Airport Check-in: Atlanta shows off upcoming rental car center

Miami-Dade Aviation Department

By Roger Yu, USA TODAY

Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson offered the public its first peek of the new rental car center that opens in November, becoming the latest location to embrace a growing airport design trend.When it opens, all rental car counters in the passenger terminal will move to the new location, which will have about 8,700 parking spaces. The 125 rental agency shuttle buses that now circle the airport will be put out of service. 

In their place, the airport will launch ATL SkyTrain, an elevated train that connects the passenger terminal to the rental car center in about five minutes. More than 2 million people rent cars at Atlanta Hartsfield, the world’s busiest airport, each year.

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Atlanta Hawks trying to sign Joe Smith

Joe Smith has been in the league for 13 years and has played for a slew of teams, but never for the Atlanta Hawks. The team apparently wants to change that.

According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the 6′10″ forward/center Smith has been a target of the team all summer long, but Smith has also been on the back tier of a number of other rumors this summer. It appears he’s still waiting to see how rosters shake out before he commits anywhere, but he should know by now that the Hawks reportedly consider him a front-line kind of signing.

Meanwhile, the Hawks are also taking a look at 7-footer Garret Siler, veteran 7′ center Jason Collins, Johan Petro, Stromile Swift and Courtney Sims.

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Swine Flu Vaccine Tests Begin In Atlanta

EITAN ABRAMOVICH/AFP/Getty Images

ATLANTA — Emory University researchers have started vaccinating adult volunteer participants in the first of several national clinical trials of a new H1N1 vaccine.  

The Emory clinical trial will evaluate the safety and immune response to an H1N1 vaccine and help determine how the pandemic and seasonal flu shots should be given to make it most effective. The results of the trial will help determine how to begin a fall 2009 pandemic flu vaccination program.  

Dr. Mark Mulligan at Emory says a second study focused on small children and young adults will begin in about a week.

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3-year countdown begins for Atlanta’s water future

In a Tuesday, Oct 7, 2008 file photo, men fish from the exposed shore at Lake Lanier in Buford, Ga. - AP

Georgia faces the dire prospect of losing metropolitan Atlanta’s main water source if political leaders can’t broker a solution with Alabama and Florida over rights to a major reservoir within three years.

That doomsday scenario would cut off water from Lake Lanier for more than 3 million residents, driving a stake through the heart of Atlanta’s decades of rampant growth and threatening one of the Southeast’s main economic engines amid a sour economy.

Experts say they doubt a recent federal court ruling will shut the taps off, but it does put Georgia in a weak position and could finally push the three states back to the negotiating table after nearly two decades of stalemate.

After all, said Atlanta Regional Commission Chairman Sam Olens, “FEMA isn’t going to provide enough trucks to have drinking water for 4.5 million residents” in the Atlanta region. About 3 million of the residents get their water from Lake Lanier.

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Atlanta might have to return millions in fed aid

ATLANTA — Atlanta might have to return millions in federal aid money allocated to help some of the city’s poorest communities.

The city expects to give back more than $30 million at year’s end unless program administrators get an extension from the federal government.

Program officials say few applicants have been able to qualify or get the cash because of the red tape required. The money remains from the city’s designation as a $100 million federal Empowerment Zone in 1994.

William McFarland, executive director of the nonprofit organization the city created to handle the money, said local officials have strictly followed program rules required by the federal government.

Atlanta’s Empowerment Zone covered 30 inner-city neighborhoods.

The program expires Dec. 31.

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Noted Atlanta author Paul Hemphill dies

Credit: paulhemphill.net

It was said of country music legend Hank Williams that he wove his magic using “three chords and the truth.”

Atlanta writer Paul Hemphill, whose critically well-received biography of Williams was one of his last books, worked that same magic.

As a columnist and author, Hemphill entranced readers chronicling the blue-collar South. He wrote about stock cars and country music, church burnings and church evangelists. His 15 books, including nonfiction work and novels, reverberated with all the twang and tears of a Hank Williams tune.

Hemphill died early Saturday. He was 73. He had spent some time in hospice care, after cancer moved from his mouth to his lungs.

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Woman Reportedly Raped at Home of Atlanta Falcons Player Harry Douglas

BUFORD, Ga. — Authorities in Georgia are searching for a suspect accused of raping a woman at a party hosted by an Atlanta Falcons wide receiver.

The woman told Gwinnett County police Thursday morning she was raped at the home of Harry Douglas after she fell asleep in one of the bedrooms.

She told police she was startled awake by a man who was sexually assaulting her.

Authorities say Douglas was not involved and that no charges have been filed against him.

The 24-year-old was drafted by the Falcons in the third round last year.

The Falcons issued a statement saying the team was aware of the report and that Douglas was not involved, and would have no further comment during the investigation.

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Obama Taps Atlanta Fed Chief For Job

President Obama named Atlanta Fire Chief Kelvin Cochran to head the U.S. Fire Administration, where he will oversee national efforts to prevent fires and improve response.

Cochran, 49, was chief in his hometown of Shreveport, La., when named head of the Atlanta Fire Rescue Department in November 2007. A city budget crisis forced him to make cuts, including the controversial closing of two fire stations and temporarily shutting stations when staffing was low.

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