People can claim $3,000 deduction for fetuses reaching six weeks gestation – but ‘it’s abortion politics’ not tax policy, experts say There were more than 36,000 “unborn children” claimed in tax filings in Georgia in 2022, the year the state enacted an abortion ban that also let people claim fetuses as dependents. Claiming that fetus, however, may have only netted individuals less than a couple hundred dollars in a state where a fifth of all children live in poverty. Georgia currently bans abortion past six weeks of pregnancy, which is before many women know they’re pregnant. But that ban, unl ..read more

Tributes paid to music producer who helped write TLC’s Waterfalls and worked on albums by OutKast and CeeLo Green Rico Wade, one of the architects of Atlanta’s “dirty south” hip-hop sound, who co-produced albums by OutKast, Goodie Mob and CeeLo Green and who co-wrote TLC’s 1994 hit Waterfalls, has died. He was 52. Atlanta’s mayor, Andre Dickens, paid tribute to Wade, saying he had “led in the creation of a hip-hop sound that has spanned decades and genres. Rico left an indelible mark on music and culture around the world and for that, the south will always have something to say ..read more

The Kappa Alpha Theta members jumped into action to save Cori Craft and her two sons after their SUV veered off into a creek With her two sons accompanying her, Cori Craft had just accidentally driven her SUV into a creek in rural Georgia, and she couldn’t find her phone to summon help as the car rapidly sank. Thoughts that she and her family could soon drown started to flood her mind. But then she heard a voice call out and ask if she was OK. Her reply that she was not OK was the only thing five college sorority members needed to hear to work together to pull Craft and her boys out – and then ..read more

Fulton county lawyers ask state appeals court to deny request by ex-president, who is charged with efforts to overturn 2020 election Fulton county prosecutors asked the Georgia state court of appeals on Monday to reject Donald Trump’s request to consider his claim that the district attorney should be disqualified over a relationship with her deputy, arguing that the matter was correctly settled by the lower court judge. “The present application merely reflects the applicants’ dissatisfaction with the trial court’s proper application of well-established law to the facts,” prosecutors wrote in a ..read more

Augusta National taps into fever for ‘pretty wild’ moment with branded solar glasses – which rapidly become a must-have They say bats come out during a solar eclipse, and owls too. Hippos have been seen to move towards their nighttime feeding grounds, bees to fly back to their hives and refuse to emerge until the sun comes back out, crickets begin to chirrup, mosquitoes come out for the evening, spiders take down their webs to protect them from the nighttime dew. Last time they had a solar eclipse one around these parts, scientists working at Riverbanks zoo over in South Carolina noticed that ..read more

Petition to Inter-American Commission on Human Rights filed on behalf of Manuel Paez Terán, aka ‘Tortuguita’, and their mother Human rights groups have filed a petition to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights calling for a US Department of Justice investigation into the police killing of “Cop City” protester Manuel Paez Terán, as well as the release of all related evidence, and apologies to the family from the US government. Two organizations – Robert F Kennedy Human Rights and the Southern Center for Human Rights – together with the University of Dayton Human Rights Center filed the ..read more

Trump’s Presidential Records Act argument could be resurrected at trial even as the judge denied his motion to dismiss The federal judge overseeing Donald Trump’s prosecution on charges of retaining classified documents denied his effort to have the case dismissed on the contention that the Presidential Records Act allowed him to transform them as personal property and possess them at his Mar-a-Lago club. The ruling by US district judge Aileen Cannon was significant as it struck one of Trump’s main defenses and suggested the case is headed to trial ..read more

Several tornadoes spotted across the midwest and southern states, and 275,000 people in multiple states are without power Millions of people across the US were bracing for extreme weather on Wednesday as a powerful system of thunderstorms swept across several states, bringing intense winds, rain, and other dangerous weather conditions. As of Wednesday morning, more than 275,000 residents in Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan and Kentucky were without power due to severe storms, according to poweroutage.us ..read more

Ex-president’s decision to sell Bibles branded with his name is ‘risky business’, says Warnock, pastor of historic Atlanta church Donald Trump’s decision to sell Bibles branded under his name is “risky business”, the Democratic US senator Raphael Warnock said on Sunday, as the former president stands accused of having few moral scruples in four separate criminal indictments pending against him. “The Bible does not need Donald Trump’s endorsement,” Warnock, the pastor of Atlanta’s historic Ebenezer Baptist church, said to CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday. Speaking on Easter, one of Christiani ..read more

A small but aggressive group has been pressuring state officials on a weekly – sometimes daily – basis to investigate unfounded claims In December, a Texas man named Kevin Moncla emailed Georgia election board members in response to their decision not to investigate the secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, over bogus election fraud claims. Moncla made a vague threat that he was willing to take things outside the bounds of his increasingly frustrated emails. The communication alarmed members of the state election board (SEB) enough to contact federal law enforcement ..read more