Results with 70% of precincts counted give Georgian Dream majority in vote seen as crucial to possible EU membership
Georgia’s ruling party is leading in a pivotal parliamentary election widely seen as a make-or-break vote for the country’s long-held aspiration for EU membership.
Early official results, with 70% of precincts counted, showed the ruling Georgian Dream (GD) party had won 53% of the vote, the electoral commission said.
Continue reading...Voters will decide if Georgian Dream party, in power since 2012, will secure another four-years, having shifted the country closer to Russia
Georgians have headed to the polls in a pivotal parliamentary election that could determine whether Georgia shifts away from its long-held western orientations towards stronger ties with the Kremlin.
Voters will decide on Saturday whether the Georgian Dream (GD) party, which has been in power since 2012 and steered the country into a conservative course away from the west and closer to Russia, secures another four-year term.
Continue reading...Observers say country’s democracy at stake after Moscow-aligned ruling party’s threats to ban opposition
Georgians are heading to polls in a critical election that could determine whether one of the once most pro-western former Soviet states will veer towards a more authoritarian, Russia-aligned path.
For the past three decades, Georgia – a country of 3.6 million people nestled in the Caucasus mountains – has maintained strong pro-western aspirations, with polls showing up to 80% of its residents favour joining the EU.
Continue reading...Comments meant to portray ex-president as coming ‘home’ to White House to mete out discipline to Kamala Harris
The audience at a Donald Trump rally in Georgia on Wednesday erupted into bizarre chants of “Daddy’s home!” and “Daddy Don!” after an extraordinary and borderline creepy and sexist speech by far-right personality Tucker Carlson likening the Republican presidential candidate to an angry father spanking his daughter.
“Dad comes home. He’s pissed. Dad is pissed. And when dad gets home, you know what he says? ‘You’ve been a bad girl. You’ve been a bad little girl, and you’re getting a vigorous spanking right now,’” the former Fox TV host told the crowd in Duluth.
Continue reading...Panel co-hosted by Fox Center for Humanistic Inquiry at Emory University to discuss changes to Georgia voting laws
Guardian US and and the Fox Center for Humanistic Inquiry at Emory University are co-hosting an event on 23 October at 6pm ET on the battle over voting rights in America.
The event will focus on the past, present and future of fights over access to voting, including the sweeping changes to Georgia’s voting laws since 2020. Those measures have made it easier to challenge voters, shortened the window to request an absentee ballot, and made it illegal to hand out food or water to voters waiting in line.
Continue reading...Daisy Hicks, 84, observed victims waiting for ferry using walkers and wheelchairs before plummeting into water
A woman who says she witnessed a dock collapse in Georgia that killed seven people says she noticed many were using walkers and wheelchairs before the gangway failed and sent them plummeting into the water.
“I can still see those people bobbling around in that water,” 84-year-old Daisy Hicks said in remarks published by the Florida Times-Union and obtained by its reporting partner First Coast News. Saying she was left traumatized by what she witnessed, she added: “I can still hear people screaming. I can still see [a] lady that was [subsequently] going around asking for blankets” to carry before the arrival of rescue equipment.
Continue reading...The dead, in their 70s and one woman in her 90s, were on Sapelo Island to celebrate the Gullah Geechee culture
New details have emerged in the catastrophic collapse of a dock gangway on a small island in Georgia over the weekend that killed seven people and injured many more.
The collapse, which caused at least 20 people to plunge into the water, occurred after the Cultural Day festival on Sapelo Island in honor of Gullah Geechee culture. Officials say that up to 40 people were standing on the dock gangway to board a ferry back to the mainland when the structure gave way.
The Associated Press contributed reporting
Continue reading...Vice-president marks birthday with call for compassion, while rival visits McDonald’s and attacks opponents
Kamala Harris celebrated her 60th birthday on the campaign trail on Sunday while Donald Trump visited a McDonald’s and doubled down on his dangerous rhetoric labeling Democrats as “enemies from within,” as both candidates tried to shore up support in key states ahead of the US presidential election.
Harris rallied Black voters in Georgia on Sunday with “souls to the polls” visits to two community churches.
Continue reading...Accident occurred as crowds gathered on the island for a celebration of the Gullah-Geechee community of Black slave descendants
At least seven people were killed after part of a ferry dock collapsed on Georgia’s Sapelo Island, authorities said.
Multiple people were taken to hospitals, and crews from the US coast guard, the McIntosh County Fire Department, the Georgia Department of Natural Resources and others were searching the water, according to spokesperson Tyler Jones of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, which operates the dock.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...Colt Gray, 14, and his father, Colin Gray, were indicted separately for the mass shooting at Apalachee high school
A grand jury indicted a father and son on murder charges on Thursday in a mass shooting at Apalachee high school in Winder, Georgia.
Georgia media outlets reported that the Barrow county grand jury meeting in Winder indicted 14-year-old Colt Gray on a total of 55 counts, including four counts of malice murder, four counts of felony murder, plus aggravated assault and cruelty to children. Grand jurors formally charged his father, Colin Gray, with 29 counts, including second-degree murder, involuntary manslaughter and reckless conduct.
Continue reading...Fulton judge invalidates seven new rules, including one that requires ballots be hand-counted after polls close
A Georgia judge has declared that seven new election rules recently passed by the state election board are “illegal, unconstitutional and void”.
Fulton county superior court judge Thomas Cox issued the order Wednesday after holding a hearing on challenges to the rules. The rules that Cox invalidated include three that had gotten a lot of attention – one that requires that the number of ballots be hand-counted after the close of polls and two that had to do with the certification of election results.
Continue reading...Communities are stranded, over 200 people have died with more expected, and more than 700,000 are without power
Rescue crews in parts of the south-eastern US were still searching on Friday for those missing as they entered the eighth day since Hurricane Helene roared ashore in Florida and became the deadliest mainland hurricane in the US since Katrina in 2005.
The death toll could grow higher, having surpassed 200 on Thursday, while the sheer scale of the devastation from wind and floods has slowed efforts to find many people’s loved ones and also get supplies to stranded communities and restore power to more than 700,000 people.
Continue reading...Hurricane that made landfall as category 4 last week is described as one of deadliest storms in US history
A week after Hurricane Helene made landfall in the US, search-and-rescue teams continue to look for missing people in parts of the south-east that were devastated by the storm, and nearly a million people in the region remain without power.
Officials have reported at least 215 deaths across six states, and have warned that the toll is expected to rise as recovery efforts continue. A separate NBC News tally found that at least 202 people have died, including at least 98 in North Carolina, 19 in Florida, 33 in Georgia, 39 in South Carolina, 11 in Tennessee and two in Virginia.
Continue reading...As the vice-president visited the Georgia city shattered by Helene, the sense of community spirit was palpable
As Kamala Harris descended Wednesday into Augusta, she met a city contemplating how much of their lives have been unmade by Hurricane Helene.
“I am here to personally take a look at the devastation,” Harris said after receiving a briefing by emergency response leaders in Georgia. “It’s particularly devastating in terms of loss of life that this community has experienced, the loss of normalcy, and the loss of critical resources.”
Continue reading...Salome Zourabichvili opts not to advance bans on same-sex marriages and on adoptions by same-sex couples
Georgia’s president has refused to sign into law a bill aimed at severely curtailing LGBTQ+ rights, weeks after the controversial legislation was passed by the country’s parliament.
Last month Georgia’s parliament was heavily criticised after it approved the legislation, which sets out sweeping bans on same-sex marriages, adoptions by same-sex couples and curbs on gender-affirming treatments.
Continue reading...Fulton county judge issues order that abortions must be regulated as they were before law took effect in 2022
A Georgia judge on Monday struck down the state’s six-week abortion ban, ruling that the ban is unconstitutional and blocking it from being enforced.
In a 26-page opinion, the Fulton county superior judge Robert McBurney ruled that the state’s abortion laws must revert to what they were before the six-week ban – known as the Life Act – was passed in 2019. The ban was blocked as long as Roe v Wade was the law of the land, but went into effect after the US supreme court overturned Roe in 2022.
Continue reading...The ex-president said Brian Kemp, the state governor, was trying to reach the president who was ‘sleeping’, in vain
Donald Trump spoke in front of a furniture store gutted by Hurricane Helene in Valdosta, Georgia, on Monday, claiming falsely that Georgia’s governor had not been able to reach Joe Biden.
Upon landing in Valdosta, Trump claimed to reporters the president had been “sleeping” and that Brian Kemp, the governor, had been “calling the president and hasn’t been able to get him”. He repeated the false claim when speaking in front of the store.
Continue reading...Biden says he will visit North Carolina after devastating storm destroys entire communities across several states
As the south-east US continues recovery efforts after Hurricane Helene’s devastation, the storm’s death toll keeps climbing, with more than 120 killed across several states.
Joe Biden will visit North Carolina, where the western part of the state has been devastated by flooding, on Wednesday.
Continue reading...It will be ‘complicated recovery’ in five states, says disaster relief agency, with hurricane killing at least 91 people so far
The head of the US disaster relief agency has called Hurricane Helene, which has killed nearly 100 people, a “true multi-state event” that caused “significant infrastructure damage” and had been made worse because of global heating.
The storm killed at least 91 people, according to state and local officials in South Carolina, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia. Officials feared more bodies would be discovered.
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