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Georgia Today: Timber industry relief bill signed; ICE detains 19 yr. old student; The Raven podcast
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On the May 9 edition: Relief is on the way for Georgia's timber industry; ICE detains a 19-year-old Georgia college student described as a "good soul"; and a new podcast profiles the 2000 double murder that shocked Atlanta's Buckhead neighborhood and made national headlines.
Peter Biello: Welcome to the Georgia Today podcast. Here we bring you the latest reports from the GPB newsroom. On today's episode, relief is on the way for Georgia's timber industry. ICE detains a 19-year-old Georgia college student described as a good soul. And a new podcast profiles the double murder that shocked Atlanta's Buckhead neighborhood in 2000 and made national headlines.
Tim Livingston: Nobody knows what happened, right? So that's where we start from. Everybody knows about the crime itself, that a crime took place, it's infamous, but nobody knows what happened in that 30 seconds.
Peter Biello: Today is Friday, May 9. I'm Peter Biello, and this is Georgia Today.
Story 1:
Peter Biello: Gov. Brian Kemp signed the state's 2026 budget into law this morning. GPB's Sarah Kallis reports.
Sarah Kallis: The 2026 budget, which takes effect on July 1, includes more money for prisons, school safety and student mental health. House Appropriations Chair Matt Hatchett said it reflects the legislature's priorities.
Matt Hatchett: We are incredibly proud to celebrate yet another year of passing historic tax cuts and returning over a billion dollars back to hard-working Jordans, all while making strategic, fiscally responsible investments in the areas that matter most to keep our state in the best place to live, work, and raise a family.
Sarah Kallis: The signing ceremony was one of the last public signings of the year. The deadline for Kemp to sign all bills into law is Wednesday. For GPB News, I'm Sarah Kallis.
Story 2:
Peter Biello: Gov. Kemp also signed into law yesterday a series of bills aimed at farmers and timber owners who suffered losses from Hurricane Helene. GPB's Grant Blankenship has more.
Grant Blankenship: During a bill signing ceremony at the Monroe County headquarters of the Georgia Forestry Association, which represents timber growers, Kemp said Helene cost $5.5 billion in timber loss.
Brian Kemp: For our No. 1 industry in the state, generational loss for our families and our farm community and our forest producers.
Grant Blankenship: Among the relief in the new laws are state income tax exemptions on federal crop loss payments and a reforestation tax credit to encourage replanting.
Brian Kemp: Taken together, these measures represent over one billion state dollars that we have dedicated to Hurricane Helene relief.
Grant Blankenship: Meanwhile, State Agriculture Commissioner Tyler Harper is still working toward a June deadline with the U.S. Department of Agriculture on when and how hurricane relief block grants will come to the state. For GPB News, I'm Grant Blakenship in Forsyth.
Story 3:
Peter Biello: A traffic stop in Northwest Georgia's Dalton has landed a 19-year-old college student, who has been in the U.S. since age 4, in federal immigration custody. Ximena Arias-Cristobal was placed in ICE detention after making an improper turn on a red light and failing to produce a driver's license. Dalton native Hannah Jones has known Arias Cristobal's family for a decade and is helping raise money for her legal defense. She says Arias-Cristobal did not qualify for DACA protections because her family arrived in the U.S. after a cut-off date to qualify for the program.
Hannah Jones: She is a good soul. She is not a threat. She's not a criminal. She's a flight risk. She was 4 years old when she came to our town. These are the kind of people that, you know, we've invested in, that she's been here for 15 years. We want to keep her.
Peter Biello: Both Arias-Cristobal and her father are currently being held in the Stuart Immigration Detention Facility in the town of Lumpkin.
Story 4:
Peter Biello: The CEO of Delta Air Lines is among those praising a Trump administration effort to overhaul the U.S. air traffic control system in the wake of recent deadly plane crashes and other technical failures in air travel. U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy outlined the multi-billion-dollar plan yesterday. The Atlanta-based airline's CEO Ed Bastion says new technology would help his company with delays and flight scheduling.
Ed Bastion: It's hard to believe, and frankly unacceptable, that many of the systems our air traffic controllers rely on today are more than 60 years old. It's past time that we change that.
Peter Biello: Duffy says the plan calls for six new air traffic control centers along with technology and communications upgrades at all of the nation's air traffic facilities over the next three years.
Story 5:
Peter Biello: If a law passed by state lawmakers last year works as intended, you may start to see more charter schools in Georgia. The state school board is now moving to speed up the process of charter school petitions. The Georgia Board of Education voted yesterday to hand authority over petitions from the State Department of Education to the State Charter Schools Commission. Lawmakers passed a law last year requiring this. The board also approved a rule requiring local school boards to either approve or deny petitions in less than a year.
Story 6:
Peter Biello: Next time you're outside Macon City Auditorium, take a look at the new historical marker. The Georgia Chamber of Commerce and the Georgia Historical Society yesterday honored the Chamber's Macon roots just steps away from where the Chamber held its first board meeting in 1913. Back then, it was called Hotel Dempsey. The Historical Society's president and CEO, Todd Gross:
Todd Gross: When you think about history, a lot of people don't think about business, but George's impact on not only on the United States, but the world now is through our businesses. And so that's an incredible story.
Peter Biello: The marker is part of a decade-long initiative by the Historical Society to recognize the impact of Georgia businesses. Some of the other Georgia companies recognized include Georgia Power, Coca-Cola, Synovus and Gulfstream Aerospace.
Story 7:
Peter Biello: It's one of the most notorious nights in Atlanta's history. Two men stabbed to death just hours after the Super Bowl and one of NFL's biggest stars at the center of it all. The double murder in 2000 left a permanent mark on Atlanta's Buckhead neighborhood and made national headlines. Now, The Raven, a podcast from Tenderfoot TV, reexamines the case with fresh eyes and new evidence. Tim Livingston is the host. He joined GPB's Morning Edition host, Pamela Kirkland.
Pamela Kirkland: Tim, thanks for being here.
Tim Livingston: Thanks for having me.
Pamela Kirkland: So Jan. 31, 2000: for people who don't remember or maybe never knew about this, what exactly happened outside that Buckhead nightclub?
Tim Livingston: Yeah, well, that's the thing. Nobody knows what happened, right? So that's where we start from, where if you start Googling this crime, everybody knows about the crime itself, that a crime took place. It's infamous, but nobody knows what happened in that 30 seconds. When these two groups, one from Akron, Ohio, the other Ray Lewis's group, who was from all over the country, they got into a skirmish, two men ended up dead. What happened? And that, in the podcast, is what we're trying to uncover. And I, without giving anything away, very grateful that I was able to work with a lot of great detectives and a lot of really talented people at Tenderfoot TV. And by the end of the podcast, I think you have a pretty clear idea of who did what and why.
Pamela Kirkland: And what's very cool is you take listeners along on the journey and it feels like as you're uncovering new evidence and finding new facts that we're also learning at the same time. Was this a situation where you had reported most of this and then started building it or you were kind of building the bike as you were riding it?
Tim Livingston: That's a great question. So we did the same thing — Tenderfoot and I worked together on a podcast called Whistleblower, which was on the Tim Donaghy NBA betting scandal. And the way we produced The Raven was the same, which is we finished about three or four episodes before it was released. So we had a lot in the can. We had an idea of where we wanted the story to go. But one interesting thing with The Raven is that Ray Lewis was working with a producer in Hollywood — I will not name that person, but a very, very big sports documentary film producer. And I had set this whole thing up to where I wanted to uncover everything. And then at the end of the podcast, I wanted Ray Lewis to get on the phone. Just me call him. He picks up, says "hello," says whatever he says. And then we set up a documentary where he gets to tell his side of the story. That was the original vision. And to do that, you need to have the malleability within those Episodes 4 through 7 to pivot when necessary. So there was like the back half of the podcast. We had all the interviews lined up. We had an arc that we were planning on and then the arc ended up changing.
Pamela Kirkland: Talk about working on a project that involves someone like a Ray Lewis. I mean, NFL legend at the time, arguably one of the best players in the game. You have the very tough job of trying to figure out what happened on a night where there's not a lot of — to go on, in terms of figuring out what it is. And then you also have this element of celebrity that is also impeding your investigation.
Tim Livingston: Exactly, I mean Ray Lewis is such an interesting figure. The greatest middle linebacker in football history, but he's known for this. He's know for this incident. Anybody I — I believe, at least my friends, my brain — when you mention Ray Lewis you think about the murders before you think about the football exploits. And this guy is the best at what he did in the world ever. Best middle linebacker, the most important position on defense in football, the best ever —you think about the murders. And so for me I thought this was an opportunity for him, because without, again, giving too much away, he definitely played a role in this, but he did not, in my opinion, kill anybody. Again, based on my findings, there's no evidence that suggests that Ray committed the crime, the core crime at the center of this. So I thought that this was opportunity for his to listen 25 years later, come clean, and talk about what really happened. And unfortunately, he's obviously got a lot to balance with that celebrity and he's got a lot of people that I'm sure don't want him talking about this and he has pressures that I can't imagine and he decided not to — not to tell the story.
Pamela Kirkland: Tim, thank you so much for joining me.
Tim Livingston: Thanks for having me.
Pamela Kirkland: For listeners who want to check out The Raven, you can find it wherever you get your podcasts.
Story 8:
Peter Biello: If you name a train station after a thing, and that thing moves or closes, it might be wise to change the name of the train station, too. Metro Atlanta's public transit agency recently did just that. MARTA is renaming the station currently called the Dome/Georgia World Congress Center/Phillips Arena/CNN Center to the SEC Station. That is short for Sports, Entertainment and Convention District. MARTA board member Timothy Worthy says this will help avoid confusion.
Timothy Worthy: It is in the best interest of MARTA, MARTA's patrons, the greater Atlanta metropolitan area and the state of Georgia to change the name of the station to something that will identify the area clearly, whether or not nearby geographical landmarks and streets have their name changed.
Peter Biello: The Georgia Dome was demolished in 2017. Phillips Arena was renamed State Farm Arena in 2018. And the former at CNN Center is now simply The Center after CNN moved out of the building last year. And the change comes as Atlanta expects hundreds of thousands of visitors for World Cup matches next year.
Story 9:
Peter Biello: It was a big night for Braves rookie catcher, Drake Baldwin, last night. In the bottom of the 11th, Baldwin delivered the walk-off RBI single the Braves needed to defeat the Cincinnati Reds 5 to 4. It was Baldwin's first walk-off hit of his career.
Drake Baldwin: I mean it was awesome, something you dream about, getting the chance to be up at the plate with a guy in scoring position. And getting it done makes it a lot better as well.
Peter Biello: Outfielder Michael Harris II collected three hits and a pair of RBIs, including a game-tying RBI single in the ninth inning. Relief pitcher Pierce Johnson threw a 1-2-3 7th inning and has now retired 25 consecutive batters over his last eight games. The Braves face the Pirates in Pittsburgh this evening for the first of a three-game series against the Piratse. A victory would mean the Braves crack the .500 mark for the 1st time this season.
All right, we're done. It has been a week. If you wanna learn more about the stories you've heard today, visit gpb.org/news. That's also where our reporters are posting new stories all the time. Hit subscribe on this podcast so we can stay connected and reach out if you've got something to tell us. Our email address is GeorgiaToday@GPB.oprg. I'm Peter Biello. Thanks again for listening and have a great weekend and a happy Mother's Day.
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