Ken Stanford

Saying it is probably the "hardest decision I have made since I've been on the commission," Hall County Commission Chairman Tom Oliver Friday defended his proposal to raise the county property tax rate by 1.41 mills.

Violent weather swept across the Eastern seaboard overnight, dropping heavy rains that flooded towns from New England to Georgia, knocking out power and killing at least three people in the Atlanta area.

A Commerce woman is celebrating a Georgia Lottery prize. Doris Whitsel, 68, matched all five winning numbers in the May 9 Fantasy 5 drawing, winning a $175,205 jackpot prize.

No one was hurt when a tree crushed the roof of a house in Indian Hills Subdivision in North Hall during Thursday night's storms.

The Supreme Court has sustained Arizona's law that penalizes businesses for hiring workers who are in the United States illegally, rejecting arguments that states have no role in immigration matters.

Minutes before a midnight deadline, President Barack Obama signed into law a four-year extension of post-Sept. 11 powers to search records and conduct roving wiretaps in pursuit of terrorists.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Friday that relations between the United States and Pakistan had reached a turning point after the killing of Osama bin Laden and Islamabad must make "decisive steps" in the days ahead to fight terrorism.

For Republican presidential contenders who once supported combatting global warming, the race is heating up. Faced with an activist right wing that questions the science linking pollution to changes in the Earth's climate and also disdains big government, most of the GOP contenders have stepped back from their previous positions on global warming.

More than 1,200 college rowers began arriving in Gainesville Thursday for the American Collegiate Rowing Association National Championship Regatta at the rowing venue on Lake Lanier.

More than $4 million in Transportation Enhancement (TE) program funds for twelve projects in the Ninth Congressional District have been approved, including two in Hall County - one each in Gainesville and Lula.