SUMMARY: An Aiken County family is preparing to self-deport to Mexico due to fear of separation under President Trump’s strict immigration policies. Tomas Montalvo, an undocumented immigrant for 30 years, came to the U.S. at age 12 to support his family. Since Trump’s 2024 re-election campaign promised mass deportations and encouraged self-deportation with financial aid, the Montalvos decided to leave after witnessing deportations of Tomas’s brothers. They have sold belongings, rehomed pets, and face living in difficult conditions. Despite hardships, the family chooses unity and openness, hoping to support others facing similar struggles.

Read the full article

The post Aiken County family fleeing to Mexico due to Trump immigration policies appeared first on www.wjbf.com

SUMMARY: Starting September 1st, South Carolina will enforce a new “Hands-Free Law” to curb distracted driving, requiring drivers to use phones hands-free while the vehicle is in motion. Police report about two collisions per hour in the state are caused by distracted driving, totaling over 20,000 annually. The law bans holding phones for texting, emails, videos, or games. A 180-day grace period will begin, focusing on education rather than fines. Penalties start at $100 for the first offense, increasing to $200 plus license points for repeated violations. Phones can be used only at red lights, not while driving.

Read the full article

The post New driving law coming to South Carolina: what to know appeared first on www.wjbf.com

by Jay Bookman, Georgia Recorder
July 17, 2025

Georgia’s 2026 Republican primary won’t be held until next May, but Sen. Jon Ossoff already knows who he’ll be running against: 

Donald Trump.

“Trump promised to attack a broken system. I get it: Ripe target,” Ossoff told a campaign crowd last week in Savannah. “But here’s the thing: He’s a crook, and a con man. And he wants to be a king.”

Way back in 2017, in his first congressional race, Ossoff failed to take on Trump directly and lost. It appears he won’t make that mistake again.

“Our fight is against deeply entrenched corruption and greed,” he told the crowd. “Corruption and greed that have so deeply rotted our system that it gave rise to this depraved man who has now plagued our public life for a decade.”

Georgia Republicans seem equally avid to make Trump the central issue of the 2026 midterms. The handful of declared and undeclared candidates for the GOP Senate nomination are unanimous in expressing their bottomless, unconditional loyalty to Trump, as they have to be. Anything Trump wants, they want. If he wants something entirely different tomorrow, tomorrow they will want that too.

And if they don’t see Trump as our king, they certainly aren’t going to say so right out loud, where people might hear them. It’s a mark of how far we’ve fallen that the act of saying “We’re Americans, and we don’t like kings” has become a partisan statement that half the candidates dare not utter for fear of angering their voters.

Even in state and local races, Trump and his policies are going to dominate the upcoming campaign season, in large part because of the passage of what Trump calls his “big, beautiful bill.” The scope and reach of that legislation are enormous, creating significant challenges for the Georgia economy and Georgia’s political leadership.

For example, the $1 trillion in cuts that the bill makes in Medicaid will, in time, strip health insurance from hundreds of thousands of Georgians, many of them living in rural areas of the state where hospitals, doctors and other health care providers are already having a tough time hanging on. Private insurance is scarce in those areas, and if government isn’t paying the health care bills, no one will and providers will disappear.

And if Congress also refuses to extend health insurance subsidies under the Affordable Care Act by the end of the year, as seems likely, hundreds of thousands of additional Georgians will fall off the rolls of the insured, all to help finance major tax cuts for the wealthy.

The state of Georgia, with an estimated $15 billion in reserves, could help soften that blow. However, a Republican state leadership that has long refused to expand Medicaid, making Georgia one of only 10 states that still do so, isn’t likely to undergo some sudden change of heart to help less affluent constituents stay insured. That could become a major issue in next year’s campaign, from state legislative races to the competition for governor.

Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” also slashes support for electric vehicles and other renewable energy projects, with experts warning that it will raise utility bills in Georgia. Eventually, it will end up surrendering U.S. leadership in alternative energy development to China and other nations.

If fully implemented, that could undo the legacy that Gov. Brian Kemp had been attempting to build. During his two terms as governor, Kemp has spent much of his time and energy trying to transform Georgia into what he calls the capitol of electricity-driven transportation, not just for the nation but for the world. As a result of Trump’s legislation, however, a lot of those investments are not going to happen, and billion-dollar investments in battery plants and other infrastructure that are already in the ground here in Georgia, producing good-paying jobs, will have a much harder time staying afloat. (Trump’s chaotic tariffs and trade policy could compound the economic impact on Georgia, a state heavily invested in the logistics industry.)

Under another provision of that bill, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, is given an additional $75 billion, which will allow it to more than double the number of agents it can put on the streets, from the current 6,000 to 16,000. The clear intention of the Trump regime is to greatly accelerate the pace of immigration raids, with immense consequences for the carpet industries of north Georgia, the construction and service industries of metro Atlanta and the agriculture industry of south Georgia.

As we’ve all witnessed, ICE has not exactly comported itself with reason, moderation or humanity in its mass deportation effort, and much of the Republican base is fine with that and wants even more. It’s hard to exert discipline or restraint on an agency that operates behind masks, which means no agents can be held accountable for their excesses and mistakes. In fact, no federal law-enforcement agency has ever behaved in such fashion in our nation’s history. As Ossoff noted in his Savannah speech, “Donald Trump wants the whole country to fear,” and the president is getting his wish.

“I’ve heard it from people at every level, including people with power, people with status, people with resources,” Ossoff said. “They come to my office, and they tell me they’re afraid to say anything. They’re afraid of retribution, investigation, destruction, vengeance from their own government.”

That’s not my America. Is it your America?

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.

The post Bookman: Ossoff smartly focuses on Trump as 2026 campaigning cranks up appeared first on georgiarecorder.com

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: Left-Leaning

This article presents a clear ideological stance critical of former President Donald Trump and the Republican Party’s policies, especially regarding healthcare, energy, immigration, and governance. The language is strongly oppositional, describing Trump as a “crook” and “con man,” and framing Republican leadership as loyal to an authoritarian “king.” It emphasizes negative impacts of Republican policies on vulnerable populations and the environment, highlighting the hardships expected from Medicaid cuts and ICE expansion. The tone and framing suggest a progressive perspective advocating for expanded healthcare access, renewable energy, and restrained immigration enforcement, positioning the piece as left-leaning rather than neutral or centrist.