Category: Latest News

UPDATED with photos from KELLY JORDAN….

The Democratic National Committee came to Atlanta this week almost equally divided between two candidates for chairman – former U.S. Labor Secretary Tom Perez and Congressman Keith Ellison.

But on Saturday, after the election went to second ballot of voting, Perez won the chairmanship in a vote of 235 to 200.

For more than 31 years, Julie Ralston has been the communications voice for the Atlanta Regional Commission.

On Feb. 21, she retired as ARC’s director of the Center for Strategic Relations – complete with a state proclamation, slide show of Ralston through the years as well as video, a reception following the organization’s board meeting and a party at Manuel’s.

The 79th annual meeting of the DeKalb Chamber of Commerce featured Bill Hornbuckle, president of MGM Resorts International, as its keynote speaker.

It was a bit unusual because the state legislature is considering bills that would permit voters to allow casino gaming with a resort – but it is virtually predetermined that the main location would be in Fulton County, state’s most populous county located just west of DeKalb. Of course, the lunch was held at the Georgia Aquarium, which also is in Fulton County.

Rosalynn and Jimmy Carter were awarded Georgia Tech’s prestigious 2017 Ivan Allen Jr. Prize for Social Courage Friday – linking the legacies of two iconic Georgia political families.

It was the first time in its five–year history that the Allen Prize has been given to a couple rather than an individual.

Nearly 350 people attended the Climate & Health Meeting at the Carter Center – led by former Vice President Al Gore – to learn of the public health impacts of climate change.

Originally, the meeting was supposed to have been a three-day session held at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But the CDC cancelled the event on the eve of Donald Trump being inaugurated into office, likely for pre-emptive political reasons.

Atlanta is preparing to host Rotary’s 108th annual international convention from June 10 to 14 – with at least one super-star keynote speaker.

Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, will be one among a lineup of world-class speakers. The Gates Foundation and Rotary International have an ongoing match of 2:1 to support polio eradication efforts up to $35 million a year.

Stephanie and Jerome Russell were enjoying themselves at a Super Bowl party in Houston Saturday night when their 16-year-old daughter reached out to them.

Someone had vandalized one of her friend’s car parked in front of the Russell’s Ansley Park home by writing racist slurs – including “nigger”, “faggot”, “kyke”, “hollacauct” (sic) meaning holocaust, and “fag.”

Parks will be a priority of Atlanta’s next mayor – at least that’s what the eight leading mayoral candidates said during a Park Pride roundtable Thursday morning.

The old City Council Chambers at Atlanta City Hall were filled with 406 boxes containing 1.476 million documents related to the federal bribery investigation involving contractor E.R. Mitchell.

With a huge stack of boxes as a backdrop, Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed said the city was making the documents available to the media in an effort to be transparent. Information in the files had been redacted to protect the release of social security numbers and other personal data of people not directly related to the case.

The words of Coretta Scott King are breathing new life after U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Ma.) was silenced by her colleagues Tuesday night while reading a 1986 letter from the civil rights leader objecting to Jeff Sessions becoming a federal judge.

For Warren, the words were especially meaningful at this moment in time when the U.S. Senate was preparing to vote on whether Sen. Sessions should become the nation’s next Attorney General.