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A reference to Palestinians' "right of return" in the report issued by the high-level Iraq Study Group broke a diplomatic taboo which sparked immediate concern in Israel and surprise among Middle East policy experts. The reference was buried deep inside a 160-page report that urged US President George W. Bush to renew efforts to revive Israel-Palestinian peace talks as part of a region-wide bid to end the chaos in Iraq. "This report is worrisome for Israel particularly because, for the first time, it mentions the question of the 'right of return' for the Palestinian refugees of 1948," said a senior...

Smyrna police Wednesday had not yet identified the man shot and killed by officers at a Vinings tire store Tuesday and had not asked the GBI to investigate the shooting. While police have not released the man’s name, his parents came to the scene of the fatal shooting Tuesday afternoon, identified the dead man as Nicholas Taft Thomas and called for the FBI to look into the incident. Felecia Thomas told Channel 2 Action News that her son loved cars and his family. “My son was a lovable guy,” she said. “He would do anything for anybody. He just had...

Some sort of tipping point seems to have been reached, with Sunday morning brunch patrons no longer willing to sit passively as noisy protesters attempt to guilt-trip them about being white, or having the disposable income to go out for a nice brunch, or something (in my view, mostly anger about being such losers). Gateway Pundit reports on the pushback in Atlanta and Minneapolis eateries yesterday. In Atlanta: Black Brunch protesters invaded several Decatur, Georgia restaurants on Sunday. Protesters report two establishments called police, with managers from Sweet Melissa’s trying unsuccessfully to throw them out.

Gordon, GA – A citizens group in an East Georgia town that wants the removal of their mayor has posted a video showing a confrontation between the mayor and a police officer making a DUI arrest. The group “Concerned Citizens of Gordon, Ga.” posted the video on their Facebook page, showing the exchange between Gordon Mayor Mary Ann Whipple-Lue and the officer. The group says they obtained the video recorded on Monday night, March 16, by a body camera on the officer through an Open Records request. The arrest took place in front of the mayor’s property. Read more at...

A reader sent me a copy of the cover of the new University of North Georgia continuing education catalog asked with this question, “Are they crazy?” It’s a valid question given the awkwardness of the image and its pairing with a headline that asks, “Why follow when you can lead?” The illustration features two exultant white men — dressed like missionaries for some reason — well ahead of a woman in heels wearing what looks to be an ensemble from “Dynasty” and a black male in more casual attire who appears to be struggling to finish the race. I thought...

The Republican-led House passed budget resolutions every year since taking control in the 2010 midterms, while Senate Democrats under Harry Reid refused to pass any at all for four years. After less than 24 hours, though, a Republican “failure” to come up with an agreement between the House and the Senate is not just “cataclysmic” already, but proof that the GOP can’t handle the “basic functions of governing.” Republicans handled it for four years while Democrats failed to perform the basic function of legislating, but somehow that didn’t get seen as “cataclysmic” for them at Politico. Maybe Politico’s analysts could...

Speaker John Boehner has made plans to bypass House conservatives and ram through two items opposed by the right. He will try and pass a budget deal, using a parliamentary manuever to speed passage. He is also planning a vote on the so-called Medicare "doc fix" he negotiated with Nancy Pelosi last week. Politico: If they’re able to clear the two measures, a battered leadership will go into the Easter recess with some pep in its step, as it tries to extend highway funding, begin work on annual appropriations bills and raise the debt ceiling. Not to mention, passing a...

House fiscal conservatives took the upper hand — for the moment — Thursday in their struggle with Republican defense hawks for control of the GOP’s 2016 budget proposal. After 24 hours of uncertainty and stops and starts, the House Budget Committee voted along party lines, 22-13, to send a leaner spending plan to the House floor for a vote. GOP leadership had pressured Budget Chairman Tom Price, R-Ga., all week to find enough votes on his panel to boost the plan’s funding for the Overseas Contingency Operations account. Without that additional defense spending, many House Republicans said they wouldn’t support...

ATLANTA — After more than five years of controversy and five months of testimony, a prosecutor used seven words on Monday to recap the accusations against the dozen Atlanta educators seated in a courtroom here. “They cheated,” the prosecutor, John E. Floyd, told the jurors in Fulton County Superior Court. “They lied. And they stole.” Mr. Floyd’s scornful summary came near the start of what will be days of closing arguments centered on whether significant increases in standardized test scores in Atlanta’s public schools came about because of endemic cheating and what prosecutors say was criminal misconduct that included racketeering....

A routine traffic stop turned into a drug interrogation for an elderly couple in Walton County. CBS46 began investigating the incident when the couple passing through Georgia complained that a deputy crossed the line. Charles Tharp, 69, never expected that his family vacation would end the way it did. He and his wife had just visited their grandchild in Texas and were headed back home to North Carolina when a Walton County Sheriff's deputy stopped them. “It just seemed a little unusual because we're not speeding and we're always careful drivers,” said Charles Tharp. Tharp and his wife were told...

<p>ATLANTA (AP) — The state Senate has passed a resolution demanding that the New York-based College Board redo its most recent revision of the Advancement Placement U.S. History exam.</p> <p>Republican Sen. William Ligon Jr. of Brunswick has said the test is biased to the left and should be changed, or the state should not use it. Lawmakers in at least three other states have expressed similar views.</p>

'Game The system’? Nonprofits, Including Farrakhan-Tied Group, Enjoy Windfall From Farm Subsidies Published March 09, 2014 FoxNews.com, Emily Boyd Walker Several nonprofits that have little to do with farming or are in poor standing with their local governments have been receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars in farm subsidies over the past decade, federal records show. They include an Islamic charity tied to Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, a Midwestern group devoted to waterfowl habitat, and a major conservation group with few farms to its name. The group tied to Farrakhan, called the Three Year Economic Saving Program, has...

*A white, Atlanta-area police officer shot and killed a naked and unarmed African-American man who was said to be acting erratically in his apartment complex and possibly suffering from a mental illness, reports Reuters. This becomes third African-American man to be shot dead by police since last Friday, who either was or seemed unarmed. In Monday’s shooting, a Dekalb County police officer responded to a caller who said a man was “acting deranged, knocking on doors, and crawling around on the ground naked,” on Monday around 1 p.m. local time, county police chief Cedric Alexander told reporters. The officer confronted...

Forty-seven Senate Republicans are signaling in an open letter to Iran and the White House that a deal over Tehran’s nuclear program will be at risk once President Obama leaves office. “It has come to our attention while observing your nuclear negotiations with our government that you may not fully understand our constitutional system,” the senators wrote in the letter, which was first reported by Bloomberg. “Thus, we are writing to bring to your attention two features of our Constitution — the power to make binding international agreements and the different character of federal offices — which you should seriously...

The Talk Shows March 8th, 2015 Guests to be interviewed today on major television talk shows: FOX NEWS SUNDAY (Fox Network): Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga. ; former Gov. Mike Huckabee, R-Ark.MEET THE PRESS (NBC): Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Claire McCaskill, D-Mo.; Lewis.FACE THE NATION (CBS): Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu; Sens. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Tim Scott, R-S.C.; Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C.; Benjamin Crump, lawyer for the family of Michael Brown, the unarmed black 18-year-old shot to death by a white police officer in Ferguson.THIS WEEK (ABC): Mayor James Knowles of Ferguson, Missouri;...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Bruised but undeterred, some of the far-right Republicans who picked a fight in Congress and lost this week over funding the U.S. domestic security agency say they're just getting started. The views of a handful of first-term conservatives who spoke with Reuters after the Department of Homeland Security battle suggest more conflict among Republicans lies ahead. At the core of these House of Representatives members' defiance is a conviction that their duty as lawmakers lies first with constituents and the Constitution, while House Speaker John Boehner's agenda comes further down the list. For Boehner, who was stunningly...

AMERICUS, GA (WALB) - Investigators arrested a 5th person Wednesday in the double-murder of a Sumter County mother and son. Officers arrested Demetrious Hubbard and charged him with murder in the case. Hubbard's arrest comes after four other suspects were denied bond in a first appearance Wednesday afternoon. Ruhemmeion King is also charged murder. Investigators said he shot Dallas and Bonnie Freeman several times, before setting their house on fire Friday. The three other men arrested, Reginald Mathis, Brandon Prince, and Qwinterrious Dodson were charged with theft by receiving stolen property. Mathis and Dodson were also charged with possession of...

A gunman ambushed cops and killed a veteran detective early Wednesday during a door-to-door shooting spree in an Atlanta-area suburb, police said. Det. Terence Avery Green, a 22-year veteran Fulton County officer, died in a shootout with the suspect, the Atlanta Journal Constitution reported. Police said the suspect was possibly drunk when he started terrorizing the Cedar Grove neighborhood near Fairburn, Ga., early Wednesday. He carried a long barrel gun and banged on doors. Then, he fired into some of the homes, police said. Fulton County cops responded to the scene around 1:30 a.m., and the man opened fire on...

Currently, 61 members of Congress have confirmed they will not attend the speech. Arizona Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ) California Rep. Karen Bass (D-CA) Rep. Lois Capps (D-CA) Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) — “I am disappointed Speaker Boehner chose to irresponsibly interject politics into what has long been a strong and bipartisan relationship between the United States and Israel. As President Obama has noted, it is inappropriate for a Head of State to address Congress just two weeks ahead of their election. I agree that Congress should not be used as a prop in Israeli election campaigns,...

The execution of the only woman on Georgia's death row has been postponed at the last minute for a second time in less than a week - because the drug used in the lethal injection she was scheduled to receive was 'cloudy'. Kelly Renee Gissendaner, 46, was due to be given an injection of pentobarbital at a prison in Jackson at 7pm on Monday in retribution for plotting the murder of her husband in 1997. But after officials observed the drug to be used in the execution had a 'cloudy' appearance, they postponed her death until a future, unspecified date...