Georgia
Walker, Warnock offer clashing religious messages in Georgia

One candidate in Georgia’s Senate contest warns that “non secular warfare” has entangled America and provides himself to voters as a “warrior for God.” Nevertheless it is not the ordained Baptist minister who leads the church the place Martin Luther King Jr. as soon as preached.
It is Republican Herschel Walker, the sports activities icon who brazenly questions the spiritual practices of Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock, who calls himself “a pastor within the Senate” and declares voting the civil equal of prayer.
Each males function religion as a part of their public identities in a state the place faith has at all times been a dominant cultural affect. However they do it in distinct methods, jousting in ethical phrases on issues from abortion, race and legal justice to one another’s private lives and conduct.
Their approaches supply a putting distinction between political opponents who had been raised within the Black church within the Deep South within the wake of the civil rights motion.
“It is two utterly completely different visions of the world and what our greatest issues truly are,” mentioned the Rev. Ray Waters, a white evangelical pastor in metro Atlanta who backs Warnock in Tuesday’s election.
How spiritual voters align may assist resolve what polls recommend is a slender race that can assist settle which social gathering controls the Senate the subsequent two years. In response to Pew Analysis, about 2 out of three adults in Georgia contemplate themselves “extremely spiritual.”
Warnock, 53, preaches a type of social justice Christianity that echoes King, the slain civil rights chief who additionally led Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta.
The senator embraces the Black church’s roots in chattel slavery and Jim Crow segregation. From the pulpit, he acknowledges institutional racism and requires collective authorities motion that addresses inequities and different social ills. He usually notes his arrests as a citizen protester advocating for medical health insurance growth in the identical Capitol the place he now works as a senator.
“I rise up for well being care as a result of it is a human proper,” Warnock mentioned. “Dr. King mentioned that of all of the injustices, well being care inequality is essentially the most surprising and essentially the most inhumane.”
Walker talks, too, of society’s shortcomings, however the 60-year-old factors to the growth of LGBTQ rights, renewed concentrate on racism and “weak” politicians, who, he says, “do not love this nation.” He has known as for a nationwide ban on abortions however has confronted accusations from two former girlfriends who mentioned he pressured them into terminating pregnancies and paid for his or her procedures. He has mentioned the claims are lies.
It is a culturally conservative pitch tied to particular person morals relatively than collective duty and successfully holds that the USA is a Christian nation.
That aligns Walker with the largely white evangelical motion that has formed the trendy Republican Celebration.
These approaches, various in substance and magnificence, are traced by the 2 rivals’ biographies.
Warnock, the son of Pentecostal ministers, pursued the same academic path as King. Each attended Morehouse School, a traditionally Black campus in Atlanta. Warnock adopted that with Union Theological Seminary in New York, a middle of progressive Christian theology. Now with greater than a decade in one of many nation’s most well-known pulpits, he typically quotes Scripture at size and peppers his arguments with Latin references.
“I imagine a vote is a type of prayer for the world we need … and that democracy is the political enactment of the non secular thought that every of us was created, because the scriptures inform us, within the ‘Imago Dei’ — the picture of God,” Warnock informed a gaggle of Jewish supporters final month.
On the identical occasion, throughout observances of the Jewish New Yr, Warnock famous a passage usually used as a part of Rosh Hashanah fasting. “Is that this the quick that the Lord is on the lookout for,” he mentioned, “that you’d free the chains of injustice and you’ll set the oppressed free, that you’d feed the hungry, dress the bare, welcome the stranger.” Providing the quotation — Isaiah 58:6 — he known as it “a favourite of mine.”
Walker is also a Pentecostal pastor’s son and now attends nondenominational Bible church buildings. A star highschool athlete in rural Georgia, his soccer prowess took him in 1980 to the College of Georgia, a secular public campus that was then overwhelmingly white. Walker by no means graduated, although he claims in any other case.
He talks usually of Jesus, usually as a determine of “redemption” relatively than a information for public coverage.
“Let me acknowledge my Lord and savior Jesus Christ, as a result of it is mentioned if you happen to do not acknowledge him, he will not acknowledge you,” Walker mentioned at his lone debate with Warnock. “Once I come knocking, I need him to let me in.”
Many Walker occasions open with prayers, some led by different Black conservative evangelicals. But Walker’s scriptural and theological references are scattershot, normally nonspecific allusions as a part of broadsides towards Warnock and “wokeness.”
On transgender rights, Walker has mentioned: “I can not imagine we’re discussing what’s a girl. That is written within the Bible. … We bought to not allow them to idiot us with all these lies.”
At a “Ladies for Herschel” occasion in August, Walker recommended Warnock is anti-American, and he alluded to the biblical story of the Hebrew God expelling dissident angels from heaven. “It is time for us to kick these individuals who do not like America, kick ’em out of workplace,” he mentioned, concluding to his largely white viewers: “Do not let anybody let you know you are racist.”
On abortion, he mentioned on to Warnock on the controversy stage: “As an alternative of aborting these infants, why are you not baptizing these infants?”
It is a compelling argument for voters similar to Wylene Hayes, a 76-year-old retired schoolteacher in Cumming. “You’ll be able to simply inform Herschel is a person of robust religion, and simply humble,” she mentioned. “I haven’t got something towards Sen. Warnock, however I do query how he generally is a pastor and assist abortion.”
Warnock counters that he helps abortion entry as a result of “even God provides us a alternative,” whereas Walker’s place would grant “to politicians extra energy than God has.”
Waters mentioned Walker’s collective argument is focused squarely at white suburban Christians like these he led for many years earlier than transferring nearer to the Atlanta metropolis heart, the place he noticed extra issues to repair and other people to assist. “It appears to me the central points in wokeness are … compassionate habits which are quite a lot of what Jesus mentioned to do,” Waters mentioned.
Warnock largely sidesteps Walker’s assaults. He has just lately begun framing Walker as “not match” for the Senate due to Walker’s “lies” about his enterprise file and allegations of violence towards his ex-wife. The closest Warnock involves questioning Walker’s religion is to say redemption requires that an individual “confess … and be sincere about the issue.”
“I’ll let him converse for himself,” Warnock mentioned. “I’m engaged within the work I have been doing my complete life.”
The Rev. Charles Goodman, an Augusta pastor and buddy of Warnock, mentioned it isn’t new for outspoken Black pastors, particularly these with a extra liberal theology, to be tarred as harmful and anti-American.
“They known as Dr. King a ‘communist,’ and now it is ‘radical’ and ‘socialist,’” Goodman mentioned. “Dr. Warnock loves this nation. There’ll at all times be tensions between our aspirational views of the nation versus our wrestle attempting to get to that place. He is a really hopeful minister, and he is at all times going to talk reality to energy and dwell in that stress.”

Georgia
Georgia Lottery Mega Millions, Cash 3 results for May 16, 2025
The Georgia Lottery offers multiple draw games for those aiming to win big. Here’s a look at May 16, 2025, results for each game:
Winning Mega Millions numbers from May 16 drawing
02-22-42-62-66, Mega Ball: 14
Check Mega Millions payouts and previous drawings here.
Winning Cash 3 numbers from May 16 drawing
Midday: 5-5-7
Evening: 1-7-8
Night: 7-2-4
Check Cash 3 payouts and previous drawings here.
Winning Cash 4 numbers from May 16 drawing
Midday: 1-6-9-2
Evening: 6-0-9-5
Night: 6-6-2-9
Check Cash 4 payouts and previous drawings here.
Winning Cash4Life numbers from May 16 drawing
01-21-25-26-36, Cash Ball: 03
Check Cash4Life payouts and previous drawings here.
Winning Cash Pop numbers from May 16 drawing
Early Bird: 09
Matinee: 01
Drive Time: 06
Primetime: 09
Night Owl: 11
Check Cash Pop payouts and previous drawings here.
Winning Georgia FIVE numbers from May 16 drawing
Midday: 7-3-6-4-0
Evening: 7-4-6-7-6
Check Georgia FIVE payouts and previous drawings here.
Winning Fantasy 5 numbers from May 16 drawing
06-13-15-25-33
Check Fantasy 5 payouts and previous drawings here.
Feeling lucky? Explore the latest lottery news & results
Are you a winner? Here’s how to claim your prize
- Prizes under $601: Can be claimed at any Georgia Lottery retail location. ALL PRIZES can be claimed by mail to: Georgia Lottery Corporation, P.O. Box 56966, Atlanta, GA 30343.
- Prizes over $600: Must be claimed at Georgia Lottery Headquarters or any Georgia Lottery district office or mailed to the Georgia Lottery for payment.
When are the Georgia Lottery drawings held?
- Powerball: 10:59 p.m. ET on Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday.
- Mega Millions: 11 p.m. ET on Tuesday and Friday.
- Cash 3 (Midday): 12:29 p.m. ET daily.
- Cash 3 (Evening): 6:59 p.m. ET daily.
- Cash 3 (Night): 11:34 p.m. ET daily.
- Cash 4 (Midday): 12:29 p.m. ET daily.
- Cash 4 (Evening): 6:59 p.m. ET daily.
- Cash 4 (Night): 11:34 p.m. ET daily.
- Cash 4 Life: 9 p.m. ET daily.
- Cash Pop (Early Bird): 8 a.m. ET daily.
- Cash Pop (Matinee): 1 p.m. ET daily.
- Cash Pop (Drive Time): 5 p.m. ET daily.
- Cash Pop (Primetime): 8 p.m. ET daily.
- Cash Pop (Night Owl): 11:59 p.m. ET daily.
- Georgia FIVE (Midday): 12:29 p.m. ET daily.
- Georgia FIVE (Evening): 6:59 p.m. ET daily.
- Fantasy 5: 11:34 p.m. ET daily.
- Jumbo Bucks Lotto: 11 p.m. ET on Monday and Thursday.
This results page was generated automatically using information from TinBu and a template written and reviewed by a Georgia editor. You can send feedback using this form. Our News Automation and AI team would love to hear from you. Take this survey and share your thoughts with us.
Georgia
Dad of five vanishes while kayaking on Georgia lake long rumored to be haunted

A huge search is underway for a Georgia father of five who appears to have vanished while kayaking on a lake long rumored to be haunted.
Dustin Valencia, 43, was reported missing Wednesday by his wife after he didn’t show up to pick up his children from school — with cops then finding his car parked at Little Ridge Park on Lake Lanier, 11 Alive reported
Evidence suggested that Valencia had gone kayaking on the lake, but his inflatable raft was nowhere to be seen, according to authorities.
A huge ongoing search was launched Thursday on land and water, with multiple units using drones and specialist marine search equipment.
Lake Lanier, where Valencia disappeared, was built in the 1950s over submerged towns, forests, and cemeteries — and has been a location for eerie scenes in the Netflix drama “Ozark,” CNN previously reported.
Since 1994, over 200 people have died in the lake’s waters — with locals long suggesting the lake is haunted.
One of the most-repeated legends is the “Lady of the Lake,” supposedly the ghost of a woman whose car crashed into the lake who has since been spotted restlessly wandering at night in a blue dress.
Friends say Valencia, a triathlete, was in peak condition.
“A group of us met at his church for a vigil, prayed, and then we left to come find him,” Cat Fritts, a friend who last saw Valencia early Tuesday morning during a workout, told WBSTV about the hunt to find him.
“He’s got five kids. I can’t imagine what his family is going through. I think they would want everyone to know and go look for him and spread the word,” she said.
The Forsyth County Sheriff’s Office is urging anyone who spots a stray inflatable kayak to contact their office.
Georgia
Hospital tells family brain-dead Georgia woman must carry fetus to birth because of abortion ban

ATLANTA — A pregnant woman in Georgia was declared brain-dead after a medical emergency and doctors have kept her on life support for three months to allow enough time for the baby to be born and comply with Georgia’s strict anti-abortion law, family members say.
The case is the latest consequence of abortion bans introduced in some states since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade three years ago.
Adriana Smith, a 30-year-old mother and nurse, was declared brain-dead – meaning she is legally dead – in February, her mother, April Newkirk, told Atlanta TV station WXIA.
Newkirk said her daughter had intense headaches more than three months ago and went to Atlanta’s Northside Hospital, where she received medication and was released. The next morning, her boyfriend woke to her gasping for air and called 911. Emory University Hospital determined she had blood clots in her brain and she was later declared brain-dead.
Emory University Hospital Midtown is seen on Thursday, May 15, 2025, in Atlanta.
AP Photo/Brynn Anderson
Newkirk said Smith is now 21 weeks pregnant. Removing breathing tubes and other life-saving devices would likely kill the fetus.
Northside did not respond to a request for comment Thursday. Emory Healthcare said it could not comment on an individual case because of privacy rules, but released a statement saying it “uses consensus from clinical experts, medical literature, and legal guidance to support our providers as they make individualized treatment recommendations in compliance with Georgia’s abortion laws and all other applicable laws. Our top priorities continue to be the safety and wellbeing of the patients we serve.”
Georgia’s abortion ban
Smith’s family says Emory doctors have told them they are not allowed to stop or remove the devices that are keeping her breathing because state law bans abortion after cardiac activity can be detected – generally around six weeks into pregnancy.
The law was adopted in 2019 but not enforced until after Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022, opening the door to state abortion bans. Georgia’s ban includes an exception if an abortion is necessary to maintain the life of the woman.
Smith’s family, including her five-year-old son, still visit her in the hospital.
Newkirk said doctors told the family that the fetus has fluid on the brain and that they’re concerned about his health.
“She’s pregnant with my grandson. But he may be blind, may not be able to walk, may not survive once he’s born,” Newkirk said. She has not commented on whether the family wants Smith removed from life support.
Who has the right to make these decisions?
Monica Simpson, executive director of SisterSong, the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit challenging Georgia’s abortion law, said the situation is problematic.
“Her family deserved the right to have decision-making power about her medical decisions,” Simpson said in a statement. “Instead, they have endured over 90 days of retraumatization, expensive medical costs, and the cruelty of being unable to resolve and move toward healing.”
Lois Shepherd, a bioethicist and law professor at the University of Virginia, said she does not believe Georgia’s law requires life support in this case.
But she said whether a state could insist Smith remains on the breathing and other devices is uncertain since the 2022 ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned Roe including that fetuses do not have the rights of people.
“Pre-Dobbs, a fetus didn’t have any rights,” Shepherd said. “And the state’s interest in fetal life could not be so strong as to overcome other important rights, but now we don’t know.”
What is the fetus’ prognosis?
Brain death in pregnancy is rare. Even rarer still are cases in which doctors aim to prolong the pregnancy after a woman is declared brain-dead.
“It’s a very complex situation, obviously, not only ethically but also medically,” said Dr. Vincenzo Berghella, director of maternal fetal medicine at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia.
A 2021 review that Berghella co-authored scoured medical literature going back decades for cases in which doctors declared a woman brain-dead and aimed to prolong her pregnancy. It found 35.
Of those, 27 resulted in a live birth, the majority either immediately declared healthy or with normal follow-up tests. But Berghella also cautioned that the Georgia case was much more difficult because the pregnancy was less far along when the woman was declared brain dead. In the 35 cases he studied, doctors were able to prolong the pregnancy by an average of just seven weeks before complications forced them to intervene.
“It’ s just hard to keep the mother out of infection, out of cardiac failure,” he said.
Berghella also found a case from Germany that resulted in a live birth when the woman was declared brain dead at nine weeks of pregnancy.
A spotlight on Georgia’s abortion law
Georgia’s law confers personhood on a fetus. Those who favor personhood say fertilized eggs, embryos and fetuses should be considered people with the same rights as those already born.
Georgia state Sen. Ed Setzler, a Republican who sponsored the 2019 law, said he supported Emory’s interpretation.
“I think it is completely appropriate that the hospital do what they can to save the life of the child,” Setzler said. “I think this is an unusual circumstance, but I think it highlights the value of innocent human life. I think the hospital is acting appropriately.”
Setzler said he believes it is sometimes acceptable to remove life support from someone who is brain dead, but that the law is “an appropriate check” because the mother is pregnant. He said Smith’s relatives have “good choices,” including keeping the child or offering it for adoption.
Georgia’s abortion ban has been in the spotlight before.
Last year, ProPublica reported that two Georgia women died after they did not get proper medical treatment for complications from taking abortion pills. The stories of Amber Thurman and Candi Miller entered into the presidential race, with Democrat Kamala Harris saying the deaths were the result of the abortion bans that went into effect in Georgia and elsewhere after Dobbs.
Abortion bans in other states
The situation echoes a case in Texas more than a decade ago when a brain-dead woman was kept on maintenance measures for about two months because she was pregnant. A judge eventually ruled that the hospital keeping her alive against her family’s wishes was misapplying state law, and life support was removed.
Twelve states are enforcing abortion bans at all stages of pregnancy, with limited exceptions. Georgia is one of four with a ban that kicks in at or around six weeks into pregnancy – often before women realize they’re pregnant.
Last year, the Texas Supreme Court ruled unanimously against a group of women who challenged that state’s abortion ban, saying the exceptions were being interpreted so narrowly that they were denied abortion access as they dealt with serious pregnancy complications. This year, the state Senate has passed a bill that seeks to clarify when abortions are allowed.
South Dakota produced a video to inform doctors about when exceptions should apply. Abortion rights groups have blasted it.
The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in December over whether the federal law that requires hospitals to provide abortion in emergency medical situations should apply. A ruling is expected in coming months.
___
Mulvihill reported from Cherry Hill, New Jersey. Associated Press journalists Kate Brumback, Sudhin Thanawala, Sharon Johnson and Charlotte Kramon contributed.
Copyright © 2025 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
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