Georgia lawmakers said repeatedly that a student-tracking database had been removed from a school safety bill.

A special Georgia state Senate committee that had subpoenaed Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis with plans to question her Friday about “alleged misconduct” related to her election case against former President Donald Trump was unable to do so because she didn’t show up.

The Republican leading a Georgia state Senate committee to investigate Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis says he seeks just the facts.

It goes back to the House because senators added an amendment that gave all business owners the right to detain suspected thieves. Arbery, 25, was fatally shot while running through a neighborhood near Brunswick on the Georgia coast in February 2020. The father and son who pursued Arbery — Greg and Travis McMichael — weren’t arrested or charged until more than two months after the shooting. One prosecutor assigned to the case cited Georgia’s citizen arrest law to argue the shooting was justified. AdThe McMichaels’ lawyers have said they pursued Arbery suspecting he was a burglar, after security cameras had previously recorded him entering a home under construction.

ATLANTA In an abrupt turn, Republicans in the Georgia Senate removed protections for police from hate crimes legislation on Monday night, just days after adding them in over the objection of civil rights groups and Democrats. Calls for Georgia to remove itself from the list of four U.S. states without a hate crimes law have grown following the death of Ahmaud Arbery, who was pursued and fatally shot as he ran through a neighborhood just outside Brunswick in February. In a hate crime bill, thats been brought on by incidents by police, and then to take them and put them in as a protected class ... They also added data collection and reporting requirements for law enforcement agencies investigating hate crimes, something that Woodall and other proponents have called for. Proponents have tried for several years to get hate crimes legislation passed, after the Georgia Supreme Court in 2004 struck down a state hate crime statute for being too broad.