Posted: 11:52 a.m. Thursday, Jan. 20, 2011
Lawmakers Lash Out Over Atlanta Schools' Probation; Kidnapped Daughter Reunited With Mom After 23+ Years (VIDEO); Teen Crooks Snort Cremains
By Veronica Waters
- Two state lawmakers from Atlanta are pushing back against SACS, the accrediting agency which put Atlanta's high schools on probation after the past year of public power-wrangling on the school board. State Representative Rashad Taylor says the report's full of "gossip and innuendo" and lacks substance over any actual complaints about how kids are being taught. State Senator Vincent Fort thinks there's a conflict of interest at play, since the agency's parent company makes money selling solutions to schools in trouble. Governor Deal has appointed two liasons between the Capitol and the school district, but says legislative action in the system would only be a last resort and that he's confident the district won't lose accreditation.
- The new Republican-controlled House voted to repeal the nation's health care reform law. Three Democrats joined with all of the Republicans in Wednesday's vote. Now the GOP wants to get to work on its version of a replacement of the law. The repeal effort is likely to die in the Senate. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has said the bill will not see the light of day there.
- An Atlanta woman reunites with her mother--nearly 24 years after a phony nurse took her out of Harlem Hospital when she was just 19 days old. Suspicious because she didn't look like the family who raised her and never saw a birth certificate or Social Security card, Nejdra Nance went online to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, saw an age-progression picture that resembled her, then called them, saying, "I feel like I don't know who I am!" DNA confirmed that she is Carlina White, kidnapped back in August, 1987. She has been reunited with her biological family, but hasn't said much about the people who raised her in Connecticut. No one has been charged.
The New York Daily News reports that "a Bridgeport woman named Mary Pettway confirmed that her daughter, Cassandra, had raised Carlina. She refused to discuss the relationship further. Cassandra Pettway lives in Georgia, and reportedly said by phone, "Are you serious? What do you think my relationship is with her? Mother? No, that's why I won't talk to the media. They have it all wrong." The paper reports Carlina says the woman she thought was her mother told her that she wasn't when Carlina was pregnant with her own child. - Traffic gridlock is a headache, but it's also a sign of the improving economy. Researchers at Texas A&M say during the height of the recession, traffic was better than it had been in a decade. Once more people returned to work and to shopping, traffic congestion got worse. Atlanta is tied with Seattle for having the nation's 10th worst traffic delays.
- Authorities in Bartow County want to know who is hurling objects from an Interstate 75 overpass onto cars and trucks on the freeway below, including a bicycle that smashed into a Chevrolet Tahoe. Two truckers have also reported smashed windshields from falling objects in the past couple of months.
- First lady Michelle Obama is scheduled to join Wal-Mart executives today to announce the retailer's plans to reformulate thousands of products to make them healthier. The company plans to reduce sodium and sugars in some items, build stores in poor areas that don't already have grocery stores and reduce prices on produce.
- A teen robbing crew steals the cremated remains of a Florida homeowner's father and two of his dogs. They thought the cremains were drugs, and started snorting the ashes. When they found out it was not coke or heroin, they tossed the urns into a lake. A dive team will try to recover them.
- The family of Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords is hoping to move her Friday to a rehab facility in Houston, Texas, where her husband lives and works as an astronaut. Less than two weeks after being shot in the head, Giffords has been able to stand with help from medical staff.
- The KISS 104.1 weather forecast: cloudy skies, high mid-50s.
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