Georgia

The first vaccine against COVID-19 tested in the United States is moving into its final phase with promising results, according to results published Tuesday in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Moderna Inc. in collaboration with the National Institutes of Health started working together and within six weeks had a vaccine called mRNA-1273, said Dr. Nadine Rouphael, one of the authors on the study.

"To be able to publish preliminary results three months later is really unprecedented," Rouphael said. "It had shown that the vaccine was well tolerated. It has also shown that the vaccine is able to induce a good immune response."

Ahead of President Donald Trump's visit to the Atlanta area on Wednesday, prominent Georgia Democrats have scheduled a news conference to "slam" what they call the president's "failed coronavirus response," the group announced in a press release.

For state Republican leaders, the visit offers an opportunity to showcase Trump before the GOP base as the November election approaches.

The Trump administration has rescinded a rule that would have required international students to transfer schools or leave the country if their colleges hold classes entirely online this fall because of the coronavirus pandemic.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced the decision as a court hearing was getting underway on a challenge to the rule by Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Jordan Daniels has worked in the Atlanta film industry for years. Monday's court ruling, which reversed the controversial "heartbeat" abortion bill passed last year in Georgia, came as a relief.

"We did have a few productions leave on the basis of HB 481, and I'm happy that more won't," she said. "Obviously, I'm dually relieved since I'm a woman who loves her job, and also wants the right to choose."

Actor Michael B. Jordan says “timing is everything. ” The SAG award winner marched in a Los Angeles Black Lives Matter protest last month demanding that Hollywood drastically increase its diversity in the executive ranks.

Jordan, whose breakout “Fruitvale Station” role followed the events of a young Black man killed by a transit police officer, is channeling an urgency for change and healing  into “A Night at the Drive-In.” 

Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms is taking up New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo on his offer to send a team to conduct testing and contact tracing of people exposed to the coronavirus.

Cuomo announced Monday that New York State will deploy coronavirus assistance to the capital of Georgia as the state continues to experience an increase in COVID-19 cases.

According to Gwinnett County District Attorney Danny Porter, Georgia’s citizen’s arrest law is rooted in medieval times and is an “outmoded concept” in this age of “increased police forces.”

Porter made those remarks at a Georgia House Judiciary Non-Civil Committee hearing on Monday.

A federal judge is permanently blocking Georgia’s 2019 “heartbeat" abortion law, finding that it violates the U.S. Constitution.

U.S. District Judge Steve Jones ruled against the state Monday in a lawsuit filed by abortion providers and an advocacy group. 

Atlanta police released images of a second person of interest in the July 4 shooting death of 8-year-old Secoriea Turner. The first person of interest has been cleared, attorneys for the family said.

Her parents, Charmaine Turner and Secoriey Williamson, are pleading with the public to provide information about those responsible in the death of their child.

The reward is up to $50,000, and anyone with information is asked to contact Crime Stoppers at 404-577-8477.

Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms is set to roll back the city's reopening plan back to phase one as COVID-19 continues to spread across the state, a spokesman said Friday. 

The first phase guidelines include encouraging residents to stay home except for essential trips, wearing a face covering in public and avoid in-person dining at restaurants.

A group of H1N1 swine influenza viruses have essential hallmarks of being highly adapted to infect humans and are of potential pandemic concern, health officials say.

These viruses — referred to as G4 Eurasian (EA) avian-like H1N1 viruses — have been spreading in pigs in China since 2016 and are now the predominant set of genes that can be passed down from parents to offspring, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

With hospitals facing a surge of coronavirus patients, Gov. Brian Kemp on Friday said the Georgia World Congress Center would again be utilized as an alternate hospital as more people in the state become sick with COVID-19.

The Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, a Divison II conference made up of historically Black colleges, has suspended all sporting and championship events through the fall due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The decision by the SIAC marks the first conference in the South to postpone its fall sports, as many sports fans eagerly await the possible return of college football. The postponement comes on the heels of the Ivy League reaching the same decision. 

A cigarette manufacturer can market a new tobacco product as "modified risk," the Food and Drug Administration says.

The IQOS product uses a heating system that doesn't burn the tobacco. It is classified as a cigarette even though it does not produce smoke. The FDA issued its marketing guidance on Tuesday. 

More than 156,000 Georgia businesses received a loan from the federal government as part of coronavirus relief, according to new data released from the Small Business Administration.

The Paycheck Protection Program is designed to "help businesses keep their workforce employed during the COVID-19 crisis," the SBA says on its website, and companies across every sector and every corner of the state received more than $14.5 billion in recent months.

Coronavirus infections among salvage crew members are delaying the removal of a cargo ship that overturned on the Georgia coast 10 months ago.

Coast Guard Chief Petty Officer John Miller said Thursday that plans to start cutting the 656-foot ship into eight giant pieces in mid-July have been placed on hold as infected crew members are quarantined along with colleagues who may have been exposed. 

With 82% of Georgia's critical care beds now in use, health systems across the state say they're quickly nearing capacity as cases of COVID-19 continue to rise. The Albany area was one of Georgia's hardest-hit regions early on in the virus's spread.

A 9-year-old boy was shot multiple times late Wednesday in the popular East Atlanta Village, becoming the latest young victim in widening violence across the city, authorities said.