AUGUSTA, Ga. (AP) — Three Georgia sheriff's deputies have been arrested on charges they beat a man suspected of shooting and wounding another deputy in November. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation said Thursday that Richmond County Sheriff's Deputy Quincy Cannon, 31, is charged with battery and violating his oath of office, both felonies. Deputy Andrew Acosta, 25, is charged with simple battery, a misdemeanor, and violating his oath of office. Robert Wilson, 45, is charged with violating his oath of office.

ATLANTA – Georgia Power officials signed off late Wednesday on an agreement that would lower the utility’s rate hike request now before the state Public Service Commission by nearly 40%. The company, the Public Service Commission’s Public Interest Advocacy Staff, and intervenors in the rate case agreed on a rate hike that would raise $1.8 billion from Georgia Power customers during the next three years. The proposal will be presented to the PSC’s Energy Committee on Thursday.

ATLANTA – Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger is asking the General Assembly to end general election runoffs in Georgia. Raffensperger’s proposal, released Wednesday, comes just more than a week after Democratic U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock defeated Republican challenger Herschel Walker in a runoff after neither candidate received a majority of the votes in the November general election.

The late congressman and civil rights giant John Lewis will be honored with a postage stamp in 2023, the U.S. Postal Service announced Tuesday. The design for the stamp uses a photograph taken by Marco Grob for a 2013 issue of Time magazine. Lewis, then 73, wears a dark suit and blue tie and looks directly into the camera.

FORT STEWART, Ga. (AP) — The Army on Tuesday said a soldier who was fatally shot at a Georgia base was a sergeant whose nearly eight years of military service included a deployment to Afghanistan. Sgt. Nathan M. Hillman, 30, of Plum, Pennsylvania, was killed Monday by a gunman at Fort Stewart, according to a statement from the Army post. The shooting happened at the building complex for the 2nd Armored Brigade Combat Team of the 3rd Infantry Division.

ATLANTA – A legislative study committee voted Tuesday to recommend paying Georgia law enforcement officers a starting salary of $56,000 a year, the national average. The House State and Local Law Enforcement Salaries Study Committee also proposed that the state create an optional statewide law enforcement retirement system that retiring law enforcement officers and firefighters could choose to join rather than their local agency’s pension plan

LAWRENCEVILLE, Ga. (AP) — Police say a correctional officer was shot and killed early Tuesday outside a jail in an Atlanta suburb. Gwinnett County police officers responded about 6:20 a.m. to a “person shot” call at the county correctional complex in Lawrenceville. They found 59-year-old Scott Riner in the parking lot outside the jail suffering from a gunshot wound, according to a police news release.

ATLANTA – The Georgia Ports Authority saw a rare decline in activity last month. The Port of Savannah handled 464,883 twenty-foot equivalent units of containerized cargo in November, down 6.2% compared to the same month last year. However, Savannah’s numbers show an increase of 28% when measured over three years. That rate of growth is well above the authority’s pre-pandemic expansion, which averaged 4% to 5%annually.

ALBANY, Ga. (AP) — Authorities say a 4-year-old boy was found dead in southwest Georgia hours after he fell into the Flint River as family members were fishing. Dougherty County Coroner Michael Fowler said the river swept the boy away after he fell in Sunday afternoon. He told WALB-TV the child’s father jumped in and tried to save him before calling police.

The first confirmed sighting this calving season of a North Atlantic right whale mother — named Medusa — and her newborn calf was documented Wednesday, Dec. 7. That sighting was quicky followed by a second — a right whale nicknamed Archipeligo and her baby, who were photographed by scientists with the Florida Fish and Game Commission about 5 miles off Little St. Simons 

ATLANTA — The state Department of Education has identified 175 low-performing schools that need additional support to improve student performance for the 2022-2023 school year.  In good news, 57 schools exited the list for the year. This is the first year the state has updated the list of schools that will receive additional support since 2019 due to the data limitations imposed by the COVID pandemic.  

FORT STEWART, Ga. (AP) — One person was shot Monday at Fort Stewart in southeast Georgia, and authorities arrested a suspect, the Army said. The shooting happened shortly before 10 a.m. at a complex for the Army post’s 2nd Armored Brigade Combat Team, said Fort Stewart spokesman Kevin Larson. Emergency responders treated the victim at the scene, he said.

ATLANTA (AP) — A development authority official in metro Atlanta says he feels misled by real estate developers seeking a tax break for a mixed-use complex near the Atlanta Braves stadium because they never mentioned the team has a stake in the project. The Braves' organization had previously pledged not to ask for tax incentives to help pay for its development projects outside the Truist Park stadium after the team received $300 million in subsidies to help fund its construction.

ATLANTA (AP) — Someone fatally stabbed a 77-year-old woman inside her home in a gated neighborhood before stealing her SUV, Atlanta police said Sunday. Eleanor Bowles was found dead by her son Saturday evening at her home in Atlanta’s Buckhead neighborhood, news outlets reported. Police homicide unit commander Lt. Germain Dearlove told a news conference Sunday that Bowles had been stabbed multiple times.

EMERSON, Ga. (AP) — A weekend highway crash killed the longtime mayor of a northwest Georgia city and the mayor’s wife, officials said Sunday. Albert and Camilla Pallone died Saturday afternoon when the driver of a pickup truck lost control and swerved into oncoming traffic, smashing into the couple’s SUV, according to the Cherokee County Sheriff's Office.

ATLANTA (AP) — A man pleaded guilty to ambushing and murdering two Georgia deputies who were serving an arrest warrant earlier this year, prosecutors said Thursday.

ATLANTA (AP) — Hyundai Motor Group and a South Korean battery maker say they will jointly invest $4 billion to $5 billion in Georgia to build a new plant northwest of Atlanta that would supply electric batteries for Hyundai and Kia electric vehicles assembled in the United States.

SAVANNAH, Georgia (AP) — Gov. Brian Kemp on Thursday extended the suspension of Georgia's motor fuel tax for another month, saying he wants to help families still struggling with inflation offset the costs of holiday spending.

SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) — U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland is urging Georgia officials to deny permits for a proposed mine near the edge of the famed Okefenokee Swamp and its vast wildlife refuge, saying the plan poses “unacceptable risk” to the swamp's fragile ecology.

ATLANTA – Democratic U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock narrowly defeated Republican Herschel Walker Tuesday in a runoff election to retain his seat and give his party a slim two-seat majority in the Senate. The Warnock victory  in the final contest of the 2022 election cycle gave Democrats 51 seats in the Senate to 49 for Republicans. 

FLORENCE, S.C. (AP) — A Japanese company said it plans to build batteries for electric BMW vehicles at a new plant in South Carolina, spending $810 million on a facility that could have up to 1,170 workers.

MACON, Ga. (AP) — Three teenagers are dead and a fourth was critically injured after an early Tuesday shooting at an apartment complex in Georgia, authorities said.

SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) — The Port of Savannah plans a $410 million overhaul of one of its sprawling terminals to make room for loading and unloading larger ships while focusing its business almost exclusively on cargo shipped in containers. The Georgia Ports Authority's governing board approved the project Monday under a plan to expand Savannah’s capacity for cargo containers by more than 50% by 2025.

ATLANTA – A German robotic machinery manufacturer specializing in individualized robotic equipment will build a manufacturing plant in Canton to house its North American headquarters, Gov. Brian Kemp announced Monday. Becker Robotic Equipment will invest more than $30 million in a project expected to create 137 new jobs in Cherokee County.

DECATUR, Ga. (AP) — A Georgia sheepdog is recovering at home two days after killing a pack of coyotes that attacked his owner's flock of sheep, farmer John Wierwiller said. Casper, a 20-month old Great Pyrenees from Decatur, fought off a pack of coyotes who were threatening Wierwiller’s sheep farm, he said. The fight lasted longer than half an hour, left eight coyotes dead and bloodied Casper.