From City Hall to Magic City, Capital B Atlanta reporters covered breaking news, secured exclusive interviews with newsmakers, unearthed painful history, and published groundbreaking enterprise stories that resonated online and on social media.
Here are our top 10 stories of the year.
Georgia is quietly working on building the largest ICE facility in the country, thanks to the passage of President Donald Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill.” Charlton County, located 10 miles from the Florida border and 274 miles south of Atlanta, approved a nearly $50 million agreement with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency in June to expand the Folkston ICE Processing Center from 1,100 detainees to nearly 3,000. The plans incorporate the shuttered D. Ray James Correctional Facility into the existing footprint.
Ten years ago, Brandon “Brannu” Fulton bought 27 acres of land for $150,000 on the corner of Butner Road and Camp Creek Parkway in what was then unincorporated Fulton County. He wanted a space where he could spend his days in nature and ride horses. The following year, Fulton County Animal Services arrested him and authorities charged him with felony cruelty to animals and seized all seven of his horses, according to federal court records. A year later the charges were dropped, but criminal justice reporter Madeline Thigpen reports that Fulton’s horses were never returned — and the county has refused to pay him the $250,000 his lawyers estimate they are worth.
Georgians have some of the highest utility bills in the nation, and the bills of Black Georgians, who are less likely to live in energy efficient homes, are often higher than most. And PSC commissioners have faced criticism for approving six Georgia Power rate hikes over the past two years. As a result, the average Georgia Power residential customer is paying $43 more per month, or $516 more per year, on their electric bill than they were two years ago. Politics reporter Chauncey Alcorn covered the election throughout the year, driving concerned voters to the polls.
Supporters of Cornelius Taylor — the Black man who was killed on Jan. 17 by a construction vehicle clearing an encampment of unhoused people in Atlanta’s Auburn Avenue neighborhood — demanded city policy changes following his horrific death. Activists and clergy members working with Taylor’s family told Chauncey Alcorn he was crushed by a bulldozer clearing unhoused people’s tents on Old Wheat Street across from Ebenezer Baptist Church, the house of worship once led by Martin Luther King Jr.
A new mural commemorating the 1906 Atlanta Race Massacre in South Atlanta drew criticism from residents and historians, who told environment and health reporter Alyssa Johnson the artwork was developed with limited community input and misrepresents the historical trauma it seeks to address.
In the past few years, Georgia has become one of the fastest-growing destinations for data centers in the country. Lured by tax breaks, cheap land, and access to power, companies like Amazon, Meta, and Microsoft are snatching up hundreds of acres for sprawling, energy-intensive campuses. According to Alyssa Johnson, residents’ frustrations echo across southern Fulton County, an area made up of predominantly Black cities, where at least 20 data centers are being planned.
Remy, 22, was a teen runaway from Florida when she began working in a southwest Atlanta club at the direction of an older man. At the time, she said, she considered the man to be like a boyfriend “or somebody that wanted to just protect me while I was working.” In reality, he was a pimp and knew the owner of a strip club in the area. “He got me in, I didn’t have to have ID, and I started working in the strip club,” Remy told Capital B Atlanta. “I was 16.” Advocates told reporter Bethonie Butler that Remy’s story wasn’t that unusual in Atlanta.
The hashtag that began circulating widely was simple, yet urgent: #FreeAlexMaganda. A Morehouse College alum who played football for the storied HBCU, he was detained by ICE agents outside Dallas and was being held at the Bluebonnet Detention Facility in Anson, Texas, 200 miles from Dallas. The news of Maganda’s detainment and requests for legal aid and support for him and his family quickly spread to other HBCU social platforms.
Madeline Thigpen was the first to interview a witness in the story of the shooting of Linton Blackwell, a 44-year-old father and local rapper who was killed in October by off-duty Atlanta police officer Gerald Walker in a Buckhead bar. William Stanley, Blackwell’s friend, was with him at the bar that night and one of the last people to see him alive. Thigpen was also the first to report on the officer’s disciplinary history.
In remembrance of Juneteenth, community engagement editor Ann Hill Bond wrote of a little known part of Atlanta’s history: the slave market that is now the Little Five Points station. Before there was MARTA, before the high-rises, before Black folks were paid for the culture that created the pulse of this city, we were on the auction block.
