Aiken council votes to ditch 2-hour parking

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The Aiken City Council voted Monday night to do away with time limits on parking in the downtown area.

City Manager Roger LeDuc said that the vote was unanimous and that the council voted to go back to the system that existed before November 2007.

The council also decided to add some handicapped parking spots downtown, LeDuc said.

Bomb threat empties construction site

The construction site for Plant Vogtle's two new reactors was evacuated Monday after the site's construction manager received a bomb threat.

"We followed our emergency response plan for this type of threat, which included working with our client and calling in law enforcement, who performed a thorough inspection and advised us that the site was cleared for employees to return to work," said Gentry Brann, a spokeswoman for the Shaw Group, which is managing the project on behalf of Southern Nuclear.

She would not answer questions about the nature of the threat or how it was conveyed, other than to say law enforcement was notified. She also refused to say if this was the first such threat against the company or its Vogtle project.

Boy drowns in pond at grandmother's house

A 17-month-old Windsor boy drowned Monday in a goldfish pond at his grandmother's, according to the Aiken County Coroner's Office.

Timothy Rogers was pronounced dead at Aiken Regional Medical Centers about 1 p.m., Aiken County Coroner Tim Carlton said.

The child was visiting his grandmother's home in Windsor and, according to witnesses, was with other children before he went missing, Carlton said.

He was found in about 16 inches of water in the pond.

The incident is being investigated, but no foul play is suspected, Carlton said. An autopsy is planned today in Newberry, S.C.

Aiken school board to finalize facility plan

The Aiken County School Board will move tonight to put a bond referendum to voters this year.

The board and administrators have spent about six months developing a multimillion facility plan that includes upgrades to six of the district's worst facilities. The administration will provide final financials on project costs, which could range from $184 million to $242 million.

If voters approve the referendum, homeowners would pay an additional $90 to $118 annually on $100,000 of property.

The 7 p.m. meeting will be held at 1000 Brookhaven Drive.

29 businesses raided for illegal gambling

Authorities seized close to 200 video poker machines in a crackdown on illegal gambling in Emanuel and Toombs counties Monday.

Hayward Altman, the district attorney for the Middle Judicial Circuit of Georgia, said more than 100 law enforcement personnel worked to execute search warrants on 29 businesses in Emanuel and Toombs counties. Machines were seized from nine businesses in Emanuel and 20 in Toombs.

The investigation began after authorities received complaints from residents of the counties. Under Georgia law, payouts from gambling machines are limited to a nominal amount of money or goods.

The businesses targeted during the raid were making cash payouts to the winning customers, which is illegal under Georgia law, Altman said.

No one has been arrested, but warrants are forthcoming, Altman said.

He said the raid was the largest on illegal gambling ever conducted in the judicial circuit.

Sias to announce bid for District 4 seat

Sammie Sias, a retired Army sergeant major and president of the Richmond County Neighborhood Association Alliance, says he'll be a candidate this year for the Augusta Commission's District 4 seat, held by Mayor Pro Tem Alvin Mason.

Sias, 55, said he'll make a formal announcement Thursday night at Jamestown Community Center during a meeting of the Sandridge Neighborhood Association, of which he's president. He is a former member of the Augusta Personnel Board and serves on the Chronic Nuisance Properties Ordinance committee, which is drafting a new city code dealing with landlords and lawbreaking tenants.

Drums of radioactive waste to be sorted

Federal stimulus dollars will be used to resurrect a program to hand-sort drums of radioactive wastes so they can be shipped to a disposal site in New Mexico.

The program involves "transuranic wastes" generated in the 1970s and '80s that typically consist of clothing, equipment, tools, rags, residue, debris and other items that contain trace levels of plutonium.

Between 3,800 and 4,000 drums of roughly 30,000 examined through X-rays were found to contain items such as aerosol cans that are prohibited at the Energy Department's Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M. Those drums must be opened and their contents sorted to remove prohibited items and make the waste eligible for transfer to New Mexico.

The drums were packed before rules were developed for the types of waste accepted at the Carlsbad site.

Police say man shot at ex-girlfriend, her kids

Authorities arrested a man Sunday who is accused of beating his ex-girlfriend and shooting at her new lover last week.

Charles Edward Warney Jr., 26, was charged with burglary, aggravated assault, third-degree cruelty to children and weapons violations, according to Richmond County jail records.

Lizzie Dukes was inside her Richmond Hill Road home on March 2 with her children and Nathan Patterson when Warney began beating on the front door.

When they wouldn't let him inside, Warney broke through a window, deputies said. Dukes, Patterson and the children ran from the home and were shot at by Warney, deputies said. No one was injured in the shooting.

Warney then followed Dukes and the children to her mother's apartment and kicked down the door.

He kicked her and beat her with his pistol, deputies said. She was treated at the Medical College of Georgia Hospital for facial injuries.