Georgia
Clerk sued for denying ‘Stop Cop City’ petition lets effort go forward
ATLANTA (AP) — Facing a lawsuit from opponents of Atlanta’s proposed police and firefighter training center, the city clerk on Wednesday approved a petition that seeks to force a voter referendum on halting the complex.
The approval of the petition, which the clerk had twice rejected over technicalities, clears a significant hurdle for “Stop Cop City” activists, who have been gearing up to gather more than 70,000 signatures by Aug. 15 in order to get on the November ballot.
Demonstrators say they hope they’ll be able to start gathering signatures Thursday, barring any other delays from the clerk’s office.
“We are grateful that the Municipal Clerk has fulfilled her legal obligation to recognize our repeated efforts to incorporate her requested changes in a timely manner,” said Mariah Parker, who filed the initial petition.
Irate over Waldon’s earlier rejection of the petition, activists had filed a lawsuit against the city Tuesday and asked a judge to force Waldon to approve the form.
Waldon confirmed to The Associated Press on Wednesday that she has approved the petition. She declined to comment on the lawsuit.
Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens and others say the $90 million center would replace inadequate training facilities and would help address difficulties in hiring and retaining police officers that worsened after nationwide protests against police brutality and racial injustice three years ago.
But opponents, who have been joined by activists from around the country, say they fear it will lead to greater militarization of the police and that its construction will exacerbate environmental damage in a poor, majority-Black area. The “Stop Cop City” effort has gone on for more than two years and at times has veered into vandalism and violence.
The initial petition was filed June 7, a day after the City Council rejected hundreds of protesters’ pleas to refuse to fund the training facility.
The referendum would ask voters whether they want to repeal the ordinance that authorized the lease of the city-owned land where the project is set to be built.
In order for the language to get on the ballot, organizers must first gather the signatures of more than 70,000 registered Atlanta voters. They’re soliciting money to pay canvassers.
Construction crews have already begun clearing wide swaths of the overgrown, urban forest in an unincorporated area of DeKalb County ahead of the construction of the 85-acre (34-hectare) campus. Project opponents said they plan to seek a court order to halt the work pending the outcome of their ballot effort.
As approved by the City Council in September 2021, the land is being leased to the private Atlanta Police Foundation for $10 a year. The proposed referendum would seek to cancel that agreement.
Missouri
Ex-FBI analyst sentenced for keeping classified material at home
A former FBI analyst has been sentenced to nearly four years in prison for keeping classified documents at her Kansas City-area home.
Kendra Kingsbury, 50, pleaded guilty in October to two counts of unlawfully retaining documents related to national defense. She was sentenced Wednesday to three years and 10 months in prison.
As an intelligence analyst in the FBI’s Kansas City, Missouri, office, Kingsbury had a high-level security clearance that gave her access to national defense and classified information. She worked in that role from 2004 to Dec. 15, 2017.
During her plea hearing, she admitted that she took 386 classified documents and kept them in her home in North Kansas City, Missouri. She also admitted that she retained and destroyed other classified and/or national defense information, the U.S. Justice Department said in a news release. She kept the documents on hard drives, compact discs and other storage media.
The information she took included documents classified at the secret level, some of which included U.S. efforts related to counterterrorism, details on specific FBI investigations, and sensitive operations in national security investigations and the FBI’s technical capabilities, the release said.
She also kept documents from another government agency that described intelligence sources and methods related to efforts to collect intelligence on terrorist groups, as well information on activities of emerging terrorists, federal prosecutors said.
An investigation into how Kingsbury may have used the documents “revealed more questions and concerns than answers,” according to the release. The investigation found that a number of suspicious calls to and from numbers associated with counterterrorism investigations, the release said, but Kingsbury has declined to say why she contacted those individuals.
In a court document submitted before the sentencing, Kingsbury’s attorneys asked that she be sentenced to probation. Although the document does not indicate a motive for Kingsbury’s actions, her attorneys note that she self-reported having taken the documents, had no previous criminal record and successfully met all legal requirements while on pre-trial release.
Her attorneys say Kingsbury had several serious medical and family issues that began shortly after she started working for the FBI, and has experienced public embarrassment and employment difficulties since she was fired from the agency. She most recently lived in Garden City, Kansas, where she was a single mother and the caretaker for her elderly mom.
New York
Aunt, dad helped Santos stay out of jail while he awaits trial
NEW YORK (AP) — Two relatives helped indicted U.S. Rep. George Santos stay out of detention while he awaits trial by guaranteeing his bond, according to court records unsealed Thursday, answering two of many questions surrounding the Republican’s finances.
The documents revealed that Santos’ father, Gercino dos Santos, and an aunt, Elma Preven, were the two people who co-signed the $500,000 bond, which enabled his pretrial release as he awaits trial on federal charges of fraud, money laundering and theft of public funds.
Santos, R-N.Y., had fought to keep their names secret. They were revealed after media organizations, including The Associated Press, petitioned the court for the records to be unsealed, citing the right of public access to court proceedings.
In a court filing earlier this month, his attorney, Joseph Murray, said Santos would rather go to jail than subject his guarantors to the “great harm” that could come from public disclosure. Under the bond agreement, the co-signers did not have to pay any money upfront, but would be held financially liable if Santos did not return to court.
