Georgia wireless customers using all carriers have texted pledges totaling $501,701 to the American Red Cross efforts to help Haiti, Verizon Wireless reported Monday.
That figure is through Jan. 16.
Verizon said it has transmitted about $3 million to the Red Cross relief effort for Haiti. Customers of all U.S. wireless companies had pledged more than $9 million to the relief fund.
Wireless users can donate by texting HAITI to 90999.
Calhoun Times
A Rome man was arrested in Cherokee County over the weekend.
According to the Cherokee County Sheriff’s report:
Larry Wayne Justice, 40, of Rome, Ga., was arrested for failure to pay on previous charges including two counts of unlawful possession of prohibited liquor, two counts of bail jumping, and unlawful possession of marijuana in the second degree.
RNT
There will be a special called meeting of the Town of Trion on Wednesday, January 20 in the Town Hall Conference Room. The meeting will begin at 1 PM. The purpose of the meeting is to discuss the School Administration Building Release according to Trion Mayor Jonny Ingle.
The Chattooga County Sheriff’s Department has no arrests to report today. There was no one booked into the Chattooga County Jail over the past 24 hours.
Today is a Federal Holiday – banks will be closed and there will be no mail service. Also most kids are out of school and local governmental agencies will be taking the day off for Dr. Martin Luther King Day. Also Chattooga County Transit will not be running today due to the holiday.
Locally there is a service planned at Oak Hill Missionary Baptist Church in the Gore Community at 1 PM this afternoon. Melvin Mosely, a deacon at the church, will be bringing the message and the public is invited to attend.
Chattooga County saw a 98% increae in unemployment claims for the month of December. There were a total of 184 new unemployment claims filed in Chattooga County last month.
Other areas of Northwest Georgia saw jumps in their unemployment claims as well. Walker County was up 21% with 1,078 new claims and Whitfield County had a whopping 3,546 new claims during December – up by 34%.
State wide in Georgia layoffs were abundent with over 100,000 workers filing unemployment claims in December – up 39% from November.
Catoosa County, Ga., has a Tennessee law to thank as part of the reason Costco Wholesale is looking to build two miles south of the state line.
Under Tennessee law, Costco, called the biggest wine dealer in the United States, cannot sell its cabernet, chardonnay and chablis in the Volunteer State.
The Issaquah, Wash.-based company is said to be completing details with Catoosa County and Fort Oglethorpe on a site off Cloud Springs Road for a warehouse club. The site is a mile and a half down Interstate 75 from the Georgia-Tennessee line.
Although it sells tires, electronics and clothing, Costco is considered a grocery store because it sells food. In Tennessee, grocery stores are not allowed to sell wine. Such sales are allowed in Georgia unless a county overrides the state law. In Catoosa County, grocery stores can sell beer and wine, but not liquor.
A Costco spokeswoman said the company sold $1.1 billion worth of wine in 2009, and wine trade magazines have crowned the warehouse club the biggest dealer of wines in the United States.
The Cloud Springs location allows the store to draw from the Chattanooga market while following Georgia laws, which officials say probably played a role in the decision to put the store and its millions in sales tax revenue south of the border.
"I’m sure it did," said Sen. Jeff Mullis, R-Chickamauga. "They haven’t told us that, but I’m sure it did. Wine is one of their big-ticket items."
Other Georgia officials agreed.
To see the complete article in the Chattanooga Times-Free Press click here:
Johnson & Johnson issued a massive recall of over-the-counter drugs including Tylenol, Motrin and St. Joseph’s aspirin because of a moldy smell that has made people sick.
It included caplet and geltab products sold in the Americas, the United Arab Emirates, and Fiji.
Consumers should check the full list at www.mcneilproductrecall.com to identify the recalled batches.
It was the second such recall in less than a month because of the smell, which regulators said Friday was first reported to McNeil in 2008.
Federal regulators criticized the company, saying it didn’t respond to the complaints quickly enough, wasn’t thorough in how it handled the problem and didn’t inform the Food and Drug Administration quickly.
The recall includes some batches of regular and extra-strength Tylenol, children’s Tylenol, eight-hour Tylenol, Tylenol arthritis, Tylenol PM, children’s Motrin, Motrin IB, Benadryl Rolaids, Simply Sleep, and St. Joseph’s aspirin.
The FDA and Johnson & Johnson’s McNeil Consumer Healthcare Products said they did not know the number of bottles recalled.
The FDA said about 70 people have been either sickened by the odor — including nausea, stomach pain, vomiting and diarrhea — or noticed it.
The smell is caused by small amounts of a chemical associated with the treatment of wooden pallets, Johnson & Johnson said. The FDA said the chemical can leach into the air, and traced it to a facility in Las Piedras, Puerto Rico.
The New Brunswick, N.J., company said it is investigating the issue and will stop shipping products with the same materials on wooden pallets. It has asked suppliers to do so as well.
The FDA said McNeil knew of the problem in early 2008 but made only a limited investigation.
"McNeil should have acted faster," said Deborah Autor, the director of the FDA’s Office of Compliance of the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. "When something smells bad, literally or figuratively, companies must aggressively investigate and take all necessary action to solve the problem."
The FDA sent McNeil a warning letter for violating manufacturing standards and failing to report and investigate the problem in a timely way, Autor said.
Johnson & Johnson has 15 days to respond. The FDA says it wants an explanation as to why the problem was not made public sooner.
In November, McNeil recalled some Tylenol Arthritis Caplets due to the smell. Almost three weeks ago, the company expanded its recall to include more batches of Tylenol Arthritis Caplets.
There have been no reports of nausea related to the most recent recall, the company said. McNeil, however, said the expanded recall includes product lots that could be affected by the same problems of nausea.
The company said it is working with the FDA.
RNT
The Cherokee County Sheriff`s Office Narcotics unit made an arrest last week that landed a Gaylesville man in jail.
Narcotics Unit Agents had been conducting an investigation that resulted in the arrest of 43 year old Ben Harry Morris from Co. Rd. 77 Gaylesville.
Agents seized a large quantity of drugs (Crystal Meth), a .32 caliber handgun, a large quantity of cash, and a set of scales. Some of the drugs were packaged for resale and a large amount was bagged in a clear plastic bag.
Morris was transported to the Cherokee County Detention Center.
He was charged with Unlawful Possession of a Controlled Substance
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