By Jill Nolin | Editor
About four dozen Black lawmakers in Georgia signed onto a statement blasting U.S. Rep. Mike Collins, the GOP candidate for U.S. Senate, for not apologizing and offering up an explanation after controversies involving his son-in-law and a former aide bubbled up. Collins has been peppered with questions about his ties to the men, including last week at a Georgia Chamber of Commerce event where he made this statement:
“No one speaks for me, and I don't speak for anyone else,” Collins said. “I condemn all forms of antisemitism. I don't care what the source is. Any type of hate, I condemn, period. That's not who I am.”
Republican U.S. Senate candidate Mike Collins speaks at a Georgia Chamber event in Athens, Aug. 5, 2026. Ross Williams/Georgia Recorder
2026 ELECTION
By Ross Williams
More than 50 Black Georgia lawmakers have signed onto a statement condemning Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Collins for associates’ comments and posts that have been widely panned as racist and antisemitic.
Collins is set to challenge Democratic U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff in November with the endorsement of President Donald Trump.
But since clinching the GOP nomination in a June runoff, Collins has come under fire for online posts by his son-in-law and former chief of staff last month after reports the staffer was in a group chat with white nationalists.
The statement issued by Black Georgia lawmakers this week criticized Collins for not apologizing or offering an explanation.
Vials of measles, mumps and rubella vaccine are displayed on a counter at a Walgreens Pharmacy on Jan. 26, 2015 in Mill Valley, California. (Photo by Illustration Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
PUBLIC HEALTH
By Shauneen Miranda
President Donald Trump on Monday signed a sweeping executive order that aims to reshape guidance surrounding childhood vaccines, standing alongside Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and was met with immediate pushback.
The order — which calls on federal programs and funding to “support maximal parental choice over childhood vaccines” — came as Trump continued to erroneously connect vaccines with autism during the White House event and his administration has sought to de-emphasize childhood vaccinations’ importance.
More than half the states have reported cases this year of people sick with candida auris, a drug-resistant fungus. (Photo by Whitney Downard/Indiana Capital Chronicle)
PUBLIC HEALTH
By Author Name
Twenty-eight states this year have reported over 3,500 cases of patients sick with the drug-resistant yeast candida auris, which can cause severe illness and is often reported in healthcare facilities.
As of Aug. 1, 3,544 clinical cases of candida auris, or C. auris, have been reported to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, compared with 4,262 the same time last year, according to the latest round of numbers from the agency’s National Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System.
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