After a singer from Kazakhstan, two magicians, a giant children’s choir, a spoken-word artist, a man who did tricks with dogs and more, LSU freshman basketball standout Flau’jae Johnson took the stage Monday night on NBC’s “America’s Got Talent: All-Stars.”
All were competing for one spot to move on to the competition finals.
At 14, Johnson was originally on season 13 of “AGT,” in which she dedicated her performance to her father, a rapper named Camouflage who was murdered when her mother was pregnant with her. As she approached the stage, one of the judges turned to Johnson’s mother, Kia Brooks, and said, “Are you nervous, Mom?”
Brooks said that she wasn’t nervous at all because she “created a beast.”
Johnson performed her rap song confidently, the lyrics including a basketball reference to “making three” and her outlook on the promise of the future, “Ready or not, here I come.”
Judge Howie Mandel told her that she was a beast to be reckoned with and that she was talented. Judge Heidi Klum also was a fan, as was Simon Cowell. However, Kodi Lee, a visually impaired singer-songwriter and pianist, won the episode. You can catch Johnson on TV tonight, in a different role. Her number four ranked LSU Tigers will be hosting Ole Miss at 9:00 PM on SEC Network.
The Cobb Planning Commission unanimously denied the request from an organization affiliated with Kennesaw State University to open a Jewish student center in a residential area near KSU’s Kennesaw campus.
The commission’s vote was 4-0, with Chairman Stephen Vault absent.
At a December hearing, the commission tabled the request from Hillels of Georgia for a special land use permit to use a rented house on Frey Lake Road for a Jewish student center serving KSU students. Hillels of Georgia has rented the home since the start of the 2022 school year. Ten residents in the area were at Tuesday’s meeting in opposition to the request.
Phil Anzalone, a representative from the Pinetree Civic Association who spoke against the request in December, reiterated that his and other residents’ opposition was not faith-based. Neighbors’ concerns about the location included lack of available parking along Frey Road and noise that might come from the deck of the home during events. Commissioner Deborah Dance made the motion to recommend denying the request “based upon the opposition and based upon articulated burdens and impacts of this proposal upon a residential neighborhood.”
Since the Planning Commission’s decision is a recommendation for denial, the decision is not final. The Cobb Board of Commissioners will hear the case at its meeting on Tuesday, February 21 at 9 a.m. at 100 Cherokee St.
Cobb Sheriff Craig Owens announced Monday that a deputy recruit has been fired and arrested following an altercation with a Cobb jail inmate over the weekend.
Owens said during a press conference that Jacqun Brown of Austell, a recruit with the sheriff’s office, was arrested at 3:15 p.m. Monday for his alleged role in the altercation.
The altercation occurred on Saturday, as the 24-year-old Brown was attempting to move inmate Matthew Cubbage of Smyrna inside Lima Pod, Dorm 3, to deescalate a situation in which Cubbage had caused a disturbance, Owens said.
According to a warrant for Brown’s arrest, he repeatedly punched and placed Cubbage in a choke hold. Cubbage was being held at the jail for allegedly trafficking heroin, fentanyl and meth. Cubbage received cuts, bruises and scratches on his head, shoulders and lower back area, according to Brown’s arrest warrant. The entire incident was captured on video inside the dormitory.
More than a decade after the final Marietta-made Lockheed Martin F-22 rolled off the assembly lines, the F-22 program notched its first air-to-air “kill” this weekend as it shot down a suspected Chinese spy balloon over the South Carolina coast.
The balloon, which was spotted earlier in the week over Montana and Idaho, traversed across the U.S. last week before being hit with a missile off the South Carolina coast Saturday.
A Lockheed spokesperson confirmed the fighter, stationed at Langley Air Force Base, was one of nearly 200 F-22’s built at the sprawling Marietta plant.
The F-22 pilot used a single AIM-9X Sidewinder air-to-air missile to bring down the balloon, the Department of Defense said.
As of Monday, the United States had begun to recover parts of the balloon from the Atlantic Ocean.
Chinese officials have taken responsibility for the balloon, but claimed it was a weather-monitoring device, an argument rejected by U.S. military officials. China has criticized the U.S. shooting it down as a “clear overreaction.” The maiden voyage of the F-22 was in September 1997, when the first Raptor was flown out of Dobbins Air Reserve Base in Marietta by then-51-year-old Marietta resident Paul Metz.
Lockheed built 187 of the aircraft between 1991 and 2011, with the Marietta plant serving as the final assembly point for the plane. In 2005, at peak production, there were 5,600 employees working on the aircraft, 944 of them in Marietta.
The Cobb Planning Commission approved a 21-home subdivision in west Cobb at its meeting Tuesday.
The proposal from Brock Built Homes covers about 14 acres on Friendship Church Road, just down the street from Hillgrove High School. The request was approved 4-0 by the commission, with Chairman Stephen Vault absent.
The rezoning request was for smaller land lots than what the area was previously zoned for, and the applicant also requested rezoning to an open space community, aimed at preserving greenspace to promote environmental sustainability in the development.
The subdivision would have five acres of open space, according to the rezoning application. In other business, the commission approved a filmmaker’s request to park a truck full of his equipment in the driveway of his east Cobb home.
Roger Alexander said his request resulted from fear of “a coordinated crime ring” he said has been breaking into film studios around the Atlanta metro area and stealing millions of dollars’ worth of equipment. For that reason, Alexander explained, he decided to move his gear into a box truck and park the truck in his driveway, behind a wooden gate.
He was requesting a land use permit from the county to keep the truck in his driveway.
The commission voted 4-0 to approve Alexander’s request for up to 2 years.
A former Osborne High School teacher received a three-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to having an illegal relationship with a student, the Cobb District Attorney’s office confirmed Tuesday.
Zachary Warren White, of Marietta, was first charged in 2021 after being accused of having sex with a student in his school office when he was employed as a graphic arts teacher. He was originally charged with two counts of sexual assault by a teacher. White pled guilty to one felony count of improper sexual contact by an employee or agent, per District Attorney Flynn Broady. In addition to his three years in prison, he will serve seven years on probation.
#CobbCounty #Georgia #LocalNews
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