Justice Department instructed to dismiss legal challenge to Georgia election law

ATLANTA (AP) — U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi has instructed the Justice Department to dismiss a lawsuit challenging a sweeping 2021 election law in Georgia. Republican state lawmakers passed the overhaul in the wake of President Donald Trump’s 2020 election loss in the state. The lawsuit was filed in 2021 under former President Joe Biden. It alleged that the Georgia law was meant to deny Black voters equal access to the ballot. The law shortened the period for requesting a mailed ballot and resulted in fewer ballot drop boxes available in populous metro Atlanta counties that lean Democratic. Bondi said Monday that the Biden administration had pushed “false claims of suppression.”

Judge blocks release of public records that show the bodies of Gene Hackman and his wife

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — A New Mexico court has blocked the release of any public records that show the bodies of Gene Hackman and his wife, Betsy Arakawa, at the request of the couple’s estate. Santa Fe-based Judge Matthew Wilson issued the decision at a court hearing Monday. He said autopsy and investigative reports that do not show the couple’s bodies can be released. A representative for the Hackman family estate urged the court to block release of the records to protect the family’s privacy. Authorities say Hackman died of heart disease with complications from Alzheimer’s disease. Arakawa died from a rare, rodent-borne disease called hantavirus pulmonary syndrome.

NASA’s newly returned astronauts say they would fly on Boeing’s Starliner capsule again

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA’s celebrity astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams said Monday that they hold themselves partly responsible for what went wrong on their space sprint-turned-marathon and would fly on Boeing’s Starliner again. SpaceX recently ferried the duo home after more than nine months at the International Space Station, filling in for Boeing that returned to Earth without them last year. In their first news conference since coming home, the pair said they were taken aback by all the interest and insisted they were only doing their job and putting the mission ahead of themselves and even their families. Wilmore says Boeing, NASA and even himself are responsible for what happened.

Prosecutor makes offers to 10 New York prison guards charged in inmate’s death

UTICA, N.Y. (AP) — A special prosecutor says he made offers to resolve criminal cases against 10 New York prison guards indicted in the beating death of a handcuffed man. The offers were publicly revealed during a pretrial court conference by Onondaga County District Attorney William Fitzpatrick, who declined to provide details afterward. The individual defendants will appear in court in April to either accept or reject the offers. Six correctional officers were charged with murder last month in the December death of Robert Brooks, whose brutal beating was captured on body-worn cameras. The individual defendants will appear in court in April to either accept or reject the offers.