Georgia lawmakers passed legislation on the last day of this year’s General Assembly session guaranteeing Georgians the right to fish in navigable portions of the state’s rivers and streams.

ATLANTA – Georgia’s mental health agency has broken ground on the state’s first crisis support center specifically designed for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities. The Crisis Stabilization Diagnostic Center is expected to open at the beginning of 2025 in downtown Macon.

HIRAM, Georgia (AP) — A man and woman were shot and killed in an apparent murder-suicide Wednesday inside a Walmart in a Georgia town, police said. The shooting took place at about 7:30 p.m. in the Walmart Super Center in Hiram, a small town about 20 miles northwest of Atlanta, police said.

PERRY, Ga. (AP) — A 91-year-old Georgia sheriff has said he will hand in his badge after more than 50 years as the county's chief lawman. Houston County Sheriff Cullen Talton tells WMAZ-TV that he won't seek reelection in 2024 and will step down at the end of his term. “It’s time for me to hang it up, so I won’t run again,” Talton said.

MARIETTA, Ga. (AP) — The more than 50-year mystery of who killed a young Georgia girl has been solved, authorities said. Cobb County District Attorney Flynn D. Broady Jr., at a news conference Monday, confirmed the killer of 9-year-old Debbie Lynn Randall — whose body was found Jan. 29, 1972 — was William B. Rose, 24, of Mableton.

COLQUITT, Ga. (AP) — The death of a worker who suffocated in a Georgia grain silo could have been prevented had their employer not violated safety regulations, federal officials say. That finding results from a U.S. Department of Labor Occupational Safety and Health Administration investigation into the April death of a 59-year-old worker in Colquitt, Georgia, about 210 miles southwest of Atlanta.

LAWRENCEVILLE, Ga. (AP) — Officials in Georgia's second-largest county could ask voters in 2024 to approve a tax increase for transit, but won't seek to join the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority. Gwinnett County officials tell The Atlanta Journal-Constitution they're likely to ask voters in November 2024 to approve a 1-cent sales tax increase to expand transit in the county.

SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) — The city of Savannah will contribute $500,000 to renovate a house that once hosted an African American art museum. The Savannah City Council voted Thursday to give the money toward what's projected to be a $1.2 million restoration of the Kiah House, WTOC-TV reports.

ATLANTA – Georgia lawmakers have taken steps in recent years to rein in the costs of the state’s increasingly popular dual enrollment program, which lets high school students receive credit for taking college courses. But they’re not resting on those achievements. Given Georgia’s growing workforce demands, two legislative committees are working this summer to find ways both to ramp up the program and make it financially sustainable.

ATLANTA – Georgia’s unemployment rate rose slightly last month to 3.3%, up one-tenth of a point from the revised jobless rate of 3.2% the state posted in July, the Georgia Department of Labor reported Thursday. Still, the state’s August unemployment rate was five-tenths lower than the national jobless rate of 3.8%. The number of jobs, the number of employed Georgians, and the state’s labor force were all at all-time highs.

ATLANTA – Col. Chris Wright will retire from his position as commissioner of the Georgia Department of Public Safety Oct. 1 after three years in the leadership post, Gov. Brian Kemp announced Thursday. The state Board of Public Safety voted Thursday to promote Lt. Col. William “Billy” Hitchens III, the agency’s deputy commissioner, to succeed Wright.

ATLANTA – The film industry spent $4.1 billion in Georgia during the last fiscal year, Gov. Brian Kemp announced Wednesday. That was below the $4.4 billion film and television productions spent in the Peach State during the previous fiscal year but above the $4. billion in direct spending the industry posted in fiscal 2021 as Georgia began to emerge from the pandemic.

ATLANTA – Georgia’s tourism industry not only has recovered from COVID-19 but even surpassed pre-pandemic numbers. A record 167.7 million domestic and international visitors traveled to the Peach State during the last calendar year, Gov. Brian Kemp announced Tuesday during the annual Georgia Governor’s Tourism Conference on Jekyll Island.

SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) — The state of Georgia and local governments are on track to give $2.1 billion in tax breaks and other incentives to Hyundai Motor Group after the South Korean automaker and a partner announced last month that it will invest an additional $2 billion at an electric vehicle complex it's building in Georgia.

DARIEN, Ga. (AP) — Descendants of enslaved people living on a Georgia island vowed to keep fighting Tuesday after county commissioners voted to double the maximum size of homes allowed in their tiny enclave, which residents fear will accelerate the decline of one of the South's few surviving Gullah-Geechee communities.

ATLANTA – COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths in Georgia are rising but remain well below levels seen during the coronavirus pandemic, State Epidemiologist Dr. Cherie Drenzek said Tuesday. About 17.000 Georgians were hospitalized with the virus during the past week, an increase of 16% over the previous week, Drenzek told members of the Georgia Board of Public Health at their monthly meeting.

ATLANTA — Georgia Gov. Brian P. Kemp suspended the state's excise tax on gasoline and diesel, effective Wednesday through Oct. 13, due to the 40-year-high inflation and negative economic conditions affecting residents of the state. The suspension was part of a state of emergency delcared by the governor Tuesday.

ATLANTA – Georgia has landed two of its universities among the ranks of the top-10 public universities in the nation. Georgia Tech is third in rankings platform Niche’s rankings of the 10 best public universities, while the University of Georgia placed ninth on the list.

ATLANTA (AP) — An additional 25 counties in Georgia are now eligible for federal funding to help with cleanup after Hurricane Idalia, state officials announced. Governments and electric cooperatives in the counties will be eligible for federal aid to pay for debris cleanup and the cost of emergency workers, the Georgia Emergency Management Agency said in a statement over the weekend.

ATLANTA – The University System of Georgia is taking advantage of a strong state economy by seeking a $385.4 million increase in its fiscal 2024 mid-year budget. With the state sitting on a massive budget surplus, Gov. Brian Kemp has given state agencies permission to request 3% spending increases in both the mid-year budget, which covers spending through next June, and the fiscal 2025 budget, which takes effect next July.

ATLANTA (AP) — President Joe Biden on Thursday approved a disaster declaration for three Georgia counties following Hurricane Idalia's sprint across southern and coastal Georgia on Aug. 30. The storm made landfall with 125 mph winds in Florida’s remote Big Bend region before moving north into Georgia. Biden initially approved assistance to individuals and governments in Cook, Glynn and Lowndes counties.

ATLANTA (AP) — Authorities arrested five activists, including two wearing clerical attire, who chained themselves to a bulldozer Thursday to halt construction of an Atlanta-area police and firefighter training center that opponents call “Cop City.” The protest occurred as a larger group gathered behind a chain-link fence to deliver a mock “stop work order” against the project.

ATLANTA – A Georgia-based recycled paper and packaging company will build a new production facility in the portion of Warner Robins in Peach County, Gov. Brian Kemp announced Thursday. Pratt Industries will invest more than $120 million in the project, which will create more than 125 jobs.

SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) — Descendants of enslaved people who populate a tiny island community are once again fighting local officials who have proposed eliminating protections that for decades helped shield the Gullah-Geechee residents from high taxes and pressure to sell their land to developers.

ATLANTA — Georgia State Police reported 21 fatalities in vehicle accidents over the Labor Day holiday travel period. State troopers investigated eight fatal crashes, in which nine people died, between Friday, Sept. 1, at 6:00 p.m., and Monday, Sept. 4, at 11:59 p.m.