ATLANTA – Georgia high school athletes will be able to make money off of their name, image, and likeness (NIL) following a unanimous vote by the Georgia High School Association board. Monday’s vote will put high school athletes on a par with their older brothers and sisters playing college sports. The General Assembly passed legislation two years ago letting student-athletes at Georgia colleges, universities and technical colleges receive compensation for use of their name, image and likeness.

AILEY, Ga. (AP) — Authorities in rural southeast Georgia fatally shot a man who was armed with a gun and had made threats against law enforcement officers, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said Monday. GBI agents are investigating the death late Sunday at the end of a five-hour standoff in Montgomery County. The GBI is routinely called on by local law enforcement agencies to investigate shootings involving officers in the state.

BRUNSWICK, Ga. (AP) — A Georgia man was sentenced Monday to more than five years in federal prison for organizing a scheme that stole nearly $2 million in government aid intended to help businesses endure the coronavirus pandemic. A U.S. District Court judge in Brunswick sentenced 41-year-old Bernard Okojie after a jury in March convicted him of fraud and conspiracy charges.

ATLANTA – An inmate at Smith State Prison in Glennville has been charged with killing a correctional officer who was escorting him from the dining hall. Correctional Officer Robert Clark, 42, was assaulted from behind with a homemade weapon Sunday as he was escorting inmates Layton Lester and Marko Willingham, according to a news release from the Georgia Department of Corrections.

CLARKESVILLE, Ga. – The House Study Committee on Fishing Access to Freshwater Resources will hold its next meeting on Oct.12 at the Habersham Electric Membership Corporation in Clarksville.

Police say a man who used Airbnb to rent a room in Georgia ended up robbing the home’s owner at gunpoint. A homeowner in the metro Atlanta suburb of Buford called Gwinnett County police saying an armed man who had rented his basement through the room-sharing app had fled after stealing his wallet.

A Georgia prison guard died Sunday after he was attacked by an inmate, state officials said. Correctional officer Robert Clark, 42, died at a hospital after an inmate assaulted him with a homemade weapon at Smith State Prison in rural Glennville, the Georgia Department of Corrections said in a news release.

ATLANTA (AP) — J. Edgar Hoover became the federal government’s top cop. Ellis Island closed as a portal for immigrants to the United States. France hosted the first Winter Olympics. And a baby in rural Georgia became the first future American president born in a hospital. The year was 1924, and that tiny fellow in Plains was James Earl Carter Jr., known as “Jimmy” from the start.

SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) — Two weeks after local officials weakened restrictions that for decades protected a tiny Georgia island community populated by slaves' descendants, its Black residents hope to force a referendum that would give them the chance to override the zoning changes.

ATLANTA – Simplifying Georgia’s dual enrollment program is the key to making it financially sustainable, a former school counselor who now runs a private counseling business told state lawmakers Tuesday. “Until we can get to the clarity piece, we’re never going to have improvement,” Jill Oldham, co-owner of South River Counseling and Consulting in Conyers, told members of a joint legislative study committee looking for ways to ensure the future stability of what is widely considered a successful program.

SOCIAL CIRCLE, Ga. (AP) — Flathead catfish are invading another Georgia river, state officials warn, a predator that would threaten native fish included the prized redbreast sunfish. The Georgia Department of Natural Resources said that systematic sampling in August found more than a dozen flathead catfish in a stretch of the Ogeechee River just upstream from Interstate 95.

ATHENS, Ga. (AP) — A Georgia police officer has arrested two people for selling nitrous oxide, or laughing gas. An Athens-Clarke County officer made the arrests Thursday, the Athens Banner-Herald reports, after spotting people milling around with balloons following a concert in downtown Athens.

ATLANTA (AP) — At least 360 employees of Georgia's state prison system have been arrested on accusations of smuggling contraband into prisons since 2018, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports, with 25 more employees fired for smuggling allegations but not arrested. The newspaper finds that nearly 8 in 10 of Georgia Department of Corrections employees arrested were women, with nearly half of them 30 years or younger, when ages could be verified.

ATLANTA – Georgia public-school students outperformed their counterparts in the nation’s public schools on the SAT this year for the sixth year in a row. The Georgia public-school Class of 2023 recorded a mean SAT score of 1045, 42 points above the national average for public-school students of 1003.

PLAINS, Ga. (AP) — Former President Jimmy Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, on Saturday made a surprise appearance at the Plains Peanut Festival in their Georgia hometown, the Carter Center wrote in a social media post on X, formerly known as Twitter.

ROME, Ga. (AP) — A judge dismissed a murder charge against a Georgia man who spent more than 20 years in prison, ending a decadeslong legal fight to exonerate him. The Floyd County judge dismissed the case at the request of the district attorney, who decided not to bring Joey Watkins to trial again after his initial conviction was vacated. The Georgia Innocence Project and other attorneys waged a lengthy fight to overturn the conviction.

Georgia lawmakers passed legislation on the last day of this year’s General Assembly session guaranteeing Georgians the right to fish in navigable portions of the state’s rivers and streams.

ATLANTA – Georgia’s mental health agency has broken ground on the state’s first crisis support center specifically designed for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities. The Crisis Stabilization Diagnostic Center is expected to open at the beginning of 2025 in downtown Macon.

HIRAM, Georgia (AP) — A man and woman were shot and killed in an apparent murder-suicide Wednesday inside a Walmart in a Georgia town, police said. The shooting took place at about 7:30 p.m. in the Walmart Super Center in Hiram, a small town about 20 miles northwest of Atlanta, police said.

PERRY, Ga. (AP) — A 91-year-old Georgia sheriff has said he will hand in his badge after more than 50 years as the county's chief lawman. Houston County Sheriff Cullen Talton tells WMAZ-TV that he won't seek reelection in 2024 and will step down at the end of his term. “It’s time for me to hang it up, so I won’t run again,” Talton said.

MARIETTA, Ga. (AP) — The more than 50-year mystery of who killed a young Georgia girl has been solved, authorities said. Cobb County District Attorney Flynn D. Broady Jr., at a news conference Monday, confirmed the killer of 9-year-old Debbie Lynn Randall — whose body was found Jan. 29, 1972 — was William B. Rose, 24, of Mableton.

COLQUITT, Ga. (AP) — The death of a worker who suffocated in a Georgia grain silo could have been prevented had their employer not violated safety regulations, federal officials say. That finding results from a U.S. Department of Labor Occupational Safety and Health Administration investigation into the April death of a 59-year-old worker in Colquitt, Georgia, about 210 miles southwest of Atlanta.

LAWRENCEVILLE, Ga. (AP) — Officials in Georgia's second-largest county could ask voters in 2024 to approve a tax increase for transit, but won't seek to join the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority. Gwinnett County officials tell The Atlanta Journal-Constitution they're likely to ask voters in November 2024 to approve a 1-cent sales tax increase to expand transit in the county.

SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) — The city of Savannah will contribute $500,000 to renovate a house that once hosted an African American art museum. The Savannah City Council voted Thursday to give the money toward what's projected to be a $1.2 million restoration of the Kiah House, WTOC-TV reports.

ATLANTA – Georgia lawmakers have taken steps in recent years to rein in the costs of the state’s increasingly popular dual enrollment program, which lets high school students receive credit for taking college courses. But they’re not resting on those achievements. Given Georgia’s growing workforce demands, two legislative committees are working this summer to find ways both to ramp up the program and make it financially sustainable.