Richmond County, GA | featured news

Charlie Norwood VA Medical Center will undergo upgrades on its telephone systems Friday starting at 5:30 p.m. and lasting about an hour, according to a news release.
The published phone number (706) 733-0188 -- for the medical center will not be available until the upgrades are complete. The hospital operator and Veteran patient rooms will not be accessible during this upgrade.
An alternate phone number – (706) 941-2576 -- will be in use during this short outage for emergent calls, the news release said.

It’s over. One of the few remaining homes built in the 1700s, the Goodale House in Augusta, will be torn down.
Shawn Rhodes, senior unified code enforcement officer, said the permit for demolition was issued Tuesday.
Owner Wesley Sims of Alabama began the razing Wednesday, ending any hopes the house that was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976 would be renovated to its former glory.
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CHARLESTON, S.C. — Dylann Roof, the white man charged in the massacre of nine black parishioners at a Charleston church, was assaulted Thursday by a black inmate at the South Carolina jail where he is being held, a law official said.
 
Dwayne Stafford ran down the stairs from his cell after Roof went into the shower around 7:45 a.m. Thursday and hit him, bruising Roof’s face and back, according to a police report.
 

Columbia County deputies were on the scene of a possible drive-by shooting near Brookfield Parkway off of Furys Ferry Road.
According to dispatch, a witness reported seeing two black males in a black SUV pull out of a driveway in the 700 block of Brookfield Parkway where two females were standing. According to reports, one of the subjects fired five shots from the window of the car into the air before leaving the scene.
The subjects were last seen heading toward Mayo Road and the search has been turned over to Richmond County.

NEWINGTON, Ga. — A 30-year-old Screven County woman was fatally attacked inside her residence Monday evening by one of her boyfriend’s four pet pit bulls.
Although Michelle Wilcox was familiar with the dogs at the residence and had handled them safely on numerous occasions, an autopsy confirmed a male pit bull bit the woman multiple times during a struggle while she was alone, according to Screven County Sgt. Brett Dickerson.

 
The Richmond County Sheriff’s Office is asking the public’s help in finding Marcus Tobias Jackson Jr., who is wanted in an aggravated assault incident that occurred on May 31 at Salem Arms Apartments, 2243 Roiser Rd.
Jackson, 18, is 5-feet, 9-inches tall and weighs 165 pounds. The Sheriff’s Office says he is known to frequent the McDuffie Woods and Barton Village neighborhoods and has a last known address on Drayton Drive.

The citizen review panel assigned to oversee Transportation Investment Act projects in the Augusta region meets Thursday.
The 1 percent TIA sales tax has funded more than $75 million in road projects since voters across the 13-county region approved it in 2012. The 10-year tax is expected to fund 84 projects around the region and 40 are under construction, according to state data.
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Dr. Jamie McCord, the principal of W.S. Hornsby Middle School, has a clear message for teachers entering the new school year: Meet kids where they are.
“We have to teach with poverty in mind,” McCord said. “We’re in a low-income area, and that’s something we have to overcome. However, instead of giving a kid a zero for not having a pencil or paper, we’re trying to establish resource centers in each classroom.”
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Paine College will get another month to prepare its case in the fight to keep its accreditation and is continuing to raise money and reduce debt, President Samuel Sullivan said Wednesday.
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One water boil advisory was lifted Tuesday for some Grovetown residents while another is expected to be lifted Thursday.
Water was shut off to Goodale Landing residents Friday for nearly six hours while crews tied in and disinfected a new water line at the corner of Wrightsboro and Harlem-Grovetown roads, according to acting Public Works Director Raymond Fulcher.
The water boil advisory was lifted Tuesday for Goodale Landing after test results from the Environmental Protection Division confirmed the water was safe.