ATLANTA (AP) — Two Georgia college presidents will shift to new jobs at Clayton State University and Atlanta Metropolitan State College next month. Georj Lewis is taking over Clayton State University in Morrow and leaving his current post as president at Atlanta Metropolitan State. Ingrid Thompson-Sellers will become president at Atlanta Metropolitan State, leaving the same position at South Georgia State College in Douglas. The moves, approved Wednesday by the state university system's board of regents, take effect Feb. 1.

MACON, Ga. (AP) — A wastewater plant in middle Georgia's largest city spilled partially treated water into the Ocmulgee River after a series of equipment failures in December. WMAZ-TV reports that the Macon Water Authority's treatment plant released more than 100 million gallons of partially treated water into the river. The water authority said that it struggled with freezing weather and equipment failures at the Graphic Packaging International paper mill. The mill is one of the authority's largest sources of wastewater.

ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia’s job market stayed strong in December, with employers adding more workers to payrolls and unemployment staying low. But other numbers continue to show a shrinking labor force, and rapid job growth seen in early 2022 has ebbed, showing an economy that has plateaued. The state’s unemployment rate was steady from November to December at 3%. That’s down from 3.3% a year ago, but up from the all-time low of 2.8% in the late summer.

ATLANTA – Gov. Brian Kemp has chosen a mix of returnees and newcomers to serve as his floor leaders for the next two years, the governor’s office announced Thursday. State Sen. Bo Hatchett, R-Cornelia, is back for another term as a Senate floor leader. He will be joined by freshman Sen. Mike Hodges, R-Brunswick.

ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia's university system is donating a closed campus in southwest Georgia to a local school board to use as a middle or high school. The Board of Regents voted Wednesday to convey the former Blakely campus of Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College to the 1,700-student Early County school district. The property is valued at $7.8 million.

ATLANTA – Declining enrollment across the University System of Georgia is going to result in student funding formula cuts at most of the state’s public colleges and universities, system Chancellor Sonny Perdue said Wednesday. Total enrollment for the fall semester at the system’s 26 colleges and universities was down 1.2% from the fall of 2021. That marked the second year in a row of declining enrollment.

ATLANTA (AP) — Authorities said they killed a man who shot and injured a Georgia state trooper Wednesday morning as law enforcement officers tried to clear protesters from the site of a planned public safety training center just outside Atlanta. Officers from several law enforcement agencies were conducting an operation to clear people out of the area when someone fired at them and officers shot back in self-defense, Georgia Bureau of Investigation Director Mike Register said during a news conference. A trooper was shot and injured and the man who shot at the officers was killed at the scene, Register said.

ATLANTA – The Georgia Ports Authority handled a record 5.9 million twenty-foot equivalent container units of cargo during the last calendar year, an increase of 5% over 2021. The Port of Savannah achieved four of its top five months for container volume during the year, peaking in August with an all-time high of 575,500 twenty-foot equivalent container units.

BLOOMINGTON, Minn. (AP) — A suspect wanted in connection with a fatal shooting at the Mall of America in December was arrested in Georgia on Tuesday, police said. Bloomington, Minnesota, Police Chief Booker Hodges said during a news conference Tuesday that the 17-year-old suspect was taken into custody in Decatur, Georgia, by federal and state law enforcement officials. The suspect faces charges of second-degree murder and second-degree assault.

ATLANTA (AP) — The Federal Emergency Management Agency says that disaster assistance has been made available to Georgia in areas struck by a tornado outbreak across the South on Thursday. In an announcement Tuesday, FEMA said that President Joe Biden's action makes federal funding available to people impacted by the storms in Butts, Henry, Jasper, Meriwether, Newton, Spalding and Troup counties.

ATLANTA (AP) — Gov. Brian Kemp told Georgia lawmakers Tuesday that his plans to give raises to teachers, pay more tuition for many college students and invest in new housing are all designed to keep the state's workforce growing and meet the needs of employers. "The most valuable in-demand resource in our state right now is our people," the Republican governor said. “We need to keep them, and the pipeline of skilled workers, wide open to keep up with that demand.”

Eleven North Atlantic right whale calves have been spotted so far this calving season and surveyors who track the annual migration are hoping that number will grow. “This has certainly been better than the very low numbers we saw in 2017, 2018 and 2019,” said Clay George, a marine mammal biologist with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources. “But we were really hoping that we would get to up around two dozen calves this season. We just haven’t seen the continued influx of females we were hoping for.”

SNELLVILLE, Ga. (AP) — A man was shot by a police officer at a gas station in suburban Atlanta early Monday after police were told he was waving a gun around. Snellville Detective Jeff Manley told WXIA-TV that police had received multiple calls about a man carrying a gun and acting erratically in different locations. One of the officers who responded tried to talk to the man, Snellville police said, but he pulled out his gun.

PERRY, Ga. (AP) — A middle Georgia prosecutor says he won't pursue criminal charges against a sheriff's deputy who in February 2022 shot and killed a man who had been reported as suicidal. Houston County District Attorney William Kendall told The Telegraph of Macon that the shooting of Matthew Deese, 32, was justified after a two-hour standoff with local officers in Perry. "The individual involved raised a firearm, pointed it directly at one of the deputies and the deputy in response returned fire,” Kendall said.

ATLANTA – A record number of Georgians – over 846,000 – signed up for health insurance for 2023 under the Affordable Care Act during the latest open enrollment period, which ended on Sunday. That’s about 8% of the state’s population, and at least 145,000 more than signed up for the program last year. The program allows individuals – many of them low-income or self-employed – to sign up for private health insurance. It offers significant tax subsidies to offset insurance costs for people earning between 100% and 400% of the federal poverty level, or between $13,590 and $54,360 for an individual.

ATLANTA – Schools account for a major portion of the $600 million bond package Gov. Brian Kemp is recommending in the $32.5 billion budget proposal the governor released late last week.

ATLANTA – A partnership between  Augusta University Health System and WellStar proposed last month is in line with national trends toward healthcare partnerships, experts said this week as a few additional details emerged about the plan.  Augusta University Health System is a key training facility for medical residents and other future healthcare providers. It houses the Medical College of Georgia, the state’s only public medical school. WellStar, a non-profit health system, currently owns nine hospitals in the Atlanta region.  

Annual tributes and commemorations of the life and legacy of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., which began nationwide Friday, typically include a mix of politics, faith and community service.

ATLANTA (AP) — Gov. Brian Kemp, in budgets released Friday, proposed increasing spending in the current budget year by $2.4 billion, largely to pay for two billion-dollar tax givebacks, and then to maintain spending in next year's budget, funding $2,000 pay increases for all state and university employees and public school teachers. Georgia saw state revenues spike to $36.6 billion in the year ending June 30, driven by a surging economy propped up by a bonanza of federal COVID-19 relief.

ATLANTA (AP) — CNN is moving out of the CNN Center, its longtime downtown Atlanta home by the end of this year. The cable channel's weekday anchors are all already in New York or Washington, but CNN still has digital and CNN International operations in Atlanta. Spokesperson Bridget Leininger confirmed in an email that the remaining CNN staff and operations in Atlanta would move to the Techwood Turner Broadcasting campus in Midtown.

ATLANTA – Gov. Brian Kemp likes to tout how his smart shepherding of state resources and track record landing major economic development projects helped make Georgia a success story during the pandemic. He’s about to get a chance to tell that story on an international stage. Kemp’s office announced Wednesday he will be addressing the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, next week.

ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia's Brian Kemp is scheduled to be sworn in for a second term as governor Thursday, promising across-the-board pay raises for state employees and public school teachers. The Republican plans to use his inaugural address to propose further pay raises, according to draft remarks viewed by The Associated Press, although the exact amount won't be unveiled until he speaks Thursday. The 59-year-old Kemp begins his second term atop Georgia's political world. He rode his stewardship of the economy to a big win over Democrat Stacey Abrams, even though Abrams again outspent Kemp.

ATLANTA (AP) — Startup of a nuclear power plant in Georgia will be delayed since its operator found a vibrating pipe in the cooling system during testing. Georgia Power Co., the lead owner of Plant Vogtle near Waynesboro, announced the delay Wednesday. The company said that the third reactor at the plant is scheduled to begin generating electricity for the grid in April. The unit of Atlanta-based Southern Co. had previously given a startup deadline of March.

BRUNSWICK, Ga. (AP) — Federal authorities announced a blitz of arrests and indictments Wednesday against more than 100 people charged with gun and drug crimes in three U.S. states. The flurry of charges from the Justice Department in Georgia, West Virginia and New York comes as federal officials work to combat an uptick in violent crime, particularly involving guns. Federal prosecutors and FBI agents were particularly busy in southern Georgia, where an indictment was unsealed charging 76 people with involvement in what authorities called a gang-related network that distributed methamphetamine, fentanyl and other illegal drugs. Authorities called it the largest indictment ever filed in the 43-county Southern District of Georgia.

ATLANTA –- The Georgia House and Senate passed separate resolutions primarily along party lines Wednesday setting rules for the two-year term that began this week. The resolutions set the procedures – most of them routine – for the operation of the two legislative chambers. But this year, the resolutions included a few notable changes.  Most controversial was the addition of new provisions that exempt communications between lawmakers and non-legislators about legislative business from public disclosure.