Fresh Loaf

CHINA EARTHQUAKE: Death toll has passed 12,000 from Monday’s 7.9-magnitude quake, with more than 18,000 buried under rubble in just one city.

ATTRACTING RETENTION: Only 12 percent of embattled Clayton County’s teachers are leaving the school system, which is lower than some administrators had feared.

BATTLE OF ‘WITZ: Emory political scientist Alan Abramowitz writes a Washington Post op-ed on Obama, working-class whites and “symbolic racism.”

WEST VIRGINIA: Clinton campaigns, Obama campaigns.

PASSING THE BARR: Bob Barr announces he’s running for president as a Libertarian.

DREAM TEAM: A collection of rookies and role players, the new Atlanta Dream begins its season next weekend, hoping some residual basketball fever remains in the city from the Hawks’ playoff run.

HERE WE ARE NOW: Gov. Perdue signs a bill that will give up to a 30 percent entertainment tax credit to productions of films, TV shows, commercials, music videos and video games in the state.

HAVE YOUR LAKE AND DRINK IT, TOO: Lake Lanier Association doesn’t think all lakes are created equal.

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MOTHER’S DAY TORNADOES: Twenty-three people are killed nationally by an estimated 47 twisters from Oklahoma and Missouri to Georgia, making this year the worst so far for tornadoes since 1999. At least one person dies in Georgia as six tornadoes hit through midstate.

EXECUTIVE PRIVILEGE: A Valdosta Daily Times reporter, who was one of five media monitors of the execution of William Earl Lynd last week, writes of the experience.

THOMAS GOWN AFFAIR: Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas gives UGA’s commencement speech over the weekend, recalling how Georgia was still too segregated for him to attend UGA in the ’60s.

SCHOLARBLIND: The AP profiles the valedictorian of this year’s Morehouse graduating class, who’s white.

CORN IN THE USA: By July, the entire Southeast gasoline pipeline will be using E10, which is at least 8 percent ethanol.

CAN’T ARGUE WITH RESULTS: Jonesboro High School’s mock trial team wins its second consecutive national championship.

SHADY ROVE: MC Turd Blossom has a new gig as FOX News “pundit.”

CROWS TERRIFIED: Northeast Georgia town trying to break Guinness World Record for “Most Scarecrows in One Location,” with 4,000 scarecrows by Sept. 1. No one so far has had the heart to tell Hoschton that this will not, in fact, make the town a “household word.”

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OBAMA: Tries to solidify his standing as presumptive nominee by visiting the House of Representatives and taking a “victory lap,” as the NYT calls it.

BONEHEADED: Without even being asked, teen being questioned about an unrelated crime tells police officers that he and a friend dug up a 1921 grave, stole the skull and made a bong out of it.

ATLANTA NO. 1 FOR SINGLES: Maybe now there actually will be thousands of local singles waiting for our call.

BAN KI-MOON: U.N. secretary-general, while visiting Atlanta, calls for Myanmar to allow in foreign aid workers.

CLAYTON COUNTY: Has the best-tasting water in metro Atlanta.

BURNING TO THE VICK: Judge orders Michael Vick to repay more than $2.4 million to a Canadian bank for defaulting on a loan.

UNIONS FIGHT LAYOFFS: Fired city workers and union leaders say Mayor Franklin didn’t exhaust enough short-term options before laying off 441 employees.

YOU’VE COME A LONG WAY, RABIES: Hall County has its 20th reported case of rabies this year. AccessNorthGa has used one of its finest rabies file photos for this story.

EVENT VERIZON: Girl discovers that a Verizon store manager, while doing an “emergency battery charge” on her phone, sent himself a copy of a revealing photo she had taken of herself on her phone. WSB is so outraged on her behalf that it posted a (cropped) copy of the photo on its home page.

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MYANMAR: More than 100,000 people may be dead, and the junta still won’t let in foreign aid.

THERE’S A BAN KI-MOON RISING: U.N. secretary-general visits Atlanta today.

EXIT STRATEGY: TIME magazine on why it’s hard to imagine Clinton bowing out of this race after more than 20 years of Clintonian dominance.

WILDFIRES: Could spread like themselves again this summer in South Georgia. Sprouting trees are sucking up what little water there is, and even sparks from passing trains have already started small fires.

BRAND SPANKING NEWS: Atlanta-based Spanx sues British company S.P.A.N.K., alleging trademark infringement that could lead to consumer confusion.

CASEY AT THE BAT: Cagle now says he’d allow a Senate vote on Sunday alcohol sales.

CLAYTON BOE: Denies “knowingly and willingly” breaking the law.

RADIOHEAD: Thunderstorms are expected tonight, and you can’t bring umbrellas into Lakewood.

POWERS THAT WILL BE: If new nuclear reactors are added to Vogtle, Georgia Power expects rates to go up $12 a month in 2018.

DIGGING UP DIRT ON MAYOR: Archaeologists are excavating Brunswick mayor’s back yard after ancient pottery shards were discovered, some more than 1,000 years old.

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MYANMAR CYCLONE: Death toll exceeds 22,000.

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT: Georgia’s the first state to start killing prisoners again, with William Earl Lynd scheduled to be lethally injected at 7 tonight.

GEORGIA AQUARIUM: Adding dolphins, as well as 1.3 million gallons of water for them.

NORREESE HAYNES: Clayton judge says Haynes can’t have his school board seat back and he sued the wrong group, since the school board doesn’t administer elections. Haynes says he’ll appeal and now sue the right group, the board of elections.

MORE IN CLAYTON: New corrective superintendent is making all school administrators reapply for their jobs.

FALCONS: Linebacker Michael Boley arrested in Dacula on charges he beat his wife.

KEPT ON TRUCKING: Disgruntled truck driver drives truck cab into lake.

ARTHUR TESLER: Trial underway for the only cop involved in Kathryn Johnston shooting to plead not guilty; lawyers say he was manipulated by two senior officers.

MAN FROM PLANES: Delta prez explains to surly Minnesota lawmakers that he’s going to be taking their Northwest HQ back to Atlanta.

DOT FIRINGS: WSB-TV open-records request finds reasons why Gena Abraham has fired 43 employees since taking over in December, ranging from theft, pulling a machete on another employee, bringing a gun to work and e-mailing porn.

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GAME 6 TONIGHT: I’ve seen Celtic Pride. We have to keep Daniel Stern and Dan Akroyd away from Joe Johnson today.

GANGBUSTERS: Gang experts say the NBA only drew attention to Paul Pierce’s apparent gang sign during the Celtics Game 4 loss in Atlanta by fining him for it.

TEAT-TOTALING: Three out of four moms now breast-feed their babies, according to the CDC, an “all-time high” since the mid-’80s.

BRIDGE JUMPERS STANDERS: I-985 closed down yesterday; I-20 closed down this morning. Neither jumper jumped.

LOW FLOW: The state wants to extend lower flows from Lake Lanier through May 31, but just about everyone south of Atlanta doesn’t.

CLAYTON SCHOOLS: Gov. Perdue signs two bills into law to safeguard Clayton students and hold the school board more accountable as de-accreditation looms closer.

AIR ABERRANT: If you’re waiting for Atlanta to get off the list of top 10 most polluted cities, don’t hold your breath. Actually, maybe you should.

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MAYDAY: Smog season starts today.

ROLLING OUT THE RED CARPETBAG: Niagara County, New York, assuming companies in the South are too lethargic from dehydration to move elsewhere, considers venturing down here to liberate them to the Great Wet North.

FLEXING ITS MUSSELS: Florida pulls the marine-life card again in response to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ recent water-sharing proposal.

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED! Mission to sugarcoat and obfuscate Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” banner snafu accomplished.

BOSTON MASSACRE: Home teams keep winning as the Celtics handily take Game 5 from the Hawks. Game 6 is here tomorrow night.

DEMOCRATIC SENATE RACE: Getting melodramatic.

LIAISONS LEAVING: State liaisons assigned to help Clayton County save its accreditation ask Gov. Perdue to excuse them from what they call an impossible task, saying the school board has only gotten more dysfunctional since the SACS report was released in February.

OH REALLY? Unhelpful headlines today:

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DOUG COLLINS: State rep from Gainesville, who’s also an Air Force Reserve chaplain, to be deployed to Iraq in September.

ONE FOR THE ROAD: Hawks play one in Boston tonight before returning to Philips Friday.

SHAD STATE OF AFFAIRS: Because lock valves on a Savannah River dam have failed, leaving the gates stuck shut, biologists on Tuesday manually moved spawning shad in the Savannah River upstream to shoals near Augusta so they can lay their eggs.

CLAYTON SCHOOLS: New corrective superintendent’s contract pays him $1,187.50 per day and allows him to take 45 percent of his time off; the school system is set to lose its accreditation in 124 days. Also, the state attorney general’s office is demanding that the Clayton school board address allegations that it illegally closed public meetings.

GWINNETT SCHOOLS: Gets AAA, the highest possible rating, from two agencies that evaluate financial stewardship.

LONG, STRANGE TRIP: Father of LSD Albert Hofmann dies at 102.

WRIGHT BACK ATCHA: Obama denounces his former pastor.

THE BREAST THINGS IN LIFE: WSB reports on a website (NSFW) that allows women to post photos of themselves, nude if they choose, to solicit donations for breast implants. WSB gets fair and balanced by quoting Georgia Christian Alliance’s Sadie Fields to wax philosophical on the nature of porn. Guess what? She says it’s porn.

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FALCONS: Put a period at the end of Michael Vick’s sentence.

AL FRESCO: Rejuvenated Al Horford and the Hawks try to even the series with the Celtics tonight.

CLAYTON: Has another chaotic school board meeting, this time while trying to vote on a contract for its new corrective superintendent.

A LOAN IN THE DARK: Only one Georgia technical school participates in the federal student loan program, leaving the state with the highest percentage in the country of tech schools students without access to the federal loans.

SWAMPWISE: Late Okefenokee stalwart Oscar the alligator, who was at least in his mid-60s when he died last July, will be memorialized in a dinosaurlike skeleton display at the park.

VICIOUS CYCLE: Kanstantin Sivtsov of Belarus wins the Tour de Georgia.

GA. DEMS: Hoping Obamania and GOP infighting will grease their wheels in November, but also having to robo-call in a search for candidates for certain districts.

GRADY EXPECTATIONS: New York doctor demands severance from Grady after he quit his job in NY and moved to Georgia with his wife, only to have his job offer at Grady withdrawn after they got here.

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BUDGET CRISIS: Atlanta considers privatizing some city services to deal with the budget shortfall.

ZEBRA OWNER: Wants to press charges against pranksters, argues stunt was dangerous, unlike “taking a goat over there,” which would apparently be a fine thing to do.

CLAYTON: School board hires Thompson as corrective superintendent, board chairman and attorney quit.

BRIAN NICHOLS TRIAL: Judge Bodiford won’t step down despite defense’s discovery of a 2005 Marietta Daily Journal article in which Bodiford was quoted as saying he was friends with the judge who was killed. He’s asking another judge to rule on the issue.

STUDENT LOANS: Getting scarcer.

UNWAFFLE BEHAVIOR: Police mace, arrest Truett Cathy’s grandson after he allegedly went on a nude rampage in the bathroom of the Northside Drive Waffle House.

STRIP CLUB ARSON: Army medic who was working as a strip club’s security guard pleads guilty to arson in the burning of a competing club, Club Onyx, in January 2007.

BANKS BANK ROBBED: Man sought for robbing a bank at Banks Crossing in Banks County Thursday.

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ZEBRA WATCH ‘08: Metro Atlanta’s zebra infestation continues as workers extract one that was sneaked into an Emory at Oxford building Wednesday.

MAKING THE BANDIT: Local media eager to apply catchy monikers to bank robbers after the