← Georgia Today
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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, the Fort Stewart shooter has been sentenced to life in prison. FIFA FanFest in Atlanta adds an extra day for festivities and Georgia domestic violence centers face rising demand and increasing costs.
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We're 24 hours a day, so we are essential. We are needed in our communities. It's very devastating.
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Today's Tuesday, June 23rd. I'm Peter Biello and this is Georgia Today. An army sergeant has been sentenced to life in prison for shootings that wounded five people at southeast Georgia's Fort Stewart last summer. A military judge sentenced Sergeant Cornelius Radford today to life with the possibility of parole after finding him guilty of attempted murder last week. Radford previously admitted to shooting four fellow soldiers and his then fiance at Fort Stewart when he pleaded guilty in April to lesser charges. And in a statement, Radford apologized to his victims, said he was grateful they survived and asked for forgiveness. The state legislature ended its special session today by passing a solution to a looming election deadline. GPB Sarah Kallis reports.
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Senate Bill 3ex would move the deadline to stop using QR codes on ballots to count votes to 2028. It would also appoint a commission to study new election systems for 2028 and including hand marked paper ballots. The bill would also require a hand recount of ballots if the margin of victory in a top of the ticket race was within half a percentage point. Senator Max Burns sponsored the bill.
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It adds confidence to Georgia's election.
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Democrats like Senate Minority Leader Harold Jones say confidence can be restored by leaders speaking out.
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We have the guts to stand up to people to say that these elections are free and these elections are fair and accurate.
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The bill passed both chambers in a mostly party line. Vote for For GPB News, I'm Sarah Kallis at the state Capitol.
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Georgia's red snapper season is on hold after conservationists filed a lawsuit. The season was slated to open in July after a 15 year hiatus. GPB's Gillian Magtoto explains the season was
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supposed to move from the current two days to two months, with anglers able to keep one red snapper per day. But the lawsuit argued that would lead to overfishing in Georgia, Florida and the Carolinas. A judge halted the season until the case is resolved. The popular sport fish was losing population for decades, but their numbers have been rebounding. Last year's assessment shows it's no longer overfished. Fishermen also claim there's now plenty of stock, says Georgia's Coastal Resources division director Doug Haymans.
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Those things tell us that we ought to be able to have a season where our fishermen can keep fish.
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The state would use the season to collect data from fishermen on snapper population. Georgia plans to resubmit its application to the judge for a potential fall season. For GBB News, I'm Jillian Magtota.
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Georgia domestic violence and sexual assault programs are bracing for the worst as they approach new budget year without the promise of increased state funding. Lawmakers in April added $13 million in new spending on the programs, but Governor Brian Kemp vetoed it, saying he targeted new spending when looking for cuts. Michelle Gertman runs the Haven, a domestic violence shelter in Valdosta. She says programs across the state are facing rising demand and increased costs.
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We're 24 hours a day, so we are essential. We are needed in our communities. It's very devastating, she says.
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Some shelters are planning layoffs and some might not survive. Last month, a sudden burst of rain in Atlanta snarled parts of the city. It also overwhelmed a wastewater tunnel on the Chattahoochee, dumping untreated sewage into the river, which killed thousands of fish. The river is still recovering. As the climate warms. There's good reason to believe that such extreme rain events are becoming more common. GPB's Chase McGee has more.
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Chattahoochee riverkeeper Jason Olseth was on the river the morning after the storm. The first thing he'd noticed was the smell.
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The river just stunk. It was a darker color. I could immediately tell something was off. And then as I started boating upstream, I started seeing all these dead fish.
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Two weeks later, he's back out on the river to see how it's recovering. The closer he got to the beach where he lands his boat today, the more dead fish he saw. Near here, where Peachtree Creek hits the Chattahoochee, a wastewater storage tunnel dumps into the river. Before that, it runs for eight miles under the city of Atlanta.
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We're right near the discharge. The banks were coated in this black material all up and down. But all of those heavy rains that we got following this overflow seems to have kind of washed it all out.
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Jason digs into the sandy shoreline with a shovel and he pulls out a black chunk the size of a pine cone. He holds it up to my nose.
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Smells like sewage sludge.
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That's what it is. After the rain event in Atlanta, cars got stranded. Rush hour traffic came to a halt. Some of the city ended up under a boil water notice, and the city's wastewater treatment system was completely overwhelmed. That's when the rain ejected this sludge from the tunnel. Rotting takes oxygen. And as this sludge rotted, it robbed the river and the fish in it of oxygen. So those fish suffocated. Olseth says the river already looks significantly better.
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There's no more real dead fish to see. They've all decomposed and water levels have dropped back down.
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Signs of early recovery. Marshall shepherd is the director of the Atmospheric Sciences program at the University of Georgia. And he says this was more than a normal summer storm.
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Anytime we're seeing candidly an inch of rain in one hour, that would get my attention. So 2 to 3 inches of rain in an hour is certainly an extreme event.
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Extreme, but increasingly not rare.
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I think it has the first fingerprints of DNA of what we have long expected as our climate warms. Basic physics tells us that as the atmosphere warms, it has more water vapor available to it. And so all of our studies in the peer reviewed literature are showing us that the most extreme rain events have increased over the last 50 years in intensity.
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And says Shepherd, Atlanta isn't designed for this.
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What that means is when engineers 30, 40, 50 years ago were designing stormwater management systems, they assumed the rainstorms of 1965 would be like the rainstorms of 2020. And we know that's not the case.
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Back on the river, Jason Olseth says the effects of that were shocking.
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It was incredible to see 20, 30 pound Striped Bass Catfish that had been thriving in the river for years didn't survive this event.
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Now the city of Atlanta says they've hired an independent firm to look at the tunnel to better understand just how it was overwhelmed by the rain event in May. For GPB News, I'm Chase McGee in Atlanta.
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Georgia's Okefenokee Swamp park will be replacing an iconic boardwalk that's been closed for nearly two decades. A 2007 fire severely damaged the nearly 2,000 foot elevated skull Lake boardwalk. And since then it's deteriorated even further. Now, thanks to a half million dollar grant from the newly launched Expedia Trails Fund, park director Michelle Bednarek says visitors will be able to experience one of the park's top attractions.
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It's surrounded by wildlife. You're far enough away from the park that you don't hear humans. There's pitcher plants, woodpeckers, there are barred owls. We see American alligators. It's just a, it's a beautiful place.
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The upgrades will include new bridges, interpretive signs and access for the disabled. The boardwalk first opened in the 1980s and is expected to reopen by next spring. Some Atlanta residents are fighting to keep a piece of Olympic history in place. Community members gathered in Summerhill yesterday to oppose plans to move the Olympic cauldron to Centennial Olympic Park. The torch tower marks the spot where Muhammad Ali lit the flame during the opening ceremony of the 1996 Summer Games. Summerhill residents say the cauldron belongs in the historically black community. Georgia State University and the Board of Regents support the relocation. A meeting with residents scheduled for this week was canceled. No public explanation for the move has been released. Georgia Tech has finalized the design for its $70 million renovation of Bobby Dodd Stadium at Hyundai Field. The renovation will include the installation of more than 12,000 chair back seats, a new video board, an upgraded sound system and more. The project is the first major renovation of the 113-year-old stadium since 2003. Construction is set to begin after the 2026 football season, and it's scheduled to be completed before the 2027 season.
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Organizers of FIFA Fan Festival in Atlanta have added an additional day for fans to watch. The World Cup FIFA Fan Festival will be open this Thursday when Team USA takes on Turkey. Organizers said the enthusiastic response from fans led them to add the extra day. More than 250,000 fans have visited the festival this World Cup Georgia will have a presence on the National Mall as the country prepares to mark its 250th birthday, Governor Brian Kemp announced yesterday. The state will take part in the Great American State fair in Washington, D.C. beginning June 25. Georgia's exhibit will highlight industries that drive the state's economy and feature products from companies based here, including Waffle House and Chick Fil A. The fair on the national mall runs through July 10. Atlanta's Peachtree street now has peach trees. Sixteen trees from Middle Georgia's Crawford county were installed at two downtown locations yesterday. It's part of a multi organization, civic and community engagement effort led by Atlanta Way 2.0 and launched during the FIFA World Cup. The trees will be in planters at their current locations through the end of July. Organizers are looking for property owners with suitable sites on the famous street where they'll be planted permanently. And that is it for this edition of Georgia today. Thank you so much for tuning in. Make sure you check out gpb.org news for the latest updates and subscribe to this podcast because we will be back in your feed tomorrow afternoon and you won't want to miss a thing. If you've got feedback, send it to us by email. That's the best way to reach the whole Georgia Today team. The address is Georgia Today. I'm Peter Biello. Thank you again for listening. We will see you tomorrow.