by Ty Tagami | May 22, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – As communities continue to recover from last year’s Hurricane Helene, federal forecasters are predicting another vigorous storm season this year.
The National Weather Service is expecting an above-average number of hurricanes, giving 60% odds of above-normal activity in the Atlantic Ocean, 30% for near-normal and 10% for below-normal.
“Warm sea surface temperatures (are) probably the number one contributor,” Ken Graham, the National Weather Service director, said Thursday during a news briefing streamed from Louisiana.
The agency is forecasting 13 to 19 named storms (carrying minimum winds of 39 miles per hour) versus an average year of 14, and six to 10 hurricanes (with winds of at least 74 mph) versus the average seven.
Graham said the agency expects three to five major hurricanes, defined as Category 3 or above with sustained winds of at least 111 mph. The average is three major hurricanes.
He said forecasters can’t predict which regions would be affected.
Hurricanes aren’t the only threat. Graham said the warming atmosphere can hold more moisture.
“We’re seeing heavier rainfall rates,” he said. “Inland, coastal, the rainfall’s heavy year-round. We’re seeing some of these floods and we’re hearing from more and more communities” about unusual amounts of rain.
Graham said the risk is exacerbated by an influx of residents to coastal areas.
“There’s a lot more people in harm’s way,” he said.
Graham said the weather service is well prepared despite reports about deep cuts to his agency by the administration of President Donald Trump.
“We had some folks go, but we’re going to make sure that we have everything that we have on the front lines,” he said.
by Ty Tagami | May 21, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – A federal staffing shortage has resulted in the closure of Georgia lakeside recreational areas just ahead of the busy Memorial Day weekend.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ announcement Wednesday that it would close 31 parks and public use facilities around waterways in Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi is already drawing political heat.
U.S. Rep. Rich McCormick, R-Suwanee, issued a statement saying he was disappointed to learn of the closures of beaches and docks around Lake Lanier, noting the lake draws more than 10 million visitors a year. And Georgia’s two U.S. senators, Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff, both of them Democratics, blamed President Donald Trump.
The Army Corps announcement listed 20 sites at Lake Lanier, two at Allatoona Lake, and one along Lake George W. Andrews southwest of Blakely. The announcement also included a public shoreline area along the 240-mile Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River system, which runs through Georgia.
Some sites in Alabama are near Georgia and those closures may also affect Georgia residents.
The Army Corps gave no reason for the closures, but the agency was targeted for cuts by the U.S. Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) that Trump established under billionaire businessman Elon Musk.
McCormick blamed Democrats in the House of Representatives, saying they blocked an appropriations bill introduced last year that would have prevented campground closures around Lake Lanier.
Warnock attributed the closures to “this administration’s reckless cuts,” and Ossoff said the Lake Lanier closures were “a direct and predictable result” of what he called the Trump administration’s “reckless and chaotic mismanagement.”
by Ty Tagami | May 19, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Corporate landlords have been consolidating ownership in Georgia’s single-family housing market, drawing increasing criticism and political attention, including from U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff.
The Georgia Democrat said Monday that it’s too soon to know how a new state law requiring local managers might change things. Meanwhile, he said he wanted “to expose the mistreatment of renters by large out-of-state corporate landlords” in Georgia by conducting his own investigation.
Ossoff invited a lawyer and two renters to speak with reporters at his Atlanta office Monday about their experiences with such landlords. Attorney Esther Graff-Radford of Atlanta said renters waste many hours of personal and work time trying to correct billing errors or to coordinate maintenance.
Patrick Colson-Price of Smyrna said he found large quantities of glass, razor blades and other dangerous debris in his backyard, leading to the injury of one of his dogs. He said it took significant badgering and personal time to get his landlord to remediate the yard. He said he sent at least 30 emails with photographs and showed up at the company’s Atlanta office with a bucket of glass shards.
Shana Brooks-Wilhite, a renter in Stockbridge, said a carbon monoxide alarm went off in early December, leading to the discovery the stove and fireplace were leaking gas. She said that when she called the company, she was told it would take three weeks to send a repair person.
She said she had to spend more than she could afford on takeout food for herself and her son, while her gas bill doubled that month. And they had no heat in the depths of winter.
“We’re not humans to them. We’re dollar signs,” she said. “I felt completely worthless and small.”
Both renters said their landlord is Invitation Homes. A recent report by Georgia State University found that more than 19,000 metro Atlanta homes are owned by that company and two others, accounting for 11% of the single-family rental homes in Atlanta’s core counties.
An Invitation Homes spokesperson said in a statement that the company has over 200 associates in Georgia who “dedicate themselves to providing our local residents a positive experience throughout their stay with us.” When the company does “miss the mark, we acknowledge the mistake and work hard to make it right,” the statement added.
Other reports have found different numbers than Georgia State yet have revealed a similar story of consolidated ownership. It’s an investment strategy that became viable when new digital capabilities combined with the Great Recession to lower the opportunity cost.
Seven corporations own more than 51,000 single-family homes in the 21-county metro-Atlanta region, according to a blog by the Atlanta Regional Commission late last year. And the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported last year that Metro Atlanta was the top U.S. region for such consolidation, with 25% of the single-family home rentals — 71,832 homes — owned by large investors in 2022.
Last week, Gov. Brian Kemp signed House Bill 399 into law. The bipartisan legislation requires out-of-state investors who own and rent houses or duplexes to have a local broker and a local property manager.
Ossoff said he has launched an investigation to build a factual foundation for potential further intervention by local, state or federal government. He said such companies had harmed renters by failing to do timely repairs, by withholding security deposits and by imposing “junk” fees and higher rents.
He offered no timeline for completing his investigation. He asked renters who are experiencing problems with large corporate landlords to contact his office and make a complaint at ossoff.senate.gov/homestory. He promised anonymity for anyone who shares their story.
by Ty Tagami | May 16, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
BRUNSWICK – We arced toward the blue sky, punching through cotton ball clouds as the fearsome acceleration pressed me into the ejector seat with a force that equaled multiples of my own weight.
The Blue Angels will be dazzling a crowd at an airshow over Brunswick this weekend. They barnstorm the country promoting the U.S. Navy and Marines, in a display of mastery in the air.
Beforehand, they take a couple of people up for the ride of their lives. Usually, one of them is a media representative, and I drew the lucky straw.
I went up Wednesday after a local official returned from his nearly hour-long flight. He was sweaty and he looked spent, but he insisted he had enjoyed the experience, especially flying upside down, the expanse of green forest spreading out to the Atlantic Ocean under his head.
Although this F/A-18 Super Hornet was decades old, it was still capable of screaming at near Mach 2 and potentially surviving up to 10 times the force of gravity, or 10 Gs.
As I waited for the local official’s flight to end, people on the ground asked if I was nervous.
No, I lied. What could go wrong?
Before we went up, both of us got a briefing. Crew Chief 7, also known as Silent Bob (they all get nicknames) had laid out photos of the cockpit on a conference room table.
Don’t touch the objects with black and yellow stripes, he warned. That would result in “irreversible change” to the aircraft. He used a similar euphemism to explain the outcome of pulling the black and yellow hoop between the thighs: “bonus flight.” It would trigger the explosives beneath your seat, rocketing you up through the (hopefully) open cockpit canopy.
Despite that warning, he still walked us through what to do in the rare event that the pilot ordered ejection. Push your helmeted head back on the headrest and look up for the parachute.
When I arrived in the morning, Silent Bob was methodically going over the plane. He opened a panel in the fuselage and inspected the pasta bowl of electric wiring underneath. He hopped up and down behind the aircraft so he could peer into the nozzles of the twin jet engines. He slid his eyes slowly over the fuselage. He propped himself next to the cockpit, reviewing the controls and instruments. You could see him mentally ticking off a checklist.
If I was able to control my nerves, there were two reasons: Silent Bob and the pilot, Major Scott Laux. The pilot’s surname is pronounced “locks,” so of course they called him Goldie.
As Goldie triggered the motor on the translucent canopy, and it descended to seal the aircraft – and my fate, he told me he was here to make this an enjoyable ride. We would do many of the maneuvers that the Blue Angels execute during their show, but he would always check with me first and allow me to reject any of them.
I knew I’d never get another opportunity like this, so that was unlikely. But it was nice to have the option.
Silent Bob had strapped down my ankles, thighs, hips, and chest with the elaborate harness system, ticking off the steps by counting out loud.
During our briefing, he had explained the Anti-G Straining Maneuver, or AGSM. Most fighter pilots these days wear compression suits that squeeze their bodies during aggressive maneuvers, forcing the blood to stay in the brain.
Without this, the down-body pressure created by powerful accelerations and directional changes could cause blackout.
“In the world of aviation this is called a G-LOC, aka G-induced loss of consciousness, and remains a significant cause of loss of aircraft and pilot in both military fighter aviation and civilian acrobatic aviation,” says a medical website established by a U.S Air Force flight surgeon. “Throughout the 1990s, for example, the USAF lost approximately one aircraft per year due to G-LOC.”
Due to the precision required of Blue Angels pilots, they eschew those inflatable compression suits.
Hence, the AGSM: when the pilot says “three-two-one go,” you squeeze the muscles in your calves, your thighs, and your butt, then you suck in a breath, tighten your belly, hold to a count of three, push out the oxygen, then suck in and tighten again, repeating until the maneuver is over.
Now, on the runway, Goldie told me to arm the ejector seat. Silent Bob had said it was the only black and yellow lever we were allowed to touch.
The aircraft then lifted gently off the ground – like a passenger jet – until Goldie pulled back on the joystick and the fighter nosed up at 45 degrees, hurtling through the clouds.
We leveled off, and he said I could relax for a while and take in the view as we sped toward a Navy bombing range, the open airspace where we would be executing maneuvers.
As a warmup, he accelerated through 2, 3, 4 and 6 G turns, instructing me to lift my arms. They grew heavier and heavier! I scrunched up as hard as I could as he banked into a 6 G turn.
I hadn’t eaten much before the flight. I figured an empty stomach would ease the nausea. My teenage son had helpfully informed me that my strategy would merely lead to dry heaves.
I hate it when the kid is right.
Goldie said nearly all pilots, himself included, get airsick. He said it didn’t happen to him anymore though.
He’d downed a turkey sandwich with jalapenos for lunch.
Next on the menu was a “minimum radius” turn: he rolled the plane on its side in a quick and precise twist that seamlessly transitioned into a tight banking turn that pushed my guts into my hips. That was 7 Gs.
Next, were some aileron rolls that sent the sky spinning under us then back above.
We also did the inverted flight that my fellow traveler had enjoyed before me. Goldie told me to check that my harness was strapped as tightly as possible first, and I discovered that Silent Bob had, indeed, done a thorough job. After Goldie flipped us back upright, he demonstrated what astronauts feel, dropping the plane to replicate zero gravity. I was strapped in so tightly that I couldn’t tell. I flapped my arms about, but they felt normal.
Later, I wished I’d pulled out my cellphone to watch it float around. But then again, the next maneuver, would have sent it shooting through our cockpit like a missile.
Goldie had saved the “sneak to vertical rolls” for last, and I can see why. After that one, I was cooked, done. Get me to the ground.
Three-two-one go!
We instantly pivoted from horizontal to what felt like straight up, then he executed what I conceptualized as an ice skater’s double axle, before looping out of the maneuver back to level flight. I could see my field of vision narrowing, a sign of pending G-LOC.
We hit 7.5 Gs on that one, the maximum safe threshold for the Super Hornet. My body effectively weighed 1,200 pounds. I don’t think I blacked out.
After that, we buzzed the Navy control building, screaming past at low altitude. Goldie also demonstrated slow flight, angling the nose up and dropping the speed to 120 miles per hour, as if setting us down on an aircraft carrier. The stubby wings shuddered.
We floated over Interstate 95 then banked sharply over Golden Isles Airport. My belly was jelly by that point, so I was thankful when we lined up with the runway. Within seconds we were on the ground, and Goldie was instructing me to disarm my ejector seat.
We soon came to a stop, and the cockpit opened. Silent Bob unstrapped me and guided my feet down the blue airship’s ladder.
I considered kissing the tarmac but that seemed a bit dramatic, and I wasn’t sure I’d be able to stand back up.
Back in the conference room, I peeled off the dark-blue jumpsuit and sprawled on the carpet to keep the walls from spinning.
Goldie, true to form, was a calming presence. This dizziness is common, he explained. The maneuvers disturb the fluid in your inner ear, and there isn’t much to do about it. He warned me not to drive back to Atlanta right away, so I took a nap first.
The next morning, I had traded the jumpsuit for a gray suit and tie, as I listened to lawyers argue in federal appeals court. By then, the flight seemed like a fever dream, but the ache in my back and the difficulty of rising from the wooden bench was evidence that I had, indeed, ridden along in the backseat of a fighter jet at over 600 miles an hour.
by Ty Tagami | May 16, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Georgians have had a long relationship with beer, an affection that grew during the pandemic before it started to unravel.
Now, many are attracted to a new and different product, something with intoxicating power but without the familiar downsides: hemp beverages.
Beer sales plummeted nationally and in Georgia after COVID-19 subsided. The golden liquid comprises two-fifths of state revenue from alcohol beverage taxes, and income from that tax had been bubbling up about 1% a year before the big lockdown. Then, during fiscal year 2020, which ended that July, four months into the pandemic, it fizzed up 4%. The next year, like a shaken can of beer, the sales tax exploded by nearly 10%, according to the Georgia Department of Revenue.
But sales flattened as the pandemic subsided, hitting negative territory starting in fiscal year 2023.
Breweries started closing, and Georgia was hit hard, said Matt Shirah, co-founder of Scofflaw Brewing in Atlanta.
“Smaller breweries with distribution are experiencing heavy double-digit declines,” he said.
Lawmakers even introduced a bill this winter called the “Georgia Craft Brewery Innovation and Survival Act.”
Observers cite many reasons for the shift away from beer, including a post-pandemic hangover, generational change, rising costs, and concerns about alcohol toxicity.
“I think that alcohol is kind of the tobacco of our generation,” said Ian Dominguez, a fund manager who has long invested in alcohol but is shifting to hemp products. He thinks hemp beverages are entering a period of tremendous growth.
“We think this category is going to be bigger than craft beer in 10 years,” he said. “I’ve never been as confident of something in my career.”
Hemp beverages had a global market valued at $1.16 billion in 2023, according to the industry trade publication Beverage Information Group, which reported projections of compound annual growth at 19.2% to 2030.
Canada and the United States are major markets, as is Europe and particularly Germany — that bastion of beer.
Last month, Shirah attended the International Cannabis Business Conference in Berlin, where industry representatives, policy makers and others from more than 80 countries were expected to attend. The organizers cited market research that had the overall cannabis market in Germany alone reaching $4.6 billion in less than a decade. Lawmakers legalized cannabis in that country last year.
Cannabis is not legal for general consumption in Georgia, but hemp is legal due to a 2018 federal law called the Agriculture Improvement Act.
As long as the intoxicating component known as tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, is 0.3% or less “on a dry weight basis,” it’s no longer considered a controlled substance.
Katherine Russell, policy director for the Georgia Department of Agriculture, told state lawmakers in March that she believed Congress wanted to open a legal lane for industrial hemp, for products such as Hempcrete or for flooring used in construction.
In doing so, federal lawmakers — and President Donald Trump, who signed the farm bill into law during his first term — opened what some are calling a loophole for cannabinoids, the intoxicating substance in the plant.
Subsequently, Georgia began passing laws to allow and to regulate the industry, with new rules coming online late last year.
In the interim, all sorts of hemp products of varying quality flooded Georgia convenience stores and other outlets.
Hemp and cannabis are essentially the same plant, as similar as an azalea and a dwarf azalea, Russell explained, adding that the intoxicating capacity of the plant can be controlled by practices such as the timing of the harvest and the admixture of other compounds, such as hexahydrocannabinol, or HHC, a semisynthetic analogue of THC.
“We’re dealing with an industry of entrepreneurs who are very creative thinkers,” Russell said. “We’ve seen people have novel responses to some of the regulations.”
Gary Long, CEO of a Georgia hemp consumables production company, said highly intoxicating products were getting dumped onto shelves by companies from outside Georgia during the period between the federal farm bill and Georgia’s new Hemp Farming Act, which took full effect last Oct. 1.
Before that, with little in the way of a regulatory framework, state enforcement of the federal limits was inconsistent, he said.
“There are products, or have been products, in our market in Georgia that have far exceeded the federal limits,” said Long, who started out as a licensed medical cannabis provider then, last year, opened ONE59, with a new 133,000-square-foot hemp production facility in Glennville. His products include hemp gummies, absorptive skin creams, and beverages aimed at consumers seeking transparency with ingredients.
“I think the Department of Agriculture is now enforcing the law much more readily than they were,” he said.
This winter, Georgia lawmakers had mixed reactions to the onslaught of hemp products. They unleashed a flurry of conflicting billsthat would have alternately promoted and suppressed the budding industry, including a bill from the Senate that would have banned hemp beverages altogether.
That bill died by the hands of Rep. Alan Powell, R-Hartwell, chairman of the House Regulated Industries Committee. Instead of substantial change, both the House and Senate settled on establishing a committee to review the subject. “We’re going to be studying this in depth this summer,” Powell said in March.
Jim Higdon, co-founder of Louisville-based Cornbread Hemp, which sells beverages, gummies, oils and related products, said something similar happened in the Kentucky legislature, where he said distillers used their clout in an attempt to kneecap his industry.
He said hemp advocates limited the impact by asking customers to contact their lawmakers about it.
Higdon thinks lawmakers will eventually embrace hemp for a simple reason. “The tax revenue potential for hemp beverages and hemp products writ large is significant,” he said.
“Wine and spirits are definitely against hemp beverages and want them to go away,” he added. “But the microbreweries and hemp beverages have a symbiotic relationship because what hemp beverages need is a good canning line, and these microbreweries have canning lines with capacity.”
Shirah said it was clear to him by 2023 that he had to pivot Scofflaw into hemp drinks.
“Hemp beverages will drive at least half of our revenue this year and at least two thirds of 2026 top line revenue, maybe more,” he said.
Scofflaw makes several THC-infused beverages, with Strawberry Lemonade and Sweet Tea Lemonade among the more popular items. Shirah said he is working on a hemp-infused, non-alcoholic, malt-based beverage.
Meanwhile, the Hemp Beverage Alliance is high on Georgia. Their national expo will be July 9-11 at the Omni Atlanta Hotel.
Minnesota was among the first states to embrace the hemp industry, and Christopher Lackner, the president of the alliance, said communities there have seen the benefits of the tax revenue. He said Georgia is primed to follow, despite the ban proposed during this year’s legislative session.
“Since the Georgia regulations and rules came in last year, we have all pegged Georgia as the next Minnesota, which is to say, the next hemp beverage marketplace,” he said. “So we’re very excited that this legislative session ended without a ban.”
