Georgia

Stanway’s arrival at Arsenal on a free transfer from Bayern is one of the most high-profile moves of an eye-catching transfer window in the Women’s Super League (WSL).

The midfielder enjoyed four trophy-laden years with the German club, and boasts two European Championship winners’ medals with England.

A long-established totem in Sarina Wiegman’s Lionesses side, Stanway told the Women’s Football Weekly podcast how playing in the Bundesliga has developed her game.

“I’ve massively changed as a player and as a person,” she said. “I’ve got more comfortable with myself and I enjoy my own time a lot more.

“Munich also gave me the opportunity to develop a position and to figure out how I wanted to play with trust and expectation from the manager.”

She arrives at Emirates Stadium in her prime and ready to ignite Arsenal’s push for a first WSL title since 2018-19.

She explains that once aware of their interest, there was only one club in the running for her signature.

“I knew I wanted to take the next step,” she said. “I really like the fact Arsenal came in for me when I wasn’t available. It’s a really nice feeling to be wanted.

“What Arsenal are building within England, within the WSL, within Europe, is something I want to be part of.

“It’s setting the standard with women’s football.”

Ben Jones, the actor best known for portraying trusty mechanic Cooter Davenport on “The Dukes of Hazzard” before serving two terms in Congress as a representative from Georgia, has died. He was 84.

Jones died Sunday of a heart attack at his home in Virginia, his wife, Alma Viator, said on social media.

“I lost the love of my life today,” Viator wrote on Facebook. “Ben passed from a massive heart attack. He was home resting in his favorite chair waiting for the Braves to come on and whoop the Yankees. Ben had the most amazing rich full life. He loved and was loved by so many. He will be missed. I loved him so so much.”

A character actor whose earliest credits include films such as “Together for Days” (1972) and “Moonrunners” (1975), Jones’ break came when he landed the role of “Crazy Cooter” Davenport on the CBS action comedy “The Dukes of Hazzard.” The series, which aired from 1979 to 1985, primarily followed close-knit cousins Bo (John Schneider) and Luke Duke (Tom Wopat), as well as those in their orbit in the fictional Hazzard County, Georgia.

“The Dukes of Hazzard lost another integral part of their cast today,” Wopat wrote in his tribute to Jones on Instagram. “Ben Jones was a fine friend and a fierce advocate of all the best things we can offer in the entertainment business. He will be sorely missed… Denver Pyle frequently said to Ben, ‘I’m not your Uncle Jesse!’ But I feel like we lost a Duke cousin today.”

Initially introduced as a gruff wild man without much regard for the law, Davenport eventually settled into a loyal, fun-loving “honorary Duke” beloved by fans. The mechanic would often help repair the show’s signature vehicle, an orange 1969 Dodge Charger known as General Lee.

Despite mixed reviews from critics — former Times television critic Howard Rosenberg denounced it in 1980 as “a spittoon of a series about hotrod-speeding, card-carrying hicks somewhere in the South” — “Dukes” was one of the most-watched television shows of its time. Jones would return to play Davenport after his political career in the TV films “The Dukes of Hazzard: Reunion!” and “The Dukes of Hazzard: Hazzard in Hollywood,” where the character was also revealed to have ventured into politics as a congressman.

Born Aug. 30, 1941, in Tarboro, N.C., Jones grew up in Virginia and North Carolina before eventually attending the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, to study writing. He was open about his struggles with alcohol and told The Times in 1993 that he had been sober since 1977.

After his time on “Dukes,” Jones was persuaded to run for office, challenging a popular Republican incumbent, Pat Swindall, for his seat representing Georgia in the U.S. House of Representatives. Though he lost his first attempt in 1986, Jones won their rematch two years later after Swindall had been indicted for perjury in relation to a money-laundering scheme. (Swindall was later convicted.)

Jones, a Democrat, served two terms representing Georgia’s 4th Congressional District before redistricting took his seat. He later attempted to challenge then-Rep. Newt Gingrich for his seat but lost in the primary. He ran for office again after moving to Virginia, challenging Republican incumbent Eric Cantor for his seat in 2002 but was again unsuccessful.

“I think there are a lot of similarities between politics and entertainment, even more so with the advent of television,” Jones told The Times in 1993, shortly after leaving office. “It’s all about communication.”

Proud of his Southern heritage, Jones was also known for his controversial defense of the Confederate flag, which he described in a 2015 essay published by the New York Times as “a symbol of a non-racist Southern spirit” that had been “appropriated and desecrated” by racists.

Jones is survived by Viator, his fifth wife; his three children, Rachel, Jeanne and Walker; three stepchildren and 10 grandchildren, according to the New York Times.

Georgia Hunter Bell is eyeing an ambitious sweep of gold medals in 2026 after winning the 800m Commonwealth Games title in Glasgow.

England’s Hunter Bell dominated the field to add Commonwealth gold to the 1500m world indoor title she won earlier this year in Poland.

The 32-year-old, a training partner of 800m Olympic champion Keely Hodgkinson, will also race at next month’s European Championships and the inaugural Ultimate Championships in September.

“There are four opportunities to win gold this year,” Hunter Bell told BBC Sport.

“I am two golds down and two more to go.”

Hunter Bell is blossoming later in her career.

Having taken five years out from the sport before returning during the Covid-19 pandemic, she took 1500m bronze at the Paris Olympics before pipping Hodgkinson to silver at last year’s World Championships in the 800m.

This, though, is her first outdoor title – in the event Hodgkinson is Olympic champion.

“Every medal is a landmark moment but my first outdoor gold is huge,” she said.

Hunter Bell and Kenya’s world champion Lilian Odira were the favourites for this title after Hodgkinson opted not to compete. The final was barely a contest with Hunter Bell setting the pace and then kicking on with 200m to go to win by more than a second.

Hodgkinson has instead taken time off before the European Championships in Birmingham, which start on 10 August.

Hunter Bell is only running in the 1500m in that event, denying the chance to see an intriguing race between the pair, but took her opportunity in her friend and training partner’s absence.

Though she said the win validates her decision to come to Glasgow, she defended the decision of others to withdraw.

After more than 42 years of service as one of America’s most potent power-projection platforms, the nuclear-powered submarine USS Georgia has returned home from operations for the final time ahead of its retirement. The boat is one of four Ohio class nuclear-powered guided missile submarines, or SSGNs. The SSGNs are some of the most capable and in-demand submarines in the U.S. Navy’s inventory today, but all are set to leave service before the end of the decade.

The USS Georgia returned to its homeport of Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay, Georgia, on Monday. The boat is scheduled to be officially inactivated on July 31, the first step on a long road through retirement that is set to end with it being recycled.

Georgia was first commissioned as an Ohio class nuclear ballistic missile submarine, or SSBN, in 1984. It was the last of the four Ohio class boats to be converted into a conventionally armed SSGN, returning to the fleet in its new form in 2008. However, it was used as the main testbed for proving out the concept initially, as you can read about in much more detail in this past TWZ feature.

The Ohio class SSGNs are most widely known for their ability to carry up to 154 Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles. However, they typically only carry around 100 of these weapons – a still impressive amount – and are actually highly capable multi-mission platforms. These boats can be fitted with up to two dry deck shelters, for deploying special operators underwater, including in mini-submarines, as well as uncrewed platforms. They are also equipped to act as discreet underwater intelligence fusion nodes and command centers.

This unique mix of capabilities has led the four converted Ohios to become among the most heavily tasked submarines in the Navy. The public presence of one of these SSGNs, as well as their SSBN cousins, in any region of the world sends powerful signals to opponents, as well as allies and partners. Over the years, they have made somewhat regular appearances during spikes in geopolitical friction globally.

USS Georgia, specifically, has been used for this purpose on several occasions in the past, especially in the Middle East. In late 2020 and early 2021, Georgia made rare publicized trips on the surface through the Strait of Hormuz during periods of particular tension with Iran. In May 2021, Iranian boats harassed the submarine and its escorts during one of these transits, prompting a U.S. Coast Guard patrol boat to fire warning shots.

Iranian fast boats around USS Georgia in the Strait of Hormuz

The USS Georgia is also very likely to have been the submarine that fired more than two dozen Tomahawks at the Iranian nuclear facility at Isfahan as part of Operation Midnight Hammer in 2025. Whether or not it took part in subsequent strikes on Iran as part of Operation Epic Fury this year is unclear.

Despite what the Ohio class SSGNs continue to bring to the table, the Navy currently plans to inactivate all of them over the next three years. The plan had previously been to have all of these boats out of active service by 2028. This timeline has now been just slightly extended, with the USS Ohio, USS Florida, and USS Michigan set to follow Georgia into retirement in Fiscal Years 2027, 2028, and 2029, respectively. USS Ohio is also notably the lead boat in the class and, by extension, the oldest, having entered service in 1981.

As it stands now, there is no direct replacement for the Ohio SSGNs in the Navy’s shipbuilding pipeline. The service does have a number of Virginia class attack submarines capable of supporting special operations missions in service now and is planning to acquire enlarged Block V subvariants. Each Block V will feature what is known as the Virginia Payload Module (VPM), which gives the boat four additional larger vertical launch tubes, and will really make it more of an SSGN. Between the VPM and the existing launch tubes carried over from the Block IV design, these submarines will be able to carry up to 40 Tomahawk missiles at a time. The VPM tubes will also be able to accommodate the forthcoming Intermediate-Range Conventional Prompt Strike (IRCPS) hypersonic missile. However, no version of the Virginia class is expected to provide the same level of capability, at least in some regards, as is found on the Ohio SSGNs, based on what is publicly known. The first Block V Virginia class submarine with the VPM is not expected to enter service until 2028.

The Navy is also in the process of replacing its Ohio SSBNs with new Columbia class types. There has been talk in the past of acquiring new “Large Payload Submarines,” possibly based on the Columbia design, as a more direct replacement for the Ohio SSGNs. However, the Columbia class program has suffered delays and cost growth, and the priority remains on getting the new SSBNs into service. It is critical for those boats to be delivered on a tight schedule to ensure there is no gap in the ability of the maritime leg of America’s nuclear triad to meet operational requirements.

In the meantime, the USS Georgia is already heading toward retirement and, unless the Navy changes course, the last of these highly capable submarines will be out of active service by 2029.

Contact the author: howard@twz.com

July 24 (UPI) — A Georgia teenager changed his plea to guilty Friday in the shooting deaths of four people at Apalachee High School in 2024.

Colt Gray, 16, entered a non-negotiated plea of guilty to 55 charges, including malice murder, aggravated battery and aggravated assault, CBS News reported. He was charged as an adult.

A non-negotiated plea means that though he’s changed his plea to guilty, he has not made a deal with prosecutors concerning his sentencing.

The judge in the case will determine his sentence, which ranges from life with parole to life without parole. The defense and prosecutors will each present a case for their preferred sentence, ABC News reported.

Gray is accused of fatally shooting two students — Christian Angulo and Mason Schermerhorn — and two teachers — Richard Aspinwall and Cristina Irmie — at Apalachee High School in Winder, Ga., in 2024, when he was 14 years old. He’s also accused of injuring nine others in the shooting.

Breanna Schermerhorn, Mason’s mother, presented a victim impact statement Friday in court, saying her son “was so much more than victim.”

“Mason was kind, compassionate, funny and fiercely protective of others,” she said. “As a child with exceptional needs, he understood what it felt like to struggle and be overlooked by others. Instead of becoming bitter, he became an advocate.”

Breanna Schermerhorn said Gray knew that the shooting was wrong and would impact countless lives.

“I had no doubt in my mind if Cole had actually attended school as he should have, that Mason would have befriended him,” she said.

Prosecutors said Colt Cray used an AR-style rifle his father, Colin Gray, gave to him for Christmas despite being warned by sheriff’s deputies that his son had threatened an attack at school.

In May, a jury found him guilty of 29 charges, including two counts of second-degree murder and two counts of involuntary manslaughter. Colin Gray was the first adult charged in Georgia in connection with a school shooting by their child.

This road has some truly stunning views – but if you’re behind the wheel, it’s safer not to look at them.

Road trips can be a fabulous way to see the world – but hidden in a back corner of Europe is a road trip unlike any other. This mountain pass is infamous as one of the most dangerous in the world, travelling over the ranges with 70 foot drops, no guard rails and waterfalls crashing over your path.

Known as Europe’s ‘death road ’ the Abano Pass in the Caucasus Mountains of Georgia is widely known as the most dangerous road in Europe. It is the only vehicle route connecting the lowlands of the Kakheti region to the isolated mountain region of Tusheti.

It is approximately 70 kilometres long, but due to the extreme conditions it can take an experienced driver anything between four to six hours.

According to dangerousroads.org , between 10 and 12 people die in crashes every year on this isolated stretch of road.

It is a steep, winding road that is only open to 4×4 vehicles due to its rough and unpredictable surface, tight turns and precipitous climbs.

It is only open during the summer months from around May to October (depending on weather conditions).

Frequent rainfall and melting snow can trigger rockfalls or landslides which can wipe the road out entirely, and several waterfalls mean the road is often wet and slippery.

There are several waterfalls which crash across the road, and these can hide deep potholes beneath the water. If the water is heavier than usual, it also runs the risk of sweeping vehicles sideways off the road and down the sheer cliff face with little warning.

The road is also incredibly slim, making it terrifying if you meet another car coming the other way.

While some people may think there is room to pass by squeezing the two cars in close, this would be a mistake.

According to IsleofNomads, the road can quickly give way and send the car on the outside hurtling into the deep ravine below.

Instead, it is safer to very carefully reverse until you find a spot where you can tuck the car in off the road and allow the other vehicle to pass.

For those brave enough to traverse it, the Abano Pass does boast some truly jaw-dropping views – just make sure your driver is focused on the road, not the scenery.

GEORGIA Toffolo has revealed her millionaire husband “thought he was gonna go to jail” after border control confronted him at the airport.

The couple got into a bit of a palaver on the way to their lavish holiday in Lake Como, Italy.

She posted a video to her social media explaining the situation.

Georgia’s man James Watt was approached by security while they were filming a TikTok video.

In the video, they were jokingly calling each other out for the annoying things they’d done so far that day.

But, they made the simple mistake of filming while going through security.

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In the background of the clip, jet setters could be seen taking their bags off their backs and putting them into trays.

Georgia and James had gone through the body scanner and were waiting for their belongings on the other side.

Fans could see the feet of the border control official approaching BrewDog co-founder James.

“I just had to delete the video,” said James as he sighed in relief.

Former Made In Chelsea star Georgia was in hysterics, laughing at her husband – who was convinced he was going to be locked up.

A giggling Georgia said: “He had border control with him standing, going through your whole phone, looking at your camera roll.

“They went ‘Did you delete all of them?’”

Beer tycoon James chimed in: “Yeah.”

While Georgia countered: “No,” before throwing her head back and laughing.

James continued: “I thought I was gonna go to jail.”

“That was awful right,” said Georgia.

She captioned the video: “How did I forget to post this. James nearly got ARRESTED at the airport.

“What a way to kick off Lake Como… meanwhile I’d been moaning that he wasn’t helping me film the TikTok. Sorry babe. Whoops.”

The loved-up pair met after being set up on a blind date in 2023 and the following year they were engaged.

They tied the knot in Aberdeen, Scotland, last year aboard a fishing boat after having given their guests just two days notice.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is retreating from a plan to use warehouses to hold up to 10,000 people on a single site, jettisoning a key piece of former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s $38-billion plan to rapidly expand detention capacity this year.

The federal government, which was sued by Michigan and a Detroit suburb, informed a judge Monday that a warehouse purchased in Romulus will be sold. Plans also are unraveling in Social Circle, Ga., and the El Paso suburb of Socorro, local officials said.

The three cities are among 11 where the federal government spent a combined $1.074 billion on warehouses.

The New York Times first reported last week that federal immigration officials now plan to get rid of seven of the 11 warehouses — either giving them to other federal agencies or selling them outright.

DHS didn’t confirm the reports but said in a statement that it is “moving swiftly to utilize EXISTING detention space with our state and county partners.”

“Wildly foolhardy” is how Claire Trickler-McNulty, a former ICE official under the Obama, Trump and Biden administrations described the plans to convert the buildings into immigrant detention.

One issue was that Noem’s purchases were largely carried out of public view and angered communities that were caught by surprise. Some only learned about ICE’s ambitions after the agency bought or leased space for detainees.

After Noem was fired, her replacement, Markwayne Mullin, quickly paused the purchase of new warehouses.

Objections came from Republicans and Democrats alike

Some were opposed on moral grounds to ICE’s presence in their neighborhoods, while others questioned whether the facilities would be a drain on local resources, such as sewer and water systems.

Seven federal lawsuits were filed, and regulatory roadblocks created hassles elsewhere.

Meanwhile, questions about how much DHS paid for some warehouses triggered an internal audit. The agency shelled out double what the New Jersey warehouse was valued at in tax records and nearly five times more than the assessed value of the Social Circle warehouse.

Trickler-McNulty, the former ICE official, said ICE does have a few facilities that it owns that it inherited from its predecessor agency, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, but generally ICE has contracted out its detention needs.

“Facilities over 2,000 people just break down. It’s very hard to run a very big facility, to keep it staffed, to keep all of it moving,” she said.

Former head of plumbing business takes over for Noem

Mullin, who took over and expanded his family’s plumbing business before representing Oklahoma in the U.S House and Senate, acknowledged there had been issues at his confirmation hearing.

He noted that most municipalities don’t have the capacity in their infrastructure for waste and water.

Indeed the water issues were such a challenge that a federal lawsuit filed over the Salt Lake City warehouse, the costliest purchased at $145.4 million, said ICE officials told the mayor that they might need to truck water and sewage from the facility as an “interim solution.”

Plans begin to unravel

The New York Times story, which cited internal documents that the newspaper obtained, said the Salt Lake City warehouse is among those that federal immigration officials plans to hand off or sell. Also on the list is the Romulus warehouse, as well as one in New Jersey and two each in Georgia and Pennsylvania.

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said it would have been an “abomination” if the 249,000-square-foot Romulus warehouse was transformed into immigrant detention, as was planned when it was purchased for $34.7 million,

“The ICE warehouse proposal was every bit as ill-conceived as it was cruel and unnecessary, and I am relieved that this chapter is coming to a close,” Nessel, a Democrat, said.

Social Circle, Georgia, announced last week in a statement that it has received notification from U.S. Rep. Mike Collins, a Republican, that the Department of Homeland Security is no longer pursuing an ICE detention facility there.

Meanwhile, acting ICE Director David Venturella told officials in the El Paso area during a visit there earlier this month that the agency has changed its plans for three warehouses it purchased in nearby Socorro for $122 million, said Rep. Veronica Escobar, who was present for the visit.

Escobar, a Democrat who represents El Paso, said during a news conference that ICE no longer plans to detain up to 8,500 immigrants in the facilities as originally envisioned, and instead will convert the property into an ICE campus, she said. The site will include an unspecified smaller number of detainees but also ICE offices and training space, she said.

Frustrations persist as communities seek details

However, many of the communities remained frustrated, as they struggled to get information about possible sales.

In Pennsylvania, state and local officials said Tuesday that they hadn’t received any new information from DHS about two warehouses bought earlier this year by the department. Both are being held up by the state’s denial of permits over concerns that drinking water and sewer service are inadequate to handle thousands of inhabitants.

U.S. Rep. Dan Meuser, whose district includes both warehouses, said he met Friday with DHS personnel, but that the agency hadn’t made a decision whether to use them as detention centers or sell them.

In Georgia, the city manager in Oakwood, said Tuesday he is talking to his state congressional delegation, trying to confirm rumors that a warehouse there will be sold. “I have not heard anything yet,” B.R. White said.

Work appears to continue on other warehouses

In Maryland, where a judge extended a stoppage on transforming a sprawling warehouse into a processing facility for immigrants, ICE is currently collecting public comments about the environmental impacts of the facility. And an announcement earlier this month disclosed more details on plans for the facility, including six secure recreation yards.

Patrick Dattilio, the founder of Hagerstown Rapid Response, which formed in opposition to housing ICE detainees in the warehouse, said there has been little communication outside of the lawsuit. But he remains committed to keeping it from opening.

“It’s a big warehouse,” Dattilio said. “It’s not meant for people.”

Hollingsworth, Foley and Santana write for the Associated Press. AP writers Marc Levy and Ed White contributed to this report.

ATLANTA — Legislation to keep Georgia’s embattled vote-counting method in place for this year’s midterm elections faced strong opposition from state Democrats on Monday after Republicans in the Georgia Senate approved an amendment that would require a hand recount of ballots.

Georgia’s governor, Republican Brian Kemp, had called lawmakers into a special session in part to address a July 1 deadline that was set to ban the QR codes used for the official vote count. Legislators passed a law two years ago that set that deadline, but then failed to find a replacement for tabulating votes.

Some voting rights activists had warned that any changes so close to the midterm elections could create confusion at polling sites. Georgia is a political swing state where voters will decide high-profile races for U.S. Senate and governor in the fall.

State lawmakers last week appeared to have reached a deal on a bill to push the July 1 deadline back to 2028. But Republicans in the Senate approved an amendment over the weekend that would require a full hand recount of the two races at the top of ballot. In November, that would be the governor’s contest and a U.S. Senate election.

The amended bill passed the Senate on a party line vote, but the House did not immediately schedule it for a vote on Monday.

Georgia Democrats say a hand recount in November would create chaos that could sow doubt about the results. Research has shown that hand-counting is more prone to error, costlier and likely to delay results. It has gained traction, however, with Republican lawmakers in some states amid President Trump’s repeated false claims about a stolen 2020 election.

“What we are experiencing is a Republican Senate who’s acting extraordinarily irresponsibly with Georgia’s elections and people’s votes,” state Rep. Saira Draper, a Democrat, said Monday.

Republican state Sen. Max Burns defended the Senate bill, saying hand counts and machine counts can “coexist and confirm each other’s ultimate results.”

“This amendment to a good bill is to strengthen it so that the voters have confidence in election security,” he said.

Georgia’s current election system uses a QR code printed on ballots to tally the votes. It has drawn the ire of Trump, who claimed without evidence that voting machines in Georgia deleted or switched votes in the 2020 election. He narrowly lost the state to Democrat Joe Biden that year.

Georgia voting machines have been the subject of conspiracy theories, which manufacturer Dominion Voting Systems fought vigorously in court. But election integrity advocates also have raised concerns about the machines, arguing that they are vulnerable to hacking and that voters cannot be sure their selections are accurately reflected because people can’t read QR codes.

The Georgia Senate bill would extend the July 1 deadline to Jan. 1, 2028. It also would create a committee to recommend requirements for a new voting system. The committee would have until Jan. 31, 2027, to report its findings. State lawmakers would be responsible for funding, buying and implementing the new system for the 2028 election cycle.

The special session also was supposed to redraw Georgia’s congressional and legislative districts for the 2028 election, but state lawmakers postponed those plans.

Thanawala writes for the Associated Press.

June 17 (UPI) — Georgia Republicans on Wednesday rejected GOP efforts to redraw the state’s congressional and legislative maps amid a wider national push to redraw congressional maps.

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, had last month scheduled the special session for Wednesday to consider redrawing the state’s maps in response to pressure to do so following the Supreme Court‘s April ruling that weakened Voting Rights Act protections for district lines drawn to preserve minority voting power.

The state’s House speaker, Jon Burns, said in a letter Wednesday to Kemp that Georgia’s House and Senate Republicans would not take up his redistricting call, citing more pressing cost-of-living issues and cases pending in court that could affect any alterations they adopt to their maps.

“Changes to Georgia’s maps should take place only when members of the General Assembly and citizens have been given ample opportunity to gather the facts, provide input and engage in meaningful discussion,” Burns said in the letter.

“For this reason, we will not be taking up congressional or legislative redistricting for the 2028 election cycle during this special session.”

Protesters swarmed the Georgia Capitol on Wednesday to demonstrate against redistricting. Videos posted online by the NAACP show supporters within the legislative building chanting “Black voters matter” at the Republican lawmakers who had congregated on the central sweeping staircase for a press conference.

When Senate Pro Tempore Larry Walker III remarked during the press conference that the Supreme Court ruling meant Georgia would need to redraw its maps, he was met with boos from the demonstrators.

“We believe it would be wise to allow the judicial process to develop in other states and see how the courts rule on redistricting maps elsewhere. With this guidance, we are confident that Georgia’s new districts will ultimately withstand legal scrutiny and that Georgia will prevail in defending these maps before the court,” he said.

“Because any changes to our current congressional or legislative districts would not go into effect until 2028, we believe it is prudent to take the appropriate and necessary time to do this important duty the right way and not to rush through it.”

Democrats celebrated the announcement, while arguing state Republicans had little choice but to shelve the effort in the face of opposition.

“State Republicans can see the backlash from voters coming this November, which is why they called off their plan to further rig maps,” Heather Williams, president of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, said in a social media statement.

“But let’s be clear: The threat of future GOP gerrymandering looms, which is why building Democratic power in Georgia this year is crucial.”

Several, mostly Southern GOP-led or -aligned states have sought to redraw their maps following the Louisiana Vs. Callais decision, which threw out Louisiana’s 2023 congressional map with two majority-Black districts and cleared the way for the state to use a map with only one. The decision is widely seen as an opening to redraw maps that weaken minority voting power on partisan grounds.

Though any redrawn maps in Georgia wouldn’t take effect until 2028, Kemp called Wednesday’s special session amid a wider President Donald Trump-led effort to have GOP-led states shore up additional red seats ahead of November’s midterm elections.

Trump, who has voiced concern about impeachment proceedings and investigations if Republicans lose the House, has pushed GOP-led and -leaning states to redraw their maps to create new Republican-aligned districts and increase chances of holding onto the lower chamber.

GOP-led Texas became the first state to redraw its map last summer, setting off a gerrymandering arms race with the Democrats seeking to create new blue-leaning districts to neutralize Republican gains.

At least 10 states have completed redistricting efforts according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, which is tracking mid-decade redistricting. Eight of the 10 newly redrawn maps are expected to favor the Republican Party.

ATLANTA — Georgia’s Republican legislative leaders on Wednesday rejected Gov. Brian Kemp’s call to redraw congressional and legislative districts during a special session, citing concerns about moving too quickly after a U.S. Supreme Court decision weakened federal Voting Rights Act protections for minority voters.

House Speaker Jon Burns sent Kemp a letter hours before a special session was set to begin Wednesday, and he announced the decision as demonstrators filled the Georgia Capitol with chants of “Black voters matter!”

The decision marked a setback for both Kemp and President Trump, who has urged Republican-led states to redraw congressional districts to their advantage. Ten states already have enacted new congressional districts ahead of the November midterm elections. Georgia would have been the first to change districts for the 2028 elections.

Burns said lawmakers want to take their time after the court’s decision in Louisiana v. Callais, which struck down Louisiana’s congressional map as an illegal racial gerrymander and laid the groundwork for other Southern states to redraw their congressional districts. Burns said it was more important for lawmakers to focus on economic matters rather than “partisan games.” He also cited pending litigation over existing Georgia districts and the need for the state to understand the full ramifications for how race can or cannot be used in redistricting.

Republican legislative leaders did not rule out revisiting redistricting later this year.

Minority voting rights are especially salient in Georgia, where the Capitol complex includes a statue of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and sits blocks from where the slain civil rights icon lived, preached and led the movement that yielded the Voting Rights Act in 1965.

Conservative justices gave the green light

Before Callais, Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act was understood to require maps — for Congress, state legislatures and local legislative bodies — that gave historically marginalized minorities a reasonable chance to select candidates of their choice. Nationally and in Georgia, those so-called “opportunity districts” have disproportionately elected Black and other nonwhite representatives.

For example, about a third of Georgia’s 180 state representatives are Black. Latino, Asian and other minorities bring the total nonwhite share to about 40% — roughly reflecting the state’s overall population. Georgia’s U.S. House delegation has five districts out of 14 total where the electorate is majority or plurality nonwhite. All elected Black Democrats in 2024.

With the Callais ruling, issued in April, a conservative majority of justices concluded that jurisdictions drawn with racial makeup in mind are discriminatory and violate the U.S. Constitution’s equal protection clause. The justices declared that apportionment should be “race neutral.”

Their stated reasoning did not hinge on party interests, and federal courts have said partisan gerrymandering is constitutionally permissible. But in Southern states, especially, party loyalty dovetails considerably with race and ethnicity. So the decision has allowed Republicans — a party dominated by white people — to redraw maps to goose likely GOP districts by redistributing nonwhite voters who tend to support Democrats.

That, many civil rights activists and experts argue, makes it impossible for Southern legislatures to be genuinely “race neutral” when drawing boundaries.

Emory University professor Carol Anderson compared Callais and the resulting redistricting push to poll taxes and literacy tests imposed by white Southern conservatives — and blessed by the Supreme Court — during the Jim Crow era.

“They used racially neutral language for policies that were clearly racially targeted,” said Anderson, who is also a board member of Fair Fight Action, a group organizing against the Georgia redistricting.

There were risks for Kemp and Republicans

It’s not guaranteed that Georgia Republicans can get what they want from new maps.

Partisan gerrymandering involves redistributing voters — packing certain citizens into fewer districts or dividing them across more districts. Around metro Atlanta, spreading nonwhite, Democratic-leaning voters across more districts could make more seats seem to lean Republican. The risk, however, is that more battleground districts emerge because white metropolitan voters are trending less conservative, which could give Democratic candidates of any race or ethnicity more chances to win.

That’s perhaps not a major factor in the Georgia state Senate, which already is considered gerrymandered for Republicans. But it could be a consideration when drawing state House and U.S. House maps.

Kemp was effectively asking Republicans, especially in metro Atlanta, to redraw their own boundaries and take on new, unfamiliar territory.

Trump started the fight before the Supreme Court decision

Nationally, a partisan redistricting battle started last year when Trump urged Republican-controlled states to redraw congressional boundaries to shore up the GOP’s narrow House majority in Washington this November. Texas answered the call first.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Democrats in Sacramento answered with their own gerrymander that voters later approved. A succession of states followed. The outcome would have been close to even had the Virginia Supreme Court, controlled by conservatives, not struck down new Democratic-drawn maps approved by the state’s voters. All told, Republicans think they could gain as many as 16 seats from their redistricting efforts while Democrats think they could gain six seats from new districts in California and Utah.

That still may not be enough for the GOP to hold a congressional majority, given Trump’s lagging approval ratings. But it could mitigate Democratic gains and set Republicans up well for 2028 and beyond.

Barrow writes for The Associated Press.

June 17 (UPI) — Rep. Mike Collins was projected Tuesday night to win Georgia’s Republican Senate primary runoff, defeating former football coach Derek Dooley as voters cast ballots in contests across the country.

The Collins-Dooley race was the highest-profile race on a primary night.

President Donald Trump has loomed large over November’s midterm elections, encouraging GOP-led states to redraw congressional maps, warning of impeachment and investigations if Democrats win control of the House and endorsing candidates who align with his agenda.

The Georgia Senate runoff drew national attention as a race that could help decide control of the Senate and test Trump’s influence in a battleground state.

Collins of Georgia’s 10th Congressional District ran with Trump’s endorsement, while Dooley had the support of Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp.

With all 159 localities reporting, Collins had secured 55.5% of the vote to Dooley’s 44.4%, according to unofficial results from the office of Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.

Collins, speaking to supporters Tuesday night, projected an image of GOP unity, stating he had spoken with both Dooley, thanking him for running a “spirited campaign,” and Kemp “for his leadership and his friendship over the years.”

“We’re going to have some robust primaries out there. Sometimes, we got some strong disagreements, but I can tell you we stand united around one mission,” he said to applause.

“That’s right. And y’all know what the mission is: Is to put a Republican in that seat and get rid of that Jon Ossoff in November.”

Ossoff, a Democrat, won the Senate seat in 2021, flipping control of the chamber from the Republicans.

In his victory speech, Collins attacked Ossoff for voting in favor of President Joe Biden‘s landmark Inflation Reduction Act and the American Rescue Plan as well as voting against banning transgender athletes from competing in female-segregated sports.

Following Collins’ victory, Ossoff attacked him on social media, calling him a “notorious bigot, antisemite and extremist” who is being investigated by the House Committee on Ethics for illegal misuse of tax dollars.

“Collins, who is only a congressman because his daddy was a congressman, voted to double health insurance premiums for more than a million Georgians, for the Iran War and for the Trump tariffs,” he said in a statement.

Dooley conceded defeat.

“While tonight didn’t go our way, I want you to know that I’ll continue to be in this fight,” he said on social media.

“No matter who you voted for or what you believe, one thing we all can agree on is Jon Ossoff does not represent our Georgia values. In November, we’re sending him to the bench!”

Trump endorsed Collins on Friday after early voting ended, while Kemp endorsed Dooley in August.

But Tuesday night was not a clean sweep for Trump-backed candidates in Georgia. Rick Jackson, the billionaire founder of Jackson Healthcare, was poised to defeat Trump-endorsed Georgia Lt. Gov. Burt Jones in the GOP governor runoff race.

According to unofficial results, Jackson had secured 52.65% of the vote share to Jones’ 47%.

The Georgia governor’s mansion is up for grabs as Kemp, a Republican, has been term limited. He faced Democrat Stacy Abrams in the last two gubernatorial elections.

Jones had won 38% of the vote in the primary election last month. Jackson received 32% of the vote. The runoff was scheduled as neither candidate surpassed the 50% threshold needed to win the GOP nomination outright.

Joe Fisher contributed reporting.

ATLANTA — A federal judge who was disciplined after an investigation found she had sex with a police officer in her chambers and attended a partisan event, then lied when confronted with the allegations, has recused herself in a fight over Georgia election records after the U.S. Department of Justice raised questions about her ability to be impartial.

The Justice Department sought to remove U.S. District Judge Eleanor Ross from the case, citing her reported attendance at an event for Fulton County Dist. Atty. Fani Willis, who prosecuted President Trump. Ross filed an order Tuesday recusing herself, writing that she was doing so “out of an abundance of caution for the potential perception of bias.”

The Justice Department had sued Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger for seeking an unredacted statewide voter list, and Ross was presiding over that case.

“Both the Trump administration’s present and Willis’s past efforts have become heavily polarized,” Ross wrote, explaining that she “cannot discount” that an objective observer might interpret her attendance at an event sponsored by Willis’ campaign as support for the district attorney’s position, even if she only went to see former colleagues.

Ross received a “private reprimand” after a court investigation found that she had sex in the courthouse with a high-ranking uniformed police officer within earshot of staff, attended a partisan event and then initially lied to deny the allegations.

The investigation report says Ross went to an event hosted by a district attorney’s campaign. The judge said the district attorney had been a friend since 1999 and acknowledged having gone to the a private mixer held on the sidelines of the event to visit with former colleagues in the district attorney’s office.

Ross previously worked in the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office and overlapped there with Willis there before Willis was district attorney.

Willis in August 2023 obtained an indictment against Trump and 18 others, accusing them of participating in a wide-ranging scheme to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results. That case was ultimately dismissed in November.

Brumback writes for the Associated Press.

June 16 (UPI) — Voters are heading back to the polls in Georgia on Tuesday for primary election runoffs featuring one contest that pits President Donald Trump‘s endorsement against Gov. Brian Kemp‘s.

Among the key races that will be decided Tuesday is the race to see who will challenge Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff in November’s midterm election. Trump has endorsed Rep. Mike Collins and Kemp endorsed Derek Dooley.

Kemp gave Dooley, a former college football coach, his endorsement in August. He reiterated his support in a social media post on Monday, asking voters to choose the “conservative fighter who will put Georgians first.”

Trump endorsed Collins on Friday after early voting ended. The president posted his endorsement on social media, calling Collins a “warrior and winner.”

Elsewhere on the ballot, Republican voters will choose their candidate for the state’s gubernatorial race. Kemp is a two-term governor and is in his last year serving in the office. He faced Democrat Stacey Abrams in the last two gubernatorial elections.

Lt. Gov. Burt Jones captured 38% of the vote in the primary election last month, falling short of the 50% threshold required to win. On the other side, billionaire Rick Jackson received 32% of the vote.

The winner of the Republican primary for the gubernatorial candidate will face Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms in November.

Donald Trump picks Mike Collins over Derek Dooley in race to determine who will face Democrat Jon Ossoff in November midterms.

United States President Donald Trump has made a late endorsement in a Republican run-off for a key US Senate race in Georgia ahead of the US midterm elections.

In a post on his Truth Social account, Trump threw his support behind US Representative Mike Collins over former football coach and political newcomer Derek Dooley.

Collins and Dooley will face off in a Republican run-off race on Tuesday to determine who will challenge incumbent Senator Jon Ossoff, a Democrat, in the midterm election in November.

In a post on Truth Social, Trump praised Collins for being a staunch supporter of his Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement and a “true friend, fighter, and WARRIOR”.

Ossoff entered office in 2021 as part of a blue wave in Georgia that saw the majority of the state vote for former US President Joe Biden, as well as his fellow Democrat, Senator Raphael Warnock.

Georgia, which had for decades been dominated by Republicans, swung back towards Trump in the 2024 vote. Defeating Ossoff is seen as one of the Republicans’ best chances at claiming a new seat in the 100-member chamber, where they are hoping to hold on to their slim 53-seat majority.

Democrats are hoping to win control of both the House and the Senate in November, which would create a major bulwark against Trump’s agenda during his final two years in office.

Republican divides

Trump’s endorsement pits Collins against Georgia’s Republican Governor Brian Kemp, who has supported Dooley.

Kemp has remained generally supportive of Trump, but has faced off with him on several issues, notably Trump’s evidence-less claims that the 2020 election in Georgia was marred by fraud.

Dooley has said he did not vote in 2016 or 2020 when Trump was on the ballot, and has maintained that the election results in Georgia were legitimate.

Collins carried about 40 percent of the vote during Georgia’s Republican primary on May 19, with Dooley taking about 30 percent. Representative Buddy Carter, who did not advance to the run-off, came in a close third.

It remains unclear how big of an impact Trump’s endorsement will have. He made the announcement after early voting had already ended for the run-off.

Trump’s endorsements have seen mixed results in the primary season.

Trump’s decision to back Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton was seen as aiding in the MAGA loyalist’s defeat of US Senator John Cornyn in Texas’s primary run-off.

Cornyn had widely been viewed as the strongest Republican candidate to take on Democratic challenger James Talarico in the general election.

In Iowa, Trump’s late endorsement of US Representative Randy Feenstra did not give him the bump needed to defeat fellow Republican Zach Lahn in the gubernatorial primary race.

Beyond the run-off in Georgia, Alabama will also hold several primary run-offs on Tuesday. That includes a Republican race for the solidly red seat of US Senator Tommy Tuberville, who is running for governor.

Oklahoma and the federal district of Washington, DC, will also hold primary votes.

The catalog of unrequited hopes and hearts is a long one.

Captain Ahab went mad in his vengeful search for “Moby Dick.” Jay Gatsby’s ostentatious fortune failed to win the love of Daisy Buchanan. Charlie Brown never kicked the football.

Then there’s Texas, the land of broken Democratic dreams.

It’s been half a century since the party carried Texas in a presidential election. The last time Democrats won a statewide office, back in 1994, “The Lion King” was smashing box office records, Boyz II Men ruled the radio and the World Wide Web was about to change everything.

As Texas grew increasingly Republican, and politically beyond reach, Democrats insisted every election year was the one when they’d end their futility and take back power in either Washington or Austin, the state capital.

It never happened.

But is this, finally, the year?

With Ken Paxton stomping incumbent John Cornyn on Tuesday in a fierce and astronomically expensive U.S. Senate primary, many Democrats believe so — and even neutral observers agree they’ve been handed their best shot at resurrection in a good while.

“Paxton is going to be a much tougher guy [for Republicans] to haul over the finish line five months from now as opposed to Cornyn, who never lost an election until this one,” said Richard Murray, an emeritus political science professor at the University of Houston, who spent decades surveying Texas voters. “We’re looking at a very expensive, hard-fought race.”

Paxton, Texas’ three-term attorney general, is a singularly flawed candidate. Indicted, impeached, accused by his ex-wife of adultery, the GOP nominee is, to put it mildly, “an ethically challenged individual,” as the famously understated (and concerned) Republican Maine Sen. Susan Collins put it.

But Paxton was the choice of President Trump — he, too, of impeachment, indictment and adulterous infamy — and that settled that.

Trump described Cornyn, a four-term senator and former justice of the Texas Supreme Court, as a “good man” but insufficiently supportive when “times were tough.” Among those occasions of abandonment, Cornyn voted to certify the incontrovertible result of the 2020 presidential election, thwarting Trump’s bid to illegally stay in office.

The Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate is James Talarico, 37, a state representative from Austin and a Presbyterian seminarian and former public schoolteacher who’s built a nationwide following with his articulate and scriptural takedown of Republican foes. Imagine Beto O’Rourke with a clerical collar and capacity to mint money.

In 2018, O’Rourke came from seemingly nowhere and nearly upset Republican Ted Cruz in the closest Texas Senate race in decades. Before that it was the filibustering Wendy Davis who fired up Democratic imaginations nationwide. She commandeered the floor of the state Senate to briefly block antiabortion legislation — This is the year! — before falling well short in a 2014 bid for governor.

The key difference this time, with all due credit to Talarico and his prodigious fundraising, is his damaged-goods opponent. Normally, all it takes to win in Texas is a Republican ‘R’ beside a candidate’s name. But polling suggests a not-insignificant number of GOP voters could have a hard time supporting Paxton, which doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll back Talarico. They may simply not vote in the Senate race, which could be nearly as costly.

(The counterargument is that Paxton, a martyred hero to the MAGA movement, could boost turnout among the party base at a time Trump is leaking support within the establishment GOP.)

Either way, the president’s me-first political self-indulgence is not making things any easier for his fellow Republicans as they fight to hang on to control of the House and Senate in November.

In the 2022 midterm election, Trump boosted a batch of unappealing misfits — their sole attribute being their fealty to him — with poor results. Republicans lost eminently winnable Senate contests in Arizona, Georgia, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania and, with it, their chance at control of the chamber.

Even if Paxton prevails in November, Trump’s endorsement could prove quite costly to the GOP, and not just in the figurative sense.

Democrats need a gain of four seats to flip the Senate. To do so, they must successfully defend seats in Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota and New Hampshire and then pick up at least four others from a menu that includes Alaska, Iowa, Maine, Montana, Nebraska, North Carolina, Ohio and, now, Texas.

It’s a considerable reach. But Democratic chances look a lot better than they did just a few months ago, before Trump mired the country in an Iranian quagmire and the price of gas and just about everything else began to sail through the ceiling.

Holding on to Cornyn’s seat will end up costing Republicans a kingly sum — money that “can’t be spent in two places at the same time,” as Matt Mackowiak, a longtime Texas GOP strategist and advisor to Cornyn’s campaign, noted. “It can go either to Michigan, New Hampshire, Georgia, Iowa, Alaska. Or it can go here to Texas, which is extremely expensive.”

Odds are against Talarico and Democrats winning the Senate race in November, because Texas remains, fundamentally, a Republican and conservative-leaning state. Paxton may win for that reason and that reason alone.

“This is as good an environment as Democrats are going to get realistically,” said Jim Henson, head of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas in Austin, who’s witnessed many highly touted Democrats fail in a blaze of unwarranted hype. “But when you start doing the math, it’s a little bit hard to see it all adding up.”

Which is not to say it can’t happen.

Truth, as the saying goes, can be stranger than “Moby Dick” or any other fiction.

Lindsie Chrisley, one of reality star Todd Chrisley’s two children with his first wife, was arrested Saturday night on suspicion of driving under the influence in Concord, Ga.

The podcaster was booked on charges including DUI less safe — a DUI charge for those whose blood alcohol is less than 0.08% — attempting to elude police, improper passing, reckless driving and speeding, according to a police report obtained by The Times. Her bail on the five counts totaled $5,961, according to the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office.

“I got pulled over speeding past a car on a two-lane road because they almost hit an animal,” Chrisley told TMZ, which first reported the arrest. She said she was trying to miss that car and “whatever the animal was.” She said she planned to fight the charges.

Law enforcement had a different story to tell in its report, alleging that she was pulled over for traveling 86 mph on a surface street. After the deputy activated the lights on his car and initiated the traffic stop, Chrisley allegedly passed “multiple suitable stopping locations” before finally pulling over at a Chevron station, the report said.

The sheriff’s deputy who spoke with Chrisley said in his report that her stories weren’t making sense, her speech was slurred and her breath smelled of alcohol. After she was asked to step out of the Ford Bronco, she told the officer she didn’t know why she had been pulled over, then said it was because she had swerved around another vehicle that had “almost hit a deer,” the report said. The officer asked her if that was why she was speeding and she said “that is exactly why,” according to the report, then talked about the car in front of her brake-checking her as she drove home and said she hadn’t been traveling at nearly 90 mph.

The report said she refused to participate in field sobriety tests when the deputy asked her to and she also declined a blood test. No contraband was found in the car, according to the report.

Chrisley, 36, was released from custody around 4:15 a.m. Sunday morning.

Her encounter with law enforcement comes after her then-boyfriend, David Landsman, was arrested in Cherokee County in mid-April on a felony charge of aggravated assault/strangulation and a misdemeanor charge of battery after he allegedly placed his hand around a person’s neck and told them they were “not going anywhere,” People reported.

Lindsie Chrisley, the host of “The Southern Tea” podcast, appeared in 20 episodes of “Chrisley Knows Best” from 2014 into 2017. She and brother Kyle Chrisley are the children of Teresa Terry, Todd Chrisley’s first wife.

Todd and second wife Julie Chrisley were convicted of bank fraud and tax evasion in 2022 and imprisoned at separate facilities. Todd was serving a 12-year sentence in Florida and Julie was serving seven years at a facility in Kentucky when President Trump pardoned them in 2025, clearing the convictions from their records and ending their sentences.

Lindsie was estranged from her family for years over their suspicion that she had squealed to state and federal officials. Todd and Julie sued the state of Georgia in 2019, alleging that a tax official had targeted the couple’s estranged daughter and improperly shared confidential tax information to try to elicit compromising information on the family. As a result of the official’s efforts, the Chrisleys were forced to “incur substantial personal and financial hardship,” the suit said.

Sources who said they were close to Lindsie told TMZ in October 2019 that she spoke with the state official only to get updates about when her father might be arrested, so that she could shield her young son from any drama. In 2022, she said on her podcast that she and her father got back in touch after her second filing to divorce husband Will Campbell went public in summer 2021. The family members did crossover appearances on their various podcasts.

However, the reconciliation appeared to be short-lived, with Lindsie saying on her podcast in March 2025 that she hadn’t had any contact with her dad in a year.

The state of Georgia settled with the elder Chrisleys in January 2024, agreeing to pay them $1 million.