Alabama Gov. Bob Riley is warning utility giant Southern Co. to stay out of the region’s tri-state water war. In a letter to company CEO David Ratcliffe Wednesday, Riley said he was surprised to learn that the head of Southern subsidiary Georgia Power was leading a Georgia “impact team” formed by Gov. Sonny Perdue to work on the state’s strategy in the dispute, including lobbying Congress.

Minimum wage goes up 70 cents starting Friday. The increase is causing headaches for some small business owners. WJBF News Channel 6’s Barclay Bishop has more.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke says the Fed will be able to reel in its extraordinary economic stimulus and prevent a flare up of inflation when the recovery is more firmly rooted.

We call it the lake, but what’s its name? Lake Thurmond is the official one, unless of course you call it something else. For 20 years, it’s been the great lake name game. It’s “Out There…Somewhere” with News Channel 6’s George Eskola.

One of the country’s main monitors of hate groups is asking Congress to investigate possible racial extremism in the military, after finding service members on a social networking Web site advertised as being for whites only.

A federal report shows Georgia’s large homeless population shrank between 2007 and 2008, but found there was not enough shelter space available statewide and more than half of Georgia’s homeless go unsheltered.

Members of the Senate grilled executives from the wireless phone companies…about their massive profits…from text messaging. This is big business: more than 3,000,000,000,000 (3 trillion) text messages will be sent this year…but with success comes scrutiny, and members of Congress want to know how the companies can charge so much for a simple text message. ABC News’ Elizabeth Leamy has more.

A government watchdog says the Federal Aviation Administration is missing safety inspections at major airlines. The Transportation Department’s inspector general, Calvin Scovel, said Wednesday that the cozy relationship between FAA inspectors and Southwest Airlines that he warned Congress about last year extends to more offices within the agency and more airlines than previously known.

The Treasury Department has approved 10 of the nation’s largest banks to repay $68 billion in government bailout money.

Vice President Joe Biden says the highest unemployment rate in more than 25 years underscores the tough times many Americans still face, but that the slowing rate of job losses reflects some “signs of hope” too.

An auto tax incentive is going through Congress that would give you credit for trading an older car for a more fuel-efficient one. WJBF News Channel 6’s Paige Tucker talked to supporters and critics of the measure.

Top executives from General Motors and Chrysler will appear before a Senate committee Wednesday to address concerns about hundreds of dealership closings as the two automakers work through government-led bankruptcies.

Mistakes that put patients at three Department of Veterans Affairs hospitals at risk of possible exposure to HIV and other infectious body fluids will be discussed by a congressional panel. Among more than 10,000 former VA patients in Murfreesboro, Miami and Augusta, Ga., who the VA has warned to get follow-up blood checks, five have tested positive for HIV and 39 have tested positive for hepatitis.

President Barack Obama says some of the terror suspects held at Guantanamo will be brought to prisons in the United States, despite fierce opposition in Congress. Speaking at the National Archives, Obama said U.S. prison facilities are tough enough to house even the most dangerous inmates. He criticized what he said is an effort to politicize the issue, and said he won’t do anything to endanger the American people.

President Barack Obama has announced a new fuel and emission standard that he says will, at last, put the United States on the road to a cleaner environment and better fuel efficiency.