Augusta, Chatham County | featured news

A former Episcopal priest has been sentenced to three years in federal prison on a guilty plea to possession of child pornography at his Druid Circle home in Savannah.

JACKSON — A man who was convicted of fatally beating another man after a night of drinking and drug use in 1994 was put to death late Thursday in Georgia.
Joshua Bishop was pronounced dead at 9:27 p.m. Thursday at the state prison in Jackson by injection of the barbiturate pentobarbital, authorities said. The 41-year-old inmate was convicted in the June 1994 killing of Leverett Morrison in Milledgeville.

In addition to the $18.1 million the city of Pooler is spending on construction of a new municipal complex on U.S. 80, officials in the growing city have spent $1.8 million on land for the complex since work began two years ago.

Watch your step on Ossabaw and Wassaw islands. A statewide survey of Eastern diamondback rattlesnakes found significant populations on Georgia’s barrier islands, among other places.

The 252-room Hotel Indigo joined the ranks of Savannah’s boutique hotels with a ribbon-cutting ceremony Wednesday to mark the opening of the hotel, at 201 West Bay St., on the site of what once was the Guckenheimer tobacco warehouse and grocery, a nationally registered landmark built in 1850.

 
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — A gunman shot a Virginia state trooper Thursday at a busy bus terminal in the capital city of Richmond before he was shot dead by two other troopers, police said. Two civilians were hurt, though it was not clear if they had been shot.

COLUMBIA, S.C. — South Carolina’s budget constraints make it unlikely lawmakers will decide what to do about displaying the Confederate flag that was removed from Statehouse grounds last summer, the chairman of the museum that’s storing the flag told his board members Thursday.
“There’s so much pressure on the budget” to put additional money into roadwork and education, said George Dorn, chairman of the museum’s newly appointed governing board. “I just don’t think they’re going to discuss the plan this year.”

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California lawmakers on Thursday approved the nation's highest statewide minimum wage of $15 an hour to take effect by 2022 after it was hailed by Democrats as an example to the nation as it struggles with a growing gap between rich and poor.

Five stars from the World Cup-winning U.S. women's national team have accused the U.S. Soccer Federation of wage discrimination in an action filed with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.