GPB News

A law is set to take effect in Georgia Thursday that requires sex offenders to hand over Internet passwords, screen names and e-mail addresses.

Georgia joins a small band of states complying with guidelines in a 2006 federal law requiring authorities to track Internet addresses of sex offenders. But the state is among the first to take the extra step of forcing its 16,000 offenders to turn in their passwords as well.

A federal judge ruled in September that a similar law in Utah violated the privacy rights of an offender who challenged it. That ruling applied to only one offender who had a military conviction
on sex offenses but was never in Utah's court or prison system.

No one in Georgia has challenged the law yet. But critics say it threatens the privacy of sex offenders and places an additional burden on law enforcement officials.

State Sen. Cecil Staton, who wrote the bill, says the measure is designed to keep the Internet safe for children. Authorities could use the passwords and other information to make sure offenders aren't stalking children online or chatting with them about off-limits topics.

Click here for more GPB News coverage of similar issues.

(AP)

The insurance industry is anticipating a profitable 2009 thanks to new Georgia laws taking effect January 1st.

Georgia’s insurance commissioner will no longer have the power to control auto insurance rate increases. Commissioner John Oxedine fought that new law. He says auto insurance rates could spike by twenty five percent or more. The industry says the change will allow more competition.

Also, this year motorists will have the option of choosing Uninsured motorist coverage. Insurance companies say UM, as it’s called, offers protections against hit and runs. Some consumer advocates say it’s a profitable product that offers little real world protection.

Monday’s underground electrical explosion in Savannah’s historic district has city officials "very concerned". It’s the second such blast in four months.

Earlier this year, the area surrounding Savannah’s City Hall and historic district was shut down when an underground electrical fire cut-off power to much of downtown and sent smoke up through the street.

Yesterday’s explosion was in the same general area, blowing-off manhole covers, sparking a handful of small fires and again knocking-out power to the area.

Savannah officials want answers as soon as possible--if for no other reason than to give tourists peace-of-mind.

City spokesman Brett Bell says face-to-face meetings have already begun.

"We spent much of last night with them, we’re meeting with them today, we plan a full sit-down with them next week so they can explain to us what exactly happened and what they’re doing to prevent this from happening again."

Bell says the response by Georgia Power this time was much better than that of the incident in August.

He says that was a result of meetings they had with company officials four months ago.

Georgia Power officials say it’s too early to tell how similar this blast is to the August incident.

Company spokesman Jeff Wilson has this to say over tourist concerns walking the streets of Savannah’s historic downtown.

"Safety is obviously the #1 priority for the public and our employees. Whatever the cause of this second explosion was, we will determine what that cause is and make any and every necessary correction so it doesn’t happen again."

Wilson says it may be a few weeks before a cause to Monday’s explosion can be pinpointed.

The Georgia State Patrol is predicting 20 traffic deaths on Georgia roads during the 102-hour New Year's Day holiday weekend that begins Wednesday at 6 p.m. and ends at midnight Sunday.

Lieutenant Paul Cosper of the Georgia State Patrol says speeding is a big culprit:
"People don't leave that safety zone. They'll get to traveling at speed and they'll tailgate, and next thing you know; somebody applies the brakes, and somebody's not paying attention, and we have a wreck."
Cosper estimates there will be more than 3,000 accidents and over with 1,300 injuries.

Last year during a 102-hour holiday period there were 2,109 accidents with 1,250 injuries and 22 deaths.

The national “Drunk Driving. Over the Limit. Under Arrest.” campaign begun December 19th also concludes this weekend.

But Department of Public Safety officials say troopers will be out in force making spot sobriety checks.

The Department of Public Safety website will update the holiday period traffic count every six hours.

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Two hundred million dollars in grants has been brought-in by the state’s universities this year. The Georgia Research Alliance says 60 leading researchers have been attracted to the state through the "eminent scholars" program. That program is part of a plan to improve Georgia’s economy by hiring researchers whose innovation spurs new high tech companies. The Alliance says more than 16-hundred jobs have been created as a result of researchers' connections to related faculty, technicians and other workers. Since the establishment of the "eminent scholars" program in 1992, 17 scholars have founded more than 35 new Georgia companies in high-tech, high-wage areas.

Georgia Power says it may be a few weeks until they know the exact cause of an underground electrical explosion in Savannah’s downtown tourist district Monday morning. By 8pm last night, power had been restored to most if not all of remaining areas that had been without electricity since the blast--two of the city’s biggest hotels and the City Market complex were among the remaining areas to get electricity back.

The underground explosion around 8:45am Monday morning happened near Savannah’s City Hall and the tourist district of River Street. The blast blew-out a few manhole covers and sparked a handful of small fires, along with the knockout of electricity. Jeff Wilson of Georgia Power says this is the second underground explosion to hit the same area of Savannah’s downtown in four months. Georgia Power is a few months into a multi-year, 50-million dollar project to upgrade Savannah’s underground power grid.

Temperatures in Georgia are about fifteen degrees higher than typical for this time of year. And forecasters at the national weather service expect that trend to continue, as they predict a warmer winter season in 2009.

That doesn’t mean the air won’t get cold. By New Years day, forecasters expect temperatures to drop off by ten degrees. Still, forecasters say an above normal winter could produce some days much higher than the seasonal average.

This current warm air is courtesy of an air stream from the Gulf of Mexico. More tropical air could flood the southeast, as ocean waters stay warm into the winter. Forecasters do not believe these warmer highs in the southeast is due to global, man made climate change.

Savannah blast. (Franklin Headley/Savannah Morning News)

An underground explosion in downtown Savannah Monday morning shut down City Hall, and resulted in the evacuation of nearby businesses.

There were no injuries; police say the blast broke a window at a nearby restaurant.

Electricity went out in some areas, including the city's historic district, according to Savannah Police spokeswoman Judy Powell:
"It looks like that most of the power is going to be on in most of the areas before 4 pm, and the only areas they are expecting to be closed are the areas closest to the where the original incident occurred around Drayton and Bay street."
Powell said that City Hall would remain closed until tomorrow.

Police say the explosion occurred around 8:45am near Abercorn and Bay streets, and blew off three manhole covers, igniting three separate fires. Firefighters doused flames from the blast by 10am.

Georgia Power spokesman Jeff Wilson said the explosion may have been caused by a cable fire, but couldn't confirm the report:
"We still do not know the cause of the outage and explosion; we'll be investigating that throughout the day, and once the equipment cools, that will enable us to go in there and determine the exact cause."Wilson said about 60 Georgia Power customers lost service.

A similar explosion occurred in August, but Wilson said it was unclear if the causes were related.

Beneath the glowing red Coca-Cola headquarters sign, case worker Hylda Jackson bargains with one of Atlanta's homeless.

Jackson wants to know if Harry Byrd would like his own apartment. If he says no, he'll remain among the 750,000 homeless sprinkled across the nation's streets and shelters each night.

In Atlanta and other cities, a sense of urgency has settled over the efforts of advocates such as Jackson.

The recession is catching many of the nation's largest cities in the middle of pioneering 10-year plans to drastically reduce the number of chronically homeless and channeling them into apartments with built-in case workers.
"It's the start of tough times," said Protip Biswas, executive director of United Way Atlanta's Regional Commission on Homelessness.Biswas is asking his own case workers to nearly double their load.

Atlanta's 5-year-old program is considered one of the most successful - it's created 1,600 units of supportive housing for the chronically homeless. Of 750 people recently tracked through the program, 90 percent remained housed after a year.

In turn, chronic homelessness is down 16 percent in the metro area.

(AP)

Click here for more GPB News coverage about homeless issues statewide.

After completion of a satisfying regular season, the Atlanta Falcons will quickly turn the page this week in preparation for the NFL playoffs.

The 31-27 victory over the St. Louis Rams inside the Georgia Dome Sunday capped an 11-5 season for the Falcons--a 7-win improvement over last season. The disaster of 2007 included star quarterback Michael Vick landing in federal prison on a dogfighting conviction, and the team's head coach quitting near the end of the season.

Now under the guidance of new head coach Mike Smith and the surprising play of rookie quarterback Matt Ryan, the Falcons hit the playoffs. They will go on the road for a wild card matchup in Phoneix against the Arizona Cardinals. Kickoff is 4:30pm Saturday.

The Georgia State Patrol reports 24 people died on the state’s roadways for the holiday period, which began Christmas Eve at 6pm, and ending midnight Sunday. Officials had predicted 19 deaths for Georgia’s roads during the period.

Officials with an Atlanta university hope a weekend rally that raised $60,000 will spur more donations to help the school pay a massive water bill and keep its doors open. The rally in support of Morris Brown College was staged to raise money aimed at paying-off a bill of $380,000 owed the city of Atlanta. Unless that bill is paid in full, the historically black institution will not reopen when classes are scheduled to resume on January 9th. Morris Brown’s president says fundraising rallies will continue for the school, and officials are appealing to Atlanta-based celebrities to pitch-in. A few years ago, the school went through an embezzlement scandal that almost closed the institution.

AP/CHRIS VIOLA National Park Service resource manager John Fry tells the story of the one-room First African Baptist Church on Cumberland Island. The church was the site of the wedding of John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette in 1996 and is the most popular spot on the island's north end. (Photo: Chris Viola/AP)

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Fry mashes the brakes and curses under his breath as a pack of wild hogs scurries across the narrow dirt road, where spiky palmetto fronds claw at both sides of his National Park Service pickup.

It takes nearly an hour to drive the bumpy 13-mile Main Road on wild Cumberland Island. Fry's truck passes within inches of burly live-oak branches drooping overhead. Backpackers hiking the route are forced to step off and let him pass.

"We lose a lot of mirrors and windshields here," says Fry, the Park Service's chief resource manager for the island, nodding toward the twisted mount for the truck's missing passenger side mirror.

Getting around has never been easy on Cumberland Island, a federally protected wilderness off the Georgia coast that's larger than Manhattan. Reachable only by boat, and off limits to most wheeled vehicles, the island's inaccessibility made it the ideal spot for John F. Kennedy Jr. to ditch the prying paparazzi when he married Carolyn Bessette here in 1996.

For more than 25 years, government rules have required most of the 43,500 visitors who come each year to explore the island on foot. But under a mandate from Congress, the Park Service plans to change that early next year by offering daily motorized tours in spite of the tough terrain and cries of protest from environmentalists.

Fry says the tours will dramatically boost visitation to remote areas few tourists get to see.

Critics say the change threatens to spoil the island's primitive tranquility.

"The very last of anything is always the most precious, and there are no other places like Cumberland Island," said Will Berson, a policy analyst for the Georgia Conservancy. "We think wilderness is an important idea that is incompatible with running people in jeeps through the area."

Cumberland Island. (Images: New Georgia Encyclopedia)

Though wild horses graze on its marsh grasses, alligators lurk in its freshwater ponds and rare sea turtles nest on its pristine beaches, Cumberland Island also has a long human history.

Park Service ranger Pauline Wentworth says she often hears visitors, particularly senior citizens, say they wish they could take a bus or van tour.

Most, she says, have a particular destination in mind: "They want to see the church where JFK Jr. got married."

The First African Baptist Church, built in 1937 for black servants on the island, is a tiny clapboard building with a torn and faded rug on the floor and handmade pews with splintered edges and corners.

The Greyfield Inn shuttles guests there almost daily in the bed of a pickup. Those tours and monthly Park Service van tours were targeted years ago in a lawsuit by environmentalists.

A judge ruled the Park Service had no authority to shuttle visitors through the designated island wilderness. The inn, on the other hand, could continue giving tours with a special permit.

Congress intervened in 2004 with a law removing Main Road and two others from the wilderness designation that protects the surrounding forest. The same law ordered the Park Service to provide daily tours. Rep. Jack Kingston, a Savannah Republican, got the measure passed as part of a larger spending bill.

"The way it was, only an 18-year-old backpacker could walk the 13 miles up the trail to see some of these historical sites," Kingston said. "This island is not paid for by some of the taxpayers for some of the people. I don't think John Q. Taxpayer should have to walk 13 miles to see Plum Orchard."

Heated opposition has prompted the Park Service to move cautiously - too slowly, in Kingston's opinion - in the four years since Congress changed the law. It wasn't until September that the Park Service released a study outlining its tour plans.

The Park Service has been collecting the required public comments on the proposal from hearings in Atlanta and in St. Marys, the island's nearest inland neighbor. Berson of the Georgia Conservancy said it's unlikely any criticism will delay tours from starting in early 2009.

Several tourists visiting Cumberland Island on a recent weekend said they favor motor tours for disabled and elderly visitors, but on a much more limited basis than Congress has prescribed.

Bill Parsons, 55, of Cornelia, Ga., was showing friends around the mansion ruins near the ferry dock and recalling his hike to the secluded north end for a camping trip five years ago.

Cumberland Island. (Images: New Georgia Encyclopedia)

"I didn't see anybody for three days. It was splendid - that's what I came here to do," Parsons said. "I don't want it to be a theme park, no Disneyland. There's already that stuff."
(AP)

Deputies in Bibb County are about to get a little high-tech help from a device that will allow them to scan license plates into a crime database at a rate of one plate per second.

The Automated License Plate Recognition System uses cameras to photograph license plates, said Tony Rousey, the county's director of information technology.

The data is fed into a computer that compares the plate to records of stolen vehicles, stolen tags and other offenses, Rousey said.
"It's another tool that we can use that will make us more effective and more efficient," said Sheriff Jerry Modena.
Modena said he expects the vehicle with the scanner will spend a lot of time monitoring major traffic arteries, but deputies also will meander through crowded parking lots, according to a report appearing in the Macon Telegraph newspaper.

(AP)

The vast economic crisis has left scores of Georgia's houses empty, its banks shuttered and sent thousands of its residents searching for jobs even as its unemployment rate balloons to heights not seen since Ronald Reagan was president.

The nationwide recession was the top Georgia news story of 2008, according to state editors and news directors voting in The Associated Press' annual survey.

Other stories high on most lists included an energy crisis that sent gas prices on a roller-coaster ride, the U.S. Senate runoff that thwarted Democratic plans for a super-majority in the Senate and the months-long trial of courthouse gunman Brian Nichols.

Yet the economic doldrums was the top choice for seven of 12 Georgia AP members participating in the news cooperative's survey.

Georgia residents began feeling the economic fallout early this year as a growing number of homes remained unsold and credit grew tighter. Firms fired workers, governments furloughed staffers, foreclosures spiked and the state unemployment rate soared to 7.5 percent - the highest in 25 years.

The bleak economy forced regulators to close down five state banks, and led Gov. Sonny Perdue to order spending cuts of at least 6 percent to narrow a deficit that could top $2 billion in 2009.

The new year is unlikely to bring much relief. State economists warn unemployment will climb higher and housing prices will continue to plummet through the first half of 2009.

Volatile energy prices were the No. 2 story of the year. The topsy-turvy fuel market sent the price of crude soaring to as high as $150 a barrel in July before crashing to $33 this month.

The jump in prices, which soared after Hurricanes Gustav and Ike shuttered Gulf Coast refineries, sparked panic among Georgia drivers. Gas stations advertised fuel at $8 a gallon, while some drivers camped out at gas stations to be first in line for new deliveries.

Georgia's seemingly endless U.S. Senate campaign notched the No. 3 spot.

Residents headed to the polls four times to vote on the Senate contest, beginning with the July primaries and ending with a Dec. 2 runoff when Saxby Chambliss was elected to a second Senate term. The Republican's victory over Jim Martin deprived Democrats of a 60-seat filibuster-proof majority.

The conviction and sentencing of Brian Nichols for a deadly shooting spree that began in the Fulton County Courthouse was the year's No. 4 story.

After more than three years and a tangled trail of legal delays, a jury found Nichols guilty of murder. But it deadlocked over whether he deserves the death penalty, forcing a judge to sentence him to life in prison without parole. Now some legislators are intent on changing the state's death penalty rules.

The stubborn drought still squeezing parts of the state emerged as the No. 5 story of the year. While a soggy December helped elevate most of the region from the epic conditions, much of north Georgia - including devastated Lake Lanier - remains in a "severe" drought.

The No. 6 story was the deadly explosion at the Imperial Sugar refinery in February near Savannah that killed 14 workers and injured dozens more. Investigators determined the blast was caused by sugar dust that ignited like gunpowder in the plant's storage silos.

The presidential election, which dominated national headlines, was voted the No. 7 story in Georgia. Democrat Barack Obama's campaign recruited thousands of volunteers focused on turning the state blue, but Republican John McCain managed to claim Georgia's 15 electoral votes.

The No. 8 story of the year broke just hours after New Year's Day.

Meredith Emerson was abducted while walking with her dog that day in the north Georgia mountains, and police later found her body. Authorities soon arrested Gary Michael Hilton, who is now serving a life sentence after pleading guilty to her murder.

The Delta Air Lines merger with Northwest Airlines took the No. 9 slot, as the combination made the Atlanta-based carrier the world's largest airline. It completed a remarkable turnaround for Delta, which had filed for bankruptcy in 2005.

Clayton County's education woes was the year's tenth-ranked story. The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools revoked the county's accreditation after it failed to meet a range of recommendations. More than 3,200 students have since bolted.

Stories close to making the list included convicted murderer Troy Davis' efforts to get a new trial and avoid execution, a legislative session that again ended in gridlock and an explosion at a Dalton law firm that killed the person responsible and injured four others.

(AP)

The University of Georgia is fighting a federal judge's recommendation that a former journalism dean be cleared of sexual harassment charges. UGA attorneys said in a court filing this week that John Soloski violated the university's anti-harassment policy in 2005. Soloski has admitted he made comments at two off-campus events about the appearance of a subordinate employee, Janet Jones Kendall. U.S. Magistrate C. Christopher Hagy issued a Nov. 26 opinion that UGA's probe into the harassment allegations against Soloski were "arbitrary, capricious and unreasonable." Soloski resigned from the deanship at the College of Journalism in 2005 after Kendall alleged he harassed her. He sued the university in 2006, saying UGA President Michael Adams used the harassment allegation to settle a long-standing grudge and force him to resign.

(Associated Press)

The merger of Delta and Northwest airlines isn't expected to affect service to Atlanta and Memphis from Monroe, Louisiana. Cleve Norrell, the manager of Monroe Regional Airport, said Delta officials told him those connections would continue. He said a reduction in service isn't planned currently and that he had no reason to believe there would be one in the future. A Delta spokesman had also said the plan was to maintain the airlines' hubs because there was "virtually no overlap" between Delta and Northwest routes. The airport also has connections to Dallas, via American Airlines, and Houston, via Continental Airlines.

(Associated Press)

Authorities say a man accused in the beating death of his girlfriend's 2-year-old son was rushed to a hospital on Friday after apparently trying to hang himself in jail. Fulton County Sheriff's Department spokeswoman Nikita Hightower said 20-year-old Mario Cunningham was taken to Grady Memorial Hospital. He was being held without bond and is charged with murder and child cruelty in the death of Elijah Singleton. According to authorities, Cunningham first told them Elijah drowned in a tub after he left the child unsupervised in the middle of bathing him on Friday, but an autopsy determined the toddler was beaten to death. The mother, 23-year-old Gloria Singleton, has been charged with child cruelty.

(Associated Press)

Federal Aviation Administration officials say a brief outage of the ground radar at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport on Friday caused delays of about an hour on arriving and departing flights. FAA spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen said the radar that allows air traffic controllers to see planes on the runways went down about 10:25 a.m. Bergen said the radar started working again about 11:10 a.m. The equipment failure coupled with low-sitting clouds meant many flights were delayed at the world's busiest airport. According to the FAA Web site, flights to Chicago experienced delays of up to 2 hours because of snow and ice there.

(Associated Press)

A new prosecutor in Colorado says he plans to take a fresh look at one of the country's most high profile cold cases - the slaying a dozen years ago of JonBenet Ramsey. Incoming Boulder County District Attorney Stan Garnett said he'll decide what to do with the investigation in his first 30 days on the job, which he starts Jan. 13. His predecessor, Mary Lacy, publicly exonerated the Ramsey family this year in the Dec. 26, 1996, murder. Garnett said he might send the case back to the police. The DA's office took over the investigation in 2002 because of criticism of the police department's handling of it. JonBenet, a 6-year-old beauty pageant contestant, was found bludgeoned and strangled in the basement of her parents' home. She and her mother, Patsy, are buried in the Atlanta suburb of Marietta. Patsy Ramsey died of cancer in 2006.

(Associated Press)