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Fugitive captured in drug-ring case By Josh Kleinbaum Staff Writer Saturday, June 18, 2005 - State and federal agents arrested a fugitive in Van Nuys believed to be a high-ranking member of a transcontinental drug ring, and then seized millions of dollars' worth of drugs, guns and cash from a Woodland Hills home, officials said Friday. Tremayne Graham, 31, the former son-in-law of Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin, had been sought as a fugitive since November and was arrested outside a Van Nuys Subway shop at 12:45 p.m. Thursday, officials said. About six hours later, agents from several agencies served a...

In times past, an open U.S. Senate seat would have touched off a stampede among ambitious Georgia Democrats eager to offer for the job. Even against an incumbent, there sometimes was a crowd. The 1972 race, for example, featured 15 Democratic candidates, counting an appointed incumbent who hadnt held office long. But in the new Georgia, with a Republican in the executive mansion and the GOP controlling eight of 13 congressional seats, Democrats seem to be having a hard time finding candidates for the Senate seat that will come open next year. Sen. Zell Millers post is the only one...

No one ever thought it would be a cakewalk. From that day in January when Johnny Isakson announced he would run for the U.S. Senate, Tom Perdue started hammering the north metro congressman. Perdue said Isakson favored abortion. Said he was too moderate - make that liberal. Said he was too close to the Democrats. Said he was a liar and a hypocrite. That was OK at the time. Tom Perdue is a political consultant, not a candidate. ''Brilliant and ruthless,'' The New York Times recently called him. Some observers doubted that consultant Perdue (no relation to Gov. Sonny Perdue)...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- There's no "probably" about it anymore: U.S. Rep. Mac Collins is running for Senate. Collins, who had already said he would file the papers for a likely run, declared himself a candidateThursday. He'll make it official with a public announcement back in Georgia soon. "I have decided I will be a candidate for the U.S. Senate," Collins, a Jackson Republican, said in an interview with The Associated Press. "I'm a good conservative alternative to other candidates." Collins is referring to fellow Republican Rep. Johnny Isakson, who announced he would run for the post in January -- just...

Every now and then, the political world changes so fast the journalistic one can't keep up properly. For instance, last week we had the pleasant prospect of a simple U.S. Senate primary race between two Republicans prepared to rip each other's face off. Then U.S. Rep. Mac Collins jumped into the race, and ruined a perfectly good portion of a Journal-Constitution poll of 501 statewide voters. We're a little ticked off. Collins committed his news with no apology or acknowledgement that he'd just sent the work product of dozens of diligent telemarketers -- the polite kind who only call only...

Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin says she is entertaining a possible bid for the U.S. Senate based on a poll showing her defeating two powerful Republican congressmen, Johnny Isakson and Mac Collins. The poll is not to be taken lightly. It was conducted for EMILY's List, a liberal women's fund-raising network whose poster woman is Sen. Hillary Clinton. (EMILY, by the way, is not a woman but an acronym: ''Early Money Is Like Yeast,'' meaning that it helps raise dough.) The highly publicized survey is a signal that national Democrats are seriously searching for a candidate to run in the 2004...

ATLANTA - Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin said she's considering running for retiring U.S. Senator Zell Miller's seat next year. "I'm open to the option," Franklin told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution Friday after she mentioned her interest publicly during a Georgia Tech regional planning symposium. Merle Black, a political science professor at Emory University, said Franklin may win a Democratic primary but questioned her chances of winning a statewide contest during an election year with President Bush on top of the ticket. "If things remain the way they are now, Bush would be running very strongly among Republicans and independents in Georgia,"...

This should get some Democratic tongues to wagging. Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin leads either of two Republican congressmen, Johnny Isakson and Mac Collins, in a statewide poll released Thursday by EMILY's List, the women's political fund-raising organization. In a hypothetical match with Isakson, who has declared for Zell Miller's Senate seat, she has a 45-38 percent advantage. She holds a 45-35 lead over Collins, who has not declared. That's even though the same 46 percent of those same voters say they would generally prefer a Republican in the Senate race, compared with 40 percent preferring the generic Democrat. The poll...