Georgia, Chatham County | featured news

Former Chatham Area Transit Authority Executive Director Chadwick Reese has reached a plea agreement with federal prosecutors to dispose of charges that he participated in a kick-back scheme with a service provider who benefited from a rigged CAT contract.
First Assistant U.S. Attorney James Durham filed notice of the agreement on Monday, and asked that U.S. District Judge William T. Moore Jr. schedule a hearing to allow Reese to change his plea.
No hearing date has been scheduled.

TOKYO — Massive joint U.S.-South Korea military exercises are a spring ritual on the Korean Peninsula guaranteed to draw a lot of threat-laced venom from Pyongyang.

Health law fines double for many uninsured
WASHINGTON — Many people who went without health insurance last year are now seeing fines more than double under President Barack Obama’s health care law, tax preparation company H&R Block said Tuesday.
Among its customers who owe a penalty for the 2015 tax year, the average fine is $383, compared with $172 for 2014, the company said.

The young and the nestless: Helping millennials with housing

U.N., rights groups criticize Europe’s plan
BRUSSELS — The United Nations and human rights groups voiced deep concerns Tuesday about the legality of the European Union’s plans to send thousands of migrants back to Turkey amid fears the country cannot properly provide for them.
EU and Turkish leaders agreed to the broad outlines of a deal that would essentially outsource Europe’s refugee emergency. People arriving in Greece having fled war or poverty would be sent back to Turkey unless they apply for asylum.

Palestinian attacks kill American student
JERUSALEM — Palestinian attackers unleashed a series of shooting and stabbing assaults on Israelis on Tuesday, including a stabbing spree in the ancient Mediterranean port city of Jaffa that killed an American student near where Vice President Joe Biden was meeting with Israel’s former president, police said.

MOGADISHU, Somalia — By U.S. accounts, it was a devastating airstrike against Islamic militants in Somalia, with more than 150 fighters killed in a training camp. But the weekend attack probably won’t diminish al-Shabab’s ability to continue a wave of bloodshed.

Sexual transmission of Zika more common
GENEVA — Sexual transmission of the Zika virus is more common than previously thought, the World Health Organization said Tuesday, citing reports from several countries.
After a meeting of its emergency committee on Tuesday, the U.N. health agency also said there is increasing evidence that a spike in disturbing birth defects and neurological problems are caused by Zika, which is mostly spread by mosquito bites.

BEAUFORT, S.C.

FBI agents investigated over shots fired during ranching standoff
PORTLAND, Ore. — FBI agents involved in the traffic stop that led to the killing of one of the armed occupiers of an Oregon wildlife refuge are under investigation for not disclosing they fired shots that missed Robert “LaVoy” Finicum, authorities said Tuesday.
Oregon State Police troopers fired the three rounds that killed the Arizona rancher during a confrontation on a remote road, law enforcement officials said at a news conference in Bend.