ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia Republicans shelved a plan to broaden state voucher funding for private school tuition and home schooling on Thursday, apparently lacking the votes for passage in the state House after a long debate. The House voted 95-70 to table the bill, meaning it could be taken up again before the 2023 session ends Wednesday. If not voted on this year, it could be considered again in 2024.

ATLANTA — Georgia will ban hormone replacement therapies, gender-altering surgeries for children under 18, under a law signed by Gov. Brian Kemp on Thursday.

ATLANTA – Georgia’s banks are in a strong position in the wake of the failure of two large American banks this month, the deputy commissioner of the state agency that oversees banks said Tuesday. “The state of banking overall in this country is very strong, and that’s especially the case in the state of Georgia,” Bo Fears of the Georgia Department of Banking and Finance told the state Senate’s banking committee. 

ATLANTA (AP) — The Georgia Senate on Tuesday rolled out a budget that would slice $87 million from Georgia's public universities in a power struggle with the House over hospital funding and permitting.

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) — Gopher tortoises imperiled by loss of habitat largely caused by human development should be placed on the endangered species list in four southern states, environmental groups said Wednesday as they prepared to sue the federal government over the issue.

ATLANTA (AP) — Eric W. Bell II won a special election to fill a vacancy in the Georgia House of Representatives, while Levon Allen and Clarence Cox will go to a runoff for the sheriff's post in Clayton County, according to final unofficial election results Tuesday.

ATLANTA (AP) — A bill that would formally define antisemitism in Georgia law has stalled after an unfriendly amendment in a Senate committee altered the measure in ways its sponsors disagree with, possibly ending the legislation's prospects in the 2023 legislative session. The sponsors of House Bill 30 say a definition would help prosecutors and other officials identify hate crimes and illegal discrimination targeting Jewish people. But they asked to have the bill set aside after the Senate Judiciary Committee adopted the amendment Monday. The legislative session ends March 29.

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Police in Louisiana have charged a man with illegally dumping the body of a 42-year-old Georgia man found wrapped in plastic and a rug nearly two weeks after he went missing. Baton Rouge police arrested 45-year-old Derrick Perkins on Monday. They said Perkins is a drug dealer who took drugs with Nathan Millard of Covington, Georgia, while Millard was visiting Baton Rouge on a business trip in late February.

CONYERS, Ga. (AP) — Three people, including a 17-year-old, are dead in what authorities said was a shooting in an Atlanta-area home early Monday. A suspect, Jailon Gray, 21, was apprehended at the scene and now faces three charges of murder, along with three charges of aggravated assault, Rockdale County sheriff's officials said at a Monday news conference.

ATLANTA – A Georgia native with 35 years of experience in the entertainment industry has been named executive director of the Georgia Film Academy. C. Scott Votaw got his start in Hollywood working on sets for commercials, film and episodic television, before working for production companies including Saban, Fox, Lucasfilm Ltd. and other independent content creation companies.

ATLANTA  — Pro-gambling lawmakers have hijacked feel-good legislation that would have designated an official state soap box derby, turning it into  a longshot bill that would legalize sports gambling in the state. State Rep. Leesa Hagan, sponsor of the bill to honor the Southeast Georgia Soap Box Derby in Lyons,  said she wasn’t consulted and didn’t consent to the move.

ATLANTA (AP) — A Georgia man who shot at two convenience stores hoping to kill Arab and Black people has been sentenced to serve 20 years in prison after pleading guilty to a federal hate crime charge. Larry Edward Foxworth, 48, fired a Glock pistol multiple times through the windows and doors of two convenience stores in Jonesboro, just south of Atlanta, shortly before 3 a.m. on July 30, 2021, the U.S. attorney's office in Atlanta said in a news release. Both stores were open and people were inside, but no one was hit.

ATLANTA – Georgia’s Teachers Retirement System lost about $33 million when two large banks – Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank – failed earlier this month. The fund lost $18 million from the Silicon Valley Bank failure and $13 million from the Signature Bank failure, Teachers Retirement System Executive Director Buster Evans said Thursday.

ATLANTA – Gov. Brian Kemp wasted no time signing the $1 billion state income tax rebate the General Assembly passed this week. The Republican governor put his signature on House Bill 162 late Tuesday, just hours after the Georgia Senate gave the legislation final passage.

ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia lawmakers have given final approval to two pieces of Republican Gov. Brian Kemp's tax cut agenda. The measures would give income tax filers another $1 billion in tax refunds and to ratify Kemp's decision to waive tax collections on gasoline and diesel fuel for months. Kemp already signed his plan for a $950 million property tax rebate into law Friday as part of the amended budget for this year.

SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) — The family of a 60-year-old man who killed himself when left alone in a police station interview room filed suit Tuesday against the city of Savannah and its police department. Attorneys for the family say that officers questioning William Zachery Harvey two years ago in connection with an aggravated assault ignored him when Harvey threatened to take his own life rather than go to jail.

President Joe Biden says he plans to deliver the eulogy at the funeral of former President Jimmy Carter, who remains under hospice care at his home in south Georgia. Biden told donors at a California fundraiser Monday evening about his “recent” visit to see the 39th president, whom he has known since he was a young Delaware senator supporting Carter's 1976 presidential campaign.

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A jury’s decision that a Louisiana State University fraternity pledge’s family is entitled to $6.1 million for his hazing-related alcohol death in 2017 sends a powerful message, the family’s attorney said Monday. Max Gruver, from the Atlanta suburb of Roswell, Georgia, had been at LSU for only a month when he died of alcohol poisoning and aspiration after a hazing ritual at the Phi Delta Theta fraternity house in 2017.

ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp said Monday that he has delivered on campaign promises of tax breaks by signing an amended budget. Kemp signed House Bill 18 on Friday, boosting spending by $2.4 billion through the June 30 end of the budget year. That includes nearly $1 billion for a property tax break and also diverts nearly $1.1 billion in state revenue to the state Department of Transportation to make up for uncollected fuel taxes while gas and diesel taxes were suspended.

CARTERSVILLE, Ga. (AP) — Two men caught shoplifting at a grocery store in Georgia had an estimated $26,000 worth of baby formula in their car, according to police. Police in Cartersville caught the men walking out of a Publix store north of Atlanta with backpacks filled with cans of formula, news outlets reported. Officers searching their car found 662 more cans of formula inside, police Lt. Greg Sparacio said.

MARIETTA, Ga. (AP) — Two road construction workers were hit by a car and seriously injured in suburban Atlanta early Sunday. Police tell local news outlets that the men had gotten out of their vehicle under an overpass in Marietta to set up an electronic sign with an arrow showing a lane was closed.

GLENNVILLE, Ga. (AP) — Grand jurors have indicted three people in the murder of a guard at a troubled southeast Georgia prison, making it the third murder outside prison walls attributed to a gang. WTOC-TV reports that Nathan Weekes, Dennis Kraft and Keisha Jones were indicted last week in Long County for malice murder, felony murder, and aggravated assault in the 2021 death of Jessica Gerling.

GAINESVILLE, Ga. (AP) — Federal officials are pausing a plan that could lead to new names for Georgia's Lake Lanier and Buford Dam after locals objected to changing the monikers of landmarks now named for Confederate soldiers. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers issued a statement Friday announcing the pause pending further guidance from the Department of the Army.

ATLANTA – The economic slowdown in Georgia many economists have been predicting for this year hasn’t arrived yet. The state Department of Revenue collected more than $2.12 billion in taxes last month, an increase of 8.7% over February of last year, the agency reported Friday. For the first eight months of fiscal 2023, tax revenues were up 5.9% over the same period in fiscal 2022.

ATLANTA – Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger launched a new computer system this week designed to improve the tracking of registered voters. The $4 million Georgia Registered Voter Information System will contain more than 12 million voter records, including more than 7 million active voters.