Augusta, Chatham County | featured news

FORT STEWART, Ga. (AP) — Despite some initial challenges, allowing female soldiers to serve in combat jobs that have long been closed to women should ultimately "make the Army stronger," the top general at Fort Stewart said Friday.

WASHINGTON — World leaders declared progress Friday in securing nuclear materials worldwide but warned of a persistent and harrowing threat: terrorists getting their hands on a nuclear bomb. “It would change our world,” President Barack Obama said.

PALMYRA, Syria — Explosions rocked the ancient town of Palmyra on Friday and on the horizon, black smoke wafted behind its majestic Roman ruins, as Syrian army experts carefully detonated hundreds of mines they say were planted by Islamic State militants before they fled the town.

BRUSSELS — Struck by suicide bombers 10 days ago, the airport known as “the heart of Europe” has stopped beating temporarily, causing headaches for thousands of business and vacation travelers, and painful financial losses for Belgium’s capital and tourism industry.

ATHENS, Greece — Greece is pressing ahead with plans to start deporting migrants and refugees back to Turkey next week, despite mounting concern from the United Nations and human rights organizations that Syrians could be denied proper protection while some are allegedly even being forced back into their war-torn country.

KOLKATA, India — Indian police on Friday arrested three officials and detained seven more from a company constructing an overpass that collapsed onto a crowded Kolkata neighborhood, killing at least 24 people and injuring more than 80.

NEW YORK — California and New York — where almost 1 in 5 Americans live — are on their way to raising their minimum wage to $15 an hour, and the activists who spearheaded those efforts are now setting their sights on other similarly liberal, Democratic-led states.
Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington are among the states with active “Fight for $15” efforts, and even economic experts who oppose the increased rate see it gaining momentum.

SYRACUSE, N.Y. — There was the old story about Corning, New York and the diesel buses. The one about the “soap lady” who built her business online with help from Hillary Clinton’s Senate office. And don’t forget about the wine ice cream, discovered by the former New York senator and now sold across the globe.

APPLETON, Wisconsin — Donald Trump says his decision to stand behind his campaign manager, who was charged in an altercation with a female reporter, is a sign of loyalty — a trait that Trump has displayed, for better or worse, through much of his career.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Brittany Hudson was pregnant, addicted to painkillers and afraid of a Tennessee law that calls for the arrest of mothers of drug-dependent babies. She eventually gave birth without medical help, on the side of a road in the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains.
Hudson’s dilemma, doctors say, was one of many unintended consequences of the Tennessee Legislature’s decision in 2014 to become the first and only state with an explicit criminal offense for these addicted mothers.