Sunday Solutions — June 22, 2025
Good morning! We’re two days past the solstice, and wow: It really feels like summer. Good thing the news is chill, at least when it comes to the hot drama over strip-mining near the Okefenokee Swamp. We’ve also got ICE, but not the cooling kind: the record on immigration detentions in Glynn. Grab some sweet tea and settle in.
NEWS: ENVIRONMENT
Deal protects Trail Ridge from mining
It’s taken almost 2 decades, but the fight to protect part of Trail Ridge from strip-mining is over. Twin Pines Minerals, a company seeking a permit to mine the land near the Okefenokee Swamp, has agreed to sell the property to The Conservation Fund for $60 million. The deal was announced as the mining company was fighting lawsuits worth $30 million, owed its $2.1 million bond required to collect mining permits if approved, and had to make a deal to pay the $15,000 owed in Charlton County property taxes, as reported recently by The Current’s Mary Landers. The move accomplishes something the legislature, the federal government and countless other efforts tried to do: Protect the land near unique blackwater swamp that’s home to a vast array of wildlife and acts as an important hedge against climate change. The Conservation Fund credited Coastal Georgia’s environmental advocacy group One Hundred Miles for helping to bring funders and partners to the deal. The Current’s Tyler Davis and Margaret Coker report that the fund’s next goal will be to protect the rest of Trail Ridge and the whole 350,000 acres of the swamp.
ANALYSIS: PUBLIC SAFETY
Immigration detentions in Glynn: the data
In April, Glynn County Sheriff Neal Jump told a group that his deputies had arrested 124 foreign nationals and all of them were taken into custody by Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers. The Current’s Glynn County reporter Jabari Gibbs had questions: who’s being arrested, their specific offenses and home countries. Those answers weren’t easy to find. The Georgia Open Records Act request for the arrest reports cost more than $300 and turned up incomplete data from Jan. 1 to April 14 with 2 month’s worth of missing entries and numerous errors that made identification and data analysis difficult. With an assist from The Current’s data reporter Maggie Lee and lots of clarifications from the sheriff’s records custodian, data show only 35 were listed as having a 48-hour hold for ICE and some never were picked up. Most of the 123 foreign nationals were arrested were for traffic violations. Read the complete report here.
🎉 Congratulations to Bill for knowing that last week’s Spyglass was one of the ferocious lions at the feet of Gen. James Oglethorpe on the monument in Savannah’s Chippewa Square. We had 9 correct answers last week — let’s see how you do this week.
Test how well you spy details in Coastal Georgia. Give us the location of the item in the photo above. Some spots may be easier to identify than others; some will be tougher but all are accessible to public view. We’ll collect correct answers each week and draw for a weekly winner.
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Notes from the week’s news
- Celebrating Juneteeth 2025: Communities across Coastal Georgia honored the historical Freedom Day for Black Americans. See photos and more from a variety of events, from runs to community parties.
- Savannah unveils historical marker honoring civil rights leader Ralph Mark Gilbert
- State to pay for thousands to get a private K-12 education this year
- Georgia Senate Republicans vote on new leadership amid big shuffle
- Job Corps students bring a second suit to stop plans to shutter program
- Poll shows two-thirds of Americans reject Trump’s health spending cuts bill
- Guns kill more US children than other causes, but state policies can help, study finds
NEWS: EXPLAINERS
☕ Your second cup: Considerations
There are several relevant topics this week as we consider the new involvement in the Middle East, the signs of a dangerously split democracy show up in the forced removal of a U.S. senator from a public space, and the reconfiguring of a vaccine advisory committee. These explainers from topic experts from The Conversation might fuel your conversations and thoughts for what’s next.
- Iran-Israel ‘threshold war’ has rewritten nuclear escalation rules: The destruction we’ve all been taught to fear may be closer as skirmishes target the heart of nuclear weaponry and nationalism.
- Forcible removal of US Sen. Alex Padilla signals a dangerous shift in American democracy: The mutual respect among the branches of government is withering quickly, threatening the crucial balance written into the U.S. Constitution.
- RFK Jr’s shakeup of vaccine advisory committee raises worries about scientific integrity of health recommendations: As changes come to the national health institutions, will we — or our insurance companies — have the best info to make choices?
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Glynn County Sheriff’s ICE data offers inconsistencies
By Jabari Gibbs
Glynn County Sheriff Neal Jump has arrested 124 foreigners, with 35 with an ICE hold, but ICE does not respond to every inquiry made by the sheriff’s office and many foreigners get released soon after arrest, apparently due to misdemeanors.
$60 million deal ends mining threat to Georgia’s Okefenokee Swamp
By Tyler Davis and Margaret Coker
The Conservation Fund has agreed to purchase Twin Pines Minerals’ land near the Okefenokee Swamp for $60 million, ending the threat of mining in the area and preserving the swamp’s ecological value.
State to pay for thousands to get a private K-12 education this year
By Ty Tagami/Capitol Beat News Service
Georgia is set to pay for thousands of students to attend private K-12 schools or home school through the Promise Scholarship program, which will cost the state between $54 million and $84 million for the upcoming school year.
Job Corps students bring a second suit to stop plans to shutter program
By Grant Blankenship/GPB News
Students enrolled in the Job Corps program are suing the U.S. Department of Labor over plans to shut down all 99 centers by June 30, citing concerns about homelessness, lack of healthcare, and loss of training.
Litter booms trap trash in Savannah waterways
By Mary Landers
The Savannah Riverkeeper is installing litter booms along canals to collect litter and begin to address the problem of single-use plastics in the Savannah area.
Savannah unveils historical marker honoring civil rights leader Ralph Mark Gilbert
By Justin Taylor
Dr. Ralph Mark Gilbert, often referred to as the father of Savannah’s civil rights movement, was honored with a historical marker outside the Ralph Mark Gilbert Civil Rights Museum for his work in expanding the NAACP, organizing voter registration drives, and helping to elect the city’s first Black police officers and mayor.
Celebrating Juneteeth 2025
By Lily Belle Poling, Robin Kemp, and Justin Taylor
Coastal Georgians gathered to celebrate Juneteenth, a holiday that recognizes the end of slavery in the United States, with events including a fun run, a wade-in at Tybee Island, and a freedom fest in Riceboro.
Poll shows two-thirds of Americans reject Trump’s health spending cuts bill
By Phil Galewitz/KFF Health News
A KFF poll found that nearly two-thirds of adults oppose Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” due to its proposed cuts to Medicaid and other health programs, and that support for the legislation drops significantly when people learn more about its potential impact on healthcare.
Guns kill more US children than other causes, but state policies can help, study finds
By Nada Hassanein/Stateline
A new study found that in states with more permissive gun policies, American children and teens die from firearms at a higher rate, with non-Hispanic Black children and teens seeing the largest increase in firearm deaths.
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