Legislation is seen as similar to an anti-democratic Russian law and Brussels has said it would undermine hopes of EU membership
Georgian lawmakers have agreed an early draft of a controversial “foreign influence” bill, sparking fresh street protests against the legislation criticised for mirroring a repressive Russian law.
The bill has sparked outrage in Georgia and concern in the west, with many arguing it undermines Georgia’s bid for EU membership.
Continue reading...Incident in which Mamuka Mdinaradze was struck by Aleko Elisashvili prompts fight between legislators
Georgian politicians have come to blows in parliament as ruling party legislators looked to advance a controversial bill on “foreign agents” that has been criticised by western countries and prompted protests at home.
Footage broadcast on Monday on Georgian television showed Mamuka Mdinaradze, leader of the ruling Georgian Dream party’s parliamentary faction and a driving force behind the bill, being punched in the face by the opposition MP Aleko Elisashvili while speaking from the dispatch box.
Continue reading...Tributes paid to music producer who helped write TLC’s Waterfalls and worked on albums by OutKast and CeeLo Green
Rico Wade, one of the architects of Atlanta’s “dirty south” hip-hop sound, who co-produced albums by OutKast, Goodie Mob and CeeLo Green and who co-wrote TLC’s 1994 hit Waterfalls, has died. He was 52.
Atlanta mayor Andre Dickens paid tribute to Wade, saying he had “led in the creation of a hip-hop sound that has spanned decades and genres. Rico left an indelible mark on music and culture around the world and for that, the south will always have something to say.”
Continue reading...The Kappa Alpha Theta members jumped into action to save Cori Craft and her two sons after their SUV veered off into a creek
With her two sons accompanying her, Cori Craft had just accidentally driven her SUV into a creek in rural Georgia, and she couldn’t find her phone to summon help as the car rapidly sank.
Thoughts that she and her family could soon drown started to flood her mind. But then she heard a voice call out and ask if she was OK. Her reply that she was not OK was the only thing five college sorority members needed to hear to work together to pull Craft and her boys out – and then resuscitate one of the children by performing CPR on him.
Continue reading...Trump’s Presidential Records Act argument could be resurrected at trial even as the judge denied his motion to dismiss
The federal judge overseeing Donald Trump’s prosecution on charges of retaining classified documents denied his effort to have the case dismissed on the contention that the Presidential Records Act allowed him to transform them as personal property and possess them at his Mar-a-Lago club.
The ruling by US district judge Aileen Cannon was significant as it struck one of Trump’s main defenses and suggested the case is headed to trial.
Continue reading...Attorneys for ex-president and eight co-defendants ask Georgia’s appellate court to remove Fulton county district attorney
Donald Trump’s legal team on Friday sought to overturn a Fulton county, Georgia, judge’s decision allowing Fani Willis to continue as prosecutor of that state’s election interference case against the former president.
“[T]he indictment should have been dismissed and, at a minimum, [District Attorney] Willis and her office should have been disqualified from prosecuting the case,” Trump’s attorney Steve Sadow said, in part, in the appeal filed on Friday to an appellate court in Georgia.
Continue reading...Judge Scott McAfee allows Fulton county district attorney to continue as long as special prosecutor Nathan Wade resigns
A judge in Georgia has ruled that the district attorney Fani Willis can continue to head the prosecution of Donald Trump for trying to undermine the 2020 presidential election in the state, as long as a top deputy agreed to step down.
The deputy, special prosecutor Nathan Wade, with whom Willis had a romantic relationship, resigned on Friday, clearing the way for Willis to continue.
Continue reading...Full state-by-state results as well as votes of Democrats abroad and in the Northern Mariana territory
Georgia, Mississippi and Washington chose their presidential candidates on Tuesday in contests that come as both Joe Biden and Donald Trump are already their parties’ presumptive nominees.
Hawaii also held its Republican caucuses on Tuesday and Democrats abroad and in the Northern Mariana territory voted as well.
Continue reading...University of Georgia filed complaint on behalf of news outlet and transparency research organization, saying queries unanswered
A law clinic at the University of Georgia has sued the Atlanta Police Foundation, after the non-profit organization repeatedly ignored records requests from journalists and researchers about its role in backing the controversial police-training center opponents have dubbed Cop City.
The complaint, filed on behalf of the digital news outlet Atlanta Community Press Collective and the Chicago-based digital transparency research organization Lucy Parsons Labs, details how numerous queries to the foundation under Georgia’s Open Records Act have not been answered.
Continue reading...Campaign to ‘leave it blank’ or vote ‘uncommitted’ aims to increase pressure on Biden to stop Israel’s incursion in Gaza
A protest movement in Georgia – a swing state that President Biden narrowly won in 2020 – is seeking to apply pressure to the incumbent over his support of Israel before the 12 March Democratic primary election.
On Monday, a group of multifaith and multiracial groups called the Listen to Georgia Coalition launched the Leave It Blank campaign, which urges voters to submit a blank ballot next Tuesday. The push follows a similar grassroots effort – Listen to Michigan – in which more than 100,000 voters marked their ballots “uncommitted” last month.
Continue reading...Scheme was critical part of anti-democratic effort to overturn 2020 election and is now at center of two criminal cases against Trump
Kenneth Chesebro was eager to help.
It was five days after the 2020 presidential election and Joe Biden was projected to defeat Donald Trump and win Wisconsin’s 10 electoral votes. Trump’s campaign was requesting a recount. Chesebro, a little-known Harvard-educated lawyer, believed there were abnormalities in the election and emailed Jim Troupis, a friend and former Wisconsin judge, to offer to help with any of the campaign’s legal efforts.
Continue reading...The Fulton county DA argues her relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade is not a conflict – judge will rule on whether that matters
Is the appearance of impropriety enough to change the trajectory of the Donald Trump trial in Georgia?
That’s one legal question Scott McAfee, the Fulton county superior court judge, will wrestle with as he contemplates whether to throw the Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis and special prosecutor Nathan Wade off the trial of the former president and co-defendants in the sprawling racketeering and election interference case.
Continue reading...Willis and her special prosecutor Nathan Wade took the stand during a stormy hearing about the pair’s romantic relationship
On the first day of a heated hearing, the Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis and her deputy, special prosecutor Nathan Wade, took the stand, hoping to put an end to the allegations that their past relationship threatens the criminal case against Donald Trump and his allies in their attempts to overturn the 2020 election.
A defendant in the Trump case, Mike Roman, is seeking to have Willis and Wade disqualified, alleging their relationship constituted a conflict of interest. His lawyer attempted to prove Willis financially benefitted from her relationship with Wade.
Continue reading...Fulton county DA rejects accusations that relationship with Nathan Wade should lead to disqualification from election case
Fani Willis, the Fulton county district attorney, vehemently denied wrongdoing while testifying at a court hearing on Thursday as she rebutted accusations that her romantic relationship with a deputy prosecutor on the Georgia election interference case against Donald Trump meant she should be disqualified from the case.
The district attorney testified that her relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade started months after he was retained to work on the case, charging Trump over his efforts to overturn his 2020 election defeat in the state, and ended in summer 2023.
Continue reading...Pre-dawn operations in residential areas resulted in a woman forced out of her home with no shirt and a man dragged by his hair
Police in Georgia, together with federal agencies, are conducting a crackdown on activists involved in a continuing campaign against a controversial police and fire department training center known as “Cop City” that has included acts of arson and sabotage against equipment being used on the project.
This week alone saw Atlanta-area raids by law enforcement that took a woman out of her house with no shirt, left a naked photo of another woman on display after ransacking a room and dragged a man by his hair – while arresting none of them.
Continue reading...Many county systems are inoperative, but the district attorney’s office says the racketeering case against the ex-president is secure
Officials said court and other systems in Georgia’s most populous county were hacked over the weekend, interrupting routine operations, but the district attorney’s office said the racketeering case against former president Donald Trump was unaffected.
Fulton county, which includes most of Atlanta, was experiencing a “widespread system outage” from a “cybersecurity incident”, the chair of the county commission, Robb Pitts, said on Monday in a video posted on social media. Notably, he said, the outage is affecting the county’s phone, court and tax systems.
Continue reading...Motion comes after Fulton county district attorney made remarks decrying allegations of affair with one of her deputies
Donald Trump accused on Thursday the Fulton county district attorney of inflaming racial animus to distract from allegations relating to an an affair with one of her deputies, as he joined a motion seeking to disqualify her from prosecuting him for 2020 election interference in Georgia.
The filing, submitted to Fulton county superior judge Scott McAfee, adopted and added to an earlier motion to have the district attorney Fani Willis and her entire office thrown off bringing the case.
Continue reading...Delta Air Lines jet was due to depart Atlanta international airport and none of the crew or passengers were hurt
A nose wheel fell off a Delta Air Lines Boeing 757 passenger jet and rolled away as the plane lined up for takeoff over the weekend from Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson international airport in the US, according to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
According to a preliminary FAA notice, none of the 184 passengers or six crew members aboard were hurt in the incident.
Continue reading...Events in more than 30 cities mark ‘Day of the Forest Defender’, recognizing enduring impact of Manuel Paez Terán
At a gathering Thursday, the mother of an activist killed by police had a clear message on the first anniversary of their death: “I have news for you. Manuel is alive. Tortuguita vive!”
It was a message of celebration for the life of Manuel Paez Terán, also known as “Tortuguita”, that was being made in Atlanta and more than 30 cities across the US, a sign of the slain activist’s enduring impact on several movements, observers said.
Continue reading...With In Search of the Beloved Community, Raymond Arsenault delivers a fitting tribute to the late Democrat from Georgia
John Lewis: In Search of the Beloved Community chronicles one man’s quest for a more perfect union. An adventure of recent times, it is made exceptional by the way the narrative intersects with current events. It is the perfect book, at the right time.
Raymond Arsenault also offers the first full-length biography of the Georgia congressman and stalwart freedom-fighter. The book illuminates Lewis’s time as a planner and participant of protests, his service in Congress and his time as an American elder statesman.
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