1. Sanders to cut hundreds of staff members and focus on California.
Battered by four defeats in Tuesday night's primaries, Bernie Sanders is planning to lay off hundreds of campaign staffers across the country and focus much of his remaining effort on winning the June 7 California primary. The Vermont senator revealed the changes a day after Hillary Clinton's victories widened her delegate lead and left her all but certain to win the Democratic presidential nomination. Despite the changes, Sanders said he would remain in the race through the party's summer convention and stressed that he hoped to bring staff members back on board if his political fortunes improved. Read more.
The organization that raised $1.3 million in a failed effort to bring the 2015 World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates to Atlanta has reimbursed all the companies and individuals that signed on as sponsors for the event, according to the nonprofit's law firm. The only sponsor that has not reached a settlement is the city of Atlanta, which provided $25,000 through the Hartsfield-Jackson Airport Authority. The summit was supposed to be the largest gathering of Nobel peace laureates in history, and the largest global event in Atlanta since the 1996 Olympic Games. But it fell apart after YCL president Mohammad Bhuivan repeatedly clashed with Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed and others trying to organize the event. Read more.
3. End of jury selection approaches in Justin Ross Harris trial.
Seven more jurors were qualified to serve in the Justin Ross Harris murder trial Wednesday. They are: a woodworker who's a union member; an antique dealer born in France; a software engineer whose mom works at Home Depot; a U.S. Army reservist who lived in Alaska at the time little Cooper Harris died; a management consultant who travels out of state all the time; an Acworth woman who may seek an exemption because she's a full-time student; and an East Cobb woman who is senior director of aquatics at a metro YMCA. Read more.
4. Cops: 3-year-old Paulding County boy shot himself with father's gun.
Investigators declined Wednesday to release details on how a 3-year-old boy got his hands on his father's gun. But the autopsy confirmed the boy shot himself in the chest, the Paulding County Sheriff's Office said. Holston Cole died Tuesday morning after finding the .380 caliber, semi-automatic pistol in his home, Sgt. Ashley Henson said. Police and firefighters were called to the family's Camp Circle home, near Dallas, around 7 a.m. after the boy shot himself, Henson said. Holston was taken by ambulance to Paulding WellStar Hospital but did not survive. No criminal charges have been filed in the boy's death, which remained under investigation late Wednesday. Read more.
5. Alligations of unethical behavior in DeKalb will be disclosed.
The new ethics chief for DeKalb County decided against keeping allegations of misconduct confidential, based on advice Wednesday from the Georgia Attorney General's Office that these complaints are public records. DeKalb Ethics Officer Stacey Kalberman said she will follow the state's guidance that complaints should be disclosed upon request under Georgia's Open Records Act. Kalberman told the DeKalb Board of Ethics last week she wanted to be able to investigate complaints before they were made public because some allegations can be frivolous and politically motivated. Read more.
About the Author
