(AP) -- SHOOTING-2 DEAD
    2 dead, 1 wounded in Georgia shootings
   
    POWDER SPRINGS, GA  (AP) - Powder Springs police say two people
are dead and another wounded as a result of an apparent domestic
shooting.
    Police say they received a 911 call early Thursday from someone
reporting a person with a weapon.
    Officers say they arrived and heard gunshots, and two people,
one of them wounded, left the residence. They say two juvenile
family members also left and were not injured.
    Police say that when they entered the home, they found two
people dead in an apparent murder-suicide.
    Authorities say 18-year-old Rajaan Bennett of Powder Springs
died of a bullet wound to the head, and 39-year-old Clifton Steager
of Milledgeville died of a self-inflicted shot to the head.
   
COUNTY-DEFICIT
    GA county's deficit widening
   
    DECATUR, GA (AP) - DeKalb County commissioners have been told
that falling property values may mean they'll have to do more
budget-cutting.
    The commission is trying to cut $84 million from its budget.
Vivian Ingersoll, chairwoman of the county's board of assessors,
now says the county's tax digest will decline by more than 6
percent from last year.
    Chief appraiser Calvin Hicks said those numbers are preliminary,
but more foreclosures, developments left incomplete and a poor
housing market have sent property values down by $1.6 billion.
    Commissioners have identified about $75 million in cuts,
including an early retirement program, unpaid holidays and 10
furlough days for all employees except police and firefighters.
They've also proposed getting rid of take-home cars, cutting money
to Grady Memorial Hospital, delaying library openings and cutting
some salaries.
   
ROCK SLIDE-LOANS
    Loans available resulting from SE Tenn rock slide
   
    NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - Gov. Phil Bredesen says federal disaster
loans are available as a result of a rock slide that closed U.S.
Highway 63 in November.
    The loans are good for Polk, Bradley, McMinn and Monroe counties
in Tennessee, Fannin and Murray counties in Georgia and Cherokee
County in North Carolina.
    The low-interest loans are available to small businesses, small
agriculture cooperatives and most private nonprofit organizations
that have been affected by the rock slide.
    The loans are offered through the Small Business Administration.
   
INMATES-DOGS
   GA jail inmates get dog training program
   
    LAWRENCEVILLE, GA (AP) - The Gwinnett County sheriff's office
has begun placing dogs taken from animal shelters with inmates,
with the object of giving both a second chance.
    The program allows inmates to train dogs in order to save the
animals' lives and find them permanent homes.
    Each dog is placed with two inmates. The dog is trained in basic
obedience, groomed and exercised.
    Sheriff Butch Conway says the idea is to make the dog more
adoptable and help inmates develop vocational skills. He says it's
the first such program in Georgia.
    Care, food, training and veterinary services are provided
through volunteers and a group called the Society of Humane
Friends, which will work to place the dogs in homes.
   
ART COLLEGE-DONATION
    GA State U gets $4M gift from art school alum
   
    ATLANTA (AP) - Georgia State University's school of art and
design has received a $4 million donation from the school's
namesake, who died in December at 103.
    Ralph Gilbert, associate dean for fine arts at Georgia State,
says the money will be invested through the university's endowment
so that it can provide annual support to the school, which was
named for Ernest G. Welch in 2003. Welch and his late sister,
Frances, left a large portion of their estate to the school.
    Gilbert says faculty will research ways to use the money to
start new initiatives and programs.
    Welch got a business degree from Georgia Tech in 1928, but after
a long career decided to enroll in Georgia State's art school in
his 80s to study photography.
    --
    On the Net:
    Georgia State University: http://www.gsu.edu
   
BOMBARDIER-GEORGIA
    Bombardier to bring 180 jobs to Macon
   
    ATLANTA (AP) - A Canadian transportation company will open a
facility in Macon in Bibb County.
    Gov. Sonny Perdue said Wednesday that Bombardier Aerospace
center will create 180 jobs over the next year. Bombardier will
open a maintenance, repair and overhaul operation at the Macon
Airport, a $2 million investment.
    Perdue says the move will boost Georgia's growing presence in
the aerospace sector.
    The facility will complement two existing Bombardier-owned
commercial aircraft service centers in Bridgeport, W. Va. and
Tucson, Ariz.
    Bombardier is based in Montreal.
   
CIVIL RIGHTS GROUP PROBE
    Investigators in SCLC probe head to Atlanta
   
    ATLANTA (AP) - Three officials with the Southern Christian
Leadership Conference are in Atlanta looking into allegations that
the national chairman and former treasurer mishandled hundreds of
thousands of dollars of the organization's money.
    FBI officials confirmed Wednesday that officials met with SCLC
members in Atlanta, five days after FBI agents searched the Dayton,
Ohio, SCLC office as well as the homes of national chairman the
Rev. Raleigh Trammell and his daughter, Angela Goodwine.
    Trammell and former national treasurer Spiver Gordon of Eutaw,
Ala., are suspected of diverting at least $569,000 of SCLC money to
bank accounts they controlled.
    Law enforcement agencies in Georgia, where the SCLC is based,
Ohio and Alabama have been provided information about the possible
mismanagement of funds.
   
MARINE KILLED
    Marine from GA killed in Afghanistan
   
    UNDATED (AP) - The Department of Defense says a 21-year-old
Marine from Paulding County was killed while supporting combat
operations in Afghanistan.
    The Pentagon said Jason H. Estopinal of Dallas was killed on
Monday in Helmand province, site of a major offensive by U.S. and
Afghan forces against the Taliban.
    Estopinal was assigned to 2nd Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment,
2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force out of Camp
Lejeune, N.C.
    Estopinal was a 2007 graduate of East Paulding High School in
Dallas.

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