KASIM REED

Georgia's U.S. Senate race between Republican Herschel Walker and Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock highlights how sports and college loyalties explain a political battleground.

A pastor, political operative and former high-ranking Atlanta city official was sentenced Thursday to 14 years in prison after a jury found her guilty of charges stemming from a long-running federal investigation into corruption at City Hall. U.S. District Judge Steve Jones told Mitzi Bickers that the evidence showed that she was involved in “a deliberate, calculated plan to cheat” the taxpayers of Atlanta over a number of years. In addition to the prison time, he ordered Bickers to pay nearly $3 million in restitution and to serve three years of supervised release once she's out.

City Council member Andre Dickens has won the runoff to become Atlanta’s next mayor.

Former police captain Eric Adams easily won the race for New York mayor, and Boston elected its first woman and Asian American to the city’s top job.

Atlanta mayoral candidates are talking about affordable housing, hoping to stave off a secession movement in a wealthy neighborhood and trading increasingly pointed jabs.

Former Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed has filed paperwork to enter the race for his old job four years after he left City Hall.

Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms confirmed Friday that she will not seek a second term, an election-year surprise that marks a sharp turnabout for the city’s second Black woman executive.

Neither public rivals nor personal friends, Bottoms and Stacey Abrams spent years climbing parallel ladders from nearby outposts at Atlanta City Hall and the Georgia Capitol. Now the Atlanta mayor and the former Georgia governor candidate find themselves at the same political intersection on Joe Biden's list of potential running mates. Bottoms, the 50-year-old Atlanta mayor, is a top surrogate for Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee. Now, the pair occupy the same political intersection: Bidens list of potential running mates. Bottoms, conversely, had the backing of outgoing Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed, himself once viewed as a potential governor.