ATLANTA (AP) — Election integrity activists want a federal judge to order Georgia to stop using its current election system, saying it's vulnerable to attack and has operational issues that could cost voters their right to cast a vote and have it accurately counted. During a trial set to start Tuesday, activists plan to argue that the Dominion Voting Systems touchscreen voting machines are so flawed they are unconstitutional.

LANETT, Ala. (AP) — A Georgia sheriff's deputy was fatally injured when he was struck by another police vehicle at the end of a high-speed pursuit that crossed over into Alabama. Coweta County Deputy Eric Minix died early Thursday morning after chasing a stolen vehicle, the sheriff's office wrote on social media, and “during the apprehension of the suspect Eric was struck by a police car and was pronounced dead at an area hospital.”

ATLANTA – A Morgan County judge has dismissed a lawsuit aimed at stopping the construction of a $5 billion electric vehicle manufacturing plant near Interstate 20 east of Atlanta. When Rivian first announced its plans in 2021, the plant was the largest economic development project in Georgia history.

A bomb threat emailed to officials in several states early Wednesday briefly disrupted government affairs and prompted some state capitol evacuations, but no explosives were found and federal officials quickly dismissed the threats as a hoax. The threats follow a spate of false reports of shootings at the homes of public officials in recent days.

ATLANTA (AP) — A person held at a jail in Atlanta set fire to his cell, but the fire was extinguished quickly and no one was injured, officials said. The fire at the Fulton County Jail was extinguished by jail staff. The Atlanta Fire Department also responded to the scene. It was unclear how the person started the fire.

ATLANTA – A $1 billion election-year tax cut the Republican-controlled General Assembly passed last year took effect on New Year’s Day. For now, the phased-in tax cut sets the state income tax rate for 2024 at a flat 5.49%, down from the current 5.75%. The tax rate will continue to decline annually, arriving at 4.99% in 2029.

ATLANTA – A state senator plans to introduce legislation during the upcoming session of the General Assembly aimed at “swatting,” false reports of criminal activity that send police to the homes or offices of targeted victims.

GRIFFIN, Ga. (AP) — A Georgia sheriff’s deputy was fatally shot Friday while responding to a report of a domestic disturbance at a home in Spalding County, officials said.

ATLANTA (AP) — A federal judge on Wednesday accepted new Georgia congressional and legislative voting districts that protect Republican partisan advantages, saying the creation of new majority-Black voting districts solved the illegal minority vote dilution that led him to order maps to be redrawn.

CLEBURNE, Texas (AP) — Six people are dead and three others critically injured after a head-on crash on a north Texas highway. The Johnson County Sheriff's Office says the crash happened late Tuesday near the town of Cleburne, about 33 miles south of Fort Worth. Investigators believe a southbound pickup truck driven by a 17-year-old entered the northbound lanes in a no-passing zone and slammed into a minivan. Six people in the minivan were killed, including the 28-year-old driver from Irving, Texas.

Republican U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene was the target of a swatting attempt at her Georgia residence on Christmas morning, the congresswoman and local police said, marking the latest instance of someone calling in a fake emergency to draw armed officers to her home. The Rome Police Department quickly verified that the call was a hoax and did not send officers to the house, department spokesperson Kelly Madden said.

PEACHTREE CITY, Ga. (AP) — A German drug packaging and medical device maker says it will expand in suburban Atlanta, investing $88 million and hiring more than 200 new employees. Gerresheimer AG, based in Dusseldorf, said Thursday that it would build a new factory in Peachtree City, south of Atlanta.

ATLANTA (AP) — Atlanta's school system on Thursday reversed itself and said it would now pay employees a $1,000 bonus announced Monday by Gov. Brian Kemp after Georgia's state superintendent of education sent out a public letter lambasting the system for saying it wouldn't pay the money.

GAINESVILLE, Ga. (AP) — The pilot of a single-engine plane was killed after the aircraft crashed at Lake Lanier Islands Resort on Thursday. The Hall County Sheriff's Office said it happened around 5:15 p.m. in a parking lot along Lanier Islands Parkway near Pine Cone Drive, news outlets reported. The plane had taken off about 15 minutes earlier from DeKalb-Peachtree Airport, authorities said.

ATLANTA – Georgia’s unemployment rate held steady at 3.4% in November for the third month in a row, the state Department of Labor reported Thursday. Several categories again reached record highs, including the number of jobs, which rose slightly by 0.3% last month compared to November of last year to more than 4.95 million.

ATLANTA (AP) — The people who successfully sued to overturn Georgia’s congressional and state legislative districts told a federal judge on Wednesday that new plans Republican state lawmakers claim will cure illegal vote dilution should be rejected.

BRUNSWICK, Ga. (AP) — A Georgia chemical plant that shut down after a raging fire in the spring will be dismantled next year as the owner works to sell the property, according to company officials. It will take most of 2024 to remove buildings and otherwise clear the Pinova plant site in coastal Brunswick, company operations director Ron Kurtz told Glynn County commissioners at a Tuesday meeting. He said decommissioning of the plant should be complete by next December.

ATLANTA (AP) — Almost 15 years of wrangling over who should pay for two new nuclear reactors in Georgia and who should be accountable for cost overruns came down to one vote Tuesday, with the Georgia Public Service Commission unanimously approving an additional 6% rate increase to pay for $7.56 billion in remaining costs at Georgia Power Co.'s Plant Vogtle.

MACON, Ga. — The nonprofit National Trust for Local News is establishing the Georgia Trust for Local News, a new community newspaper company that will serve Middle and South Georgia. Anchored by support from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Robert W. Woodruff Foundation, and the Marguerite Casey Foundation, the Georgia Trust for Local News is dedicated to providing and strengthening impartial, timely, and relevant community news.

ATLANTA (AP) — It’s unclear to Tameka how — or even when — her children became unenrolled from Atlanta Public Schools. But it was traumatic when, in fall 2021, they figured out it had happened.

ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia's government will put a little extra jingle in the pockets of state, university and public school employees, paying them a $1,000 year-end bonus, Gov. Brian Kemp announced Monday. The Republican governor also said he would propose a permanent $104 million yearly allocation for school security going forward, enough to provide $45,000 to every Georgia public school, as he makes further plans to spend Georgia’s $11 billion in surplus funds.

ATLANTA (AP) — Federal drug officials are warning Georgia to shelve its plans to be the first state to allow pharmacies to dispense medical marijuana products. News outlets report that the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration on Nov. 27 warned pharmacies that dispensing medical marijuana violates federal law.

ATLANTA (AP) — A federal judge has ruled that school board districts in Georgia's second-largest school system appear to be unconstitutionally discriminatory and must be quickly redrawn ahead of 2024's elections. U.S. District Judge Eleanor Ross on Thursday forbade the Cobb County school district from using a map supported by the current board's four Republican members, finding in a preliminary injunction that the map is “substantially likely to be an unconstitutional racial gerrymander.”

ATLANTA (AP) — Republican Rep. Drew Ferguson said Thursday he won't seek reelection to his Georgia seat in 2024. "Julie and I look forward to spending more time with our children and grandchildren while continuing to work to keep Georgia the best state in America to live and do business,” Ferguson said in a statement.

ATLANTA (AP) — It’s getting more complicated to tell how Georgia public schools are faring. The state Department of Education on Thursday released a full spectrum of school accountability numbers for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic.