Georgia Trend Daily – May 9, 2019
May 9, 2019 WABE 90.1, Atlanta Business Chronicle
Kemp Joins Nine Other Governors In Plea For Federal Disaster Relief
Dave Williams reports that Gov. Brian Kemp and the chief executives of nine other states have signed a bipartisan letter calling on President Donald Trump and Congress to support a relief package for victims of Hurricane Michael and other weather disasters. A $14 billion disaster relief bill has been hung up for months in a dispute between Trump and congressional Democrats over additional aid to Puerto Rico, which the president argues already has received enough federal assistance.
May 9, 2019 Georgia Trend – Exclusive!
Business Casual: An Empty Glass
Susan Percy writes, if you are a glass-half-full person, you might be able to look back on the 2019 General Assembly session and focus on some good-faith efforts to make life better for a significant number of Georgians, especially relating to voting and healthcare. But if you are poor or female or a practicing physician or someone who cares about the economic future of the state, it’s hard to see past the punitive, discriminatory and almost certainly unconstitutional HB 481, the “heartbeat bill” that passed in the last days of the session.
May 9, 2019 Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Atlanta ranks No. 9 for best place for career and business, according to Forbes
Rose Kennedy reports, looking for the best location to jump-start your career? Give Atlanta a try. The Peach City earned the No. 9 spot on Forbes 2016 ranking of Best Places for Business and Career.
May 9, 2019 Atlanta Business Chronicle
Plant Vogtle’s Unit 3 hits key milestone
Dave Williams reports that Georgia Power Co. has permanently powered up the first of two additional nuclear reactors under construction at Plant Vogtle, the Atlanta-based utility announced. Energizing Unit 3 at the plant south of Augusta, Ga., is necessary to perform all subsequent testing.
May 9, 2019 GlobalAtlanta.com
Atlanta’s Fintech Ecosystem Matures With Global Investment, Outreach
Trevor Williams reports, looking at Georgia’s financial technology industry, it wouldn’t seem like there’s much more room to grow. The sector employs more than 38,000 people the state, and industry-leading companies that have helped generate the “Transaction Alley” moniker process 57.7 billion payments a year — about two-thirds of the total in the U.S.
May 9, 2019 Columbus Ledger-Enquirer
What to know about new group that will have power over medical marijuana in Georgia
Nick Wooten reports that the roughly 10,000 Georgians who currently have medical marijuana cards will have their eyes on a new state commission with broad powers over the state’s budding program. The possession of low THC oil has been legal in Georgia since 2015 but laws left patients with no legal way get it — until now. State lawmakers and Gov. Brian Kemp legalized the in-state production and selling of the oil last month.
May 9, 2019 Savannah Morning News
City may borrow $45 million to cover Savannah arena shortfall
Eric Curl reports that the city is considering borrowing $45 million to cover the costs of constructing Savannah’s new arena west of downtown ahead of an expected groundbreaking this fall. Construction is expected to cost $165 million, but the current Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax is expected to generate a maximum of $120 million for the project.
May 9, 2019 Marietta Daily Journal
Georgia Tech marks $42 million expanded research presence in Cobb
Jon Gargis reports that a Cobb County facility expanded to the tune of $42 million is expected to play a larger role in the state’s aerospace industry and the country’s defense efforts. Officials with Georgia Tech Research Institute — a nonprofit, applied research division of the Georgia Institute of Technology — cut the ribbon Wednesday on its expanded Cobb County Research Facility off Atlanta Road and adjacent to both Dobbins Air Reserve Base and Lockheed Martin.
May 9, 2019 Dalton Daily Citizen-News
State labor commissioner says employers finding workers with soft skills in low supply
Charles Oliver reports that ten years after the end of the Great Recession, employers have reached all of the “easy pickings” when it comes to finding workers, says Georgia Labor Commissioner Mark Butler. “In an economy like this, somebody who has the will and knows what they are doing and has the soft skills is going to get a job,” Butler said Wednesday at the Murray County Recreation Department during a lunch and learn session hosted by the Chatsworth-Eton-Murray County Chamber of Commerce.
May 9, 2019 Georgia State University
Georgia State Researchers Receive $3 Million Federal Grant To Prepare STEM Teachers for Atlanta Schools
Angela Turk reports that Georgia State University College of Education & Human Development faculty members Christine Thomas and Natalie King have received a six-year, $3 million grant from the National Science Foundation to address the shortage of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) teachers in urban schools, especially Black and Latinx men.
May 9, 2019 Georgia Health News
Verma, in Atlanta, talks TV drug prices, rural health, Georgia waivers
Andy Miller reports that the head of the federal Medicare and Medicaid agency said Wednesday in Atlanta that the new White House regulation on pharmaceutical TV ads will bring “much-needed pricing transparency to the market for prescription drugs.’’ The new policy, announced Wednesday, will require companies to disclose prices in TV ads for any drugs that will cost above $35 for a month’s supply or a usual course of therapy.
May 9, 2019 Brunswick News
U.S. House subcommittee discusses Sea Grant, coastal resiliency
Wes Wolfe reports that the National Sea Grant College Program has a significant hand in how a lot of states manage their coasts and their fisheries — Georgia’s partnership between the UGA Marine Extension and Georgia Sea Grant conducts all manner of activities along the coast, including out of its Brunswick Station on Bay Street. However, the Trump administration’s fiscal year 2020 budget eliminates federal funding for the Sea Grant program. That was one of several topics of discussion Wednesday in a hearing of the U.S. House Subcommittee on Water, Oceans and Wildlife.
May 9, 2019 Gainesville Times
U.S. Rep. Doug Collins proposes funding for southern border
Megan Reed reports that U.S. Rep. Doug Collins R-Gainesville, and U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Alabama, have submitted legislation that would fund the Trump Administration’s request for an additional $4.5 million to address immigration.
May 9, 2019 Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Trump official open to increased funding for Georgia Medicaid waiver
Ariel Hart reports that Georgia may be in line to forge a new path in the way the nation funds Medicaid expansion for the poor, potentially putting the state in line for millions of additional dollars from the federal government, a Trump administration official told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Wednesday.
