Fresh Loaf

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DON’T DRINK THE WATER: A toxin found in Mars’ water dims scientists’ hopes of finding life there.

DOCK BLOCK: More than 2,300 private docks were built in coastal Georgia between 1996 and 2006, and each one can reduce biomass production by 30 percent below it due to blocked sunlight. Researchers are thus studying four types of docks that allow sunlight through.

NEW GRADY CEO: Says changing “the aura” will be the difference at Grady; plans to buy upgraded medical equipment, identify the top 10 financial issues and streamline processes in an effort to attract more insured patients to the beleaguered hospital.

WI-FI IN THE SKY: Delta plans to start offering Wi-Fi on all its domestic flights by next summer, but it’ll cost $10 for three hours or less and $13 for longer flights.

FIELD TRIPS: Georgia schools considering canceling them to save fuel.

TAILS WAGGING DAWGS: Mark Richt discusses the slew of arrested and penalized players this offseason; he and top players echo the line that they won’t be a distraction for long.

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BRAVES: Trade Mark Teixeira to the Angels for 1B Casey Kotchman and a minor league relief pitcher. The move comes the same day that Murphy’s Law became a constitutional amendment for the Braves, as they learned ace Tim Hudson may be out for the year and Chipper Jones went back on the DL.

DELTA: A dead woman was found in an airplane bathroom this morning on a flight from L.A. to Atlanta.

CHATTANOOGA CHOO CHOO: A private consultant briefs the Chattanooga City Council on the progress of planning a high-speed rail line from that city to Atlanta. The finished report, expected by early 2010, will whittle down 24 possible alignments to six: three maglev and three VHS (very high speed).

BEER: More popular than wine by double digits again.

“MONKEY FROM MARS”: The GBI museum in Decatur has the remains of a monkey that three men tried to pass off as an alien in 1953.

SUPER GRAND REOPENING: Super Grand Buffet, the Duluth restaurant that recently made news for getting a health score of 15, has been reinspected and this time got a 100.

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VACANCY: Atlanta police have a new burglary unit dedicated to monitoring houses that have been foreclosed or abandoned, as copper thieves grow in numbers and audacity.

CITY COUNCIL: Wants to keep Fire Station No. 7 open.

SOUTH BY NORTHWEST: Northwest Airlines tells its employees that it may move up to 400 jobs to Atlanta.

JACKSON COUNTY: Gets state approval to sell discounted gas to the county’s nine municipalities, the first county in Georgia to do so.

BLUE JEAN BANDITS: Five suspects are arrested.

WITHOUT A PADDLE: Fifty thousand tons of sewage spill into the ground in Gainesville, entering a tributary of Balus Creek.

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EVERGLADE PLUG-IN: United States Sugar agrees to sell 187,000 acres in the Everglades, and all of the company’s other assets, to the state of Florida for $1.75 billion, which will allow natural water flow from Lake Okeechobee to Florida Bay for the first time since the 1890s.

OBAMA: Leads McCain in two polls by more than 10 points, although June poll results rarely hold steady through November. Hillary Clinton begins campaigning for Obama today. Obama asks his supporters to help alleviate some of her campaign debt.

UNIONS’ UNION: Delta and Northwest pilot unions agree on a joint contract.

CYBER RATTLING: Atlanta is the 10th-largest cybercity and largest in the Southeast.

COLLARED: Police pull over and arrest an Atlanta man in Macon driving a U-Haul loaded with $150,000 worth of Polo shirts that had been stolen in Valdosta.

GAS PRICE WAR: Two gas stations in Buford are in an arms race of affordability, with a gallon dropping as low as $3.45 over the weekend.

DOG BEAT DOG: Fresno State downs UGA to tie the series at 1-1; Game 3 to decide the national champion is tonight at 7.

JOHN THOMPSON: The Clayton County corrective superintendent says he was misheard in the video he posted online Monday, that he said Clayton schools “had a very slim chance” of maintaining accreditation, before he became superintendent, not “have a very slim chance.” Two Board of Education members back up the misheard version, saying Clayton will not maintain its accreditation.

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NATIONAL HEALTH MUSEUM: Atlanta is picked as the location for the $230 million museum, Sonny Perdue announced Wednesday afternoon.

HEALTH UNSURANCE: Georgia gets failing grade, as do most other states, from a Families USA study on equality in health insurance coverage.

SHORTFALLIN’: The Georgia DOT will likely finish this fiscal year more than $1.2 billion in the red, Commissioner Gena Abraham says.

EASTERN EQUINE ENCEPHALITIS: Six new cases of the disease, which is spread by mosquitoes and swells horses’ brains, are reported in South Georgia. Humans are also susceptible.

IN FARM’S WAY: Carroll County woman plans to turn 66 acres into a sustainable, ecologically balanced agrarian community called Brokenfoot Ranch. At least its name isn’t as lame as Serenbe.

NANNY 911: A Forsyth County deputy, his wife and his part-time magistrate father are charged in a human-trafficking case in which they allegedly hired a woman from India to be their nanny, only to quit paying her and threaten her if she tried to escape.

MANHUNT: Lawrenceville police searched for a suspected car thief for three hours Wednesday. It looks really exciting in this exclusive AccessNorthGa shot of the manhunt.

FLYING HIGH: Two former TSA agents and a former Delta Air Lines employee plead guilty to intended drug-smuggling after being caught during a sting operation at Hartsfield-Jackson.

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LEAVING ONLY FOOTPRINTS: Cityfolk have smaller carbon footprints than residents of more rural areas, according to a study released today by the Brookings Institution. But the lower carbon output is tied to density, meaning Atlanta is on the low end of the ecofriendliness.

UNCONVENTIONAL: Dems’ rules committee will meet Saturday to decide what to do with precocious Florida and Michigan and their convention-hungry delegates.

SUND RISES: The Hawks hire former SuperSonics GM Rick Sund, who faces an offseason with no draft picks, two players with expiring contracts and a head coach whose contract is up in a month. His hiring has flustered some fans, including this Bleacher Report writer who was driven to mix metaphors (”I don’t trust this guy with a ten foot pole”), not to mention write a headline I can’t bring myself to repeat here.

WALK IT OUT: Rookie cops begin foot patrols in two Atlanta police zones, per the recommendation of City Councilman Ceasar Mitchell.

UNION DON’TS: Not enough Delta flight attendants vote to unionize.

CHANGE WE CAN COMMUTE IN: DOT Director Gena Abraham promises innovation and change in metro Atlanta’s transportation quagmire while addressing the Gwinnett Chamber of Commerce Wednesday.

DRUG MULE: Sentenced to 25 years in prison for driving with a kilo of cocaine and a gun, which she says she didn’t know were in the car. Her lawyer says the sentence, which is the mandatory minimum, is too high even if she had known.

MONKEY THINK, MONKEY DO: A new study advances the teaching-animals-to-control-robotic-arms-with-just-their-brains research, as two macaques have apparently adopted a robotic arm as their own, improvising and reacting to stimuli in real time.

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JOHN EDWARDS: Endorses Obama.

TB LAND: Georgia’s reputation for rogue tuberculosis patients is bolstered by a Covington man arrested and quarantined for not obeying doctor’s orders to stay at home after TB diagnosis.

TAKE A MULLIGAN: Marietta racist Mike Norman has ordered 100 more of his blatantly race-baiting “Obama in ‘08″ T-shirts to sell at his bar, Mulligan’s, despite widespread protests, mockery and death threats. The worst part may be his rationalization.

REMINGTON STEAL: A northeast Georgia man’s Remington 16-gauge shotgun, stolen in 1986, is returned 22 years later after being discovered Monday in Maynard, Tenn. Good timing, too, because now he can take it into restaurants and on public transit.

TRUST NO ONE: Antitrust review is the last hurdle for the Delta-NWA merger, and experts doubt the Dept. of Justice will block the deal on antitrust grounds.

TAKING A SCRAP: Bad economy and rising global copper prices are increasingly driving thieves in Cartersville, and around the country, to steal copper wiring and cables.

C1AL1S BUST: Feds and local police raid a Roswell home where they say a couple was making up to $30,000 a day selling drugs such as copycat Cialis via mail order.

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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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CAMPAIGN IN THE NECK: Clinton wins Pennsylvania by 10 points, likely meaning we get to delight in this campaign all summer.

SPECIAL K: Smoltz gets 3,000th strikeout, Braves lose.

CHAMBLEE SIX: Sextet of Chinese immigrants who subdued and hogtied an international fugitive in February are now giving away their $10,000 in reward money.

CIVIL UNIONS: Delta and Northwest pilots unions to resume negotiations about merging their workforces.

DAVID POLLACK: Retires from the NFL at age 25 due to the neck injury he suffered two years ago.

DOUBTING THOMAS: UGA President Michael Adams defends his choice of Clarence Thomas as the 2008 commencement speaker amid faculty complaints that the university’s sexual harassment problems this year make Thomas a bad choice.

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If you’ve arrived in Atlanta on an international flight, you’re no doubt familiar with Hartsfield-Jackson’s annoying international luggage “re-check” requirement.

If you’re not, it goes like this:

1. Land.

2. Claim your luggage in Concourse E.

3. Clear U.S. Customs with your luggage.

4. Re-check your bag to have it shipped across the airport to one of the main baggage claim areas.

5. Mutter something to someone, anyone, about how stupid this system is.

6. Take the airport’s train to one of the main terminals and collect your luggage again.

Yesterday, I picked up my future missus at the airport. She was out of the country for work. (more…)

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LOVE IS IN THE AIR: Delta and Northwest finally shack up. The AP offers this timeline of the two airlines’ histories. And while local congressmen seem keen on the idea, the merger still has more skeptical politicians, as well as unions and antitrust regulators, to clear before becoming final.

HERSCHEL WALKER: Appeared on “Nightline” last night to discuss his dissociative identity disorder.

IDLE HAYNES: Norreese wants back on board, but the school system’s attorney suggests the board wait until the courts rule on his residency. Meanwhile, the actual accreditation crisis continues.

JIMMY CARTER: Meets with Hamas, pisses off Israel.

HAWKS: Make the playoffs for the first time this century, earning the right to lose to the Celtics in the first round. I think this is a good time to revisit the video below (there’s an 18-second delay at the beginning of the clip). Look out for current Celtics coach and then-Hawk Doc Rivers near the end:

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