Category Archives: Georgia

Atlanta Police Foundation ignored records requests about role in Cop City, lawsuit claims

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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.

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After Michigan success, Biden ballot protest movement heads to Georgia

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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.

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Texts reveal Trump co-defendant Chesebro’s role in ‘fake electors’ plot

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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.

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Is appearance of impropriety enough to oust Fani Willis from Trump case?

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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.

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Personal questions, and a witness stays mum: key moments from the Fani Willis hearing

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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.

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‘I’m not on trial’: Fani Willis denies wrongdoing over relationship with Trump prosecutor

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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.

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Georgia police and FBI conduct Swat-style raids on ‘Cop City’ activists’ homes

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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.

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Georgia’s Fulton county hacked, but DA says Trump election case is unaffected

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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.

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Trump seeks to disqualify Fani Willis from prosecuting him in Georgia

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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.

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Nose wheel falls off Boeing 757 airliner waiting for takeoff

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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.

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‘Tortuguita vive’: campaigners across US hail anti-Cop City activist killed by police

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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.

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John Lewis review: superb first biography of a civil rights hero

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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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Touchscreen out, pen and paper in? Georgia trial could change voting rules

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Plaintiffs in trial six years in the making say state’s computerized voting machines plane votes at unacceptable risk of being altered

A federal trial beginning this week in Atlanta could change the way people vote in next year’s election in a key swing state, and potentially affect voters in other states for years to come.

The trial, six years in the making, pits a non-profit organization and a handful of Georgia voters against the state, claiming that vulnerabilities in the state’s computerized voting machines place a voter’s choices at an unacceptable risk of being altered, infringing on their constitutional rights.

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Win for Republicans as US judge upholds Georgia congressional map

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Critics call decision by Steve Jones a ‘disgrace’ and say recently redrawn maps dilute voting power of minority residents

A federal judge in Georgia on Thursday upheld a Republican-drawn congressional map, a ruling branded “a disgrace” by voting rights advocates who claim that the latest district lines illegally dilute the voting power of minority residents.

The decision from Steve Jones set the stage for next year’s elections, with Republicans now likely to maintain their 9-5 advantage among the swing state’s 14 seats in the US House of Representatives.

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Marjorie Taylor Greene among US public figures hit by threats and swatting

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Congresswoman said hoaxer tried to trigger police response while Colorado justices who ruled against Trump face threats

The political became personal over the Christmas holiday as the homes of politicos and judges were targeted by threats, protests and “swatting” hoaxes by pranksters who call in fake emergencies to authorities in the hopes of prompting a forceful police response.

A swatting hoax targeted the Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene. Authorities said they were investigating threats against the Colorado supreme court justices who ruled that Trump could not appear on the state’s ballots in the 2024 presidential election because he incited an insurrection on the day of the January 6 attack on the US Capitol.

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Weather tracker: Nor’easter drenches US south-east coast

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Up to 127mm of rain falls on Florida and gusty winds and flash flooding hit parts of Georgia and South Carolina

Last weekend, a low-pressure system that had developed over the Gulf of Mexico tracked north-east across the Florida peninsula. Lashings of heavy rain and strong winds were brought to Florida during the early hours of Sunday morning, dumping up to 127mm (5in) of rain on the state in its passing.

The low-pressure system, termed a “nor’easter”, continued to track north-east, strengthening and bringing gusty winds and flash flooding to the coastal parts of the south-east US, including Georgia and South Carolina.

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Multimillion-dollar ruling against Giuliani shows cost of spreading election lies

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As the 2024 election approaches, the $148m judgment against a key Trump ally sends a message that falsehoods have consequences

The judge had already decided Rudy Giuliani defamed the two former Georgia election workers, the question was just how much that cycle of lies and ensuing harassment should cost him.

A jury declared on Friday that it was worth an eye-popping $148m, far beyond expectations and a major blow to the former New York mayor and key Donald Trump ally.

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Rudy Giuliani ordered to pay $148.1m in damages for lies about election workers

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Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, from Atlanta, received threats after Trump ally falsely accused them of trying to steal election

A Washington DC jury has ordered Rudy Giuliani to pay $148.1m to two Atlanta election workers after he spread lies about them, one of the most significant verdicts to date seeking accountability for those who attempted to overturn the 2020 election.

The verdict follows a four-day trial in which Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, her daughter, gave haunting details about the harassment and threats they faced after Giuliani falsely accused them of trying to steal the election in Georgia. The women, who are Black, described how they fled, are afraid to give their names in public, and still suffer severe emotional distress today. Their lawyers asked the jury to award them each at least $24m in damages. Giuliani’s attorney said earlier this week that awarding the plaintiffs their sought damages would be a “death penalty” and would be "the end of Mr Giuliani”.

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Georgia teacher accused of threatening to kill student over Israeli flag, police say

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Teacher arrested after allegedly saying he would ‘cut’ student’s ‘head off’ after she told him she was offended by his Israeli flag

A school teacher in the US state of Georgia was arrested after allegedly threatening to behead a student who expressed taking offense over his Israeli flag, according to authorities.

Benjamin Reese’s arrest at the middle school named after the town of Warner Robins occurred on after a student approached and told him she was offended by the Israeli flag hanging in his classroom, the local news station WMAZ reported, citing a police account of the case.

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EU sidesteps Viktor Orbán to open membership talks with Ukraine

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Decision after hours of tense negotiations in Brussels is critical boost to Volodymyr Zelenskiy

The EU has decided to open membership negotiations with Ukraine, in an unexpected move that will be a critical boost to Volodymyr Zelenskiy and deal a blow to Vladimir Putin.

The announcement, made on Thursday after eight hours of tense negotiations in Brussels, came despite the opposition of Hungary, whose prime minister, Viktor Orbán, had for weeks said it would veto any opening of accession talks.

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