BOORSEE

ATLANTA, GEORGIA — Six days of funeral observances for former President Jimmy Carter began Saturday in Georgia, where he died on Dec. 29 at the age of 100.

The first events reflected Carter’s climb up the political ladder, from the tiny town of Plains, Georgia, to decades on the global stage as a humanitarian and advocate for democracy.

Here is what to know about the initial ceremonies and what happens next:

The start honors Carter’s deep roots in rural south Georgia

The proceedings began at 10:15 a.m. local time Saturday with the Carter family arriving at Phoebe Sumter Medical Center in Americus.

Former Secret Service agents who protected Carter served as pallbearers, walking alongside the hearse as it exited the campus on its way to Plains.

James Earl Carter Jr. lived more than 80 of his 100 years in and around the town, which still has fewer than 700 people, not much more than when he was born on Oct. 1, 1924. Some other modern presidents — Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton — also grew up in small-town settings but Carter stands out for returning and remaining in his birthplace for his long post-presidency.

The motorcade moved through downtown Plains, which spans just a few blocks, passing near the girlhood home of former first lady Rosalynn Smith Carter, who died in November 2023 at the age of 96, and near where the couple operated the family peanut warehouses. The route also included the old train depot that served as Jimmy Carter’s 1976 presidential campaign headquarters and the gas station once run by Carter’s younger brother, Billy.

The motorcade passed by the Methodist church where the Carters married in 1946, and the home where they lived and died. The former president will be buried there alongside Rosalynn.

The Carters built the one-story house, now surrounded by Secret Service fencing, before his first state Senate campaign in 1962 and lived out their lives there with the exception of four years in the Governor’s Mansion and four more in the White House.

A stop at Carter’s boyhood home — a blend of privilege, hard work

After going through Plains, the procession stopped in front of Carter’s family farm and boyhood home in Archery, just outside the town, after passing the cemetery where the former president’s parents, James Earl Carter Sr. and Lillian Carter, are buried.

The farm now is part of the Jimmy Carter National Historical Park. The National Park Service rang the old farm bell 39 times to honor the 39th president.

Carter was the first president born in a hospital. But the home had no electricity or running water when he was born, and he worked his father’s land during the Great Depression. Still, the Carters had relative privilege and status. Earl employed Black tenant farming families. The elder Carter also owned a store in Plains and was a local civic and political leader. Lillian was a nurse and she delivered Rosalynn. The property still includes a tennis court Earl had built for the family.

It was Earl’s death in 1953 that set Jimmy on course toward the Oval Office. The younger Carters had left Plains after he graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy. But Jimmy abandoned a promising career as a submarine officer and early participant in the Pentagon’s nuclear program to take over the family’s peanut business after his father’s death. Within a decade, he was elected to the Georgia state Senate.

Lying in repose in Atlanta, where Carter was a politician and global figure

From Archery, the motorcade headed north to Atlanta. The military-run motorcade stopped outside the Georgia Capitol, where Carter served as a state senator from 1963-67 and governor from 1971-75. Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens led a moment of silence. While former governors are honored with state-run funerals, presidents — even if they served as governors — are memorialized with national rites run by the federal government.

The motorcade then proceeded to the Carter Presidential Center, which includes Carter’s presidential library and The Carter Center, established by the former president and first lady in 1982. Carter’s son, James Earl “Chip” Carter III, and his grandson, Jason Carter, spoke to an assembly that included many Carter Center employees whose work concentrating on international diplomacy and mediation, election monitoring, and fighting disease in the developing world continues to set a standard for what former presidents can accomplish.

Jimmy Carter, who delivered the center’s annual reports until 2019, won the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize in part for this post-presidential work.

Carter was scheduled to lie in repose from 7 p.m. Saturday to 6 a.m. Tuesday, with the public able to pay respects around the clock.

What’s next: A return to Washington

Carter’s remains will travel next to Washington, where he will lie in state in the Capitol Rotunda until his funeral at 10 a.m. Thursday at the Washington National Cathedral. All the living presidents have been invited, and Joe Biden, a Carter ally, will deliver a eulogy. Biden also signed a bill to name a U.S. Postal Service facility in Plains after Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter.

The Carter family then will return to bury its patriarch in Plains after a private hometown funeral at 3:45 p.m. at Maranatha Baptist Church, where Carter, a devout evangelical, taught Sunday School for decades.

Carter will be buried afterward in a private graveside service, in a plot visible from the front porch of his home.
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WASHINGTON — In the East Room of the White House on a particularly frigid Saturday afternoon, President Joe Biden bestowed the Presidential Medal of Freedom to 19 of the most famous names in politics, sports, entertainment, civil rights, LGBTQ+ advocacy and science. 

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton aroused a standing ovation from the crowd as she received her medal. Clinton was accompanied to the event by her husband former President Bill Clinton, daughter Chelsea Clinton and grandchildren. Democratic philanthropist George Soros and actor-director Denzel Washington were also awarded the nation’s highest civilian honor in a White House ceremony. 

“For the final time as president I have the honor [of] bestowing the Medal of Freedom, our nation’s highest civilian honor, on a group of extraordinary, truly extraordinary people, who gave their sacred effort, their sacred effort, to shape the culture and the cause of America,” Biden said in his opening remarks. 

“Let me just say to each of you, thank you, thank you, thank you for all you’ve done to help this country,” Biden said Saturday. 

4 medals awarded posthumously

Four medals were awarded posthumously. They went to George W. Romney, who served as both a Michigan governor and secretary of housing and urban development; former Attorney General and Senator Robert F. Kennedy; Ash Carter, a former secretary of defense; and Fannie Lou Hamer, who founded the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party and laid the groundwork for the 1965 Voting Rights Act. 

Kennedy is father to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for health and human services secretary. Biden said, “Bobby is one of my true political heroes. I love and I miss him dearly.” 

Romney is the father of former Utah Republican Senator Mitt Romney, one of Trump’s strongest conservative critics. 

Recipients made ‘exemplary contributions’

Biden has days left in the presidential office and has spent the last few days issuing awards and medals to valiant military veterans, courageous law enforcement officials and exceptional Americans. 

The White House said the Medal of Freedom recipients have made “exemplary contributions to the prosperity, values, or security of the United States, world peace, or other significant societal, public or private endeavors.” 

Major philanthropists receiving the award include Spanish American chef Jose Andres, whose World Central Kitchen charity has become one of the world’s most recognized food relief organizations, and Bono, the front man for rock band U2 and a social justice activist. 

Soros’ son Alex Soros accepted the medal on his father’s behalf. In an emailed statement, Soros said: “As an immigrant who found freedom and prosperity in America, I am deeply moved by this honor.” 

Sports and entertainment stars recognized include professional soccer player Lionel Messi, who did not attend the event; retired Los Angeles Lakers basketball legend and businessman Earvin “Magic” Johnson; actor Michael J. Fox, who is an outspoken advocate for Parkinson’s disease research and development; and William Sanford Nye, known to generations of students as “Bill Nye the Science Guy.” 

Other awardees include conservationist Jane Goodall; longtime Vogue magazine editor-in-chief Anna Wintour; American fashion designer Ralph Lauren; American Film Institute founder George Stevens Jr.; entrepreneur and LGBTQ+ activist Tim Gill; and David Rubenstein, co-founder of The Carlyle Group global investment firm. 

Lauren is the first fashion designer to receive the honor. 

Last year, Biden bestowed the Presidential Medal of Freedom on 19 people, including the late Medgar Evers, House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, Representative James Clyburn of South Carolina and actor Michelle Yeoh. 

The Presidential Medal of Freedom was awarded 654 times between 1963 and 2024, according to the Congressional Research Service. Notable Medal of Freedom recipients from the past include Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Maya Angelou and Mother Teresa. 
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NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE — Just days after Tennessee announced it had a new manual for executing death row inmates, the state’s top prison officials said they aren’t going to release the document to the public.

The Tennessee Department of Correction had told The Associated Press to file a public records request to obtain a copy of the latest execution manual, known as a protocol. However, the agency this week denied the AP’s request, saying it needs to keep the entire document secret to protect the identities of the executioner and other people involved.

The decision to maintain secrecy differs from how the state has handled similar requests in the past, but mirrors efforts across the U.S. to suppress public access surrounding executions, especially after anti-death penalty activists used records to expose problems.

Here’s what to know:

What is an execution protocol?

The protocol is typically a detailed set of procedures describing how the state executes death row inmates. Tennessee had been operating under a 2018 protocol that included directions on selecting execution team staff and the training they should undergo. It explained how lethal injection drugs should be procured, stored and administered. It gave instructions on the inmate’s housing, diet and visitation in the days leading up to execution. It provided directions on how to choose media witnesses.

For lethal injection, the 2018 protocol required a series of three drugs administered in sequence.

The new version unveiled last week requires only a single dose of pentobarbital. But that is all that is known about the revised protocol.

What reason does Tennessee give for not releasing the new protocol?

In an email sent Monday, Tennessee correction spokesperson Kayla Hackney told the AP the “protocol is not a public record” and cited a Tennessee statute that makes the identities of the people carrying out executions confidential.

However, that same statute says the existence of confidential information in a record is not a reason to deny access to it, noting that the confidential information should be redacted.

What has Tennessee done in the past?

In 2018, Tennessee’s correction agency provided a redacted copy of the protocol to an AP reporter over email.

In 2007, a previous version of the protocol was treated as a public record and provided to the AP after former Gov. Phil Bredesen, a Democrat, announced a surprise halt to executions. A reporter’s review of that 100-page “Manual of Execution” found a jumble of conflicting instructions that mixed new lethal-injection instructions with those for electrocution.

Why did Tennessee update its protocol?

Executions have been on hold in Tennessee since 2022, when the state admitted it had not been following the 2018 protocol. Among other things, the Correction Department was not consistently testing the execution drugs for potency and purity.

An independent review of the state’s lethal injection practice later found that none of the drugs prepared for the seven inmates executed since 2018 had been fully tested. Later, the state Attorney General’s Office conceded in court that two of the people most responsible for overseeing Tennessee’s lethal injection drugs “incorrectly testified” under oath that officials were testing the chemicals as required.

So what’s with all the secrecy?

Executions in the U.S. have remained at historic lows for years, but the small group of states still carrying out the death penalty have only increased the secrecy surrounding the procedures, particularly over how and where the state secures the drugs used for lethal injections.

Many states argue that secrecy is critical to protect the safety of those involved in the execution process. Yet in a 2018 report, the Washington-D.C.-based nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center found that this argument often led to these states refusing to provide information about the qualifications of their execution teams and some courts have criticized such arguments for lack of evidence that more public disclosure would result in threats against prison officials.

Kelley Henry, chief of the federal public defender’s habeas unit that represents many of Tennessee’s death row inmates, described the state’s refusal to release the new protocol, given that background, as “mystifying.”

“The secrecy, which cloaked the former execution protocol, created a culture of incompetence and lack of accountability,” she said in an email.
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PLAINS, GEORGIA — Mourners are to begin paying their respects to Jimmy Carter on Saturday, kicking off a carefully choreographed six-day farewell for America’s longest-lived president.

Flags have been flying at half-staff across the country since Carter died on Dec. 29 at the age of 100 in his hometown of Plains, Georgia.

Carter’s state funeral officially begins on Saturday with Secret Service agents from his current and former protective detail carrying his casket to a hearse for a tour through Plains.

The motorcade bearing his remains is to pause at Carter’s boyhood family peanut farm while a farm bell rings 39 times in honor of America’s 39th president.

His body will then be taken to Atlanta for a brief stop at the Georgia Capitol, where Carter served as a state senator before becoming governor, and a moment of silence.

From there, Carter will be escorted to the Carter Presidential Center where he will lie in repose from 7 p.m. on Saturday (0000 GMT Sunday) to 6 a.m. (1100 GMT) on Tuesday to allow the public to pay their respects.

Carter’s remains will be flown on Tuesday morning from a military base in Georgia to Joint Base Andrews outside Washington on a U.S. Air Force plane dubbed Special Air Mission 39.

A motorcade will then transport the body of the former commander-in-chief to the U.S. Navy Memorial.

Carter, who attended the U.S. Naval Academy, graduating in 1946, and served on submarines, will be transferred from a hearse to a horse-drawn caisson for a funeral procession to the U.S. Capitol.

Military pall bearers will carry his flag-draped casket to the rotunda of the Capitol where his body will lie in state until 7 a.m. (1200 GMT) on Thursday, surrounded by a guard of honor of service members.

Carter will be the 13th former U.S. president to lie in state in the Capitol. Abraham Lincoln, assassinated in 1865, was the first.

A national funeral service is to be held on Thursday at the National Cathedral, an Episcopal church in the nation’s capital that also hosted state funerals for former presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush.

All four living former presidents — Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump — are expected to attend.

President Joe Biden is to deliver the eulogy for his fellow Democrat, who served in the White House from 1977-81.

Biden has declared Thursday to be a national day of mourning, and federal government offices are to be closed for the day.

He has also ordered flags to be flown at half-staff for 30 days as is customary, which means that will be the case during Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration.

That drew the ire of the president-elect, who took to Truth Social to say “no American can be happy” about having flags at half-staff when he takes office.

Following the cathedral service, Carter’s remains will be flown aboard Special Air Mission 39 back to Georgia for a private funeral service at the Baptist church in Plains where Carter taught Sunday school.

A final motorcade through his hometown will ferry Carter’s body to a burial plot at his residence.

U.S. Navy jets will conduct a flyover in his honor before he is laid to rest alongside his wife of 77 years, Rosalynn, who died in 2023 at the age of 96. 
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The U.S. Homeland Security Department and the FBI are warning federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies to be vigilant for potential copycat incidents inspired by the New Year’s Eve truck-ramming attack in New Orleans that killed at least 14 people.

In a joint intelligence bulletin released Friday, federal authorities warned the nation’s 18,000 law-enforcement agencies to be on the lookout for “potential copycat or retaliatory attacks inspired by this attack and other recent, lethal vehicle-ramming incidents across the globe.”

The bulletin said such attacks “are likely to remain attractive for aspiring attackers given vehicles’ ease of acquisition and the low skill threshold necessary to conduct an attack.”

The federal bulletin noted that since 2014, the Islamic State terror group has been promoting the use of vehicles in terror attacks, followed by attacks with secondary weapons, as a method to cause mass casualty incidents.

The joint bulletin advised law enforcement agencies to look for danger signs, such as fraudulent documents or credit cards used to rent vehicles, or signs of “pre-operational surveillance,” such as automobiles parked in odd locations or suspicious activity near an event location.

The FBI released three photos Friday of the now deceased suspect in the attack, 42-year-old Shamsud-Din Jabbar, taken from surveillance video about an hour before the deadly Bourbon Street attack. They also released a photograph of a blue ice chest that was found near the scene containing an improvised explosive device.

The photos were released along with a statement soliciting information from any member of the public who might have passed Jabbar on the street or saw the cooler like the one in the photo.

The White House announced Friday that President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden will travel to New Orleans on Monday to visit with families and community members affected by the attack, as well as meet with officials on the ground.

In a briefing Thursday with reporters, FBI officials said they believe Jabbar, who was killed at the scene in a shootout with police, acted alone in the New Year’s attack and was inspired by the Islamic State terror group.

FBI Deputy Assistant Director Christopher Raia, with the agency’s counterterrorism division, said they concluded Jabbar had no accomplices following hundreds of interviews and reviews of the attacker’s calls, social media accounts and electronic devices.

Officials reopened Bourbon Street on Thursday afternoon. The attack occurred on Wednesday at 3:15 a.m.

On Tuesday evening, just hours before the attack, Jabbar posted five videos to his Facebook account, apparently addressed to his family and recorded while he was driving, in which he aligned himself with the Islamic State terror group. The FBI said an Islamic State flag also was found in the vehicle after the attack.

“This was an act of terrorism. It was premeditated and an evil act,” Raia said.

Jabbar had originally planned to hurt his relatives and friends but worried about how that would be interpreted by the media, Raia said. “He was 100% inspired by ISIS.”

The attack occurred at the intersection of Canal and Bourbon streets in the city’s lively French Quarter. The historic tourist destination filled with bars and music is also known for its large New Year’s Eve celebrations.

After the vehicle crashed, the driver got out of the truck and shot at responding officers, police said. Officers returned fire, killing the driver, according to police. Two officers were wounded but are in stable condition, the police said.

“This is not just an act of terrorism. This is evil,” New Orleans Police Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick told reporters at a news conference Wednesday.

Investigators found weapons and an explosive device in the vehicle, the FBI said, along with other explosive devices found in the French Quarter. The vehicle appeared to have been rented, the FBI said.

President-elect Donald Trump condemned the attack in a post on his social media platform Truth Social.

“Our hearts are with all the innocent victims and their loved ones. The Trump Administration will fully support the City of New Orleans as they investigate and recover from this act of pure evil!” he said.

In the same post, Trump also falsely suggested that the suspect was an immigrant.

VOA National Security Correspondent Jeff Seldin and VOA reporter Liam Scott contributed to this report. Some information for this story came from Reuters and The Associated Press.
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