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THOMSON — Rob Ridings knows the impact of the Thomson-Burke County rivalry.

The Thomson coach has plenty experience in the big game, and he knows playing at The Brickyard doesn’t mean Burke County will let up in any way.

“We could actually play out on Interstate 20 and it wouldn’t really matter,” Ridings said. “With the intensity of the game and how both schools approach the game and how both football programs go at each other, we have a great amount of respect for them and it’s going to be a heck of a Friday night.”

An Augusta-based investment group on Wednesday announced Wednesday it will build a Hyatt House hotel on the 1200 block of Broad Street — the second major downtown hotel announcement this week and Broad Street’s first new business-class hotel in decades.

Construction on the five-story, limited-service hotel — which will have its own 140-space parking deck — could start as soon as December, said John Engler of DTJR LLC, a partnership between he and his mother Elizabeth Engler.

A prosecuting attorney used the words “psychopath” and “monster” to describe an Appling man convicted of beating and threatening to kill his pregnant wife in front of their four children, and that the control and mental abuse that had gone on for more than a decade, even continuing during his incarceration.
Assistant District Attorney Natalie Paine became heated Wednesday when requesting the judge dole out a lengthy sentence for Cameron Ryan Paquette. She described a case she said shocked her and gave her a new understanding of domestic violence.

For the second year in a row, Eisenhower Army Medical Center has been recognized for high surgical quality.
The American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program named the Fort Gordon hospital and 59 others in the country as being “meritorious” with regard to their composite quality score in the areas of mortality, cardiac, respiratory (pneumonia), unplanned intubation, ventilator less than 48 hours, renal failure, surgical site infections and urinary tract infections for all surgery cases during 2015.

During his trip to Augusta, Gov. Nathan Deal presented what he considers a clear message regarding Opportunity School District.

“There are two sides to this,” he said. “Who’s for the children? And who’s for the adults? I think it’s clear which side we’re fighting for.”

Georgia voters will get a chance to decide Nov. 8 on a constitutional amendment that would authorize the state to temporarily step in to assist chronically failing public schools and their students.

Columbia County police are seeking the public’s help in finding a woman who stole $60&
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Columbia County police are seeking the public’s help in finding a woman who stole $60 worth of items from Walmart.
According to a Columbia County sheriff’s news release, the woman went to the Walmart Neighborhood Market on Evans to Locks Road and rang up $20 worth of items in the self-checkout, but then left with an additional $60 worth of items she didn’t pay for.
Anyone with information on the woman is asked to contact the sheriff’s office at (706) 541-2800.

Richmond County Board of Education police are seeking a man for multiple thefts from the maintenance building during the past week.
According to a news release, the subject, who was captured on surveillance cameras, stole from the property on Friday and Monday. One of the items included a large trailer. Officials said the man used a stolen pickup truck to commit the theft. The truck has since been recovered, but the trailer remains missing.

Law enforcement officers in Savannah say they found a sex offender who had been missing for three years hiding in his mother’s house on Wilmington Island early Tuesday.
Both Joel Bunton and his mother, Mytrice Bunton, are now in jail. It was not immediately known how long 41-year-old Joel Bunton was staying at his 75-year-old mother’s Concord Road home, but deputies suspect he’d been there “a long time,” said Pete Nichols, Chatham County Sheriff’s Office spokesman.

WASHINGTON - Facing a public outcry, Defense Secretary Ash Carter on Wednesday ordered the Pentagon to suspend its effort to seek repayments of enlistment bonuses given to thousands of California National Guard members who served in Iraq and Afghanistan.
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