Augusta | featured news

One local man died and others were injured in an interstate crash in Arizona earlier this week.
According to the Arizona Department of Public Safety, traffic was stopped on Interstate 40 for an earlier collision when a commercial vehicle occupied by Augusta-area residents failed to stop for the stalled traffic and struck the rear of another commercial vehicle driven by a California man around 4:45 a.m. Monday. The impact pushed the first commercial vehicle into a car stopped in front of it.

A man arrested in the beating of a Morningside Drive man during a home invasion Saturday is also facing arson charges for an unrelated incident.
On Wednesday, Gerry McNair Haynes, 38, was charged with aggravated assault and home invasion in the case.
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ATLANTA — Tests have found that more than half of Atlanta Public Schools buildings had elevated levels of lead in drinking water, with some as high as 15 times the federal limit for water systems.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, which obtained the test results under Georgia’s open records law, reports that 30 Atlanta schools and other buildings have been tested so far.
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SANDY SPRINGS, Ga. — A woman is recovering after police say a sharp piece of debris flew through her windshield and impaled her in the neck while she was driving outside of Atlanta.

Sandy Springs Police Sgt. Forrest Bohannon tells WSB-TV the woman was able to pull over and call for help on state Route 400 Saturday afternoon after the object, similar to a railroad tie, crashed through the windshield and struck her.

Bohannon says the woman was hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries.

EAST POINT, Ga. — Authorities say they have arrested a father and his girlfriend in connection with a missing 7-year-old girl who police believe has been killed.

East Point police tell news outlets that unidentified charges are pending against the father of Kamaire Wash, as well as the father’s girlfriend.

Authorities have not released the suspects’ names in what police Capt. Cliff Chandler says is now considered a homicide investigation.

WHITESBURG, Ga. — Divers have recovered the body of a 28-year-old man who apparently drowned while trying to swim across the Chattahoochee River over the weekend.

Carroll County Fire Chief Scott W. Blue tells news outlets that the body of Timothy S. Phillips was found Wednesday in Carroll County about a mile down the river from where he went underwater Saturday night.
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Georgia State Patrol troopers, Warren County sheriff’s deputies and the coroner are on the scene of a traffic accident this morning on I-20 in Warren County.

The accident took place about 5 a.m. near mile marker 165 and involved an 18-wheeler FedEx truck, authorities said.
Coroner Paul Lowe and Warren County EMS/fire rescue crews are also on the scene.

A new Augusta demolition program has seen 44 abandoned properties razed in the past year, but challenges and hundreds of similar ones remain.
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A severe thunderstorm that brought dime-size hail and more than 2 inches of rain hit Columbia County on Thursday evening.
According to Pam Tuck­er, the county’s emergency management director, the storm ripped through subdivisions and homes along Hardy Mc­Man­us Road just before 6 p.m. In all, 2.43 inches of rain was reported in less than an hour, Tucker said.
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Fallout continued Thursday from a biting email Mayor Hardie Davis sent City Administrator Janice Allen Jackson last week demanding she provide him documents related to a fair chance hiring policy and calling her unprofessional and obstructionist when she refused.
Davis wanted information a consultant had drafted on including the policy – resembling the mayor’s “ban the box” proposal – in the city’s personnel policies, ahead of the consultant’s Wednesday presentation to commissioners.