RUSS BYNUM

Associated Press
Add To Watchlist

UGA professor, former AP executive Fink dies at 80

Conrad Fink, who taught generations of young journalists at the University of Georgia after a career as a foreign correspondent and executive for The Associated Press, died Saturday in Athens, Ga., at age 80.

Continue reading this entry ...

Ga. police major ousted in flap over funeral bands

One of Savannah's top-ranking police officers said Monday the police chief threatened her with demotion because she contradicted him at a funeral on the protocol for officers wearing black mourning bands on their badges.

Continue reading this entry ...

Father: Ex-soldier slain in Ga. wanted out of Army

Michael Roark had been in the Army barely a year when he started telling his father he wanted out because of disagreements with superiors at Fort Stewart. He ended up being discharged from the military, but just three days later he was found shot to death along with his girlfriend.

Continue reading this entry ...

Ga. farmers out to bring back homegrown olive oil

Jason Shaw says his first fall harvest yielded fruit for no more than 500 bottles, just enough to sell at select tastings and to share with restaurant chefs in hopes of priming their palates for more.

Continue reading this entry ...

Ex-coach receives $240,000 to settle lawsuit

Savannah State University's ex-football coach received a $240,000 settlement to dismiss a federal discrimination lawsuit he filed last year claiming the historically black college fired him because he's white.

Continue reading this entry ...

Ga. farmers crack down on rash of pecan thieves

Hired by farmers as a private security guard, Brooks Rucker patrols thousands of acres of Georgia farmland on the lookout for thieves toting 5-gallon buckets.

Continue reading this entry ...

Ga. soldier claims he was predatory lending victim

Army Staff Sgt. Jason Cox says he borrowed $3,000 for an emergency trip to pick up his daughter. The loan ended up costing him more than $4,000 in interest, plus a sport utility vehicle the lender seized when he defaulted.

Continue reading this entry ...

Magazine's 1st MAD men get a rare reunion

Think of them as the senior class of the "usual gang of idiots." Or the original MAD men perhaps.

Continue reading this entry ...

Costly wildfire defies firefighters in Ga. swamp

A wildfire that scorched hundreds of square miles since last spring continues to creep through the Okefenokee Swamp as it burns underground fueled by dead and decaying plants — and the cost to taxpayers so far is $52.7 million and rising.

Continue reading this entry ...

Suspect in shooting of Ga. deputy served in Iraq

Military officials said a Tennessee Army National Guard soldier accused of killing a sheriff's deputy, then committing suicide, had previously served in Iraq with the 3rd Infantry Division.

Continue reading this entry ...

Troy Davis mourned as a martyr by 1,000 in Ga.

Sent to death row 20 years ago as a convicted cop killer, Troy Davis was celebrated as "martyr and foot soldier" Saturday by more than 1,000 people who packed the pews at his funeral and pledged to keep fighting the death penalty.

Continue reading this entry ...

Friends, advocates remember Troy Davis at memorial

Friends and supporters of Troy Davis, the convicted murderer who was executed in Georgia last week despite emotional pleas for his life, remembered him Friday night as a gentle man who faced his execution with grace and dignity.

Continue reading this entry ...

Troy Davis execution fuels eyewitness ID debate

When Georgia executed Troy Davis last week after four years of appeals ended with the courts upholding his death sentence, thousands still protested that Davis' guilt remained uncertain because witnesses who identified him as a police officer's killer in 1989 simply couldn't be trusted.

Continue reading this entry ...

AP Interview: Troy Davis' sister vows to carry on

Troy Davis' sister said Friday she's not wasting time being angry as she presses to keep the 20-year legal fight her brother lost when he was executed. He used his final words in Georgia's death chamber to insist he wasn't a killer.

Continue reading this entry ...

Georgia death case grieves families on both sides

An elite Army Ranger, Mark MacPhail left the service and became a police officer to spare his wife and young children from the base-hopping life of a military career. Troy Davis dropped out of high school in his senior year to help care for his younger siblings, including a sister stricken with multiple sclerosis.

Continue reading this entry ...

Lawyer: Ga. soldier didn't kill roommates in Iraq

A U.S. soldier charged with killing two of his Army roommates and wounding another after an argument in Iraq last fall is innocent and should be cleared of murder charges by forensic evidence, his defense attorney said Monday.

Continue reading this entry ...

Correction: Irene-Agriculture

In an Aug. 30 story about agriculture damage from Hurricane Irene, relying on information from the Maryland Department of Agriculture on poultry deaths, The Associated Press reported erroneously that about 30,000 birds had been killed in that state. The department now says no birds died as a result of the storm. On Thursday, a department spokeswoman said that a mix-up during a conference call resulted in it releasing the false numbers.

Continue reading this entry ...

Archaeologists comb newly-found Civil War POW camp

When word reached Camp Lawton that the enemy army of Gen. William T. Sherman was approaching, the prison camp's Confederate officers rounded up their thousands of Union army POWs for a swift evacuation — leaving behind rings, buckles, coins and other keepsakes that would remain undisturbed for nearly 150 years.

Continue reading this entry ...

US ports spend big on post-9/11 security

About $2.5 billion in federal grants paying for 10 years of security upgrades have made a huge difference at America's seaports in the decade since the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Continue reading this entry ...

Police: Ga. businessman shot at family SUV on I-95

A Georgia businessman pulled alongside a family's SUV on Interstate 95 and fired several gunshots into the vehicle as it was carrying three small children home from a beach vacation, police said Thursday.

Continue reading this entry ...

Ga. soldier gets life without parole in slaying

A Georgia soldier who argued that a crash diet drove him to kill a superior has been sentenced by a military jury to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Continue reading this entry ...

Ga. soldier charged with murder blames crash diet

Attorneys for an Army Reserve soldier on trial for murder in Georgia say he killed a superior because he was dehydrated and delirious from a crash diet after being ordered to lose weight.

Continue reading this entry ...

NC man caught in Ga. 16 years after prison escape

A convicted killer who escaped from a North Carolina prison 16 years ago was captured Thursday in a rural Georgia town where authorities say he'd settled down with a family, bought a mobile home and started his own business selling pine straw.

Continue reading this entry ...

Ga. Rep. Barrow says he has early prostate cancer

A Georgia congressman says he'll undergo treatment for prostate cancer after being diagnosed at an early stage of the disease.

Continue reading this entry ...

Feds order Ga. bus service shut down for 2nd time

Federal regulators have shut down a Georgia-based charter bus service for the second time since 2009, saying the company changed its name to avoid a previous order to cease operations because of safety violations.

Continue reading this entry ...