(Wednesday, 14 January 2009)  Police hunt a hit-and-run driver who injured a 16-year-old girl; the Atlanta mayor wants more cops on the beat; the transit cop accused of shooting an unarmed black man is arrested as a fugitive.  Today's the day Marvel debuts a Spider-Man comic featuring Barack Obama.  See the cover on today's KISS News Now!

•  DeKalb County Police are hunting the hit-and-run driver who struck a 16-year-old Chamblee High School student, leaving her in critical condition.  Kristian Sales is hospitalized with brain injuries and broken bones.   Her parents saw it happen as the girl crossed River Road in Ellenwood.
  
  "Car speeding by hit her, picked her up off the ground," says Mario Shannon, the girl's father.  "I just seen the shoes and the books going everywhere."
  
  "She went up in the air, and I ran to the street..." says her mother, Chanda Shannon.  "The car that hit her stopped or slowed down and could tell that they'd hit her--and kept going."
  
  The driver may be in an  older-model, light-colored four door vehicle--maybe a boxy Chevy.
  
  
  
• The parachuting pilot accused of trying to fake his own death by staging a plane crash is in a Florida hospital after being found in a blood-soaked tent with his wrists slashed.  Financial adviser Marcus Schrenker is accused of stealing millions from investors, including a bunch of Delta pilots in metro Atlanta.
  
   
• Amid criticisms that budget cuts have hurt public safety, Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin proposes hiring 400 more police officers. It would require an investment of $40 million for training and equipment--and the only way to pay for it would be a property tax increase.
  
  
• Not only will they run into a building to save you, they'll take a pay cut to save their buddies' jobs.  Yonkers, NY firefighters agree to work a shift without pay.  The move restores the salaries of 12 colleagues laid off or demoted because of budget cuts.
  
  
• In western Arizona, four firefighters are arrested on charges they've been setting fires to haystacks, brush, and unoccupied mobile homes or RVs.  The men were paid $10 an hour to fight fires.
  
  
• A former California transit cop accused of shooting and killing an unarmed man at a train station in Oakland is arrested in Nevada on a fugitive warrant.  Eyewitnesses said the white, 27-year-old Johannes Mehserle fired into the back of 22-year-old Oscar Grant while he was lying facedown on a station platform; the shooting was captured on cell phone cameras and widely viewed on the Internet.
  
  

• Today's the day Marvel Comics releases Spider-Man #583, which includes a bonus story featuring Barack Obama.  The issue is expected to be a sell-out.  In the comic, Spider-Man's alter ego, newspaper photographer Peter Parker, is assigned to cover Obama's inauguration. While he's shooting photos, he spots an imposter Obama and swings into action as Spider-Man.  
  
  
• Georgia's public colleges consider limiting enrollment in an effort to cap costs.  Chancellor Errol Davis told Regents he'd rather limit access than allow the quality of Georgia's higher education to degrade.  He says the state's added 23,000 students whild their budgets have been cut by $182 million.  He's also concerned Georgia is losing ground to other southern states when it comes to faculty pay.
  
  
• Jennifer Hudson, who's been out of the public's eye since the murders of her mother, brother and nephew, returns to the spotlight next month. She'll sing the National Anthem at the Super Bowl in Tampa, February 1.
  
  
• Iowa: a high school presses theft charges against a 15-year-old who stole brownies from the school cafeteria.  Whatever happened to detention?
  
  
• The KISS 104.1 weather forecast:  sunshine, high of 51 today. Thursday, some clouds; windy high of 36.  Friday, a high in the mid-30s, then lows drop to about 12 overnight.