Across Georgia

Nativity scene will stay put, man says

MACON - A man has vowed to keep up the nativity scene he's installed outside his apartment, even though the complex managers have asked him to remove it.

"Basically, I told them I'm not taking it down, no matter what," said Roger Whetstone, who has decked his apartment in holiday cheer every year of the past 10 he's lived at Forest Pointe.

The apartment management told Mr. Whetstone that the nativity violated his lease.

Wesley Rauls, the vice president of Forest Pointe Apartments, said the problem is not the nativity, but the fact that Mr. Whetstone set it up on the lawn, which is a public area.

Authorities shut down 13 massage parlors

JONESBORO - Clayton County authorities have shut down 13 massage parlors believed to be fronts for prostitution.

Officers arrested about 20 owners and managers during a raid Friday.

About 35 female employees - nearly all Korean immigrants - were taken into custody and will be deported back to their home countries, authorities said.

Some of the women might have been forced to work against their will, authorities said. Clayton County Sheriff Victor Hill said the businesses were closed and their assets seized to prevent them from reopening.

Sword-wielding man shot dead by deputy

COMMERCE - A Banks County sheriff's deputy shot and killed a sword-wielding man Thursday on a dirt road in southern Banks County.

The deputy was dispatched at about 6 p.m. to check on a suspicious van on an isolated road in southern Banks County.

As the deputy began to check the van's license plate, a man got out and confronted the deputy with a "large sword," Georgia Bureau of Investigation officials said Friday.

The deputy, whose name wasn't released, repeatedly asked the man to drop the sword, according to the GBI. The man did not and kept "advancing on the officer," who then opened fire, killing the man, according to the GBI.

Machine explosion injures 2 workers

KENNESAW - Two workers moving an MRI machine were injured after an explosion blew part of the machine into a wall.

The workers were moving the machine Thursday at Atlanta Diagnostic Center in Kennesaw, said Firefighter Denell Boyd, a spokeswoman for the Cobb County Fire and Emergency Services Department.

Mr. Boyd said liquid nitrogen leaked from the machine and caused the blast, knocking a hole in the wall.

Shrapnel hit one worker in the head and caused injuries to another worker's arm.