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Georgia Today
Warnock wants answers from the FBI; Prison for antisemitic postcards; Birth control bill
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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, Senator Raphael Warnock presses for answers about the FBI's raid of a Fulton county elections warehouse. A man is sentenced after being convicted of sending anti Semitic postcards to a lawmaker. And state Republican lawmakers have introduced a bill that would allow pharmacists to prescribe birth control medication.
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When people have access to family planning such as contraception, they're able to bring opportunities to light because they're able to make plans for their future.
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Today is Thursday, February 5th. I'm Peter Biello, and this is Georgia Today. Georgia Senator Raphael Warnock says he is pressing the Trump administration for answers about the FBI search at a Fulton county elections warehouse last week. GPB's Sarah Kalis reports.
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Warnock says he is doing everything in his power to support Fulton county legal challenges to the operation at a federal level.
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Elections are held at the state level and the Constitution is clear about that. They're administered at the state level.
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The federal government has a role, but this is about Georgia, but it's about.
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More than just our state.
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He also sent a letter to U.S. attorney General Pam Bondi requesting a briefing on the search and why it was conducted. The FBI seized 700 boxes of 2020 presidential election ballots from the warehouse last week. Since then, President Donald Trump has called for Republicans to quote federalize elections, which Warnock says both parties need to reject. For GPB News, I'm Sarah Kallis.
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The man who was convicted of a federal hate crime for mailing Georgia's only Jewish state representative and a Macon rabbi anti Semitic postcards has has been given the maximum sentence under federal law. GPB's Grant Blankenship has more.
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Ariel Colosso Ramos of Durham, North Carolina.
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Sent Representative Esther Panitch and Rabbi Elizabeth.
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Bahar postcards invoking the gas chambers of.
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The Holocaust the day after passage of.
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Panitch's bill to legally define anti Semitism in Georgia. Panitch says the postcard arrived at her home on the day Governor Kemp was to sign the bill into law. Both women say neither they nor their families felt safe after Esther Panitch. This is the new reality for politicians, especially Jewish ones or other minorities. This is unfortunately what we're seeing with political violence out there. It's not abnormal.
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It should be.
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Ariel Ramos was sentenced to five years.
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In federal prison and three years of.
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Supervision after his release.
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For GPB News, I'm Grant blankenship. In Macon, Georgia. Republican U.S. representative Barry Loudermilk says he will not seek reelection this year. Loudermilk is among at least 50 House incumbents stepping down or running for other offices in Georgia. Four Republican held congressional seats will change hands this year. Loudermilk has served in Congress since 2015. He said yesterday that he wants to spend more time with his family. His district includes all or parts of five counties northwest of Atlanta. Speaker of the House John Burns and the Republican Party yesterday introduced a flurry of bills they say will help Georgia families. One of those bills, House Bill 1138, will allow pharmacists to prescribe birth control medication. State Representative Beth Camp says that policy is already in place in 36 states.
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In my family, something that's really important is opportunities. And when people have access to family planning such as contraception, they're able to bring opportunities to light because they're able to make plans for their future.
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Other bills include fundamentals funding for after school care for families on a limited income, the creation of a domestic violence registry and more maternity leave for state employees.
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Hi, it's Terry Gross, host of FRESH AIR. Hey, take a break from the 24 hour news cycle with us and listen.
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To long form interviews with your favorite.
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Authors, actors, filmmakers, comedians and musicians. The people making the art that nourishes.
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Us and speaks to our times.
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So listen to the FRESH AIR podcast.
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From NPR and whyy. A committee under the Atlanta based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has changed its guidelines for some childhood vaccines. Instead of recommending them outright, it says it wants doctors and patients to engage in what's called shared clinical decision making before shots are given out. Conversations healthcare providers say they already have GPB's. Sophie Gradis explains how some Georgia doctors are navigating the new guidelines.
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Shortly after 8am Dr. Rachel McDeal begins seeing patients at her obstetrics and gynecology practice indicator. She tears sanitary paper off a patient exam chair. That's the sound that I hear in the background of my daily life. McDeal will see about two dozen patients today. She says almost everyone will be getting a vaccine or at least talking about getting one. Got a new shirt for me, Julie. On the schedule are vaccines proven to protect both parent and baby? You know, we could have someone who is due for tdap, flu, Covid and RSV all on the same day. That's a lot of vaccines to get all at once. McDeal knows vaccine schedules can be overwhelming to talk about, especially since her pregnant patients follow much more nuanced recommendations than children. I feel like I am constantly using shared decision making. The vaccine schedules kind of as previously recommended and with new changes. To have a shared decision making conversation honestly doesn't change how I offer patients vaccines that much, she argues. That's the case for most physicians who have already been engaging in those conversations. The CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices says it wants. But McDeal says the new guidelines work best with universal vaccine recommendations. Without them, she worries, patients might come in misinformed about the safety of vaccines or be unwilling to even talk at all. If they're making that vaccination decision out of fear as opposed to out of like based upon the facts and the evidence that we know surrounding these vaccines, that scares me. When the CDC decided to remove six vaccines from its universal recommendations for kids, it didn't cite any new evidence for doing so. Dr. Walt Orenstein helps head the Vaccine center at Emory University and ran the United States immunization program for 16 years at the CDC.
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Normally what is done is is development.
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Of what was called a harmonized schedule, he says. That's when the government and trusted physician groups like the American Academy of Pediatrics worked together on vaccine guidelines. Here there was no working together, ornstein says. That means there's no one trusted vaccine schedule and without that we can lose the community benefits of immunization.
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This was a unilateral decision. So now what we are going to see is different immunization schedules, which could be very, very confus confusing and can.
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Lead to drops in coverage coverage against illness. And if enough patients are put off by vaccines, doctors may not know which ones to stock anymore.
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And in fact, it may cause them.
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Perhaps not even to order some of.
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The vaccines because they don't know what.
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The uptake will be. The important thing to remember is the evidence really hasn't changed. That's Monica Newton, a Northeast Georgia doctor and chapter president of the Georgia Academy of Family Physicians. She says she expects her over 3,000 members to follow the old guidelines. It isn't like we've discovered that some of these vaccines don't work or that they're not needed. Newton agrees that their benefits still outweigh any risk. But she worries the changed guidelines by the government's top public health agency could greenlight changes at the state level, like what shots are required for kids to attend school. They're almost like forecasting to states like these are the things you should require and not require for now. Georgia's Department of Public Health says it does not plan on making changes to the state's immunization schedules. For GPB News, I'm Sophie Gradis.
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Darden Restaurants is laying off 78 workers as it closes its Bahama Breeze location in Duluth. The layoffs include a variety of restaurant workers, including the general manager, servers, bartenders and line cooks. This follows Darden's announcement earlier this week that it will permanently close 14 Bahama Breeze restaurants along other locations, including the one in Kennesaw, will be converted into another Darden restaurant. Darden's brand portfolio includes Olive Garden, Red Lobster, Longhorn Steakhouse and Yard House. Researchers at Emory University say early results from an annual child Health and wellness report show gun violence has risen to the top of parents concerns. Just over a thousand parents were surveyed for the poll last year, school quality and education ranked the top 10 concerns more than mental health and social media use. This year, Steven Patrick at the Rollins School of Public Health says nearly a.
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Third chose gun violence within their top three. You know it's up about 6 percentage points, and so that shift certainly catches our attention.
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Gun violence is the leading cause of death for kids in the US and disproportionately affects black youth. The same goes for Georgia, which ranks near the top for its gun death rate. Homicide, car crashes and suicide are the top causes of death for teens teenagers in the state. The Emory poll also suggests the majority of parents, about 80% are in favor of tighter gun storage laws to improve safety. Mental health advocates say if all Georgia insurance companies followed Parity law, more people would be seeking treatment for mental health and substance use disorder. GPB's Ellen Eldredge reports on advocacy efforts during this week's third annual Mental Health Parody Day at the state Capitol.
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In 2022, Governor Brian Kemp signed the Parity act into law. It requires insurance companies to cover mental health in the same way they cover physical help.
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It also levies fines for insurance companies that don't comply.
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Commissioner of Insurance and Safety Fire John King recently levied nearly $25 million in.
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Fines for violations made in 2022. And I think the companies ought to pay attention.
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I told them they needed to pay.
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Attention to this, and apparently they didn't take me seriously. Well, now this is my effort for them to understand that I'm serious about this.
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Advocates say enforcing parity law is about reducing emergency response costs, saving taxpayer dollars.
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And building healthier communities across Georgia.
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For GPB News, I'm Ellen Eldredge.
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A high school cheerleading team from metro Atlanta's Gwinnett county will become the first from Georgia to compete in a national championship tomorrow. But as GPB's Orlando Montoya reports, it almost didn't happen. A Georgia High School association bylaw prohibits cheerleading teams from out of state competition, but after a multi year campaign and a state championship win this December, the association made an exception for the Collins Hill High School team. Katie Burkhead is the team's head coach.
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Watching their dedication this entire season, starting from the day the tryouts happened until we hit the stage for state, we knew that this team was going to do big things.
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They'll compete at the Universal Cheer Association National Championship in Orlando, Florida, one of the sport's most prestigious stages. For GPB News, I'm Orlando Montoya. Andrew Jones will wear an Atlanta Braves hat on his hall of Fame plaque. The hall of Fame typically makes that decision, and it comes two weeks after the Gold Glove winning outfielder was elected to the Hall. Jones played most of his career with the Braves, but also played for the Dodgers, White Sox, Rangers and Yankees, and his hall of Fame induction is scheduled for July 26th. And that is it for Georgia today. Thank you very much for tuning in. I hope you come back tomorrow. So make sure you subscribe to this podcast and check out gpb.org news for updates to any of the stories you heard today and for the latest new headlines. If you've got feedback, we would love to hear from you, and the best way for you to reach us is by email. Send your email to Georgia today@GPB.org I'm Peter Biello. Thanks again for listening. We will see you tomorrow.