ATLANTA — A global leader in tire production will invest $1.2 billion to expand in Georgia, bringing 1,000 jobs by 2033, according to Gov. Brian Kemp’s office.
“This historic investment will expand Pirelli’s footprint with roughly five times more positions than they currently employ across the region,” Kemp said in a statement Tuesday.
The Italian company currently employs 234 Georgians and is expected to begin major hiring in 2029. Pirelli based its U.S. operations in Rome in 2002.
The expansion of its existing facility there will allow the company to manufacture more products for the local market, Pirelli North America CEO Claudio Zanardo said in statement. He said the expansion also will introduce new technologies, including advanced robotics and a product called the Cyber Tyre.
The expansion is scheduled to occur in two phases, starting with the installation of robotics equipment followed by more traditional manufacturing, which will require more hiring.
ATLANTA — In three weeks, early voters will start going to the polls ahead of the Nov. 3 general election.
The first day of early voting, on Oct. 13, will also feature the final candidates in two days of debates coordinated by the Atlanta Press Club at Georgia Public Broadcasting’s midtown Atlanta studios.
Every statewide candidate will be there on Oct. 12 and 13, except one or two, including the headliner of the Republican ballot.
Rick Jackson, the Republican who is asking voters to make him Georgia’s next governor, has formally declined to attend, said Lauri Strauss, executive producer of the debate series.
Fitz Johnson, a Republican running for Public Service Commission, the agency that regulates energy companies, has not confirmed or declined his attendance yet but has been communicating with organizers.
“He’s been responsive, but I just don’t have a yes or no from him,” Strauss said, adding that organizers hope Jackson changes his mind and decides to attend.
With Jackson’s absence, the top matchup will be between Democratic U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff and the Republican who wants to unseat him, U.S. Rep. Mike Collins.
Incendiary exchanges between the two are likely when they field journalists’ questions and confront each other for an hour at 8 p.m. on Oct. 13 to close out the debate series.
In recent but separate events, Ossoff has painted Collins as a white supremacist sympathizer while Collins has called Ossoff a communist who wants open borders.
The first debate, at 1:30 p.m. on Oct. 12, promises a fiery clash, as well.
State Sens. Greg Dolezal, R-Cumming, and Josh McLaurin, D-Sandy Springs, want to be Georgia’s next lieutenant governor. Both earned reputations for sharp debating styles during their legislative fights in the state Senate.
Also on the schedule that afternoon are the candidates for attorney general — Rep. Tanya Miller, D-Atlanta, versus Sen. Brian Strickland, R-McDonough; and for secretary of state — Rep. Tim Fleming, R-Covington, and attorney and former judge Penny Brown Reynolds, the Democrat.
That evening, the candidates for two PSC races are on the agenda, with or without Johnson, who is fighting to retake his old seat from Democrat Peter Hubbard, who dislodged him last year.
The prime-time slot on Oct. 12 was scheduled for a showdown between Jackson and former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, the Democrat running against Jackson for governor.
Instead of a debate, the 8 p.m. event will feature Bottoms fielding questions from journalists and likely lobbing some of her own at an empty rostrum for Jackson.
That is what happened at the final Press Club debate for the GOP primary, when Lt. Gov. Burt Jones appeared at the GPB studios for the June runoff debate, but Jackson did not, having declined to attend.
Jones used Jackson’s absence as an opportunity to attack him on ethics and on issues such as immigration.
So far, Jackson has agreed to meet Bottoms at just one event: a town hall-style encounter hosted by Atlanta News First on Oct. 6.
Jackson skipped a forum Thursday in Macon moderated by a local NBC affiliate, prompting a rebuke from Bottoms.
“He didn’t feel that you all were worthy enough of his presence this evening,” her campaign quoted her as saying. “I will continue to be here, and I will work on behalf of all of you.”
The Jackson campaign had announced previously that he would only be participating in the Atlanta News First event though Bottoms sought a half dozen debates.
“Keisha Lance Bottoms and her allies are doing anything they can to distract from the fact that they’re running such a disastrous campaign that she cannot reach Georgians without Rick’s help,” Jackson’s campaign said.
ATLANTA — Some worry artificial intelligence could one day rule humanity.
Robots have not taken over yet, but AI may be helping with a core function of democracy in Georgia’s largest county: writing ordinances and resolutions.
A Fulton County commissioner used an online tool to analyze legislation introduced by a couple of her colleagues and found that four proposals, including two that would change ethics policies and procedures, were likely written by AI.
“The idea that we’re going to have machines write what humans should be doing ethically … it opens a can of worms for me,” said Commissioner Dana Barrett, who did the review.
She said the two commissioners behind the legislation, Marvin Arrington Jr. and Bob Ellis, might be exposing the public to unintended consequences because, she said, in her experience AI tends to go overboard on details.
Capitol Beat ran the legislation through the same online tool, called GPTZero, and got similar results. The tool determined it was 100% likely that a proposed ordinance and two proposed resolutions were generated by AI, and it assigned another proposed resolution a 90% likelihood of AI authorship.
The tool cited qualities such as a lack of creativity, “robotic formality,” impersonal tone and mechanical precision.
The company behind GPTZero does not go into much detail on its website about how it works, except to say that it collects raw data, looks for similarities and draws a line between what it considers to be human- versus AI-generated text.
Ellis said in a statement that he, “like the rest of the world,” used “technology tools” to research his ideas and to refine his thoughts. He said he also asked the county attorney’s office to review his work.
He did not say whether he had outsourced the writing of his proposed ethics resolution to AI. He placed the 32-page document on the agenda for the commission’s meeting this week.
Arrington, who also had his legislation on the agenda, said AI use was widespread.
“Artificial intelligence is already being used throughout government, business, education, law, medicine, and nearly every other profession,” he said in a statement. “Public officials who are not learning how to use this technology responsibly are behind the ball. They need to catch up or get left behind.”
Arrington did not say AI had written his proposals, but, like Ellis, he said he had used technology “tools” and that those tools did not diminish or replace his judgment informed by 30 years as a lawyer and 12 years as a county commissioner.
“Suggesting that responsible AI assistance invalidates legislation or policy is like claiming that someone cheated because they used a computer instead of a typewriter,” he said.
Ellis, a Republican, accused Barrett, a Democrat, of launching a “juvenile” attack.
Arrington, a Democrat, said Barrett was taking “cheap political shots.” Arrington also found hypocrisy in Barrett having used an AI tool to sniff out AI writing.
Barrett said she used AI but only to confirm what she already suspected after reading the legislation and noting unusual language and formatting. She said she used AI with her own policy proposals, but she said she only used it for analysis and for editing of her original writing.
Barrett said she sympathized with her fellow commissioners’ desire to amend ethics policies and procedures but could not support their legislation as written.
She characterized her colleagues’ new proposals as “very extreme, especially where there is potentially not as much critical thinking or thoughtful lawmaking as there should be because of the use of AI.”
One of Arrington’s three proposals — about food insecurity and community gardens — did not pass in a vote Wednesday evening. He then held his other two items for a future meeting. One was about abolishing the county ethics board and the other was about limiting public comment at commission meetings.
Ellis also decided to hold his own ethics resolution.
Barrett and Arrington will leave office in a few months. In the meantime, Arrington said he planned to introduce a comprehensive county policy for AI use.
ATLANTA — It took five months to find a successor to University System of Georgia Chancellor Sonny Perdue, and after looking far and wide the Board of Regents picked someone close to home.
The new university system leader already has a building named after him at Georgia Tech and served on the Tech Foundation board.
Thomas A. Fanning will come out of retirement to be the next leader of Georgia’s 25 public colleges and universities.
He comes to the job with a grounding in business, having led Southern Company for 13 years and chaired the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta board.
The Regents named him the sole finalist for the job on Wednesday.
“Our university system’s strong reputation brought us exceptional candidates from across the country, but Tom Fanning stood out immediately,” Board Chair David B. Dove said in a statement. “With four decades of experience running one of the largest energy companies in the nation, Tom knows how to manage complex operations, solve big problems and lead people. He cares deeply about Georgia, understands the power of higher education and has the proven leadership to guide USG forward.”
Southern Company serves about 9 million electric and gas customers in Georgia and eight other states. Fanning started there in 1980 as a financial analyst.
The Tech grad, who also earned a master’s degree in industrial management from the Institute, rose through 15 roles at Southern Company before being named chairman, president and CEO in 2010, a position he held until his retirement in 2023.
On the way, he served in management, finance, technology and strategy roles.
He has also served as inaugural chair of the federal Cybersecurity Advisory Committee when it first met in 2021. The group advised the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
Fanning was awarded an honorary doctorate by Tech, where the new Student-Athlete Performance Center is named in his honor.
“The University System of Georgia is second to none when it comes to keeping a top-tier college education affordable and connecting students directly to great careers,” he said in a statement. “Having earned my degrees here and worked alongside these campuses throughout my career, I know how much this system means to Georgia families.”
Fanning succeeds Perdue, who announced his retirement in April, after leading the university system for four years. Before that, Perdue served as Agriculture Secretary for President Donald Trump during his first term in the White House and as Georgia’s first Republican governor since Reconstruction starting in 2003.
At separate events over the past few days, contenders atop Georgia’s general election ballot pushed their campaigns ahead of the final weeks of electioneering.
With control of the U.S. Senate at stake, the two contenders attacked each other as dangerous for the country.
Democratic U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff called his Republican challenger, U.S. Rep. Mike Collins, unfit for office because of a former Collins staffer’s reported ties to white nationalists and due to the social media posts by Collins’ son-in-law, who lives on the congressman’s property.
“A sitting congressman, currently running for Senate, hosts a neo-Nazi at his house, and that neo-Nazi produces neo-Nazi propaganda from the congressman’s house, and the congressman won’t or maybe can’t get the neo-Nazi in his house to stop producing neo-Nazi content from his house while he’s running for Senate,” Ossoff said at a rally in Athens on Sunday.
“A man who won’t take responsibility for what happens under his own roof can’t be trusted with our national affairs,” Ossoff said.
Collins said at a fundraising dinner Monday that Ossoff was unfit for office as “nothing but a trust fund kid” among “communist crazies.” He characterized Ossoff as supporting “Biden inflation,” transgender-friendly legislation and “wide open” borders allowing “all these criminals just to flood into our country and yes, harm and murder Americans.”
Collins then segued to the passage of his Laken Riley Act, the first bill signed into law by President Donald Trump after he started his second term in the White House. The legislation was a reaction to the murder of a former University of Georgia student killed on the campus by a man authorities said was in the country illegally.
U.S. Rep. Mike Collins, the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate, speaks during the Georgia Faith & Freedom Coalition’s Victory Dinner at the Cobb Convention Center in Atlanta, Georgia, on Monday, Sept. 14, 2026. (Caroline Newbern/Capitol Beat)
Entrepreneur Rick Jackson, the Republican nominee for governor, took a different tack against his opponent, Keisha Lance Bottoms, while speaking after Collins at the same Georgia Faith & Freedom Coalition “Victory Dinner” at the Cobb Convention Center.
Rather than mentioning his opponent, Jackson focused on a story he has often told about his childhood. He described an alcoholic mother with a sixth-grade education who worked as a waitress after his father abandoned him as an infant.
“I had seven stepfathers before I was 12 years old,” Jackson said.
He said he wound up a ward of the state in foster homes. As a young adult, he said he could not afford college and found commission work in a “personnel” job. He said he was so successful at it that he was soon able to buy the firm, which he then expanded into healthcare recruitment.
The founder, chairman and CEO of Jackson Healthcare grew wealthy enough to spend more than $100 million of his own money financing his run for governor.
In the late 2000s, Jackson said, he considered becoming a missionary, but an adviser set him on a different path, telling him that “God has given you the capability to know how to make money.”
Jackson said he provided foster children with Christian life coaches and financial support through college.
“My purpose in life since 2008 is to have kingdom impact,” Jackson said. He said he would “take care of the least of these … . “I want to show them how I got out of poverty and I want to tell them that Jesus saved me and following Jesus is the best way to help you in every regard of your life.”
Republican nominee for governor Rick Jackson speaks during the Georgia Faith & Freedom Coalition’s Victory Dinner at the Cobb Convention Center in Atlanta, Georgia, on Monday, Sept. 14, 2026. (Caroline Newbern/Capitol Beat)
Bottoms, the former mayor of Atlanta and now Democratic nominee for governor, attacked Jackson in an interview with reporters at the Athens event with Ossoff, characterizing Jackson as a profiteer who was unconcerned about the public good.
“He doesn’t care about people in Texas. He doesn’t care about people in Alabama. He doesn’t care about people in Georgia. It is all about how he makes money for himself,” Bottoms said, according to videos provided through a partnership with C-SPAN. “He wants to continue to rig the system to benefit himself.”
Democratic gubernatorial nominee Keisha Lance Bottoms and U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff receive applause from the crowd during a joint campaign rally at the Georgia Theatre in Athens, Georgia, on Sunday, Sept. 13, 2026.(Caroline Newbern/Capitol Beat)
The campaign rhetoric came a month before early voting starts Oct. 13 and seven weeks before Election Day on Nov. 3.
Ossoff, one of the most prolific fundraisers in the U.S. Senate, has been in office since 2021 and wants to keep Georgia’s U.S. Senate delegation in Democratic hands. His fellow Democratic senator, the Rev. Raphael Warnock, has also been in office since 2021 and was reelected the next year.
Republicans have controlled the Georgia governor’s office since 2003, an era that Bottoms would like to end and that Jackson would like to extend by another four years.
CORRECTION: This article was updated to reflect that Laken Riley was a former University of Georgia student at the time of her death.
