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Welcome to the Georgia Today Podcast. Here we bring you the latest reports from the GPB newsroom. On today's episode, an effort to extend Affordable Care act subsidies fails in the Senate, Coca Cola is getting a new CEO and coffee is becoming more expensive and less sustainable. And native tea could be an alternative.
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We've been sitting here on this native delicious caffeine source for hundreds of years. I really wanted to do something that would some science that would help elevate this plant.
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Today is Thursday, December 11th. I'm Peter Biello and this is Georgia Today. Residents in metro Atlanta's DeKalb county voiced their opposition yesterday to a proposed data center during a town hall meeting. GPB's Amanda Andrews has more on the county's efforts to create regulations to address the growing number of data centers.
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This is DeKalb's fourth town hall. Speakers included county Commissioners Ted Terry and Ledina Bolton, as well as Peter Hubbard, who was recently elect to the Public Service Commission. The drafted regulation includes 500 foot buffers, noise limits and bans on diesel generators. DeKalb resident Brandon Brown says leaders need to explain their legal limitations more clearly.
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If it were at all possible to do a permanent moratorium, I would be all for it. But in lieu of that, I think having the strongest text amendment and regulations possible is a good thing.
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The drafted regulations will be up for a vote again Tuesday when the county's data center moratorium expires. For GPB News, I'm Amanda Andrews.
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The Senate has rejected legislation to extend Affordable Care act tax credits, essentially guaranteeing that millions of Americans will see a steep rise in costs at the beginning of the year. Senators rejected a Democratic bill today to extend the subsidies for three years and a Republican alternative that would have created new health savings accounts. More than a million Georgians rely on ACA plans. Jacqueline Nikpoor, an assistant professor at Emory University's Neal Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing, says consumers should compare premiums, deductibles and provider networks carefully during open enrollment.
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Think about the providers that you anticipate needing to see the prescription drugs you'll potentially need to take, and see what plans are going to give you the best coverage for those specific needs that you anticipate at the lowest cost.
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Open Enrollment runs through December 15th for coverage starting on January 1st. A federal judge in Georgia has declined to halt an execution scheduled for next week. An attorney for Stacey Humphries argued yesterday in U.S. district Court that his scheduled Dec. 17 execution should be placed on hold because of an agreement the state reached during the COVID 19 pandemic, but the state says it does not apply to Humphries. The judge found that Humphries failed to show his equal protection and due process rights would be violated. The Humphries was convicted of the 2003 killings of two women in suburban Atlanta. About half of American adults love coffee. They drink on average three cups a day. But coffee is becoming more expensive, maybe even unsustainable. If that worries you. GPB's Grant Blankenship says there is an alternative called the Yaupon Holly.
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When Middle Georgia State University history professor Matt Jennings lectures about the people of North America around the time of European.
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Contact, like Cherokees, Choctaws, Chickasaws and Muscogees.
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Among others, there's a special way he likes to wrap up now.
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This morning at 8 o'.
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Clock.
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This was screamingly hot.
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It's a thermos full of a drink people enjoyed for hundreds, maybe thousands of years before anyone brought coffee to this continent.
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Maybe what I will do is pour several of these for any students who would like to give it a shot.
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The liquid is deep amber and steam smells like tea, because that's what it.
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Is if you know, like yerba mate.
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Or matcha, as Ben Long learned years ago when he first encountered Yaupon Holly working at a native plant nursery in Florida.
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And after I figured out you could make tea out of it, I went out and foraged some, brought it back, dried it, roasted it, and I was honestly shocked.
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When he needed a research project for his doctoral program in plant genetics at the University of Georgia, he picked Yaupon, which has a scientific name of Ilex vomitoria. That's because European colonists maybe paid too much attention to indigenous purification rituals with a drink in which Yaupon tea was likely just one part. But indigenous people drank Yaupan other times, too, as did colonists before the British trade in Asian tea muscled Yaupon out because Yaupon is the only plant native to North America that makes caffeine like coffee, coffee.
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I don't know if you knew this, but coffee is on the IUCN Red List. Almost all of the wild genetic diversity of coffee is extinct.
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That is to say, wild coffee is endangered, and climate change is shrinking the zones where coffee can be farmed.
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Meanwhile, says Long, we've been sitting here on this native, delicious caffeine source for hundreds of years. I really wanted to do something that would some science that would help elevate this plant. So these are actually the babies.
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In this corner of a greenhouse at uga, Long has tray after tray of baby Yaupons. The leaves are deep green on top, lighter underneath, oval shaped with scalloped edges. He has older plants out back.
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What geographies are represented here with all these?
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Florida, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Arkansas. Actually, there's some weird populations up in.
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The Ouachita Mountains that's in the wild. Yaupon is also a very popular landscaping shrub. That's probably one planted not far from where you are right now. Wang's compiling what's called a diversity panel, sort of a genetic roadmap. For Yaupon, that means sequencing the genes of each plant to better understand which ones make the things we may want.
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To drink, as in, you know, what is the caffeine gene? And can we take those plants that have the, you know, the good caffeine gene, you know, quote unquote, and breed them with other things that we want?
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You'd have like an Austin, Texas varietal the same way you have like a Northern California white wine or whatever.
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Exactly.
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You know, all of this.
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And so one day you might order a Yaupon latte in a shop and have a reliable idea of what you're gonna get. Small companies selling Yaupon tea are popping up in a lot of places. There's even one in Georgia. Professor Matt Jennings bought the Yaupon he's serving his students. It tastes like tea. This tastes like tea, and they kind of like it. It's pretty good, actually. I'm about to say it's pretty good. That includes Mackenzie Burkett.
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Like it's drinkable. I can't drink black coffee, but I could drink this just as is.
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If plant geneticist Ben Long has his way, one day she may have lots of options to do just that. For GPB News, I'm Grant Blankenship.
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Coca Cola is getting a new CEO. The Atlanta based beverage giant said yesterday its chief operating officer, Henrik Braun, will become its next CEO. On March 31, Coke's current chairman and CEO, James Quincy, will become executive chairman of the company. The 57 year old Braun has worked at Coca Cola for three decades. He has led operations in Brazil, Latin America, Greater China and South Korea. Georgia lost about 3,000 jobs in September, while its unemployment rate held steady at 3.4%. Numbers released by the Georgia Department of Labor today showed sharp declines in administrative and support service jobs. The University of Georgia's economic outlook released yesterday predicts the jobless rate rising to 4.1% in 2026. With slowing economic growth and an elevated risk of recession. The state's four public engineering schools are joining Mercer University as academic members of the Georgia Aerospace and Defense Alliance, Mercer said yesterday. The addition of Georgia Tech, the University of Georgia and Kennesaw State and Georgia Southern universities marks a major expansion in the state's approach to aerospace and defense workforce development. The alliance was launched earlier this year by the industry's major players in Georgia, including Gulfstream Aerospace and Lockheed Martin. The Georgia Ports Authority's Appalachian Regional Port moved a record number of containers in November, the agency today said. The facility in northwest Georgia's Murray county moved nearly 4,000 containers last month, a 35% jump from a year earlier. The Appalachian Regional Port, connected by rail to the Port of Savannah, opened in 2018, taking freight traffic pressure off Atlanta area highways and contributing to job growth in Northeast Georgia. Georgia State University has received the final go ahead to build a long anticipated baseball stadium at the site that was once home to the Atlanta Braves, Atlanta Falcons and many other landmark events, including Olympic baseball in 1996. The university's athletic department said today that the $15 million project has received its last required permit from the city of Atlanta. The former Atlanta Fulton County Stadium, located near downtown, is where Hank Aaron broke Babe Ruth's home run record in 1974. Georgia State says it's committed to honoring the old stadium's history in the new stadium, scheduled for completion in the fall of 2026. The Atlanta Braves are making moves in the offseason. The team announced yesterday it signed outfielder Mike Yastremski to a $23 million, two year contract that includes a $7 million option for 2028 with a $4 million buyout. He spent most of his career with the San Francisco Giants. His last name may be familiar to longtime baseball fans. He is the grandson of Carl Yastremski, who played for more than two decades with the Boston Red Sox. The Braves also signed a three year contract with two time All Star reliever Robert Suarez. He is 2213 with a 291 ERA in four major league seasons, all with San Diego. The moves come as the Braves try to put the disastrous 2025 season behind them by strengthening both offense and pitching. That is a wrap on Georgia Today. Thank you so much for tuning in. Remember to subscribe to this podcast because we will be back tomorrow with all the latest news from Georgia. And if you're looking for updates on any of the stories you heard today, check gpb.org news and we are always open to your feedback and story suggestions. And the best way for you to reach us is by email. So send us a note to Georgia today@GPB.org I'm Peter Biello. Thanks again for listening and have a great day.
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How does AI even work? Where does creativity come from? What's the secret to living longer? TED Radio Hour explores the biggest questions with some of the world's greatest thinkers. They will surprise, challenge, and even change you. Listen to NPR's Ted Radio Hour wherever you get your podcasts.