• Robert Aaron Long agrees plea deal but faces four more charges
• Eight people, six women of Asian descent, died in shootings
A Georgia man charged in the shooting deaths of eight people at three Atlanta-area massage businesses was pleading guilty in Cherokee county on Tuesday, hoping for a sentence of life without parole to the first four cases.
Related: Are police the biggest threat to massage parlor workers’ safety?
Continue reading...Government accused of ‘culpable passivity’ after dozens of journalists were attacked covering Pride protest
A Georgian TV cameraman has died after being badly beaten by far-right assailants during a protest against an LGBTQ Pride march, his station said on Sunday, as pressure mounts on authorities over attacks on journalists.
Alexander Lashkarava, a 37-year-old cameraman working for the independent station TV Pirveli, was found dead in his bed in the early hours on Sunday, the channel reported.
Continue reading...Rainstorms drenched New York while Tropical Storm Elsa sparked tornadoes in North Carolina and Virginia
The US east coast was battered by extreme weather on Thursday as heavy thunderstorms brought flooding and travel disruption to the New York City area, while Tropical Storm Elsa dumped heavy rainfall and even sparked tornadoes in North Carolina and Georgia.
Some subway system ya got there. This is the 157th St. 1 line right now. @NYCMayor @BilldeBlasio pic.twitter.com/xyfTAUPPNu
Continue reading...Move paves way for Nika Melia’s release and end to political crisis that has gripped the country
The European Union said on Saturday it had posted bail for Georgia’s jailed opposition leader, Nika Melia, paving the way for his release and ending a protracted political crisis in the Caucasus country.
Melia, the chair of Georgia’s main opposition force, the United National Movement (UNM), was arrested in February in a violent police raid on his party headquarters, sparking protests and condemnation from the west.
Continue reading...During a speech at a drive-in rally in Duluth, Georgia, to mark 100 days in office, Joe Biden was briefly interrupted by protesters calling for an end to private prisons, a demand that Biden agreed to, saying that the US was 'working to close all of them'.
The president praised the conviction of Derek Chauvin, the police officer found guilty of killing George Floyd, and declared that 'America is on the move again, choosing hope over fear, truth over lies, light over darkness'. Georgia is a particularly important state for Biden after he became the first Democrat to win there since Bill Clinton in 1992
Continue reading...The new Georgia voting rights law makes it harder to vote, especially for communities that tend to vote for Democrats – and that's what Republicans want. But it's not just Georgia: these restrictive voting laws are being considered in nearly every state in America, from Arizona to Texas to Florida.
These efforts come on the heels of the 2020 presidential election, which Republicans lost by slim margins in several states. Many Republicans claimed they lost because of voter fraud – because people who were ineligible to vote found a way to skirt the rules and cast ballots. Election officials around the nation said there was no widespread fraud, but Republicans are using this argument to push for a wide array of laws that will skew election in their favor.
If enacted, Americans will have to ask a hard question: is the US still a democracy?
Alvin Chang and Sam Levine explain this Republican effort to suppress voting rights as part of the Guardian's Fight to Vote series
Continue reading...When Coca-Cola and Delta backed bigoted lawmakers, we organized, rose up, used our voices to make change – and it worked
In the last general election, Georgians delivered our country from the hands of fascism by securing Democrats in the White House and the Senate. As payback for doing so, Republicans are waging an unholy war against voting rights in the state, pushing Jim Crow-style measures like SB 202 into law, which will make it harder for hundreds of thousands of Georgians to cast their ballots. This dangerous bill impacts specific communities the most: Black, brown, young, and new voters in Georgia.
Many voters don’t know that Republicans aren’t working alone to disenfranchise us. Their accomplices were some of the most powerful corporations in our state. In fact, Georgia-based companies like Delta, Coca-Cola and Home Depot previously bankrolled the backers of voter suppression bills to the tune of over $7.4m.
Continue reading...North Atlantic right whales gave birth over the winter in greater numbers than scientists have seen since 2015, an encouraging sign for researchers who became alarmed three years ago when the critically endangered species produced no known offspring at all.
Related: The new humpback? Calf sighting sparks hope for imperilled right whale
Continue reading...Civil rights advocates celebrate bill’s passage, which comes just over a year after the fatal shooting
Georgia lawmakers have approved a bill that would overhaul the state’s citizen’s arrest law, rolling back a Civil War-era statute one year after the killing of Ahmaud Arbery.
The state’s governor, Brian Kemp, is expected to sign the bill into law, which would make Georgia the first state to move toward repealing a citizen’s arrest statute. Georgia’s citizen’s arrest law, which was enacted in 1863 to allow white citizens to capture slaves fleeing north, and was later used to justify hundreds of lynchings, was cited by a prosecutor last year who initially declined to arrest Arbery’s assailants.
Continue reading...Georgia senator tells president ‘We have to pass voting rights no matter what’ after restrictions signed into law by state’s governor
The Georgia Democratic senator the Rev Raphael Warnock delivered a challenge to Joe Biden on Sunday to prioritize the fight against voter suppression, telling the US president: “We have to pass voting rights no matter what.”
Continue reading...Trump congratulated Georgia on its recent legislative move, which critics have slammed as a major blow to Black voters’ rights
A Republican lawyer who advised Donald Trump on his campaign to overturn the 2020 election results is now playing a central role coordinating the Republican effort to tighten voting laws around the country.
The moves comes as Trump himself signaled his support for new Republican-pushed legislation in Georgia which critics have slammed as being a major blow to voting rights for communities of color, especially Black voters. Joe Biden called the Georgia laws “Jim Crow in the 21st Century” and “an atrocity”.
Continue reading...President says new law represents ‘blatant attack on the constitution’ as voting rights activists vow to keep up the fight
Joe Biden lambasted a new law in Georgia that imposes sweeping new voting restrictions, calling it “un-American” and “Jim Crow in the 21st century”.
He said in a statement: “Instead of celebrating the rights of all Georgians to vote or winning campaigns on the merits of their ideas, Republicans in the state instead rushed through an un-American law to deny people the right to vote. This law, like so many others being pursued by Republicans in statehouses across the country, is a blatant attack on the constitution and good conscience.”
Continue reading...A US man has said 90,000 pennies covered in oil or grease were left at the end of his driveway after he pressed his former employer to pay the $915 he was owed in wages.
Andreas Flaten said he left his job at A OK Walker Autoworks in Peachtree City, Georgia, in November but had difficulty getting his final payment, even turning to the Georgia department of labor to receive help.
In mid-March, Flaten said as he left his house with his girlfriend he noticed the pile at the end of his driveway. He said the coins were covered with some sort of oily substance and an envelope containing his final pay slip and an explicit parting message.
Law enforcement officials including the director of the FBI have said the shootings in Atlanta in which eight people were killed do not appear to have been racially motivated, but the Georgia senator Raphael Warnock said on Sunday: “We all know hate when we see it.”
Related: Atlanta spa shootings: Georgia hate crimes law could see first big test
Continue reading...A hate crimes law passed in Georgia amid outrage over the killing of Ahmaud Arbery could get its first major test as part of the murder case against a white man charged with shooting and killing six women of Asian descent at Atlanta-area massage businesses this week.
Related: 'It's time for people to hear us': Georgia's Asian Americans vow to stand up against hate
Continue reading...Surveillance video has emerged showing the shooting suspect Robert Aaron Long leaving Young's massage parlour in Acworth, Georgia, which was attacked on Wednesday. Long has been charged with allegedly killing eight people at three Atlanta-area massage businesses in an attack that sent terror through the Asian American community. He told police the attack was not racially motivated, claiming to have a 'sex addiction'
The Georgia sheriff’s captain who said Robert Aaron Long was “having a really bad day” when he allegedly killed eight people has been removed as a spokesperson on the case, according to the WSB-TV news channel.
Nicole Carr, a journalist at WSB-TV, reported that Capt Jay Baker “will no longer be spokesperson” on the shootings case. According to Carr, the Cherokee County Sheriff department is also “evaluating what [Baker’s] future at the Sheriff’s Office looks like”.
NEW:Confirmed w Cherokee Sheriff that Cpt.Baker will no longer be spokesperson on spa shootings case,they’re evaluating what his future at the Sheriff’s Office looks like and consulting the D.A.’s office to see if they should hand their portion of case to GBI See you at 6 @wsbtv https://t.co/cI1sQHcrRV
Charles Hampton, deputy chief of Atlanta police, said officers are “working diligently to ascertain all the facts” in the spa shootings.
“We had four Asian females that were killed, and so we are looking at everything to make sure we discover and determine what the motive of our homicides were,” Hampton said during a press conference.
Continue reading...A Georgia sheriff’s captain was criticised for appearing to characterise the actions of the suspect in a mass shooting in Atlanta as him having had 'a really bad day'.
Robert Aaron Long, 21, was charged with killing eight people in Atlanta, six of them women of Asian descent, on Wednesday.
Atlanta police said Long had declared Tuesday’s attack was not racially motivated. He claimed to have a 'sex addiction' and authorities have said he apparently lashed out at what he saw as sources of 'temptation'
Continue reading...Advocates for sex workers say the spa attacks combined sexism and toxic Asian stereotypes
On Tuesday night, a 21-year-old man named Robert Aaron Long allegedly went on a deadly rampage at three Atlanta spas, killing eight people, including six Asian women. Long’s shooting spree, police say, began at Youngs Asian Massage Parlor on the city’s outskirts, where he killed four people, two of whom were Asian, and injured one; he then allegedly fled the scene and proceeded to Gold Spa, killing three more people, all Asian women; and then he entered a spa right across the street, Aromatherapy Spa, where he killed his final victim.
Following an interview with authorities, the Cherokee county sheriff, Frank Reynolds, maintained that Long “gave no indicators” that his crimes were racially motivated. “We asked him that specifically and the answer was no,” Reynolds said on Wednesday.
Continue reading...The suspect behind shooting attacks that killed eight people in Atlanta was charged with eight counts of murder on Wednesday, with officials saying he may have planned further attacks.
Police and city leaders also indicated they believe Robert Aaron Long, 21, who did not resist arrest when he was apprehended, was on his way to Florida after Tuesday evening’s attack, where they suspect he may have planned to “carry out additional shootings”.
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