BREMEN, Ga. (AP) — A suspect remains jailed after police say he tried to abduct a 7-year-old girl who was able to fight him off at a Walmart store in west Georgia on Wednesday.

Court officials in Tallapoosa County say a bond hearing for 25-year-old Thomas A. Woods of Austell is expected to take place as early as Friday. Details of the court appearance for Woods, who faces an attempted kidnapping charge, were still being finalized.

A state official said Thursday that Woods was on probation after serving time in prison in a DeKalb County voluntary manslaughter case. Officials in Bremen had previously said he was on parole.

State Board of Pardons and Paroles spokesman Steve Hayes says Woods was being supervised by the Georgia Department of Corrections' probation office in DeKalb County.

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ATLANTA (AP) — Firefighters were able to rescue nearly 200 people, many of them elderly or disabled, after a fire spread smoke into their five-story apartment building in DeKalb County.

Only one person was reported injured in the fire, which happened around 8 p.m. at the Lenox Summit Apartments in the 2400 block of East Club Drive off Peachtree Road.

Wanda Thomas tells WSB-TV the smoke was pushing her out the door. She said it was so thick that her kitchen light was on, but she couldn't see it.

Authorities say the fire was contained to the first floor of the high-rise. WSB Radio reports that the only person injured was a man trapped inside the burning unit. He was rescued by firefighters.

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ATHENS, Ga. (AP) — University of Georgia president Michael Adams says he believes a college football playoff is only a couple of years from becoming a reality.

The Athens Banner-Herald reports that Adams says his "best guess" is that major college football will end up with either a four-team or eight-team playoff by 2014.

Adams made the comments during meetings with the UGA Athletic Association board executive committee on Wednesday.

Adams called the Big Ten's decision this week to consider a playoff system a "very significant development" because he said the Big Ten and what's now the Pac-12 "killed it" in the past.

Adams proposed an eight-team playoff in early 2008.

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Information from: Athens Banner-Herald, http://www.onlineathens.com

©2012 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

AUGUSTA, Ga. (AP) — Crews in east Georgia spent much of Wednesday cleaning up more than 10,000 gallons of sewage that overflowed from a a manhole in south Augusta.

Authorities tell The Augusta Chronicle (http://bit.ly/z1GPcb) that the Augusta Utilities Department was notified of the overflow in some woods behind a home off Tobacco Road around 10:15 a.m.

Officials say the sewer line had backed up because it was full of rags.

Authorities said a Butler Creek tributary was affected was the spill.

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Information from: The Augusta Chronicle , http://www.augustachronicle.com

©2012 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

ATHENS, Ga. (AP) — Police say two Georgia men tried to fool a motorist into thinking they had a radar gun, then tried to stop the driver near Athens.

The motorist was an off-duty Athens-Clarke County police officer, who pulled them over instead.

Police tell the Athens Banner-Herald (http://bit.ly/y99fCj) the two men in a pickup used a rolled-up magazine to appear they were using radar on U.S. Highway 441 in Oconee County Tuesday. Police say the men "peeled out" after the off-duty officer with their headlights flashing and were mouthing the words "pull over."

The officer called sheriff's officials, who stopped them. Police say one of the men said they got bored, so they decided to try and stop some cars.

The men, ages 25 and 24, were let go with no charges filed.

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Information from: Athens Banner-Herald, http://www.onlineathens.com

©2012 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

ATLANTA (AP) — Executives with Atlanta Medical Center say they're exploring a plan to consolidate the hospital with South Fulton Medical Center.

Atlanta Medical Center officials said in a statement that executives from both hospitals are in discussions with the Georgia Department of Community Health to determine the most viable option and to secure needed approvals.

Atlanta Medical Center is a 460-bed academic medical center in downtown Atlanta. South Fulton Medical Center is a 338-bed community hospital in East Point. Both facilities are owned by affiliates of Dallas-based Tenet Healthcare Corp.

If approved, South Fulton Medical Center would become Atlanta Medical Center - South Campus.

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ATLANTA (AP) — A judge has found probable cause to send to a grand jury the case of a deejay who authorities say fatally shot a nightclub customer.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (http://bit.ly/wgGhiG ) reports that Fulton County Judge Karen Woodson made the ruling on Wednesday involving Johnny Jackson III, who goes by the stage name "DJ Outlaw."

Authorities say Jackson is accused of firing a shotgun at Mark Williams on Jan. 16 in the parking lot of Rockafella's Nightclub in south Fulton County. Police previously said the shooting happened after an argument began inside the nightclub.

His attorney, Morris Fair, says his client acted in self-defense.

County police Detective J.S. Rittberg said the victim was shot five times with a shotgun. He says a witness told police she saw Jackson fire at Williams.

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Information from: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, http://www.ajc.com

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JEFFERSON, Ga. (AP) — State and county authorities are investigating after a woman said she was pulled over by a man she thought was a law enforcement officer and then assaulted during the traffic stop.

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation says the crime happened around 10 p.m. Sunday in a rural area off U.S. Highway 129 in Jackson County, northeast of Atlanta.

Authorities say the suspect was driving a Crown Victoria police-type vehicle with a light bar on the roof. He was described as wearing clothing consistent with a law enforcement uniform.

Law officers are seeking to speak with other people who might have been pulled over by the man on or around Sunday in the area.

GBI officials did not describe how the woman was assaulted during the Jackson County traffic stop.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama on Thursday will free 10 states from the strict and sweeping requirements of the No Child Left Behind law, giving leeway to states that promise to improve how they prepare and evaluate students, The Associated Press has learned.

The first 10 states to receive the waivers are Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, Oklahoma and Tennessee. The only state that applied for the flexibility and did not get it, New Mexico, is working with the administration to get approval, a White House official told the AP.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the states had not yet been announced. A total of 28 other states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico have signaled that they, too, plan to seek waivers — a sign of just how vast the law's burdens have become as a big deadline nears.

No Child Left Behind requires all students to be proficient in reading and math by 2014. Obama's action strips away that fundamental requirement for those approved for flexibility, provided they offer a viable plan instead. Under the deal, the states must show they will prepare children for college and careers, set new targets for improving achievement among all students, reward the best performing schools and focus help on the ones doing the worst.

In September, Obama called President George W. Bush's most hyped domestic accomplishment an admirable but flawed effort that hurt students instead of helping them. He said action was necessary because Congress failed to update the law despite widespread bipartisan agreement that it needs fixing. Republicans have charged that by granting waivers, Obama was overreaching his authority.

The executive action by Obama is one of his most prominent in an ongoing campaign to act on his own where Congress is rebuffing him. No Child Left Behind was primarily designed to help the nation's poor and minority children and was passed a decade ago with widespread bipartisan support. It has been up for renewal since 2007. But lawmakers have been stymied for years by competing priorities, disagreements over how much of a federal role there should be in schools and, in the recent Congress, partisan gridlock.

For all the cheers that states may have about the changes, the move also reflects the sobering reality that the United States is not close to the law's original goal: getting children to grade level in reading and math.

Critics today say the 2014 deadline was unrealistic, the law is too rigid and led to teaching to the test, and too many schools feel they are labeled as "failures." Under No Child Left Behind, schools that don't meet requirements for two years or longer face increasingly tough consequences, including busing children to higher-performing schools, offering tutoring and replacing staff.

As the deadline approaches, more schools are failing to meet requirements under the law, with nearly half not doing so last year, according to the Center on Education Policy. Center officials said that's because some states today have harder tests or have high numbers of immigrant and low-income children, but it's also because the law requires states to raise the bar each year for how many children must pass the test.

In states granted a waiver, students will still be tested annually. But starting this fall, schools in those states will no longer face the same prescriptive actions spelled out under No Child Left Behind. A school's performance will also probably be labeled differently.

The pressure will probably still be on the lowest-performing schools in states granted a waiver, but mediocre schools that aren't failing will probably see the most changes because they will feel less pressure and have more flexibility in how they spend federal dollars, said Michael Petrilli, vice president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, an education think tank.

While the president's action marks a change in education policy in America, the reach is limited. The populous states of Pennsylvania, Texas and California are among those that have not said they will seek a waiver, although they could still do so later.

On Tuesday, Education Secretary Arne Duncan said states without a waiver will be held to the standards of No Child Left Behind because "it's the law of the land."

Some conservatives viewed Obama's plan not as giving more flexibility to states, but as imposing his vision on them. Rep. John Kline, R-Minn., who chairs the House Education and Workforce Committee, said the president allowed "an arbitrary timeline" to dictate when Congress should get the law rewritten and set a dangerous precedent by granting the education secretary "sweeping authority to handpick winners and losers."

Duncan maintained this week that the administration "desperately" wants Congress to fix the law.

In an election year in a divided Congress, that appears unlikely to happen.

A Senate committee last fall passed a bipartisan bill to update the law, but it was opposed by the administration and did not go before the full Senate for a vote.

Kline released a draft of a Republican-written bill to update the law, earning the ire of California Rep. George Miller, the committee's ranking Democrat. Miller said such partisanship "means the end" to No Child Left Behind reform in this Congress. Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, who chairs the Senate committee with jurisdiction over education, has said he believes it "would be difficult to find a path forward" without a bipartisan bill in the House.

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ATLANTA (AP) — The reward for information about who attacked a man on an Atlanta street corner has grown to $11,000.

Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed announced a $10,000 reward, and City Councilwoman Cleta Winslow says she's donating an additional $1,000.

Brandon White, the 20-year-old Atlanta man who police say was pummeled by a group of men in an attack caught on video, said Wednesday that he feared for his life and hopes the attackers are arrested soon.

Federal authorities have said they're investigating the Feb. 4 attack as a possible hate crime. Gay slurs are heard in the video.

The video shows three unidentified men pouncing on White as he walks out of a grocery store in the city's Pittsburgh neighborhood south of downtown.

©2012 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.