Category Archives: Atlanta

Luke Kornet says Atlanta Hawks’ theme night with strip club Magic City objectifies women

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  • Club is popular with athletes and rappers

  • Kornet says night helps objectify women

San Antonio Spurs center Luke Kornet has called on the Atlanta Hawks to abandon their collaboration with a famous strip club.

Magic City is an Atlanta institution and been mentioned in a string of hip-hop records, as well as hosting rappers such as Drake, Lil Yachty, Migos, Jack Harlow and Future. It is also popular with athletes: past visitors have included Michael Jordan, while MLS’s Atlanta United celebrated their title at the club in 2018. The club gained widespread attention in 2020 when the Los Angeles Clippers’ Lou Williams visited the club after leaving the NBA’s quarantine bubble during the Covid pandemic.

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Atlanta journalist says he ‘won’t be the only’ one deported by Trump officials

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Emmy award-winner Mario Guevara warns administration ‘has the power’ after he was arrested and sent to El Salvador

Mario Guevara has said he may have been “the first” immigrant journalist whom Donald Trump’s administration deported from the US while working – but the Emmy award-winner added: “I don’t think [I’ll] be the only one.”

“Just be careful because [immigration agents are] very aggressive,” Guevara recently said from El Salvador in a virtual interview with the US Freedom of the Press Tracker, during which he was asked whether he had any message for other immigrant colleagues in the industry. “They showed they are – they don’t care about journalists. They don’t believe in the media.”

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Journalist Mario Guevara deported to El Salvador after 100 days in Ice custody

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Removal comes after Emmy-winning Salvadorian reporter was arrested while covering ‘No Kings Day’ protest

Journalist Mario Guevara’s imprisonment by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (Ice) ended with deportation to El Salvador on Friday, his family announced on social media.

Guevara has been a media mainstay in the Atlanta area for about 20 years, after fleeing El Salvador to escape leftwing militias in 2004. Though he has a work permit and two of his children are American citizens, he has operated under the “administrative closure” of deportation orders for much of that time.

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Gunman in CDC attack fired over 180 shots at building and broke 150 windows

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Georgia man who blamed Covid vaccine for making him depressed and suicidal shot and killed a police officer

The man who attacked the CDC headquarters in Atlanta on Friday fired more than 180 shots into the campus and broke about 150 windows, with bullets piercing “blast-resistant” windows and spattering glass shards into numerous rooms, according to information circulated internally at the agency.

It may take weeks or even months to replace windows and clean up the damage, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention personnel said.

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CDC union says vaccine misinformation put staff at risk after Atlanta shooting

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Deadly violence not random as staff have endured ‘months of mistreatment, neglect and vilification’, says union

A union representing US Centers for Disease Control employees has demanded that the federal government condemn vaccine misinformation after a man who evidently blamed the Covid-19 vaccination for making him depressed and suicidal aimed gunfire Friday at the CDC’s headquarters in Atlanta.

The 30-year-old shooting suspect, who killed a police officer and died during the attack, had also tried to get into the CDC’s headquarters – but he was stopped by guards before driving to a pharmacy across the street and opening fire, a law enforcement official told the Associated Press on Saturday.

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Atlanta CDC gunman believed Covid vaccine made him suicidal, official says

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Shooter, a 30-year-old man who died during violence, fired dozens of rounds into buildings and killed police officer

A Georgia man who opened fire on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta on Friday, shooting dozens of rounds into four buildings and killing a police officer, had blamed a Covid-19 vaccine for making him depressed and suicidal, a law enforcement official told the Associated Press on Saturday.

The 30-year-old gunman, identified by the Georgia bureau of investigation as Patrick Joseph White, tried to get into the CDC’s headquarters but was stopped by guards before driving to a CVS across the street and opening fire, the official said. White died during Friday’s violence.

The suspect’s father contacted police and said his son was upset about the death of his dog, and had also become fixated on the Covid-19 vaccine, an official said.

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Family of man killed after his tent was crushed by a bulldozer sues Atlanta

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Cornelius Taylor was killed during a sweep of a homeless encampment in city’s preparation for MLK weekend

The family of a man who was killed after city workers crushed his tent with a bulldozer during a sweep of a homeless encampment in Atlanta, Georgia, filed a lawsuit against the city on Friday over his death, calling it “tragic and preventable”.

The lawsuit filed by Cornelius Taylor’s sister and son alleges that city employees failed to look to see if there was anyone inside the tents in the encampment before using a bulldozer to clear it in the 16 January sweep. Taylor, 46, was inside one of the tents and was crushed by the truck when his tent was flattened, the lawsuit says.

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Spanish-language journalist still in Ice custody despite being granted bond

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Mario Guevara, arrested in Georgia while covering a protest, still detained after Ice refused his family’s bond payment

A week after an immigration judge granted him bond, a Spanish-language journalist who was arrested while covering a protest last month remains in federal custody.

Police just outside Atlanta arrested Mario Guevara while he was covering a protest on 14 June, and he was turned over to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) several days later. He was being held at an immigration detention center in Folkston – in south-east Georgia, near the Florida border – when an immigration judge last week granted him bond.

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‘Cop City’ legal case could cast spotlight on US police foundations’ activities

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Case related to Atlanta project raises issue of state open record laws, and whether they apply to police foundations

A legal case in Atlanta stemming from the controversial “Cop City” project is being closely watched because it has the potential to cast a spotlight on the activities of police foundations nationwide.

The case raises the issue of state open records laws, and whether they apply to police foundations. The private foundations exist in every major US city, with more than 250 nationwide, according to a 2021 report by research and activist groups Little Sis and Color of Change.

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Rapper Young Scooter dead after jumping fence in Atlanta police chase

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Authorities say 39-year-old suffered an injury after jumping a fence when fleeing police and later died in the hospital

A rapper signed to fellow lyricists Future and Waka Flocka Flame died on his 39th birthday in his home town of Atlanta after injuring his leg while running from police and jumping fences, according to authorities as well as multiple media reports.

The death of 39-year-old Young Scooter, born Kenneth Edward Bailey, was confirmed by Atlanta’s Fulton county medical examiner’s office, as Variety first reported.

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Killer Mike sues security firm over Grammys arrest, alleging ‘public humiliation’

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Rapper alleges assault, false arrest and more when he was detained shortly after winning three awards at 2024 ceremony

Killer Mike, the hip-hop artist known for his solo work as well as the duo Run the Jewels, has sued a private security company after he was arrested at last year’s Grammys.

The rapper, real name Michael Render, won three awards at the ceremony, for best rap album, best rap song and best rap performance. But shortly after his wins, as he moved backstage towards the red carpet area, he was arrested and detained after an altercation with what Render later described as “an overzealous security guard”.

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Atlanta’s Fulton county jail is a ‘death sentence’, say federal investigators

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Report shows conditions of state’s largest local jail, noting prisoners tunnel through walls and violence is unchecked

Conditions in the Fulton county jail in Atlanta “violate the constitutional and statutory rights of people incarcerated”, a long-running federal investigation concluded today.

“Killings, stabbings, and assaults are common in the Jail,” according to a Department of Justice report released today. Contraband is pervasive, lethal violence goes uninvestigated – and is sometimes directly abetted by jail staff – and drug use is common, according to investigators in a 91-page report released today.

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Harris stresses abortion rights and early voting in packed Atlanta rally

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Thousands of supporters, including Usher, rally in battleground Georgia, as campaign focuses on early votes

Kamala Harris highlighted the threat to women’s reproductive rights and Donald Trump’s apparent exhaustion at a rally Saturday in south Atlanta, continuing a full-court press for votes in Georgia as early voting breaks records here.

The race continues to appear close in Georgia, with polls suggesting the Republican nominee holds a one-point lead in the state. Trump has made multiple appearances in Georgia and has a rally with Turning Point Action planned in Gwinnett county, outside Atlanta, next week.

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Statue of John Lewis unveiled in Georgia to honor late civil rights leader

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Statue of congressman, who died in 2020 of cancer, replaces obelisk erected in 1908 celebrating the Confederacy

A 12ft-tall statue of John Lewis was unveiled in Georgia on Saturday morning, honoring the legacy of the civil rights leader and congressman who died in 2020.

The statue stands in Decatur Square outside the historic Decatur courthouse in outer Atlanta, in a district Lewis represented in Congress from 1987 to his death. Lewis was 80 when he died due to complications related to pancreatic cancer.

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Atlanta election workers to get ‘panic buttons’ amid rising threats

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Cobb county officials approved the devices as safety concerns for poll workers have mounted since 2020

A key swing county in suburban Atlanta approved nearly $50,000 this week to purchase “panic buttons” for election workers, a move that comes as those who administer elections have faced increased threats and harassments.

Commissioners in Cobb county approved the purchase of about 200 of the devices, which are about the size of a credit card, according to NBC News, which first reported on the purchase.

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Trump says he has ‘no choice’ but to back EVs after Musk endorsement

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Ex-president, who previously denigrated electric vehicles, says they are suitable for a ‘small slice’ of the population

Donald Trump has for months denigrated electric vehicles, arguing their supporters should “rot in hell” and that assisting the nascent industry is “lunacy”. He now appears to have somewhat shifted his view thanks to the support of Elon Musk, the world’s richest person.

“I’m for electric cars, I have to be because Elon endorsed me very strongly,” Trump, the Republican nominee for US president, told supporters at a rally in Atlanta, Georgia, on Saturday.

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Name-calling and hyperbole: Trump continues fear-mongering fest at Georgia rally

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Ex-president touched upon a range of topics from crime to immigration in his speech with mostly made-up statistics

Donald Trump addressed a fully-packed venue in downtown Atlanta on Saturday, with thousands of people waiting in the Georgia heat outside to enter, or to protest his appearance in a city he has condemned repeatedly.

His remarks were consistent with the tenor and comportment of restraint and probity Atlantans are used to hearing at this point.

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Atlanta rally: Harris tells Trump to ‘say it to my face’ and challenges him to debate

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VP touts prosecution record to cheering crowd after state leaders including Stacey Abrams take stage to show support

Three weeks ago, the political commentariat was writing off Georgia and talking of narrow pathways for Joe Biden to hold the White House. Georgia was a desert. Tuesday evening, an Atlanta crowd greeted Kamala Harris like she backed up a truck full of sweet tea to that desert.

It’s probably too early – nine days since the president’s withdrawal and the vice-president’s ascension – to know if sentiment in Georgia had shifted enough to justify jubilation. But the crowd in Atlanta treated the new presumptive presidential nominee as a reason to celebrate after months of her quieter campaigning in the city as the vice-presidential nominee.

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Defense attorneys in Cop City case ‘frustrated’ after finally visiting forest

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Site of proposed Atlanta police training center has changed greatly since arrest of protesters charged with racketeering

After months of stonewalling by Georgia prosecutors, defense attorneys were allowed on Tuesday to visit the forest at the center of the state’s criminal conspiracy case against a movement opposing the police training center colloquially known as “Cop City” – only to come away frustrated by how much things had changed on the ground.

The attorneys also found confusion about where arrests and alleged crimes occurred during the last two years, according to a handful who spoke to the Guardian.

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Black swing voters in Georgia aren’t swayed by the ‘Trump okey-doke’ – and then there’s Biden

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From a barbershop and a cigar bar in Atlanta, many Black voters say they remain undecided after an underwhelming debate

Inside a barbershop in Atlanta’s affluent Buckhead neighborhood, eight Black men gathered to talk politics on the day before the presidential debate. Most were business owners around town, social media stars and notable conservatives.

All but one.

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