METRO WEEK IN REVIEW: Oct. 19-25

1) Georgia No. 2 in job losses

As the stock market seesawed through another erratic week, Georgia’s job seekers were hit with more bad news. The state lost 22,300 jobs last month —- the second-worst drop in the nation, the government said Tuesday. Only Michigan reported more job losses. Georgia has lost 93,600 jobs since February, said state Labor Commissioner Michael Thurmond.

2) Stay of execution issued for Davis

Death row inmate Troy Anthony Davis won another reprieve Friday when the federal appeals court in Atlanta issued a conditional stay of execution. Davis, who was scheduled to die Monday, was convicted of murder in the August 1989 shooting death of Savannah police officer Mark Allen MacPhail. Since his 1991 trial, seven of nine witnesses have recanted their testimony and now say Davis may not have killed MacPhail.

3) Printing error, computer glitch cause voting drama

Oops. Thanks to a printing error, Gwinnett County elections officials will have to hand-copy 10,000 absentee ballots onto new ones. The original ballots cannot be read by an optical scanning machine.

But that wasn’t the only error elections officials have reported. A computer glitch caused Georgia’s high number of voter identification checks, Secretary of State Karen Handel said. The Social Security Administration began questioning Georgia’s screenings on Oct. 3 after receiving almost 2 million requests from the state to verify the identities and citizenship of registered voters. The actual number of requested checks was 747,106, but the Georgia Department of Driver Services re-sent many of the requests, Handel said. A lawsuit filed against Handel alleges the state’s screening practices violate the Voter Rights Act and National Voter Registration Act.

4) Lithonia man gets death sentence

On Tuesday, a Lithonia man became the first person in 19 years to receive a death sentence in DeKalb County. Clayton Jerrod Ellington, 31, was convicted of murder for the May 2006 bludgeoning deaths of his wife, Berna, and their twin 2-year-old sons. Ellington did not testify during the trial but told police his wife killed the children, and he killed her in a fit of rage. A cousin of Berna punched Ellington in court Wednesday before a hearing.

5) Teachers fear loss of retiree raises

Gov. Sonny Perdue’s administration has proposed a plan to eliminate automatic cost-of-living increases to retired teachers’ pensions —- and some former educators are miffed. The plan would require the retirement system board to vote on the increases each year. Perdue spokesman Bert Brantley said the change would improve the board’s ability to manage the retirement fund. Georgia’s two major pension programs have lost more than $11 billion in the past 3 1/2 months because of declining markets.

6) Braves announcer retires after 33 years

Atlanta’s baseball “professor” is leaving the classroom behind. Longtime broadcaster Pete Van Wieren announced his retirement Tuesday, ending his tenure of 33 years in the Braves’ broadcast booth. Van Wieren said he wants to spend more time with his children and granddaughters. He added that he had decided to retire long before the recent death of broadcast partner Skip Caray.

7) Death of teen puts focus on canceled 911 call

Investigators last week examined why a dispatcher canceled one of two emergency crews responding to a teenager suffering a seizure. When 16-year-old Antoine Marc Williams, an Atlanta high school junior, collapsed in his American Literature classroom Oct. 14, Atlanta fire department paramedics and a private ambulance crew contracted by Grady Memorial Hospital were dispatched to the scene immediately. However, a 911 operator called off the fire department crew minutes later under the direction of an unnamed law enforcement figure, said James Bothwell, head of Grady Memorial Hospital’s medical services. Atlanta paramedics were called to the scene again after Williams went into cardiac arrest in the private ambulance. Williams died hours later.

8) Psychologist: Nichols had ‘delusional disorder’

Accused gunman Brian Nichols was suffering from a “delusional disorder” and didn’t know right from wrong during the March 2005 courthouse shootings, a defense psychologist said last week. The psychologist, Mark Cunningham, also said Nichols had a troubled childhood. Nichols is on trial for murder for the shooting deaths of a Fulton County Superior Court judge, his court stenographer, a sheriff’s deputy and a U.S. Customs agent. Nichols has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.

9) Former Atlanta mayor released from halfway house

Bill Campbell, Atlanta’s mayor from 1994 to 2002, is free after spending more than two years at a Florida halfway house. Campbell, convicted in March 2006 of tax evasion, originally received a 30-month sentence, which was shortened by 117 days for good behavior. The 55-year-old, who moved to South Florida in 2003, was released Friday and now must spend a year on probation.

10) UGA to fire professor imprisoned for sex crimes

The University of Georgia is firing a special-education professor who was imprisoned 14 years ago for sex crimes, a university spokesman said Thursday. Cecil Fore III was convicted in 1991 of sexually abusing three special-education students in Montgomery junior high schools, where he was a teacher. The conviction was revealed by a Cleveland, Ohio, author working on a book with one of Fore’s victims.

How we compiled the list: Staff writer Michelle Ewing considered more than three dozen news items from the past week before settling on this list of top stories. E-mail her at mewing@ajc.com.