Augusta, Chatham County | featured news

PEACHTREE CORNERS — Police in metro Atlanta say they have arrested a woman who held her newborn grandchild hostage following a domestic argument.Gwinnett County police Cpl. Michele Pihera said in a news release a four-hour standoff with a SWAT team ended peacefully Tuesday morning. She says the 4-week-old baby was unharmed and the child's grandmother, 57-year-old Laurie Morgan, was charged with aggravated assault and reckless conduct.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Country giant Merle Haggard, who rose from poverty and prison to international fame though his songs about outlaws, underdogs and an abiding sense of national pride in such hits as "Okie From Muskogee" and "Sing Me Back Home," died Wednesday at 79, on his birthday.Haggard was set to play Savannah on June 8 at the Johnny Mercer Theatre. The June show was scheduled after he postponed his March 10 show at the Savannah Civic Center due to illness. 

A Savannah man has been sentenced to nearly 13 years in federal prison February 3, 2015, armed robbery of the Navy Federal Credit Union in Richmond Hill, Georgia.
Jerald A. Bowman, 40, was sentenced on March 30 by U.S. District Chief Judge Lisa Godbey Wood to 155 months imprisonment.

The Savannah-Chatham police department’s Robbery Unit is investigating an attempted armed robbery that occurred about 9:30 p.m. Tuesday near Tibet Avenue and Jameson Road.
The victim, a 22-year-old male, was walking toward his residence from a nearby business with his young son who was in a stroller, said Sonny Cohrs, police spokesman.
Two suspects reportedly pulled up in a vehicle, held him at gunpoint and demanded money before firing a shot at the victim. After the suspect fired the shot, the victim grabbed his son and fled the scene on foot.

Savannah-Chatham police say they’re trying to find the man they say broke into a home on Savannah’s south side then cut two adults and a kid on Wednesday morning.

Veteran Savannah-Chatham police Lt. Greg Ramsey has been voluntarily dismissed as a defendant in a suit by four former department officers alleging that former police chief Willie Lovett and several of his cronies allegedly seized control of the department to “serve their own illicit purposes.”

From incident reports at the Springfield Police Department:
Angry boyfriend
March 22: A Springfield woman said she had an argument with her boyfriend while they were on I-95. She said she stopped and he got out of the vehicle and broke the windshield before walking away.
Officers made sure she got home safely and that the boyfriend’s belongings went to his sister. The boyfriend was arrested on a Port Wentworth warrant.

Senator blasts administration’s fight against Islamic State

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration’s fight against the Islamic State is at risk of becoming a “grinding failure for our nation,” an influential Republican senator said Tuesday in a broadside that illustrated the mounting frustrations in Congress with the U.S. strategy to defeat the extremist group.

HIT, Iraq — Heavy resistance has slowed Iraqi forces Tuesday as they pushed forward toward the center of a town held by Islamic State militants in western Anbar province, commanders at the scene said.