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How Jimmy Carter Launched His Career and Cemented His Legacy in Atlanta

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How Jimmy Carter Launched His Career and Cemented His Legacy in Atlanta

The mythology of Jimmy Carter begins and ends in Plains, the small Georgia town that raised him and kept drawing him back.

Yet roughly 150 miles away is Atlanta, a city just as essential to understanding the life of the 39th president. If Plains was his home, Georgia’s capital was his stage. If Plains reflected Mr. Carter’s small-town character, Atlanta fit his global ambitions.

While it was never a permanent home, Atlanta allowed him to develop policy priorities and kick off a national political career. Then, after leaving Washington, it gave him the space to burnish a humanitarian legacy, housing his efforts to promote equality, peace and democratic ideals.

Now, because Mr. Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, chose to place the Carter Center, their presidential library and the crown jewel of their post-presidential work, in the city, it is where hundreds of visitors will shuffle through the cold to pay their respects while he lies in repose through Tuesday.

“It would have been inconceivable to put everything in Atlanta and to move to Atlanta, because that’s not where they’re from, that’s not who they are,” Jason Carter, Mr. Carter’s grandson, said in an interview. But, he added, “the platform that was available to them in Atlanta was going to be exactly what they needed to have this global jumping-off point.”

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Mr. Carter was undeniably shaped by the years he spent in youth on his father’s peanut farm. But beginning with his campaign to serve in the State Senate, he sought to bridge what was often a yawning divide between the rural region where he grew up and the urban engine of the state.

The effort helped shape a career that played out equally on large public stages like Atlanta and more intimate and personal ones like Plains.

“He could relate to people who did not have voices in those big rooms,” said Shannon Heath-Longino, who recounted how Mr. Carter listened to Eva Davis, her grandmother and a champion for revitalizing the East Lake neighborhood of Atlanta, about her vision. He even went to Washington with her to help secure crucial housing funds, she said.

“We had not had the best relationship with political leaders and people being people of their word once they’re elected,” she added. “He was just a man of his word.”

There are the obvious personal influences of the big city. The younger Mr. Carter joked that his grandfather may never have had a Pepsi, given the Coca-Cola headquarters in Atlanta, and always tried to take his commercial flights through Delta Air Lines, in a nod to its prominence in the city.

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And there was his rain-or-shine devotion to the Atlanta Braves. Mr. Carter and his wife often attended games and were on occasion caught on the kiss cam that panned over the home crowd.

“He would sit there in the rain and cheer the team on — and he was a die-hard fan, a real fan,” said Terry McGuirk, the chairman of the Braves. He added that Mr. Carter had perhaps “the purest love of the game that I have ever seen out of a president.”

But as a political figure who grew his influence in Atlanta, he helped shape its growth and many of the people who would go on to lead or represent the city and the ideals it valued.

As a state senator, Mr. Carter voted to establish the city’s main public transportation authority and later, as governor, oversaw a sales tax increase to help fund its growth and operations. He overhauled the state government, oversaw new mental health and education policies and established a judicial nominating commission.

He “diversified government,” said Dr. Meredith Evans, the director of the president’s library and museum, by elevating women and people of color into positions of power.

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“His door was always open — and people sought his counsel in Atlanta,” she added, calling it “a quiet force.”

Mr. Carter was also instrumental in preserving the legacies of some of Atlanta’s most important figures, including Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He hung a portrait of the civil rights icon in the Capitol gallery during his term as governor. As president, he designated Dr. King’s home and neighborhood a national historic site and helped raise millions of dollars to help fulfill the King family’s ambitions of building the King Center.

“He laid that foundation to make that recognition,” recalled Dr. Bernice King, the daughter of Dr. King and chief executive of the King Center. She added, “these partners, relationships, working together have really made Atlanta a world class city — I don’t think it could have happened without the alignment of the King family and President Carter.”

After his single term in the White House, it quickly became clear that Mr. Carter, who was 56 at the time, would return to his home state.

“He wasn’t the kind of person who’s going to move into a mansion in Atlanta and tap into corporate boards,” said Sheffield Hale, the president and chief executive of the Atlanta History Center. But, Mr. Hale added, “he was deeply rooted in Georgia.”

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His devotion to Plains and frugal inclinations meant he spent years sleeping on a pullout couch or Murphy bed during his regular visits to Atlanta. But he still honed connections with Emory University, where he would serve on faculty, team up with the school to open the Carter Center and frequently lecture. (Mr. Carter earned tenure after 37 years, at 94.)

He also helmed the Atlanta Project, a plan to address housing, unemployment and other problems in the city, ahead of the 1996 Olympics.

“Being a relatively young man when he left the presidency and determined, as he was, to make the most of the gifts he’d been given and the opportunities he’d been given, Plains was not going to be a big enough of a landscape for President Carter and his ambitions,” said Joe Crespino, an Emory University history professor. He added that his students frequently peppered the former president with questions based on his papers.

The placement of the Carter Center — which houses a traditional presidential library in tandem with a private organization focused on health care and peace — cemented the former president’s connection to Atlanta. (Dr. Evans, of the Carter library, noted that the easy logistics of the city helped overtake Mr. Carter’s initial vision to put the library in Plains.)

Its permanent location was not without conflict, as the initial plans for the center included building a new highway — decades after Mr. Carter, as governor, had opposed similar construction. A coalition of neighborhoods fought against the new parkway until a compromise was struck, one that led to both the creation of the center and about 200 acres of greenery for what is now Freedom Park.

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In a symbol of its importance, the center is now the centerpiece of the tributes to Mr. Carter in Georgia, with flowers and jars of peanuts left at its entrance. The family made a point of holding its first full service there in Atlanta on Saturday, before mourners arrived to pay respects.

“He was a great neighbor, a tremendous friend,” said Brian Maloof, who still owns Manuel’s Tavern, the Atlanta bar where Mr. Carter announced his campaign for governor and continued to visit over the years. “We’re going to miss him.”

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Three more people charged with damaging Reflecting Pool after Trump’s multimillion-dollar restoration | CNN Politics

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Three more people charged with damaging Reflecting Pool after Trump’s multimillion-dollar restoration | CNN Politics

Three more people have been criminally charged with destruction of property at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.

Officers say they detained Cameron Thiers, Sophie Dennison-Gibby and Justin Carreno one Saturday afternoon in June and described in court documents witnessing them peeling and removing pieces of blue paint from the Reflecting Pool.

One officer “witnessed Carreno reach down into the reflecting pool and pull up a piece of the blue paint,” according to the court documents.

The officer who detained Dennison-Gibby “found 1 additional piece of the reflecting pool liner” in her purse, the documents said.

All three incidents were recorded on the officers’ body worn cameras, they said in the court documents.

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Several “partnering law enforcement agencies assigned to the Reflecting Pool” working with US Park Police were involved in detaining the two men and one woman — including officers from Texas, Oklahoma, Montana and California.

One of the officers said in court documents that Thiers “admitted to removing a piece of blue sealant from the Reflecting Pool and still had it in his hand when I made contact with him.”

The three defendants were arraigned in court Wednesday and pleaded not guilty to the misdemeanor charges of destruction of property with a value less than $1,000. The judge ordered them to stay away from the Reflecting Pool.

Lawyers for Thiers and Dennison-Gibby declined to comment. CNN has reached out to Carreno’s attorney.

If found guilty of destruction of property, the defendants could be fined up to $1,000 and face a maximum of 180 days behind bars.

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The New York Times first reported that three additional people had been charged with damaging the Reflecting Pool.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed that vandals caused major damage to the pool by gashing the lining after his administration spent more than $14 million on renovations, though he has not provided evidence to support that claim. The officers who charged Carreno, Thiers and Dennison-Gibby did not accuse them of gashing the lining.

Former Olympic canoeist David Hearn was indicted by a grand jury in Washington, DC, last week for allegedly damaging the Reflecting Pool. Hearn — unlike Carreno, Thiers and Dennison-Gibby – was charged with destruction of property with a value of more than $1,000 which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison, if convicted. He is set to be arraigned in court Thursday.

Crews began draining the Reflecting Pool over the weekend to make repairs, according to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, for the second time in three months.

The move comes after weeks of problems – algae blooms, green-hued water, a chipping bottom and the administration’s allegations of vandalism – that have plagued the iconic landmark, making its woes the subject of national interest.

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Supreme Court financial disclosures reveal how their books add to their income

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Supreme Court financial disclosures reveal how their books add to their income

Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett speaks at the Reagan Library on Sept. 9, 2025, in Simi Valley, Calif. Barrett discussed and signed copies of her new book, Listening to the Law: Reflections on the Court and Constitution.

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Even as the Supreme Court was handing down one legal thunderbolt after another last week, the justices were quietly releasing their annual financial reports. Justice Samuel Alito was the only sitting justice to request an extension, which he has done for 15 years. The disclosures do not give a complete account of the justices’ total income and wealth, but they give insights into their concertgoing, guest professorships and even their involvement in youth sports.

In addition to their salaries, much of the justices’ reported income came from their book deals. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson led the pack earning more than $1.1 million last year for a total of roughly $4 million since her memoir, Lovely One, was published in 2024.

Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett and retired Justice Anthony Kennedy also reported income from published books. Earnings from their books ranged from $849,000 for Barrett, to $300,000 for Gorsuch and $88,000 for Sotomayor, whose books include her 2013 autobiography and five children’s books. Justice Clarence Thomas, who previously earned $1.5 million for his 2007 memoir, listed no publisher payments last year, and Justice Brett Kavanaugh, one of 13 co-authors of a 2016 legal treatise, also received no payments last year. Kavanaugh is said to be working on a memoir but he listed no payments for the anticipated book. Alito does have a book coming out in the fall, but with his financial report still outstanding, there is no data on how much he was paid for the work in 2025.

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The only two sitting justices who have not written books are Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Elena Kagan.

Many justices also earned income from teaching at law schools. Roberts reported income from New England Law, located in Boston, and Gorsuch reported teaching income from George Mason University in Virginia. Thomas taught classes at Catholic University in Washington, D.C., and Barrett and Kavanaugh taught at Notre Dame Law School. Barrett graduated from the school and began teaching there 23 years ago; Kavanaugh has family connections to Notre Dame.

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Manhattan Building’s Columns Buckled Beneath New Addition, Images Show

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Manhattan Building’s Columns Buckled Beneath New Addition, Images Show

At least two structural columns buckled and failed in a 37-story office tower in Midtown Manhattan on Tuesday, prompting evacuations of nearby streets and buildings. While city officials asserted that the tower was in no danger of collapsing completely, outside engineers said further failures in the structure could not be ruled out.

A pair of columns that failed completely were part of the tower’s existing structure. A New York Times review of images and videos from inside the building has found that several floors were added atop these columns.

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City officials said in a news conference on Tuesday that the building was continuing to move, while they simultaneously assured the city that the building would not suffer “total collapse.” “The way this building is constructed, it’s a steel-frame building,” John Esposito, a chief in the Fire Department in New York, said at the afternoon news conference. “So, it would not be a total collapse. It would be more of a localized collapse.” Still, he said, “that remains our concern, that it’s moved.”

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Engineers said that the movement itself was cause for concern. In a properly designed steel building, they said, loads should redistribute quickly to surviving structural supports if columns failed.

Joe DiPompeo, a former president of the Structural Engineering Institute at the American Society of Civil Engineers, said that if the structure had been overloaded, he would expect any movement “to happen very quickly,” rather than gradually.

“Generally when a column buckles, it’s a sudden failure,” Mr. DiPompeo said. He said that a full collapse remained unlikely given the redundancies built into the building codes.

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Engineers often refer to the most dangerous possibility as a progressive collapse, a process in which structures near the initial failure become overstressed and also fail, potentially bringing down the building if the sequence continues. While unlikely, it cannot be ruled out, Mr. DiPompeo said.

Footage recorded from inside the building shows at least two structural columns appear to have failed completely, Mr. DiPompeo said. Other nonstructural, interior walls — or at least the metal “studs” that were in place to hold them up — also appear to have deformed.

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“The only way that really happens is if the floor above them dropped. It looks like the floor above could have dropped a foot or two, which is obviously not a good situation,” Mr. DiPompeo said.

@fernando40tiktok.commarc via Storyful

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Image from @fernando40tiktok.commarc via Storyful

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The 37-story building is in the process of being converted from office space into residential units. Four new floors and a large vertical portion were added onto the existing building in recent months. The vertical portion consists of a stack of over a dozen new floors cantilevered out over the existing building below.

Engineers said that there was nothing inherently wrong with adding residential floors or the cantilevered section above the columns that failed, as long as the original structure and the modifications had properly accounted for the added weight and wind loads.

“The cantilever alone doesn’t change anything,” Mr. DiPompeo said, but it does put additional load on the columns underneath — a factor that should have been reflected in the design.

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Nathan Berman, managing principal and founder of MetroLoft, the developer overseeing the conversion, said on Tuesday that “this incident is nothing more than a typical construction mishap.”

He said two columns near the northwest corner of the tower had bent under the weight of additions to the building above, most likely because those columns had not been properly reinforced, though he said an investigation would determine the cause. The rest of the columns, he said, “picked up the weight.” He estimated the affected floors above the failed columns had sagged by a maximum of four inches.

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Mr. Berman said that he expected the problems to be fixed and the project to be completed with, at most, a slight delay.

On Tuesday evening, installation of temporary shoring was set to begin shortly, in order to help stabilize the 20th and 21st floors of the building.

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