Chatham County | featured news

BAR ELIAS, Lebanon — When Saada Khalaf, a Syrian refugee in Lebanon, lost her husband to a long illness earlier this year, she could not find a place to bury him in the eastern Lebanese town where the couple had lived since they fled the civil war back home.
The nearest cemetery where she and her relatives were allowed to bury him was in the village of Dalhamiyeh, about 10 miles (16 kilometers) from the town of Bar Elias.

PARIS — The law firm at the center of the Panama offshore accounts scandal routinely usurped the name of the Red Cross and other charities to help obscure the origin of millions of dollars in questionable funds, two newspapers involved in the investigation reported Sunday.
There’s no suggestion that the charitable groups had any idea their name was being used in this way. International Committee of the Red Cross spokeswoman Claire Kaplun told The Associated Press on Sunday that the revelation was “a total surprise and something we find extremely shocking.”

Prominent Atlanta man shot, killed
ATLANTA — Police are searching for a suspect after a well-known community member was shot to death in his southwest Atlanta front yard.
Multiple news media reports that 70-year-old Barney Simms was found dead in his yard Saturday night with his front door unlocked and black Lexus missing.
Simms was commended twice by the State of Georgia’s Secretary of State office as an outstanding Georgia citizen. He was retired from the Atlanta Housing Authority.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, India — The Hindu temple in southern India was packed with thousands for a religious festival early Sunday when the fireworks began — an unauthorized pyrotechnic display that went horribly wrong.

SAN FRANCISCO — As she turns 100, the feisty and witty author Beverly Cleary remembers the Oregon childhood that inspired the likes of characters Ramona and Beezus Quimby and Henry Huggins in the children’s books that sold millions and enthralled generations of youngsters.

BATH, Maine — The future USS Zumwalt is so stealthy that it’ll go to sea with reflective material that can be hoisted to make it more visible to other ships.
The Navy destroyer is designed to look like a much smaller vessel on radar, and it lived up to its billing during recent builder trials.

Donald Trump’s inflammatory statements about Mexican immigrants, Muslim refugees and women who get abortions may eventually be his campaign’s undoing, some analysts say.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — NASA is trying to resuscitate its planet-hunting Kepler spacecraft, in a state of emergency 75 million miles away.

ATLANTA — Georgia’s education system could see some dramatic changes in the next two years, as Gov. Nathan Deal shifts his first-term focus on prisons and courts to education.
Voters will decide in November whether to approve Deal’s proposed constitutional amendment to allow the state to take over chronically failing schools. The state’s education and teacher organizations oppose the amendment and are gearing up for a fight.