Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
George Barnhill eventually recused himself from Arbery case
Prosecutions include woman wrongfully imprisoned for murder
The local prosecutor who argued two white men were legally justified in chasing down and killing Ahmaud Arbery, an unarmed black man, has been at the center of aggressive and flawed prosecutions of at least two black women in recent years.
One of the women was wrongfully imprisoned for over a decade on a murder conviction secured by later discredited forensic evidence, and another woman was unsuccessfully tried twice for helping people vote.
Gregory McMichael lost his power of arrest in 2006 after failing to complete sufficient basic law enforcement training
Gregory McMichael, the white retired law enforcement officer who helped chase down and kill Ahmaud Arbery, an unarmed 25-year-old African American man, failed to complete sufficient basic law enforcement training for years, a deficiency that led to him losing his power of arrest.
McMichael, who worked as an investigator in the Brunswick judicial circuit district attorney’s office from 1995 to 2019,lost his power of arrest in January 2006 for failing to complete the required 20 hours of training the previous year, according to personnel records obtained by the Guardian.
Gregory and Travis McMichael confronted Arbery with two firearms as the 25 year old was jogging in Brunswick, Georgia
A white father and son have been arrested over the death of Ahmaud Arbery, the 25-year-old black man who was shot while jogging in a Georgia neighborhood and whose case has sparked a national outcry.
In a statement released Thursday evening, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) said that Gregory McMichael, 64, and Travis McMichael, 34, had been arrested and charged with murder and aggravated assault.
Prosecutors were reluctant to charge former police officer and son in shooting of 25-year-old Ahmaud Arbery
A prosecutor in Georgia said on Tuesday he would ask a grand jury to decide if charges should be filed against a white former law enforcement officer and his son in the fatal shooting of an unarmed young black man as he ran through a small town.
The shooting of 25-year-old Ahmaud Arbery outside Brunswick, Georgia, in February was captured on videotape and posted on social media on Tuesday, stirring outrage over the reluctance of prosecutors to file charges against Gregory McMichael and his son, Travis.
Storms caused flooding, mudslides and power outages, killing 11 people in Mississippi and six people in Georgia
Severe weather has swept across the southern US, killing at least 19 people and damaging hundreds of homes from Louisiana into the Appalachian mountains.
Many spent part of the night sheltering in basements, closets and bathtubs as sirens wailed to warn of possible tornadoes.
Last weekend, at two churches in New Orleans, two pastors read from separate passages of the Bible as they buried four members of the same family. Each had died within days of each other after contracting the novel coronavirus.
In Georgia’s northern mountains, workers scale daunting heights in search of the pine cones seeds that produce Europe’s favourite Christmas tree. But while foreign importers line their pockets, the climbers hazard all for a pittance
It takes Ramaz Chelishvili just a few seconds to reach the top. Soon, a pine cone falls to the ground. Then another. One by one, cones keep dropping, until none are left in the tree. Chelishvili, as fast as he climbed up, gets back down.
“I try to not think of anything up there, just focus. The problem is, if you lose concentration, then you might fall,” he says.
After losing the race for Georgia governor in 2018, Stacey Abrams will lead a nationwide voting rights campaign. Her goal is to export lessons she learned fighting voter suppression in Georgia, and to mobilize a base of progressives and marginalized communities to help Democrats win the White House in 2020
Aid groups struggle to deliver basic supplies due to destruction
Category 2 storm with winds of 110mph threatens US coastline
After hammering the Bahamas and leaving at least 30 dead, Hurricane Dorian began raking the south-east US seaboard, with the eye hitting theNorth Carolina coast on Thursday evening.
The threat to the US remains real but in the Bahamas the storm has left such terrible devastation that the authorities were still struggling to get aid to stricken areas and the death toll is expected to rise, perhaps steeply.
Sarah St George, chairman of the Grand Bahama Port Authority, told the Guardian that the “force and size” of Dorian took everyone by surprise, a situation made worse by the hurricane stalling over the archipelago.
“Grand Bahama is not in good shape at all because 70% of it was under water,” St George said. “On the north side of the island the water was coming up to the second floor of their houses. My assistant Tammy was on the roof of her house for 30 hours hanging on to a coconut tree with her 8-year-old daughter Ariana. Her grandmother lost her grip and slipped off the roof and drowned. There was no way of getting to them. They’ve lost everything.”
In the president’s continuing battle against his own incorrect statement that Alabama was under threat from Hurricane Dorian, which has left at least 23 people dead, he has just now been tweeting what he claims is evidence he knew what he was talking about.
It is not.
Just as I said, Alabama was originally projected to be hit. The Fake News denies it! pic.twitter.com/elJ7ROfm2p
Kari Paul logging off for the evening. Please stay tuned tomorrow for more updates as Dorian reaches the US coast and the picture of effects on the Bahamas become clearer.
Here are the latest updates from this afternoon:
The death toll for Hurricane Dorian climbed to seven, Prime Minister Hubert Minnis said on Tuesday night, according to CNN. The death toll, which was at five earlier in the day, has been expected to climb as survivors of the natural disaster face ongoing food and medicine shortages.
State representative Erica Thomas says she was verbally attacked in supermarket while shopping with her nine-year-old daughter
A pregnant African American lawmaker in Georgia said she was verbally attacked in a supermarket Friday by a middle-aged white man who used profanity, called her vulgar names and told her to “go back where you came from” as her nine-year-old daughter looked on.
Erica Thomas, a Democrat and Georgia state representative from Austell, said the man was irate that she was in an express line with too many items. Thomas said she was in a line for customers with 10 items or less because she cannot stand for long periods of time.
Police in Georgia have released dramatic bodycam footage showing the moment a newborn baby girl was discovered alive in a plastic bag. Local residents called the police on 6 June after hearing cries from a wooded area. Forsyth county sheriff’s office has released the footage in the hope of receiving more information about ‘Baby India’
‘National security’ measure seriously escalates tensions after clashes in Tbilisi during protests against visit by Russian MP
Vladimir Putin has banned Russia’s airlines from flying to Georgia, a day after a Russian lawmaker’s visit to the country prompted violent clashes between protesters and police.
The ban is a serious escalation in tensions between the neighbouring countries, which fought a war in 2008. The suspension of flights is designed to put pressure on Georgia’s tourism industry, which accounted for 7.6% of the country’s GDP in 2018. More than 1.4 million Russians visited Georgia last year.
Unrest sparked by anger at ruling party and Russian MP addressing parliament
Protesters gathered outside Georgia’s parliament for a second successive night of protests on Friday evening, demanding snap elections and the resignation of the country’s interior minister.
The unrest was sparked by the appearance of a Russian MP, who was allowed to chair a session of parliament
Police in Georgia used tear gas, rubber bullets and water cannon to stop protesters storming the country’s parliament early on Friday, leaving dozens requiring medical treatment. Thirty-nine police officers and 30 civilians had been treated in hospital for injuries after the clashes, with the number likely to rise, said David Sergeenko, an adviser to the prime minister.
Thousands had rallied through the night outside the building in the centre of the capital, Tbilisi, after a Russian MP was allowed to chair a session of parliament on Thursday.
After being beaten in Tbilisi six years ago, the country’s LGBT activists are ready to be bold
Six years on, the violent scene remains imprinted in the minds of Georgia’s LGBT community: dozens of gay rights demonstrators being beaten in the streets of Tbilisi by black-frocked priests and far-right protesters, some bearing clubs and other weapons. The modern-day pogrom in 2013 seemed like a warning: whatever Georgia’s aspirations to join Europe, its queer community would be left behind.
But this week activists are planning the country’s first LGBT pride events in a gambit to convert the underground explosion of queer culture in Georgia into political change. Arrayed against them are conservative and Christian activists and a police force that says they can’t guarantee the safety of the protesters. Many fear the violence of 2013 could be repeated.