Last Week November 18 2000

nov. 7
NO LIBERTY IN LIBERIA: Former President Jimmy Carter announces that he’s closing the Carter Center’s offices in Liberia, citing human rights concerns and local officials’ intimidation of journalists. ... SERVICE ORGANIZATION: Four University of Georgia fraternity members get a total of 200 hours of community service for transporting blindfolded pledges in the cargo hold of a sport utility vehicle. ... HEINOUS CRIME: A 12-year-old boy denies in court that he joined 25 other men and boys in the gang-rape of a 13-year-old mentally retarded girl, departing from his original story that she had performed oral sex on him.
NOV. 8
SHAKE AND BAKE: The Air Force’s Nuclear Weapons and Counter Proliferation Agency meets with other military officials in Savannah to discuss the possible location and volatility of a nuclear bomb jettisoned near Tybee Island in 1958. ... VICTIMS’ TURN: Six Heritage High School students who were shot by T.J. Solomon in May 1999 tell the Rockdale County judge who will sentence Solomon that their lives will never be the same. ... PROTECTED SECTION: Decatur residents finagle a 90-day moratorium on demolition and development along a stretch of Clairemont Avenue by applying for historic district status.
NOV. 9
NO-COUNT VOTES: Not to be outdone by the general election scandal in Florida, Cherokee County officials announce that about 1,000 absentee ballots were inadvertently not counted. ... COLD-BLOODED: A Gwinnett County cop testifies that one of two 16-year-old girls accused of murdering a 17-year-old girl — who thought she was being inducted into their gang — missed on her first gunshot, got her gun jammed on the second, then borrowed a gun to finish the job. ... TOO HOT TO HANDLE: Fire inspectors announce that Buckhead’s resplendent Nunnally Mansion burned on Oct. 17 as a result of plumbers’ welding on pipes.
NOV. 10
A ZELL OF A MESS: Trying to reduce the number of college kids in remedial classes, Gov. Roy Barnes’ floor leader in the state house says he will support awarding HOPE scholarships based on end-of-course test scores. ... BEYOND THE RIGHT TO VOTE: The DeKalb County chapter of the NAACP calls for voting reforms in response to long lines that forced some citizens to wait until nearly 11 p.m. to cast a ballot in the controversy-wrought General Election.
NOV. 11
FINDING THE RIGHT SPIN: Civil rights leaders plan to use the word “retire” rather than “remove” when talking about changing the state’s Confederate-battle-emblem-embossed flag. ... IT’S A BIRD, IT’S A PLANE, IT’S AN EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITY: A crew at the Fernbank Museum of Natural History assembles a replica of an Anhanguera, a flying dinosaur with an 18-foot wingspan. ... LONG-DEAD PASSION: Musicologists at Emory University preface a performance of Bach’s “The Passion of St. John” with a discussion of whether the work is anti-Semitic.
NOV. 12
BETTER TO GIVE: Developer James H. Cowart gives the North Atlanta Community Church 5.5 acres of land valued at $1.2 million. ... NOT A HOCKEY TOWN: The Atlanta Thrashers tie the Washington Capitols 2-2 in D.C. — far from the mostly-empty seats back home.
NOV. 13
SHIFTING FARTHER RIGHT: State house Republicans topple Minority Leader Bob Irvin (R-Atlanta) in favor of a more conservative leader, Lynn Westmoreland (R-Sharpsburg). ... OLD ENOUGH TO REMEMBER: Cobb County courts officials say that a mentally retarded 13-year-old girl functions as an 8-year-old, which may determine how the case against 25 men and boys who allegedly gang-raped her is prosecuted.