Prosecutors in spa shootings could be first to weigh Georgia's new hate crime law
CBSN
Prosecutors investigating the killings of six Asian women and two other people at Atlanta-area spas last week could be the first to use Georgia's hate crime law if they decide to pursue a hate crime sentencing enhancement for the 21-year-old suspect under the new statute.
Georgia was one of four states without hate crime laws on its books -- along with South Carolina, Arkansas and Wyoming -- until a hate crimes bill was passed into law there last year. The effort to pass the bill was renewed after the killing of Ahmaud Arbery, a Black man who was gunned down by two White men as he jogged through a coastal Georgia neighborhood in February 2020. The new Georgia law has not been used since it was signed into law by Gov. Brian Kemp in June, said Chuck Efstration, a Republican member of the Georgia House of Representatives who championed the bill with bipartisan support. It mandates enhanced sentencing for defendants convicted of targeting a victim because of their "actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender, mental disability, or physical disability."Billions of cicadas are emerging across about 16 states in the Southeast and Midwest. Periodical cicadas used to reliably emerge every 13 or 17 years, depending on their brood. But in a warming world where spring conditions arrive sooner, climate change is messing with the bugs' internal alarm clocks.
Senate Democrats to unveil package to protect IVF as party makes reproductive rights push this month
Washington — A group of Senate Democrats is set to unveil a new package to protect access to IVF on Monday, as the party makes a push around reproductive rights this month — two years after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.