(WSB Radio) -- Dunwoody Police have stepped up patrols near their banks after a suspected serial bank robber hits one bank twice within five days.

Sgt. Mike Carlson tells WSB they also think the suspect is getting more dangerous.

"In this particular robbery, he did show the teller that he was armed with a pistol in his pocket," said Carlson.

The latest robbery happened Saturday at the Fidelity Bank at 2 Perimeter Center East. 

Police say the suspect hit the Wachovia across the street twice.

"They've been going on for approximately a month now.  We've got three just in our jurisdiction," said Carlson.

The other jurisdictions include Alpharetta, Sandy Springs, and Cobb County.

"We are working with other jurisdictions in reference to this bank robber.  We are sharing information and we have of course, stepped up patrols around our banks," said Carlson.

The suspect may be driving a burgundy Tahoe.

30 November 2009

Coach Mike Smith says Chris Redman, who took over for Ryan will start against the Eagles.

"Matt has been ruled out of the ballgame on Sunday," Smith said.  "During the week he's going to work with our medical staff ... in order to get back as quick as he can."

Redman's last start came in the final game of the 2007 season. He tossed a game-winning touchdown pass with 23 seconds left to lift the Falcons to a 20-17 victory over the Bucs.

"On Wednesday he'll take the majority of the snaps in practice," said Smith.  "I can assure you, that myself and everybody in the locker room has all the confidence in the world with Chris Redman."

Ryan injured his right big toe on the first series against the Buccaneers. He had an MRI performed on his right foot early Monday and later traveled to Charlotte to see a specialist.

(WSB Radio)  MARTA is asking customers and employees to help them fight the spread of the H1N1 virus.

Customers and employees are being asked to follow the CDC recommended precautions to prevent the spread of the virus. 

All the buses and trains get a good cleaning each day. MARTA maintains a robust cleaning regimen using an EPA approved disinfectant within buses, mobility vans, trains and rail stations.

MARTA continues to receive regular updates from the CDC, Department of Human Resources and local health officials and will adjust their  plans according to their guidance. Currently, there are no transportation related restrictions and federal officials have confirmed that at this time public transportation is no more or less safe than any other public place.

The CDC recommends a few simple steps to protect yourself from flu. Cover your nose and mouth with a tissue when you cough or sneeze. Wash your hands often with soap and water. If soap and water are not available, use an alcohol-based hand rub. Avoid touching your eyes, nose and mouth. Germs spread that way.  Stay home if you get sick. CDC recommends that you stay home from work or school and limit contact with others to keep from infecting them.

(WSB Radio)  The Thanksgiving holiday weekend wasn't as deadly as police had feared.

The Georgia State Patrol says 13 people died in traffic accidents during the holiday period, three fewer than was expected.

The official holiday travel period lasted 102 hours, beginning at 6 o'clock Wednesday night and ending at midnight on Sunday.

In all, there were close to 3100 crashes on Georgia's road, resulting in 730 injuries.  Both numbers are also lower than predictions.

Compared to Thanksgiving of 2008, this year was also safer.  19 people died on the state's roads last year, with over 3800 accidents reported, resulting in 1457 injuries.

(WSB Radio)  The death of a Johns Creek teenager may have been connected to alcohol, that according to investigators.

Sergio Cortez-Garcia, 19, was found dead in the basement of his home on Brooks Bridge Crossing early Sunday morning.

Family members, returning home from a party, found Cortez-Garcia unconscious and called 911.  The initial report was that the teen had been shot, but police found no evidence of a gunshot wound.

Cortez-Garcia was pronounced dead at the scene and transported to the medical examiner.  A preliminary autopsy indicates he had consumed a large amount of alcohol before he died.

(WSB Radio)  The man charged with beating an Army reservist outside of a Clayton County Cracker Barrel isn't going to court today after all.

47 year old Troy West, Jr., was scheduled to be in the Clayton County court for a pre-trial meeting, but it's been postponed.

West is charged with aggravated assault, cruelty to children, false imprisonment, battery and disorderly conduct.

He's been out of jail since last month after posting a $320,000 bond.  West must wear an ankle monitor while out on bail and must also remain at his home in Poulan.

According to police, Tashawnea Hill was entering into the Morrow restaurant with her 7 year old daughter back in September.  Hill claims West was leaving and swung the door open, almost hitting the child.

When Hill asked West to be more careful, she says the South Georgia man attacked her, punching her until she fell to the ground, then kicking her.  Hill claims West also was yelling racial slurs at her during the assault.

(WSB Radio)  A young mother and father could face charges in the death of their newborn.

The mother led Atlanta police to where she buried the child near the St. Lucia apartments, along Moros go Court in Buckhead.

The mother claims the child was stillborn.

"It's too early in the investigation to tell.  We don't know if this is going to be ruled a homicide," says Atlanta Police homicide Detective Summer Benton.  "But those charges may be pending later.  We don't know."

The mother arrived at South Fulton Medical Center, where medical staff immediately determined she had just given birth.

After some coaxing, she told police what she had done with the newborn.

The father says he didn't know anything about the incident, saying he was at work when it happened.

An autopsy will be performed on the infant to determine the cause of death and whether charges will be filed against the couple.

(WSB Radio)  One more day until the Atlanta mayoral election and one more debate until voters go to the polls.

Mary Norwood and Kasim Reed squared off one last time, debating the issues on WSB-TV Sunday night. 

While the candidates talked about the city's finances and how to put more police on the streets, from the very start, race dominated the debate.

The first question posed to the candidates was how to bridge any racial divides caused by the campaign.

"If Miss Norwood is fortunate enough to be elected mayor on December 1, I've already committed to her side, if she would have me there immediately," says Reed, "so we can begin healing this city."

"I look at our campaign as having been one of total inclusion," says Norwood.  "I will reach out to all citizens, and serve them, the way I've served them on city council."

Both candidates want to put more cops on the street, but have different approaches to doing so.  Reed wants to hire an additional 750, partly with federal money.

"50 of the new officers will be funded through a grant provided by President Obama's administration for $11.3 million," Reed says.

Norwood wants a redistribution of current resources to provide a greater street presence.

"To have the men and women who are in special units to come back and be on the beat," she says.  "To have people who are behind desks back on the beat."

As for the city's finances, Norwood says she'll take immediate action.

"I have pledged top to bottom audits," she says. "From a citywide, comprehensive audit by an outside firm.  I think there is some right sizing to do, as well as right positioning."

"We're going to have to do a much better  job collecting our revenue," says Reed.  "We're also going to have to eliminated non-public safety overtime.  We also has to have (sic) a new chief."

Voter go to the polls Tuesday, four weeks after neither Norwood nor Reed captured a majority in the general election.

(WSB Radio) One teenager is dead and two others are hospitalized in serious condition following a single car crash on South Bogen Road in Buford. 

Officers responded to the scene just before 9 o'clock Sunday night.  Gwinnett County Police Detective Jacob Smith told WSB "they found one vehicle that had rolled over several times."  He added "there were two ejections, one of the passengers believed to be the driver was dead at the scene."

The fatality has only been identified as an 18-year-old male.  The 17-year-old passengers were taken to a local hospital.

Accident investigators have not determined what caused the crash, but they do not believe alcohol or drugs were contributing factors.

(WSB Radio) Gwinnett County police are looking for the hit and run driver who allegedly caused an accident on I-85 that sent six people, including three children, to the hospital with minor to moderate injuries. 

Gwinnett County Police Detective Jacob Smith tells WSB the two vehicle wreck happened around 6 o'clock Sunday night in the interstate's southbound HOV lane near Indian Trail Road.

Smith says the suspect vehicle, described as a dark colored mid-size sedan with front end and/or driver's side damage, ran into a minivan taxi and left the scene.

The taxi flipped on impact, but all six passengers had gotten out of the minivan when paramedics arrived. 

The children, all boys, were taken to Children's Healthcare of Atlanta at Scottish Rite.  The adult male driver and two adult female passengers were taken to Gwinnett Medical Center in Lawrenceville.

(WSB Radio) An Atlanta firefighter was taken to Grady Hospital after parts of a home collapsed during a fire.

The blaze happened at a home off Federal Terrace in Southeast Atlanta around 10 p.m. Saturday. Firefighters said there were heavy smoke and fire conditions when they arrived.

"There was a collapse," Atlanta Fire Capt. Jolyon Bundrige told WSB Radio. "The rear-roof and second-floor collapsed. One firefighter was injured"

Capt. Bundrige said the firefighter had to be pulled out from the home. He was taken to Grady Hospital and is in stable condition.His name was not released.

One adult and two kids were inside the home. They got out ok. The Red Cross is assisting the victims. The cause of the fire is unknown.

(WSB Radio) Police were searching for three suspects involved in an armed robbery and a chase through Rockdale and Newton Counties.

A Covington police spokesman told WSB Radio three black men, in their early 20s and wearing dark clothes, broke into a Taco Bell of Hwy. 278 in Newton County around 9 p.m. The suspects got away with cash and took off westbound on I-20.

Covington Police Cpt. Ken Malcolm said police were able to find the suspects vehicle clogged in heavy traffic on I-20 near the Rockdale-Newton County line. Police started shooting when the suspects tried to run them over.

The chase continued on I-20 into Rockdale County when the suspects exited onto Hwy 138.

"Deputies were able to get the vehicle stopped on Hwy 138 near Miller Bottom road using a pit maneuver," Cpt. Malcolm said. "Three black males exited the vehicle and additional shots were fired at this location."

The suspects then fled into the woods off Hwy 138. Police closed the roads and used a helicopter during the search. Some of the stolen cash was recovered in the woods, police said.

One officer suffered a minor injury to his face during the shooting on I-20. Authorities don't know if the suspects were injured, Cpt. Malcolm said.

WASHINGTON (AP) Osama bin Laden was unquestionably within reach of U.S. troops in the mountains of Tora Bora when American military leaders made the crucial and costly decision not to pursue the terrorist leader with massive force, a Senate report says.

The report asserts that the failure to kill or capture bin Laden at his most vulnerable in December 2001 has had lasting consequences beyond the fate of one man. Bin Laden's escape laid the foundation for today's reinvigorated Afghan insurgency and inflamed the internal strife now endangering Pakistan, it says.

Staff members for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's Democratic majority prepared the report at the request of the chairman, Sen. John Kerry, as President Barack Obama prepares to boost U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

The Massachusetts senator and 2004 Democratic presidential candidate has long argued the Bush administration missed a chance to get the al-Qaida leader and top deputies when they were holed up in the forbidding mountainous area of eastern Afghanistan only three months after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Although limited to a review of military operations eight years old, the report could also be read as a cautionary note for those resisting an increased troop presence there now.

More pointedly, it seeks to affix a measure of blame for the state of the war today on military leaders under former president George W. Bush, specifically Donald H. Rumsfeld as defense secretary and his top military commander, Tommy Franks.

``Removing the al-Qaida leader from the battlefield eight years ago would not have eliminated the worldwide extremist threat,'' the report says. ``But the decisions that opened the door for his escape to Pakistan allowed bin Laden to emerge as a potent symbolic figure who continues to attract a steady flow of money and inspire fanatics worldwide. The failure to finish the job represents a lost opportunity that forever altered the course of the conflict in Afghanistan and the future of international terrorism.''

The report states categorically that bin Laden was hiding in Tora Bora when the U.S. had the means to mount a rapid assault with several thousand troops at least. It says that a review of existing literature, unclassified government records and interviews with central participants ``removes any lingering doubts and makes it clear that Osama bin Laden was within our grasp at Tora Bora.''

On or about Dec. 16, 2001, bin Laden and bodyguards ``walked unmolested out of Tora Bora and disappeared into Pakistan's unregulated tribal area,'' where he is still believed to be based, the report says.

Instead of a massive attack, fewer than 100 U.S. commandos, working with Afghan militias, tried to capitalize on air strikes and track down their prey.

``The vast array of American military power, from sniper teams to the most mobile divisions of the Marine Corps and the Army, was kept on the sidelines,'' the report said.

At the time, Rumsfeld expressed concern that a large U.S. troop presence might fuel a backlash and he and some others said the evidence was not conclusive about bin Laden's location.

On the Net:

The report: http://foreign.senate.gov/

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

CHICAGO (AP) Shoppers who endured long lines and sometimes-frigid temperatures spent only slightly more during their Black Friday shopping sprees than they did last year, according to data released Saturday by a research firm.

At the same time, their pajama-clad counterparts, a much smaller group that accounted for only a fraction of overall sales, shopped online from the warmth of their homes and dramatically boosted their spending.

More than a year after the economy's collapse began rattling shoppers, industry observers said Friday's shopping sprees offered a strong start to the holiday season.

``We have struggled for a long time and one of the ways for the economy to get going again is for the consumer to begin to spend more freely,'' said Bill Martin, co-founder of research firm ShopperTrak, which released its sales figures Saturday. ``And I think this is an indication they were willing to do that.''

Preliminary sales data from Martin's organization, a Chicago research firm that tracks sales at more than 50,000 stores, showed shoppers spent $10.66 billion when they hit the malls on the day after Thanksgiving. That's only 0.5 percent more than last year when Black Friday sales rose a striking 3 percent.

The traditional shopping spree dubbed Black Friday because it often was the day when a surge of shoppers helped stores break into ``the black,'' or profitability, the full year has marked the kickoff of holiday shopping for many consumers.

But its importance has faded in recent years as merchants started hawking the deep discounts usually reserved for that day well in advance.

For example, last year's Black Friday spending grew from $10.3 billion to about $10.6 billion. But the overall holiday spending fell 4.4 percent as shoppers slowed spending as the holiday season went on.

Still, the day is often used as an important barometer of shoppers' mindset: what kinds of items they're buying and what kind of discounts will lure them.

Stores offerred deals on more practical items to woo recession-weary shoppers who more than ever might want gifts that the recipients will really appreciate.

``I know what they want, but I've been looking for a deal to make sure I get a good price,'' Jude Leeper, 49, of Hanover, Pa., said as she shopped for gifts for family members Friday at a Maryland mall. ``I'm going to buy that gift that I know is going to get used, not stuffed in a closet.''

On Friday, many of the in-store deals were also available online, causing some Web sites to overload as shoppers tried to get deals without waiting in long, cold lines.

Steve Segal, a 47-year-old attorney from Bridgewater, N.J., avoided the midnight crowds on Black Friday as he searched for a hair straightener for his daughter. But his shopping was derailed when the item was out of stock in stores and Kohl's Web site was overwhelmed by a crush of shoppers.

He wound up buying it elsewhere online for a cheaper price and with free shopping.

``It was a vicious cyber-circle,'' he said.

Web marketing analyst Coremetrics said its data showed the average amount online shoppers spent on Black Friday rose 35 percent as shoppers spent roughly $170.19 per order up from $126.04 last year.

The company, based in San Mateo, Calif., also said Web shoppers also bought more items each time they checked out from an online merchant, snagging about 5.4 items in their carts, up from 4.6 last year. Overall, Web sales account for about roughly 7 percent of overall retail sales, according to Forrester Research.

Shop-by-television sales were also strong at the TV shopping network QVC, which said its Black Friday sales totaled $32 million up almost 60 percent from last year, thanks to its first push to promote its post-Thanksgiving deals.

Associated Press Writer Ben Greene contributed to this report from Towson, Md., and AP Business Writer Deborah Yao contributed to this report from Philadelphia.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

WINDERMERE, Fla. (AP) The mystery over Tiger Woods' car crash intensified Saturday when his agent called state troopers on their way to Woods' house and asked them to wait another day before speaking to him.

It was the second straight day Woods was unavailable to talk. His wife told troopers on Friday afternoon, after the world's No. 1 golfer had been treated and released from a hospital, that he was sleeping and asked that they return Saturday.

Woods is not required by law to speak to the Florida Highway Patrol because it is being investigated as a traffic accident, spokeswoman Sgt. Kim Montes said.

Woods was injured when his Cadillac SUV struck a fire hydrant and a tree just beyond his driveway at 2:25 a.m. Friday. Police said his lips were cut and blood was in his mouth when officers arrived. Police chief Daniel Saylor said Woods' wife, Elin, smashed the back window with a golf club to help get him out.

Montes said troopers were en route to Woods' $2.4 million mansion in the gated community of Isleworth when agent Mark Steinberg called dispatch and was put through to the troopers, telling them Woods and his wife were unavailable.

``I don't know what was said,'' Montes said.

Steinberg did not immediately respond to a text message seeking comment.

With so many questions lingering where was he going at that hour? and rumors circulating on the Internet, one marketing expert said silence was only stirring the pot.

``Every 10 seconds these days, people update their tweets,'' said David Schwab, vice president of Octagon. ``People are just adding speculation and controversy. You need something to settle the ship. If he's not able to do it, find someone to do it for him.''

Montes said it was ``kind of normal'' for Woods not to speak on Friday, the day he was treated and released from a hospital.

``It is unusual that we haven't gotten a statement,'' she said. ``This just delays us to getting closer to the completion of the investigation.''

She said troopers inside the gates ``are looking for other things for their investigation,'' and for now, that pertains only to a traffic accident. Montes said Woods is not required to give a statement, only his driver's license, insurance and registration.

``We still are going to move forward with our crash investigation,'' Montes said.

The 911 tapes of the crash could be released as early as Sunday.

More than two dozen media and a cluster of TV trucks were camped outside the gates of Isleworth, an exclusive subdivision near Orlando that's set on an Arnold Palmer-designed golf course and a chain of small lakes, on Saturday, watching for any developments. Even a couple of tourists stopped by and took pictures.

Woods' news conference for the Chevron World Challenge, the tournament he hosts that benefits his foundation, had been scheduled for Tuesday afternoon. It's unclear whether he would still play, or even attend the event in Thousand Oaks, Calif.

``We do not know if Tiger is playing; we are anticipating a great week of competition,'' said Greg McLaughlin, the tournament director and president of his foundation.

In a telephone interview, Woods' father-in-law, radio journalist Thomas Nordegren, told The Associated Press in Stockholm that he would not discuss the accident.

``I haven't spoken to her in the last few ... `` Nordegren said about his daughter, Elin, before cutting himself off. ``I don't want to go into that.''

Woods' mother-in-law Barbro Holmberg also refused to address the matter.

``She doesn't want to comment on private issues like these,'' Holmberg's spokeswoman Eva Malmborg said.

Roger Federer, who has become close with Woods in recent years, said after losing in the semifinals of the ATP World Tour Finals in London, ``I haven't spoken to him. I heard it's not too serious, which is a good thing.''

Woods has shared precious little about his private life during his dominance of golf, which has brought him 82 victories around the world and 14 major championships, second only to the 18 professional majors won by Jack Nicklaus.

His endorsements Nike, AT Accenture, Gillette, Gatorade have helped make him the first athlete to top $1 billion in earnings.

Aside from occasional criticism of his temper inside the ropes, he has kept himself out of the news outside his sport. In an October posting on his Facebook account, Woods wrote, ``I'm asked why people don't often see me and Elin in gossip magazines or tabloids. I think we've avoided a lot of media attention because we're kind of boring. ...''

``He's an iconic brand, the platinum standard,'' said John Rowady, president of rEvolution, a Chicago-based sports marketing agency. ``I find it interesting how he's being attacked by so many sides after how gracious he's been. But even the best of celebrities who try to do their best can be riddled with controversy.''

Rowady said Woods has solid relationship with his sponsors, and they are not likely to drop him over what is known so far.

``Here's a guy that has a squeaky clean record,'' Rowady said. ``He leads the king's life and everybody admires him. It's a personal matter, but his ability to come out and talk about it will be interesting. I'm sure he has a lot of pressure on him and is trying to avoid the rumors.''

Nordegren, a former model from Sweden who once worked as a nanny for golfer Jesper Parnevik, is as private as Woods. She keeps a low profile at tournaments, watching her husband from behind the ropes, and moves on when photographers start taking her picture.

Asked at a Friday evening news conference if the couple could have been arguing, Saylor said he had no knowledge of that.

The accident came two days after the National Enquirer published a story alleging that Woods had been seeing a New York night club hostess, and that they recently were together in Melbourne, where Woods competed in the Australian Masters.

The woman, Rachel Uchitel, denied having an affair with Woods when contacted by the AP.

``I resent my reputation is getting completely blasted in the media,'' she said during a telephone interview late Friday. ``Everyone is assuming I came out and said this. This is not a story I have anything to do with.''

Uchitel said she was in Melbourne two weeks ago with clients and never saw Woods the entire time she was there.

``The story stands for itself,'' National Enquirer executive editor Barry Levine told the AP on Saturday.

AP Golf Writer Doug Ferguson in Jacksonville, AP Sports Writer Tim Dahlberg in Las Vegas and Associated Press writers Tamara Lush and Lisa Orkin Emmanuel in Miami and Louise Nordstrom in Stockholm contributed to this report.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

ATLANTA (AP) Police say a man was shot inside an Atlanta nightclub.

Police tell WSB-TV the shooting happened early Saturday morning at Primal Nightclub.

Police say the 25-year-old victim was taken to Grady Memorial Hospital and was in stable condition.

Police say they couldn't immediately find the person or people who shot the man.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

ATLANTA (AP) Some of Atlanta's biggest developers, including Wayne Mason and John Williams, are being sued by a South Carolina bank that claims they have failed to repay more than $12 million in loans for the Hampton Island Preserve, an exclusive residential community along Georgia's coast.

The lawsuit, which also targets Ronald Leventhal, another big-time Atlanta builder, underscores the recessionary scourge that has decimated real estate in Georgia. The suit, obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, also shows the precariousness of the state's pricey, second-home market, particularly along the hard-hit coast.

Leventhal, the managing partner of Hampton Island LLC, hadn't seen the lawsuit Friday and reserved most comment until next week.

``All I can say, generally, is you shouldn't believe lawsuits sometimes,'' he said. The recession ``has slowed us down like it would anybody in the luxury or up-end market. But we're hopeful that will change sometime next year.''

A spokeswoman for Mason, one of suburban Atlanta's most prolific real estate deal makers, also said he hadn't seen the lawsuit and wouldn't comment. Williams, a major Cobb County developer who founded Post Properties, an upscale apartment development firm, couldn't be reached Friday.

First Citizens Bank and Trust Co. of Columbia claims the developers are in default, saying they have not made interest payments since May. Neither First Citizens nor its Atlanta attorneys could be reached Friday.

Hampton Island, like Sea Island and other high-dollar exclusive coastal communities, offers top-shelf amenities. The 4,000-acre gated community near Riceboro, about 40 minutes south of Savannah, boasts a soon-to-be-completed Davis Love III-designed golf course, a $9 million horse stable, a ``treehouse spa'' and a private seaplane.

Roughly 370 house lots, priced between $400,000 and $4 million, afford marsh, river and lake views. Annual dues run $15,000. Actor Ben Affleck bought two houses and 83 acres for $7.1 million earlier this decade.

``Hampton Island Preserve is a place to luxuriate in quality of life that has simply disappeared for most,'' its Web site reads.

The development, though, has been troubled nearly since its creation. Wade Shealy Jr., the original owner, was squeezed out illegally he claimed by some original partners. The project foundered until a few years back when Williams, Mason and others injected much-needed capital.

Then the economy tanked and second-home buyers, even well-heeled ones, curbed spending. The famed Sea Island Co., for example, gave up the deed earlier this month to the 3,000-acre Frederica development, a golf-and-home community on the north end of St. Simons Island. Sea Island's half-billion-dollar expansion plans had left it heavily indebted to several banks.

``High-end development, in general, is very susceptible to this type of recession which has hit people that have a lot of investment income or who own their own businesses,'' said Mark Vitner, senior economist at Wells Fargo. ``And coastal development, in particular, has been hit very hard.''

Leventhal, whose Tivoli Communities is a subsidiary of Tivoli Properties, which develops high-rise condos, apartments and hotels including Aqua Midtown in Atlanta, said Friday that 40 home sites on Hampton Island have been sold in the past five years.

``Like all properties on the coast, we're going through the impact of the economy,'' Leventhal said, adding that no bankruptcies have been declared and his staff is paid. ``We are open for business.''

Leventhal's partners aren't immune from the recession, either. Mason, who bought and sold the land for Discover Mills in Gwinnett County and a key segment of Atlanta's planned Beltline, was sued in October on a claim that he defaulted on a $7.5 million loan intended for three units of a Buckhead medical office building.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

Gwinnett County police say they arrested 35-year-old Raul Carrion-Jimenez at a Norcross apartment complex at 8:20 p.m. Friday. He faces charges of aggravated assault and aggravated battery.

Police say Carrion-Jimenez left the house Friday morning after arguing with his girlfriend. He returned around 3:15 p.m. looking for her. A woman who is about eight weeks pregnant told Carrion-Jimenez his girlfriend wasn't there and locked the door.

Police say Carrion-Jimenez then drew a pistol and fired. He fled when police were called.

The victim was taken to a hospital where police say her injuries were determined to be non-life-threatening for both her and the baby.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

ACWORTH, Ga. (AP) A Georgia woman has been arrested for having four children in a filthy home.

An arrest warrant says 37-year-old Casey Abigail Robinson of Acworth faces charges of contributing to the deprivation of a minor because of the condition of the home.

Police say problems in the home include water flooding, mold growth, insect infestation and an ``unknown source of fecal matter'' in the bathroom.

Police say the four children in the home ranged in age from 6 to 13.

Robinson is listed as Casey Pineda in jail documents. She was arrested at the home Friday evening and was release on $2,500 bond around 11:30 a.m. Saturday.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

ATLANTA (AP) Georgia's fill-in mascot drew a big crowd.

Russ, the older brother of Georgia's late mascot, Uga VII, made his debut in Georgia's 30-24 win over No. 7 Georgia Tech on Saturday night. The 5-year-old dog was surrounded by photographers before the game.

Unlike Uga VII, who was a pure white English bulldog, Russ has a patch of brown on his back.

Russ may serve as the mascot in Georgia's bowl game but will not be next in the line of full-time Uga mascots, owned by Sonny Seiler and his Savannah-based family. Seiler has said Uga VIII will be selected next year.

Russ was not the first fill-in mascot for Georgia. The most famous substitute was Otto, who had a 3-1 record in 1986 while filling in for his younger brother, Uga IV, who was injured.

Otto and Uga IV worked together in a win over Georgia Tech in 1986.

Uga VII died of heart problems on Nov. 19. Georgia had no mascot for last week's home loss to Kentucky.

TAKE THE BALL AND RUN: For the first time this season, Georgia took the ball after winning the opening toss.

Coach Mark Richt apparently couldn't wait to see his team run the ball.

Georgia had 10 straight running plays gaining 79 yards on its opening touchdown drive. Freshman Washaun Ealey had the biggest gain 35 yards in the long drive.

Ealey passed 100 yards with a 34-yard gain in the second quarter. Ealey, who didn't start, had a career-high 139 yards rushing in the first half and finished with 183 yards.

Caleb King, the starter, added 64 yards rushing and a 6-yard touchdown run in the first half. He finished with 166 yards.

It marked the first time since 2004 against Vanderbilt that Georgia had two backs with more than 100 yards rushing. Danny Ware and Thomas Brown each topped 100 yards rushing in that game against the Commodores.

Georgia's 339 yards rushing was a high under Richt, and its 76 yards passing was a low for the Richt era.

NESBITT HURTS ANKLE: Georgia Tech quarterback Josh Nesbitt suffered an apparent right ankle injury late in the first quarter and was out until 3:18 was left in the first half.

Georgia Tech brought in sophomore Jaybo Shaw after Nesbitt was injured on a first-down run with 1:03 remaining in the first quarter.

Nesbitt limped to the locker room minutes later.

Shaw threw an interception on a deep pass for Demaryius Thomas late in the half. Nesbitt returned the following series and played the rest of the game.

ANDERSON HURTS KNEE: Georgia Tech starting defensive tackle Ben Anderson hurt his right knee on Georgia's opening touchdown drive and needed help leaving the field.

Jason Peters took over for Anderson, who was on crutches by the end of the first quarter.

Georgia Tech receiver Stephen Hill left the game with an injury with 1:35 remaining. He landed hard on his hip while failing to make a catch and was escorted to the locker room.

WORTH NOTING: Georgia Tech was held to only three points in the first half, matching its fewest points in a half this season. It also was held to three points in the first half of its 33-17 loss at Miami on Sept. 17. ... Shaw's interception was only Georgia Tech's second in the past five games. ... Jonathan Dwyer passed Robert Lavette for No. 7 on the school's single-season rushing list. ... Thomas caught a pass for the 28th consecutive game. ... Georgia cornerback Vance Cuff made his first career start ahead of Brandon Boykin, who was slowed by a hip injury. ... Former Georgia quarterback Matthew Stafford, a rookie with the Detroit Lions, watched from the Georgia sideline. ... Georgia safety Bryan Evans left with a concussion early in the fourth quarter and did not return.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

ATLANTA (AP) The Atlanta Falcons sure needed this. A home game against the woeful Tampa Bay Buccaneers, no less.

The Falcons (5-5) have lost four of five to put a serious crimp in their hopes of making the playoffs for the second year in a row, but they couldn't have asked for a better opponent to get back on track.

In the first of three straight games at the Georgia Dome, Atlanta will face a team that has struggled mightily under first-year coach Raheem Morris, who dumped his offensive coordinator before the season even began and just demoted his defensive coordinator after a 31-point home loss to the New Orleans Saints.

No way the Falcons can afford to slip up Sunday against the Bucs (1-9), especially with the next two games against wild-card contender Philadelphia and unbeaten New Orleans.

``We've got to get on the right track,'' receiver Roddy White said. ``This is a nice stretch for us. We've got three home games back to back to back. These last six games are going to be the deciding stretch. There's going to be teams that rise to the occasion and teams that fade away. I hope we're one of the teams that rises to the occasion.''

Indeed, the Falcons are still very much in the thick of things despite their rough patch. Green Bay (7-4) gained an edge in the wild-card race with its Thanksgiving victory over Detroit, with the Eagles (6-4), Giants (6-5) and Falcons battling for the second spot.

The remaining schedule is much more favorable for Atlanta, which plays four of its last six games at home, along with a return NFC South game against the Bucs in Tampa Bay.

``We don't have room for another loss,'' tight end Tony Gonzalez said. ``Maybe one more, but that's it.''

The Bucs long ago gave up on the playoffs, and their season of discontent took another strange turn when Morris decided to take over the defensive play-calling duties for the rest of the season, replacing veteran coordinator Jim Bates.

``Raheem made a decision. We are all living by his decision,'' cornerback Ronde Barber said. ``There are some things that we are trying to get done on defense that I think Raheem can better coach us at.''

Tampa Bay certainly can't sink much lower. The Bucs are last in rushing defense, have given up the second-most points and rank 27th in yards allowed at more than 378 per game.

``We are judged every day in this business,'' said Morris, who fired offensive coordinator Jeff Jagodzinski 10 days before the start of the season. ``It's in the results. We have to go out and we have to progress and try to get better the next couple of weeks. That's my focus.''

The Falcons showed some promising signs on offense in last week's overtime loss to the Giants, even though Atlanta was missing its top two running backs, starter Michael Turner and Jerious Norwood.

Matt Ryan, in particular, gave reason to hope that he's coming out of his sophomore swoon. He threw two touchdown passes, snapped a six-game stretch with at least one interception and calmly ran the two-minute offense to send the game to OT.

``We made some plays in the fourth quarter,'' Ryan said. ``We gave ourselves a chance. We had opportunities, but we didn't take advantage of them. It's frustrating when you lose, but we're not discouraged.''

Turner and Norwood were both listed as questionable for this week's game, though Norwood seemed further along in his recovery from a hip injury. Turner, the second-leading rusher in the NFL a year ago, is slowed by a high ankle sprain and could only do limited work in practice. Third-stringer Jason Snelling started against the Giants and appeared likely to handle that role for the second week in a row.

The Falcons' defense is nearly as big a mess as Tampa Bay's, ranking near the bottom on the league in most major categories. Atlanta also has a big concern on special teams: the baffling slump of kicker Jason Elam. The 39-year-old is only 6 of 12 on attempts from at least 30 yards and had crucial misses the last two weeks.

Four kickers came in this past week for a tryout. Even though Elam still has the job, the 17-year veteran knows he's probably down to his last miss.

``To be honest, I thought they were going to do that a couple of weeks ago,'' Elam said of the team auditioning possible replacements. ``This is a results-based business. I'm not getting my part done. Your job is always on the line.''

The Bucs are basically auditioning for next season, hoping to salvage something good from their lost year. Rookie Josh Freeman has shown promise since taking over at quarterback, though he's coming off a miserable four-turnover, three-sack performance against the Saints.

In addition to throwing three interceptions, Freeman made a rookie blunder that led to the fumble. He correctly read the New Orleans defense, changed up the blocking protection for a pass instead of a run, but forgot to actually change the play. He was sacked, coughed up the ball and the Saints recovered, leading to a touchdown that put away the game.

``We have to step back and realize we are a young team,'' Freeman said. ``Right now we're focusing on the long stretch. I mean, obviously, the first 10 games didn't go the way we wanted to, but at the same time nobody is quitting on anybody, no one's quitting on the team. We're all just trying to win games because this is the stretch where teams emerge.''

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

ATLANTA (AP) Johan Hedberg finally knows what it feels like to beat Philadelphia as a member of the Atlanta Thrashers.

``It's a big mental break,'' he said. ``They've had our number since I've been here.''

Hedberg made 34 saves for his first shutout in two years and the Thrashers stopped a 14-game losing streak against Philadelphia with a 1-0 victory Saturday night.

``I was not aware it was 14 games in the streak,'' Atlanta coach John Anderson said, ``but it's not 14 games anymore.''

Rich Peverley scored his 10th goal, his sixth on the power play, midway through the second and helped the Thrashers overcome a sluggish third period.

Ending what was the NHL's longest current losing streak against one opponent, the Thrashers won their third straight overall. They have just 12 points at Philips Arena, however, after starting the game with the league's third-fewest points total at home.

Philadelphia has lost two straight and five of six. The Flyers hadn't lost to Atlanta since Nov. 18, 2005, but they couldn't solve Hedberg, who thrived in the pressure of a one-goal game.

``That's what hockey is all about,'' said Hedberg, in his fourth season with Atlanta. ``It's a fun challenge. You know they're going to be coming, but you're also just one bounce away from going up 2-0. These games are really fun to play.''

While his teammates managed only 17 shots on goal, including just three in the third, Hedberg stopped 13 shots in the final 20 minutes for his 12th career shutout.

``He was extremely sharp,'' Flyers coach John Stevens said. ``I'm not dissatisfied with the effort tonight, but we have to find a way to shapen up offensively.''

Peverley used a sweeping wrister 11:07 into the second to make it 1-0. Lowering his right knee from the bottom of the left circle, Peverley beat goalie Brian Boucher's stick side after taking Pavel Kubina's pass from the top of the right circle.

``You can't get overly frustrated by it,'' Boucher said. ``Sometimes things are out of your control. Sometimes as a goaltender, you're at the mercy of the game. If the other (goalie) stands on his head like he did, sometimes you're going to lose a game even though you did enough to win.''

Colby Armstrong's night ended 12 seconds into the third when the Atlanta forward and Philadelphia's Arron Asham took off their gloves.

Armstrong got 5 minutes for charging, 5 minutes for fighting and a game misconduct. Asham was penalized 2 minutes for instigating, 5 for fighting and also was given a 10-minute misconduct.

Peverley has at least one point in 17 of Atlanta's 23 games.

``Kubina made a great pass, and I didn't get a lot of it, but it got into the net,'' Peverley said. ``It was kind of a tough angle.''

Hedberg, whose shutout was his first since Nov. 16. 2007 at Carolina, improved 5-2-0. Boucher dropped to 2-3-0.

NOTES: The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that Flyers F Daniel Briere, who was eligible to play after serving a two-game suspension for a late hit on Colorado defenseman Scott Hannan, missed the game because of the flu. ... Atlanta improved to 5-26-6 overall, 3-13-3 at home, against the Flyers. ... The Thrashers' last home win over Philadelphia was Dec. 21, 2003.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

ATLANTA (AP) Georgia came out running and never slowed down.

When it was done, the Bulldogs had a huge upset that took some of the sting out of their disappointing season, while the Atlantic Coast Conference was left with a huge letdown for a championship game.

Taking a page out of Georgia Tech's playbook, Georgia rushed for 339 yards to beat the seventh-ranked Yellow Jackets 30-24 Saturday night. Freshman Washaun Ealey rambled for 183 yards and Caleb King broke loose for 166 yards and two touchdowns.

The Bulldogs (7-5) reclaimed state bragging rights in a tumultuous year and handed the Yellow Jackets (10-2) a huge setback in what has been their best season in nearly two decades. The nation's second-best rushing team was held to 205 yards 109 below its average.

``It hurts. I know I'm hurting,'' Georgia Tech safety Morgan Burnett said. ``We were a higher-ranked team, but I think we got complacent.

The loss completed a dismal day for the two teams that will meet next week in Tampa, Fla., for the ACC title. Earlier, Clemson was blown out by South Carolina 34-17.

Ealey and King left little doubt what they had in mind. The freshman had written ``I Run'' in black under his left eye and ``This State'' under his right eye. King has the same words written on his arms.

``We had a lot of success (running),'' said Ealey, who had already set a new career high by early in the second quarter. ``I hope we do it a lot in the future.''

Georgia set the tone right from the opening kickoff. The first 10 plays? All runs, including a 35-yarder by Ealey and a 6-yard touchdown for King.

The offensive line was dominating, pushing around the Yellow Jackets to open one big hole after another.

High-scoring Georgia Tech, averaging 36 points a game, looked totally out of sync throughout the first half and put themselves in another deep hole, just as they did against Georgia a year ago. In that one, Georgia Tech fell behind 28-12 at the midway point but rallied for a 45-42 victory than snapped a seven-year losing streak against their state rival.

``I just wanted to get this game,'' said Georgia safety Reshad Jones, who took a lot of heat for missed tackles in last year's loss. ``It was real personal. I wanted redemption.''

This time, the Yellow Jackets went to the locker room down 17-3. They couldn't make it all the way back.

After Georgia's Blair Walsh was wide left on a potentially clinching field goal from 55 yards out, only his second miss of the season, Georgia Tech converted a fourth down at the Georgia 46 with plenty of time to run it the rest of the way.

But coach Paul Johnson abandoned the triple option, taking three straight deep shots through the air all incomplete to leave the Yellow Jackets facing fourth-and-10. Quarterback Josh Nesbitt, who returned to the game on a gimpy ankle after being injured in the first half, found Demaryius Thomas wide open along the sideline for what would have been enough for the first down.

But Georgia Tech's top receiver let the ball slip through his hands with no one around.

Game over.

Georgia has been one of the nation's most disappointing teams, losing more games than it had in any season during Mark Richt's nine years as coach. Amid calls for him to shake up his coaching staff, the Bulldogs defied their critics and pushed the coach's record against Georgia Tech to 8-1.

For good measure, the Bulldogs likely improved their bowl prospects, though it will still be a postseason trip below their expectations.

``I know we've got some areas to improve in,'' Richt said. ``Right now, I'm just going to enjoy this victory.''

The Yellow Jackets are still in the same position as they were before the game, knowing a win in the ACC title game likely sends them to the Orange Bowl.

``We need to get over this fast,'' Georgia Tech running back Jonathan Dwyer said. ``We have a bigger game to worry about.''

King was part of an exciting sequence early in the third quarter, when Georgia Tech could have launched another comeback but were instead answered right away.

The Yellow Jackets closed to 17-10 on their third play from scrimmage when Thomas turned a short pass into a 77-yard touchdown. He caught a throw just across the line, stiff-armed Vance Cuff and took off down the sideline for his 10th play of the year covering at least 50 yards.

But Georgia took the very next snap to the house. King got the handoff, blew through yet another big opening up the middle and zigzagged his way down the field for a 75-yard touchdown.

Georgia Tech never caught up. Walsh added field goals of 38 and 43 yards to offset a pair of Georgia Tech touchdowns: Dwyer's 5-yard run and a 1-yard sneak by Nesbitt.

The Bulldogs had two 100-yard runners in a game for the first time since 2004 and piled up the most rushing yards of Richt's tenure. By comparison, Nesbitt was Georgia Tech's top rusher with a mere 41 yards. Dwyer, the reigning ACC player of the year, was held to 33 yards on 14 carries.

When it was over, Georgia got back at the Yellow Jackets for snatching pieces of the famed Sanford Stadium hedge following their 2008 upset. This time, defensive lineman Kade Weston planted a huge flag with a ``G'' near the middle of the field.

``To see them walk out with pieces of hedges in their mouths,'' said Georgia quarterback Joe Cox, ``that motivates you to want to win.''

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

ATHENS, Ga. (AP) Rennie Curran has no answer for the statistic which has helped to sink Georgia's season:

Eleven games. One fumble recovery.

It came Sept. 19 when Curran, the Georgia linebacker, recovered one against Arkansas in the Bulldogs' 52-41 win. Curran can't believe that seven games later his play is still Georgia's only fumble recovery of the season.

``It's crazy when you think about how much work we put into this and how many hours we put into this,'' Curran says. ``It's hard to believe we didn't get the results that we wanted.''

Georgia has a minus-18 turnover margin to rank 119th next to last in the nation. The Bulldogs know they can't beat No. 7 Georgia Tech on Saturday night if the ugly turnover deficit continues to grow.

Georgia is last in the nation with only eight turnovers gained in 11 games. Every other Bowl Subdivision team in the nation has forced at least 10 turnovers. The next-lowest total recovered is three.

The seven interceptions by Georgia's defense seem respectable when compared with the one fumble recovery. But only South Carolina, with five, has fewer interceptions among Southeastern Conference teams.

There has been more attention paid to Bulldogs' season-long problem with giveaways.

But the other side of Georgia's turnover deficit the shortage of takeaways also has hurt the Bulldogs (6-5).

Coach Mark Richt says he has studied the film of each of the 12 fumbles by Georgia's opponents and says he can't complain about his players' effort. The problem, Richt says, is the balls keep bouncing closer to the other team.

Georgia's season-long turnover problem was obvious last week when four second-half giveaways helped Kentucky rally from a 20-6 halftime deficit for a 34-27 win over the Bulldogs. Kentucky scored two touchdowns off the turnovers.

``It's tough to get past, but I think we're trying to move past it,'' said offensive tackle Clint Boling. ``Going into the second half when we were up 20-6, a lot of us thought we could put the game away with the way we've been playing. A couple of turnovers really hurt. We're trying to move past it and move on to Tech and hopefully we'll be able to do that.''

For a game and a half, it appeared Georgia had solved its turnover problem. It had no interceptions and no fumbles while picking off two passes in its 31-24 win over Auburn on Nov. 14.

``When they don't beat themselves, they're a really good football team,'' Georgia Tech coach Paul Johnson said. ``Last Saturday night, they dragged Kentucky up and down the field ... but they had four turnovers in the second half. They lost the game, just like any other team in America would. No team can turn it over four times in one half and win the game.''

The turning point in the Kentucky game came when freshman Branden Smith fumbled the kickoff to open the second half. The Wildcats took possession at the Georgia 14 and scored two plays later to cut the Bulldogs' lead to one touchdown, setting the tone for the second half.

``To turn the two-score deficit into a one-score deficit in a matter of seconds sure gets the other team's juices flowing,'' Richt said.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

WASHINGTON (AP) A reality TV hopeful and her husband who crashed a presidential dinner met President Barack Obama in the receiving line, the White House said Friday, as a ``deeply concerned and embarrassed'' Secret Service acknowledged its officers failed to check whether the couple was on the guest list.

The White House released a photo showing Michaele and Tareq Salahi in the receiving line in the Blue Room with Obama and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, in whose honor the dinner was held. Obama and Michaele Salahi, a candidate for Bravo's ``The Real Housewives of D.C.,'' are smiling as she grasps his right hand with both of hers and her husband looks on. Singh is standing to the Obama's left.

The Secret Service earlier this week had said the president was not in danger because the Virginia couple like others at the dinner had gone through magnetometers. But in light of their close proximity to the president, no such claim was made Friday.

The Salahis were not on the guest list and should have been prohibited from entering last Tuesday's dinner on the White House South Lawn for the prime minister of India, said Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan.

On Friday, Sullivan was apologetic in a written statement, saying the agency that protects the president is ``deeply concerned and embarrassed'' that procedures were not followed.

``As our investigation continues, appropriate measures have been taken to ensure this is not repeated,'' Sullivan said.

Secret Service spokesman Jim Mackin said officers at the checkpoint had a clipboard with names of the invited guests. Even though the Salahis names weren't on it, they were allowed to proceed. The officers should have called either someone on the White House staff or Secret Service personnel before allowing them past the checkpoint, Mackin said.

Earlier, Mackin said the Secret Service may pursue a criminal investigation of the Salahis.

Sullivan said, ``The preliminary findings of our internal investigation have determined established protocols were not followed at an initial checkpoint, verifying that two individuals were on the guest list.

``Although these individuals went through magnetometers and other levels of screening, they should have been prohibited from entering the event entirely. That failing is ours,'' he said.

Sullivan said it wasn't good enough that his agency screened more than 1.2 million visitors last year to the White House complex and protected more than 10,000 sites for the president, vice president and others.

``Even with these successes, we need to be right 100 percent of the time,'' he said. ``While we have protocols in place to address these situations, we must ensure that they are followed each and every time.''

It is unclear what the couple told officers at the checkpoint that allowed them to go through the security screening. Federal law makes it a crime to knowingly and willfully falsify statements on matters within the federal government's jurisdiction.

``As this moves closer to a criminal investigation there's less that we can say,'' Mackin said. ``I don't want to jeopardize what could be a criminal investigation. We're not leaving any option off the table at this point.''

White House spokesman Nick Shapiro said the Secret Service will take appropriate action once the review is completed.

``The men and women of the Secret Service put their lives on the line everyday to protect us. They are heroes and they have the full confidence of the president of the United States,'' Shapiro said.

The Salahis lawyer, Paul Gardner, posted a comment on their Facebook page saying, ``My clients were cleared by the White House, to be there.'' He said more information would be forthcoming.

Several messages left at Gardner's law firm on Friday were not immediately returned.

Bravo Media has confirmed that Michaele Salahi is being considered as a participant in the upcoming ``The Real Housewives of D.C.'' program and on the day of the dinner was being filmed around Washington by Half Yard Productions, the producer of the program.

``Half Yard Productions was told by Michaele and Tareq Salahi that they had been invited to the State Dinner. We took them at their word and filmed their preparations for the event. Half Yard Productions had no part in planning their presence at the event,'' said Abby Greensfelder of Half Yard Productions.

Photos on the couple's Facebook page they previously had gotten close to Obama. One photo, apparently taken in the days before Obama took the oath of office, shows the Salahis in a group shot with Obama and some of the musicians who performed at an inaugural concert.

Other photos show the Salahis in the empty, glass-enclosed box from which the Obamas watched the concert and, according to the caption, ``backstage with the Secret Service at the Lincoln Memorial during the Presidential Inauguration.''

Associated Press writer Darlene Superville contributed to this report.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

Tiger Woods was injured early Friday when he lost control of his SUV outside his Florida mansion, and a local police chief said Woods' wife used a golf club to smash out the back window to help get him out.

The world's No. 1 golfer was treated and released from a hospital in good condition, his spokesman said. The Florida Highway Patrol said Woods' vehicle hit a fire hydrant and a tree in his neighbor's yard after he pulled out of his driveway at 2:25 a.m.

Windermere police chief Daniel Saylor told The Associated Press that officers found the 33-year-old PGA star lying in the street with his wife, Elin, hovering over him.

``She was frantic, upset,'' Saylor said in a briefing Friday night. ``It was her husband laying on the ground.''

She told officers she was in the house when she heard the accident and ``came out and broke the back window with a golf club,'' he said, adding that the front-door windows were not broken and that ``the door was probably locked.''

``She supposedly got him out and laid him on the ground,'' he said. ``He was in and out of consciousness when my guys got there.''

Saylor said Woods had lacerations to his upper and lower lips, and blood in his mouth; officers treated Woods for about 10 minutes until an ambulance arrived. Woods was conscious enough to speak, he said.

``He was mumbling, but didn't say anything coherent,'' Saylor said.

The Florida Highway Patrol said alcohol was not involved, although the accident remains under investigation and charges could be filed.

Woods was alone in his 2009 Cadillac when he pulled out of his driveway from his mansion at Isleworth, a gated waterfront community just outside Orlando, the patrol said.

Woods' injuries were described as serious in the patrol's report, though his spokesman, Glenn Greenspan, issued a statement that Woods was treated and released.

Left unanswered was where Woods was going at that hour. Greenspan and agent Mark Steinberg said there would be no comment beyond the short statement of the accident posted on Woods' Web site.

Asked at an evening news conference if the couple could have been arguing, Saylor said he had no knowledge of that. The couple, married five years, have two children.

The accident came two days after the National Enquirer published a story alleging that Woods had been seeing a New York night club hostess, and that they recently were together in Melbourne, where Woods competed in the Australian Masters.

The woman, Rachel Uchitel, denied having an affair with Woods when contacted by the AP.

``I resent my reputation is getting completely blasted in the media,'' she said during a telephone interview late Friday. ``Everyone is assuming I came out and said this. This is not a story I have anything to do with.''

Uchitel said she was in Melbourne two weeks ago with clients and never saw Woods the entire time she was there.

A representative of the National Enquirer declined comment.

Patrol spokeswoman Sgt. Kim Montes said the accident was being investigated as a ``traffic crash.''

``We don't believe it is a domestic issue,'' she said.

Woods, coming off a two-week trip to China and Australia earlier this month, is host of the Chevron World Challenge in Thousand Oaks, Calif., which starts Thursday. He is scheduled to have his press conference Tuesday afternoon at Sherwood Country Club. Steinberg said he did not know if Woods planned to play next week.

The Florida Highway Patrol said tapes of the 911 call won't be released until they can be reviewed, probably Monday at the earliest.

The accident report was not released until nearly 12 hours after Woods was injured. Montes said the accident did not meet the criteria of a serious crash, and the FHP only put out a press release because of inquiries from local media.

Montes said the patrol reports injuries as serious if they require more than minor medical attention. Air bags in the SUV did not deploy.

Two troopers tried to talk to Woods on Friday evening, but his wife said he was sleeping and they agreed to come back Saturday, Montes said.

She said charges could be filed if there was a clear traffic violation, although troopers still do not know what caused Woods' SUV to hit the hydrant and the tree.

Damage to the front of Woods' SUV was described as ``medium'' by Saylor.

``Not real extensive, but not real light,'' he said.

Woods rarely faces such private scrutiny, even as perhaps the most famous active athlete in the world.

He usually makes news only because of what he can do with a golf club. Few other athletes have managed to keep their private lives so guarded, or have a circle of friends so airtight when it comes to life off the course.

His wife was awarded a $183,250 settlement and an apology from an Irish magazine that published a fake nude photo of her, and Woods received a $1.6 million settlement in a lawsuit against the builder of his yacht named Privacy for using his name and photos of the boat as promotional material.

Woods is approaching $100 million in career earnings on the PGA Tour, and Forbes magazine reported that combined with endorsements, appearance fees and golf course design, he has become the first athlete to top $1 billion.

Woods' $2.4 million home is part of an exclusive subdivision near Orlando, a community set on an Arnold Palmer-designed golf course and a chain of small lakes. The neighborhood, which is fortified with high brick walls and has its own security force, is home to CEOs and other sports stars such as the NBA's Shaquille O'Neal.

Woods has won 82 times around the world and 14 majors, becoming the first player of black heritage to win a major at the 1997 Masters when he was 21. He attended the Stanford-Cal football game last Saturday, where he tossed the coin at the start of the game and was inducted into Stanford's sports Hall of Fame at halftime.

He won six times this year after missing eight months recovering from reconstructive surgery on his left knee. Even though he failed to win a major, Woods said he considered this a successful year because he did not know how his knee would respond.

Doug Ferguson reported from Jacksonville, Fla. Associated Press writers Tamara Lush and Lisa Orkin Emmanuel in Miami and AP Sports Writer Fred Goodall in Orlando contributed to this report.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

MARIETTA, Ga. (AP) Shoppers around Georgia took advantage of clear weather and Black Friday bargains and got the holiday shopping season off to an enthusiastic start.

At a Walmart in Marietta, early morning specials on flat-panel TVs, cameras and other electronics were sold out before 7 a.m., two hours after the store started selling promised doorbusters.

Store clerks said $2 bath towels, kitchen items and children's toys were also selling well.

Ernest Bell of Marietta was first in line when the store let people begin shoppping at 5 a.m. He made a scouting expedition to the store Thursday night, then returned to wait in line at about 1 a.m.

Despite his efforts, he didn't get the Rock Band video game at the top of his list.

The 49-year-old was laid off from his job as an IT support representative in April, but said that because he had savings and receives unemployment benefits, he planned to spend about the same amount as last year, between $700 and $1,000.

``With the layoff there have been a few cutbacks, but with the great sales they're offering this year, I think it's, overall, going to be a great Christmas for my two granddaughters.''

Deborah Lima, also of Marietta, was shopping for video games, a portable DVD player, a new Nintendo game console and Transformers and Bakugan action figures for her 6-year-old son. She had no trouble finding what she wanted, but said money's tight because her husband is out of work.

``I'm planning to spend no more than $1,000 for the whole family, when normally I'd spend that on just one child,'' she said. She was shopping for the 6-year-old and three older children who are all adults.

More than 300 people were in line when Best Buy in Gainesville opened at 5 a.m., and shoppers were lined up at Lakeshore Mall in Gainesville and the Target in Flowery Branch well before daybreak.

People camped out in the parking lot overnight at Best Buy in Buford across from the Mall of Georgia, hoping for a laptop computer for under $200.

Inside the mall, Susan Harris had a big shopping bag filled with merchandise.

``We got out here about 4.m. to Penney's, and we did a little shopping and got a few really great deals,'' she said.

At 10:15 a.m. the Augusta Mall parking lot was packed, and cars were parked on the grass along the street that goes around the mall as shoppers circled in search of a space.

Tammie Strickland of Metter drove 70 miles to shop at Augusta Mall, leaving home at 6:30 a.m. She said she doesn't like online shopping, and that shopping on Black Friday is a family tradition.

Her first stop was Dick's Sporting Goods to find a gift for her husband, an avid hunter.

``We hope to catch some sales. It's a lot of fun. I love shopping,'' she said.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

ATLANTA (AP) Sen. Saxby Chambliss is leading a Georgia congressional delegation that's visiting Afghanistan, and he says the U.S. must increase its troop strength there.

The delegation includes Republican Reps. Tom Price and Lynn Westmoreland, and Democratic Rep. John Barrow.

On Thursday, the delegation had Thanksgiving dinner with troops from the 48th Infantry Brigade, part of the Georgia Army National Guard.

President Barack Obama is expected to announce a major increase in U.S. troops in Afghanistan next week.

Chambliss, a Republican, is a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and will have a say in sending additional troops to Afghanistan. He told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, is comfortable that the right decision will be reached.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

ATLANTA (AP) Regulators have ordered an Atlanta bank to immediately raise capital levels or find a buyer or merger partner.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said Friday that ``prompt corrective action'' was issued against RockBridge Commercial Bank, which lost $28 million in the third quarter.

The three-year-old bank also has $64 million of loans on its books it has given up hope of collecting on. A bank official declined to comment Friday when reached by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

The FDIC also said Friday that it issued ``cease and desist'' orders to American Trust Bank in Roswell, Eastside Commercial Bank in Conyers, and Montgomery Bank Trust in Ailey.

The banks were ordered to improve capital reserves.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

ATHENS, Ga. (AP) Athens-Clarke police are searching for vandals who broke into a home and covered its windows with crude messages and images.

The Athens Banner-Herald reports Friday that an officer who was in the subdivision spotted the writing, which was done between 7 a.m. Wednesday and 3 a.m. Thursday.

The graffiti included a demeaning reference to homosexuals and said the owner of the home liked to give little boys oral sex.

The vandals also drew male genitalia, and on another window wrote, ``Wonder how we got in,'' with an arrow pointing to where a window screen was cut out.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

ATLANTA (AP) Paul Johnson says it's no bigger than any other game, certainly not as important as the one next week.

Try telling that to his players.

State pride is a pretty powerful motivator.

No. 7 Georgia Tech (10-1) will be going for its second straight victory over Georgia when the teams meet Saturday night at Bobby Dodd Stadium, and anyone who thinks this is merely a warmup for the Atlantic Coast Conference championship doesn't understand how deep the feelings run in this rivalry.

``This is a big game in the state of Georgia,'' Tech receiver Demaryius Thomas said. ``This is for the bragging rights. If we lose to them before we play in the ACC championship, they would be like, 'An SEC team beat the team that is going for the ACC championship.' They'd be talking about that years from now.''

The Bulldogs (6-5) are eager to put a salve on their disappointing season, and nothing would feel better than to beat the school from 75 miles away that has become a national powerhouse in Johnson's two years as coach.

``To be able to finish up against a really good team with a win can change a lot of things,'' Georgia quarterback Joe Cox said. ``We know how important this game is and know what it can do for us if we do win.''

When Johnson arrived, Georgia Tech had lost seven straight years to Georgia, leaving little doubt about which school was top dog. But the series quickly took a dramatic turn, the tone changed by the ultra-confident architect of the spread option offense.

Johnson never looked at Georgia as unbeatable, and his bravado didn't change the first time he faced them even when the Bulldogs built a 28-12 halftime lead. Georgia Tech scored 26 straight points in the third quarter and held on for a 45-42 victory, its first in the series since 2000. Several players broke off pieces of Sanford Stadium's famous hedge as souvenirs.

``It has been tough. We're definitely not used to losing to Georgia Tech,'' Georgia linebacker Rennie Curran said. ``Seeing pictures of them with pieces of our hedges is a weird feeling.''

Coming off a nine-win season in Johnson's debut, the Yellow Jackets soared even higher in year two, putting them one win away from their first undisputed ACC title since 1990.

Star running back Jonathan Dwyer had another big season (1,203 yards), Thomas leads the conference in receiving yards and gritty quarterback Josh Nesbitt might be the most valuable player of all, running for 16 TDs and throwing for eight more. Derrick Morgan has been the star of a bend-but-not-break defense, pacing the ACC with 12.5 sacks despite persistent double-teaming.

As if trying to show just how far this program has come, Johnson downplayed what it would mean to beat Georgia.

``I think you're putting them on a pretty high pedestal if all you want to do it beat one team and that defines your season,'' he said. ``Do you think beating Georgia Tech defines their season? I'll bet if you ask them, they would say no. It's an important game. I don't want to diminish that. But let's not get too carried away.''

Well, actually coach, Georgia would get a huge boost this season from knocking off the Yellow Jackets.

The Bulldogs already are assured of their worst season since coach Mark Richt took over in 2001. The red-and-black faithful are complaining loudly about the direction of the program and calling on Richt to make major changes on his staff, starting with defensive coordinator Willie Martinez.

Clearly, Georgia has slipped since winning two Southeastern Conference titles in Richt's first five seasons, and finishing 2007 ranked No. 2 in the nation.

Last year, the Bulldogs started out at No. 1 but wound up as the second-best team in their own state. This season, as Florida and Alabama continued to dominate the SEC and Georgia was routed by Lane Kiffin's up-and-coming Tennessee program, there was even more cause for concern.

The Bulldogs have become a mistake-prone, undisciplined team that appears to have plenty of talent but little direction. They have the nation's second-worst turnover ratio, a flaw that was on full display a week ago when four second-half giveaways led to a shocking home loss to Kentucky. As if that wasn't bad enough, Georgia also is one of the country's most penalized teams.

``With the talent they have and the kind of guys they recruit every year, you expect them to just be dominant,'' Dwyer said. ``A lot of things have not gone their way. I'm sure there's a lot of hostility in them. They're going to come in here fired up. We've got to be ready to play.''

Always looking for a motivational edge, Johnson has apparently been telling his players that everyone views last year's game as a fluke, that Georgia Tech's comeback victory was more the result of Georgia's mistakes than what the Yellow Jackets did. Several players expressed those sentiments when asked if beating the Bulldogs gave them a mental edge this year.

``We still have that feeling people don't believe,'' Dwyer said. ``We still have that mindset of staying hungry. We want to have the perfect season. This season is not over with. Winning these next few games would just complete the season.''

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

ATHENS, Ga. (AP) Georgia has gone to its mascot bench for the game against No. 7 Georgia Tech.

Russ, the 5-year-old half brother of Uga VII, will be prowling the sidelines when the Bulldogs face the Yellow Jackets Saturday night. He hopes to follow the success of another substitute, Otto, who filled in for four games in 1986, including an upset of Auburn, and served as co-mascot with Uga IV for a victory over Georgia Tech.

Uga VII died suddenly Nov. 19 from heart-related causes at age 4, lasting less than two seasons as the latest in the school's long line of white English bulldog mascots.

Russ may also serve as mascot in Georgia's bowl game, but won't be considered for a permanent role. Uga VIII will be selected after the first of the year.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

ATLANTA (AP) Georgia Tech is the overwhelming favorite of the state's media to beat Georgia for the second year in a row.

Nine of 10 sportswriters and columnists surveyed by The Associated Press picked the Yellow Jackets to win Saturday night's game at Bobby Dodd Stadium.

The average of the predicted scores was Georgia Tech 40, Georgia 27.

Here are their picks and comments:

``The Bulldogs can't stop the triple option and make too many mistakes to keep pace in a shootout. ... Georgia Tech 45, Georgia 27.'' Scott Michaux, The Augusta Chronicle.

``Despite having plenty of time to prepare, I can't see the Georgia defense being able to stop Paul Johnson's offense. The Bulldogs can win by playing turnover- and penalty-free plus getting a little luck by Georgia Tech playing poorly but I don't foresee that particular confluence. ... Georgia Tech 41, Georgia 27.'' David Jordan, The Brunswick News.

``Averaging more than 310 yards rushing per game this season, Georgia Tech's offense has confounded opposing defenses all year. Although Georgia will trot out one of the best defensive lines the Yellow Jackets have faced, Tech's spread option offense is bound for success once again this week. ... it should come as no surprise if the Jackets wear down the Bulldogs in the final two quarters. ... Georgia Tech 41, Georgia 28.'' Coley Harvey, The Macon Telegraph.

``Georgia will score enough to keep the game in doubt, but turnovers will lead to the Bulldogs' ultimate demise. ... Georgia Tech 35, Georgia 31.'' Roger Clarkson, Athens Banner-Herald.

``Both teams should score enough to make this a shootout and a close game. However, Tech's defense will come up with just enough stops when it need them, and Georgia's offense won't be able to totally eliminate the mistakes. Tech pulls away late. ... Georgia Tech 42, Georgia 28.'' David Friedlander, Gwinnett Daily Post.

``Not much has gone right for Georgia this season, and not much as gone wrong for Tech. That's a recipe for an easy win for the Jackets this week. ... Georgia Tech 45, Georgia 31.'' David Hale, The Macon Telegraph.

``When emotions run high, discipline matters. The Yellow Jackets are among the most disciplined teams in the nation. Georgia, not so much. ... Georgia Tech 42, Georgia 31.'' Chuck Williams, Columbus Ledger-Enquirer.

``Tech is clicking on all cylinders. Joe Cox shouldn't have been starting in the first place for Georgia, and play-calling on both sides of the ball is horrible. ... Georgia Tech 34, Georgia 13.'' Chris Stephens, The (Cartersville) Daily Tribune News.

``The Bulldogs have been waiting for an error-free game all season. It comes at just the right time. ... Georgia 41, Georgia Tech 38.'' Charles Odum, The Associated Press.

``I thought this game might be closer than expected until Georgia turned the ball over four times in the second half of a stunning loss to Kentucky last weekend. With it goes any mental edge the Bulldogs might have had to make up for a disappointing season by upsetting their state rival. Look for a fairly tight first half, then Georgia Tech to pull away over the final two quarters with its potent triple-option offense and more disciplined team. ... Georgia Tech 35, Georgia 17. Paul Newberry, The Associated Press.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

DOUGLASVILLE, Ga. (AP) Police say a mentally disabled man who wandered away from his family's Thanksgiving gathering has been found more than 25 miles away.

Douglasville police said Friday they were notified by a passer-by who had encountered Jason Lee Bowling. He had apparently walked the entire way from Gwinnett County.

The 47-year-old walked away from a relative's home near Lilburn around 6:30 p.m. Thursday. Family members feared Bowling, who is not familiar with the area and has a history of seizures, might have attempted to walk home to Carroll County.

Douglasville officers responded to find Bowling in good health and spirits. They transported him to their headquarters to await family members.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

ATHENS, Ga. (AP) Trey Thompkins scored 19 points and Georgia rallied in the second half to defeat Jacksonville State 67-64 Friday.

Jacksonville State (2-3) led by as much as 11 in the first half. After letting the lead slip away in the second half, the Gamecocks were back on top 57-55 with 2:57 remaining after Trenton Marshall hit a free throw.

But Georgia's Dustin Ware hit his only basket of the game, a 3-pointer with 2:33 left, to put Georgia (3-2) up 58-57. Thompkins stole the ball on the Gamecocks' next possession, setting up another 3-pointer with 2:00 to go by Ricky McPhee, who contributed 16 points and eight rebounds.

Travis Leslie also scored 16 for the Bulldogs.

Jay-R Strowbridge led Jacksonville State with 16 points. Strowbridge was at the line for three shots with 1.3 seconds to play, but made only the first two as Georgia rebounded the last miss for the final margin.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

DULUTH (WSB Radio/AP) Police say a double stabbing near the food court at a Gwinnett mall was the result of gang violence not Black Friday madness.

The Friday morning stabbings added to the chaos of the busiest shopping day of the year, as dozens of police officers descended on the Gwinnett Place mall in search of suspects.

Gwinnett police spokesman Jacob Smith said the department responded in large numbers because of the high volume of holiday shoppers.

The two victims, both men, sustained non-life threatening injuries and were transported to a local hospital. Officers arrived around 11:30 a.m. but could not locate the four men suspected in the attacks.

Smith said the search was called off when it was determined that the four suspects had fled the scene. He said the stabbings appeared to be a gang-related.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

(WSB Radio) As shoppers rush the doors at stores across America hoping for that big Black Friday deal, some have gotten the more important things in life, like their children.

Banks County Sheriff Charles Chapman tells WSB 35-year-old Mario Navarro and 31-year-old Esmeralda Elias have been charged with reckless conduct after they put their nine-year-old and nine-month-old children in a shopping cart at the Wal-Mart at Banks Crossing, so they could go shopping.

"You know how it is on Black Friday.  Everybody has the shopping fever.  My guess is they thought the kids would slow them down so they just got the kids out of the way so they could go shopping," said Chapman.

The kids are okay. 

11/27/09

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) Twenty minutes of good hockey was all the Atlanta Thrashers needed Friday night.

Now they'd like to see what would happen if they put together 60.

Rich Peverley scored the fourth of Atlanta's five third-period goals with 6:03 remaining to help the Thrashers rally for a 6-4 victory over the Carolina Hurricanes on Friday night. Atlanta is 6-1-3 in its last 10 games.

``I think we can still get better,'' said Bryan Little, who had two assists and set up Peverley's winner. ``We only played one period tonight the third. Once we get that figured out, and once we play a full 60 minutes, we're going to be even more dangerous.''

Ilya Kovalchuk had a goal and an assist, Evander Kane, Slava Kozlov, Marty Reasoner and Maxim Afinogenov also scored, and Tobias Enstrom had three assists for the Thrashers. Ondrej Pavelec made 32 saves.

Erik Cole had a goal and an assist, and Sergei Samsonov, Matt Cullen and Stephane Yelle also scored for the Hurricanes. Carolina had won three in a row at home before blowing a 4-1 third-period lead against the Thrashers.

Manny Legace made 28 saves against the team that cut him during training camp.

``This is a tough one really tough,'' Carolina's Tom Kostopoulos said. ``I think we kind of thought we had it and already had the two points on the board.''

On a seemingly harmless rush, Little passed the puck back to Peverley, who found open space and snapped it over Legace's shoulder for the winner.

``It was a quick 3-on-2, but Bryan Little made a great pass to know that I was coming back late,'' Peverley said. ``I was able to walk the net because Evander Kane drove the net and opened up space for me.''

Atlanta had scored three goals in 2:39 span to tie it at 4.

Kozlov first took advantage of some lax Carolina defense and a nice pass from Little to make it 4-2. Enstrom then set up Kovalchuk with a deft pass from the slot, allowing Kovalchuk to wrist the puck past Legace from a sharp angle. Kovalchuk has 14 points in his last eight games.

Kovalchuk had an instrumental role in Afinogenov's goal that tied the score. After he crossed the blue line, Kovalchuk held the puck to draw the Carolina defense. He then passed it to Afinogenov, who charged the net and beat Legace between the legs on the backhand. Reasoner capped the scoring with an empty-net goal with 1:03 remaining.

``All of the sudden, we kept scoring,'' Little said. ``We know we have a good enough and a skilled-enough team to come back when we're down a few goals.''

Carolina had a promising start.

Eric Staal won a faceoff in the Atlanta zone to Gleason, who shot the puck at Pavelec. The rebound came out to Cole, who backhanded it through Pavelec's legs 8:11 into the game. The Hurricanes made it 2-0 in the second period when Yelle stole the puck from Pavelec behind the net. Yelle then beat Pavelec to the far post and jammed the puck into the open net.

Kane brought the Thrashers within one midway through the second period when he deflected Tobias Enstrom's pass through Legace's legs.

The Hurricanes quickly built the lead back to two on goals by Samsonov and Cullen.

Adding to Carolina's misery was the fact that defenseman Joni Pitkanen sustained an upper-body injury and didn't play in the third period.

``Maybe they felt it was a nice comfortable game,'' Carolina coach Paul Maurice said. ``They were getting lots of chances and then decided the back half of the game wasn't too important to them in the third.''

NOTES: Carolina F Tuomo Ruutu returned after missing one game because of a lower-body injury. ... Carolina had a goal disallowed in the first because Ruutu kicked the puck into the net. ... Pavelec made 40 saves in his previous outing, a 2-0 victory in Detroit on Wednesday night.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

PHILADELPHIA (AP) Mike Bibby had a good feeling in warm-ups.

Even playing games on back-to-back nights, the 12-year veteran point guard said he was ready to play from the opening tip.

Jamal Crawford scored 11 of his 24 points in the fourth quarter, Bibby added 21 and the Atlanta Hawks snapped a two-game losing streak with a 100-86 victory over the Philadelphia 76ers on Friday night.

Josh Smith scored 20 and Al Horford had 15 for the Hawks, who responded with a road win one night after falling 93-76 to the Orlando Magic.

``To be honest, I was a little angry after (Thursday's) game,'' Bibby said. ``Before this game, I felt fresh. I wanted to play again as soon as possible after that loss. We haven't lost much this season. I carried it over into the game.''

Bibby hit his first five shots, including three 3-pointers, and also finished with five assists and four rebounds.

``He's a real pro,'' Hawks coach Mike Woodson said of Bibby.

Thaddeus Young scored 22 points, Andre Iguodala added 16 and Jason Smith had 14 for the struggling Sixers, who have dropped five in a row and seven of the past eight. Rodney Carney also had 13 off the bench.

Elton Brand missed his second consecutive game for Philadelphia with a sore right hamstring. This was in addition to missing guard Lou Williams (fractured jaw) and forward Marreese Speights, who is out until January with a torn medial collateral ligament in his left knee.

``We just didn't have enough scoring pieces to stay with them,'' Sixers coach Eddie Jordan said.

Jason Smith started for Brand while rookie Jrue Holiday started his second game in place of Williams. Holiday was 1 for 8 from the field and had two points and five assists in 25 minutes.

``I remember being a rookie and what it was like,'' Bibby said. ``I thought Jrue played well, even though his shot wasn't falling. He's taller than I thought and he plays good defense.''

The Sixers allowed the Hawks to shoot 51 percent from the field and 9 of 18 on 3-pointers.

``We're a little banged up, but we have to fight through it,'' said Jason Smith, who tied his career high in points. ``We'll get better. We have to work through this stretch.''

The Hawks led 84-74 with 7:34 remaining in the fourth quarter.

Iguodala converted a difficult bank shot from the foul line to pull the Sixers within 88-82 with 4:59 left.

But Crawford and Smith followed with consecutive jumpers to quickly extend the lead back to 10 at 92-82 with 4:01 remaining.

The Sixers never threatened the rest of the game.

``I was glad to see us put the game away at the end,'' Josh Smith said. ``We didn't let it get close at the end. That's a sign of a team which is maturing all the time.''

After the Sixers jumped out to a 41-37 advantage, the Hawks finished the first half on a 9-0 run to take a 46-41 lead. Smith scored six of the nine points.

Notes: Sixers G Willie Green hit a half-court shot just before the first-quarter buzzer. ... Samuel Dalembert blocked a season-high six shots for Philadelphia.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

Georgia High School Football Playoffs
Friday's Scores

Class AAAAA

Camden County 35, North Gwinnett 0

Colquitt County 46, Lassiter 17

Newnan 9, Grayson 7

Northside-Warner Robins 20, Peachtree Ridge 17, 3OT

Class AAAA

Clarke Central 52, North Clayton 13

Griffin 24, Apalachee 3

Rockdale County 23, Westside-Macon 7

Sandy Creek 31, Thomas County Central 17

Class AAA

Eastside 14, Jackson 0

Flowery Branch 35, Carver-Columbus 33

Gainesville 32, Cairo 19

Peach County 21, St. Pius X 14

Class AA

Buford 26, Cook 0

Calhoun 49, Jefferson County 35

Fitzgerald 35, Callaway 21

Lovett 35, Charlton County 32

Class A

Clinch County 35, Holy Innocents' 27

Darlington 17, Twiggs County 0

Savannah Christian Prep 7, Lincoln County 0

Wilcox County 20, Wesleyan 15

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

JUPITER, Fla. (AP) Three women and a child in bed were shot to death during a family Thanksgiving gathering in South Florida and a male relative was being sought early Friday.

Police said 17 relatives were in the house when the shootings were reported around 10 p.m. Thursday in Jupiter, a small coastal town about 90 miles north of Miami.

Jupiter Police Sgt. Scott Pascarella said officers were looking for Paul Michael Merhige, 35, of Miami. Merhige is a cousin of the 6-year-old victim, McKayla Sitton, and has no criminal record, police said.

The others killed were Merhige's twin sisters, Carla Merhige and Lisa Merhige, 33, and an aunt, Raymonde Joseph, 76, according to police.

Authorities said a fifth victim, Merhige's brother-in-law Patrick McKnight, was being treated at a hospital. His condition was not available.

Pascarella said police received a 911 call from a neighbor shortly after 10 p.m. Police then received a second 911 call from someone within the home. Pascarella says the shootings took place inside the house.

``What led to this incident, we're not quite sure,'' said Pascarella. ``It did not appear there was any altercation prior to this shooting.''

Police said the home was owned by Jim Sitton, a photojournalist for WPTV-TV and father of the little girl killed. Sitton told WPTV his daughter was in bed when she was shot. He was at the party at the time of the shooting but was not wounded.

Yellow crime scene tape was stretched around Sitton's salmon-colored house, located in a well-kept subdivision of stucco homes. Several cars were parked in the driveway, and a crime scene van sat in front.

Sitton told local media that his daughter was supposed to perform Friday in a holiday production of ``The Nutcracker.''

``God packed a lot of sweetness into that little body,'' Sitton said. ``She's just our life. I don't know how we are ever going to recover.''

The relationship between Sitton and Paul Merhige was unclear, police said.

Police across South Florida and the U.S. Marshals Service were searching for Merhige. Pascarella said Merhige is believed to be driving a blue 2007 4-door Toyota Camry with Florida license plate W42 7JT.

``The word we're trying to get out to the public is that this individual is considered armed and dangerous,'' said Pascarella.

Phone calls to a number listed for Paul Merhige were not answered. A phone call to Sitton was also not returned.

Associated Press writers Suzette Laboy and Tamara Lush contributed to this report.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

ATHENS, Ga. (AP) State Environmental Protection Division officials are expected to consider next week whether to impose penalties on the University of Georgia for polluting Tanyard Creek, which runs through the campus.

Paint used to decorate the playing field at Sanford Stadium dyed the creek white and red on Nov. 19 when university athletic association workers washed off painting equipment connected to a newly installed drain.

The drain had been mistakenly hooked into a storm sewer, which carries runoff into the creek.

Officials say the drain should have been attached to the sanitary sewer system, which carries waste to a sewage treatment plant.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

JEKYLL ISLAND, Ga. (AP) Jekyll Island's governing authority has hired Southwestern Wilderness of Edison, Ga., to build Great Dunes Park, a 20-acre green space that will lie alongside the dune system at Jekyll's main beach.

It's the first part of a plan to revitalize Jekyll's town center.

The plan includes a convention center, beachside shopping, a pedestrian district and new hotels.

The authority considers the beach village project a key ingredient in attracting visitors back to the aging state park.

The park will replace Jekyll's cracked concrete boardwalk with a new 10-foot-wide tabby-style one that curves around dunes and connects to the rest of Jekyll's trail system.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

(WSB Radio) -- Thousands of people braved the cold to witness the 62nd annual lighting of Macy's Great Tree at Lenox Square in Buckhead.

This year's tree, a 25-year-old, 70 foot white pine from Paulding County, is decorated with hundreds of ornaments and thousands of lights.

The holiday tradition of lighting the Great Tree on Thanksgiving night began in 1948 at the old Rich's Department Store in downtown Atlanta.

(WSB Radio) -- A Thanksgiving night fires burns a Clayton County family's home to the ground.

The two story brick house on Elizabeth Terrace in Rex was engulfed in flames when firefighters arrived around 6:30 Thursday night.  The fire started in the garage and the structure has been deemed a total loss.

Clayton County Fire Chief Landry Merkinson told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution "the fire was extinguished in about 45 minutes.  The cause of the blaze has not been determined.

The family who lived in the home had just celebrated Thanksgiving with relatives and friends.  No one was at home when the fire started.  The homeowners had just left for a weekend trip to Birmingham,

The family of five, a husband and wife and their kids, ages 7, 3 and 1, are insured and plan to rebuild.

WASHINGTON (AP) The couple who crashed a White House dinner shouldn't need legal help, an attorney who knows them said Thursday, as the Secret Service remained quiet publicly about the eye-catching security breach.

``They just went to a party. They didn't do anything wrong,'' Paul Morrison, a Virginia attorney who has represented Michaele and Tareq Salahi in the past, told The Associated Press.

A Secret Service investigation of the security breach, now under way, will help determine whether Morrison is right about the lack of legal liability. But the main focus was on the agency itself.

Edward Donovan, a Secret Service spokesman, acknowledged the officers at the checkpoint involved in clearance for the state dinner for visiting Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh did not follow proper procedure when the Salahis arrived and it was determined they had not been invited.

But he declined to reveal anything the Secret Service knows about what happened next.

During President George W. Bush's administration, it was standard procedure to have someone from the White House social office at the gate for state dinners and other events with large groups of visitors, according to a former senior Bush aide who spoke on condition of anonymity so as not to be seen as criticizing the Obama White House.

The social office is most knowledgeable about the guest list and could have been called in case of any uncertainty, this official said.

White House Social Secretary Desiree Rogers, asked by The AP on Thursday whether personnel from her office were at the checkpoint said, ``We were not.''

It was unclear whether the northern Virginia couple could be charged with trespassing or any other violation. But in his interview with The AP, Morrison said, ``I know them. I'm unaware of any reason they need representation right now.''

Morrison said he hasn't spoken to the Salahis since the incident.

President Barack Obama was never in any danger because the Salahis went through the same security screening for weapons as the 300-plus people actually invited to the dinner, Donovan said.

However Ronald Kessler, author of a book on the Secret Service, said, ``While the couple did pass through a magnetometer to detect weapons, they could have assassinated the president or vice president using other means anthrax, for example. The additional security checks referred to by the Secret Service spokesman screen for such items as radiological contamination but would not detect secreted biological weapons.''

Kessler, a journalist, wrote ``In the President's Secret Service: Behind the Scenes with Agents in the Line of Fire and the Presidents They Protect.''

The eventual winners in the incident could be the Salahis, who were being considered for the Bravo reality TV show ``Real Housewives of D.C.''

The couple bragged about their success on their Facebook page.

``Honored to be at the White House for the state dinner in honor of India with President Obama and our First Lady!'' they wrote.

And, along with photos of the couple at the event, they wrote: ``A Sensational Night honoring India.''

And this posting under a picture of Michaele with Vice President Joe Biden: ``OMG! SO EXCITING!!!!!! IRISH EYES ARE SMILING TOGETHER!''

It's not the first time crashers have gotten past presidential security.

Richard Weaver, a self-described Christian minister from California, wormed his way into President George W. Bush's 2001 inauguration and shook Bush's hand, repeating a stunt he pulled off at President Bill Clinton's 1997 inauguration.

``I don't have to push through and I never have to do any 'Mission Impossible'-type stunts,'' Weaver, nicknamed ``Handshake Man'' for his exploits, told The Associated Press after his 2001 Bush handshake.

``I see it as a miracle,'' Weaver told AP. ``I believe God makes me invisible to the security, undetectable.''

Weaver wasn't invisible at Bush's second inauguration. Security caught him attempting to crash the 2005 ceremony and he was barred from entering the White House or Capitol grounds for five years.

Associated Press writers Matt Small, Sharon Theimer and Darlene Superville contributed to this story.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

FORT BENNING, Ga. (AP) Military cooks at Fort Benning in west Georgia are literally feeding an Army this Thanksgiving.

Officials at the Army post near Columbus say they're planning to serve 13,000 soldiers Thursday. It's an undertaking that requires huge quantities of turkey and trimmings.

Army cooks will prepare 1,800 whole turkeys for troops unable to make it home for the holiday. They'll also be serving up 5,400 pounds of beef and more than 7,400 pounds of pork.

The huge feast is too large to be confined to one chow hall on Fort Benning, which will have 20 dining halls open for the holiday.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) A man stuck upside-down in a cave for more than a day died early Thursday, despite the efforts of dozens of rescuers, authorities said.

John Jones, 26, of Stansbury Park died about 12:30 a.m., nearly 28 hours after he became stuck 700 feet into the cave known as Nutty Putty, about 80 miles south of Salt Lake City, Utah County Sheriff's Department spokesman Sgt. Spencer Cannon said.

Rescuers were next to Jones for much of the day but he was wedged in a small hole too tightly to pull him out or even reach through to assist him, Cannon told The Associated Press.

``Over the past several hours he was experiencing difficulty maintaining consciousness and breathing. With whatever other factors there were, he did not survive,'' Cannon said.

The 6-foot-tall, 190-pound spelunker got stuck with his head at an angle below his feet about 9 p.m. MST Tuesday. At times more than 50 rescuers were involved in trying to free him.

The crevice where Jones was trapped was about 150 feet below ground in an L-shaped area of the cave known as ``Bob's Push,'' which is only about 18 inches wide and 10 inches high, Cannon said.

The process was slow throughout the day Wednesday with rescuers chipping away with air-powered tools in the narrow tunnel.

At one point late in the afternoon, Jones was freed from the crevice, only to fall back several feet into the tight space when a cord that was supporting him failed, Cannon said

Rescuers were able to get him food and water during that temporary freedom.

``They were right there with him, checking his vital signs,'' Cannon said. ``They were able to get close enough to verify that he was deceased.''

He said crews had suspended efforts to free his body for the night, but would resume at first light.

Jones, a medical student at the University of Virginia, was part of a group of 11 people exploring the cave passages.

``We were just looking forward to a good time,'' Mike Jones, the victim's 32-year-old brother, told The Salt Lake Tribune.

The group split up, with several children and some adults staying in a less dangerous area of the cave while others decided to explore further, 23-year-old Josh Jones, another brother, told The Salt Lake Tribune.

``It basically got to a point where we were trying to figure out if the cave went any further, and that's the route John decided to take,'' 25-year-old Joey Stocking of Logan told the Tribune.

Jones was going head-first into the crevice when he got stuck.

``He thought he could kind of keep going on his belly down further, but it got to point where he couldn't go any further and he got wedged in,'' Stocking said.

The group tried to free him.

``I was only able to see his two feet that was hanging there in the crevice,'' Josh Jones said. ``I wasn't able to see more because he was engulfed in the crevice itself.''

Nutty Putty cave is actually a hole on the top of hill about seven miles west of State Road 68. The naturally formed thermal cave is about 1,500 feet long. Its multiple, tunnels and passageways lead to room-like openings, a Web site for Utah cave-enthusiasts explains.

According to the official Nutty Putty cave Web site, the area was first discovered in 1960. The cave is privately owned by Utah's State Institutional Trust Land Administration. An access pass is required to explore the cave, with usage restricted to about six groups daily.

The county's last rescue there was in 2004.

Cannon said officials considered closing the tunnel or sealing it off after the last rescue but ultimately decided to erect a gate that requires a key for entry.

``We've had people stuck in this exact same spot. We're working and working to get him undone out of the spot and we don't really have any way of predicting what's gonna happen until boom, all the sudden they're out,'' he said.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

ATLANTA - The Georgia Department of Labor (GDOL) reported today that the preliminary unadjusted unemployment rate in the metro Atlanta area was unchanged at 10.4 percent from September to October. Meanwhile, the number of unemployed workers in the area increased by 427, from 276,165 in September to 276,592 in October.

In October 2008, there were 189,792 jobless workers in Atlanta, when the unemployment rate was 6.9 percent. The number of payroll jobs in metro Atlanta in October 2009 was 2,273,400, a loss of 138,300, or 5.7 percent, from 2,411,700 in October 2008.

Statewide, the number of payroll jobs in October was 3,858,800, a decrease of 227,700 or 5.6 percent, from 4,086,500 in October of 2008. The over-the-year losses came in manufacturing, wholesale and retail trade, professional and business services, and construction. Educational and health services added 13,200 jobs over the year. Also, from September to October, a total of 5,200 jobs were added in retail trade, public and private education, and health care. The state's labor force decreased 139,015, or 2.9 percent, from 4,859,703 in October 2008 to 4,720,688 in October 2009.

Meanwhile, the state's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate rose slightly to 10.2 percent in October, up one-tenth of a percentage point from a revised 10.1 percent in September. The October jobless rate was up 3.3 percentage points from 6.9 percent at this same time last year. Georgia's unemployment rate matched the national rate of 10.2 percent for the first time in two years. Since October of 2007, when a jobless rate of 4.8 percent was recorded by both the state and the nation, Georgia's rate has exceeded the national rate.

ATHENS, Ga. (AP) Georgia receiver A.J. Green is unlikely to play in Saturday's game against No. 7 Georgia Tech because of a separated shoulder and running back Richard Samuel is definitely out after sustaining a concussion in practice.

Green injured his left shoulder in a Nov. 14 win over Auburn and missed last week's loss to Kentucky. The Bulldogs (6-5) were hoping he might return for the Yellow Jackets, but coach Mark Richt said Wednesday that ``the chances aren't very good at all.''

Samuel was injured in Tuesday's practice when he collided with reserve defensive back Christian Norton. Both sustained concussions and won't be able to play in the regular-season finale. Also likely to be out: backup safety Baccari Rambo, still recovering from a concussion after a brutal hit that helped preserve the win over Auburn.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

WASHINGTON (AP) President Barack Obama plans to announce a redrawn battle plan for Afghanistan, including what the military says could be a roughly 50 percent increase in U.S. forces, in a national address Tuesday night from the U.S. Military Academy.

Although military and administration officials cautioned that Obama has not settled on a final figure, the military is planning for an increase of up to 35,000 troops begin next year. Military officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss the president's plans.

The addition forces would come atop a record 71,000 U.S. troops in the country now and would represent the largest expansion since the war began eight years ago.

Obama will be speaking to a war-weary American public, with the Army's storied academy at West Point, N.Y., as a backdrop and cadets entering the service most stretched by two wars on hand. Polls show support for the war has dropped significantly since Obama took office, with a majority now saying both that they oppose the war and that it is not worth fighting.

Congressional Democrats may be an even tougher sell. The administration is deploying two Cabinet officials and the nation's highest-ranking military officer to explain the new Afghanistan plan in Capitol Hill hearings to begin Wednesday.

The president promised this week to ``finish the job'' begun eight years ago, and press secretary Robert Gibbs said Wednesday the announcement would include an exit strategy. But the surge in troops would be Obama's second since taking office, and liberal Democrats already are lining up against it, in part because of the also-surging cost up to $75 billion a year.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, are expected to appear before the Senate Armed Services and House Foreign Affairs committees on Wednesday. On Thursday, they would go before the Senate Foreign Relations and House Armed Services committees.

Congressional Democrats, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., have been blunt in saying Congress has little stomach for a large troop increase and flagging confidence in the U.S.-backed Afghan government the war effort is meant to support.

Pelosi and about 17 other congressional leaders from both parties were invited to the White House for a meeting with Obama late Tuesday before he goes to the military academy in New York.

Congressional Republicans, in particular, are more eager for the testimony that is likely to come the following week. War commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal and the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry, are likely to appear on Capitol Hill on Dec. 8 or 9, officials said.

Obama approved 21,000 additional troops for Afghanistan last spring, in what he said at the time was a wholesale rethinking of U.S. strategy for a war he said his predecessor had neglected. That brought U.S. troop force to an expected 68,000 by the end of this year. The actual figure is slightly higher now because of overlap between troops entering and leaving the country on regular rotations. The new troops Obama is expected to add would probably not begin to arrive until February or March.

NATO countries are also preparing to send more soldiers, with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown saying 10 NATO nations are ready to offer about 5,000 more troops. Britain, which has 9,000 troops in Afghanistan, the second-largest contingent after the United States, has not named the countries it claims will provide the extra troops.

Gibbs said Obama's recent meetings with military advisers have often focused on how to train Afghanistan's police and army to secure and hold areas taken from the Taliban so that U.S. forces can leave. ``We are not going to be there another eight or nine years,'' he said.

Incompetence and corruption in the Afghan government have aided a rise in the Taliban's strength. The military strategy is expected to include specific dates that deployments could be slowed or stopped if necessary, a senior military official said.

The president and his top military and national security advisers have held 10 meetings to discuss future U.S. steps in Afghanistan. McChrystal has asked the president for about 40,000 troops, arguing that a robust but temporary surge was the best way to end the war.

Associated Press Writer Charles Babington contributed to this report.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

ATHENS, Ga. (AP) Smoking bans have made the air healthier in bars and restaurants, but may have made the air just outside the establishments more hazardous, University of Georgia researchers have found.

Nonsmoking diners and imbibers sitting in outdoor patios or sidewalk seating areas connected to the bars or restaurants are picking up doses of secondhand smoke, the scientists found.

In fact, nonsmokers who volunteered to sit in the outdoor seating areas had levels of a tobacco byproduct in their bodies up to 162 percent higher than when they first sat down, said Luke Naeher, a professor in the unviersity's environmental health science department.

Collaborating with researchers in the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Northeast Health District, Naeher and other UGA researchers measured levels of a substance called cotinine.

Naeher's research team assigned 20 nonsmoking volunteers to spend six evening hours in one of three outdoor areas for the study - outside a downtown Athens bar, outside a restaurant near downtown or outside UGA's main library.

``We're looking at real-world settings,'' Naeher said.

After six hours, the volunteers gave a saliva sample, which the researchers tested for cotinine, a nicotine byproduct often used as an indicator of tobacco exposure.

Volunteers who hung out where smokers gather outside a restaurant saw their cotinine levels more than double. Nonsmokers outside a bar had their cotinine increase by even more, up to 162 percent.

The study is published in this month's issue of the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene.

Previous studies have shown that restaurant and bar smoking bans reduce the incidence of heart attacks and respiratory illness among people inside the establishments.

But researchers don't know the health impacts of outdoor secondhand smoke.

``The question is, is it an environment that warrants concern or further study?'' Naeher said. ``The answer is, we don't know yet.''

The researchers aren't quite ready to declare outdoor cafes a new health hazard for those that may inhale secondhand smoke there - including children, restaurant and bar workers, and pregnant women and their unborn children.

``We feel like it's something we need to be taking a look at,'' said Lou Kudon, one of the authors of the study. Kudon is program manager for the Athens-based Northeast Health District, which includes Clarke and nine other area counties.

Next, researchers will measure levels of a carcinogen called NNAL in nonsmokers who spend time in outdoor places where people smoke.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

ATLANTA (AP) U.S. health officials say there's no evidence that the swine flu vaccine is causing any serious side effects.

They say the vast majority of reports have been for minor things like soreness, redness or swelling where the shot was given. From early October through mid-November, about 22 million people were vaccinated.

Officials have been watching whether the new vaccine would cause a rare paralyzing condition called Guillain-Barre syndrome. That condition was seen in higher numbers than usual during a swine flu vaccination campaign in 1976. But there have been only 10 such reports so far in those who got the new swine flu vaccine.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released the vaccine safety report on Wednesday.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

ATLANTA (AP) Medical care for thousands of patients at Grady Memorial Hospital could be disrupted because the insurer that handles the hospital's Medicaid says it will terminate its contract Saturday.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports Wednesday that it learned of Peach State Health Plan's preparation to terminate the contract after months of negotiations.

Peach State is an insurer hired by the state of Georgia to handle Medicaid claims with numerous health care providers, including a portion of Grady patients.

While Grady and Peach State have agreed that Grady will continue to serve these patients until Dec. 31, the termination if it becomes effective could represent a change in medical services for thousands of Grady patients.

Those affected would have to find new doctors at a new medical facility, Grady spokesman Matt Gove said.

``This would be a disruption in the medical care of thousands of people,'' Gove said.

Peach State officials sent a letter to state legislators Wednesday saying Grady will no longer be a contracted provider effective Nov. 28.

The letter said patients will be notified before Dec. 1. Peach State said the change would affect 2,182 patients, but Grady officials said the number is more than 12,000, a small percentage of the hospital's patient population.

Gove said it is ``highly unlikely'' that the two sides will return to negotiations before the end of the year.

The impasse between Grady and the company reflects other intense negotiations between insurers and hospitals in metro Atlanta. The great majority work out an agreement at the end.

Peach State officials said patients will not have their care interrupted.

``Patients who are pregnant, receiving chemotherapy, dialysis ... may remain at Grady until their course of care is completed or until alternate care arrangements are made,'' the Peach State letter said.

Peach State has set up a hotline for patients' questions, at 1-866-229-2892.

Grady also accepts Medicaid from the two other insurers hired by the state to handle Medicaid. Peach State patients can attempt to switch insurers on their annual renewal date.

Peach State said Grady has already increased its charges to the insurer twice this year and has demanded a third increase.

``Such unchecked price increases are clearly unsustainable,'' said the Peach State letter.

Grady's Gove said Grady has been attempting to match its charges to market rates.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

WASHINGTON (AP) Toyota Motor Corp. will replace gas pedals on 3.8 million recalled vehicles in the United States to address problems with sudden acceleration or the pedal becoming stuck in the floor mat, The Associated Press has learned.

As a temporary step, Toyota will have dealers shorten the length of the gas pedals beginning in January while the company develops replacement pedals for their vehicles, the department said in a statement provided to the AP. New pedals will be available beginning in April, and some vehicles will have brake override systems installed as a precaution.

Toyota, the world's largest automaker, was expected to provide more details Wednesday on the fix. The Japanese automaker announced the massive recall in late September and told owners to remove the driver's side floor mats to prevent the gas pedal from potentially becoming jammed.

Popular vehicles such as the Toyota Camry, the top-selling passenger car in America, and the Toyota Prius, the best-selling gas-electric hybrid, are part of the recall. It includes the 2007-10 model year Camry, 2005-10 Toyota Avalon, 2004-09 Prius, 2005-10 Toyota Tacoma, 2007-10 Toyota Tundra, 2007-10 Lexus ES350 and 2006-10 Lexus IS250/350.

On Tuesday, Toyota announced a recall of 110,000 Tundra trucks from the 2000-03 model years to address excessive rust on the vehicle's frame.

The recall involving the accelerators was Toyota's largest in the U.S. It was prompted by a high-speed crash in August involving a 2009 Lexus ES350 that killed a California Highway Patrol officer and three members of his family near San Diego. The Lexus hit speeds exceeding 120 mph, struck a sport utility vehicle, launched off an embankment, rolled several times and burst into flames.

A family member in the runaway Lexus made a frantic 911 call moments before the crash, telling emergency responders that the accelerator was stuck and the driver couldn't stop the car. The call ended as someone was overheard urging others to hold on and pray, followed by a woman's scream.

In Japan, Toyota President Akio Toyota called the fatal crash ``extremely regrettable'' and offered his ``deepest condolences'' to the California family.

Investigators with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration determined that a rubber all-weather floor mat found in the wreckage was slightly longer than the mat that belonged in the vehicle, and could have snared or covered the accelerator pedal.

The government has attributed at least five deaths and two injuries to floor mat-related unintended acceleration in the Toyota vehicles and has received reports of more than 100 incidents in which the accelerator may have become stuck. A Massachusetts-based safety consultant who has investigated the Toyota cases, however, has found more than 2,000 incidents involving 16 deaths and 243 injuries potentially tied to the Toyota gas pedals.

To fix the problem, Transportation officials said dealers will shorten the length of the accelerator pedal on the recalled vehicles and in some cases remove foam from beneath the carpeting near the pedal. They said owners of the ES350, Camry and Avalon would be the first to receive notification because the vehicles are believed to have the highest risk for pedal entrapment.

Toyota plans to install a brake override system on the Camry, Avalon and Lexus ES350, IS350 and IS250 models as an ``extra measure of confidence,'' NHTSA said. The brake override system, commonly called a ``smart brake,'' will ensure the vehicle will stop if both the brake and the accelerator pedals are applied simultaneously.

Dealers will be instructed on how to modify the pedals before the end of the year and will begin shortening the accelerators in 2010. New replacement pedals are expected to be available for some models beginning in April and will be provided even if the vehicles have already received a modified pedal under the recall.

The automaker and government regulators have been discussing a potential fix for several weeks. In late September, Toyota announced the recall and told owners to remove driver's side floor mats and not replace them until the company had determined a remedy for the problem. The automaker said unhooked floor mats or replacement mats stacked on top of the originals could lead to stuck accelerators.

In early November, Toyota issued a statement saying NHTSA had confirmed ``that no defect exists in vehicles in which the driver's floor mat is compatible with the vehicle and properly secured.'' But in a rare rebuke, NHTSA accused Toyota of releasing misleading information about the recall, saying removing the mats did not ``correct the underlying defect.'' Toyota said it was not the company's intention to mislead anyone.

For more information, owners can contact Toyota at 800-331-4331 or the NHTSA hot line at 888-327-4236.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. There could be less jingle in the Salvation's Army's hallmark red kettles this season. The charity is testing kettles that take debit and credit cards.

The growth of so-called ``plastic kettles'' comes as fewer shoppers carry cash. Bell ringers who stand outside stores during the holiday season say that more and more shoppers are shaking their heads and smiling as they pass by, apologizing for not having spare change or cash to drop in the red kettles.

Last year Salvation Army tested the credit machines in two cities, Dallas and Colorado Springs. This year the plastic kettles will be tested in 30 cities.

In Colorado Springs, fundraising last year went up $64,000 from the year before, an 11 percent increase. About $5,000 of the increase was from donors using credit or debit cards at the kettles.

``It used to be people would spend their money at the store counters, walk out and drop their change in the kettles. They don't shop that way anymore,'' said Major Don Gilger, coordinator of the Salvation Army of El Paso County. ``We all realize that people are carrying less cash than they did 10 years ago.''

The kettles that take credit don't look any different. But next to the metal red kettles are wireless card readers that resemble do-it-yourself readers at gas stations. The machines print two receipts, one for the donor and one to drop in the kettle. Salvation Army pays credit-processing fees same as any retailer.

But the plastic kettles take some getting used to. In Colorado Springs, volunteer bell ringer Dave Flack wasn't sure what to make of his first day ringing bells next to a credit machine. The 61-year-old keeps a three-ring-notebook full of Christmas carols handy to sing to shoppers outside the grocery store where he volunteers, but he needed to borrow a pen from the Salvation Army manager who showed him how to take donations using the machine.

Flack said he'd be willing to give it a shot.

``I've been doing this five years, and I hear people say they'd like to help but don't have any cash. I don't know if they'll use this or not,'' Flack said. ``But the need is great, so whatever it takes, we'll try it.''

Shoppers looked at the plastic kettle with interest. No one used it right away, but they liked the idea.

``This is great. I've never seen that before,'' said shopper Sara Trumbley, whose two small children dropped coins in the kettle. ``A lot of times I'll walk by and think, 'I have no cash, that stinks.' People are going to be excited to see this.''

The charity says its red kettles brought in more than $130 million nationwide last year, an increase of 17 percent from 2007. Salvation Army officials aren't sure how much of the increase came from credit or debit donations.

Anecdotal evidence indicates people who stop to make credit or debit donations make larger gifts, at least a few dollars. Major George Hood, spokesman for the Arlington, Va.-based charity, said that the donation sizes are similar to online donations, which average about $75.

Denver-area bell ringers getting ready to try the new machines said the plastic kettles could make it safer to volunteer. The charity insists that red kettle thefts are rare, but volunteer bell ringers say robberies happen and that volunteers would be safer standing next to kettles with less cash.

``It's a lot cleaner process, a lot safer for everyone,'' said Hardway Boyed, who runs a drug and alcohol treatment program for the Salvation Army and volunteers as a bell ringer. A volunteer he works with was robbed three years ago outside a post office, and Boyed called the cashless donations ``fantastic.''

The charity says that the old-fashioned kettles aren't going anywhere, because shoppers and especially children enjoy dropping coins as they shop for the holidays. Even Salvation Army groups that are using the card machines say they're a small part of the overall fundraising effort.

``They're still a little cumbersome,'' Gilger said. ``They work, and we're going to keep using them, but the technology isn't really there yet. Some people are a little leery of it, or don't want to stop that long to use the machine.''

Maybe one day, Salvation Army officials say, the charity will come up with something even faster than dropping a coin.

``I would love it eventually if we had a little antenna on the kettles and you could walk by a just beam a donation from your phone,'' Gilger said.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

ATHENS, Ga. (AP) Georgia may be without its top receiver for Saturday night's big rivalry game against Georgia Tech.

Georgia coach Mark Richt says sophomore A.J. Green is not yet ready to go full-speed as he recovers from a shoulder injury.

Georgia was without Green and safety Bacarri Rambo for last week's loss to Kentucky. Richt says Green is ``less likely'' than Rambo to return this week but added ``We're not counting him out yet.''

Richt said Tuesday he hopes Rambo, who is returning from a concussion, can practice full-speed on Wednesday.

Richt says Green is still working on regaining his strength and range of motion in his left shoulder. Green leads Georgia with 47 catches for 751 yards and six touchdowns.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

(WSB Radio) -- Should the University of Georgia's beloved bulldog mascot be made out of metal instead of fur?  That's what one animal rights organization wants.

Desiree Acholla with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, tells WSB instead of replacing UGA VII with a real bulldog, the university use an animatronic dog -- or rely solely on a costumed human mascot.

She says bulldogs are prone to certain health issues and the continued inbreeding only makes things worse.

"The breeders of the University of Georgia mascot have specific qualities that are only acceptable for a mascot:  large heads, specific colorings.  This type of pure lineage is really only available through constant inbreeding," said Archolla.

But one UGA alum in Marietta says PETA is barking up the wrong tree.

"Oh my gosh, I've always admired them (PETA), but I don't think too much of that idea.  That's just extreme if you ask me.  Those Seiler's (who breed the UGA mascots), they treat them just like human beings and they are human beings to them," said the alum.

Archolla says if nothing else, they asked the UGA to consider using a bulldog rescue.

"Knowing these health risks, we would hope that the University of Georgia would solely focus on using a human mascot in a costume who can be visible and active during the entire event.    For most football games, when Uga is not paraded down the sidelines, he's panting in his little doghouse on top of an icebag," said Archolla.

How is a using a rescue dog any different?

"Well, we're talking about a lesser of two evils. Perpetuating, and that's what I'm trying to say -  that breeding dogs and cats is always irresponsible and cruel," said Archolla.

A spokesman for the University of Georgia says school officials will look into the PETA request.

ELLENWOOD, Ga. (AP) Officials at an Ellenwood church are repairing damage left by an apologetic robber who asked the Lord for forgiveness but still made off with the loot.

The Rev. Roger Davis tells WSB-TV in a Tuesday story that the church was robbed of expensive equipment including microphones and a laptop containing important records. The robber broke locks and busted up the church's safe, but it was empty.

A message saying ``Sorry but I'm poor. Forgive me Lord'' was written on a wall after the weekend break-in.

It was the fourth time the church has been robbed in two years.

Davis joked he's considering putting up a note of his own.

He said it'll tell those thinking of robbing the church to call him instead and parishioners will take up a collection for them.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

ATLANTA (AP) Atlanta Police Chief Richard Pennington has announced he will resign at the end of the year.

Pennington's top deputy, Alan Dreher, also announced his departure Tuesday, saying he would leave the department Dec. 8.

The two had worked together in Washington, D.C. Pennington was hired away from the New Orleans Police Department in May 2002 after a five-month search.

Pennington was credited with cleaning up the New Orleans department and more than 350 police officers were indicted, fired or disciplined for misconduct under his tenure.

He said crime is down 25 percent, but the statistics haven't appeased a growing number of detractors. A series of brazen crimes this year has led to widespread criticism of Pennington's leadership.

The 62-year-old said he has no plans to leave Atlanta and will do some consulting work among other projects.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

(WSB Radio) -- Gwinnett County may privitize it's airport. 

County officials confirm there's a private company that is interested in purchasing Briscoe Field from the county. For now there is not a deal.

The company, whose name has not been disclosed, approached the county about either leasing the airport or buying it outright under a program run by the FAA designed to generate revenue and improve the airport.

Commission Chairman Charles Bannister says the county must first examine the economic and environmental impact of turning Briscoe Field into a private airport.

In a written statement, Bannister call privitization an "intriguing idea" that could bring needed revenue to the county.  However, he cautions that careful study and public comment would be required before the county could move ahead with any plans to privitize the airport.

(WSB Radio) - Besides a hot meal and a hot shower, those who attend Thursday's Hosea Feed the Hungry and Homeless Thanksgiving dinner at Turner Field can also receive the H1N1 vaccine.

Dr. Patrice Harris with the Fulton County Department of Health and Wellness tells WSB many homeless people are at high risk for the H1N1 influenza.

"Those who are homeless often times have chronic medical conditions," said Harris.

 The vaccines will be available from 10am-1pm and are free.

"The plan is to offer at least 400 vaccines that day.  Fulton County will be contributing 200 vaccines and the DeKalb County Board of Health will be contributing 200 vaccines," said Harris.

The Morehouse School of Medicine is also helping in the distribution.

(WSB Radio) -- A year-long probe into an illegal gambling operation in southwest Atlanta culminates with a Tuesday raid that included 21 arrests.

The underground casino was run out of a legitimate tire store on Whitehall Street in the West End community.  V.T. Tire Company is located behind the West End MARTA station.

Atlanta Police Major Debra Williams says  "the only way you would know that particular area exists if you were invited into that area.  If not, you would just continue to do business."

Four of the suspects face felony commercial gambling charges.  The other seventeen people were booked on misdemeanor act of gambling charges.  The FBI and the IRS assisted APD with the investigation.

(WSB Radio) -- Dunwoody police have one suspect in custody and are searching for another after an armed robbery Tuesday night at the McDonald's on Cotillion Drive near I-285. 

It appears, but has not been confirmed, that the suspects in the McDonald's robbery were responsible for a similar holdup Monday night at the Burger King on Chamblee-Dunwoody Road.  The two fast food outlets are less than three miles apart.  Dunwoody Police Detective Kelly Gobely tells WSB's Mark Alewine "we have to compare the surveillance video from the Burger King with the male we have in custody and to the video at McDonald's."

Both suspects were caught in the act when two Dunwoody officers responded to a 9-1-1 call about a robbery at the restaurant around 10:30 p.m. Tuesday.  When they spotted the officers, the masked men exited through the back door, jumped a fence and ran across all lanes of I-285.  A K-9 unit caught one of the suspects, but the other got away.  He's described as a black male, 5-8 to 5-11, 175 to 200 pounds.  He was last seen wearing a dark colored Dickies jump suit and was armed with a silver or grey revolver.

None of the McDonald's employees were hurt in Tuesday night's robbery.

(WSB Traffic Center) -- The Georgia State Patrol is gearing up for the most heavily traveled holiday of the year.

Every available trooper will be on the roads Wednesday and Sunday -- the peak travel time, said Gordy Wright, spokesman for the State Patrol. Troopers will also be doing concentrated patrols and road checks throughout the entire holiday period, Wright said.

The checkpoints and patrols will focus on seat belt and speed violators, along with impaired drivers.

The Georgia State Patrol is predicting 3,570 traffic crashes with 1,398 injuries and 16 deaths this holiday period. The holiday extends from 6 p.m. Wednesday to midnight Sunday.

During last year's Thanksgiving holiday, troopers responded to 3,815 crashes with 1,457 injuries and 19 deaths. Seven of the those 19 people killed were not wearing seat belts. One of those victims died in an alcohol-related crash, Hitchens said.

ATLANTA (AP) A national gay rights group filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday against the city of Atlanta and the Atlanta Police Department on behalf of 19 people who say they were illegally searched and detained during a late-night raid on a crowded gay bar.

The lawsuit filed by Lambda Legal and other groups contends that the police department backed an illegal policy of searching and detaining every patron of the Atlanta Eagle Bar, regardless of whether they were suspected of a crime. It said terrorized patrons were forced to lie on beer-soaked floors while police conducted background checks and hurled anti-gay slurs.

None of the 62 patrons were arrested during the Sept. 10 raid on the midtown Atlanta bar, but eight employees were charged with code violations.

Roger Bhandari, the city's attorney, declined comment because he has not yet reviewed the lawsuit.

Police officials, who also declined comment, said at the time they were responding to anonymous tips alleging drug use and sexual activity at the bar. Police records show that undercover officers had also been to the club and witnessed men having sex while others watched.

The raid has galvanized the city's gay community, leading upset activists to host rallies, prod Atlanta's mayoral candidates and file complaints claiming the officers used excessive force and anti-gay language. The legal challenge is the strongest step yet, calling for a stop to similar bar raids and financial damages for the victim.

``The police thought they could get away with something that is so blatantly off the chain illegal,'' said Dan Grossman, an attorney for several of the plaintiffs. ``They thought this was a soft target of people who wouldn't defend themselves, but they would do this to anyone.''

Four plaintiffs said they didn't see any illegal activity at the bar at the time of the raid, and that the patrons were enjoying drinks, watching TV and playing pool when the police came in. Several said they thought the bar was being invaded by criminals, not uniformed officers.

``My first thought was, 'We're getting robbed,''' said Geoffrey Calhoun, 35, who is a 911 dispatcher. He said he felt ``dehumanized'' by the raid.

Mark Danak was relaxing at the bar after his weekly choir practice and had just asked the bartender to flip the TV to the Georgia Tech football game when he heard an officer shout ``Hit the ground.'' He said he spent the next hour with his face on the floor.

``I'm sorry, that was not right,'' said Danak, a 38-year-old IT operator. ``When rights get violated like this, people need to stand up.''

The lawsuit seeks police documents detailing how often these types of raids are conducted and asks a federal judge to block them. Gerry Weber of the Southern Center for Human Rights said doing so would be a first step in delivering justice to the bar's patrons.

``It's not about gay or straight, black or white,'' said Weber. ``It's about innocents being treated as criminals.''

(WSB Radio) -- They pulled it off with the precision of commandos.

WSB's Richard Sangster reports Dunwoody Police are investigating the late Monday night stick up and cash grab of a fast food restaurant.

The incident happened around 11 p.m., as the Burger King on Chamblee Dunwoody Road was closing.

Two men wearing dark clothing and ski masks "grabbed the manager, walked him through the restaurant, demanded cash and got an undisclosed amount of cash," Dunwoody police Det. Kelly Gobely said. "They were in and out in two minutes."

No one was hurt.

JONESBORO, Ga. (AP) Many of the Clayton County badges that were improperly issued to more than 100 people have been returned, but the sheriff says quite a few are still in circulation.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported last week that at least 121 people had been issued badges by former Sheriff Victor Hill and that current Sheriff Kem Kimbrough was trying to retrieve them.

Kimbrough says about 65 people have returned badges so far, but that he believes about 200 were given out. He says the list off those issued badges includes barbers, campaign workers, pastors and friends of the former sheriff.

Hill has declined comment.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

ATLANTA (AP) A lawsuit filed against the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention by a patient at the center of a 2007 tuberculosis scare has been dismissed.

Judge William S. Duffey Jr. ruled Andrew Speaker failed to provide specific, material facts to support the suit.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported the dismissal Monday. Speaker alleged the federal agency divulged private medical information during the scare. The lawsuit sought unspecified damages and attorney's fees.

The CDC said at a May 2007 news conference that a patient with an extremely drug-resistant strain of TB had traveled on an international flight.

Speaker, who had traveled to Greece for his wedding and to Italy on his honeymoon, said he was told that he wasn't contagious and details about him should not have been released.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

(WSB Radio) -- Dunwoody Police are seeking the public's help in their search for two men who followed a couple out of a computer store and mugged them in a mall parking lot.

Police say the couple had no idea they were being watched as they shopped at the Apple store at Perimter Mall a week ago.

Surveillance cameras captured images of the couple leaving the store after buying a computer and of the couple being followed out of the store by two men.

Cameras also caught images of the couple leaving the mall, still being followed by the two men.  There are also pictures of the suspects running in the mall parking lot.

"They approached the victim and stole the laptop," said Dunwoody Detective Kelly Gobley.

Gobley says this is their first report this holiday season of someone actually being followed from a store to their vehicle.

They warn that as the holiday season begins, shoppers should be aware of their surroundings.  If anything seems strange, call police.

"If at any point they feel uncomfortable we want them to call us," said Gobley.  "Let us know if there is something suspicious going on even if they just 'feel funny."

Anyone with information about the suspects is asked to call the Dunwoody Police at 678-382-6912.

WASHINGTON (AP) President Barack Obama held a ``rigorous final meeting'' with his Afghanistan war council and is expected to announce his revised strategy for the eight-year-old conflict just after his Thanksgiving break.

Military officials and others expect Obama to settle on a middle-ground option that would deploy an eventual 32,000 to 35,000 U.S. forces. That rough figure has stood as the most likely option since before Obama's last large war council meeting earlier this month, when he tasked military planners with rearranging the timing and makeup of some of the deployments.

The president has said with increasing frequency in recent days that a big piece of the rethinking of options that he ordered had to do with building an exit strategy into the announcement in other words, revising the options presented to him to clarify when U.S. troops would turn over responsibility to the Afghan government and under what conditions.

As White House press secretary Robert Gibbs put it to reporters on Monday, it's ``not just how we get people there, but what's the strategy for getting them out.''

Obama held the 10th meeting of his Afghanistan strategy review since mid-September on Monday night, with a large cast of foreign policy and military advisers, to go over that revised information from war planners. The two-hour Situation Room session was aimed at discussing ``some of the questions that the president had, some additional answers to what he'd asked for,'' Gibbs said.

The spokesman said the president left the war council meeting without announcing a decision to the group, but added it would become public soon.

``After completing a rigorous final meeting, President Obama has the information he wants and needs to make his decision and he will announce that decision within days,'' Gibbs said late Monday.

The White House is aiming for an announcement by Obama next week, either Tuesday or Wednesday, after Congress returns from its Thanksgiving break. Military officials, congressional aides and European diplomats said they expect Obama to deliver a national address laying out the revamped strategy.

Congressional hearings would immediately follow that address, including testimony from the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal. Others likely to take part in hearings would be Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry. All four were among the approximately 20 top administration officials and Obama advisers participating in the talks Monday night one of the biggest groups gathered for these sessions in some time.

The force infusion expected by the military would represent most but not all the troops requested by Obama's war commander, for a retailored war plan that blends elements of McChrystal's counterterror strategy with tactics more closely associated with the CIA's unacknowledged war to hunt down terrorists across the border in Pakistan.

McChrystal presented options ranging from about 10,000 to about 80,000 forces, and told Obama he preferred an addition of about 40,000 atop the record 68,000 in the country now, officials have said.

Obama has already ordered a significant expansion of 21,000 troops since taking office. The war has worsened on his watch, and public support has dropped as U.S. combat deaths have climbed.

The additional troops would be concentrated in the south and east of Afghanistan, the areas where the U.S. already has most of its forces, military officials said. The new troops that already went this year were directed to help relieve Marines stretched to the limit by far-flung postings in Helmand province and that would continue, while the U.S. effort would expand somewhat in Kandahar.

The increase would include at least three Army brigades and a single, larger Marine Corps contingent, officials said.

All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the decision is not final.

Associated Press writer Philip Elliott contributed to this report.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

WASHINGTON (AP) More than 2.1 million drop-side cribs by Stork Craft Manufacturing are being recalled, the biggest crib recall in U.S history, following reports of four infant suffocations.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission said late Monday the recall involves 1.2 million cribs in the United States and almost 1 million in Canada, where Stork Craft is based. Sales of the cribs being recalled go back to 1993.

Nearly 150,000 of the cribs carry the Fisher-Price logo.

The CPSC said it is aware of four infants who suffocated in the drop-side cribs, which have a side that moves up and down to allow parents to lift children from the cribs more easily. The agency also said there have been 110 incidents of drop-sides detaching from the cribs.

The Stork Craft cribs have had problems with their hardware, which can break, deform or become missing after years. CPSC said there can also be problems with assembly mistakes by the crib owner. These problems can cause the drop-side to detach, creating a dangerous space between the drop-side and the crib mattress, where a child can become trapped.

The commission is urging parents to stop using the cribs until receiving a free repair kit from Stork Craft. The kit will convert the drop-side into a fixed side.

The cribs, which were manufactured and distributed between January 1993 and October 2009, were sold at major retailers including BJ's Wholesale Club, Sears and Wal-Mart stores and online through Target and Costco. They sold for between $100 and $400, and were made in Canada, China and Indonesia.

Calls to Stork Craft were not immediately returned.

This is the second big recall this year for the company. It recalled about 500,000 cribs in January because of problems with the metal brackets that support the mattress. Some of the same models in the earlier recall were also part of Monday's announcement, CPSC said.

Consumer advocates have complained for years about drop-side cribs. More than 5 million of them have been recalled over the past two years alone recalls that were associated with the deaths of a dozen young children.

ASTM International, an organization that sets voluntary industry safety standards for everything from toys to the steel used in commercial buildings, approved a new standard last week that requires four immovable, or fixed, sides for full-size cribs essentially eliminating the manufacture of drop-side cribs.

CPSC is also considering new rules for making cribs safer and could adopt the ASTM voluntary standard as a mandatory one, outright banning the cribs.

Nancy Cowles, executive director of Chicago-based Kids In Danger, said the agency must include more rigorous testing for crib durability. ``Parents should be able to trust that their child is safe in their crib,'' said Cowles.

Toys``R``Us started phasing out drop-side cribs earlier this year and will no longer carry them next month.

In the Stork Craft recall, the manufacture date, model number, crib name, country of origin, and the firm's name, address and contact information are located on the assembly instruction sheet attached to the mattress support board. The firm's insignia ``storkcraft baby'' or ``storkling'' is inscribed on the drop-side teething rail of some cribs.

Consumers can contact the company, 877-274-0277, to order the free repair kit, or log on to www.storkcraft.com.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

WASHINGTON (AP) Faced with limited job options, many young adults are turning to an old standby to weather the recession: moving back in with mom and dad.

Nearly 1 in 7 parents with grown children say they had a ``boomerang kid'' move back home in the past year, according to a study being released Tuesday by the Pew Research Center. In a turnabout in the rite of passage in which a college graduate finds a job and an apartment, many are returning to their parents' empty nests because of tight finances or as they pursue an advanced degree.

``The journey home for Thanksgiving won't be quite so far this year for many adults,'' said researchers Wendy Wang and Rich Morin, who wrote the report. ``Instead of traveling across country or across town, many grown sons or daughters will be coming to dinner from their old bedroom down the hall.''

Pew's survey and analysis of government data found that the share of adults 18 to 29 who lived alone declined from 7.9 percent in 2007 to 7.3 percent this year. Drops of that magnitude were also seen during or immediately after the recessions of 1982 and 2001.

Roughly one-third, or 35 percent, of boomerang kids said they had lived independently at some point in their lives but had to move back in with their parents. About half of the grown children worked full- or part-time, while 25 percent were unemployed and 20 percent were full-time students.

The findings are the latest to highlight the sweeping social impact of a recession that began in December 2007. The effects have included declining immigration and U.S. migration between states, as well as increased carpools, use of public transit and ``doubling up'' of families in single-residence homes.

Data released earlier this year showed that older Americans will make up virtually all of the growth in the U.S. work force in the coming years as a nearly unprecedented number hold onto jobs and younger people decide to stay in school.

Among 16- to 24-year-olds, less than half, or 46.1 percent, are currently employed, the smallest share since the government began collecting such data in 1948. At the same time, a record high of about 11.5 million Americans ages 18 to 24, or nearly 40 percent, attended college in October 2008.

``Boomerang kids are a major trend, and they represent a shift in cultural norms,'' said David Morrison, president and founder of Twentysomething Inc., a marketing and research firm. ``Young adults are the first to feel the brunt of a bad economy and the last to feel the benefits of a recovering economy. So the first way you hedge your bets is to minimize your expenses.''

Saying there is now less of a stigma in moving back home, Morrison predicted that the trend of boomerang kids may lessen somewhat but still continue after the economy recovers. That could create longer-term ripple effects in social relationships, from multigenerational family tensions to delayed marriage, he said.

According to the latest Pew survey and census data:

About 20 million people ages 18 to 34 live at home with their parents roughly 30 percent of that age group. That's up from about 18 million, or 27 percent, in 2005.

About 12 percent of young adults ages 18 to 34 said they were forced to move in with a roommate because of the poor economy.

Fifteen percent of adults 18 to 34 said they had postponed getting married due to the recession. That share increases to 21 percent for adults ages 25 to 34, when many people tend to get married.

Fourteen percent of adults 18 to 34 say they delayed having a baby.

Pew based its findings on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Census Bureau. It also interviewed 1,028 people ages 18 and older by cell phone or landline from Oct. 21-25. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.9 percentage points.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

ATLANTA (AP) Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin will teach at Spelman College after her final term ends.

Franklin will join the historically black women's college in January under its William and Camille Cosby Endowed Professorship Program, dedicated to the fine arts, humanities and social sciences. The multidisciplinary initiative is designed to enhance the intellectual, cultural and creative life of Spelman.

Franklin was elected the city's first female mayor in 2001 and re-elected in 2004. She is barred by term limits from running for mayor again. The 63-year-old Franklin is an alumna of Howard University and the University of Pennsylvania.

Franklin's term ends Jan. 3 and she will begin her one-year professorship after leaving office.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

ATLANTA (AP) An Alpharetta man has pleaded guilty to charges of impersonating a federal agent.

Louis Joseph Aprile entered the plea in federal district court on Monday, admitting to pretending to be an agent of the National Security Agency.

The 49-year-old initiated meetings with local law enforcement from May 19 to June 9 and repeatedly portrayed himself to be the deputy director of the National Security Agency.

He tried to convince officers he was from the National Security Agency to organize an anti-terrorist task force, specifically targeting some individuals whom he claimed were Iraqi terrorists about to engage in terrorist acts.

Aprile could receive a maximum sentence of three years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000. Sentencing is scheduled for February 3.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

ATLANTA (AP) Georgia's water task force has learned that losing Lake Lanier as source for drinking water could mean an annual loss of more than $26 billion for businesses.

The group met for second time Monday while it tries to develop an alternative plan to using the lake. Georgia has been embroiled in a decades-long fight with Alabama and Florida over water rights.

Metro Atlanta could lose up to 280 million gallons of water a day without the lake and businesses could lose up to an estimated $39 billion dollars a year.

Georgia Public Broadcasting reports that Gwinnett, Forsyth, and Hall counties would be hardest hit if a federal judge's ruling that Georgia is illegally taking water from Lake Lanier holds.

Conservation measures discussed at the meeting include gray water recycling, tapping into ground water, and desalinizing sea water from Georgia's coast.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

(WSB Radio) --  Three year after a 92-year-old grandmother was killed in a hail of bullets during a botched police raid in a crime-ridden section of northwest Atlanta, and now comes an apology.

"I take full responsibility for what happened. What happened to Mrs. Johnston was tragic," said Atlanta Police Chief Richard Pennington. "I don't think anybody ever apologized to the Johnston family. But I'd like to take this moment to personally apologize. You can't have an ongoing healing process until someone steps up and say they were wrong."

Police officers, prosecutors and city leaders are returning to the neighborhood to talk about how they've rebuilt ties with skeptical residents and the work that still needs to be done.

Three officers were later convicted of crimes and are currently serving prison time.

"We went through some difficult times and no one felt it more than I did," Pennington said. "The officers broke the law. I was appalled and hurt. I don't think this hurt will ever go away."

Neighborhood leaders say the blighted area has improved since Kathryn Johnston's 2006 shooting death, but that more needs to be done.

Businessman John Gordon says improving the community is good for everyone.

(WSB Radio) -- It was quite a haul.

Atlanta police officers and recruits will spend hours loading several trucks with stolen property.

Know as 'The Dungeon," this illegal fencing and pawn operation was operating in a garage on Mill Street at Luckey Street, near the Georgia Aquarium. 

"We have everything from gold jewelry, lap top computers, power tools," according to Major Khirus Williams.

WSB Richard Sangster reports much of what is alleged to have been stolen was still in original boxes.

The person suspected of running the operation, David Turner, 44, is facing a host of charges.

Once the items are cataloged, theft victims can come to City Hall East to identify and retrieve their property.

(WSB Radio) -- Armed robbers, accused of shooting a Lilburn bar patron, may have made it easy for police.

WSB's Richard Sangster reports at least three men, and perhaps a woman, are being sought for the shooting at the Happy Hours Restaurant and Bar on Pleasant Hill Road.

Investigators say the victims had been displayed a large amount of money and that may be why he was targeted.

The victim was shot in the back in the parking lot, but it apparently was not a clean getaway.

Gwinnett police say a witness has provided investigators with a name of the shooter and the suspect also left behind key evidence that may help in the investigation.

The victim is hospitalized in serious condition.

The shooting happened around 12:30 a.m. Monday.

ATLANTA (AP) Monday marks the deadline for almost 20,000 flood victims in Georgia who picked up applications for Small Business Administration loans but have not returned them yet.

SBA spokesman Richard Daigle says the applications must be postmarked by Monday.

The loans cover losses not covered by flood insurance or federal grants. Already the SBA has approved more than $40 million in disaster loans related to September's historic flood.

A homeowner can receive up to $200,000 in loans for real estate loss and up to $40,000 in loans to replace an automobile or furniture or other personal items. Renters can receive up to $40,000 in loans for the contents of their apartment. Businesses can receive loans up to $2 million.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

CALABASAS, Calif. (AP) Authorities say a 12-year-old boy assaulted by a group of middle school classmates in Southern California may have been targeted after an Internet posting urged students to beat up redheads.

Los Angeles County Sheriff's Lt. Richard Erickson says the boy, who is redheaded, was kicked and hit in two incidents Friday at A.E. Wright Middle School in Calabasas. As many as 14 students participated in the attacks.

Erickson says the attackers may have been motivated by a Facebook message announcing that Friday was ``Kick a Ginger Day.'' The posting may have been inspired by an episode of the television show ``South Park.''

The boy was not seriously hurt. Erickson says there may be other victims.

No arrests have been made.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. (AP) Eli Manning and the New York Giants were just happy to celebrate a victory again. It had been six frustrating weeks, not that they were counting or anything.

``It's been a long time, 42 days since our last win,'' Manning said. ``It felt like it, too.''

Lawrence Tynes kicked a 36-yard field goal 3:54 into overtime to make up for an earlier miss and lead the Giants past the Atlanta Falcons 34-31 on Sunday. The win snapped a four-game skid and came after the defense blew a two-touchdown lead in the fourth quarter.

``It's nice to win,'' coach Tom Coughlin said. ``We were miserable around here for a month.''

Manning threw for a career-high 384 yards and three touchdown passes, including two to Kevin Boss, as New York kept pace with NFC East-leading Dallas, which beat Washington to maintain a one-game division lead.

The Giants can't savor this one for long, though: They play at Denver on Thanksgiving.

``There are not many better feelings than in a locker room after a win,'' Manning said. ``It was good to see the high-fives and the smiles, especially when you haven't had that feeling for a while.''

Manning, who had his first 300-yard passing game at Giants Stadium, set up Tynes' winner when he connected with Mario Manningham for a 29-yard pass that put the Giants at the 23. New York hadn't won since beating Oakland 44-7 on Oct. 11, but this one didn't come easily.

The Giants' defense without injured linebacker Antonio Pierce indefinitely couldn't hold a 31-17 lead against Matt Ryan and the Falcons.

``I am concerned,'' Coughlin said of his defense.

New York also lost running back Brandon Jacobs to an injured right leg late in the third quarter. Coughlin had no update on the injury, but Jacobs was on the sideline during the fourth quarter and overtime.

Ryan threw a 4-yard scoring pass to Eric Weems with 6:01 left in regulation, then found Tony Gonzalez for 11 yards with 28 seconds remaining to tie it.

``It's disappointing because we didn't come out with the outcome we wanted,'' Ryan said. ``We had a lot of great contributions and great efforts from a lot of guys in the second half to come back from 14 down. But with that said, there are no moral victories.''

Atlanta (5-5) has lost four of five after a 4-1 start.

``What I told our team is that we've been through a long road in terms of the last six weeks,'' Falcons coach Mike Smith said. ``Four of the six games we've played have been against teams that have been coming off the byes.''

Ryan finished 26 of 46 for 268 yards and two touchdowns, while Gonzalez had eight catches for 82 yards and the score. Jason Snelling, filling in for the injured Michael Turner, had two touchdown runs.

With the win, the Giants became the first home team to win in the series since New York beat Atlanta in 1979. The visiting teams had won 12 straight in the series, and the Falcons gave it a good shot at making it 13 in a row.

``Disappointing loss,'' Ryan said, ``but we can't be discouraged.''

Madison Hedgecock's 3-yard touchdown catch with 12:08 remaining made it 31-17, but the Falcons stormed back.

Ryan converted three third downs on a 12-play drive that was capped by Weems' touchdown catch.

New York had trouble again on the tying drive as the Giants allowed Ryan to convert two third-down passes. After an incompletion to Gonzalez, Ryan found the big tight end in the end zone for the score.

The Giants won the overtime toss after referee Gene Steratore fumbled the first flip and Manning went to work again.

``I knew we had moved the ball very well, especially in the second half, so I felt good,'' he said. ``I'm glad we got the ball first. That gave us the opportunity to go out there and win the game.''

Snelling's 7-yard touchdown run 1:02 into the second quarter put Atlanta ahead 7-3. He started for Turner, who suffered a high ankle sprain in Atlanta's loss to Carolina last week. The Falcons were also without Jerious Norwood for the fifth straight game.

The Giants marched right back down the field, helped by a pretty 33-yard sideline catch by Manningham, but stalled after that at the Falcons 13. Tynes had a chance to make it a one-point game, but was wide left on a 31-yard attempt.

``I knew that was going to haunt us, even when we were up 14, I knew I had to make amends,'' Tynes said. ``Fortunately, I got an opportunity.''

Atlanta came out in the second half clicking with an eight-play drive that was capped by a 1-yard touchdown run by Snelling.

After Jacobs' 2-yard run put New York up 24-14 midway through the third quarter, Jason Elam kicked a 25-yarder to make it a one-touchdown game.

NOTES: Snelling finished with 76 yards rushing on 25 carries. ... Giants LB Michael Boley had a game-high 13 tackles and a sack against his former team. ... Giants CB Aaron Ross made his season debut after missing the first nine games with a severely strained hamstring.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

CAMARILLO, Calif. (AP) The average price of regular gasoline in the U.S. has dropped 3.64 cents over a two-week period to $2.65.

That's according to the national Lundberg Survey of fuel prices released today.

Analyst Trilby Lundberg says the average price for a gallon of mid-grade was $2.78. Premium was at $2.89.

Cheyenne, Wyo., had the lowest price among cities surveyed at $2.38 a gallon for regular. Anchorage was the highest at $3.30.

In California, prices were down 5.29 cents from two weeks ago. A gallon of regular cost an average of $2.91. Fresno had the state's least expensive gas at $2.78 a gallon. San Francisco remained the steepest at $2.97.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

ATHENS----The Georgia Bulldogs conclude the regular season Saturday night in Atlanta when they face seventh-ranked Georgia Tech.

The Bulldogs (6-5) began preparations for the Yellow Jackets (10-1) Sunday. Speaking on his weekly media conference call, Georgia coach Mark Richt said that the Bulldogs have more practice and preparation time this week to get ready for the Yellow Jackets. Due to the Thanksgiving break, there are no classes at the university this week.

"We're not going to wear them out, but we can spend a little more than the normal 20-hour week of preparation," said Richt. "We'll do certain things to help simulate the blocks and plays that we'll be seeing. We'll have to get off blocks and make tackles, and that will be everybody's challenge when you play this type of offense. It's assignment football. You have to beat some blocks and make some plays."

Along with its option attack, Georgia Tech has improved its passing numbers from a year ago. Josh Nesbitt is completing 46 percent of his passes, completing 58-of-125 attempts for 1,418 yards and eight touchdowns. His top target is Demaryius Thomas, and he's tallied 39 catches for 950 yards and six touchdowns this season.

"Georgia Tech is going to get a bunch of man coverage period; everybody tries to stop the run," said Richt. "They have a guy that's making plays, they're throwing to him, he's benefiting from man coverage, and they're doing a nice job of putting it on him. It makes them more dynamic."

Richt provided an injury update on a couple of Bulldogs who missed this past Saturday's game with Kentucky due to injuries. The league's top receiver in sophomore starting flanker A.J. Green (left shoulder AC-sprain) along with redshirt freshman safety Baccari Rambo (concussion) may play this week.

"They're getting there, we're pretty hopeful on both of them but neither of them is a slam-dunk," said Richt. "By Tuesday, we'll have a real good feel."

Georgia has been plagued by turnovers this season, and Richt said it's been frustrating. The Bulldogs had four turnovers in the second half of the Kentucky game, and the Wildcats converted two of them in to 14 points. Nineteen of Georgia's 26 turnovers this season has been in Bulldog territory. Opponents have scored 102 points off Bulldog miscues this year. Georgia ranks 119th nationally with a turnover margin of minus 18.

"Turnovers have never been like this, and that's really the thing that did us in last night," said Richt. "The penalties are not good, and definitely it's been frustrating no doubt. It looked like we turned the corner last week, our penalties were down, and we won the turnover ratio. If we don't turn it over yesterday, we win but that's not what happened."

Richt added that all programs go through cycles, and while Georgia had a good upswing for a while, this year has been down considering the team's record.

"We will get it back on track and get back to our winning ways, no doubt about that," said Richt. "We need the fans to keep supporting us, believing in us, and we'll keep working hard to make them proud."

Kickoff Saturday at Bobby Dodd Stadium will be at 8 p.m., and the game will be broadcast live on WSB.  The Tailgate Show kicks off the broadcast at 4 p.m.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) While U.S. newspapers are losing subscribers at a staggering rate, a few dailies stand out because their circulation is rising. But they aren't necessarily selling more copies.

Here's why: Since April 1, new auditing rules have made it easier for newspapers to count a reader as a paying customer.

These looser standards are especially helpful to a newspaper if it sells an ``electronic edition.'' That can include a subscriber-only Web site, such as what The Wall Street Journal has, or it can be a digital replica of a newspaper's printed product. Several dozen publications, including USA Today, sell access to these daily ``e-editions'' that show how the news was laid out in print.

Under the new auditing standards, if a newspaper sells a ``bundled'' subscription to both the print and electronic editions, the publication is often allowed to count that subscriber twice.

If not for these rules, the industry's numbers would look even worse. Average weekday circulation at 379 U.S. newspapers fell 10.6 percent during the six months ending in September. That was the steepest decline ever recorded by the Audit Bureau of Circulations, the organization that verifies how many people are paying to read publications.

It's not clear what the numbers would have been under the old auditing standards. But the effects of the new rules were widespread. There were 59 newspapers that listed at least 5,000 electronic editions in their weekday circulations, according to an Associated Press review of the figures filed with the ABC for the April-September period. In all but a few instances, the number of electronic subscribers was substantially higher than a year ago.

The decline in newspaper circulation has several causes. Many publications have intentionally reduced the range of their deliveries, cutting out exurbs or distant parts of their states where they sold relatively few copies. Higher prices for home delivery and newsstand copies also have driven some readers away. Publishers are betting they can keep their most loyal readers and are charging them more to help offset their crumbling ad sales the main source of newspaper revenue.

Nevertheless, many newspapers are still offering discounts to bolster their circulation so they don't risk losing even more advertising revenue. The size of the audience is one factor marketers consider when they buy ads.

The Las Vegas Review-Journal was among the newspapers whose weekday circulation rose from the same time last year. Nevada's largest newspaper saw its average weekday circulation rise 6.6 percent, or nearly 11,000 subscribers, to 175,841. It was a remarkable improvement, given that weekday sales of its print edition fell by 12,000 copies and Las Vegas ranks among the cities hardest hit by the Great Recession.

How did it happen? The Review-Journal's circulation this year included 23,132 electronic editions compared with just 511 at the same time last year.

The big difference didn't occur because that many more people suddenly decided to buy the Review-Journal's digital replica of its print edition.

The change happened because the price the newspaper was charging for the online replica it costs print customers an extra 50 cents per week hadn't been high enough to qualify as paid circulation until the ABC's April change. That let newspapers define their paying readers as anyone who spends at least a penny for a copy. Previously, a newspaper copy had to sell for at least 25 percent of the basic price to qualify as paid circulation.

The ABC said it changed the rules to reduce its auditing costs and ``provide greater pricing and marketing flexibility'' for publishers.

Steve Coffeen, the Review-Journal's circulation director, said it makes sense to count the bundled subscriptions twice, as well as other people buying the electronic edition at a sharp discount, because it provides a complete picture of the newspaper's paying audience. Advertisers generally prize readers who pay for a publication, reasoning they are more likely to peruse it.

``It's important to show advertisers we are fighting the good fight and using other platforms to reach readers,'' Coffeen said.

That rationale makes sense to Randy Novak, director of newspaper strategy for NSA Media, one of the nation's largest buyers of newspaper ads. He doesn't see much difference between readers who are getting the newspaper at a deep discount or the standard price. He wants to reach people who care enough about the newspaper to be willing to pay for it at all.

However, another big buyer of newspaper ads says the new ABC rules made the reported circulation numbers less credible.

``You really have to do your homework now and ask newspapers about how much double counting is going on,'' said Allison Howald, U.S. director of print investment at PHD Media.

A surge in digital sales propelled the York Daily Record in Pennsylvania to a 16.5 percent increase in weekday circulation the highest among dailies selling at least 50,000 copies. The Daily Record listed 10,073 electronic editions in its latest circulation of 55,370. At the same time last year it counted just 42 electronic editions in its circulation of 47,549.

In most cases, the electronic edition is a replica of the printed product, right down to the ads. The technology even makes it possible to simulate the act of turning the pages of a paper edition. Most electronic editions are sold at a small fraction of the price for the printed edition, partly because publishers don't have to pay for newsprint or fuel to deliver the copy.

Web subscriptions were pivotal in The Wall Street Journal's growth over the past decade. The digital sales are the main reason that the Journal surpassed USA Today as the top-selling U.S. newspaper in the April-September period. USA Today, owned by Gannett Co., still holds the edge in print circulation.

The Journal charges its print subscribers an additional 40 cents per week for unrestricted access to its Web site. Journal spokesman Robert Christie wouldn't comment on whether the new rules for counting subscribers contributed to a 14 percent increase in the newspaper's 407,002 digital subscribers. Including the print side, the Journal's total circulation edged up by just 0.6 percent to 2.02 million.

``We followed the ABC's rules and methodology,'' Christie said.

Some newspapers that posted circulation gains say they are picking up readers who feel abandoned by bigger publications. Cutbacks at newspapers in Atlanta, Charlotte, N.C., and Nashville, Tenn., contributed to most of the 2 percent increase at the 70,000-circulation Chattanooga Times Free Press in Tennessee, said Publisher Tom Griscom. ``We are keeping an eye on print and not letting it drift away,'' Griscom said.

A reduced emphasis on print at The Detroit News and the Detroit Free Press, which now deliver to homes only three days a week, also helped Michigan's Oakland Press increase its weekday circulation 7 percent to 68,067. But electronic sales were the main factor. The newspaper listed 6,500 more electronic editions in its latest circulation numbers than it did a year ago, offsetting a slight decline in print.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) Over the last three years, the FBI scoured faded documents, interviewed aging lawmen and tracked down witnesses from killings that occurred decades ago, many of them involving white police officers who shot black men or teenagers.

Now, the agency is at a dead end in the search for relatives in at least 33 civil rights-era cases, and the FBI needs the public's help. Agents are appealing for relatives of the victims to come forward, the latest challenge in a three-year-old effort to right historical wrongs.

``We have done everything we can to find those families and we've run out of leads,'' said Cynthia Deitle, unit chief for the FBI's civil rights division. ``Whether it's a spouse, child or parent. We've even gone as far as locating cousins who are the next of kin.''

In some cases, the FBI is looking for family members to provide any evidence or details about the crimes. In others, agents want to give a status update or simply tell the relatives the FBI's investigation has ended.

Among the cases is Johnny Robinson, a black teen shot by police in 1963 in the aftermath of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, Ala. Another case is the killing of John Earl Reese, a 16-year-old who died in 1955 when two men fired shots on a black cafe in Gregg County, Texas.

The Civil Rights-Era Cold Case Initiative began in 2006 with a solemn charge: Reopen long dormant cases from a period in America's history when blacks and whites were killed in the South's bloody fight to maintain a segregated society.

The unit had 108 cases under investigation, including the infamous Ku Klux Klan slayings of three civil rights workers found buried in an earthen dam in Mississippi in 1964. A part-time Mississippi preacher was convicted of manslaughter in 2005 in the case, and the investigation continues.

The FBI said those identified as suspects in nearly half of the homicides are now dead. Federal officials also have determined about 20 cases were not racially motivated homicides.

Successful prosecutions cited by the FBI include the 2003 conviction of Ernest Avery Avants, found guilty of federal charges of aiding and abetting in the 1966 Klan killing of Ben Chester White, a black handyman shot to death to possibly lure Martin Luther King Jr. to Natchez, Miss.

Another was the 2007 kidnapping conviction of James Ford Seale, a reputed Klansman. Authorities said Charles Moore and Henry Dee were kidnapped, beaten and thrown, possibly still alive, into a Mississippi River backwater in 1964.

Charles Moore's brother, Thomas Moore, was instrumental in getting that case reopened. Thomas Moore said he took FBI records he obtained to Mississippi U.S. Attorney Dunn Lampton, who then looked into the case.

Though the FBI's effort has been applauded, some believe the pursuit comes too late.

``I think the window has been closing for a couple of years because many of the potential defendants are dying or have died. This was an effort that would have been wonderful about 15 years ago,'' said Susan Glisson, director of the William Winter Institute of Racial Reconciliation at the University of Mississippi.

Southern Poverty Law Center president Richard Cohen said his organization has turned over information to the FBI in hopes someone will be prosecuted in at least a few of the remaining unsolved killings.

``The justice that is achieved in those few is going to have to serve as symbolic justice for the whole,'' Cohen said.

Deitle said the investigations are ``incredibly labor intensive.'' Agents who can't get in touch with relatives seek sheriffs or deputies and comb neighborhoods where the crimes occurred. If that fails, they turn to grand jury dockets.

``We've dug that deep to just find anybody,'' she said.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

WASHINGTON (AP) A day after Democrats united in the Senate to advance health care legislation, deep rifts are showing in the party.

Moderates hit the Sunday talk shows and threatened to scuttle the bill if their demands aren't met. Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska tells ABC he doesn't want ``a big-government, Washington-run operation'' that would undermine private health insurance.

His comments came after the Senate's 58 Democrats and two independents voted to begin debate on the measure.

A major sticking point between liberals and moderates is the provision that would allow Americans to buy a federal-run insurance plan if their states allow it.

Independent Sen. Joe Lieberman tells NBC he doesn't ``want to fix the problems in our health care system in a way that creates more of an economic crisis.''

Fellow independent Sen. Bernie Sanders, however, says he strongly suspects there are a number of lawmakers, himself included, who wouldn't support passage without a public option.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

(WSB Radio) One man was killed trying to run across I-20 in DeKalb County.

DeKalb County police officer Jason Gagnon told WSB Radio the man was trying to dash across the interstate's eastbound lanes around 4 a.m. Sunday near the Evans Mill road exit.

"He stopped his vehicle on the side of the road," said officer Gagnon. "For whatever reason, he ran across several lanes. We still don't have a reason for why he did what he did."

The driver involved stayed at the scene and will not be charged.

Police have not released the victim's name, pending notification of next of kin.

Investigators were not sure if alcohol or drugs were involved.

WASHINGTON (AP) Invoking the memory of Edward M. Kennedy, Democrats united Saturday night to push historic health care legislation past a key Senate hurdle over the opposition of Republicans eager to inflict a punishing defeat on President Barack Obama. There was not a vote to spare.

The 60-39 vote cleared the way for a bruising, full-scale debate beginning after Thanksgiving on the legislation, which is designed to extend coverage to roughly 31 million who lack it, crack down on insurance company practices that deny or dilute benefits and curtail the growth of spending on medical care nationally.

The spectator galleries were full for the unusual Saturday night showdown, and applause broke out briefly when the vote was announced. In a measure of the significance of the moment, senators sat quietly in their seats, standing only when they were called upon to vote.

In the final minutes of a daylong session, Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., accused Republicans of trying to stifle a historic debate the nation needed.

``Imagine if, instead of debating whether to abolish slavery, instead of debating whether giving women and minorities the right to vote, those who disagreed had muted discussion and killed any vote,'' he said.

The Republican leader, Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, said the vote was anything but procedural casting it as a referendum on the bill itself, which he said would raise taxes, cut Medicare and create a ``massive and unsustainable debt.''

For all the drama, the result of the Saturday night showdown had been sealed a few hours earlier, when two final Democratic holdouts, Sens. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, announced they would join in clearing the way for a full debate.

``It is clear to me that doing nothing is not an option,'' said Landrieu, who won $100 million in the legislation to help her state pay the costs of health care for the poor.

Lincoln, who faces a tough re-election next year, said the evening vote will ``mark the beginning of consideration of this bill by the U.S. Senate, not the end.''

Both stressed they were not committing in advance to vote for the bill that ultimately emerges from next month's debate.

Of particular contentiousness to moderates is a provision for the government to sell insurance in competition with private companies, subject to state approval a part of Reid's bill expected to come under significant pressure as the debate unfolds.

Even so, their announcements marked a major victory for Reid and the White House in a year-end drive to enact the most sweeping changes to the nation's health care system in a half-century or more.

At the White House, press secretary Robert Gibbs issued a statement saying the president was gratified by the vote, which he says ``brings us one step closer to ending insurance company abuses, reining in spiraling health care costs, providing stability and security to those with health insurance, and extending quality health coverage to those who lack it.''

The legislation would require most Americans to carry insurance and provide subsidies to those who couldn't afford it. Large companies could incur costs if they did not provide coverage to their workforce. The insurance industry would come under significant new regulation under the bill, which would first ease and then ban the practice of denying coverage on the basis of pre-existing medical conditions.

Congressional budget analysts put the legislation's cost at $979 billion over a decade and said it would reduce deficits over the same period while extending coverage to 94 percent of the eligible population.

At its core, the legislation would create insurance exchanges beginning in 2014 where individuals, most of them lower income and uninsured, would shop for coverage. The bill sets aside hundreds of billions of dollars in tax credits to help those earning up to 400 percent of poverty, $88,200 for a family of four.

The House approved its version of the bill earlier this month on a near party line vote of 220-215, and Reid has said he wants the Senate to follow suit by year's end. Timing on any final compromise was unclear.

All 58 Senate Democrats and two independents voted to advance the bill. All 39 votes in opposition were cast by Republicans. GOP Sen. George Voinovich of Ohio was the only senator not to vote. Montana Sen. Max Baucus, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee who has labored on health care for more than a year, flew in from his home state on a government plane for the vote and was returning afterward to be with his ailing mother.

While timing made Landrieu and Lincoln the final two Democrats to announce their intentions, Sen. Paul Kirk of Massachusetts had a clear claim as the 60th vote.

Appointed to office this fall after the death of Kennedy, who championed health care issues for decades, Kirk said he spoke for those ``who for so many years revered and loved and elected and re-elected (him) ... that I think they're all they all, as we do, have him in our minds and our hearts tonight. ...''

Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., echoed those sentiments later in the evening when he referred to Kennedy's ``lifelong quest'' for national health care and said ``tonight and in the days to come we will pay him the highest compliment by fulfilling that'' goal.

At a post-vote news conference, Reid said he had talked with Kennedy's widow, Vicki, about the vote. ``We both said Ted would be happy,'' Reid said.

In hours of debate before the Saturday evening vote, a few Republicans piled copies of the 2,074-page bill on their desks while others criticized it as a government takeover of health care and worse.

``Move over, Bernie Madoff. Tip your hat to a trillion-dollar scam,'' said Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., likening the bill's supporters to the imprisoned investor who fleeced millions.

In her remarks, Landrieu said, ``I've decided that there are enough significant reforms and safeguards in this bill to move forward, but much more work needs to be done.'' She also touted the $100 million included in the legislation to help her state cover its costs under Medicaid, the state-federal health care program for the poor.

Lincoln referred repeatedly to the political controversy surrounding the issue. She said $3.3 million has already been spent by outside groups advertising either for or against health care legislation in her state, and said, ``these outside groups seem to think that this is all about my re-election. I simply think they don't know me very well.''

To finance the expanded coverage, Reid proposed higher taxes as well as cuts totaling hundreds of billions of dollars in projected Medicare payments. Hardest hit would be the private insurance Medicare plans, although providers such as home health agencies would also receive significantly less in future years than now estimated.

The bill raises payroll taxes on incomes over $200,000 for individuals and $250,000 for couples. Reid eased the impact of an earlier proposal to tax high-value insurance plans, which has emerged as one of the principal methods for restraining the growth in health costs.

The bill includes tax increases on insurance companies, medical device makers, patients electing to undergo cosmetic surgery and drugmakers.

Associated Press writer Donna Cassata contributed to this article.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

BUFORD, Ga. (AP) Gwinnett County police are investigating a reported rape in a storage room at the Mall of Georgia.

Police say the 21-year-old victim and the suspect, 20-year-old Jarvis Wiley, are acquaintances and work in separate kiosks at the mall.

The victim told police that Wiley asked her to help him in a storage room and then sexually assaulted her once they were in there.

The victim immediately reported the alleged assault to mall security and Gwinnett police.

Police arrested Wiley and charged him with one count of rape. He was being held without bond in the Gwinnett County jail. Police did not know whether Wiley had a lawyer.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

ATHENS, Ga. (AP) Uga VII, the mascot of the University of Georgia football team, has been buried next to his father at Sanford Stadium.

The 56-pound white English bulldog died Thursday of heart-related causes.

Only university dignitaries, members of the family that owned the mascot and a few members of the media were at the Saturday memorial for the 4-year-old dog. The public was not invited.

Uga VII, nicknamed ``Loran's Best,'' was brought to the mausoleum in the southwest corner of the field where six previous Ugas are entombed in large red marble slabs.

Uga VII had been the team's mascot since August 2008. The previous mascot, Uga VI, died of heart failure in June 2008 after a nine-year reign.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

MARIETTA, Ga. (AP) Veterans Day has passed but at least two separate groups worked recently to ensure that the sacrifices of soldiers, both the living and the dead, are remembered.

Veterans groups heralded the grand opening of the Marietta Vet Center in Dodd Plaza at 40 Dodd St., suite 700, off Roswell Street in Marietta. Meanwhile, a construction crew and crane spent the day erecting a 32-ton granite wall of honor listing the known names of those interred in Marietta's Confederate Cemetery.

The new Marietta Vet Center operated by the U.S. Veterans Affairs Department is the largest of its kind in metro Atlanta. It received its first client on Oct. 13. It provides readjustment counseling and sexual abuse counseling, as well as case management, community outreach and referral services, plus supportive social services, to combat veterans and their families.

L. Tammy Duckworth, assistant veterans affairs secretary for public and intergovernmental affairs, was the keynote speaker at the dedication. An Iraq War veteran, Duckworth spoke of her own recovery at Walter Reed Army Medical Center from injuries sustained in the war and the inspiration she received from fellow veterans.

``We may not have served during the same war... but, we have the same experience,'' she said.

``That's what this vet center does. This is a place where you can sit down maybe with another veteran from Iraq or Afghanistan, Vietnam, Korea, World War II or peace time and say, 'You know, I've been in that hole you're in. I'm going to climb in there with you because I know the way out and I'm gonna show you the way out.'''

Duckworth, a former Illinois congressional candidate, lost both legs and partial use of an arm in 2004 when the Black Hawk helicopter she co-piloted on a mission in Iraq was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade. She received several medals, including the Purple Heart.

She commended the work of the social workers, psychologists, outreach specialists and administrators many whom are veterans who work at the 232 veteran centers across the country. Two of those are located in Atlanta and Lawrenceville. More than 130,000 veterans are served by veteran centers each year, according to the government.

``This is your vet center, your community. This is vets helping vets to get through the things that we've got to get through so that we can all go back and have a piece of that American dream. That dream that we fought for, for everyone else,'' Duckworth told the audience, comprised of many veterans.

``No one deserves it more than the young men and women of this country. I call them our greatest national treasure, who are willing to die to protect those freedoms for other people.''

The 4,200-square-feet facility on Dodd Street has staff offices, offices for individual counseling and family therapy, a relaxation room, two large group rooms, a conference room and outdoor gazebo.

Bill Beaudin, commander of nearby American Legion Post 29 in Marietta, served in the Navy during Vietnam. ``In the past they had to travel to get any kind of counseling like this,'' he said of veterans. ``To have this right in our back yard is fantastic.''

Earlier on Saturday, a crew worked to install a series of granite monuments at Marietta's Brown Park off West Atlanta Street for a group of veterans who have long since passed.

The monuments are meant to honor veterans buried in the adjacent Confederate Cemetery. A large crane laid 12 separate granite panels that are engraved with the names of the 1,000 known Civil War soldiers who are buried in the cemetery.

The Marietta Confederate Cemetery Foundation, Friends of Brown Park and the city of Marietta are responsible for the project. More than $100,000 in donations was raised. Former Marietta Councilwoman Betty Hunter, the cemetery foundation's president, said the memorial wall is the culmination of 17 years of work.

``All of us have an interest in seeing these names of the soldiers that we know in the cemetery, placed on this wall,'' Hunter said.

``For the first time, people can come in here and actually learn something about the cemetery, because there's no sexton or anybody to tell you anything about the cemetery if you come up here to visit.''

The cemetery was established in 1863. The vast majority of the total 3,000 Confederate soldiers buried there have unmarked graves. Many fought in the battles of Chickamauga and Ringgold.

The memorial wall lists the names of the known soldiers, who represented all of the Confederate states. The names came from an original listing in the late-1800s compiled by the United Daughters of the Confederacy. A donors wall has the names of contributors of $1,000 or more. Hunter said people from as far away as California donated funds.

The finished project will include 10 benches with historical information and bronze sculptures, by San Diego sculptor T.J. Dixon. Visitors are encouraged to conduct self-guided tours of the cemetery, beginning with the wall monument, and use the benches for historical references. A large circular monument, featuring a pair of bronze boots, will be located near the wall to honor the unknown soldiers.

A dedication ceremony for the memorial is scheduled at 2 p.m. Dec. 12. It will be free and open to the public.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

FORT BENNING, Ga. (AP) A Fort Benning spokesman says Army officials are investigating whether a suspicious note and package found at the west Georgia post is a viable threat.

Bob Purtiman says a soldier found the note and package Thursday morning in an outdoor gazebo. The soldier immediately told a supervisor, who called 911.

Purtiman would not say what was in the note or what was in the package.

He said authorities are investigating whether there is a viable threat against Fort Benning. He says security measures have been heightened in the meantime.

Earlier this month, an Army psychiatrist opened fire at Fort Hood in Texas, killing 13 people and wounding more than 30 others.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

ATHENS, Ga. (AP) University of Georgia police have charged a former UGA student in connection with a complaint by a Clemson University student that he was beaten at a fraternity house.

Police on Friday charged 23-year-old Gene Whitner Milner III with felony false imprisonment and misdemeanor battery, his lawyer Manny Arora told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Saturday. Arora said Milner plans to turn himself in to police on Monday.

A police report says that an officer saw 18-year-old Stephen Spaseff running, crying and yelling for help as he ran down the middle of a street just before 3:30 a.m. on Nov. 15. His clothes were wet and dirty, and he had multiple cuts and a swollen right eye.

Spaseff, who was in town for the Nov. 14 Georgia-Auburn football game, told police he was held captive and beaten at the Chi Phi fraternity house.

The officer wrote in his report that he had trouble getting details from Spaseff because of the Clemson student's ``level of intoxication.''

``(Milner) was at the (fraternity) and commited the crime at the property that's all I will verify,'' University police Chief Jimmy Williamson told the Athens Banner-Herald.

``There were other people present and it appeared they were not involved,'' Williamson said. ``I'm not going to go into what they saw or what they said.''

Milner, who was last enrolled at UGA during the spring semester and is not a Chi Phi member, had a run-in at a bar near the fraternity house after Milner was hit in the face by a beer bottle thrown by one of three men, the police report says. Two of the men ran away, but Spaseff stayed put, Arora said.

Then Spaseff agreed to go with Milner to the Chi Phi house so Milner could call the police, Arora told the Journal-Constitution, adding that he doubted Milner was responsible for Spaseff's injuries.

``(Spaseff) admitted to being in a fight earlier with somebody. And we know he fell when he was leaving the fraternity house. But he didn't need any medical treatment,'' Arora said.

Police examined Milner's hands and saw no evidence of a fight, Arora said.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

ATHENS, Ga. (AP) Two University of Georgia researchers plan to study how to prevent and manage conflicts between nations who share fresh water sources.

The two-year project is to be conducted by international affairs professors Jaroslav Tir and Douglas Stinnett. It will examine the role of international institutions and look at how well treaties work in governing the use of rivers that cross national borders.

Because of population growth, pollution, development and climate change, there is concern about the increasing demand on fresh water sources.

The research is being funded by the National Science Foundation and the Department of Defense.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

ATLANTA (AP) Hundreds of doctors from metro Atlanta gathered at the state Capitol to protest against the Democrat-led health care reform.

Many of the doctors wore their white lab coats during the Saturday protest.

The doctors said they fear the legislation would drive up health costs, reduce access to care and control the services they provide to people.

Organizers in Atlanta said 500 people participated in the rally, but police said the number was closer to 350. The gathering in Atlanta was one of several across the country to oppose the health care measures.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

ATLANTA (AP) Georgia's Inspector General is investigating whether two state ethics officials acted improperly when they formed their own law firm.

WSB-TV reports that Georgia Ethics Commission acting executive secretary Thomas Plank and staff attorney Yasha Heidari opened a law firm, Heidari Plank LLC, this year despite having full-time state jobs.

WSB reports that the investigation is not criminal, but Inspector General Elizabeth Archer and one or more Georgia Bureau of Investigation agents went to the firm and took hard drives.

The aim is to determine whether Plank and Heidari's law practice conflicts with their state jobs and whether they were practicing law privately on state time.

The firm's Web site says its practice areas include civil litigation, immigration, regulatory law, and business law.

``We are hands-on with our cases, and our attorneys work intimately with our clients,'' the site says.

The firm has three attorneys, including Plank and Heidari, who are listed as the founding members.

Commission Chairman James Gatewood told WSB he and other commission members were aware of the firm and had told Plank and Heidari to think about whether it could become a problem. He said he was told the two men are in the process of dismantling their law firm.

Plank told WSB he welcomes the investigation and hopes it will produce a positive result.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

ATLANTA (AP) The driver of a car traveling in the wrong direction on Interstate 20 in Atlanta that collided with another vehicle, killing a mother of four, has been denied bond.

Police say Robert Ayiteyfio was drunk when the accident happened around 3:30 a.m. Saturday.

Police say 24-year-old Shameyka Welch of Austell died at Grady Memorial Hospital. Welch's boyfriend and two children were also taken to hospitals and were in stable condition Saturday evening.

Police say Ayiteyfio fled the scene on foot as police questioned him but was later caught. He was taken to Fulton County jail and charged with DUI, homicide by vehicle and driving the wrong way.

A police officer was injured when he was hit while investigating the accident. He was in stable condition.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

ATLANTA (AP) Defenseman Martin Skoula scored two goals, and the Pittsburgh Penguins held off the Atlanta Thrashers in a 3-2 victory on Saturday night.

Atlanta scored both goals in the third period, the last by Maxim Afinogenov with 18 seconds left.

It was only the third victory in eight games for the defending Stanley Cup champion Penguins (15-8), who have been plagued by injuries after opening the season by winning 12 of their first 15. The Thrashers (10-7-2) fell to 4-5-1 at home.

Evgeni Malkin netted Pittsburgh's other goal.

Skoula, who had scored only previous goal this season, gave Pittsburgh a 1-0 lead at 7:38 of the first period. He beat goalie Johan Hedberg with a long shot from mid-ice on the power play.

Skoula made it 2-0 at 7:34 of the second, again on another long blast, easily beating the sprawling Hedberg.

Malkin added his seventh goal four minutes later for a 3-0 Penguins lead.

Pittsburgh's Maxime Talbot was awarded a penalty shot with 2:26 left in the second period, but missed the net on his attempt.

Atlanta scored its first goal 9:40 into the third period on a short-handed goal by Chris Thorburn. He beat goalie Marc-Andre Fleury for his second goal of the season.

Pittsburgh outshot Atlanta 34-33.

The Penguins, 8-4 on the road, had lost four straight away from home after a 7-0 start on enemy ice. Sidney Crosby, Pittsburgh's captain and leading scorer with 10 goals and 12 assists, assisted on Skoula's first goal.

NOTES: Pittsburgh D Brooks Orpik returned after missing four games due to a lower body injury. ... The Penguins were 4-0 against the Thrashers last season and are 27-8-2 overall, including 13-4-2 in Atlanta. ... Afinogenov has six goals and three assists in his last five games.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) Howard Crawford scored 17 of his 21 points in the second half to help Alabama-Birmingham defeat Georgia 72-56 on Saturday night.

The Blazers (4-1) fell behind 3-0 in the opening minute, then scored 12 consecutive points and never trailed again.

``We thought we could press them because of their size,'' UAB coach Mike Davis said. ``They're a long team. We're not that good of a team yet in halfcourt, so we're trying to get points in transition, and we were able to do that off the turnovers.''

The Bulldogs (1-2) finished with 17 turnovers in the game, with eight occurring in the first six minutes. By then, the Blazers had built a 23-6 lead.

``That's the sign of a young, immature basketball team,'' Georgia coach Mark Fox said. ``Going on the road, we weren't prepared for what we walked into.''

Georgia briefly regrouped and went on an 11-0 run to close the gap to 23-17. The Blazers responded with 10 consecutive points on their way to a 35-22 halftime lead.

UAB maintained a double-digit lead the rest of the way, thanks partly to Crawford, who sank three 3-pointers in the second half.

``We knew we had to make Howard Crawford our go-to guy this year, and he's way ahead of schedule,'' Davis said. ``He's a guy with size (6-foot-8) who can really shoot it from outside.''

UAB's Jamarr Sanders scored 13 of his 16 points after halftime to go along with five assists. Elijah Millsap added 14 points and six rebounds.

Dustin Ware led Georgia with 17 points, Jeremy Price added 13 and Travis Leslie had 10 points and a game-high nine rebounds.

Trey Thompkins, who entered the game leading Georgia in scoring at 19.5 points per game, managed only four points on 2-of-11 shooting.

``He's a great player, so we tried to make everything tough for him,'' Davis said. ``Every catch, every drive. We didn't want to give him anything easy.''

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

NEW ORLEANS (AP) The Hornets' two rookies left the New Orleans Arena with bright-colored, glittery suitcases specially selected for them by veterans, Darren Collison's with a ``Little Mermaid'' theme and Marcus Thornton's emblazoned with Tinkerbell's smiling visage.

``It keeps us grounded, I'll tell you that much,'' Collison said.

The way Collison and Thornton are playing lately, the Hornets might want to think of other ways to keep their egos in check.

Collison had season highs of 22 points and 11 assists for his first double-double, Thornton scored a season-best 21, and New Orleans won its third straight while snapping the Atlanta Hawks' seven-game winning streak, 96-88 on Saturday night.

``When you're a rookie you've got to come in and make a name for yourself,'' said Thornton, who in fact joined the Hornets with plenty of name recognition already, having starred at LSU last season. ``Me and Darren from Day 1 when we came in, we knew we could play this game, and we just stuck together throughout ... and we prevailed today.''

The resurgent Hornets made 12 of 17 3-pointers, with Peja Stojakovic hitting five during a 17-point outing. David West had 12 points, 10 rebounds and four blocks.

Jamal Crawford scored 20 for the Hawks, who became the second straight division leader to lose in New Orleans after Phoenix fell to the Hornets on Thursday night.

``We really wanted this win, but they came in with confidence,'' said Joe Johnson, who scored 14 points for the Hawks. ``Marcus Thornton was definitely the story of the game. We really didn't have an answer for him. Their guard play really helped then get over the hump. ... They shot lights out form the 3-point line.''

Marvin Williams scored 17 points for Atlanta, and Josh Smith added 14 points and 10 rebounds, but the Hawks went 4 of 22 from 3-point range.

The Hawks also lost Mike Bibby to a sprained left ankle in the first quarter.

``He's a big part of what we do and we don't know how long he'll be out,'' Atlanta coach Mike Woodson said. ``We have enough guys and they will have to step up and pick up the slack.''

New Orleans led throughout the second half, withstanding every Atlanta surge. Collison and Thornton, drafted in the first and second rounds, respectively, showed poise when it mattered, as they have in three straight games.

After Maurice Evans' driving layup as he was fouled pulled Atlanta to 59-56, Collison came back with a 3 and fast-break dunk. When Crawford's jumper made it 64-60 late in the third quarter, Collison hit his second 3, then West followed with a driving layup off the glass and Thornton a breakaway dunk to make it 71-60 heading into the fourth quarter.

Thornton created shots with slashing moves to the hoop and took open jumpers with confidence and without hesitation. He scored 10 points in the final period, notching one three-point play on a tough driving layup into a crowd and later hitting his second 3-pointer of the game to make it 81-71.

``His confidence for a young guy is as high as I've seen in this league,'' Hornets assistant coach Tim Floyd said. ``He comes in really believing that he belongs.''

Al Horford had 10 points and 11 rebounds.

The Hornets outshot the Hawks 43.5 percent to 37.2 percent. Emeka Okafor had 10 rebounds and blocked three shots.

Atlanta jumped out to a 10-2 lead largely because of poor early shooting by New Orleans, which started 1 of 11 from the field. Bibby left the game during that stretch.

Soon after, Stojakovic got in rhythm from long range, hitting four straight 3-pointers during a 16-3 run that gave New Orleans an 18-13 lead.

New Orleans continued to pull away for much of the second quarter, going ahead 45-31 after Okafor's block sent Collison the other way for a fast-break layup.

Atlanta responded with a 9-0 run, highlighted by Williams' 3 and dunk to close the gap. Collison's jumper as the shot clock wound down gave the Hornets a 49-42 lead at halftime.

NOTES: Hornets reserve center Hilton Armstrong played for the first time since spraining his shoulder in practice last Monday. ... The Hawks won the only other meeting this season 121-98 in Atlanta one week ago. ... Okafor has had at least one block in all but one game this season. ... Collison has scored in double figures in six straight games. ... Smith, who came in leading the NBA with 34 blocks, added three more.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

ATHENS, Ga. (AP) Kentucky needed help for its first win at Georgia in 32 years.

Georgia, which has been helping opposing teams all season, came through again.

Kentucky scored 14 points off Georgia's four second-half turnovers and the Wildcats rallied to beat the Bulldogs 34-27 on Saturday night for their first win in Athens since 1977.

Georgia had a 487-260 advantage in total yards but was doomed by its minus-4 turnover margin.

``We're not getting style points,'' said Kentucky coach Rich Brooks. ``It's not always pretty and this one wasn't pretty, but it looked like Bo Derek running down the beach to me late in the fourth quarter.''

Kentucky's Randall Cobb had scoring runs following Georgia turnovers at the Bulldogs' 14- and 8-yard lines.

``It was huge,'' Cobb said. ``I think this was a win to take us to the next level and give us some national credibility and earn us some respect.''

Joe Cox threw three touchdown passes, but had a screen pass intercepted by Kentucky defensive tackle Shane McCord to set up Cobb's go-ahead 1-yard touchdown run with 9:55 remaining.

``We did things in the second half that you can't do,'' Cox said.

Kentucky (7-4, 3-4 Southeastern Conference) rallied from a 20-6 halftime deficit for its third straight conference road win.

Washaun Ealey's fumble on a pitch from Cox at the Kentucky 1 stopped the Bulldogs from tying the game with 2:21 remaining. Linebacker Danny Trevathan recovered the fumble for Kentucky.

``It looked like (Ealey) was too close to the quarterback when it happened,'' said Georgia coach Mark Richt.

Georgia (6-5, 4-4) had one more chance, but Cox was picked off by Sam Maxwell with 1:52 left.

``There's no doubt, turnovers did us in,'' Richt said. ``No question. Kentucky is a fine football team and they played hard too, but we certainly didn't help ourselves and we helped them.''

Georgia has a minus-18 turnover margin this season. Opponents have scored 102 points off the Bulldogs' 26 turnovers.

``It was the same thing that hurt us all season, the turnovers,'' said Georgia linebacker Rennie Curran. ``We talked about wanting to win the turnover ratio and we did the opposite.''

Kentucky had no turnovers.

Freshman quarterback Morgan Newton was 9-for-17 passing for 137 yards with three touchdowns and no interceptions.

``You've got to respect the ball and we didn't do that,'' Richt said. ``There were just too many balls on the ground and too many balls that were thrown to the other team.''

The Bulldogs heard boos as they struggled to contain Cobb and Derrick Locke, the speedy running back who had touchdown catches of 20 and 60 yards.

Locke had 16 carries for 80 yards and two catches for 80 yards with the two touchdowns.

Georgia students and other fans wore black in tribute to the Bulldogs' late mascot, Uga VII.

Uga VII was buried at Sanford Stadium in a private ceremony on Saturday morning. The white English bulldog died Thursday of heart-related causes before he could complete only his second season as Georgia's mascot.

A large wreath was placed on Uga VII's doghouse, and he was remembered with a moment of silence before the game.

Cox threw scoring passes of 21 and 43 yards to freshman Rantavious Wooten, who started for A.J. Green, the SEC's leading receiver who was held out with a shoulder injury.

Georgia held a dominant 286-63 advantage in total yards in the first half, but lost its momentum when Branden Smith fumbled the kickoff to open the second half. The lost fumble at the Georgia 14-yard line set up Cobb's 11-yard touchdown run.

``The fumble on the kickoff was huge,'' Brooks said. ``It got us more inspired and got us back in the game.''

After Wooten's second touchdown catch, Kentucky answered with Newton's 21-yard scoring pass to La'Rod King to cut the lead to 27-20. Kentucky tied the game when Locke turned a short screen pass into a 60-yard touchdown play early in the fourth quarter.

Cobb was considered questionable for the game with a bruised shoulder. His 21-yard punt return set up Newton's 20-yard touchdown pass to Locke in the first quarter.

Georgia stopped Cobb's run for the 2-point conversion, and the Wildcats were shut down the rest of the half as the Bulldogs put consistent pressure on Newton.

Cobb had nine carries for 40 yards and one catch for 19 yards.

Georgia's first drive ended with a punt. The Bulldogs' next four drives in the first half led to scores 21- and 45-yard field goals by Blair Walsh and two touchdown passes by Cox.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

(WSB Radio) An Atlanta police officer was injured and a woman killed following a crash involving a wrong-way driver on I-20 in West Atlanta.

Atlanta police said a person was driving westbound in the eastbound lanes of I-20 when the driver crashed into another car near Langhorn Street around 3:15 a.m. Saturday. The female driver was killed. A male passenger was transported in critical condition to Grady Hospital, while two kids, also in that car, were taken to Children's Health of Atlanta at Eggleston.

The driver who caused the crash fled on foot and was later arrested, police said. The suspect's name was not immediately available.

The crash forced authorities to close the intestate for more than an hour. Moments after it was re-opened, another driver crash into the back of a police car. The female officer was trapped inside the vehicle. She was extricated and was unconscious when officer arrived. Police said the officer's condition was improved slightly while she was transported to Grady Hospital.

Her condition was not immediately available.

ATHENS, Ga. (AP) There will be a wreath placed over Uga VII's empty doghouse when Kentucky visits Georgia on Saturday night.

Some Georgia fans may find it to be a fitting somber note for the final home game of the Bulldogs' disappointing season. Losses to Oklahoma State, Louisiana State, Tennessee and Florida have left some fans in the mood to place a wreath over the season.

The unexpected death of the latest in the line of beloved mascots only casts more gloom over the season.

Uga VII, the white English bulldog, died Thursday of heart-related causes before he could finish only his second season as mascot. Sonny Seiler, whose family owns the line of Uga mascots, said no replacement will be chosen before next year.

An empty doghouse? Even Georgia coach Mark Richt seemed to be caught off-guard by the news.

``I don't know if it's unprecedented or not,'' Richt said, adding it ``will be kind of different'' to have a game without the mascot the university claims to be the nation's most famous.

Georgia (6-4 overall, 4-3 Southeastern Conference) has a chance to finish the disappointing season on an upswing. The Bulldogs have won two straight games, including last week's 31-24 win over Auburn, and could clinch second place in the SEC East by beating Kentucky (6-4, 2-4).

A win over Kentucky also would provide momentum for Georgia's final regular-season game at No. 7 Georgia Tech next week and boost hopes for a more prestigious bowl bid.

``This is a big game for us,'' said Georgia receiver Israel Troupe. ``After we lost to Florida we sat down and talked about what we wanted to do toward the end of the season. That means a lot for us as a team. we haven't had the season we wanted to have, but finishing the season 4-0 would mean a lot to us.''

Troupe could make his first start as the fill-in for A.J. Green, the SEC's leading receiver who will miss at least one game with a shoulder injury. Georgia will also be without safety Bacarri Rambo, who suffered a concussion while making a pivotal stop against Auburn.

Green's injury takes away Georgia's top threat. He has 47 catches for 751 yards and six touchdowns. No other Georgia receiver has more than 21 catches.

``It isn't going to change what they do but obviously he's a major, major guy in what they have been able to do offensively and he's been able to make a lot of great plays,'' said Kentucky coach Rich Brooks of Green. ``They have other talented players as well. They weren't in the top five in the recruiting classes the last four, five years for nothing, so they have other players.''

Troupe had two catches for 62 yards, including a 50-yard touchdown catch immediately after Green's injury, last week.

Kentucky also has injury concerns.

Brooks said wide receiver/quarterback Randall Cobb is questionable with a bruised shoulder. Quarterback Mike Hartline will miss the last two games of the regular with a knee injury.

Cobb is Kentucky's second-leading rusher with 396 yards and seven touchdowns while running out of the wildcat formation. He also leads the team with 32 receptions for 384 yards and four scores.

Freshman Morgan Newton has started Kentucky's last five games at quarterback. He has passed for 402 yards with two touchdowns and three interceptions.

Kentucky junior Derrick Locke has 741 yards rushing and five touchdowns.

Georgia and Kentucky became bowl-eligible with wins last week. Kentucky took a 24-13 win at Vanderbilt.

Kentucky has won at least six games in four straight years for the first time since 1953-56. The Wildcats will try for their first win in Athens since 1977.

Brooks said Kentucky needs another win, either Saturday night or next week against Tennessee, to lock up a bowl bid.

``The bottom line is whatever the circumstances are, this senior class has achieved something that no one else in school history has achieved,'' Brooks said. ``We need to win to ensure ourselves of going to a bowl. Bowl eligible doesn't mean that you are in a bowl. With all probability with the way things are going, we would be. But I would rather not to leave it to chance.''

While Kentucky fans hope to celebrate another bowl bid, Georgia fans are disappointed the Bulldogs are not in the running for a major bowl.

Richt has faced frequent questions about the possibility he may make staff changes after the season. He wouldn't address the speculation this week.

``I'll say this, and it's definitely good policy for me, it's not the answer you want, but my main focus is Kentucky,'' Richt said.

``That's where I have to keep my mind. That's what I have to focus on. Focusing on anything too far down the road is not healthy for me or the team, so my goal is to really make sure we are ready to play against Kentucky right now.''

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

WASHINGTON (AP) A crucial first Senate vote on President Barack Obama's health care overhaul in a rare Saturday night session looms as a test of Democratic unity and the president's prestige.

Democratic leaders are optimistic of success, but they need every Democrat and both independents to vote ``yes,'' and two moderates remained uncommitted ahead of the roll call, which is expected around 8 p.m. The vote will determine whether debate can go forward on Majority Leader Harry Reid's 2,074-page bill to dramatically remake the U.S. health care system over the next decade.

Most everyone would be required to purchase insurance under Reid's legislation, and billions in new taxes would be levied on insurers and high-income Americans to help extend coverage to 30 million uninsured. Insurance companies would no longer be allowed to deny coverage to people with medical conditions or drop coverage when someone gets sick.

The two holdouts are Sens. Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas and Mary Landrieu of Louisiana. A third centrist, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, announced Friday that he'd be supporting his party on the test vote, while cautioning that it didn't mean he'd be with them on the final vote.

``It is not for or against the new Senate health care bill,'' Nelson said. ``It is only to begin debate and an opportunity to make improvements. If you don't like a bill, why block your own opportunity to amend it?''

If that same reasoning holds with Lincoln and Landrieu, Reid, D-Nev., will have the 60 votes he needs to prevail in the 100-seat Senate. The 40 Republicans are unanimously opposed.

Landrieu has made comments suggesting she'll support the move to debate, but Lincoln, who faces a difficult re-election next year, carefully avoided taking any public position Friday.

Republicans took to the Senate floor to slam the bill as a government takeover that would increase taxes and lead to rationing of health care.

``Washington will tell you what is good enough coverage,'' said Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo. ``These insurance changes will increase costs for millions of Americans.''

Democrats said their legislation could make historic and necessary improvements in the country's social safety net.

``Prices of health care are marching relentlessly upwards, and so too many people don't have coverage,'' said Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D. ``The purpose of all of this is to try to get a handle on it somehow.''

The White House issued a statement late Friday praising the Senate measure.

``This bill provides the necessary health reforms that the administration seeks affordable, quality care within reach for the tens of millions of Americans who do not have it today, and stability and security for the hundreds of millions who do,'' the statement said.

The action in the Senate comes two weeks after the House approved a health overhaul bill of its own on a 220-215 vote. After the vote Saturday night, senators will leave for a Thanksgiving recess. Upon their return, assuming Democrats prevail on the vote, they will launch into weeks or more of unpredictable debate on the health care bill, with numerous amendments expected from both sides of the aisle and more 60-vote hurdles along the way.

Senate leaders hope to pass their bill by the end of the year. If that happens, January would bring work to reconcile the House and Senate versions before a final package could land on Obama's desk.

The bills have many similarities, including the new requirements on insurers and the creation of new purchasing marketplaces called exchanges where self-employed individuals and small businesses could go to shop for and compare coverage plans. One option in the exchanges would be a new government-offered plan, something that's opposed by private insurers and business groups.

Differences include requirements for employers. The House bill would require medium and large businesses to cover their employees, while the Senate bill would not require them to offer coverage but would make them pay a fee if the government ends up subsidizing employees' coverage.

Another difference is in how they're paid for. The Senate bill includes a tax on high-value insurance policies that's not part of the House bill, while the House would levy a new income tax on upper-income Americans that's not in the Senate measure. The Senate measure also raises the Medicare payroll tax on income above $200,000 annually for individuals and $250,000 for couples. Both bills rely on more than $400 billion in cuts to Medicare.

The Senate bill was written by Reid in private negotiations with White House officials, combining elements of two committee-passed bills and making additional changes with an eye to getting the necessary 60 votes.

Along the way, Reid sweetened the pot for individual senators, adding federal funds for Louisiana and agreeing to support an amendment written by Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., that would expand eligibility for the purchasing exchanges.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) North Pole elves have good reason to celebrate again, thanks to a decision by the U.S. Postal Service to resume a Santa Claus letter program that's thrilled children from around the world for decades.

``It's great!'' Gabby Gaborik, chief elf among several dozen volunteers, said of the agency's Friday announcement that it's reversing a recent decision to drop a program begun in 1954 in the small Alaska town of North Pole. The program was suspended over privacy concerns.

Gaborik's group, Santa's Mailbag, responds to thousands of letters addressed to ``Santa Claus, North Pole'' each year. The letters will now be answered by the North Pole elves under tightened privacy rules implemented nationwide by the Postal Service in response to security concerns that arose in a similar program in Maryland last year.

The group also has been assigned a specific address that will allow its volunteers to run their own alternative program, bypassing the stringent new rules and perhaps lessening the Santa letter load for the Postal Service. The restrictions don't affect privately run letter efforts. Children can write to Santa through that program at: 1 Santa Claus Lane, North Pole, AK 99705.

At least 100 volunteers are expected to help in both letter efforts, Gaborik said.

Members of Alaska's congressional delegation hailed the decision to resume the Postal Service program, which brings as many as 150,000 letters to Santa from children worldwide. Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski, Democratic Sen. Mark Begich and Republican Rep. Don Young sent letters this week to Postmaster General John Potter expressing their concerns.

``This decision today by the Postal Service brings the Christmas spirit back to Alaska,'' Murkowski said.

``This is a perfect Christmas present for Alaskans and children across the country who love to write to and get a letter back from Santa,'' Begich said.

People in North Pole, a town of about 2,100, were outraged by the idea of losing a beloved holiday tradition. The town prides itself on its Christmas identity, and signs of it abound, from striped light posts curved like candy canes to streets with names like Kris Kringle Drive. The biggest attractions are the post office where tourists can get their postcards hand stamped with the North Pole postmark and Santa Claus House, a store featuring everything Christmas.

The Postal Service implemented the tighter restrictions after a postal worker in Maryland recognized a volunteer with its Operation Santa program as a registered sex offender. The worker intervened before the individual could answer a child's letter, but the agency viewed the scare as a reason to tighten security.

The Postal Service had already restricted its policies in such programs in 2006, including requiring volunteers to show identification. But the Maryland episode prompted more changes, such as barring volunteers from having access to children's last names and addresses. The agency instead redacts that information from each letter and replaces the addresses with codes that match computerized addresses known only to the post office.

Postal Service officials, who consider the North Pole effort part of the agency's giant Operation Santa program, originally said the Alaska district had too few resources to deal with the time-consuming new rules and was therefore opting out.

``We're just going to have to knuckle down,'' said agency spokesman Ernie Swanson. ``We never wanted to spoil people's Christmas. It was just a decision we had to make based on privacy concerns, and it is labor-intensive. But it's still nice that we're able to resume this and still make people's holiday.''

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

WASHINGTON (AP) There may be additional e-mails that could have tipped off law enforcement or military officials to the Fort Hood shooter before he went on his deadly rampage, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee said Friday.

The U.S. government intercepted at least 18 e-mails between Hasan and Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical American-born cleric. They were passed along to two Joint Terrorism Task Force cells led by the FBI, but a senior defense official said no one at the Defense Department knew about the messages until after the shootings. The official spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss intelligence procedures.

Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., said after a briefing from Pentagon and Army officials that his committee will investigate how those and other e-mails involving the alleged shooter, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, were handled and why the U.S. military was not made aware of them before the Nov. 5 shooting.

Levin said his committee is focused on determining whether the Defense Department's representative on the terrorism task force acted appropriately and effectively.

Levin also said he considers Hasan's shooting spree, which killed 13 and wounded more than 30, an act of terrorism.

``There are some who are reluctant to call it terrorism but there is significant evidence that is. I'm not at all uneasy saying it sure looks like that,'' he said.

He said his committee will also look into whether military members have the ability to report suspicious behavior evinced by colleagues.

FBI and military officials have provided differing versions of why Hasan's critical e-mails to al-Awlaki and others did not reach Army investigators before the shooting.

FBI officials have said a military investigator on the task force saw the e-mails and looked up Hasan's record, but finding nothing particularly worrisome, the investigator neither sought nor got permission to pass the e-mails on to other military officials.

But the senior defense official has countered that the rules of the task force prevented that military representative from passing the records on without approval from other members of the task force.

Sen. Joe Lieberman, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, said it appears there was enough information available to law enforcement, the military and intelligence agencies to raise alarm bells about Hasan but no one connected the dots.

``Had it been gathered on one desk, someone might have said 'Nidal Malik Hasan is dangerous,''' Lieberman, a Connecticut independent, told reporters after the briefing.

The Pentagon may reconsider rules governing participation in extremist organizations that some lawmakers say appear outdated and too narrow in light of the shooting rampage at the Army base in Texas.

Lieberman said Congress may recommend such a review, and a Pentagon spokesman said Friday that the rules could be among the policies scrutinized by a wide-ranging inquiry aimed at preventing another similar attack.

The Pentagon wrote regulations on ``dissident and protest activities'' in response to soldier participation in skinhead and other racially motivated hate groups. The current rules were written in 1996 and last updated in 2003.

The rules prohibit membership or participation in ``organizations that espouse supremacist causes,'' seek to discriminate based on race, religion or other factors or advocate force or violence. Commanders can investigate and can discipline or fire people who ``actively participate in such groups.''

The rules also cover the distribution and possession of ``printed materials,'' and gatherings held outside military posts.

The language appears to loosely cover some of the activity law enforcement sources have ascribed to Hasan.

But it is geared toward racially motivated groups and toward preventing public espousal of hateful ideology, such as attendance at a rally or the recruitment of new members. The language also applies most directly to materials and communication in the pre-Internet age.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced the 45-day probe on Thursday, the same day that retired Army Gen. John Keane told Congress that the existing rules will probably need revision to cover activity of ``Islamic extremists.''

Any revision would have to be done carefully to avoid First Amendment violations on the free exercise of speech and religion.

Keane was formerly the No. 2 Army official.

The Pentagon inquiry will get under way in earnest next week.

A senior military official said the inquiry's top leaders will meet with Gates on Monday and are likely to visit Fort Hood on Tuesday. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because plans are not final.

Associated Press writers Devlin Barrett and Eileen Sullivan contributed to this report.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

ATLANTA (AP) The state Department of Early Care and Learning is starting a Chinese language program for the 4-year-olds enrolled in the state's free pre-kindergarten classes.

Holly Robinson, commissioner of the department, said Georgia has the first lottery-funded pre-K program in the country to offer Mandarin Chinese classes. The program will provide daily Mandarin Chinese instruction and teach children about Chinese culture.

The state is partnering with the Confucius Institute at Kennesaw State University, which is part of a larger network of similar institutes across the country.

Through lottery ticket sales, Georgia provides free pre-kindergarten to 82,000 children in the state.

On the Net:

Georgia Department of Early Care and Learning: http://decal.ga.gov/

Confucius Institute at Kennesaw State University: http://www.kennesaw.edu/confuciusinstitute/

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

ATLANTA (AP) The new attorney handling Georgia's appeal in the long-running legal battle with Alabama and Florida over water rights will be paid $855 an hour.

Gov. Sonny Perdue's office said Friday that Seth Waxman's hourly rate is a 10 percent discount off his normal rate of $950 an hour.

Waxman is a former U.S. solicitor general who was tapped this week to replace Paul Clement after he had to withdraw because of a possible conflict of interest.

Waxman is leading the state's appeal of a federal judge's ruling in July that concluded it was illegal for Atlanta to draw drinking water from Lake Lanier, the city's main water supply. The judge gave Georgia and the other states three years to work out a deal involving the reservoir.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

ATLANTA (AP) UPS Inc., the world's largest shipping carrier, is hiking 2010 rates for ground packages by an average of 4.9 percent.

The company, based in Atlanta, said Friday there also will be an average net rate increase of 4.9 percent next year on all air express and U.S. origin international shipments.

The rate increase for air express and international shipments is based on a 6.9 percent increase in the base rate, less a 2 percent reduction in the air and international fuel surcharge index.

Also, fuel surcharge tables for air express and ground services will be adjusted. UPS said the changes will better align air and ground fuel surcharges and will substantially reduce the volatility of air surcharges when fuel prices fluctuate.

The new rates take effect on Jan. 4.

Rival FedEx Corp., based in Memphis, Tenn., said in September that it will raise express shipping rates an average of 5.9 percent in January. The rate is a standard annual increase that FedEx generally announces in the fall. FedEx Ground, SmartPost rates and surcharge changes for 2010 have not yet been announced.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

ATLANTA (AP) Georgia Tech coach Paul Johnson agreed Friday to a one-year extension of his contract, which now runs through 2016.

Johnson initially signed a seven-year contract worth about $11 million when he came from Navy before the 2008 season. The school gave him a new seven-year, $17.7 million deal after he led the Yellow Jackets to a surprising nine wins in his debut.

His second year has been even better. No. 7 Georgia Tech (10-1) has already clinched a spot in the Atlantic Coast Conference championship game, and the extension keeps Johnson's contract at the original length.

``It goes without saying how much we value what Paul Johnson continues to do for the Georgia Tech program and the energy he has created within the Yellow Jacket family,'' athletic director Dan Radakovich said. ``We remain committed to Paul in every way, and we foresee a long-term relationship with much continued success in the coming years.''

Johnson is 19-5 since taking over at Georgia Tech, the highest winning percentage (.792) in school history.

``We appreciate the confidence Dan Radakovich and the Georgia Tech administration have shown in our program,'' Johnson said in a statement. ``We look forward to the opportunity to continue to build the program at Georgia Tech.''

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

(WSB Radio/AP) A contracted registered nurse anesthetist has been arrested and accused of setting up a video recording device in the women's restroom of a Cobb County dental office.

47-year-old Paul Serdula was arrested for the unlawful surveillance and eavesdropping of patients on Wednesday.

Police officials said he did not work directly for any dental or medical physician.

Officers searched the dental office and Serdula's home and confiscated the recording device at the medical office.

Officials said they found hundreds of videos that showed inappropriate criminal conduct against people who were under anesthesia at various medical or dental offices.

Serdula's bond was set at $50-thousand Friday night.

Police have not been able to identify any of the victims and is asking the public for help. Anyone with information is asked to call 770-499-3945.

ATLANTA (AP) Four North Carolina patients at a single hospital tested positive for a type of swine flu that is resistant to Tamiflu, health officials said Friday.

The cases reported at Duke University Medical Center over six weeks make up the biggest cluster seen so far in the U.S.

Tamiflu made by Switzerland's Roche Group is one of two flu medicines that help against swine flu, and health officials have been closely watching for signs that the virus is mutating, making the drugs ineffective.

More than 50 resistant cases have been reported in the world since April, including 21 in the U.S. Almost all in the U.S. were isolated, said officials with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The BBC reported another cluster of five Tamiflu-resistant cases this week in Wales, in the United Kingdom.

The CDC has sent three disease investigators to North Carolina to help in the investigation there, said Dave Daigle, a CDC spokesman. CDC testing confirmed the Tamiflu-resistant cases.

All four cases at the hospital were very ill patients in an isolated cancer unit on the hospital's ninth floor, and it is believed they all caught the flu while at the hospital, said Dr. Daniel Sexton, professor of medicine and director of the Duke Infection Control Outreach Network.

Three of the four patients died and one is recovering, he said. Flu seems to have been a factor in each death, but they were very sick so it was hard to say that it was the primary cause, he added.

North Carolina health officials did not disclose details about the four patients, other than that three of them including the survivor were women and their flu illnesses occurred last month and this month.

The first patient had been given Tamiflu before becoming ill with the virus, as a preventive measure. The three others were given Tamiflu after developing flu symptoms, Sexton said.

The case is under investigation, but hospital officials said they have no evidence the cases represent a hospital-wide concern.

The North Carolina cluster is unusual, but ``at this time we don't have any information that should raise concerns for the general population,'' said Dr. Alicia Frye, epidemiologist in the CDC's flu division, in a prepared statement.

The only other reported U.S. instance of Tamiflu-resistant swine flu spreading from one person to another occurred about four months ago at a summer camp in western North Carolina, where two teenage girls cabin mates were diagnosed with the same drug-resistant strain. Health officials said at the time that the virus may have spread from one girl to the other, or it's possible that the girls got it from another camper.

Why did both Tamiflu-resistant clusters occur in North Carolina? It could be coincidence, or perhaps North Carolina's disease surveillance is unusually good, said Megan Davies, the state's epidemiologist.

Overall, CDC officials said Friday that swine flu cases appear to be declining throughout most of the U.S., with reports of swine flu illnesses widespread in 43 states last week, down from 46 the week before.

CDC officials also said reports have been increasing in a few states, including Maine and Hawaii. They said it's hard to know whether the epidemic has peaked or not.

Thanksgiving and the holidays may not help matters, said Dr. Anne Schuchat, who heads the CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.

``All the kids get together with their grandparents and there's a lot of exchange of warmth and love, but a little exchange of viruses, too,'' she said.

Swine flu has sickened an estimated 22 million Americans, hospitalized about 98,000 and killed 4,000 since it was first identified last April. It has proved to be similar to seasonal flu but a much bigger threat to children and young adults.

Also on Friday, CDC officials said they are aware of a new report from Norway of a distinct form of swine flu seen in three patients that seems to have an unusual ability to settle deep into the lungs and therefore could potentially be more dangerous.

The Norway report isn't the first time that particular mutation has been seen: About 15 others have been reported around the world, including four in the United States. Some cases proved fatal, but others caused only mild illnesses, CDC officials said.

The swine flu vaccine and antiviral drugs like Tamiflu and Relenza all seem to work well against it, CDC officials also said.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

WASHINGTON (AP) The Federal Aviation Administration is blaming an equipment outage this week for delaying 819 flights.

The agency told employees in a briefing memo Friday that air travelers experienced a total of 2,121 delays the previous day due to the equipment outage as well as thunderstorms and other poor weather in the Northeast.

The memo said that the more than 800 flight delays attributable to the equipment outage included 273 in Atlanta. At New York airports, LaGuardia reported 81 equipment-related delays and JFK 44. Nearby Teterboro in New Jersey reported 83. An unidentified Midwest airport had almost 50 outage-related delays.

FAA spokeswoman Laura Brown said the agency can't say for certain which delays were attribute to the outage and which to weather.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

"He went to her office, and about five minutes into the interview, he exposed himself and touched himself in an inappropriate manner," said Huggins.

The therapist immediately ended the session. He left her office, and then about five minutes later, he called her on his cell phone and wanted to know if he could see her again," said Huggins.

Harris, who also goes by the name of Jay Harris, was charged with public indecency, a misdemeanor.

Huggins says Harris may be responsible for similar crimes in other parts of metro Atlanta.

"Well, hopefully this stopped it.  He allegedly got away with it, prior to our incident.  Hopefully, he realizes that you can't get away with this indefinitely.  Do these things escalate?  Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't," said Huggins.

11/20/09

ATLANTA (AP) Josh Smith soared through the lane to drop in a missed shot with 0.7 seconds remaining and the Atlanta Hawks won their seventh in a row, beating the Houston Rockets 105-103 Friday night to maintain the NBA's best record.

Marvin Williams scored a season-high 29 points, but it was Smith, who spent most of the fourth quarter on the bench because of foul trouble, who came through at the end.

Carl Landry hit a pair of free throws with 5 seconds left to cap Houston's 11-1 run that tied the game at 103. The Hawks got the ball to Mike Bibby, whose jumper bounced off the rim. But Smith flew right down the middle of the lane and softly laid it in with both hands while the Rockets screamed for basket interference.

Replays showed the ball had cleared the rim before Smith touched it.

Williams had been one of the few disappointments in Atlanta's brilliant start to the season. He had not scored more than 14 points in a game, but he had 13 in the opening quarter and passed his previous high before halftime. He finished 13 of 19 from the field.

The Hawks needed Williams to come up big with Smith in foul trouble he had only nine points in less than 24 minutes and Joe Johnson held to 19 points on 6-of-18 shooting after two straight 30-point efforts.

Jamal Crawford added 21 points for the Hawks, while Landry led five Houston players in double figures with 18.

The Hawks improved to 7-0 at Philips Arena, their best start at home since 1997, and snapped the Rockets' two-game winning streak on the road.

Houston outworked the Hawks on the boards much of the night and had a 29-14 edge in second-chance points, which kept the Rockets in the game all the way. They led 88-82 with 7 minutes remaining after Aaron Brooks blew right by Johnson for a layup.

Atlanta took over from there, turning up the defensive pressure and ripping off a 13-0 spurt. Brooks finally broke up the run, but Williams had a thunderous jam off a missed shot, a steal set up another dunk by Al Horford and Crawford's falling-down 3-pointer pushed the home team to a 102-92 lead with 2:07 remaining.

It seemed over, but the pesky Rockets battled back. Kyle Lowry exploded to the hoop, banked it in and was fouled by Williams. The free throw completed the three-point play and pulled Houston to 103-101.

Bibby missed a 3-pointer, Houston called time and got the ball in Brooks' hands. He passed off to Luis Scola, who fumbled it away but watched as it went straight to Landry, who drew Horford's sixth foul and calmly made both free throws sandwiched around a Hawks' 20-second timeout.

But Smith made sure Atlanta stayed perfect at home.

NOTES: In the second quarter, Houston's Trevor Ariza and Johnson scrambled for a loose ball that wound up bouncing out of bounds along the sideline, not far from the Hawks bench. While the officials briefly conferred to make a call, Ariza pleaded, ``I swear to God I didn't touch it.'' The Rockets got the ball. ... Houston dropped to 4-4 on the road.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

ATLANTA (AP) Fulton District Attorney Paul Howard has tentatively agreed to the exhumation of the former fiance of a cast member from ``The Real Housewives of Atlanta.''

Howard tells the Atlanta Journal Constitution in an e-mail Friday that the exhumation of Ashley ``A.J.'' Jewell's body would be for a second autopsy to confirm he was killed by a rare sickle cell trait.

Jewell is the former fiance of Kandi Burruss, a cast member on the reality television show. He died Oct. 2 after a fight with Frederick Richardson in a strip club parking lot.

Howard said he ``tentatively'' to Jewell's family's request for the exhumation because they are dissatisfied with the current autopsy findings and because the sickle cell crisis is an unusual cause of death.

Richardson was charged with voluntary manslaughter.

Information from: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, http://www.ajc.com

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

Friday's Scores
By The Associated Press
PREP FOOTBALL
Class AAAAA

Camden County 10, Lowndes 7

Colquitt County 22, Stephenson 21

Grayson 24, Roswell 14

Lassiter 70, South Gwinnett 49

North Gwinnett 24, Woodstock 0

Northside-Warner Robins 21, Union Grove 10

Peachtree Ridge 21, Brookwood 6

Class AAAA

Apalachee 36, Marist 35

Clarke Central 19, Southwest DeKalb 17

Griffin 42, Ware County 10

North Clayton 21, Brunswick 12

Rockdale County 21, Hiram 7

Sandy Creek 17, Tucker 14

Thomas County Central 56, Richmond Academy 7

Westside-Macon 48, Lakeside-Evans 21

Class AAA

Cairo 9, Baldwin 7

Carver-Columbus 33, Woodward Academy 7

Eastside 20, Carrollton 13

Flowery Branch 35, Grady 21

Gainesville 41, Dunwoody 10

Peach County 29, Washington County 6

St. Pius X 17, North Hall 3

Class AA

Buford 30, Jefferson 22

Calhoun 39, North Oconee 14

Callaway 35, Westminster 31

Charlton County 46, Brooks County 36

Cook 29, Appling County 21

Fitzgerald 64, Swainsboro 36

Jefferson County 24, Thomasville 17

Lovett 58, East Jackson 0

Class A

Clinch County 39, Emanuel County Institute 28

Darlington 28, Commerce 14

Holy Innocents' 21, Bremen 0

Lincoln County 47, Eagle's Landing Christian 39

Savannah Christian Prep 28, Miller County 13

Twiggs County 47, Chattahoochee County 18

Wesleyan 34, Bowdon 28

Wilcox County 39, Greenville 19

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

(WSB Radio) The American Association of Retired People is warning the elderly beware of the free lunch!

The AARP says a common setting for fraudsters to engage their victims is through a free lunch or dinner offer, by which an individual is solicited to attend and learn more about investing in retirement. Many of these invitees have received 10 or more invitations to these "free" events.

Once at the seminar, half of attendees surveyed said the presenter asked for personal information, such as contact or financial information, and nearly 46 percent reported that the presenter attempted to make a follow-up appointment at their home.

According to a new survey from AARP, 78 percent of surveyed Americans age 55 and older indicated they are very or somewhat concerned about financial scams affecting them or someone they know.

http://www.aarp.org/

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) The holidays may not be so sweet this year.

Nestle which sells nearly all the canned pumpkin in the U.S. says poor weather hurt its harvest, creating a potential shortage of its Libby's pumpkin pie products through the holidays.

The company said heavy rains made it nearly impossible to pick its pumpkins during this year's harvest. The longer the pumpkins sit in the muddy fields, the more they deteriorate. As a result, the company announced this week that it would not pack any more pumpkins for the season which means it may be hard to find its canned pumpkin and pumpkin pie filling product until next year's harvest.

``Mother Nature had other plans for us,'' the company said in an open apology to customers online.

Nestle is the largest national brand for canned pumpkin products, with 80 to 90 percent of the market, the company said.

It plants a special strain of pumpkin at a farm in Morton, Ill., which provides nearly all its supply. Nestle estimates if you turned all the pumpkins it grows on the farm to pie, it would total 90 million pies.

``There are a lot of beautiful pumpkins out there that we just can't rescue,'' said Nestle spokeswoman Roz O'Hearn.

The company had a wet harvest last year, too, which meant it didn't have a surplus to carry over into this year and led to spotty shortages in late summer and early fall. The harvest started in August and it began getting products on its shelves soon after, but it won't be able to meet its normal demand.

``We hope everyone understands that Mother Nature was a little difficult this year and hope she's a little bit kinder to us next year,'' O'Hearn said.

Nestle said it has seen the popularity of pumpkin grow recently as more people have become aware of its health benefits, but Thanksgiving is still the company's peak season.

Pie makers can still use fresh pumpkin or other brands.

Trader Joe's said it has its store brand pumpkin in stock but said it couldn't predict what would happen to supplies in the future.

Whole Foods Market Inc. said that while it is aware of lower pumpkin yields in parts of the country, the company was able to get enough pumpkin for its store brand product and actually shipped more product to stores this year than ever before.

Farmers Market Organic, the country's largest provider of organic canned pumpkin, said it didn't experience the same issues with fungus and mold at its farm that big growers in the Midwest suffered this year and last.

And the company, based in Corvallis, Ore., said it increased its capacity and has shipped millions more cans of its product this year.

``Pumpkin pie is something people just won't do without, it's pretty sacred,'' said Tracy Miedema, national sales and marketing manager for Farmers Market. ``They are willing to switch out of a previous brand but they aren't willing to switch out of pumpkin pie.''

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

(WSB Radio) -- An hour apart and a mile away.

Atlanta police are investigating the overnight thefts of three big-screen TVs in a pair of smash-and-grab burglaries at downtown bars just a mile apart.

Investigators were comparing security video from the Rise Sushi Lounge on Marietta Street and The Original Chocolate Bar on Trinity Avenue to see if the two burglaries were related.

WSB's Richard Sangster reports the first incident happened just after 2 a.m. at the sushi bar, about a block west of CNN Center on Marietta Street.

Less than an hour later, police received an alarm call from the Chocolate Bar a mile away on Trinity Avenue.

There, thieves tossed a cinder block through the front door, then stole two 40-inch flat screens.

(WSB Radio) -- A suspicious package found outside The Temple synagogue Friday morning turned out to be harmless.

"It was a black plastic bag with newspapers inside," Atlanta police spokesman Eric Schwartz said.

The package caused some tense moments outside the synagogue just south of the Brookwood Amtrak station.

WSB's Jon Lewis says the package was reported at about 6:30 a.m.

Fire Capt. Rick Perdue said a caretaker discovered the package, about a foot and a half long and six inches wide in a driveway.

Two lanes of the busy street in Atlanta's midtown area were blocked by fire trucks and police cars.

A dynamite blast blew a hole in the side of The Temple in 1958. No one was injured in the blast, and no one was ever convicted in the case.

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) When an ambulance brought Daniel Webb home from the hospital after he hurt his knee in March, paramedics warned the then 550-pound man he probably wouldn't be able to get up from his recliner if they put him there, his wife said.

Webb told them to leave him there anyway. He would sit in that recliner, slowly dying, for the next eight months. Finally, paramedics were called back to his Greenwood home on Wednesday because he was in a lot of pain.

Webb's body was physically stuck to the power recliner and firefighters had to cut him from the chair to take him to the hospital. He died a few hours later, his body covered with sores and a ``very bad odor,'' according to a police report.

Webb, 33, didn't ask for help for all those months, because he was ashamed and didn't have health insurance, said his wife, Ada. He slept and used the bathroom in his chair and she cleaned it every day. The former preacher would post sermons online from the chair, and it wasn't long before he decided he was ready to go home to the Lord, she said.

``After he sat there in that one spot for a week, he was embarrassed. It was like he already knew what was going to happen,'' Ada Webb said.

Webb's mother was the one who placed the final call to paramedics. Not only did crews have to cut apart the chair, but they had to cut a hole in the wall of the couple's mobile home about 70 miles west of Columbia to get him out. A police report said he weighed about 800 pounds, but his wife said he was closer to 500 pounds.

The hospital told Daniel Webb's wife he died from a heart attack, she said. The coroner's office isn't investigating the death and referred all questions to Greenwood County deputies, who sent their report, but didn't respond to a phone message.

Webb died on the couple's second anniversary. They met four years ago on MySpace, and Ada Webb said she didn't see a man who weighed more than 500 pounds, but instead saw a guy who loved the Lord and had a big heart.

``I had the worst anniversary yesterday I ever had, but I know he had the best one he ever had because he's with Jesus now,'' she said.

Daniel Webb drove school buses for nearly 15 years, until his weight made it impossible. His health kept getting worse, and Ada Webb said she begged hospital officials to keep him after doctors treated his knee injury in March. But the couple had no way to pay and were sent home.

For his first few weeks home, Daniel Webb was open to the idea of seeing someone. Getting to them was the problem.

``Everybody kept telling us, if you get here, we'll help you. We didn't have no way of getting him up, and nobody was willing to come help us,'' Ada Webb said. ``He just kind of said, 'it's in God's hands' at that point.''

Daniel Webb spent the rest of his days playing with his four dogs and talking about religion to other people on the Internet.

``I did all I could for him. He loved me with a passion,'' his wife said. ``The only reason he held on to life here was for his family because he wanted to go home and be with the Lord.''

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

WASHINGTON (AP) Most women in their 20s can have a Pap smear every two years instead of annually, say new guidelines that conclude that's enough to catch slow-growing cervical cancer.

The change by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists comes amid a completely separate debate over when regular mammograms to detect breast cancer should begin. The timing of the Pap guidelines is coincidence, said ACOG, which began reviewing its recommendations in late 2007 and published the update Friday in the journal Obstetrics Gynecology.

The guidelines also say:

Routine Paps should start at age 21. Previously, ACOG had urged a first Pap either within three years of first sexual intercourse or at age 21.

Women 30 and older should wait three years between Paps once they've had three consecutive clear tests. Other national guidelines have long recommended the three-year interval; ACOG had previously backed a two- to three-year wait.

Women with HIV, other immune-weakening conditions or previous cervical abnormalities may need more frequent screening.

Paps can spot pre-cancerous changes in the cervix in time to prevent invasive cancer, and widespread use has halved cervical cancer rates in the U.S. in recent decades. About 11,270 new cases will be diagnosed this year, and about 4,070 women will die from it, according to American Cancer Society estimates. Half of women diagnosed with cervical cancer have never had a Pap, and another 10 percent haven't had one in five years.

Cervical cancer is caused by certain strains of the extremely common sexually transmitted virus called HPV, for human papillomavirus. There is a new HPV vaccine that should cut cervical cancer in the future; ACOG's guidelines say for now vaccinated women should follow the same Pap guidelines as the unvaccinated.

But the updated guidelines reflect better understanding of HPV. Infection is high among sexually active teens and young adults. Women's bodies very often fight off an HPV infection on their own without lasting harm, although it can take a year or two. The younger the woman, the more likely that HPV is going to be transient.

Moreover, ACOG cited studies showing no increased risk of cancer developing in women in their 20s if they extended Pap screening from every year to every two years.

As for adolescents, ACOG said cervical cancer in teens is rare one or two cases per million 15- to 19-year-olds while HPV-caused cervical abnormalities usually go away on their own, and unnecessary treatment increases the girls' risk of premature labor years later.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

(WSB Radio) -- He strikes just before noon.

Or are there six different men who simply look similar?

Seven banks from northwest Atlanta to Dunwoody describe this lunchtime bandit striking often just before noon, wearing a variety of baseball caps pulled low on his face, making off with untold amounts of cash, and eventually driving away in a burgundy or maroon Chevrolet Tahoe missing a rear hub cap.

Or maybe seven different guys with uncanny resemblance have managed to pull separate bank heists -- twice at the same bank, and three out of the last four Fridays -- and escaped in eerily similar getaway SUVs.

Federal and local authorities and area bank security officials are calling this mystery suspect a serial bank robber.

"It's very plausible that if he's hitting one bank (in an area), he could be responsible for others nearby," FBI spokesman Special Agent Stephen Emmett told the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

The man's M.O. changes slightly from one incident to the next. He usually strikes at or just before noon, but there have been afternoon and early morning robberies. He shows no obvious appearance of a weapon to reinforce the demand for money, but he has appeared on occasion to have shoved his hand into his pocket, creating the facade of an armed robbery.

Sometimes he uses a demand note, sometimes not.

Sunglasses, or ball cap pulled down low, never looking up to the camera.

A reward of up to $5,000 is being offered for information leading to the arrest of this robber.

CHICAGO (AP) ``The Oprah Winfrey Show,'' an iconic broadcast that grew over two decades into a daytime television powerhouse and the foundation of a multibillion-dollar media empire, will end its run in 2011 after 25 seasons on the air, Winfrey's production company said Thursday night.

Winfrey plans to announce the final date for her show during a live broadcast on Friday, Harpo Productions Inc. said, bringing an end to what has been television's top-rated talk show for more than two decades, airing in 145 countries worldwide and watched by an estimated 42 million viewers a week in the U.S. alone.

A Harpo spokeswoman declined to comment Thursday on Winfrey's future plans except to say that ``The Oprah Winfrey Show'' will not move to cable television.

Winfrey, 55, is widely expected to start up a new talk show on OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network, a much-delayed joint venture with Discovery Communications Inc. that is expected to debut in 2011. OWN is to replace the Discovery Health Channel and will debut in some 74 million homes. An OWN spokeswoman declined comment Thursday.

CBS Television Distribution, which distributes ``The Oprah Winfrey Show'' to more than 200 markets blanketing the United States, held out hope that it could continue doing business with Winfrey, perhaps producing a new show out of its studios in Los Angeles.

``We know that anything she turns her hand to will be a great success,'' the unit of CBS Corp. said in a statement. ``We look forward to working with her for the next several years, and hopefully afterwards as well.''

Winfrey's 24th season opened earlier this year with a bang, as she drew more than 20,000 fans to Chicago's Magnificent Mile on Michigan Avenue for a block party with the Black Eyed Peas.

She followed up with a series of blockbuster interviews Mike Tyson and Evander Holyfield, exclusives with singer Whitney Houston and ESPN's Erin Andrews, and just this week, former Alaska governor, GOP vice presidential candidate and best-selling author Sarah Palin.

Over the years, ``The Oprah Winfrey Show'' grew from a newcomer that chipped away at talk king Phil Donahue's dominance into a program that turned inspirational. The show covered a gamut that ranged from interviews with the world's most famous celebrities to an honest discussion about her weight struggles.

``As that show evolved, it really kind of dressed up the neighborhood of the daytime talk show,'' said Robert Thompson, professor of television and popular culture at Syracuse University. ``There was a seriousness to it, as though what she was doing was a calling and not just a television show.''

In 1986, pianist-showman Liberace gave his final TV interview to Winfrey, just six weeks before he died. In a widely viewed prime-time special aired in 1993, Michael Jackson revealed he suffered from a skin condition that produces depigmentation.

Tom Cruise enthusiastically declared his affection for the much-younger Katie Holmes on the program in 2005 and jumped on the couch to prove it.

In 2004, Winfrey unveiled her most famous giveaway, when nearly 300 members of the studio audience opened a gift box to find the keys to a new car inside. The stunt became a classic show moment as much for Oprah's reaction ``You get a car! You get a car! You get a car! Everybody gets a car!'' as its $7 million price tag.

The show also became a launching pad for Oprah's Book Club, and authors whose books were selected became best-sellers. The titles ranged from ``Song of Solomon'' and ``Paradise'' by Toni Morrison to Wally Lamb's ``She's Come Undone'' and Elie Wiesel's ``Night.''

For others, the selection backfired. ``A Million Little Pieces'' exploded in sales after Winfrey chose the James Frey memoir in fall 2005. Soon after, it was revealed as a fabricated tale of addiction and recovery, and Winfrey later chewed out Frey on her show.

``She's been a great inspiration, a great support for all the shifts in politics and social consciousness and consciousness in general,'' said hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons. ``I call her 'Queen of the New Consciousness' because she did so many things to change lives, the books that she promoted.''

The loss of ``The Oprah Winfrey Show'' would be a blow to CBS Corp. because it earns a percentage of hefty licensing fees from TV stations that use it; the show is largely seen on ABC affiliates. On a conference call with analysts two weeks ago, CBS Chief Executive Leslie Moonves said the contract with the show runs through most of 2011 and ``if there's a negative impact, it wouldn't hit us until '12.''

``Oprah's been a force of media and there's really no person you can look to out there who you could say, `That's the heir apparent,''' said Larry Gerbrandt, an analyst for the firm Media Valuation Partners in Los Angeles. Gerbrandt noted many stations built their schedules around Winfrey's show and used it to promote other shows.

``It's a big loss, but not as huge as it would have been 10 years ago,'' he said. ``However, it still commands the biggest audience and ABC station competitors are licking their chops.''

Talk of the show's end often has accompanied impending contract negotiations for Winfrey. Before she signed her current contract in 2004, she had talked about quitting after the 2005-2006 season. As far back as 1995, she had called continuing ``a difficult and important decision.''

CBS continues to sell several top shows into syndication, including ``Wheel of Fortune'' and ``Jeopardy.'' But many TV stations are struggling with falling advertising revenue and were unlikely to pay the same fees as in the past for Winfrey's show, which has seen ratings slip 7 percent from a year ago and saw its average viewership slip below 7 million last season.

Winfrey started her broadcasting career as a teenager in Nashville, Tenn., reading the news at WVOL. Two years later, Winfrey started co-anchoring news broadcasts on WTVF-TV in Nashville. In 1976 she moved to Baltimore to anchor newscasts at WJZ-TV before becoming host of the local talk show ``People Are Talking.''

In 1984, she relocated to Chicago to host WLS-TV's morning talk show ``A.M. Chicago'' the show was became ``The Oprah Winfrey Show'' one year later. She set up Harpo the following year and her talk show went into syndication.

Powered by the show's staggering success, Winfrey built a wide-ranging media empire. Harpo Studios produces shows hosted by Dr. Phil McGraw and celebrity chef Rachael Ray, and O, The Oprah Magazine was the nation's 7th most popular magazine in the first half of 2009.

``I came from nothing,'' Winfrey wrote in the 1998 book ``Journey to Beloved.'' ``No power. No money. Not even my thoughts were my own. I had no free will. No voice. Now, I have the freedom, power, and will to speak to millions every day having come from nowhere.''

Earlier this year, Forbes scored Winfrey's net worth at $2.7 billion, even as the magazine knocked her from atop its list of the world's most powerful celebrities. The honor went to Angelina Jolie, but Winfrey was still No. 2 on the annual Celebrity 100 list and the top earner at $275 million.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

(WSB Radio) -- Two men are hospitalized and Gwinnett County police are looking for the suspects who allegedly shot them outside an apartment complex in Norcross. 

Gwinnett Police Corporal David Schiralli tells WSB's Mark Alewine the victims asked for help just before 10 Thursday night at the intersection of Jimmy Carter Boulevard and Buford Highway.  Schiralli says "One of our officers happened to be in the area when the victims rolled up upon him, at which point they flagged him down, where then he summoned for medical assistance."

The unidentified men were taken to a local hospital, but their conditions are unknown.

The victims were shot in a car parked at the Valiencia Park Apartment on Peachtree Corners Circle.  Investigators are talking to witnesses and residents of the complex trying to determine a motive and identify potential suspects.

ATHENS, Ga. - The University of Georgia football team made final preparations for its upcoming Southeastern Conference Eastern Division clash with Kentucky by working out for 90-minutes at the Woodruff Practice Fields on Thursday.

Georgia started the dress rehearsal at approximately 6:40 p.m., which is a little over an hour and a half later than the Bulldogs' normal Thursday routine. Head coach Mark Richt explained that the practice schedule was altered to accommodate a Swahili class function in which several players were involved.

"We had probably up to as many as 20 players involved in the class," Richt stated. "They had an event this afternoon, and that's why we actually met with our players this morning at 6:20 and finished about 7:30 a.m. just in time for them to go to class or study hall. We waited until the event was over and gave them about an hour to make sure they could eat and get dressed."

Under the lights, Georgia (6-4, 4-3 SEC) finalized the game plan for its final SEC contest of the 2009 season against Kentucky (6-4, 2-4 SEC). With a win on Saturday, the Bulldogs can lock up second place in the Eastern Division. Both teams will enter the contest coming off of wins last week that made them bowl eligible. Georgia rallied past 25th-ranked Auburn, 31-24, in Athens while Kentucky posted a 24-13 road win over Vanderbilt. The Bulldogs and Wildcats each erased halftime deficits in their respective victories as UGA trailed 14-7 and UK was behind 13-10.

Saturday's game will mark the 63rd time Georgia and Kentucky have met dating back to 1939, and the Bulldogs hold a 49-11-2 advantage.

Richt also expressed his sorrow for the loss of Georgia mascot Uga VII, who died unexpectedly Thursday morning in Savannah.

"I was very shocked and sad to hear about Uga VII," Richt said. "I got a chance to talk to (Frank W.) Sonny (Seiler) today actually and hear a little bit about it. You never think something like that can happen that quickly, but it certainly did. I'm sad we won't have him on the sidelines anymore.

"I don't know if it's unprecedented or not," Richt added about not having a live mascot at Georgia's game on Saturday. "Ever since Uga I there's probably been a game or two where there hasn't been a mascot at all, but this ball game there won't be one which will be kind of different."

The WSB Tailgate Show at 3:45 p.m.; Kickoff at 7:45 p.m.

(WSB Radio) -- The Church of Scientology is one step closer to relocating its Georgia headquarters from Dunwoody to Sandy Springs.

On Thursday night, the city's planning commission recommended approval of a rezoning request that will allow the religious group to renovate a vacant office building on the corner of Roswell Road and Glenridge Drive. 

The approval, which will be forwarded to the Sandy Springs City Council for a vote on December 15th, was granted after an attorney for the Scientologists submitted a renovation plan that did not add square footage to the building, placed a maximum occupancy for the building at 170 and included restriping and repaving of the parking lot to create 111 parking spaces.

Fearing increased traffic and noise in the mostly residential area, more than 700 people who oppose the rezoning have signed a petition asking the City Council to vote no on the Church of Scientology's request.  The petition drive is also supported by the boards of directors of sixteen Sandy Springs' neighborhood associations.

ATLANTA (AP) The first county-by-county survey of obesity reflects past studies that show the rate of obesity is highest in the Southeast and Appalachia.

High rates of obesity and diabetes were reported in more than 80 percent of counties in the Appalachian region that includes Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia, according to the new research from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The same problem was seen in about 75 percent of counties in Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Georgia and South Carolina.

The five counties with the highest rates were Greene and Dallas counties in Alabama and Holmes, Humphreys and Jefferson counties in Mississippi. All are small, rural counties in the west central areas of each state, and each reported obesity rates of around 44 or 43 percent. The national adult obesity rate is roughly 26 percent.

The statistics are estimates for the year 2007 based on surveys, census figures and other information for that and other years and include a margin of error. The obesity rates in many counties were about the same, so it's difficult to say any county or counties was clearly the single most obese county, CDC officials said.

The CDC also released Thursday county-specific data for diabetes Type 2 is closely tied to obesity. Counties with the lowest rates of both obesity and diabetes were out west Boulder County, Colo., Santa Fe County, N.M., and Summit County, Utah, were at the top of each list.

Just under 13 percent of people in those counties were obese, and only about 4 percent reported diabetes, the CDC found.

There are a range of possible explanations for counties in the South and Appalachia have the highest rates of obesity and diabetes, experts said. A culture that embraces fatty, unhealthy foods and shuns exercise may be one. Genetics may be another. Income and education probably have a lot to do with it, too people living in poor communities may not have the money to eat healthier, more expensive foods or may not have access to gyms or safe jogging trails, they said.

The Alabama counties at the top of the list are low-income, mostly African-American communities that probably ended up high on the list because the estimates assumed higher rates of obesity and diabetes in counties with those demographics, said Dr. Jim McVay, director of the health promotion and chronic disease for the Alabama Department of Public Health.

``I can't say that those are accurate,'' he said of the CDC estimates.

Some experts said they hope the county estimates will highlight the problem and persuade local officials to focus more attention on combating the problems.

``In the end, it comes down to those that have to direct resources at the local level,'' said Dr. Miriam Vos, assistant professor of pediatrics at Atlanta's Emory School of Medicine. ``It's not something that can change as easily at the federal level.''

McVay said local efforts are important, but ultimately obesity comes down to individual behavior and trying to change that. ``How do you influence people to make lifestyle changes? That's the question,'' he said.

The study was published in the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

(WSB Radio) -- The computers which manage flight plans are talking to each other once again as airlines work to catch up after a glitch this morning a glitch caused widespread flight delays nationwide.

It's the second time in 15 months that there has been a problem.

U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-New York, said the country's aviation system is ``in shambles'' and the FAA needs more resources to prevent such problems from continuing.

``If we don't deliver the resources, manpower, and technology the FAA it needs to upgrade the system, these technical glitches that cause cascading delays and chaos across the country are going to become a very regular occurrence,'' he said in a statement.

The telecomm router which failed is part of the modernization of the air traffic control system and was installed less than two years ago.   

The Federal Aviation Administration said the problem was fixed around 10 a.m., but it was unclear how long flights would continue to be affected. Doug Church, a spokesman for the National Air Traffic Controllers Union, said controllers were still entering flight plans manually in some locations.

FAA spokesman Paul Takemoto said the problem started between 5:15 and 5:30 a.m. and affected mostly flight plans but also traffic management, such as ground stops and ground delays.

Airplane dispatchers had to send plans to controllers, who entered them into computers by hand.

``It's slowing everything down,'' Takemoto said.

Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, the world's busiest, has been particularly affected. Chicago and Washington, D.C., metro airports also reported delays due to the glitch.

Mary Rulo, an educator from Atlanta, was trying to get to Philadelphia for a conference. She said her 9 a.m. flight was delayed until 3 p.m. and AirTran was not able to help with other arrangements.

``This is really going to affect my conference schedule,'' she said. ``It's really frustrating.''

AirTran canceled at least 22 flights and dozens more flights were delayed as of 8 a.m. Delta Air Lines was also affected.

Passengers were asked to check the status of their flights online before going to airports.

Only minor delays were reported at metropolitan New York City area airports, according to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Delays were also minimal at Logan International Airport in Boston. Orlando International Airport, Florida's busiest, reported about a dozen delays due to the chain reaction around the country, and flights in Tampa, Fla., were also delayed.

Flight plans are collected by the FAA for traffic nationwide at two centers one in the Salt Lake City area and the other in the Atlanta area. FAA spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen said she did not know which center was affected Thursday. Church said the computer failure involved both centers.

Victor Santore, the National Air Traffic Controllers Union southern region vice president, said he began getting e-mail messages from air traffic controllers around 7 a.m. EST Thursday that the Atlanta-area computers had stopped processing flight plans.

Santore said some controllers were pulled away from their normal duties talking to airplanes or pulled off breaks to help enter the flight plans.

``When something crazy like this happens, we'll pull everybody onto the floor,'' Santore said. ``Every airport at some point some will be affected ... (The delays) are going to ripple through the entire system.''

In August 2008, a software malfunction delayed hundreds of flights around the country.

In that episode, the Northeast was hardest hit by the delays because of a glitch at the Hampton, Ga., facility that processes flight plans for the eastern half of the U.S.

The FAA said at that time the source of the computer software malfunction was a ``packet switch'' that ``failed due to a database mismatch.''

ATLANTA (AP) A problem with the FAA system that collects airline flight plans caused widespread flight cancellations and delays nationwide Thursday, the second time in 15 months that a glitch created such problems.

The Federal Aviation Administration said the problem was fixed around 10 a.m., but it was unclear how long flights would continue to be affected. Doug Church, a spokesman for the National Air Traffic Controllers Union, said controllers were still entering flight plans manually in some locations.

FAA spokesman Paul Takemoto said the problem started between 5:15 and 5:30 a.m. and affected mostly flight plans but also traffic management, such as ground stops and ground delays.

Airplane dispatchers had to send plans to controllers, who entered them into computers by hand.

``It's slowing everything down,'' Takemoto said.

Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, the world's busiest, has been particularly affected. Chicago and Washington, D.C., metro airports also reported delays due to the glitch.

Mary Rulo, an educator from Atlanta, was trying to get to Philadelphia for a conference. She said her 9 a.m. flight was delayed until 3 p.m. and AirTran was not able to help with other arrangements.

``This is really going to affect my conference schedule,'' she said. ``It's really frustrating.''

AirTran canceled at least 22 flights and dozens more flights were delayed as of 8 a.m. Delta Air Lines was also affected.

Passengers were asked to check the status of their flights online before going to airports.

Only minor delays were reported at metropolitan New York City area airports, according to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Delays were also minimal at Logan International Airport in Boston. Orlando International Airport, Florida's busiest, reported about a dozen delays due to the chain reaction around the country, and flights in Tampa, Fla., were also delayed.

Flight plans are collected by the FAA for traffic nationwide at two centers one in the Salt Lake City area and the other in the Atlanta area. FAA spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen said she did not know which center was affected Thursday. Church said the computer failure involved both centers.

Victor Santore, the National Air Traffic Controllers Union southern region vice president, said he began getting e-mail messages from air traffic controllers around 7 a.m. EST Thursday that the Atlanta-area computers had stopped processing flight plans.

Santore said some controllers were pulled away from their normal duties talking to airplanes or pulled off breaks to help enter the flight plans.

``When something crazy like this happens, we'll pull everybody onto the floor,'' Santore said. ``Every airport at some point some will be affected ... (The delays) are going to ripple through the entire system.''

In August 2008, a software malfunction delayed hundreds of flights around the country.

In that episode, the Northeast was hardest hit by the delays because of a glitch at the Hampton, Ga., facility that processes flight plans for the eastern half of the U.S.

The FAA said at that time the source of the computer software malfunction was a ``packet switch'' that ``failed due to a database mismatch.''

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

ATLANTA (AP) Georgia's recession continues.

That's the word from the director of Georgia State University's Economic Forecasting Center. Rajeev Dhawan said job losses continue to plague the Peach State. The third quarter of 2009 saw more than 50,000 jobs lost in Georgia, the fourth dismal quarter in a row.

Tax collections in the state also continue to plummet. Dhawan said that's because unemployed Georgians are spending less.

Dhawan says that hospitality and airline industries will continue to suffer from cutbacks in business travel and other corporate belt-tightening. But the Kia plant opening in west Georgia is good news for the state.

Dhawan said he sees the state's fiscal picture should improve in 2011.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

(WSB Radio) -- The tight economy is renewing calls to legalize betting on horse racing in Georgia.

"It would generate revenue and jo for the state," Rep. Harry Geisinger (R-Roswell), the chairman of the Special Equine Study Committee, told WSB.

Support for pari-mutuel gambling is not known, but proposals to amend the constitution to allow pari-mutuel betting was last introduced in 2005.

"Every time there is an economic slow down someone saddles up the idea of horse racing," Jerry Luquire, the president of the Georgia Christian Coalition, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "Horse racing in Georgia is a bad idea, that will not make it to the starting gate this session."

But Geisinger argues the state already has a lottery.  "The lottery doesn't take any brains at all .. just buy your ticket and pick some lucky numbers .. fortunately that money goes towards education," said Geisinger.

NEW ORLEANS (AP) The federal government could be vulnerable to billions of dollars in claims after a judge ruled that the Army Corps of Engineers' failure to properly maintain a navigation channel led to massive flooding in Hurricane Katrina.

U.S. District Judge Stanwood Duval on Wednesday awarded seven plaintiffs $720,000, but the government could eventually be forced to pay much more. The ruling should give more than 100,000 other individuals, businesses and government entities a better shot at claiming damages.

Duval sided with six residents and one business who argued the Army Corps' shoddy oversight of the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet led to the flooding of New Orleans' Lower 9th Ward and neighboring St. Bernard Parish. He said, however, the corps couldn't be held liable for the flooding of eastern New Orleans, where two of the plaintiffs lived.

The ruling is also emotionally resonant for south Louisiana. Many in New Orleans have argued that the flooding in the aftermath of Katrina, which struck the region Aug. 29, 2005, was a manmade disaster caused by the Army Corps' failure to maintain the levee system protecting the city.

``Total devastation could possibly have been avoided if something had been done,'' said Tanya Smith, one of the plaintiffs. ``A lot of this stuff was preventable and they turned a deaf ear to it.''

The 36-year-old registered nurse anesthetist lived in Chalmette close to the channel when Katrina hit. She was awarded $317,000 in property damages, the most of any of the plaintiffs.

Duval referred to the corps' approach to maintaining the channel as ``monumental negligence.''

Joe Bruno, one of the lead lawyers for the plaintiffs, said the ruling underscored the Army Corps' long history of not properly protecting the New Orleans region.

``It's high time we look at the way these guys do business and do a full re-evaluation of the way it does business,'' Bruno said.

He said he expected the government to appeal.

The corps referred calls seeking comment to the Justice Department. Spokesman Charles Miller said the government would review the judge's ruling before making any decision on how to proceed.

During trial testimony, government lawyers and experts argued the levee system was overwhelmed by the massive storm, and levee breaches couldn't solely be blamed on the shipping channel dug in the 1960s as a short-cut between the Gulf of Mexico and New Orleans.

The corps had also unsuccessfully argued that it is immune from liability because the channel is part of New Orleans' flood control system.

In his 156-page ruling, Duval said he was ``utterly convinced'' that the corps' failure to shore up the channel ``doomed the channel to grow to two to three times its design width'' and that ``created a more forceful frontal wave attack on the levee'' that protected St. Bernard and the Lower 9th Ward.

``The Corps had an opportunity to take a myriad of actions to alleviate this deterioration or rehabilitate this deterioration and failed to do so,'' Duval said. ``Clearly the expression 'talk is cheap' applies here.''

Ahead of Duval's ruling, experts had said it would likely have consequences for the way the Army Corps does business nationwide.

Pierce O'Donnell, another lead plaintiffs lawyer, said the ruling was the ``first time ever the Army Corps has been held liable for damages for a major catastrophe that it caused.''

The plaintiffs lawyers would like Congress to set up a compensation fund to speed up payments to the thousands of others whose claims must still be heard in court.

At a one-month trial in May, experts clashed over the causes of flooding and the channel's contribution to it.

Government experts argued the levees and floodwalls would have failed regardless of whether the channel had been dug.

By contrast, the plaintiffs' team of experts said the outlet became a ``hurricane highway'' that funneled storm surge into New Orleans. They said that without the channel, the flooding would have been minimal.

The lawsuit was the first major case against the federal government over Katrina flooding to go to trial. A decision rested with Duval because a jury cannot try a case against the federal government.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

WASHINGTON (AP) Women should continue getting regular mammograms starting at age 40, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said Wednesday, moving to douse confusion caused by a task-force recommendation two days earlier.

Sebelius issued her statement following a government panel's recommendation on Monday, that said most women don't need mammograms in their 40s and should get one every two years starting at 50.

That recommendation was a break with the American Cancer Society's long-standing position that women should get screening mammograms starting at age 40.

The task force does ``not set federal policy and they don't determine what services are covered by the federal government,'' Sebelius said.

Medicare, which covers older Americans and some younger ones who are disabled, provides women on Medicare coverage for an annual mammogram at age 40 and older.

Sebelius noted that there has been debate about the age at which routine mammograms should begin, and how often they should be given.

``The task force has presented some new evidence for consideration but our policies remain unchanged,'' she said. ``Indeed, I would be very surprised if any private insurance company changed its mammography coverage decisions as a result of this action.''

``My message to women is simple. Mammograms have always been an important lifesaving tool in the fight against breast cancer and they still are today. Keep doing what you have been doing for years talk to your doctor about your individual history, ask questions and make the decision that is right for you,'' Sebelius said.

In the meantime, she added, it is clear that more research is needed into ways to help women prevent and fight breast cancer.

The recommendations from the task force have left women across the country confused about which advice to take. It also quickly led to charges from opponents of changing health care policy that it is an example of what could be expected from government-managed care.

In its report the panel of doctors and scientists concluded that such early and frequent screenings often lead to false alarms and unneeded biopsies, without substantially improving women's odds of survival.

But their recommendation was loudly criticized by breast cancer survivors who were diagnosed at a young age.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

ATLANTA - The Georgia Department of Labor reported today that the state's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate rose slightly to 10.2 percent in October, up one-tenth of a percentage point from a revised 10.1 percent in September.

The October jobless rate was up 3.3 percentage points from 6.9 percent at this same time last year. Georgia's unemployment rate matched the national rate of 10.2 percent for the first time in two years. Since October of 2007, when a jobless rate of 4.8 percent was recorded by both the state and the nation, Georgia's rate has exceeded the national rate.

"The recession will not end for the thousands of jobless Georgians until more employers start hiring again," said State Labor Commissioner Michael Thurmond. "Georgia's public and private leaders must work together to develop a bi-partisan recovery strategy that focuses on three critical elements: protecting vulnerable citizens, including children, the elderly, and the sick; preserving our health, safety and educational institutions; and encouraging economic development and job creation."

The number of payroll jobs in October decreased 227,700 or 5.6 percent, from October of 2008. The metropolitan areas with the highest percentage of job losses during the same period are Dalton, down 8.1 percent; Atlanta, down 5.7 percent; and Macon, down 5.2 percent. The metropolitan areas with the smallest percentage of job losses are Athens, down 1.2 percent; Hinesville, down 1.5 percent; Brunswick, down 1.6 percent, and Columbus, down 1.8 percent. The over-the-year losses came in manufacturing, wholesale and retail trade, professional and business services, and construction. On a positive note, educational and health services added 13,200 jobs over the year. Also, from September to October, a total of 5,200 jobs were added in retail trade, public and private education, and health care.

The state's labor force decreased 139,015, or 2.9 percent, from 4,859,703 in October 2008 to 4,720,688 in October 2009. The number of jobless workers receiving regular state unemployment benefits increased 32,282 or 32.8 percent, from 98,530 in October 2008 to 130,812 in October 2009. Another 146,000 received federal Extended Unemployment Compensation.

(WSB Radio) -- Two WSB-TV reporters are recovering from minor injuries they received when their news truck touched power lines and caused an explosion.

Reporter Tom Jones and photographer Leonard Raglin were driving away after doing a live shot at the Fulton County jail Wednesday afternoon when the truck's telescoping pole hit power lines.

The mast is supposed to be lowered if the truck is in motion.

The resulting explosion left the truck heavily damaged and blew apart the road underneath.

Fire singed the front of the truck and the explosion left the side-view mirrors dangling off the vehicle. Jones and Raglin were taken to Grady Memorial Hospital to be checked.

WSB-TV General Manager Bill Hoffman said there were no apparent injuries aside from minor bumps, bruises and burns. He said the men are very lucky.

(WSB Radio) -- Cobb County Police are asking for the public's help in catching the burglars who have targeted businesses all over east Cobb.  Sgt. Dana Pierce tells WSB for the most part, they get in by breaking in through the roof.

"At least 18 business burglaries have happened since November 1st of this year.   We believe in at least two-thirds of these business burglaries, the method of operation of the suspect has been the same," said Pierce.

Pierce says they have stepped up patrols in Johnson Ferry, Roswell Road, and the Lower Roswell Road areas.  "All these roads are fairly heavily traveled roadways, and any activity past midnight, or even after darkness hours, should be very suspicious to people," said Pierce.

Sports bars and gas stations appear to be have been the primary targets.  Pierce encourages business owners to not only install security cameras, but to leave a light on.

"If an officer or a citizen is driving by and they see movement inside of the business, they can immediately dial 9-1-1," said Pierce.

Anyone with information is asked to contact the Cobb County Police Department.

(WSB Radio) -- DeKalb County police are using K-9 units and ground patrols to search for two home invasion suspects who are accused of terrorizing a man and his son.

The suspects, described as black males between the ages of 17 and 19, allegedly approached the victim in the driveway of his home on Big Valley Road in Stone Mountain.

After forcing the man inside at gunpoint, one suspect stayed with the man and his 11-year-old son in the kitchen while the second suspect rummaged through the house.

At one point, the boy tried to run for help, but was grabbed by one of the suspects and thrown on the kitchen floor.

Neither victim was hurt and the suspects got away with $450 dollars in cash, a cell phone and a video game system.

A DeKalb officer arrived as the suspects were leaving the house.  They ran in different directions and the officer fired his service revolver at one suspect who made a threatening gesture toward him.

The home invasion occurred around 6pm Wednesday.

(WSB Radio) -- Despite the threat of a lawsuit, the Lilburn City Council voted unanimously Wednesday night to deny a rezoning request that would have allowed an existing mosque on Lawrenceville Highway to expand on 8 acres of property owned by Lilburn Mayor Diane Preston. 

The Muslim congregation of Dar-E-Abbas wanted to build a 20,000 square foot mosque, a gymnasium, 200 parking spaces and a one acre cemetary on 8 acres of land at the corner of Lawrenceville Highway and Hood Road.  About 90 families already worship in two 2,000 square foot buildings on the property.  They have done so for the last 11 years.

Prior to the vote, the council listened to speakers on both sides of the proposal.  One opponent told them "To me, this is not a religious issue or an issue of racism as some would portray it.  It's a land use, rezoning issue."  

Mosque attorney Doug Dillard also addressed the council.  He said "They're asking that they be allowed to expand as other churches, as other religious institutions have been allowed to expand in your community.  To deny them this right is unlawful."

After the denial was approved, Dillard notified the city he would be filing suit in federal court on the grounds that the vote violated his client's First Amendment rights.

(WSB Radio) Cobb County Police are asking for the public's help in catching the burglars who've targeted businesses all over east Cobb.  Sgt. Dana Pierce tells WSB for the most part, they get in by breaking in through the roof.

"At least 18 business burglaries have happened since November 1st of this year.   We believe in at least two-thirds of these business burglaries, the method of operation of the suspect has been the same," said Pierce.

Pierce says they have stepped up patrols in Johnson Ferry, Roswell Road, and the Lower Roswell Road areas.  "All these roads are fairly heavily traveled roadways, and any activity past midnight, or even after darkness hours, should be very suspicious to people," said Pierce.

Sports bars and gas stations appear to be have been the primary targets.  Pierce encourages business owners to not only install security cameras, but to leave a light on.

"If an officer or a citizen is driving by and they see movement inside of the business, they can immediately dial 9-1-1," said Pierce.

Anyone with information is asked to contact the Cobb County Police Department.

11/18/09

(WSB Radio)  Car break ins are down across Atlanta, but not in some neighborhoods.  And, police say, the thefts are becoming more and more hazardous because of what is being taken.

Automobile larcenies have increased 250% in Atlanta's Zone 5 precinct, which includes Midtown, downtown and Atlantic Station. 

During a three week period in October, more than 500 such break ins were reported on cars parked in Zone 5.  In a typical week, police in Zone 5 handle 66 car larcenies. 

Police believe the bulk of the crimes are being carried out by career criminals, many of whom have prior arrests for similar crimes.

And cops say these crooks are not after the typical items that are taken in car break ins, such as sunglasses, laptops or CDs.

Thus far in 2009, 120 handguns have been reported stolen from cars that were parked in Zone 5.

Police say more than half of the Zone 5 larcenies were in midtown, with most of those taking place in parking lots near commercial areas.

The APD has increased patrols, and has put plainclothes officers on the streets, but the effect has been minimal.  During one recent weekend, three cars were broken into along the same block of Ponce de Leon Avenue.

The break ins go against the trend for the rest of Atlanta.  Citywide, auto larcenies are actually down in 2009 compared to 2008. 

(WSB Radio) -- Atlanta has the world's busiest airport and several interstates, so getting here isn't the problem.

The issue is what to do when you get here.

Metropoll, an every two-year survey of meeting planner attitudes about 40 U.S. and Canadian convention cities, gave Georgia's capital top marks for accessibility, friendliness, and hotel and dining value. But the city was below average among its peers when it comes to safety, prestige and romance, the 2009 survey found.

"Atlanta continues to have a strong, albeit mixed, profile as a travel destination," Metropoll leaders noted in their data assessment. "Atlanta fares particularly well in the logistical attributes, ranking in the 'Top 10' on five out of eight attributes.

"Atlanta does not fare quite as well with respect to recreational attitudes," Metropoll said.

Atlanta Convention and Visitors Bureau CEO William Pate cautioned that the survey reflects the opinions of meeting planners that have been here in the last 10 years as well as those that haven't. He said the goal is to get meeting planners who haven't been to Atlanta in while to the city to show off the product.

"It's like trying to explain the (Georgia) aquarium to someone who has never been there," he said. On the surface, Atlanta, like the world's largest fish tank, sounds impressive, but it's not until you visit that the "wow" is evident, he said.

WASHINGTON (AP) Ford, Subaru and Volkswagen sit atop the insurance industry's annual list of the safest new vehicles, according to a closely watched assessment used by car companies to lure safety-conscious consumers to showrooms.

The Virginia-based Insurance Institute for Highway Safety awarded its ``top safety pick'' on Wednesday to 19 passenger cars and eight sport utility vehicles for the 2010 model year. The institute substantially reduced the number of awards compared with 2009, because of tougher requirements for roof strength.

Ford Motor Co. and its Volvo unit received the most awards with six, followed by five awards apiece for Japanese automaker Subaru and German automaker Volkswagen AG and its Audi unit.

Chrysler Group LLC received four awards followed by two each for Honda Motor Co. and General Motors Co.

Toyota Motor Corp., BMW AG, Mazda Motor Corp. and Mitsubishi Motors Corp. were shut out in the annual IIHS review.

Ford's recipients include the Ford Taurus and Lincoln MKS passenger cars and the Volvo S80 and C30 passenger cars and the XC60 and XC90 SUVs.

Ford said in a statement it is ``committed to providing customers with safe vehicles for a broad range of real-world crash conditions.''

Subaru recorded winners with the Subaru Legacy, Outback and Impreza cars and Tribeca and Forester SUVs. Subaru was the only automaker with an IIHS winner in all four vehicle classes in which it competes.

The automaker, which has bucked the brutal U.S. sales market with a 13 percent increase during the first 10 months of 2009, attributed its safety success to a unique engine design that sits low in the vehicle chassis and moves down and under occupants in a frontal collision.

Tom Doll, executive vice president and COO of Subaru of America, said the awards were a ``tribute to the engineering that goes into Subaru products.''

Volkswagen scored with the 4-door versions of the Jetta, Passat and Golf, the Audi A3 and the Volkswagen Tiguan, a small SUV. Mark Barnes, Volkswagen of America's chief operating officer, said the ``safety of our cars is of the utmost concern, from the initial design stages all the way through the maintenance procedures at dealerships.''

Chrysler won the award for the Chrysler Sebring and Dodge Avenger sedans equipped with optional electronic stability control, the Dodge Journey midsize SUV and the Jeep Patriot with optional side thorax air bags.

Scott Kunselman, Chrysler's senior vice president-engineering, said the awards underscore the Auburn Hills, Mich., automaker's ``engineering capability and leadership in occupant protection.''

General Motors Co. and Honda Motor Co. both received two awards. GM was recognized for the Buick LaCrosse and the Chevrolet Malibu while Honda won for 4-door versions of the Civic with optional electronic stability control and the Honda Element.

Other winners included the Nissan Cube, the Kia Soul and the Mercedes C Class.

The vehicles are selected for best protecting motorists in front, side and rear crash tests based on Institute evaluations during the year. The vehicles are required to have electronic stability control, or ESC, to qualify for the award. Earlier this year, the Institute said vehicles would need to receive its highest score in its roof strength evaluation to qualify the safety pick designation.

``With the addition of our roof strength evaluation, our crash test results now cover all four of the most common kinds of crashes,'' said Institute president Adrian Lund. ``Consumers can use this list to zero in on the vehicles that are on the top rung for safety.''

The Institute awarded its top prize to 94 vehicles in 2009 and attributed the decline in awards this year to the roof strength requirement. The Honda Accord and the Ford Fusion both dropped off the list because 2010 versions didn't earn high enough scores on the roof test.

The Toyota Camry would have made the list, the Institute said, if it had received the highest rating in rear crash protection. The Institute said the Camry's seats and head restraints were rated marginal for protection against whiplash injuries.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

WASHINGTON (AP) Soldier suicides this year are almost sure to top last year's grim totals, but a recent decline in the pace of such incidents could mean the Army is starting to make progress in stemming them, officials said Tuesday.

Army Vice Chief of Staff General Peter Chiarelli said that as of Monday, 140 active duty soldiers were believed to have died of self-inflicted wounds so far in 2009. That's the same as were confirmed for all of 2008.

``We are almost certainly going to end the year higher than last year ... this is horrible, and I do not want to downplay the significance of these numbers in any way,'' he said.

But Chiarelli said there has been a tapering off in recent months from large surges in suspected suicides in January and February.

``Our goal since the beginning has been to reduce the overall incidence of suicide and I do believe we are finally beginning to see progress being made,'' Chiarelli told a Pentagon press conference.

He attributed those hints of progress to some unprecedented efforts the Army has made since February to educate soldiers and leaders about the issue.

Officials are still stumped about what is driving the historically high rates across the military force. When asked whether the rates reflect unprecedented high stress from long and repeated deployments to provide manpower for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Chiarelli said he didn't know.

``The reality is there is no simple answer,'' he said. ``Each suicide is as unique as the individuals themselves.''

The rising suicide rate is not unique to the Army. Marine Corps suicides also are higher again this year there were 42 reported as of Oct. 31 compared with 42 for all of 2008, 33 in 2007 and 25 in 2006.

Though the two ground forces have borne most of the fighting in the two current wars, both the Army and Marines have found that about a third of the self-inflicted deaths were among troops that had never deployed to the battles.

Chiarelli said that on top of the 140 suicides reported from the active duty Army force, there were another 71 suicides by troops in the National Guard and Reserve.

All of the numbers are preliminary in that investigations into some of the deaths are still ongoing. Of the 140 so far this year among active duty troops, 90 have been confirmed as suicides and 50 are suspected but the probes are not yet finished.

Each year, nearly all suspected suicides are eventually confirmed. For instance in 2008, there were 143 suspected and 140 were eventually confirmed.

Chiarelli said officials will continue to focus on things that are symptoms of high-risk individuals such as undiagnosed brain injuries like concussions; on Post-Traumatic Stress, and on risky behavior such as poor diet and sleep habits as well as more serious behaviors such as drug and alcohol abuse.

The Army widened its suicide prevention in March in an attempt to make rapid improvements. In October, the service introduced its Comprehensive Soldier Fitness program, which Chiarelli called ``the biggest step ... taken to enhance wellness in the entire force through prevention rather than treatment.''

The program aims to put the same emphasis on mental and emotion strength as the military traditionally has on physical strength. Basic training now includes anti-stress programs as part of a broader effort to help soldiers deal with the aftereffects of combat and prevent suicides.

Also last month, the Army started using a new screening questionnaire to try to determine preexisting or current mental health issues among troops as part of the enlistment process.

Despite those campaigns, another jump in suicide figures for 2009 would make it the fifth straight year that such deaths have set a record within the military. Last year's 140 record erased a high 115 in 2007 and 102 in 2006.

Chiarelli said officials are concerned with increases this year at Fort Campbell, Fort Stewart and Schofield Barracks and are trying to learn why suicides rates are down at Fort Hood, Fort Bragg and Fort Drum.

At Fort Campbell in Kentucky there were 18, while at Fort Bragg, N.C., which has almost double the population, there have been six all year.

Using some bases as examples of the trend downward, Chiarelli said that of the 18 suicides reported this year at Fort Campbell, 11 of those were in the first four months of the year. At Schofield Barracks in Hawaii, there were seven all year so far five in the first five months of the year and only two since.

The numbers kept by the service branches don't show the whole picture of war-related suicides because they don't include deaths after people have left the military. The Department of Veterans Affairs tracks those numbers and says there were 144 suicides among the nearly 500,000 service members who left the military from 2002-2005 after fighting in at least one of the wars.

The true incidence of suicide among military veterans is not known, according to a report last year by the Congressional Research Service. Based on numbers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the VA estimates that 18 veterans a day or 6,500 a year take their lives, but that number includes vets from all previous wars.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

(WSB Radio) -- The Flood of 2009 caused a nationwide shortage of Eggo frozen waffles. 

The Kellogg Company says flood damage at its bakery on Bucknell Drive in Atlanta led to production delays that could put the popular breakfast item in short supply through the middle of next year. 

The Eggo manufacturing plant, which is off of Thornton Road, south of I-20, temporarily shutdown in September after flood waters damaged some equipment.

A statement from the company, based in Battle Creek, Michigan, says production has resumed in Atlanta, but Kellogg spokesman Kris Charles says "We are working around the clock to restore Eggo storm inventories to normal levels as quickly as possible."

Although Kellogg does not release sales figures for individual brand names, the company has confirmed that the temporary supply disruption contributed to a 3 percent sales decline in the North American frozen and specialty channels unit last quarter.

WASHINGTON (AP) Federal health officials said Tuesday a popular variety of heartburn medications can interfere with the blood thinner Plavix, a drug taken by millions of Americans to reduce risks of heart attack and stroke.

The Food and Drug Administration said the stomach-soothing drugs Prilosec and Nexium cut in half the blood-thinning effect of Plavix, known generically as clopidogrel.

Regulators said the key ingredient in the heartburn medications blocks an enzyme the body needs to break down Plavix, muting the drug's full effect. Procter Gamble's Prilosec OTC is available over-the-counter, while AstraZeneca's Nexium is only available with a prescription.

``Patients at risk for heart attacks or strokes who use clopidogrel to prevent blood clots will not get the full effect of this medicine,'' the agency said in a statement.

Plavix is marketed by Sanofi-Aventis and Bristol-Myers Squibb. With global sales of $8.6 billion last year, it's the world's second-best selling drug behind Pfizer's cholesterol drug Lipitor.

Because Plavix can upset the stomach, it is often prescribed with stomach acid-blocking drugs.

The FDA says patients who need to reduce their acid should take drugs from the H-2 blocker family, which include Johnson Johnson's Mylanta and Boehringer Ingelheim's Zantac. FDA scientists say there is no evidence those drugs interfere with Plavix's anti-blood clotting action.

Nexium and Prilosec are part of a class of drugs known as proton pump inhibitors, but FDA regulators said they don't have enough information to say whether other drugs in that class shouldn't be used with Plavix.

``There's not enough data to tell us how those drugs interact with,'' the enzyme that activates Plavix, said Mary Ross Southworth, FDA's deputy director for safety of cardiovascular products. ``There are ongoing studies looking at those other drugs.''

The FDA said the warnings on Plavix have been strengthened based on a 150-patient study submitted by Sanofi over the summer.

But some consumer advocates said the agency's action fell short, arguing that regulators should have placed the information in a ``black box'' warning label, the most serious available.

``This information still has not risen to as prominent a level of warning as it should have,'' said Dr. Sidney Wolfe, director of health research at the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen.

Information about the drug interaction between Plavix and other medications is not new. Researchers at pharmacy benefit manager Medco Health Solutions reported last year that taking Plavix with Nexium significantly increased patients' chances of being hospitalized for a heart attack, stroke or chest pain.

In May, Sanofi and Bristol-Myers updated Plavix's labeling to advise against using it in combination with certain heartburn drugs.

A Sanofi spokeswoman said Tuesday that the company has bolstered that language labeling.

``We've strengthened the label to say that these drugs should be avoided altogether, not just discouraged,'' said Noelle Boyd, Sanofi's senior communications director.

WBB Securities analyst Steven Brozak said the news would put pressure on Paris-based Sanofi and New York-based Bristol-Myers to provide more safety data on their best-selling product.

``This is going to create a chain reaction as patients start calling their physicians, and they are forced to make a spot decision on limited information,'' said Brozak. ``That's not gonna help either company's bottom line.''

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

The maps were unveiled in October with the opening of five new schools next fall. School officials received more than a thousand comments from parents since that time.

Spokesperson Sloan Roach says they've incorporated many of those suggestions and made changes to four of the five new maps.

"Some of them are minor changes and then some of them are things that we had heard from multiple parents and citizens. We were able to look at the maps and look at the numbers and find ways to balance it in a way that we hope will make this change easier for everybody," she tells WSB's Sandra Parrish.

Roach says parents will get one final opportunity to voice concerns at a public hearing Thursday at 7 p.m. at the school systems main offices in Suwanee.

The Gwinnett school board is expected to vote on the final recommendations at its December 10th meeting.

(WSB Radio)  -- The Lilburn City Council is set to vote tonight on a controversial rezoning request that would allow a mosque, gymnasium, and cemetary to be built on eight acres of land at Lawrenceville Hwy. and Hood Road. 

The Lilburn Planning Commission voted unanimously to recommend denial of the rezoning request.

"It took into consideration our future land use plan and certainly parking and traffic played a factor in that as well," City Manager Bill Johnsa tells WSB's Sandra Parrish.

For the past 11 years, about 90 families in the Muslim congregation of Dar-E-Abbas have worshiped in two 2,000 square foot buildings on the property partly owned by Mayor Diana Preston. She will recuse herself from the meeting and vote.

Attorney Doug Dillard who represents the congregation says the planning commission's actions may have violated his clients constitutional rights and he has already notified the city that a denial by the city council will result in litigation.

Tonight's 7:30 meeting will be held at the Gwinnett Justice and Administration Center due to the large crowds expected. Public comment will be limited to 30 minutes for each side before the vote is taken.

(WSB Radio) -- University of Georgia Police are investigating claims by an 18-year-old Clemson University student who says he was beaten up in the basement of a fraternity house.

Chief Jimmy Williamson tells WSB while Stephen Spaseff's statements were credible, several details remain foggy.

"He had been consuming alcohol and that's what's making this a little more difficult.  Some of the details are a little fuzzy, but we find this fairly frequently with incidents like this," said Williamson.

Spaseff flagged down police about a block from the Ki Phi house, where he said the assault occurred.

"He said that he got into an altercation and at some point in time he ended up in the basement area of a fraternity house where he was beat on by numerous individuals," said Williamson.

Williamson said Spaseff did have injuries that would give the impression that he had been beaten up.  They weren't life-threatening or required any type of extensive medical treatment.

Williamson says they're still trying to figure out exactly what happened and if anyone from the fraternity was involved.

"We're in the process of retracing the events of that night, interviewing possible witnesses of people who may have been in the area.  We're checking for other surveillance cameras in the area to try and confirm what happened," said Williamson.

(WSB Radio) -- A Cherokee County middle school student has been arrested for bringing a gun to school.

School System Spokesman Mike McGowan tells WSB when another student at Dean Rusk Middle School realized the 12-year-old boy had a .22-caliber pistol on him, he immediately notified personnel.

Several rounds of ammunition were found in his locker and he was charged with  felony possession of a firearm on school property.

"I have heard that there weren't any specific threats or hit lists or any reason to believe that the student had anything on his mind other than making a really stupid decision to bring a firearm to school," said McGowan.

(WSB Radio) -- The search is on for a serial bank robber who has hit seven north-Metro banks in three weeks.

Dunwoody Police Sgt. Mike Carlson tells Channel 2 Action News the latest robbery happened Friday at a Wachovia on Riverwood Parkway in Cobb County.    He hit the Wachovia on Ashford-Dunwoody Road twice.

"He's very bold right now to hit seven banks in that amount of time," said Carlson.

The suspect, who usually wears a hat, polo, and khaki gloves, always uses a note.

 "We don't want this to escalate.  He has not been violent yet; however, he's very consistent .  He usually hits the banks toward the end of the week, the latter part of the week.  We want to catch this individual before he takes any extremely drastic measures," said Carlson.

The suspect, who has also hit banks in Alpharetta, Sandy Springs, and Roswell, drives a burgundy Tahoe.

Anyone with information is asked to contact Dunwoody Police.  Wachovia is offering up to a $5,000 reward.

(WSB Radio) -- A Naval reservist fresh back from a tour of duty in Bahrain returned to her Clayton County home to find it had been burglarized. 

Petty Officer Karen Ray of Rex told WSB-TV someone broke out a window on the backside of her house on New Dale Road, stole two lap tops and ransacked her closets and drawers.

Ray discovered the break in following a 16 hour flight from the U.S. Military base in Bahrain to Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.  She tells Channel 2 Action News "I'm exhausted with jet lag and I can't go to bed because I've got to clean up all this stuff."

Ray's neighbors told police several homes in the Oak Trail subdivision had been broken into recently.  Investigators don't know if Ray was targeted because she is in the military.

TOKYO (AP) Delta Air Lines and its alliance partners said Wednesday they are making a billion dollar offer intended to lure loss-making Japan Airlines from its affiliation with American Airlines.

Delta is ``by far the strongest partner for Japan Airlines,'' company president Edward Bastian told reporters in Tokyo.

The offer from Delta and the SkyTeam alliance includes a $500 million capital investment, $300 million in short-term revenue guarantees, and $200 million in asset-backed financing for JAL.

SkyTeam would also cover the entire cost for JAL to transfer from the oneworld alliance, estimated by Delta to total $20 million.

The airline, Asia's largest, is seen as a valuable partner because of its routes in China and Japan. Bastian said he hopes JAL can serve as the Atlanta-based carrier's ``face of Asia.''

But its business is struggling. The Tokyo airline said last week it booked $1.5 billion in losses for the first half of the current fiscal year and was seeking government help in dealing with its creditors. Its interest-bearing debt totals nearly $10 billion.

Hit by a collapse in travel brought on by the tepid global economy and the swine flu outbreak, the company has been approved for a government-run turnaround. It is mulling large job cuts after already lowering its staff mainly through attrition as well as taking other measures such as cutting unprofitable routes.

Japan Airlines spokesman Sze Hunn Yap said the company is aware of Delta's offer but could not comment.

Bastian said JAL's relationship with the oneworld alliance has hurt the airline, with flights between North America and Japan decreasing in recent years.

In contrast, joining SkyTeam would offer JAL access to the 3.7 million Delta customers that fly every year from the U.S. to Japan. That represents a more than threefold increase from American's current passenger traffic out of the U.S. and $400 million in higher annual revenue, Bastian said.

``Continuing its current partnership threatens JAL's long-term international competitiveness,'' he said. ``Only through a partnership with SkyTeam and Delta will JAL have the strength it needs to regain a position of international leadership in Japan, Asia and across the globe.''

The Japanese company has been American's partner since the mid-1990s. They sell tickets for each others' routes as well as sharing revenue and customer frequent-flier bonuses.

American Airlines and Texas-based private investment firm TPG Inc. issued a statement Wednesday reiterating their commitment to JAL, saying that sticking with oneworld would be its best path toward recovery and future growth.

``American and its partner, TPG, stand ready to deliver significant value to JAL through a strengthened commercial relationship that will be part of a comprehensive recovery plan if invited, welcome and deemed appropriate by JAL and the Government of Japan,'' they said.

The Nikkei financial daily reported Wednesday that TPG is looking to invest 100 billion yen ($1.1 billion) in JAL as part of a coordinated effort with American Airlines.

JAL president Haruka Nishimatsu has said he wants to make a decision on any capital tie-ups by the end of the year.

The SkyTeam alliance includes Delta, Air France KLM, Aeroflot, AeroMexico, Alitalia, China Southern Airlines, Czech Airlines and Korean Air.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

(WSB Radio) University of Georgia Police are investigating claims by an 18-year-old Clemson University student who says he was beaten up in the basement of a fraternity house.

Chief Jimmy Williamson tells WSB while Stephen Spaseff's statements were credible, several details remain foggy.

"He had been consuming alcohol and that's what's making this a little more difficult.  Some of the details are a little fuzzy, but we find this fairly frequently with incidents like this," said Williamson.

Spaseff flagged down police about a block from the Ki Phi house, where he said the assault occurred.

"He said that he got into an altercation and at some point in time he ended up in the basement area of a fraternity house where he was beat on by numerous individuals," said Williamson.

Williamson said Spaseff did have injuries that would give the impression that he had been beaten up.  They weren't life-threatening or required any type of extensive medical treatment.

Williamson says they're still trying to figure out exactly what happened and if anyone from the fraternity was involved.

"We're in the process of retracing the events of that night, interviewing possible witnesses of people who may have been in the area.  We're checking for other surveillance cameras in the area to try and confirm what happened," said Williamson.

11/17/09

(WSB Radio)  The Gwinnett County School System has made changes to its proposed redistricting map after taking the suggestions of some parents who voiced concerns.

The maps were unveiled in October with the opening of five new schools next fall.  School officials received more than a thousand comments from parents since that time.

Spokesperson Sloan Roach says they've incorporated many of those suggestions and made changes to four of the five new maps.

"Some of them are minor changes and then some of them are things that we had heard from multiple parents and citizens.  We were able to look at the maps and look at the numbers and find ways to balance it in a way that we hope will make this change easier for everybody," she tells WSB's Sandra Parrish.

Roach says parents will get one final opportunity to voice concerns at a public hearing Thursday at 7pm at the school systems main offices in Suwanee.

The Gwinnett school board is expected to vote on the final recommendations at its December 10th meeting.

The state Board of Regents approved an increase Tuesday that doubles special fees enacted last year when the state began withholding money from departments and agencies. Students will pay between $50 and $100 more than they did this year, depending on where they go to school.

At research universities like the University of Georgia and Georgia Tech, students will pay $200 per semester starting in January 2010. Regents spokesman John Millsaps says the fee will raise about $24 million.

The state's 35 colleges and universities may have to turn to more furlough days and layoffs to make up the $163 million in cuts from the state this fiscal year.

On the Net:

Georgia Board of Regents: http://www.usg.edu

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

(WSB Radio)  The man wanted in the murder of a repo man in Fulton County is in custody, caught by U.S. Marshals.

Justin Moore. 29. was wanted for the shooting death of 27 year old Brandon Thomas, of Kennesaw.

Marshals arrested Moore just after 9 o'clock Tuesday morning on the 3900 block of Flat Shoals Parkway, in DeKalb County. 

The marshals, along with a Fulton County police officer, spotted Moore riding as a passenger in a Lexus.  Moore saw the officers and, while his car was still moving, bailed out, running into a nearby creek.   A brief chase followed and Moore was arrested in the creek.

Police say Thomas and another man were trying to repossess Moore's 2004 Ford Mustang last Thursday morning. 

They had hitched the car up to their tow truck and were driving off when, according to police, Moore gave chase and shot the two men.  Thomas was killed and his partner, 36 year old Willie Thackston was wounded and is recovering at Grady Memorial Hospital.

Thomas leaves behind a wife and two children.

SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) An Army cook and single mom may face criminal charges after she skipped her deployment flight to Afghanistan because, she said, no one was available to care for her infant son while she was overseas.

Spc. Alexis Hutchinson, 21, claims she had no choice but to refuse deployment orders because the only family she had to care for her 10-month-old son her mother was overwhelmed by the task, already caring for three other relatives with health problems.

Her civilian attorney, Rai Sue Sussman, said Monday that one of Hutchinson's superiors told her she would have to deploy anyway and place the child in foster care.

``For her it was like, 'I couldn't abandon my child,''' Sussman said. ``She was really afraid of what would happen, that if she showed up they would send her to Afghanistan anyway and put her son with child protective services.''

Hutchinson, who is from Oakland, Calif., remained confined Monday to the boundaries of Hunter Army Airfield in Savannah, 10 days after military police arrested her for skipping her unit's flight. No charges have been filed, but a spokesman for the Army post said commanders were investigating.

Kevin Larson, a spokesman for Hunter Army Airfield, said he didn't know what Hutchinson was told by her commanders, but he said the Army would not deploy a single parent who had nobody to care for his or her child.

``I don't know what transpired and the investigation will get to the bottom of it,'' Larson said. ``If she would have come to the deployment terminal with her child, there's no question she would not have been deployed.''

Hutchinson's son, Kamani, was placed into custody overnight with a daycare provider on the Army post after she was arrested and jailed briefly, Larson said. Hutchinson's mother picked up the child a week ago and took him back to her home in California.

Hutchinson, who's assigned to the 3rd Combat Aviation Brigade of the Army's 3rd Infantry Division, joined the Army in 2007 and had no previous deployments, Sussman said. She said Hutchinson is no longer in a relationship with the father.

The Army requires all single-parent soldiers to submit a care plan for dependent children before they can deploy to a combat zone.

Hutchinson had such a plan her mother, Angelique Hughes, had agreed to care for the boy. Hughes said Monday she kept the boy for about two weeks in October before deciding she couldn't keep him for a full year.

Hughes said she's already having to care for her ailing mother and sister, as well as a daughter with special needs. She also runs a daycare center at her home, keeping about 14 children during the day.

``This is an infant, and they require 24-hour care,'' Hughes said. ``It was very, very stressful, just too much for me to deal with.''

Hughes said she returned Kamani to his mother in Georgia a few days before her scheduled deployment Nov. 5.

She said they told her daughter's commanders they needed more time to find another family member or close friend to help Hughes care for the boy, but Hutchinson was ordered to deploy on schedule.

Larson, the Army post spokesman, said officials planned to keep Hutchinson in Georgia as investigators gathered facts about the case.

``Spc. Hutchinson's deployment is halted,'' Larson said. ``There will be no deployment while this situation is ongoing.''

Russ Bynum has covered the military based in Georgia since 2001.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) Costco says it is no longer carrying Coca-Cola products in its stores nationwide due to a pricing dispute with the beverage maker.

The Issaquah, Wash.-based wholesale club operator would not discuss the matter further. But a Costco executive confirmed Monday that the company is no longer carrying products from the world's largest soft drink maker.

Atlanta-based Coca-Cola Co. says it won't comment on on-going negotiations but said Costco is an important customer that it is committed to working with ``in a spirit of fairness.''

Costco Wholesale Corp. operates about 560 warehouses in the U.S. and abroad.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

WASHINGTON (AP) The Federal Reserve on Monday proposed new rules to protect consumers from unexpected costs or restrictions on gift cards.

More than 95 percent of Americans have received or purchased gift cards, the Fed said.

Under the proposed rule, consumers must have at least five years to use the gift cards before they expire. The Fed also said service or inactivity fees can be imposed only under certain conditions.

Such fees can be charged if the consumer hasn't used the card for at least a year, if the consumer is given clear disclosures about them and no more than one fee is charged a month, the Fed said.

The Fed was directed to take the action under a law Congress passed in May.

``Consumers who do not use the value of the card within a short period of time may be surprised to find that the card has expired or that dormancy or service fees have reduced the value of the card,'' the Fed explained. ``Even where fees or terms are disclosed on or with the card, the disclosures may not be clear and conspicuous.''

The public, industry groups and other interested parties can comment on the Fed's proposal, which could be revised before a final rule is adopted.

The Fed said the new provisions are slated to take effect on Aug. 22.

``These rules are the right step, but it would be far better for them to take effect in time for this holiday shopping season,'' said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., who championed the gift card crackdown in Congress. ``We will continue to push the Fed to speed up the effective data so that we end abuses by gift card issuers as soon as possible.''

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

MARIETTA, Ga. (AP) Some parents of Cobb County students have joined a petition drive opposing changes in the school system's calendar.

The calendar approved last week by the county school board will shorten summer break for students by two weeks.

Cobb County students will have a week off in September and February and a full week at Thanksgiving. Students will begin classes during the first week in August and finish the Friday before Memorial Day.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that an e-mail petition circulating on the Internet shows the group says it has collected the names of 300 parents against the new calendar.

The calendar was approved by a 4-3 vote by the county school board.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

(WSB Radio) -- Budget cuts and reductions in service are on the way in Fulton County - all because the county does not have the money to make ends meet.

Tax revenue is down 14-percent.  As a result the 2010 county budget will reflect some $130 million in cutbacks.

For now, property tax increases are off the table. 

"I am not going to be pushing or promoting raising any taxes," said Commission Chairman John Eaves.

However, jobs may be at risk - as many as 300 county workers could be pink slipped.  Union President Greg Fann hopes commissioners will consider furloughs before firings.

"People need their jobs, but these are tough economic times and we know there are tough decisions to be made," said Fann.  "We believe they're working in good faith with us to make sure people keep their jobs and are gainfully employed."

(WSB Radio) -- An Atlanta City Councilman is floating a controversial idea he hopes will generate more revenue. 

Kwanza Hall has introduced a resolution that calls for a study of extending last call at city bars and restaurants from 2:30 a.m. to 4:00 a.m.  Last call in Atlanta was rolled back to 2:30 a.m. in December of 2003.

Hall tells Channel 2 Action News "We need to figure out additional sources of revenue, but we're really not sure what the trade off is on public safety."  Hall believes sales taxes generated by extending the hours for the sale of alcoholic beverages could fund public safety improvements.

City Council President Lisa Borders calls Hall's proposal irresponsible.  She says "We don't have enough police officers to handle the crime we have in the city today, particularly property crime, so why would you introduce something that would make the problem worse?"

After Hall filed the legislation, Borders sent it to the City Council's Finance/Executive committee for further discussion.  When asked about the future of Hall's proposal, committee chairman Howard Shook told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution "This will be dead on arrival."

Buckhead Coalition President and former Mayor Sam Massell told the Atlanta newspaper the possible revenue from an additional 90 minutes for party-goers to drink is not worth the potential trouble.

Hall's resolution is non-binding.  There is no timetable on when, or if, the measure will come up for a vote before the full council.

ATLANTA (AP) House Speaker Glenn Richardson took sleeping pills in a failed attempt to kill himself and then called his mother to tell her he loved her, according to a recording of the 911 call released on Monday.

It was his mother, Merty Richardson, who called 911 on the evening of Nov. 8. A recording of the 911 call was released by the Paulding County Sheriff's Department on Monday in response to an open records request.

``It's my son, Glenn Richardson, the speaker of the House of Representatives,'' a distraught-sounding Merty Richardson told the 911 dispatcher.

Richardson's mother said her son had taken sleeping pills on purpose.

``He had gotten very, very upset,'' she said. ``He called to tell us that he loved us and that it was too late to do anything.''

Sheriffs deputies arrived at Richardson's Hiram home and found the Republican lawmaker on the edge of the bathtub in his master bathroom with a gun nearby. There was also a suicide note and ``another note related to the suicide.'' The contents of the notes were not revealed.

Authorities said he was semiconscious and was taken to the hospital.

In a statement released late Friday, Richardson revealed the suicide attempt and said he has struggled with depression for 2 1/2 years, since his separation and divorce from his wife, Susan. He said he is under a physician's care and is taking prescription medication.

On Monday Richardson's spokesman, Marshall Guest, told The Associated Press that Richardson ``intends to continue on as speaker.''

He was heading to a fundraiser Monday night in Southwest Georgia for Republican Rep. Ed Rynders.

``He wants to support his caucus members and plans to keep a limited schedule,'' Guest said.

Rynders said that he was ``honored'' to have the speaker at his event, which was organized long before recent events put Richardson in the spotlight.

``The response here in southwest Georgia has been overwhelmingly compassionate,'' Rynders said.

``This is an illness that can affect anyone and I think people here recognize that and wish him well.''

Christina Owens, area director for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, Metro Atlanta, praised Richardson for coming forward.

``Unfortunately, suicide and mental disorders such as depression are surrounded by stigma and misconceptions which prevent many people from seeking the help they desperately need,'' Owens said in a statement.

News of Richardson's suicide try continued to reverberate on Monday among state leaders.

Gov. Sonny Perdue told WSB-TV a decision about his fate as the leader of the Georgia House is up to the 180 legislators in the chamber.

``His health is more important than any political decision,'' Perdue said while in Dubai on a trade mission. ``While he's currently broken he has a great ability to come back.''

The combative Richardson survived a coup attempt in 2008 from state Rep. David Ralston, R-Blue Ridge, who had questioned the speaker's temperament.

``I will be the first to tell you I have made mistakes along the way. But I will tell you this also, I have learned from the mistakes,'' Richardson told caucus members who voted to let him keep his gavel.

At the end of the 2008 legislative session, Richardson angrily called for the ouster of Casey Cagle after the lieutenant governor helped kill his tax cut plan. He called on Cagle ``to stand up and be a man.'' In 2007, Richardson accused Perdue of showing his ``backside'' after a feud with the governor over tax cuts.

This year Richardson kept a low profile and avoided any outbursts.

Richardson helped engineer the GOP takeover of the House in 2004 and won the speaker's post soon afterward. He's the first Republican to lead the chamber since Reconstruction.

Associated Press Writer Greg Bluestein contributed to this report.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

JONESBORO, Ga. (AP) Clayton County Schools officials are investigating claims that a special education teacher threatened a student.

Spokesman Charles White said Monday that Mundy's Mill High School teacher Randolph Forde remains on administrative leave with pay following his arrest last month.

Forde was charged with making terroristic threats against a 16-year-old student and was released on a $10,000 bond. He is scheduled to attend an employment hearing on Tuesday on possible disciplinary action.

Attorney Terance Madden represents the student and said Forde pulled him from class and asked if he was gay. He said the teacher also threatened to hit him in the mouth and asked another student to put a hit on his client.

Forde's attorney, Borquaye Thomas, said students said Forde often plays around with them and everyone knew he joking about the reference to a hit.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

GREENVILLE, S.C. (AP) The mayor-elect of a Georgia town has been arrested for drunken driving in South Carolina.

Multiple media outlets reported Monday that Jennifer Sudderth was arrested in Greenville early Saturday. The 36-year-old was elected mayor of Hartwell, Ga., earlier this month and is expected to take office in January.

Hartwell is approximately 62 miles southwest of Greenville.

A police report says Sudderth was stopped because her car swerved over the white lines. She told the arresting officer she was trying to get home after leaving a friend's house but was lost and needed gas. The report says she failed a field sobriety test.

Sudderth told WLHR-FM the incident is a misunderstanding that will be cleared up this week. The Hart County middle school teacher declined to explain, but said she'd hired an attorney.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

ATHENS, Ga. (AP) Athens-Clarke police say they made 23 underage drinking arrests during and after the Georgia-Auburn football game.

The Athens Banner-Herald reports Monday that most approached the officers first, had an open-container or had passed out downtown.

Police used an ammonia capsule to wake a drunken 20-year-old who passed out in the bathroom of Five Guys Burgers and Fries. The man had two IDs in his pockets, one real and one fake.

It was the second time in a week that a drunken man passed out in the restaurant bathroom.

Police say another man was arrested after he asked officers for help finding his friends and they asked for ID because he smelled of alcohol.

The man gave the officer his ID and then ran away and tried to escape by crawling under a parked car.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

NEW YORK (AP) Most women don't need a mammogram in their 40s and should get one every two years starting at 50, a government task force said Monday. It's a major reversal that conflicts with the American Cancer Society's long-standing position.

Also, the task force said breast self-exams do no good and women shouldn't be taught to do them.

For most of the past two decades, the cancer society has been recommending annual mammograms beginning at 40.

But the government panel of doctors and scientists concluded that getting screened for breast cancer so early and so often leads to too many false alarms and unneeded biopsies without substantially improving women's odds of survival.

``The benefits are less and the harms are greater when screening starts in the 40s,'' said Dr. Diana Petitti, vice chair of the panel.

The new guidelines were issued by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, whose stance influences coverage of screening tests by Medicare and many insurance companies.

But Susan Pisano, a spokeswoman for America's Health Insurance Plans, an industry group, said insurance coverage isn't likely to change because of the new guidelines. No changes are planned in Medicare coverage either, said Dori Salcido, spokeswoman for the Health and Human Services department.

Experts expect the task force revisions to be hotly debated, and to cause confusion for women and their doctors.

``Our concern is that as a result of that confusion, women may elect not to get screened at all. And that, to me, would be a serious problem,'' said Dr. Len Lichtenfeld, the cancer society's deputy chief medical officer.

The guidelines are for the general population, not those at high risk of breast cancer because of family history or gene mutations that would justify having mammograms sooner or more often.

The new advice says:

Most women in their 40s should not routinely get mammograms.

Women 50 to 74 should get a mammogram every other year until they turn 75, after which the risks and benefits are unknown. (The task force's previous guidelines had no upper limit and called for exams every year or two.)

The value of breast exams by doctors is unknown. And breast self-exams are of no value.

Medical groups such as the cancer society have been backing off promoting breast self-exams in recent years because of scant evidence of their effectiveness. Decades ago, the practice was so heavily promoted that organizations distributed cards that could be hung in the shower demonstrating the circular motion women should use to feel for lumps in their breasts.

The guidelines and research supporting them were released Monday and are being published in Tuesday's issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine.

The new advice was sharply challenged by the cancer society.

``This is one screening test I recommend unequivocally, and would recommend to any woman 40 and over,'' the society's chief medical officer, Dr. Otis Brawley, said in a statement.

The task force advice is based on its conclusion that screening 1,300 women in their 50s to save one life is worth it, but that screening 1,900 women in their 40s to save a life is not, Brawley wrote.

That stance ``is essentially telling women that mammography at age 40 to 49 saves lives, just not enough of them,'' he said. The cancer society feels the benefits outweigh the harms for women in both groups.

International guidelines also call for screening to start at age 50; the World Health Organization recommends the test every two years, Britain says every three years.

Breast cancer is the most common cancer and the second leading cause of cancer deaths in American women. More than 192,000 new cases and 40,000 deaths from the disease are expected in the U.S. this year.

Mammograms can find cancer early, and two-thirds of women over 40 report having had the test in the previous two years. But how much they cut the risk of dying of the disease, and at what cost in terms of unneeded biopsies, expense and worry, have been debated.

In most women, tumors are slow-growing, and that likelihood increases with age. So there is little risk by extending the time between mammograms, some researchers say. Even for the minority of women with aggressive, fast-growing tumors, annual screening will make little difference in survival odds.

The new guidelines balance these risks and benefits, scientists say.

The probability of dying of breast cancer after age 40 is 3 percent, they calculate. Getting a mammogram every other year from ages 50 to 69 lowers that risk by about 16 percent.

``It's an average of five lives saved per thousand women screened,'' said Georgetown University researcher Dr. Jeanne Mandelblatt.

Starting at age 40 would prevent one additional death but also lead to 470 false alarms for every 1,000 women screened. Continuing mammograms through age 79 prevents three additional deaths but raises the number of women treated for breast cancers that would not threaten their lives.

``You save more lives because breast cancer is more common, but you diagnose tumors in women who were destined to die of something else. The overdiagnosis increases in older women,'' Mandelblatt said.

She led six teams around the world who used federal data on cancer and mammography to develop mathematical models of what would happen if women were screened at different ages and time intervals. Their conclusions helped shape the new guidelines.

Several medical groups say they are sticking to their guidelines that call for routine screening starting at 40.

``Screening isn't perfect. But it's the best thing we have. And it works,'' said Dr. Carol Lee, a spokeswoman for the American College of Radiology. She suggested that cutting health care costs may have played a role in the decision, but Petitti said the task force does not consider cost or insurance in its review.

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists also has qualms. The organization's Dr. Hal Lawrence said there is still significant benefit to women in their 40s, adding: ``We think that women deserve that benefit.''

But Dr. Amy Abernethy of the Duke Comprehensive Cancer Center agreed with the task force's changes.

``Overall, I think it really took courage for them to do this,'' she said. ``It does ask us as doctors to change what we do and how we communicate with patients. That's no small undertaking.''

Abernethy, who is 41, said she got her first mammogram the day after her 40th birthday, even though she wasn't convinced it was needed. Now she doesn't plan to have another mammogram until she is 50.

Barbara Brenner, executive director of the San Francisco-based Breast Cancer Action, said the group was ``thrilled'' with the revisions. The advocacy group doesn't support screening before menopause, and will be changing its suggested interval from yearly to every two years, she said.

Mammograms, like all medical interventions, have risks and benefits, she said.

``Women are entitled to know what they are and to make their best decisions,'' she said. ``These guidelines will help that conversation.''

Medical Writer Marilynn Marchione reported from Milwaukee.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

(WSB Radio)  DeKalb Police Officer Jason Gagnon serves as the department's public information officer.  His job is to speak on behalf of the police force.  But, on Monday, the most memorable thing Gagnon said was, "AHHHHHHHHHHH."

Gagnon had just been tazed by a fellow officer.

It's part of training for DeKalb officers, because tasers are returning to the streets of DeKalb County.

Police are redeploying the devices to every officer ranked sergeant and below.

Tasers were removed from the police arsenal under the orders of former DeKalb CEO Vernon Jones.  The decision came after tasers came under fire because of incidents in other jurisdictions in which some suspects died after being tazed.

"There's always going to be controversy around anything," says DeKalb Police Officer Joseph White, who leads the police department's taser training.  "It's electricity.  Electricity is like snakes for a lot of people.  They're apprehensive about things they don't know about."

But, White says, ultimately, tasers do save lives and make things safer for both officer and suspect.

"It reduces officer injuries and it reduces injuries to the suspect," he says.  "That's why we redeployed it."

As part of the training, every officer who will be carrying a taser was tazed themselves, including Officer Gagnon.

"It was only for two seconds," he says.  "It could have kept going for five or more.  I can't imagine what that must be like."

the Why taze the officers?

"The theory behind that is that it is less likely to be used in a punitive measure," says Officer White.  "So they're not  going to be going out and just using it, because they know what it feels like.  They've been exposed to it."

Approximately 1000 tasers are being issued to DeKalb County police.  Under the old guidelines, only supervisors were given tasers.

NEW YORK (AP) Lou Dobbs says he doesn't feel like he was pushed out of CNN, the news organization where he worked for all but two years of its existence until last Wednesday.

``Not at all,'' he said in a weekend interview. ``I don't know if people will believe it, but we had a very amicable parting on the best of terms. I spent 29 years there building that company, and I wish everyone there nothing but the best, and they have reciprocated with me.''

He announced his resignation on ``Lou Dobbs Tonight,'' finished the newscast and walked out of CNN.

It's hard to know whether the abruptness or the lack of rancor surrounding the exit was more noteworthy. Dobbs' outspokenness had made him a political target so much so that there were parties celebrating the departure over the weekend and an uncomfortable contradiction to what CNN says it wants to be.

Dobbs said he plans to take time deciding what he wants to do, beyond his daily radio show. He promised to reach out to groups who criticized him, most prominently because he advocated stern measures to halt illegal immigration. A petition campaign seeking his ouster took root in recent months after Dobbs gave attention on his show to questions about President Barack Obama's place of birth.

Dobbs spoke his mind freely on his radio show, unrelated to CNN, but tried at management's request for the past several months to do a straight television newscast. He and CNN President Jon Klein spoke frequently about the direction of the show.

Although the decision to leave was characterized as mutual, Dobbs said he approached Klein to say it wasn't working for him. There was no ``eureka'' moment, Dobbs said.

``What they do is their business and I tried to accommodate them as best I could, but I've said for many years now that neutrality is not part of my being,'' he said. ``I have strong views about a lot of issues that are important to the country and I think are important to my audience.''

CNN has tried to promote an unbiased approach to establish a middle ground between opinionated hosts on Fox News Channel and MSNBC. Dobbs was quickly replaced by John King, the straightforward political reporter who used to work for The Associated Press.

Dobbs said he will take weeks perhaps months to sift through ideas before deciding his next step.

The future could include journalism. He said his separation agreement didn't have a non-compete clause, something TV news organizations frequently use to keep people off the air for a while. Dobbs denied reports that he had met with Fox News chief Roger Ailes or had talked to anyone at Fox about a job.

He said he's eager to meet with some of the groups that have criticized him. Most prominent are Latino organizations that had contended his anti-illegal immigration stance was insulting and encouraged an atmosphere of prejudice.

``This has been an orchestrated campaign of both distortion and outright propaganda for the purpose of the open border and unconditional amnesty agenda,'' Dobbs said. ``That's politics. I understand that. But I'm going to reach out to everyone with whom I've had a disagreement and see if there's a way in which we can calmly and dispassionately discuss our differences and talk about solutions.''

Roberto Lovato, whose Presente.org group helped organize the anti-Dobbs petition effort, said Dobbs has called him a ``flea,'' a ``bozo'' and a ``nonentity'' on his radio show. He declined an opportunity to face off with Dobbs on his turf, the radio program, and said he wouldn't be on Dobbs' CNN show unless Klein also appeared. It didn't happen.

Still, if Dobbs wants to meet privately to talk, Lovato said he would.

``At the end of the day, we are human beings, all of us,'' he said.

Dobbs' outwardly congenial departure from CNN is in sharp contrast to his exile from 1999-2001. He feuded with then-CNN President Rick Kaplan, even making his displeasure with management known over the air, and returned after Kaplan left.

A determined effort not to burn bridges with an important news organization? Seeking rapprochement with former foes? It almost sounds political.

During his CNN announcement last week, an American flag graphic fluttered behind Dobbs' face. On his radio show the next day, Dobbs took calls from listeners who urged the New Jersey resident to run for the U.S. Senate, or even for president. (His producer cued up a recording of ``Hail to the Chief'' during those calls)

Dobbs didn't encourage such talk. He didn't discourage it, either.

The former Republican makes political independence a central theme of his radio show, which could be a skillful positioning during a time of intense partisanship. ``I've aligned myself with no group, no organization,'' he said. ``I am truly an independent. I carry no one's water. I'm aligned with no interest group, no organized political party, nor do I intend to be. I relish being an independent and having my freedom.''

A run for public office interests him, Dobbs said. It's one of several options he said he's considering.

``I know certain things that are immutable and one of them is that I'm going to be engaged in the public arena,'' he said.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) A long punt return had put Matt Ryan in a good spot. The ball was at midfield, Carolina's defense was tiring and Atlanta seemed poised for a comeback victory.

It took just one play for the hopes to be dashed and the whispers of a sophomore slump to grow louder.

Ryan's badly overthrown pass was picked off by Richard Marshall, setting up the Panthers' clinching touchdown in their 28-19 over the Falcons on Sunday that left Ryan with one more interception (12) than his entire rookie season.

``There are going to be things that you have to learn along the way,'' said Ryan, who threw two more picks, leaving him with 10 in five games. ``It's a tough league.''

Jake Delhomme knows that, after the veteran's brutal stretch of 13 interceptions in the first six games. He made it three straight games without a turnover as Carolina unleashed a no-huddle offense that put the gunslinger in his element.

Delhomme threw two touchdown passes to Steve Smith, and Carolina (4-5) overcame the loss of left tackle Jordan Gross to a broken ankle to win for the fourth time in six games.

``Every time I was touching it, I was turning it over,'' Delhomme said of his horrible start to the season. ``It certainly helped not turning it over today.''

Ryan's miscues aren't all that's ailing the Falcons (5-4), who fell to 1-4 on the road. Michael Turner didn't return after spraining his right ankle in the second quarter when he already had 111 yards on nine carries.

Turner was expected to undergo tests in Atlanta on Monday. Jason Snelling, the only healthy running back left, finished with 61 yards and a touchdown on 18 carries in Turner's place.

With Ryan completing only 7 of 19 passes in the first half, the Panthers built a 21-10 halftime lead. Delhomme looked poised and the Falcons struggled to get the right defensive personnel on the field.

Delhomme, no longer the NFL leader in interceptions after Jay Cutler's struggles with Chicago, found Smith on a pair of 4-yard TDs. Much of Delhomme's best work over the years has come in the 2-minute offense, and he finished 15 of 24 for 195 yards.

``That is something that we practice a good bit,'' Delhomme said of the no-huddle. ``I'm extremely comfortable in that situation.''

The Panthers' offense wasn't as successful after halftime, allowing Ryan to show some of his rookie magic.

Ryan got the Falcons within 21-19 when he found tight end Justin Peelle for a 3-yard TD on fourth-and-1. The 2-point conversion attempt with 13:44 left failed when Chris Gamble tackled Snelling on a swing pass.

Ryan later converted a third-and-11 from his own 3 with a 13-yard pass to Tony Gonzalez. But the drive stalled and Jason Elam hesitated twice before pulling the short field-goal attempt with 6:35 left.

``My timing was kind of a mess from the start,'' Elam said. ``It's me. I need to take the blame.''

The Panthers went three-and-out and Eric Weems returned the ensuing punt to the Carolina 49. But Ryan threw into double coverage, setting up Jonathan Stewart's 45-yard touchdown run with 2:07 left.

Stewart rushed for 82 yards and two scores. DeAngelo Williams, questionable going into the game with a sore left knee, added 92 on the ground and was a big fan of the no-huddle.

``We work on it practice all the time. We have our 2-minute drill and have the opportunity to let Jake call his own plays,'' Williams said. ``I think he did a phenomenal job today.''

While the Panthers have little time to plan for the loss of Gross with a Thursday night game looming against Miami, the Falcons tried to brush off concerns about Ryan.

He was 22 of 41 for 224 yards and one touchdown, and the Falcons were unable to take advantage of Carolina's revamped defense after linebacker Thomas Davis' season-ending knee injury last week.

``I don't think there's anything technically wrong with him,'' receiver Michael Jenkins said of Ryan. ``We've just got to limit turnovers and execute better.''

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)