Free Republic

An artificial intelligence data center was running up a water bill for the ages, and local residents were the ones to point out the problem. In November, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported Microsoft had a new “superfactory” named Fairwater spanning over 1 million square feet outside of Atlanta. Chief Technical Officer Mark Russinovich explained why the site is so massive. “To make improvements in the capabilities of the AI, you need to have larger and larger infrastructure to train it,” he said in a statement. The site developer, Quality Technology Services, purchased the plot in 2022 for $154 million. Ironically, Microsoft...

Atlanta — Going into retirement, 58-year-old David White of Atlanta, Georgia, had some preconceived notions. "I thought it would be blissful and easy and joyful," White told CBS News. "… It wasn't quite." In September 2025, White retired after 33 years in education, the last 15 spent as principal at the Burgess-Peterson Academy, an elementary school. It was a career so illustrious that White was once awarded Principal of the Year for the entire Atlanta Public Schools district. He said he left mostly to be free of the daily demands. But having so much free time got old. "I was...

ATLANTA — Waymo’s self-driving cars can be seen all over Atlanta streets, giving rideshare trips through Uber. But what happens when they’re empty? In one northwest Atlanta neighborhood, the residents say dozens of Waymo cars end up circling their cul-de-sac. “It’s almost every little cul-de-sac in our area, so I think it’s a problem,” one neighbor, on Battleview Drive, told Gehlbach. On a dead end street, Waymo after Waymo after Waymo drive on, usually early in the morning. “I think yesterday morning, we had 50 cars that came through between 6 and 7,” a neighbor told Channel 2 Action News....

Last December, a Georgia woman sustained severe burns to her face, neck, and scalp after a stranger emerged from the bushes at a Forsyth park and doused her in acid. According to law enforcement, a black male approached the victim, Ashley Wasielewski, while she was walking around Forsyth Park and hurled acid at her. The suspect, who is still at large, approached the victim from behind and poured the liquid chemical on her. Wasielewski suffered third-degree burns and received treatment at Memorial Hospital in Augusta. According to police, the attacker was not known to the victim. “I walk around this...

Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp on Wednesday called a special session to redraw the state’s congressional and legislative districts before the 2028 elections. Kemp signed a proclamation convening the General Assembly on June 17 to address redistricting after a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling ended race-based gerrymandering. The news, first reported by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, comes as Republican-led states across the South move to redraw the maps ahead of the November midterms. The special session next month in Atlanta is expected to center on new maps that could take effect for the 2028 election cycle, particularly if Republicans lose power...

Georgia Democrats are worried their front-runner will fumble a “once in a generation” chance to win the governor’s mansion this year. Keisha Lance Bottoms has what should be an enviable résumé: former judge, city council member, mayor of Atlanta and senior White House adviser. She’s dominating public polling in the primary, bolstered by high name recognition in the Atlanta metro area. But a third of the Democratic electorate remains undecided, and her most high-profile endorsement is from former President Joe Biden, who left office deeply unpopular among Americans.

Georgia GOP Gov. Brian Kemp signaled his state is joining the nationwide redistricting battle Wednesday by calling for a special legislative session to redraw the congressional maps. Kemp signed a proclamation that calls a special session of the Georgia General Assembly for June 17 to address the Supreme Court's historic ruling that is expected to require changes to the state's electoral maps before the 2028 elections. The Supreme Court ruled last month that Louisiana's second majority-Black congressional district relied too heavily on race and was therefore an unconstitutional gerrymander. The special session will only be allowed to cover two topics....

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene vows to oppose the One Big Beautiful Bill when it returns to the House if there are no changes made to the artificial intelligence provision. Greene says she was unaware of the AI provision when she first voted for the bill and now argues it would endanger state rights, risk job losses in her manufacturing-heavy district, and open the door to forced property seizures. Facing criticism for missing the provision, Greene defended her transparency, claiming no other lawmakers publicly flagged the AI clause and pledging to fight any future legislation that limits state authority over AI...

The groups admitted to 16 violations and agreed to pay a record $300,000 fine, the largest in Georgia history The Georgia Senate is ramping up its investigation into alleged campaign finance violations tied to Stacey Abrams’ voter outreach group, with a top lawmaker vowing to "follow the facts wherever they lead" as subpoenas have been issued to Abrams and other key figures. The Senate Special Committee on Investigations announced Monday that Abrams, along with New Georgia Project leaders Lauren Groh-Wargo and Nsé Ufot, must appear before lawmakers at the State Capitol at 10 a.m. on Friday. "This committee has a...

HALL COUNTY, Ga. - The Georgia Ports Authority opened a $134 million inland port in Hall County last Monday to move freight by rail and reduce truck traffic on Georgia highways. What we know: The Gainesville Inland Port is a 104-acre facility located just outside of Gainesville in Hall County. It features seven 90-foot-tall cranes designed to load and unload shipping containers. The site is connected directly to the Port of Savannah via the Norfolk Southern rail system. The facility cost about $134 million to build and took about 19 months to complete. What they're saying: The port is expected...

Fulton County, Georgia — the epicenter of so many lingering questions about the 2020 presidential election — has a new problem on its hands. On May 4, 2026, the Fulton County Board of Registration and Elections filed a 27-page motion to quash in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia asking a federal judge to quash a grand jury subpoena demanding the personal identifying information of thousands of county election workers and volunteers who helped administer the November 2020 General Election. The original subpoena was issued under seal on April 17, 2026, by the U.S. Attorney’s Office...

Georgia residents were left outraged when they discovered a massive data center had been guzzling up nearly 30 million gallons of water without paying for it. The issue began last year when residents in the affluent subdivision of Annelise Park in Fayetteville noticed their water pressure was unusually low, Politico reports. When the county utility then investigated the problem, officials discovered that developer Quality Technology Services (QTS) had installed two industrial-scale water hookups to the approximately 6.2 million square foot data center campus - located about 20 miles south of downtown Atlanta. One of the water connections appeared to have...

MCDONOUGH, Ga. — A woman in Georgia is questioning her son’s three-day suspension after school officials said the 8-year-old brought a small LEGO creation resembling a gun to class, sparking debate over zero-tolerance discipline policies for young students. “This is the weapon they say my child had,” the boy’s mother said while holding the LEGO creation. “This is clarified as a weapon to the school district.” The mother said her son, who has autism and ADHD, did not threaten anyone or behave aggressively. “My child did not go to school and say anything harmful or bad,” she said. “They could...

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) on Friday warned Democrats against forming alliances with former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), accusing the former lawmaker of being a “proven bigot.” A student at an event hosted by the University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics asked Ocasio-Cortez about working across the aisle with Republican lawmakers, including Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.), and if she stood by comments she made in 2021 about “legitimate white supremacist sympathizers at the core of the House of Representatives caucus.” Ocasio-Cortez said she stood by the comments, and that her work with Republican colleagues has been “about where we trust...

The mayor of a small Georgia town has axed its entire police force for upsetting his wife, who’d previously been accused of creating a “hostile work environment.” Cohutta Mayor Ron Shinnick shut down the Cohutta Police Department and fired all 10 of its employees earlier this week after officers allegedly made “inappropriate comments” about his spouse on Facebook, WDEF reported. “The PD has been dissolved, and all personnel have been terminated,” read a brutal sign on the department’s door first thing Wednesday. It wasn’t immediately clear if cops were notified in advance or only found out they’d been fired when...

A federal judge on Wednesday rejected a request to order the return of more than 600 boxes of voting material seized earlier this year by the FBI amid an investigation involving a Georgia county at the heart of President Donald Trump’s grievances about his 2020 election loss. U.S. District Judge J.P. Boulee described the events surrounding the bureau’s January raid on an election warehouse in Fulton County — where Atlanta is located — as “in many ways unprecedented” and called some aspects of the investigation, including its reliance on previously debunked conspiracy theories, “troubling.” But Boulee concluded county officials had...

ATLANTA (AP) — The federal government can keep the 2020 election ballots from Georgia’s Fulton County that were seized by the FBI from a warehouse near Atlanta, a judge ruled Wednesday. U.S. District Judge J.P. Boulee’s decision came after lawyers for the county had argued that the ballots and other election materials, as well as any electronic copies the Justice Department has made, should be returned because the seizure was improper and unconstitutional. The Jan. 28 seizure by the FBI targeted the elections hub in Georgia’s most populous county, which is heavily Democratic and includes most of the city of...

Georgia prosecutor Fani Willis spent months, even longer, trying to put together an organized crime case against President Donald Trump as Democrats were weaponizing a number of government agencies to attack him. It fell apart when an appeals courts commented on her decision to hire a paramour to work on the case, and both he and she were ordered off the case entirely. Now it appears that taxpayers may never know the actual amount of money wasted in the political agenda. A report from the investigators at the Center Square explained some expenditures are known, others remain concealed. The report...

A 12-year-old Georgia boy was left heartbroken after his therapy pig was allegedly killed by three ghoulish neighbors – who were found with the dead animal in aprons and gloves beside a boiling pot of water. Garrett Cox, who has ADHD and autism, is now struggling to cope after Bootsy, his 400-pound emotional support pig, was savagely shot dead after wandering from her pen and off the family’s Hoschton property, about 50 miles northeast of Atlanta, last week, according to multiple reports. “I miss her so much,” the young boy told WSB-TV about the award-winning pig, while clutching the ribbons...

The billionaire media mogul spent much of his time — and even more of his riches — trying to "take pollution down to zero."He may not have had the sweet green flattop/mullet combo haircut, but make no mistake about it: Ted Turner was Captain Planet. This morning, following the maverick mogul’s passing, Turner is being most-remembered for launching CNN, a 24/7 cable news channel that undeniably changed the media landscape forever. But his contributions go much further and are not limited to the stations that bear his name, like the first “Superstation” TBS (Turner Broadcasting System) and later TNT (Turner...