Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp is lifting more health-related restrictions that stemmed from COVID-19, allowing spectator sports and live performance venues to reopen and conventions to resume on July 1, subject to some restrictions.

The Tennessee Senate voted without opposition Thursday to approve a bill prohibiting the destruction of requested public records, legislation spurred by the Hamilton County attorney withholding and destroying records requested by the Times Free Press.

A Tennessee legislative bill that proponents say would have blocked pharmacy benefit managers from reaping financial benefits from a federal drug-pricing discount program intended to help nonprofit hospitals and health centers serving low-income communities is dead for the year.

Coronavirus infections sidelined some poll workers and scared away others. New workers were trained online instead of in person. And when Election Day arrived, trouble with new voting equipment and social-distancing precautions forced voters to wait in long lines, sometimes for hours.

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee announced Wednesday the state is resuming distribution of free face masks treated with an anti-microbial chemical after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency weighed in on a controversy over their safety and said the masks are safe for people to use.

Dalton residents and activists are calling for the removal or relocation of a statue of a Confederate general that has been downtown for more than a century, and the change has the support of several Dalton City Council members.

NASHVILLE — Two new polls show most Tennesseans support being able to vote by mail amid the coronavirus pandemic even as state Attorney General Herbert Slatery appeals a Nashville chancellor's ruling that expands absentee voting by mail to all 4.1 million of the state's registered voters.

New regional surges in coronavirus cases forced the Environmental Protection Agency to put on hold some of the earliest planned returns of federal employees to their offices, while the first volunteers at a few other federal agencies are quietly going back to their desks.

An influential libertarian group has launched what it says is a "multimillion-dollar" campaign in support of a telemedicine bill sponsored by state Rep. Robin Smith, R-Hixson, blanketing mail boxes across the state with support for the measure.

Rep. Mike Carter on Monday apologized to a black colleague before the Tennessee House on Monday evening after joking earlier during a subcommittee hearing that the representative — whom Carter unsuccessfully tried to call on to speak — was evidently "getting the secret formula to Kentucky Fried Chicken and pretty concentrated on that."

NASHVILLE — The Hamilton County Attorney's Office and local governments statewide would be required to maintain documents involving open record requests and an agency's responses to them for at least a year under a bill to amend Tennessee's Public Records Act.

A group of Georgia lawmakers called Friday for the legislature to quickly scrap the state's 19th-century citizen arrest law, which one prosecutor cited in a controversial legal opinion justifying the pursuit and killing of Ahmaud Arbery.

Facebook has removed a campaign ad from Georgia 14th Congressional District candidate Marjorie Greene, claiming the ad incites violence.

Georgia's legislature will resume session on June 15 under an agreement announced by House and Senate leaders on Wednesday.

A Tennessee judge on Wednesday said the state's guidance about who can vote by mail due to the coronavirus is "very ambiguous," and she cited "weighty proof" that other states have expanded to let all voters cast absentee ballots this year — something Tennessee officials say is not feasible.

After a series of weekend protests — some of which resulted in interactions between law enforcement and protesters with little to no social distance — some advocates are concerned about the decision by police and sheriff's deputies not to wear masks.

A top state Democratic lawmaker on Wednesday urged Republican Gov. Bill Lee to reject President Donald Trump's request to send Tennessee National Guard troops to Washington to crack down on civil unrest there amid national protests over the death of George Floyd.

Chattanooga area black elected officials are calling for community members to vote, engage and follow through with political demands amid days of unrest, despite a lack of tangible movement toward addressing demands.

A drop in Tennessee state revenue as a result of the coronavirus pandemic could leave the state hundreds of millions of dollars short for government operations, according to four state economists.

NASHVILLE — Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee's criminal justice reform legislation is dead for the year, as is a separate legislative effort by Rep. Patsy Hazlewood, R-Signal Mountain, to put a new victims' rights constitutional amendment before Tennessee voters in 2022.

Hamilton County Mayor Jim Coppinger's proposed fiscal year 2021 budget foregoes employee raises and "frills," bracing for the impact of the ongoing COVID— 19 pandemic and recent tornadoes in the area.

As new COVID-19 cases continue to rise locally, landing Chattanooga in the top four cities nationally for case growth rate, Hamilton County leaders have no plans to re-tighten previously eased restrictions that were intended to stem the spread of the global pandemic.

A group of state Democratic lawmakers say Gov. Bill Lee is "failing" thousands of jobless Tennesseans who remain in financial "limbo" amid continuing logjams of unprocessed unemployment claims.