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The Biden administration said this week that it has shipped enough monkeypox vaccine to deliver the first of two doses to all of the 1.6 million people identified to be at the highest risk of infection from the virus. The administration expects to have enough for second doses available by the end of next month. The administration says the challenge is to ensure all of those deemed at the highest risk get vaccinated. Currently, the U.S. has the most monkeypox infections of any country during the current outbreak — more than 16,000. About 98% of U.S. cases are men and about 93% were men. No one in the U.S. has died, but deaths have been reported in other countries.
Sandra Deal, the former first lady of Georgia who devoted her life to education and literacy, died Tuesday from breast cancer that metastasized into brain cancer. She was 80. Deal was diagnosed with Stage 1 breast cancer in 2018 after a routine mammogram. She went public with her diagnosis to encourage women to get mammograms. The former first lady is survived by her husband Nathan; her children Jason, Mary Emily, Carrie, and Katie; and six grandchildren.
The National Archives recovered 100 documents bearing classified markings, totaling more than 700 pages, from an initial batch of 15 boxes retrieved from Mar-a-Lago earlier this year, according to newly public government correspondence with the Trump legal team. The numbers make clear the large volume of secret government documents recovered months ago from former President Donald Trump’s Florida estate, well before FBI officials returned there with a search warrant on Aug. 8 and removed an additional 11 sets of classified records. The warrant also reveals an FBI investigation into the potential unlawful retention of the records as well as obstruction of justice. The figures on documents were included in a May 10 letter in which acting archivist Debra Steidel Wall told a lawyer for Trump, Evan Corcoran, that the Biden administration would not be honoring the former president’s claims of executive privilege over the documents.
Democratic U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock unveiled three pieces of legislation this past week to make housing more affordable. One would create a tax credit for people who pay more than 30% of their income in rent. The second would establish tax-free savings accounts that can be used to make a down payment on a home. The third would require the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to collect more data on affordable housing.
Kelly Goodlett, a former Louisville police detective who helped write the warrant that led to the deadly police raid at Breonna Taylor’s apartment has pleaded guilty to a federal conspiracy charge. Federal investigators said Goodlett added a false line to the warrant and later conspired with another detective to create a cover story when Taylor’s March 13, 2020, shooting death by police began gaining attention. Taylor, a 26-year-old Black woman, was shot to death by officers who knocked down her door while executing a drug search warrant.
A Pennsylvania man who beat a Washington, D.C., police officer with a Trump flag during the Capitol riot was sentenced to nearly four years in federal prison, which is one of the harshest punishments imposed so far for a person accused in the Jan. 6 attack. Howard Richardson, 72, apologized during a sentencing hearing, saying “there’s no excuse” for his behavior that day. Still, he stressed that the officer involved hadn’t been seriously hurt and pleaded with the court for mercy. Richardson was ordered to serve three years under court supervision after his release and to pay $2,000 in restitution.
A special prosecutor has closed the book on efforts to file criminal charges against the Atlanta police officers involved in Rayshard Brooks’ death. However, the city still faces three
separate lawsuits surrounding the 2020 incident.
Kobe Bryant’s widow, Vanessa Bryant, was awarded $16 million as part of a $31 million jury verdict Wednesday against Los Angeles County for deputies and firefighters sharing grisly photos of the NBA star, his 13-year-old daughter, and other victims killed in a 2020 helicopter crash. The nine jurors unanimously agreed with her attorneys that the photos invaded her privacy and caused emotional distress. The jury deliberated 4 1/2 hours before reaching the verdict on Kobe Bryant Day, which is celebrated in LA on Aug. 24 because it represents his jersey numbers — 8 and 24 — and is the day after his birthday. He would have turned 44 on Tuesday.
A Fulton County special grand jury investigating interference in Georgia’s 2020 elections is seeking the testimony of former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, Trump campaign attorney Sidney Powell and others next month. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis filed petitions seeking their testimony in Fulton Superior Court on Thursday. Former Trump campaign adviser Boris Epshteyn and James “Phil” Waldron, a Meadows contact and cyber researcher, have also been summoned.
A former head of security at Twitter alleged that the company misled regulators about its cybersecurity defenses, privacy protections, and its ability to detect and root out fake accounts, according to a whistleblower complaint filed with U.S. officials. The revelation could create serious legal and financial problems for the social media platform, which is currently attempting to force Tesla CEO Elon Musk to consummate his $44 billion offer to buy the company.
The Development Authority of Cobb County on Tuesday agreed to give Lockheed Martin up to an estimated $77 million in tax breaks over the next 26 years, in the largest agreement the authority has ever approved. Lockheed Martin requested tax breaks in July to make the company a competitive bidder for future federal defense contracts, company leaders said. They expect to spend up to $1.6 billion on expansion projects dependent on winning bids, and estimate between 500 and 3,000 new jobs could come to Cobb County if they win the federal contracts.
In the latest episode of Campaigning While Herschel Walker, the U.S. Senate candidate left many folks scratching their heads after he spoke at an event with the Republican Jewish Committee in Sandy Springs. At one point Walker said, “Don’t we have enough trees around here?” The candidate was criticizing the federal climate change, tax, and health care law that President Joe Biden recently signed. Walker went on to describe the measure as a waste of tax dollars, singling out a plan to spend $150 million per year to plant trees in “urban forests” in cities such as Atlanta where rapid development has stripped out established trees and increased the risk of flooding. “They continue to try to fool you that they are helping you out,” Walker said. “But they’re not. Because a lot of money, it’s going to trees. Don’t we have enough trees around here?” Yeah, that’s a head-scratcher.
Friday marked the fifth anniversary of the opening of Mercedes-Benz Stadium, which has hosted 11.6 million fans at 226 events since making its debut with a Falcons exhibition game on Aug. 26, 2017. The stadium has hosted a Super Bowl (Feb. 3, 2019), a College Football Playoff national championship game (Jan. 8, 2018), and an MLS Cup final (Dec. 8, 2018). It would have hosted a college basketball Final Four in 2020 if not for the pandemic. As stadium officials and staffers celebrate the fifth anniversary, they are also looking ahead. In June, soccer’s global governing body, FIFA, named Mercedes-Benz Stadium one of the sites of 2026 World Cup matches. Last week, the College Football Playoff announced it would return its national championship game to the stadium in January 2025, when Atlanta will become the first two-time host of the game
The 2022 hurricane season has been uncharacteristic calm and the calm conditions might not change for the remainder of August, forecasters say. This could be just the third August since 1961, and the first August since 1997, without a named storm, according to AccuWeather, an independent forecasting service. This season’s calm follows 2021, the third-most active season with 21 named storms, and 2020, the most active season with 30 named storms.
Owners of some Hyundai Palisade and Kia Telluride SUVs are being told they should park their vehicles outside and away from structures until they can be repaired because of a fire risk associated with accessory trailer hitches that triggered manufacturer recalls in recent days. The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration issued the consumer alert for the fire risk last week for owners of certain 2020 to 2022 model year Palisade and Telluride vehicles. The recall covers more than 245,000 Palisade models and more than 36,000 Tellurides. Kia assembles its popular Telluride SUV at its factory in West Point, about 80 miles southwest of downtown Atlanta.