bold enough to remove the fetus despite the abortion ban, eventually trying as many as five doctors.
She predicted that other Georgia women will have the same life-threatening experience.
“This issue will touch every family in some way, someday,” she said.
by Dave Williams | Jun 24, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – The State Road and Tollway Authority (SRTA) awarded a record $26.5 million in Georgia Transportation Infrastructure Bank (GTIB) loans and grants Tuesday that will help fund 13 transportation projects across the state.
This latest round of GTIB awards stems from $46 million the General Assembly added to the fiscal 2025 mid-year budget.
“Thanks to conservative budgeting and strategic funding of our priorities, Georgia is not only the No.-1 state for business,” Gov. Brian Kemp said. “We’re also the best state for reliable infrastructure. We’re preserving our competitive edge and reaffirming our commitment to creating opportunity in all parts of the state, especially rural Georgia.”
The largest investment is a $4.9 million loan to the Cumberland Community Improvement District in Cobb County. The money will go toward a path of more than three miles around the core of the Cumberland District, including a 0.4-mile path connecting to an existing pedestrian bridge over Interstate 285.
Colquitt County will receive more than $4.5 million in grants and loans to resurface 10 roads covering a distance of 11 miles. The GTIB investment will accelerate completion of the project by three years.
Dodge County will get more than $4.4 million in grants and loans to finance three road projects. The list includes paving Bill Mullis Road from Roddy Highway to Georgia 87, performing full-depth reclamation on Milan Eastman Road from Georgia 117 to Georgia 280 to repair damage from increased truck traffic, and resurfacing Zion Hill Church from Antioch Church Road to Coody Road. Combining the three projects will accelerate completion by a decade, resulting in significant savings.
Nearly $2.5 million in loans and grants will be used to build a single-lane roundabout in Barrow County at the intersection of State Route 53 and Mulberry Road and realign the intersection. The project is expected to improve road safety and freight movement. The state funding will accelerate completion of the work by three years.
A $2 million loan will help finance a new two-lane roadway in Cherokee County connecting the regional airport near Canton to an existing Interstate 575 interchange. The new spur road will allow the county to move ahead with plans to extend the runway to 6,000 feet, which will let aircraft carry more fuel and make longer trips.
Athens-Clarke County will receive a $1.7 million grant that will go toward realigning the intersection of Hawthorne and Oglethorpe avenues to improve overall safety and enhance the city’s sidewalk and bike networks.
The city of Mount Vernon in Montgomery County will get a grant of about $1.4 million for drainage improvements and road repairs to significant damage caused by Hurricane Helene. Carver Street, currently a dirt road, is slated to be paved.
Almost $1.25 million in grants and loans will go to Dougherty County to widen and increase the weight capacity of two bridges on Gravel Hill Road to better accommodate trucks and farm equipment. The project also calls for paving and widening four dirt roads that are heavily affected by adverse weather.
The city of LaGrange will receive a grant of $1 million to go toward building a two-lane road – Callaway South Parkway – from the intersection of Pegasus Parkway ending in a roundabout. The project will provide greater access to undeveloped parcels in the Callaway South Industrial Park.
Grants and/or loans of less than $1 million will fund four additional projects: road resurfacing in the Emanual County city of Twin City, road resurfacing and an intersection realignment near the West Georgia Regional Airport in the city of Mount Zion in Carroll County, street repaving in Seminole County’s Iron City to help jumpstart downtown revitalization efforts, and road improvements aimed at reopening both lanes of a bridge on Moores Stone Road at Bussey Creek in Stewart County.
Since its inception in 2010, the GTIB has awarded $242 million in grants and loans. Applications are evaluated based on criteria including economic value and the availability of matching funds.
by Dave Williams | Jun 24, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Increased storage capacity is helping the Port of Savannah offset some of the impacts of the tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump.
Last month was Savannah’s second busiest May on record, exceeded only by May of 2022. Savannah handled 500,900 twenty-foot equivalent container units (TEUs), up 2.2% over the same month last year, the Georgia Ports Authority reported Tuesday.
The added storage capacity is giving port customers greater flexibility in timing supply-chain movements, said Griff Lynch, the authority’s president and CEO.
“Garden City Terminal West was specifically built for long-term storage for import and export cargo,” he said. “Our customers tell us they have been looking for a service option like this to manage supply-chain speed fluctuations.”
Meanwhile, business was less robust at the Port of Brunswick. The port’s Colonels Island Terminal moved 79,134 units of Roll-on/Roll-off cargo last month, including 73,995 autos, a decrease of 8.6% compared to May of last year. May of 2024 was the ports authority’s second busiest month on record for RoRo cargo, at 86,608 units.
The first phase of a new rail yard being built on the south side of Colonels Island will go into service next month, doubling the rail capacity at Brunswick from five to 10 trains per week.
The $22 million investment will increase annual rail capacity to more than 340,000 units. More than 90% of vehicles moving by rail in Brunswick are U.S. exports.
