ATHENS, Ga. (AP) — The Venezuelan man who entered the country illegally and was convicted in the killing of Georgia nursing student Laken Riley has been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) — Spencer Lawton Jr., a former Georgia district attorney who worked to expand the rights of crime victims and prosecuted a Savannah killing made famous by the book “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil,” has died. He was 81.

ATHENS, Ga. (AP) — Testimony resumed Monday in the trial of the illegal immigrant accused of killing Georgia nursing student Laken Riley with police officers describing searching the man's apartment and questioning him and others who lived there.

ATLANTA – The state is laying the groundwork for a private-school vouchers program by launching a website with details on the initiative.

Reg Murphy, a renowned journalist whose newsgathering career included stints as an editor and top executive at newspapers in Atlanta, San Francisco and Baltimore — and who found himself the subject of national headlines when he survived a politically motivated kidnapping — has died at age 90.

ATLANTA — President-elect Donald Trump will nominate former U.S. Rep. Doug Collins of Gainesville to head the Department of Veterans Affairs, Trump announced on social media Thursday.

ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia State University plans a rapid $107 million remake of its downtown Atlanta campus before summer 2026, fueled by an $80 million gift.

ATLANTA – State Senate Democrats Friday elected Sen. Harold Jones of Augusta to serve as Senate minority leader.

ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia state Senate Republicans will stick with their same leadership team. After an election where every incumbent who was running won another term, majority Senate Republicans gathered behind closed doors Thursday to choose their leaders for the next two years.

STATESBORO, Ga. (AP) — Flooding rains Thursday inundated several counties in southeast Georgia, where a portion of Interstate 16 was shut down with westbound lanes covered by water.

ATLANTA — Former President Donald Trump won Georgia’s 16 electoral votes Tuesday on his way to winning a stunning re-election. The former president reversed his 2020 loss to President Joe Biden in the state, narrowly defeating Vice President Kamala Harris.

ATLANTA – The makeup of Georgia’s congressional delegation likely will remain unchanged, as voters were poised Tuesday night to reelect 13 of the 14 U.S. House lawmakers and choose Republican Brian Jack to succeed retiring GOP Rep. Drew Ferguson.

ATLANTA – Georgia voters were poised to overwhelmingly approve two tax-relief measures on the statewide ballot Tuesday night, while a third tax-related proposal held a smaller lead.

NEW YORK (AP) — Bernard “Bernie” Marcus, the co-founder of The Home Depot, the world's largest home improvement chain, a billionaire philanthropist, and a big Republican donor, has died. He was 95. Marcus died Monday in Boca Raton, Florida, surrounded by family, according to a Home Depot spokesperson.

ATLANTA — A record-smashing 4 million Georgians voted before Election Day this year, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s office reported during the weekend.

ATLANTA – Help is on the way for Georgia farmers and timber producers who suffered losses from Hurricane Helene. The Georgia State Financing and Reinvestment Commission voted Friday to redirect $100 million from a state capital projects fund to provide financial support for farmers affected by the massive storm and debris cleanup for owners of damaged timberland.

SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) — Survivors of a deadly walkway collapse at a state-run ferry dock on a Georgia island said Thursday that the government should help them pay for funerals for the seven people who died as well as medical bills and mental health counseling for those who lived.

ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia's highest court on Thursday upheld a lower court's dismissal of a lawsuit filed by a former state lawmaker, a current state lawmaker and several others who were arrested while protesting at the state Capitol.

ATLANTA (AP) — A man armed with several different weapons fired at least 15 gunshots through the walls and door and off the balcony of his apartment at a Four Seasons Hotel in Atlanta during a standoff Tuesday afternoon and was taken into custody, police said.

DOUGLAS, Ga. (AP) — A funeral home owner in south Georgia has been arrested and accused of neglecting human corpses after authorities said they found 18 bodies in various stages of decomposition while serving an eviction notice at the business.

ATLANTA – For more than a decade, Georgians have been able to sign up for health insurance coverage through the Affordable Care Act on the federal government’s healthcare.gov website.

ATLANTA – A South Georgia woman has been sentenced to 12 years in prison for her role in a scheme to defraud the state Department of Labor out of more than $30 million in unemployment benefits.

ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia election officials acted quickly earlier this month to thwart an attempt to flood the state's absentee voter portal in an apparent attempt to crash the site, the secretary of state's office said. The attack was limited to that part of the state's website, which voters use to request an absentee ballot. Users may have experienced a brief slowdown, but the site never crashed and no data was compromised, said Gabriel Sterling, a top official at the agency.

ATLANTA (AP) — A Republican official in the crucial presidential battleground of Georgia is appealing a judge's order that she and other election leaders in the state's most populous county must vote to certify results by the deadline set in law.

ATLANTA – More than 2.1 million Georgians have thus far cast their ballots during early voting, which began Oct. 15, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said Thursday.