Across Georgia

Deal resigns to focus on run for governor

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ATLANTA --- U.S. Rep. Nathan Deal has resigned from Congress after casting a vote against a sweeping Democratic-sponsored overhaul of health care. He is leaving to pursue the Republican nomination for governor in Georgia.

Gov. Sonny Perdue on Monday scheduled a special election on April 27 to fill Deal's North Georgia congressional district. Candidates wishing to seek the 9th district seat must qualify March 29-31.

Deal -- who'd been facing a pair of congressional ethics inquiries while in the House -- had initially planned to step down March 8. He pushed the date back to vote against the Democratic-backed health care bill Sunday night.

Court reinstates man's murder conviction

ATLANTA --- Georgia's top court has reinstated a conviction against a man charged in the 1996 murder of his estranged wife.

But Christopher K. Lewis no longer faces execution because state prosecutors did not appeal the part of the lower court's ruling that also threw out his death sentence.

Lewis was convicted in 1998 of stabbing his estranged wife to death after learning she went to a Christmas party with another man.

The conviction and death sentence were overturned in 2009 after a judge found executing him would be a "miscarriage of justice." The state's top court reinstated the conviction Monday, ruling that the lower court made a number of errors.

Rapist who left state arrested near Houston

ATLANTA --- A convicted rapist who slipped out of his ankle monitor after he lost a court ruling that reinstated a lengthy prison term was captured Monday at a hotel near Houston, ending a weeklong manhunt.

Ali Reza Nejad, who was known as the "Pantyhose Rapist," had been out on $100,000 bond and under electronic monitoring since the Georgia Court of Appeals overturned his conviction in April. But he slipped out of the ankle monitor last week when the Georgia Supreme Court reinstated his conviction and 35-year-sentence, said U.S. Marshal Richard Mecum.

Nejad made his way to Pearland, Texas, where he was arrested without incident Monday morning.

Nejad, 38, was convicted in 2005 of raping two women in separate assaults and he was suspected in several others.

Fort Benning set to deactivate Army unit

FORT BENNING, Ga. --- A ceremony is planned at Fort Benning to mark the inactivation of the U.S. Army's 1st Battalion, 11th Infantry Regiment.

Fort Benning is deactivating the unit because the Army has canceled its Basic Officer Leader Course II, a training course designed for new lieutenants. Some of the training the new officers have received in that course will be included in their next level of training.

The unit has been assigned to the U.S. Army Infantry School since 1987 and has at times been responsible for the 283rd Army Band, the Infantry Captains Career Course, the International Student Detachment and the Fort Benning Replacement Company.

It has been shut down and reactivated five times since it was formed in 1798.