CAU traffic push, Audi plant & 2026 midterms across GA

We want to check in with our Fox 5 reporters and our assignment desk working on stories this afternoon. Assignment manager Tanya Mendoza joins us now live with what's going on out there today. Tanya. Hi, Tom. Nice to see you on a Monday in the 1 p.m. hour. Welcome. All right. So here's what we're working on. Larry Spruill is working on a story involving that Clark Atlanta student, a Clark Atlanta University student by the name of Morgan Campbell. She was a 21-year-old student there who died after her car was hit earlier in October, I think on October 12th, over on Hank Aaron Drive. They have held a candlelight vigil for her and balloon release about a week ago. And police charged Nikolai Dunford with speeding and reckless driving and first-degree vehicular homicide in connection with that crash. What Larry's working on today is that students and the Clark Atlanta University NAACP are pushing for changes at the intersection where this happened. They want it to be a four-way stop now. So they've started a petition with over 1,000 names on it, and he is going to be interviewing students over at Clark Atlanta, and we'll have an update for us a little later. Tom? We also have some crazy information, Tanya, on a stolen mail truck on the south side of the city. Somebody gets in a mail truck, takes off, and our Doug Evans is following that story for us this afternoon. That's right, exactly. Doug Evans pitched this in the morning meeting. So basically, he said there was a stolen mail truck from Columbus that stopped, that it was stopped by authorities in Senoia and Coweta County. The suspect is facing federal charges. We're going to find out what those charges are and how they were able to track all of this down. But that's what Doug's working on, and I'm super excited to hear more about that story, Tom. Yeah, you wonder, Tanya if there's any uh police dash cam video or any video of this pursuit i remember working down in Miami and somebody stole a mail truck with a hostage inside now i'm not saying that that's what happened here right but whenever somebody is in some sort of outrageous situation like this and by the way i understand just from reading a few of doug's notes that this suspect faces federal charges this afternoon for being in a mail truck right exactly so he faces federal charges. And, you know, it does involve Coweta County. And, you know, Doug covers a lot of stories over in that area. And they have a lot of cases over in Coweta County. He always has dash cam from from that jurisdiction. So hopefully we get that dash cam video or body cam today and we'll have much more on this later. All right, Tanya, a huge economic boost for our state in the form of the governor announcing that Audi is going to open a huge manufacturing plant here, joining other auto manufacturers. But this is big news for not only the state of Georgia, but for Audi as well. That's right. So Governor Kemp, he sent out a notice this morning to everybody in the media saying that he's going to be holding brief remarks on the recent announcement that Audi will invest $4 billion in its first U.S. manufacturing facility at the Middle Georgia Megasite. Commissioner Pat Wilson of the Georgia Department of Economic Development is also going to be on hand with him to talk about the big news. That's taking place at 3 p.m. And that's where our reporter Ray Yerina will be. And we're going to stream that back live for you, Tom. And Tanya, that has all kinds of economic implications for our state. We're talking about employment, the number one. But just great to have any kind of manufacturing, especially automobile manufacturing here. Exactly. So that's big news, you know, economic news for Georgia. And Ray is going to break all of that down for us a little later. All right. Finally, Tanya, there at the assignment desk, we know you have your eyes and ears on the pulse of early voting happening across our state. We're one week and one day away from Election Day now, and people are racing a final finish to get cast their early votes and they're coming out in droves, I understand. That's right. So early voting ends Friday and there's a big push for people to early vote throughout the state. I think on both sides, you know, we're hearing we're hearing that. So the big four candidates and I'm talking about Senate candidates and the gubernatorial candidates are all out getting the word out and campaigning this week. Today, I can tell you Rick Jackson, I believe, is focusing on West Georgia. He was over in the Carrollton area. He's going to be, where are my notes here, but he's going to be a little later campaigning over in LaGrange. And then he's going to end up his day over in Dallas with U.S. Senator Rick Scott holding a rally. So that's where he'll be. Mike Collins, he's the Republican Senate candidate. He was making several stops today as well. He was at noon. He was over in the Jefferson area, and we were catching up with him there. So he's, you know, moving his way throughout the state as well. Keisha Lance Bottoms, who is running for governor against Rick Jackson, and Senator John Ossoff, who is also campaigning, they were doing several events today as well. basically they were over in with Governor Andy Beshear of Kentucky and they were canvassing a launch with local union members um so that's what Deidre is working on she's she's going to focus on the big four tom i don't know about you but i'm getting text messages facebook messages it's just like i'm watching the commercials it's non-stop the campaign yeah i've seen a ton of commercials. I got to admit, though, I haven't gotten as many text messages as I have in elections past. But we have kind of a tale of two races, Tanya. And I know you've been in assignment desk meetings and management meetings about election night and how all of that is going to unfold for us. Of course, we'll be live pretty much all day between Fox Local here, where you're streaming us right now. And then when we're on the air, we're going to be covering every single angle of this election. But it's sort of a tale of two races. You have the gubernatorial election happening right now, where polls are somewhat tight, according to analysis that have been coming in. It's like a two or three point race within the margin of error, really. And then the Senate race where the polls are a bit wider, somewhere between eight and 10 points, with Democrat incumbent Senator John Ossoff leading over Mike Collins. Now, these polls are one thing, how the numbers shake out on election day are quite another. Exactly, Tom. And, you know, sometimes we get surprised when we hear, you know, what the polls say and you think one thing and then the opposite happens. So sometimes I feel like I really, you know, you can't really get ahead of it too much. You just have to follow it through election night and see what the numbers say that night. I can give you a little preview, if you want, of our coverage that night. I can tell you, I'd love to hear about it. We're going to be with the gubernatorial candidates. Um, I'm going to have, uh, Doug Evans actually with Rick Jackson and then Deidre Dukes will be covering Keisha Lance Bottoms. And then for the Senate candidates, Mike Collins, I think I'm putting Rob D'Arienzo over with Mike Collins. And, um, Eric Perry is going to head over to the John Ossoff, uh, election night party. And then we'll also be, um we're going to have candidates covered with the secretary of state's race and lieutenant governor so it's going to be a jam-packed night and we're going to be streaming we'll be on live it's going to be a jam-packed night we're going to give our viewers you know kind of a minute by minute update yeah i'm super excited and i know i know what you're going to be doing too so you know what you'll be doing you'll be live all the time all the time all day it's it's a day um you know sometimes breaking news comes fast and furious at us we got to catch our breath but this is a day that i think all of us in the newsroom really look forward to because it's something that sort of it's a it's a developing story that sort of unfolds all night long and we get to watch the numbers come in we get to hear the candidates talk we get to get their reaction as you say we'll have our reporters fanned out all over the place we're also going to have um some of our stream team over with the secretary of state's office for any updates there And I'm going to have some crews on standby. So if we hear viewers calling saying there's a problem at their polling site, we're going to have someone head over there and interview people and make those phone calls to see what's going on. So people can depend on us, and I will keep you posted all week long. All right. It's going to be a long day next Tuesday. Tanya Mendoza live at the assignment desk for us this afternoon. Tanya, thanks so much.