Latest news, weather and high school sports for Albany and Southwest Georgia

(AP) -- FAKE FEDERAL AGENT
    Man sentenced for impersonating federal agent
   
    ATLANTA (AP) - A 44-year-old Riverdale man will spend more than
two years in federal prison after being convicted of impersonating
a federal law enforcement agent between 2005 and 2009.
    United States District Judge Willis B. Hunt, Junior sentenced
Steven Street Tuesday.
    Street also will pay restitution of $322,000 and has been
ordered not to take any security-related employment upon release.
    Acting United States Attorney Yates says Street used badges,
identification cards and business cards which mimicked those
carried by agents of the U.S. Department of State.
    Authorities say he used his phony identity to obtain security
jobs and persuaded one person to invest more than $400,000 in his
security company.
   
GEORGIA PUBLIC DEFENDERS
    Judge orders GA to provide more public defenders
   
    ATLANTA (AP) - A Fulton County judge has ordered the state of
Georgia to provide public defense attorneys to indigent inmates who
have been without legal counsel to file their appeals.
    Fulton County Superior Court Judge Jerry Baxter said in an order
Tuesday the inmates must be provided lawyers within 30 days.
    He also allowed a class-action lawsuit filed last year go
forward. The lawsuit was filed by attorneys who estimate as many as
400 inmates will need attorneys to file their appeals.
    The legal challenge said some inmates have been waiting for
years for attorneys to file their motions for new trials. The state
public defender system had been unable to handle all the appeals
due to budget cuts.
   
TEN TON HEIST
    Thieves make off with multi-ton air conditioners
   
    LAGRANGE, GA (AP) - LaGrange police are trying to figure out
how thieves managed to steal two rooftop air conditioning units
each weighing five tons.
    Police say it happened at a building along East Depot Street.
    A man working at the vacant building tells police he knew the
heat had been working but it would not turn on. After searching for
the problem, he realized two Carrier air conditioning units valued
at $3,600 were missing from the top of the building.
    It's unclear how long the units have been missing.
   
VOTING-CITIZENSHIP
    Georgia to sue over voter checks
   
    ATLANTA (AP) - Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp says he'll
file a federal lawsuit to allow the state to check the citizenship
of newly registering voters.
    Kemp said Tuesday he plans to file the lawsuit in U.S. District
Court after the Justice Department again failed to clear the
state's method of checking the citizenship of prospective voters.
    Kemp on Tuesday accused the Obama administration of playing
"politics with our election processes and protections."
    Kemp said the state will also sue to implement a voting
citizenship law, which Gov. Sonny Perdue signed last year. Because
the state falls under the Voting Rights Act it must be cleared by
the Justice Department or by through the federal courts.
    Kemp said he would ask Attorney General Thurbert Baker to
appoint a special assistant attorney general to represent the
state.
   
STATE DENTAL HEALTH
    Report criticizes GA dental health among children
   
    ATLANTA (AP) - A newly released national study gives Georgia a
grade of 'C' when it comes to addressing child dental health.
    "The Cost of Delay: State Dental Policies Fail One in Five
Children," was released Tuesday by the Pew Center on the States.
    It looks at all 50 states and the District of Columbia, grading
each on things like how well they are using policy to ensure dental
access for children, including making Medicaid improvements.
    Georgia received a 'C' grade for meeting just half of the eight
policy benchmarks in Pew's analysis.
    The report says the state does not reimburse primary care
physicians for preventive dental health care, a measure that would
allow more children to receive care. But it says Georgia has done a
good job with providing fluoridated water to nearly 96 percent of
its population
   
ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION SHIFT
    Illegal immigrants numbers rise in Southeast
   
    ATLANTA (AP) - When the Olympic Games came to Atlanta in 1996, a
building boom transformed the landscape of downtown and brought
with it an influx of Latino immigrants - both legal and illegal.
    In the years since, the number of illegal immigrants living in
Georgia has skyrocketed. A new federal report says the illegal
immigrant population in the state more than doubled from January
2000 to January 2009 to about 480,000.
    Southeastern states, with the exception of Florida, had very few
immigrants, legal or illegal, as recently as the 1980s. But
demographers say the region, with a low cost of living and an
abundance of work, has become a magnet for immigrants, especially
illegal Mexican immigrants, over the last two decades.
   
DIESEL EXHAUST-GRANT
    Diesel retrofits in NE GA aimed at cutting smog
   
    ATHENS, GA (AP) - A $1.7 million federal stimulus grant to the
University of Georgia is being used to retrofit diesel vehicles to
reduce pollution.
    Officials say the money will be used to retrofit 239 to 253
diesel buses, agriculture and construction equipment,
tractor-trailers and garbage trucks in Clarke and Washington
counties, both of which are under scrutiny for their air quality.
    The filters are bolted onto vehicles' mufflers and remove
nitrogen oxide, fine particulates and carbon monoxide from engine
exhaust. Nitrogen oxide is a main component in smog.
    After the retrofits, the vehicles run on ultra-low-sulfur fuel.
    The Environmental Protection Agency says the retrofits will
reduce each vehicle's fine particulate emissions by 6.4 tons,
hydrocarbons by 13 tons and carbon monoxide by 91 tons.
   
RUSHDIE EXHIBIT
    Rushdie visits Emory for opening of archive
   
    ATLANTA (AP) - Novelist Salman Rushdie is at Emory University
this week for the official opening of his literary archive.
    Rushdie, who is in the middle of a five-year stint as a lecturer
at the Atlanta university, has donated his personal papers to
Emory's special collections library. The university has created an
exhibit from the manuscripts, letters and photographs that will run
through September.
    While on campus, the India native will teach classes, give
lectures and work with faculty.
    Rushdie was forced into hiding in England for a decade because
the Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran issued a 1989 fatwa, or religious
edict, ordering Muslims to kill the author, saying his book "The
Satanic Verses" insulted Islam. The Iranian government has since
declared it would not support but could not rescind the fatwa.

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