Georgia
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Investigators at the Georgia high school where a shooting occurred confirmed that the suspect had been interviewed about past threats.
On Wednesday night (September 4), authorities at a press conference held after a deadly shooting at a Georgia high school confirmed that the suspect had been interviewed about past threats by local law enforcement. The Federal Bureau of Investigation stated that their National Threat Operations Center had received several anonymous tips in 2023 about Colt Gray, the suspect in the shooting at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia which claimed the lives of four victims.
Gray, who was 13 at the time of the reports, had been interviewed by investigators from the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office along with his father concerning those tips which spoke of the threats of a shooting at “an unidentified location and time,” with those threats containing photographs of guns. The suspect denied making those threats, which were found posted on an online gaming site. His father told the officers that he did have a collection of hunting guns at the home, but his son did not have unsupervised access to those weapons. The sheriff’s office then alerted the local schools “for continued monitoring of the subject.” It wasn’t clear if Apalachee High School received those alerts – the school is in the neighboring Barrow County. The F.B.I. issued a statement saying that local authorities didn’t have probable cause to “take any additional law enforcement action on the local, state or federal levels.” The state Division of Child and Family Services was also contacted, according to an AP News report.
Gray was reportedly apprehended by school resource officials after immediately surrendering after the shooting, which claimed the lives of two students and two instructors at Apalachee. An assault-style rifle was used in the shooting, authorities confirmed. Jackson County Sheriff Janis C. Magnum cautioned against the spreading of misinformation in a statement on Facebook. “My phone is blowing up with messages from people about social media postings about other possible incidents,” she wrote. “To my knowledge, there is not a list indicating any of this.”
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Rudy Giuliani has settled with the Georgia election workers who won their defamation suit against him after a failed bankruptcy plea.
On Wednesday (July 31), Ruby Freeman and Wandrea Shaye Moss, the two Georgia women who won their defamation suit against Donald Trump adviser Rudy Giuliani agreed to a settlement along with other creditors Giuliani owed. Giuliani had attempted to declare personal bankruptcy but was denied by a judge accusing him of not complying with court orders and not fully disclosing his financial assets. The proposed agreement order was submitted in a federal court in White Plains, New York. Adam Klasfield, a journalist and MSNBC contributor, shared the proposed order documents in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
In the agreement, Giuliani agreed to pay his lawyers $100,000 to help pay what he owes to the financial advisor for the creditors, Global Data Risk. The terms continue, detailing that the former mayor of New York City is to sell either his apartment in the city or his Florida condominium and to “maintain the properties in good condition at least comparable to their current condition, maintain property casualty insurance with respect to each property in an amount no less than the full replacement value of the Debtor’s interest in each property, and can’t sell either property without written consent.”The value of the properties is estimated at $5.6 million and $3.5 million, respectively. Global Data Risk is also allowed to place liens on the property to ensure Giuliani pays all of the $400,000 they sued him for. Freeman and Moss are now free to go after the $148 million they were awarded in December 2023 —$75 million in punitive damages and $33,169,000 in defamation damage.
The filing was made three hours before a deadline set by Judge Sean Lane for noon on Wednesday for all parties to submit proposals on how to end the case. In his initial ruling on July 25 tossing Giuliani’s bankruptcy plea, Lane wrote: “Even assuming that the Debtor does not have the funds on hand to immediately pay these bankruptcy expenses, he certainly has considerable assets upon which he can draw to pay such expenses.” The 80-year-old Giuliani recently claimed at the end of May that he only had $94,000 in cash and his company, Giuliani Communications had $237,000.
There are times when a performance gains power not only from who’s playing what music and how, but also from when and where it’s played. So it was with the Berlin Philharmonic’s 2024 Europakonzert, which took place on May 1 at the historic Tsinandali Estate in Georgia.
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As Georgians protested in the streets of the capital city of Tbilisi against a law that would regulate NGOs and foreign media companies in a way that many people there believe would benefit Russia – or at least follow its illiberal path — one of the most accomplished orchestras in Europe delivered a majestic performance of pieces by Schubert, Brahms and Beethoven, as if to culturally anchor the country in the heart of Europe.
The concert at the Tsinandali Estate was gorgeous – an afternoon show, performed outdoors on a sunny day, with birds chirping in the background. (Conductor Daniel Harding stepped in for Daniel Barenboim.) The prominent violinist Lisa Batiashvili, who comes from Georgia and is now an artist in residence at the Berlin Philharmonic, performed the solos in Brahms’ Violin Concerto in D Major with power and exquisite sensitivity.
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The next night, the orchestra performed the same show at the Tbilisi Opera and Ballet State Theater – not far from where some of the protests took place – followed by considerable applause and the unfurling of a couple of European Union flags. It was hard to miss the symbolism – not nationalism but something more open-hearted. The politics never overshadowed the music, which was powerful in its own right, but it was clear how much the music, and the idea of Europe, meant to the Georgian audience. Sometimes concerts are the continuation of policy by other means.
Georgia sits a crossroads between Europe and Asia – always geographically and now politically as well. Culturally, the country has always faced West – it’s mostly Eastern Orthodox, and it was part of the Soviet Union before it gained independence. In December, under the current government, Georgia officially received candidate status to join the European Union, which the majority of people there seem to favor and would place the country firmly in the West. And although the overlap of the Europakonzert and the debate about the proposed law is just coincidental, it seemed to hint at two possible paths forward for the country: A kind of international optimism or a narrower nationalism.
The Tsinandali Estate, which was leased from the government and renovated by the Silk Road Group, a Georgian company, has its own particularly European cultural history. The estate, which fell into disrepair during the Soviet era, is identified with Prince Alexander Chavchavadze, a Georgian aristocrat, who used it in the 1800s to bring to Georgia European-style wine, formal gardens and classical music. Silk Road, which has restored the estate to its former glory with an eye toward historic preservation, now operates two hotels there, as well as nearby vineyard and a fall classical music festival that features young performers from across the Caucasus region. This, too, is profoundly optimistic.
“We thought, ‘How can we bring life to’” the estate, says George Ramishvili, the Silk Road Group’s founder and chairman. “And we chose classical music because it’s related to history.”
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Years ago, Ramishvili connected with the Berlin Philharmonic through Batiashvili, and they started discussing brining the annual Europakonzert to Georgia. “It’s the perfect music but also the message for peace – we’re both about a united Europe,” Ramishvili says. “Europe is Georgia and Georgia is Europe.”
Everything about the concerts brought that idea home. At both shows, the audience seemed to be mostly middle-class Georgians, probably a few years older and a bit more fortunate than most of the protesters, who skewed younger. But they both want more engagement with a Europe that has put aside its conflicts. The European Union has its share of problems, but it represents a more compelling vision of the future than anything coming out of Russia.
None of this hung over the concerts, though. The annual Europakonzert, which is usually but not always performed in an EU member state, is symbolic, for a variety of reasons, including where it happens and the role of Berlin, which has become the cultural capital of Europe. But anyone who didn’t understand the politics, or simply wanted to forget them, would have found the shows just as compelling without that context. At Tsinandali, the stone walls of the amphitheater seemed to magnify the sound, as birdsong broke through the quiet parts of Schubert’s The Magic Harp. Batiashvili brought a richness of tonal color to Brahms’ Violin Concerto in D Major, especially in the Tbilisi Opera and Ballet State Theater, where Harding brought out the orchestra’s power.
Music diplomacy has been a tradition since at least the 1950s, when the U.S. State Department arranged for “Jazz Ambassadors,” most famously Louis Armstrong, to tour the world. Musicians seldom solve international disagreements, and it’s not their job to do so, but shows like this bring countries closer together in a way that shows what they have to offer one another. These two shows made a powerful case for both the value of the European idea and its potential for expansion.
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Nutsa Buzaladze received raves from the American Idol judges when she competed last year on season 21 of the long-running television talent series. Eliminated from the top 12 on April 30, 2023, the singer from the nation of Georgia didn’t sit still. This week she will perform on another televised song contest when she represents her country in the Eurovision Song Contest, which normally reaches a worldwide audience in the hundreds of millions.
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One year after interviewing Nutsa in Hollywood during her time on Idol, Billboard sat down with her again, this time in Malmö, Sweden, to talk about her life since then and what will be the biggest moment of her career so far.
When we talked last year in California, I suggested you sing for Georgia in Eurovision, and here you are. What have the last 12 months been like for you?
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First of all, American Idol was the biggest thing I’ve done in my life. They gave me an open door to new opportunities. Like Lionel [Richie] said to me, “It doesn’t matter what number, you’re a star.” American Idol was a starter for my international career. Being on Idol makes your life much easier because people look at you and say you’re the real deal. I have an agent in America and he had me perform the National Anthem at a Lakers game and a Dodgers game. I had an amazing summer living in Miami and was in the Hamptons for a weekend when a producer [with Georgia’s national broadcaster] called and said, “Nutsa, we are thinking of having you represent your country at Eurovision. When are you coming to Georgia?”
So you said yes to Eurovision?
I told them I only had one condition: I’m going to be involved with every little detail. And they said, “Yes, for sure. We want you to be at your best. We want you to sing the song that you love to sing.” So I had the freedom to be myself and not someone that they want me to be and that is the greatest thing they’ve done for me. And it’s coming from the director of the broadcast.
You’re singing “Firefighter” as the Georgian entry. Who found the song?
We had an open call. We received amazing songs, and we listened to all 300 of them. We had three favorites, and we chose one that I feel very confident in. “Firefighter” was from Darko Dimitrov, a Macedonian producer who has a lot of experience in Eurovision. The writer of the lyrics was Ada Skitka from Estonia. I really loved the song, but only the chorus. I flew from Miami to Macedonia, and we spent three days in the studio finishing the song. It was a very creative process.
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What does representing Georgia in Eurovision mean to you?
I have loved my country ever since I was a very little girl. Because of my country’s history and our people, I want to make them proud. I want to show the world how great Georgia is and how many talented people we have. We are a very small nation and that makes me more motivated to put Georgia on the map everywhere I can. Because especially in America, they think that Georgia is a state.
You competed on Idol and now you’re competing again in Eurovision. What are your thoughts about the competition?
I don’t really think of it as a competition, to be honest. I do it for my career and I do it to become better and to have more experience, because all my life I wanted to have a career where you can go everywhere and sing everywhere. Not only in my country, but everywhere. I think big competitions give you the possibilities to be heard by millions and millions of people and that’s the main reason I’m doing it. I don’t like to compete with anybody. The only person I’m competing with always is myself, because I always want to do something bigger and better.
What was the main lesson you learned during your run on American Idol?
On American Idol, I realized that I had done hard work before, but Idol is the hardest work. I pushed myself to the limits. When I was in my hotel room, I cried because I was so exhausted from the emotions. By the time we were doing the live shows, it was better. I became friends with the contestants and then I became friends with the crew.
What are your plans for your career after Eurovision?
My new single is coming out on May 12. I shot a music video before flying to Malmö. The song is called “Mother’s Day” and I’m releasing it on Mother’s Day. It’s about my mom and she is in the music video with me. I’m sure a lot of people are going to cry because I love my mother very much and I wanted to have a song about her.
What else lies ahead?
There is other news I haven’t told anybody, so I’ve saved it for Billboard. I’ve been invited to audition for Broadway on May 11 [the same day as Eurovision]. So I need to go to New York as soon as possible for that.
Can you tell me for what show?
I don’t think they want me to. It’s a modern musical. The character that they want me to play is very near to who I am in real life and the voice of that character in the songs is my style.
Nutsa Buzaladze will sing “Firefighter” in the first semi-final of the 2024 Eurovision Song Contest on Tuesday (May 7) in Malmö, Sweden. The live broadcast can be seen in the U.S. on Peacock at 3 p.m. ET. If “Firefighter” is one of 10 songs from the 15 semi-final entries that qualifies for the grand final, she will perform the song again on Saturday (May 11). That four-hour show will be seen on Peacock, also at 3 p.m. ET.
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A judge has ruled that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis can continue to prosecute the Donald Trump election interference case in Georgia. The catch is the former love interest of Fani Willis, Nathan Wade, must step down from the case for Willis to proceed.
Several outlets, including The Hill, have been covering the hearings featuring DA Fani Willis and Nathan Wade, which was an issue raised by Trump’s legal team. Willis did not previously disclose the nature of her former relationship with Wade, and both took to the stand sharing with the court the happenings in their brief romantic union.
This was largely seen as an attempt by Trump’s team to not only get Willis off the case but to have the whole matter thrown out in court. However, the case is still going forward as planned, of course, with Wade stepping aside. Wade can also remain as a prosecutor but Willis would have to step aside as Judge Scott McAfee ruled it would be a conflict of interest.
As expected, Trump’s team believes the judge didn’t do enough to change the course for their client and issued a statement pushing back on the decision.
“While respecting the Court’s decision, we believe that the Court did not afford appropriate significance to the prosecutorial misconduct of Willis and Wade, including the financial benefits, testifying untruthfully about when their personal relationship began, as well as Willis’ extrajudicial MLK ‘church speech,’ where she played the race card and falsely accused the defendants and their counsel of racism,” Steve Sadow, Trump’s lead defense counsel in the case, shared in a statement.
A statement has not emerged from Wilis or her team regarding Judge McAfee’s decision.
On X, reactions to the news that DA Fani Willis will be allowed to remain on the Trump election interference case with conditions began cropping up. We’ve got them listed below.
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Nicole Fegan, a defense attorney whose client was connected to the Young Stoner Life list of codefendants, was arrested on unrelated gang charges on Friday (Feb. 16) in Georgia. Fegan, who has several videos online of her discussing her career and connection to clients, is facing multiple gang-related charges that is not connected to the YSL matter despite the chatter online.
The arrest of Nicole Fegan is a fast-developing story so we’ll try to pack in as much as we know currently. Fegan was charged back in February of last year after making contact with the suspect of a Sept. 27, 2022 shooting case that left one man dead.
As local outlet WSB-TV reports, Fegan was arrested for contacting the male suspect in the aforementioned shooting, which contained two victims, in Northwest Atlanta. Fegan was arrested in Gwinnett County and will be transported to Fulton County based on warrants that highlighted she was facing charges of participating in criminal street gang activity and criminal solicitation to commit the offense of tampering with evidence.
Police told WSB-TV that Fegan contacted the suspect by phone but was not part of their legal team thus sparking the warrants for arrest. Fegan alerted the man that there were warrants out for his arrest and that she found out about the warrants during a hearing while instructing the suspect to rid himself of his phone so he couldn’t be tracked digitally.
Fegan did not represent Young Thug in the YSL RICO case. Her client, Tenquarius Mender, had his case split from the wider YSL trial. That said, the arrest of Fegan has caused a stir online with some believing it will have some impact on the YSL RICO trial.
On X, formerly Twitter, the reactions have been pouring in. We’ve got them listed below.
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11. Just in case there are any mixups.
14. Getting the important questions out of the way.
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Fani Willis, the Fulton County District Attorney who has brought an election tampering case in Georgia against former President Donald Trump, took the stand Thursday (Feb. 15) in a hearing connected to the case. Fani Willis took questions along with countering attacks on her character as Trump and his co-defendants are scrambling to have Willis dropped from the prosecution and have the matter tossed out of court.
Fani Willis is facing allegations from Trump’s defense attorney Ashley Merchant who claims that Willis used taxpayer money for personal vacations. Also at the center of questioning is Willis’ romantic relationship with special prosecutor, Nathan Wade, which Trump and his fellow co-defendants believe are grounds to have Willis and Wade removed from the case.
Willis and Wade admitted to the relationship, although testimony from those reportedly close to the pair professionally says that the timing of their relationship contradicted their recollections of their time together. When challenged on why they didn’t reveal the nature of their romance, both Willis and Wade stated that their connection was private.
In one especially tense moment of the hearing, Willis reminded the court that this was simply a hearing of facts and that she was not on trial despite the grilling she and Wade were facing. In answering why she didn’t share financial and personal records with the defense, Willis dropped one of the top zingers of the day.
“I object to you getting records. You’ve been intrusive into peoples’ personal lives. You’re confused. You think I’m on trial. These people are on trial for trying to steal an election in 2020. I’m not on trial, no matter how hard you put me on trial,” Willis said.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has a live update of the hearing that can be found here.
On X, formerly Twitter, reactions are cropping in from all sides.
Read the replies below.
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A lawyer who once represented T.I. is at the center of former president Donald Trump’s defense team for his election interference case in Georgia.
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As the criminal case against Donald Trump brought by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is underway, Steven Sadow, the leading defense lawyer is beginning to make his presence known. He argued before Judge Scott McAfee Friday (Dec. 1), that the court should consider throwing out the 13 felony charges against Trump, stating that his false claims concerning the 2020 presidential election he lost were protected by the First Amendment.
Sadow is best known as a litigator specializing in white-collar cases and representing high-profile figures. One of them, veteran Atlanta rapper and actor T.I., has heaped praise on Sadow in the past by referring to him as “probably the best criminal defense attorney of his time.” In addition, T.I. proclaimed him a person with a “slight hint of genius” after Sadow got him a plea deal with a one-year sentence for gun charges. Sadow was brought on to replace Drew Findling on the day that Donald Trump voluntarily surrendered to Fulton County authorities.
Steven Sadow has defended other notable clients such as Rick Ross (who name-drops him in his 2019 song “Turnpike Ike”), National Football League star Ray Lewis and recently represented Gunna, who was indicted along with Young Thug by Fulton County in a sweeping RICO case last year. Sadow has publicly stated that he’s not a Donald Trump supporter in a post made on X, formerly Twitter, back in 2017.
Sadow, 69, has been reserved about the current case, refusing to respond to press inquiries about his role on the defense team. But he appeared on an episode of the expediTIously with Tip “T.I.” Harris podcast last year to talk about his experiences as a defense attorney, stating his desire to limit the overreach of federal power against the people for being a lawyer. “They’ve got to be protected against the government,” he said.
In the hour-long show, T.I. asked him a pertinent question. “What are the intricacies of cooperation? Like, how do you arrive at that conclusion?”
“When I don’t think I can win,” Sadow replied. “If I don’t think my client’s got a chance of winning in the courtroom, and the risk of trial far, far exceeds the chances of me being successful, I won’t tell them to take the risk.”
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Young Thug and his legal team delivered opening statements on Tuesday (November 28), with an attorney telling the court that the rapper’s lyrics are not evidence of crimes. Instead, the lawyer argued that the music told stories about the rough upbringing Young Thug experienced in the streets of Atlanta and not that of an assumed crime lord.
The RICO trial brought by the state of Georgia against Young Thug and over two dozeon other defendants connected to the alleged street operation YSL opened on Monday (November 27) with prosecutors stating that the rapper, born Jeffrey Williams, was the mastermind of a criminal organization.
As seen in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, attorney Brian Steel pushed back at the assertion that Thug’s success was tied to street crimes instead of his successful music career. Framing Thug’s humble upbringing in an Atlanta housing project as one of 11 children, Steel says that the music the rapper would go on to make was nothing more than him unpacking the things he saw as a young person.
Steel’s statements contrasted with those made by Fulton County’s chief deputy district attorney, Adriane Love, who referred to Young Thug under another name: King Slime. Love stated that as King Slime, Thug directed the YSL gang that, quote, “moved like a pack” under his leadership.
Judge Ural Glanville granted prosecutors passage to use 17 sets of lyrics from Thug in the trial to prove their case. Steel argues that the use of the lyrics is nothing more than artistic expression and a violation of free speech.
On X, formerly Twitter, fans are reacting to Young Thug and his current ordeal. Check out those replies below.
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Fani Willis, the Fulton County District Attorney leading the prosecution against Donald Trump and over a dozen co-conspirators in a RICO case, has proven her mettle time and again. In a fiery rebuke of Republican Party Rep. Jim Jordan, Fani Willis explicitly told the congressman that his investigation into the RICO case makes it appear that he’s out of his legal depths.
Fani Willis sent Rep. Jordan a nine-page letter addressing his plans to investigate her office’s probe into the affairs of Trump and the others named in the RICO case, reports the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. From her viewpoint, Willis sees Jordan’s attempt to look further into her tactics as a form of interfering with the matter.
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Jordan, who chairs the House Judiciary Committee, requested to see communication between the Fulton County DA’s office and the Justice Department as it relates to both the RICO case and the Justice Department also indicting Trump for alleging attempting to overturn the 2020 presidential election in his favor. Jordan’s stance is that Willis is interfering with the 2024 elections and jeopardizes the rights of Trump, who leads all polls as the GOP candidate, and the other defendants named in the case.
In a letter sent out on Thursday (September 7), Willis did not hold back from addressing Jordan’s concerns and the aims of his investigation.
From AJC:
Willis also responded to allegations she is unfairly targeting Trump. She said his “status as a political candidate cannot make him legally immune from criminal prosecution.” She noted the special grand jury recommended charges in the case, and a separate jury issued indictments.
“Face this reality, Chairman Jordan: the select group of defendants who you fret over in my jurisdiction are like every other defendant, entitled to no worse or better treatment than any other American citizen,” she wrote.
Willis blasted Jordan’s request for information as illegal and improper.
“Your letter makes clear that you lack a basic understanding of the law, its practice and the ethical obligations of attorneys generally and prosecutors specifically,” she wrote.
Jordan’s office has yet to make a public reply or statement regarding Willis’ letter.
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