SUMMARY: Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda posthumously awarded the Order of the Cross of Vytis to four 3rd Infantry Division soldiers who died in Lithuania during a mission earlier this year. Staff Sergeants Jose Duenez Jr., Edvin F. Franco, Troy S. Knutson-Collins, and Pfc. Dante D. Taitano were found deceased near Pabradė after repairing and towing an immobilized armored vehicle. Their M88A2 Hercules was recovered from a peat bog. The ceremony honored their sacrifice during NATO exercises, highlighting U.S.-Lithuania partnership and commitment to freedom. The soldiers were deployed for Operation Atlantic Resolve but stationed at Fort Stewart.

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SUMMARY: Georgia is canceling nearly half a million voter registrations as part of a routine cleanup to maintain accurate voter rolls. The Secretary of State’s office began mailing letters to 478,000 inactive voters, who have 40 days to respond or risk removal. This is required by federal and state law and targets those inactive for over four years due to reasons like moving out of state or returned mail. Voting rights groups, including the ACLU, call it a purge, warning it could disenfranchise eligible voters, particularly younger, lower-income, or mobile residents. Georgia currently has about 8.25 million registered voters.

Nearly half a million voter registrations in Georgia are about to be cancelled. The Georgia Secretary of the state’s office began mailing out letters to hundreds of thousands of voters. If you get one the clock is ticking to stay on the voter rolls. It’s one of the largest cancellations of voter registrations in history.

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by Amber Roldan, Georgia Recorder
July 10, 2025

The decline of local news continues on the national level and here at home in Georgia. A new local journalism report from Rebuild Local News and Muck Rack reveals a 75% decline in local journalists across the country since 2002. 

“The goals of this new report and project is to try to create a measure of journalists per population and an index that could be recreated each year down to the county level,” Rebuild Local Journalism Founder Steve Waldman said during a webinar Thursday. “The reason that we all felt that that was important is that at the heart of the local news crisis is the lack of coverage and the lack of reporters in communities.”

The report, which was released Thursday, found that the shortage of local journalists is both severe and widespread. This shortage is measured by a new metric called Local Journalist Equivalents (LJEs), which uses a formula to evaluate the strength of local journalism. LJEs were determined by outlet types, verifiable bylines and reporting capacity based on factors like publishing frequency. This data was then used to show nationwide trends and state specific metrics.

In 2002, there was a national average of about 40 local journalists per 100,000 people. Today, that figure has dropped to an average of 8.2 Local Journalist Equivalents. Georgia’s average currently sits well below that number, landing Georgia at No. 46 on this year’s ranking.

With a statewide population of 11 million people, Georgia has an average of 5.8 Local Journalist Equivalents per 100,000 people. This average was significantly less than the No. 1 ranked state of Vermont that has an average of 27.5. Nevada trailed four places behind Georgia with the lowest ranked average of 4.8 local journalists.

While the decline of local news is not a new phenomenon, the report confirms that rural areas are not the only communities underserved by local news. Many fast growing areas including Los Angeles and Las Vegas also scored below the national average.

Richard T. Griffiths, a retired reporter and president emeritus of the Georgia First Amendment Foundation, said continued decline of local journalism goes beyond local journalists.

“It’s not the industry that is the future casualty of this, it’s democracy itself,” Griffiths said. “If you have a populace that doesn’t understand what’s going on in its community because there are no reporters able to go to the meetings to figure out what’s going on, then you have a collapse of the institutions that underpin our society and our democracy.”

Griffiths cited waning advertising dollars and the rise of social media as notable factors behind the demise of local news. In a world of subscriptions and paywalls, Griffiths said he believes that the business model of local journalism needs to be re-evaluated. He points to nonprofit models like The Current on the Georgia coast and The Macon Melody as potential ways to revitalize local news.

While the new report may not identify clear-cut solutions, the creators behind the report hope their findings can help improve the viability and sustainability of local journalism.

“We think we made a real significant contribution here, and that this really gives a very meaningful picture of the sort of journalistic horsepower in counties across America and will help all of us to better understand both the crisis and how to solve it,” Waldman said.

Georgia Recorder is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Georgia Recorder maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jill Nolin for questions: info@georgiarecorder.com.

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Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.

Political Bias Rating: Centrist

The content presents a factual report on the decline of local journalism in the United States, particularly highlighting statistical data and expert commentary without partisan language or ideological framing. It focuses on the democratic importance of local news and explores potential nonprofit models as solutions, showing concern for community engagement and transparency. Given the balanced presentation of information and absence of overt political viewpoints, the content leans toward a centrist perspective.