Darius Terrell Robinson, 34, was arrested and charged with two counts of aggravated assault and one count of simple battery.

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation says Robinson hit and choked several minors who played football for him at Greene County High School over the last several months.

The GBI says Greensboro police requested their assistance on Tuesday afternoon.

Read more at WSBTV.com.

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Staying at a business and family favorite hotel in Midtown, with the same name as my first born child, The Barclay. Planning several New York tourist jaunts to see the massive Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree, then the nearby Radio City Music Hall Christmas Spectacular with the Rockettes and Santa Claus. With tickets for the latter exceeding the price of our airline flights, that kick line better be good. 

AAA is projecting 125-million Americans will be hitting the road or flying the not-so-friendly skies between Christmas Eve eve and New Year’s Day. The worlds’ busiest airport, Hartsfield Atlanta Jackson International is expecting nearly 4-million passengers through its seven concourses and few hundred gates during that same period. That is roughly half the population of metro New York City through one airport in just over one week.

Weather and flight delays during these jammed flight weeks are more customary than not. Tight flight connections can add another layer of anxiety. However, with the exception of the light crowds during the Covid years, I’ve not seen a holiday travel season without witnessing one or a handful of passenger meltdowns. Most of these occur in the terminal, aimed at Gate Agents, but more than a few in the air as well.

Travel delays cascade, and foul weather at one major airport or hub on the east coast can impact the entire system. Passengers grow sullen and increasingly insistent for answers on the adjusted time of departure and landing… or break out profanity and swear off an air carrier, while swearing at the agent or flight attendant NOT in charge of the proceedings at hand.

Please pack your patience and understanding. When an airline or airport is operating at capacity, impacted by foul weather or even mechanical breakdown, your foul mood will not change the weather forecast, nor expedite an answer on when your flight will make the air. And similarly, on the flight, cold air from Canada and points north can mix with warmer tropic air and hot pockets, causing turbulence or even times when the hot air moves above the cold, that the jet can make a seemingly dramatic drop. Hot air lifts and rises. Cold air, not so much.

If you think about the sheer number of passengers, packages and luggage moved from points A to B to C in such compressed time frames, it really is a marvel of logistics, until you or your flight become the cog jamming or getting caught in a sometimes overwrought system.

My three part treatment plan to reduce your agita and better prepare you for your destination: Consider train travel where Amtrak does go. Rail travel has its own logistical challenges, primarily caused by freight traffic, but I vastly prefer the slower pace, time to rest, write or converse with other passengers and see the country in a way that few now do. Olivia, like me, loves trains, so we will be returning from NYC on the Crescent, sort of the Polar Express in reverse. From the great white north, heading south into the hopefully snow-covered Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, then the Blue Ridge Mountains thereafter, later Charlotte and eventually, mid-Christmas morning, back home in Atlanta.

When traveling with children, turn the various traumas of travel into a game or competition, keep loose score and award the BEST traveler with their first choice of restaurant selection when you reach your holiday destination. You will likely be dining out anyway at some point.

And try to remember, even if the airport or weather in transit is hellish, there are plenty of people out and about with nowhere to go, no one to see, possibly with not even a home to sit in warmly but alone. You and yours are amply blessed, try and turn that frown upside down, sit back and enjoy the ride. Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah and safe holiday travels.

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I took the lesson to heart. As a child, I would hand out “experience” gifts — like an offer to spend quality time with someone or a voucher to do a chore. As I got older, I got more creative.

For my parents’ recent 50th wedding anniversary, I wrote them an original song to a Beatles tune and arranged for their nine grandchildren to sing it to them. They loved it so much they were crying happy tears — and it cost me only my time, not money.

Last year, I used a digital illustrator on Etsy to turn a family photo into a Regency-era portrait because my mom loves Jane Austen. It was another hit and cost less than $50.

This holiday spending season, I have my eye on a custom play. Etsy seller TinyPlayScripts writes personalized plays based on the recipient’s interests for $30. I’m also considering hosting a night of Regency-inspired “parlor games” — typically involving word play or cards — as a gift for my mom.

Personalizing gifts based on what you know about the recipient and your relationship with them can save a lot of money during this gift-giving season. In fact, I think it’s one of the most under-utilized holiday budgeting strategies.

Consumers are planning to spend a hefty $890 on average this year on holiday gifts, food, decorations and other seasonal items, according to the National Retail Federation. This technique could go a long way toward reining in overspending.

I asked my fellow Nerds to share some of their money-saving suggestions for gift giving:

Turn to thrifting

Writer Amanda Barroso knew she had to approach the holiday season differently after seeing tariffs and inflation drive up prices across many toy categories.

Months before the holiday season started, she started checking out consignment sales and secondhand shops for her two young children’s Christmas gifts. So far, she’s thrifted dress-up outfits, a learning game, books and more. She estimates she’s saved around $250.

“Thrifting has become a fun hobby for me. I love sifting through the racks, trying to find the perfect thing. And I’ve found toys I never would have considered otherwise,” she says.

Buy someone’s groceries for them

Whenever her friends bring home newborns, content coordinator Jessica Cano skips the customary baby gift and delivers bags full of groceries instead.

She opts for easy-to-prepare foods like bagels and frozen meals along with staples like bread.

“I feel like our friends have been more grateful with these items than with another pair of PJs or baby blankets,” she says.

Celebrate a memory

For her first wedding anniversary, writer Lauren Schwahn had a custom 520-piece puzzle made for her husband. It was a collage of four photos: one from their wedding day and one from each of the three cities they visited on their honeymoon.

It cost just $35 and gave them a way to savor those memories without falling victim to “giftflation.” It also turned out to be a fun way to spend time together.

“It came in handy when we were stuck inside one day due to bad wildfire smoke,” she says.

Grow something beautiful

Over the summer, writer Abby Badach Doyle planned her garden around flowers that are easy to dry and preserve — like strawflowers, celosia and globe amaranth. She included herbs like lavender, rosemary and sage, too.

She had noticed some local flower farms selling similar bouquets and thought to herself, “I could do that!”

This year, her girlfriends are receiving gifts straight from her garden: custom herb and flower bundles dressed up with a dried orange slice for a chic, budget-friendly flourish.

“I love having a stash of homegrown blooms in the attic to ‘shop’ when I need a quick, thoughtful gift for neighbors, drop-in visitors or party hosts,” she says.

Donate to a meaningful cause

Editor Karrin Sehmbi makes charitable donations in honor of family members in lieu of physical gifts. She chooses a few organizations that feel meaningful, writes up a description of the charity and shares it with an e-card.

“There’s no need to disclose the amount donated and it’s always appreciated,” she says.

She says her family is full of animal lovers. “So we almost always have an animal-related organization in the mix,” she adds.

One year, that included sponsoring a goat named Pixie. The gift was unique, meaningful and certainly memorable.

The post The Nerds Share Tips for Memorable, Budget-Friendly Gifts appeared first on Rough Draft Atlanta.

Acts of violence and attacks on any seagoing vessel, more than 12-miles off of any coast or shoreline, sailing in international waters are considered acts of piracy. During 2020, in the Gulf of Guinea, near the horn of Africa, 180 crew members, seafarers and passengers were taken hostage and kidnapped for ransom, or in some cases tossed into the sea.

The pirates themselves came from a variety of African states. Though none were government or official naval sailors, they were heavily armed, often very violent. Initially after oil and other valuable cargo on board, they shifted their tactics to larger and larger ships, often staffed by small crews, to steal more and more valuable cargo, as well as often ransoming the crews back later to their shipping lines and companies.

Extreme poverty in parts of the continent of Africa, and particularly among Somalis made these crimes appear, at least to the perpetrators, as crimes of survival. Though down from the higher numbers of the 2010s, he problem still persists.

Which brings us to today and half a world away, and long troubled relations between the United States and Venezuela, and primarily its current leader, Nicolas Maduro. During a phone call from U.S. President Donald J. Trump on November 30, our U.S. President called on Maduro to immediately resign, guaranteeing him and his family safe passage out of the country, but only if he immediately agreed to leave office and the country. Maduro countered, seeking a global pardon for any crimes he and his associates might later be charged with. President Trump declined that request, the talk reached an impasse.

Within hours, the President announced closure of Venezuela’s airspace and notified private pilots through the FAA, not to fly over or into Venezuela and that the nation’s airspace is closed.

In addition to moving an aircraft carrier into the region, since early September our U.S. Navy has been ordered, on several occasions, to blow Venezuelan ships out of the waters of the North Atlantic and Caribbean seas suspected of being drug traffickers. Yes, you read that correctly. If those ships were in U.S. Coastal Waters, our U.S. Coast Guards, at times backed up by our Navy or Naval Reserves, come aboard, commandeer and occasionally seize vessels suspected of drug trafficking. The sailors and crews of those boats are taken into custody, charged with appropriate crimes or in some cases immediately deported back to their nation of origin to a potentially more dangerous fate.

We are however not in any declared state of military conflict with the nation of Venezuela, with the exception of their recently closed airspace. The President has defended these actions, and the decisions of his Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, as likely saving the lives of thousands of Americans from ingesting illegal and dangerous Fentanyl. Yet without boarding any of these ships, we have doomed dozens to death, with evidence only gathered by drone or intelligence sources. We know of many other countries which produce and smuggle in larger sources of Fentanyl, and I was even surprised to learn during one of my own recent surgeries, that Fentanyl is also used in very small doses as a surgical anesthetic, as it is 50 times more powerful than morphine.

Leading Democrats and Republicans on the two committees in both chambers of Congress overseeing the Pentagon have begun raising questions about the manner and force used by our U.S. Navy on these alleged drug boats. Operating under verbal commands alleged to have been given by Defense Secretary Hegseth, the use of lethal force has been authorized for all ships and crew members suspected of drug smuggling at sea. International maritime law provides no nation with such authority. Interdict a ship, move on board, seek out smuggling activity, gun or drug running, etc, make arrests and later hold trials, but not execution without proof of illegal actions.

As we stand often atop a small mountain of our own piety to justify our military actions and foreign policy choices, before this goes much further, let’s take a good hard look in the mirror. Are we directing and making our own long and justifiably proud U.S. Navy into PIRATES?

The post One man’s opinion: Are we pirates now? appeared first on Rough Draft Atlanta.

There are times in life when a moment crystallizes in your mind, and increasingly, at least for me, when you can anticipate when that latest ‘hot topic,’ is about to jump the shark.

My father is an astute businessman and longtime savvy investor in many things, however, he is not the guy up to speed on all things new and different. A few months back, he pulled me aside to apparently share something of great value in confidence. In a near whisper, he offered, “They are going to stop using paper currency sometime soon, probably time to start moving some dollars into that crypto-currency stuff.”

At that precise moment, I knew that if dad was even aware that cryptocurrency existed, that investment bubble was about to burst. Thanks for the tip, dad. Using reverse logic, you were on the money. I am admittedly not a savvy investor. I am a steady saver, and my investing leans hard to the more conservative side of the ledger in money market CDs, municipal bonds, blue chip stocks, and even real estate. The risks of electronic cryptocurrency have largely kept me away, but I can also admit that I don’t entirely get the concept.

An endless string of coding, mostly zeroes and ones, moving towards infinity. In supposedly limited supply, while still being mined and manufactured daily in data centers across the globe. International regulation is all but non-existent, the market is new enough that the federal government is still figuring it out, and extensive passcodes, which can get lost, create intricate access to even your own crypto holdings. Yet, this is a strong enough ‘free market’ that the Trump sons have created a new crypto that has already increased the family fortunes by a few billion.

Cryptocurrency miners run computers in large warehouses on racks at top speed 24/7, which consume huge amounts of electricity as well as water to keep those computers running cool. Those collective data farms are currently comparable to the domestic energy consumption of Norway. A single data center has roughly the same energy footprint as 250,000 American homes.

That electricity can’t all come from sustainable sources, meaning that the industry is also a net polluter. And whether your cryptocurrency of choice is Bitcoin, Luna, Ethereum, or some lesser-known e-currency, they all share one thing in common at present. After hitting peak prices in 2021, their values are all down substantially. Several smaller Crypto currencies have ceased operations, leaving their investors holding the bag. In fact, the only part of the e-currency industry operating solidly in the black are the e-currency exchanges. They each make a small commission whether prices are going up or down.

The Federal Trade Commissioner (FTC) also reports that more than 46,000 Americans have been stung by Crypto scams since January 2021, as many still believe the myths of rapid wealth, much more than current market dynamics. And of course, crypto boosters will tell you that all markets are cyclic and that their pricing and value will recover. For those crypto cheerleaders, I have five words for you to ponder: electro-magnetic pulse and black-outs.

Domestically, the most recent green energy bill signed into law was during the Biden Administration, and intended to expedite huge market shifts (while now being dismantled by the Trump Administration) pushed aggressively towards more electric vehicles and the use of more sustainable energy sources. Those are worthy goals, but as we are seeing globally as well as domestically with brown-outs and black-outs during this summer of record heat, those ‘green’ energy sources typically cannot provide high-demand baseload, in the same fashion as coal, natural gas or nuclear generated electrical power. Our grid is also not designed for the increasing pull of E-vehicles in every home garage, and unless we commit soon to a much larger new nuclear energy reactor fleet, we will not be able to meet base power production demand in many urban areas during the summertime. And our home state of Georgia has also become ‘project site central’ for new data centers.

Yes, the more reliable cryptocurrencies and data mining farms do have onsite backup generator, but even fail-safes can fail. Who knew that the Kryptonite for high-flying cryptocurrencies might be a combination of green energy policy and sporadic and unpredictable power outages? Innovation can still save or turn any industry apparently heading for a quick exit or downturn. And again, I am no expert, but perhaps add an endless string of XXX’s to all of those zeroes and ones… those certainly seemed to have worked out quite well for the porn industry.

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