WABE: Recent Episodes
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Work hard. Dream big. That was the guiding philosophy of Atlanta’s Charlie Loudermilk. The 95-year-old business mogul and philanthropist died Wednesday from a stroke. Robert Charles Loudermilk Sr. had business […]
The post Atlanta businessman and philanthropist Charles Loudermilk dies at 95 appeared first on WABE.
U.S. Senators delivered overwhelming bipartisan approval to NATO membership for Finland and Sweden Wednesday, calling expansion of the Western defensive bloc a “slam-dunk” for U.S. national security and a day […]
The post Senate backs Finland, Sweden for NATO 95-1, rebuking Russia appeared first on WABE.
Georgia Republican Herschel Walker has accepted an invitation in his U.S. Senate race to debate Democratic incumbent Raphael Warnock, but it’s not one of the three debate invitations Warnock earlier […]
The post Walker accepts debate invite, but not one that Warnock chose appeared first on WABE.
Georgia Democratic U.S. Senator Raphael Warnock has pushed for caps on the price of insulin since he got to Washington. Although he’s gotten a number of fellow lawmakers behind his […]
The post ‘Insulin isn’t optional for millions’: Sen. Raphael Warnock pushes to cap the cost of insulin appeared first on WABE.
Rare sea turtles that spend summers laying eggs on Southern beaches have crawled to a new state record in Georgia. The Georgia Department of Natural Resources said Wednesday that more […]
The post Sea turtles crawl to new nesting record on Georgia coast appeared first on WABE.
The United Nations chief sharply criticized the “grotesque greed” of oil and gas companies on Wednesday for making record profits from the energy crisis on the back of the world’s […]
The post UN chief criticizes `grotesque greed’ of oil companies appeared first on WABE.
President Joe Biden on Wednesday will sign an executive order aimed in part at making it easier for women seeking abortions to travel between states to obtain access to the procedure. More specifically, one […]
The post Biden to sign executive order to protect travel for abortion appeared first on WABE.
The Christian flag that became the focus of a free speech legal battle that went all the way to the Supreme Court was raised outside Boston City Hall on Wednesday […]
The post Christian flag at center of legal battle flies over Boston appeared first on WABE.
A nuclear power plant being built in Georgia can begin loading radioactive fuel into one of its two new reactors, federal regulators said Wednesday, a key step toward generating electricity […]
The post Georgia nuclear plant gets OK to load fuel at new reactor appeared first on WABE.
Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones said Wednesday that he now understands it was irresponsible of him to declare the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre a hoax and that he now believes it […]
The post Alex Jones concedes Sandy Hook attack was ‘100% real’ appeared first on WABE.
The Atlanta City Council has approved a resolution to make a charitable donation to a nonprofit abortion fund. The $300,000 donation to Access Reproductive Care Southeast is intended to help […]
The post Atlanta City Council approves donation to an abortion fund appeared first on WABE.
The first half of this year was Atlanta’s fourth-warmest on record, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The city has one official cooling center in the Old Fourth […]
The post Miami has one. Should Atlanta? The case for a Chief Heat Officer. appeared first on WABE.
Donald Glover warned his fellow writers from the first day on “Atlanta” that the show would get canceled for what it was going to attempt. He was wrong. The buzzy […]
The post Donald Glover gets grounded on final season of ‘Atlanta’ appeared first on WABE.
Members of the far-right Oath Keepers’ extremist group charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol will face jurors this fall after a judge on Tuesday denied […]
The post Judge won’t delay Oath Keepers’ trial over Jan. 6 hearings appeared first on WABE.
Jill Biden says she didn’t doubt that she could keep teaching as first lady and overcame the skepticism that she could handle both jobs by instructing her staff to “figure it […]
The post Jill Biden on teaching as first lady: ‘Knew I could do both’ appeared first on WABE.
A person at least six weeks pregnant on or after July 20 through Dec. 31, 2022, can submit the fetus as a dependent on their state tax returns starting next year.
The post Pregnant? Georgia says that fetus counts as a dependent on your taxes appeared first on WABE.
The white man who initiated the neighborhood chase that resulted in the fatal shooting of Ahmaud Arbery is asking a federal judge to show leniency when he’s sentenced next week […]
The post Ahmaud Arbery pursuer seeks leniency in hate crimes sentence appeared first on WABE.
Starbenders formed in 2013 with guitarist and vocalist Kimi Shelter and bassist Aaron Lecesne. “Kimi and I always knew we were going to make music together. So when our previous […]
The post Speaking of Music: Starbenders appeared first on WABE.
Activism brings to mind many images: silent protestors sitting in at a whites-only restaurant demanding equal rights, high school students leading a movement for gun control, running for Congress to […]
The post A quest for activism across three generations in Horizon’s ‘Square Blues’ appeared first on WABE.
The World Series champion Atlanta Braves bolstered their starting staff ahead of the trade deadline Tuesday by giving up a reliever who played a big part in their 2021 title. […]
The post Braves send postseason star Smith to Astros for RHP Odorizzi appeared first on WABE.
The crypto division of the online brokerage Robinhood will pay a $30 million penalty to New York state for failing to comply with regulations governing money laundering and cybersecurity, the […]
The post NY fines Robinhood Crypto $30M for skirting banking rules appeared first on WABE.
Schools across metro Atlanta have been seeing a decline in enrollment since 2020 at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Enrollment is overall going back up across the state, but […]
The post Metro Atlanta schools see enrollment down as new school year begins appeared first on WABE.
Parents and school law enforcement are teaming up for a new volunteer initiative for all 66 schools in the Clayton County area. Village on Patrol is a volunteer-based program asking […]
The post Clayton County Schools introduces new ‘Village on Patrol’ safety volunteer initiative appeared first on WABE.
U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi arrived in Taiwan on Tuesday night, becoming the highest-ranking American official to visit the self-ruled island that is claimed by China in 25 years. Pelosi’s […]
The post US Speaker Pelosi arrives in Taiwan, raising China tensions appeared first on WABE.
One of Atlanta’s largest annual festivals has been abruptly canceled without an official explanation, but many are speculating the state’s gun laws are to blame. Organizer Live Nation announced Monday […]
The post Atlanta suffers economic blow from loss of Music Midtown appeared first on WABE.
President Joe Biden announced Monday that al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahri was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Kabul, an operation he said delivered justice and hopefully “one more measure of closure” […]
The post Biden: Killing of al-Qaida leader is long-sought ‘justice’ appeared first on WABE.
In the United States, the consequences of the pandemic have been particularly devastating for senior populations in nursing care. On the Monday edition of “Closer Look,” Deke Cateau, CEO of […]
The post How the pandemic is continuing to shape nursing home care appeared first on WABE.
On the Monday edition of “Closer Look,” critically acclaimed author, filmmaker and Afro-futurist scholar Ytasha Womack discusses the legacy of trailblazing actress Nichelle Nichols. Nichols died Saturday, July 30, aged […]
The post Nichelle Nichols remembered for her contributions to representation in media and space travel appeared first on WABE.
On the Monday edition of “Closer Look,” Ron Thomas, chair of the Journalism in Sports, Culture and Social Justice Department at Morehouse College, discusses NBA Hall of Fame and civil […]
The post Bill Russell’s legacy of combatting racism in the NBA appeared first on WABE.
Since Brittney Griner last appeared in her trial for cannabis possession, the question of her fate has expanded from a tiny, cramped courtroom on Moscow’s outskirts to the highest level […]
The post Brittney Griner’s trial resumes amid intensified diplomacy appeared first on WABE.
One season of bottom-rung defense was too much for Dean Pees. Pees, the Atlanta Falcons’ veteran defensive coordinator, is making sure his players know he won’t stand for another season […]
The post Falcons defensive guru Pees determined to raise expectations appeared first on WABE.
A Texas man convicted of storming the U.S. Capitol with a holstered handgun helmet and body armor was sentenced on Monday to 87 months — more than seven years — in prison, […]
The post Man who stormed Capitol with gun gets 87 months in prison appeared first on WABE.
Scientists call the name "discriminatory and stigmatizing." The World Health Organization agrees. But no progress has been made on finding a new name. And some say the name doesn't need changing.
The post Critics say ‘monkeypox’ is a racist name. But it’s not going away anytime soon appeared first on WABE.
Hundreds took to Baghdad streets on Monday in a counter-protest planned by Iran-backed groups and Shiite political rivals against an influential cleric whose followers stormed the parliament building over the […]
The post Threat of protests, violent escalation stirs fears in Iraq appeared first on WABE.
As the climate changes, the insect world is changing with it. And for people, that means dealing with the diseases they can transmit. While Georgia has more than 1,200 different insects, […]
The post As temperatures rise in Georgia, so does the risk of insect-borne disease appeared first on WABE.
An enclave of slave descendants on the Georgia coast have settled a federal lawsuit that claimed a lack of government services was eroding their island community, one of the few […]
The post Island slave descendants settle Georgia discrimination suit appeared first on WABE.
This story will be updated. Music Midtown is officially canceled for 2022. The festival released a statement Monday morning saying the event would not go on as planned and refunds […]
The post Music Midtown canceled, potentially due to Georgia gun laws appeared first on WABE.
Birds of a feather do not always flock together, and one of those birds is the owl. But this Saturday, Aug. 6, you can see a rare group of them […]
The post How the Parliament of Owls Lantern Parade first took flight appeared first on WABE.
The graffiti art scene in Atlanta is tremendous, though it comes with controversy under Georgia law. Graffiti is a form of vandalism created without consent, so what defines graffiti art […]
The post An examination of the cultural and historic phenomenon of graffiti artwork in Emory exhibit appeared first on WABE.
As promised, U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham has challenged a subpoena to testify before a special grand jury that’s investigating whether then-President Donald Trump and others broke any laws when they tried to overturn Joe […]
The post Sen. Graham challenges 2020 Georgia election probe subpoena appeared first on WABE.
When Georgia lawmakers created the formula to pay for its public schools, President Ronald Reagan was celebrating the start of his second term, Purple Rain cassettes were flying off of […]
The post Powerful state lawmakers to recalculate Georgia’s politically fraught school funding math appeared first on WABE.
The raging floodwaters that left dozens dead or missing in eastern Kentucky also swept away some of the region’s irreplaceable history. Appalshop, a cultural center known for chronicling Appalachian life […]
The post Appalachian cultural center reeling from historic flooding appeared first on WABE.
Sen. Joe Manchin, one of the Democrats’ most conservative and contrarian members, declined on Sunday to endorse Joe Biden if the president seeks a second term in 2024 and refused […]
The post Manchin demurs on Biden in 2024 and Dem majorities this year appeared first on WABE.
Republicans in Georgia hope inflation and high gas prices will give them an edge in the November election. Democrats, meanwhile, hope the new six-week abortion ban will energize voters. “You’re […]
The post WABE’s Week In Review: The heat effect on Georgians and election races focus on different issues appeared first on WABE.
Gov. Brian Kemp announced Friday that the state will give K-12 public school teachers an extra $125 this year to spend on school supplies. According to federal data, 94 percent […]
The post Gov. Kemp announces $125 supplement for teachers to buy supplies appeared first on WABE.
On this edition of Closer Look, Atlanta Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Lisa Herring discussed the district’s preparation for the upcoming school year. The district, which has centralized infection data analysis, […]
The post APS Superintendent Dr. Lisa Herring discusses COVID-19 precautions and security measures appeared first on WABE.
On this edition of “Closer Look,” WABE environment editor Molly Samuel and climate reporter Emily Jones discussed the launch of “The Heat Effect,” a new series from WABE examining the […]
The post WABE’s ‘The Heat Effect’ looks at climate change’s impact on Georgia appeared first on WABE.
Vessels off the East Coast must slow down more often to help save a vanishing species of whale from extinction, the federal government said Friday. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric […]
The post Ships must slow down more often to save whales, feds say appeared first on WABE.
The parents of a Georgia woman who died after she fell from a moving patrol car following her arrest fought back tears Friday as they demanded answers in their daughter’s […]
The post Family of Georgia woman who died in fall from patrol car demands answers appeared first on WABE.
A Russian operative under the supervision of one of the Kremlin’s main intelligence services has been charged with recruiting political groups in the United States to advance pro-Russia propaganda, including […]
The post Russian charged with using US groups to spread propaganda appeared first on WABE.
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp on Friday took aim at the “Biden recession” and tacked the blame on Democrat Stacey Abrams, becoming one of many Republicans to seek to weigh down […]
The post Kemp assails national economy while touting Georgia record appeared first on WABE.
The House Jan. 6 committee will share 20 of its interview transcripts with the Justice Department as federal prosecutors have been increasingly focused on efforts by former President Donald Trump and his […]
The post Jan. 6 panel to share 20 transcripts with Justice Department appeared first on WABE.
The Education Department originally thought the student loan program would make money — instead, it's losing it. That's according to a new report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office.
The post The U.S. government underestimated the cost of the student loan program by billions appeared first on WABE.
A bump in college scholarships for New Mexico students. A new bike trail nestled in the western slope of Colorado. More homeless shelters in Arizona. When lottery sales soar, those […]
The post States hope for revenue boost with Mega Millions craze appeared first on WABE.
The arts organization Black Art in America, or BAIA, was created out of love for Black art, Black community and Black excellence. They’ve elevated the community of Black artists since […]
The post Arts organization Black Art in America opens new gallery space in East Point appeared first on WABE.
Residents of Forest at Columbia apartments say the property owner unexpectedly terminated all 200 of their leases due to “renovations” back in June. About 30 residents and advocates took their […]
The post South DeKalb apartment tenants rally for places to stay amid new management appeared first on WABE.
Congress has passed a $280 billion proposal designed to lift domestic semiconductor production – after chip shortages caused shutdowns at plants like West Point’s Kia campus – and boost the country’s […]
The post Legislation to boost U.S. computer chip production heads to Biden’s desk appeared first on WABE.
Standing inside State Farm Arena, Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens couldn’t help but note that it was the same spot where tens of thousands of voters cast ballots in 2020 as […]
The post After landmark wins in 2020, Atlanta leaders make bid for next Democratic National Convention appeared first on WABE.
The Conservative Partnership Institute is training its supporters by recruiting poll watchers and election staffers and creating teams of local citizens to potentially challenge voter rolls and election officials with […]
The post Brennan Center analysis of Conservative Partnership Institute cites potential elections interference appeared first on WABE.
Georgia Medicaid will now cover gender-affirming surgery, a result of a recent lawsuit settlement filed by the American Civil Liberties Union. Georgia joins a majority of U.S. states in providing […]
The post Georgia Medicaid to cover gender-affirming surgery following ACLU settlement appeared first on WABE.
The country’s monkeypox outbreak can still be stopped, U.S. health officials said Thursday, despite rising case numbers and so-far limited vaccine supplies. The Biden administration’s top health official pushed back […]
The post Under fire, US officials say monkeypox can still be stopped appeared first on WABE.
A group of voters on Thursday took their quest to get U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green removed from the ballot to Georgia’s highest court. The five voters from Greene’s district say she […]
The post Voters appeal ruling upholding Greene’s eligibility to run appeared first on WABE.
A Georgia county has filed a lawsuit seeking to force a company to sell land on which the county has long planned to build a launchpad for commercial rockets. Commissioners […]
The post Georgia county files suit to force land sale for spaceport appeared first on WABE.
If it was up to Mary Paris, Georgia’s 2022 elections would be a referendum on abortion. As she watched her grandchildren play in a park in an upscale Atlanta suburb, […]
The post In Georgia, Democrats look to abortion rights to lure votes appeared first on WABE.
Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens wants residents to know that the city remains vigilant in its efforts to put a cap on the rise in violent crime, especially acts involving guns. Last […]
The post Mayor Dickens addresses Atlanta’s plan to reduce crime over the summer appeared first on WABE.
The House Jan. 6 committee has interviewed former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and is in negotiations to talk to several other former members of Donald Trump’s Cabinet as it scrutinizes the […]
The post House Jan. 6 panel interviews Mnuchin, pursues Trump Cabinet appeared first on WABE.
President Joe Biden declared his support Thursday for the “historic” inflation-fighting agreement struck by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and holdout Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin, an expansive health care and […]
The post Biden calls deal with Manchin ‘godsend’ for US families appeared first on WABE.
As Atlanta students and teachers prepare to head back to class in the upcoming weeks, many districts are still dealing with a shortage of substitute teachers. Some systems are trying […]
The post Facing shortages, Atlanta school districts come up with new ways to recruit substitutes appeared first on WABE.
Congress finds four companies appeared to have a strategy to get tenants to leave during the pandemic. Many faced eviction after missing only one payment, and while waiting for emergency rental aid.
The post Corporate landlords used aggressive tactics to push out more tenants than was known appeared first on WABE.
State investigators are looking into the death of a Georgia woman who fell out of a patrol car after her arrest have concluded deputies never closed the car’s back door. […]
The post Georgia woman dies after falling out of patrol car appeared first on WABE.
The Kremlin warned Thursday that a possible prisoner swap with the United States involving American basketball star Brittney Griner needs to be negotiated quietly without fanfare. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken […]
The post Kremlin poker-faced on US swap offer to free Griner, Whelan appeared first on WABE.
The agreement Thursday capped a months-long bidding war and arrives one day after Spirit's attempt to merge with Frontier Airlines fell apart. The deal still needs approval from antitrust regulators.
The post JetBlue agrees to buy Spirit for $3.8B. It would create the 5th largest U.S. airline appeared first on WABE.
A Baltimore family is suing a Sesame Street-themed amusement park for $25 million over claims of racial discrimination, alleging multiple costumed characters ignored a 5-year-old Black girl during a meet-and-greet […]
The post Black family sues Sesame Place, alleging discrimination appeared first on WABE.
U.S. senators on a Homeland Security panel on Tuesday detailed years of abuse at U.S. Penitentiary Atlanta that the committee found in an unreleased bipartisan investigation. “The evidence the Subcommittee has secured […]
The post ‘Stunning, long-term failures’ found in probe of Atlanta penitentiary appeared first on WABE.
Gun makers have taken in more than $1 billion from selling AR-15-style guns over the past decade, at times marketing them as a way for young men to prove their […]
The post AR-15 style guns sold as a sign of manhood as shootings rise appeared first on WABE.
Ukrainian troops used American-supplied precision rocket launchers to knock out a strategic bridge used by Russia to supply its forces in southern Ukraine’s occupied Kherson region, officials said Wednesday. Ukraine […]
The post US rocket system enables Ukraine to pummel key supply bridge appeared first on WABE.
The head of the World Health Organization on Wednesday advised men at risk of catching monkeypox to consider reducing their sexual partners “for the moment” following the U.N. health agency […]
The post WHO chief advises reducing sex partners to avoid monkeypox appeared first on WABE.
This summer, the Atlanta Shakespeare Company at the Shakespeare Tavern will perform the Bard’s most controversial play, “The Merchant of Venice.” With its challenging themes of racism and antisemitism, the […]
The post All-female-identifying cast in ‘The Merchant of Venice’ at the Shakespeare Tavern appeared first on WABE.
J. Alexander Kueng was sentenced to three years and Tou Thao got 3 1/2 years — penalties that a judge said reflected their level of culpability in a case that sparked worldwide protests.
The post Two former police officers are sentenced for violating George Floyd’s civil rights appeared first on WABE.
After weeks of delays, nearly 800,000 doses of the monkeypox vaccine will soon be available for distribution, U.S. health regulators said Wednesday. The announcement comes amid growing criticism that authorities […]
The post US signs off on 800,000 more doses of monkeypox vaccine appeared first on WABE.
A congressional candidate whose compelling personal story of military valor and unfathomable loss helped him win former President Donald Trump’s support has connections to right-wing extremists, including a campaign consultant […]
The post GOP’s links to extremism surface in congressional primary appeared first on WABE.
No one won the Mega Millions jackpot on Tuesday and now it's more than $1 billion. If you've never played before, here are some things to know about how it works.
The post The Mega Millions jackpot has reached $1B. Here are all your questions, answered appeared first on WABE.
Carl Janes is a multidisciplinary artist in Atlanta. He paints in acrylics and sprays, sculpts in “everything from Lite Brite pegs to world globes to cars,” designs architecture, writes poetry, […]
The post ‘Speaking of Arts:’ Carl Janes appeared first on WABE.
Many places in the Northeast are likely to see record-breaking temperatures on Sunday, and while relief may be on the way, temperatures are expected to heat up in places like the Pacific Northwest.
The post How hot is it? More than 85 million Americans are under heat-related advisories appeared first on WABE.
Biden's physician says the president's symptoms "continue to improve significantly" and that he is now mainly dealing with a sore throat.
The post President Biden’s COVID symptoms continue to improve, his doctor says appeared first on WABE.
As he campaigns for a Manhattan congressional seat against fellow Democrats twice his age, 38-year-old Suraj Patel harnesses the frustration of his generation toward those who have held office for […]
The post One thing voters agree on: Fresh voices needed in politics appeared first on WABE.
Marvel Studios unveiled the first trailer for “ Black Panther: Wakanda Forever ” — set to “No Woman No Cry” — to fans at Comic-Con on Saturday in San Diego. It was […]
The post Marvel teases new Avengers movies, ‘Black Panther’ sequel appeared first on WABE.
The World Health Organization declared monkeypox a public health emergency of global concern Saturday. From how it spreads to preventative measures, here's what you need to know about the disease.
The post Monkeypox is a public health emergency. Here’s what you need to know about the virus appeared first on WABE.
The competition for hourly employees continues to be fierce in today’s economy. And a few companies with headquarters in Metro Atlanta have programs to pay for college as a way […]
The post Companies tout tuition assistance as another tool to attract workers appeared first on WABE.
A court decision ordering Georgia’s anti-abortion law to immediately take effect Wednesday has left a trail of uncertainty and unanswered questions in its wake. The state’s abortion providers, who expected […]
The post From miscarriage liability to taxes, lots to sort out in Georgia’s anti-abortion law appeared first on WABE.
A far-right internet personality pleaded guilty Friday to joining the mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol, where he streamed live video that incriminated him and other rioters, according to a court […]
The post Internet troll ‘Baked Alaska’ pleads guilty in Capitol riot appeared first on WABE.
An estimated 17.7 million viewers watched Thursday night’s hearing of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. The Nielsen Company said that is second to the 20 million who saw […]
The post Nielsen says 17.7 million watched Thursday’s Jan. 6 hearing appeared first on WABE.
Republican U.S. Senate nominee Herschel Walker commiserated as north Georgia farmers bemoaned environmental regulations and rising costs of doing business. Minutes before, the former football star and political newcomer volleyed with journalists […]
The post Walker aims to pivot focus back to Dems in tight Ga. race appeared first on WABE.
With roughly half of U.S. states likely to ban abortion, volunteers in California are mobilizing to help women travel there for care. State lawmakers want to support some of those efforts too.
The post As states ban abortion, Californians open their arms and wallets appeared first on WABE.
According to the Women's Rabbinic Network, some of the religion's most sacred texts — the Torah, the Mishnah and the Talmud — view a fetus as a soul only once it's born.
The post Some Jewish groups blast the end of Roe as a violation of their religious beliefs appeared first on WABE.
Parades celebrating LGBTQ pride kick off in some of America’s biggest cities Sunday amid new fears about the potential erosion of freedoms won through decades of activism. The annual marches […]
The post Pride parades march on with new urgency across US appeared first on WABE.
The ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court overturning the constitutional right to abortion now puts the spotlight on individual states. For Georgia, that means the possible implementation of a 2019 […]
The post WABE’s Week In Review: Never dull in Georgia from runoff elections to Jan.6 testimony to the impact of overturning Roe in the state appeared first on WABE.
The National Park Service is trying to include more Black history into the story of America. Some of the proposed sites are painful, others are controversial.
The post The National Park Service expands its African-American history sites appeared first on WABE.
Abortion-rights supporters in Georgia and local medical experts say they’re worried about what comes next after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade. Georgia already has a high […]
The post In wake of Dobbs v. Jackson, abortion-rights supporters march in Atlanta and medical experts raise concerns appeared first on WABE.
With Roe v. Wade overturned, Senate Democrats want Biden to use presidential power to ease abortion access and protect those who seek the procedures. But he has limited options.
The post Biden must take stronger action on abortion, Senate Democrats say appeared first on WABE.
The Supreme Court’s decision to end the nation’s constitutional protections for abortion has catapulted businesses of all types into the most divisive corner of politics. Some companies that stayed silent […]
The post Abortion ruling thrusts companies into divisive arena appeared first on WABE.
The president's signing comes just over a month after the mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, killed 19 children and two adults.
The post Biden signs gun safety bill into law appeared first on WABE.
For many Georgia anti-abortion advocates, Friday’s decision by the United States Supreme Court striking down the landmark 1973 decision guaranteeing abortion access nationwide is a long-awaited victory. Georgia Life Alliance […]
The post Georgia anti-abortion advocates cheer Supreme Court’s Roe decision, plan for next legislative session appeared first on WABE.
The Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade on Friday, eliminating constitutional protections for abortion that had been in place for 50 years. PBS NewsHour anchor and managing editor Judy Woodruff will anchor […]
The post WATCH LIVE: The End of Roe: A PBS NewsHour Special Report appeared first on WABE.
Charlie Brown is taking his 50 years of stories from Atlanta’s drag scene and putting them to the page with the impending release of his memoirs. The self-proclaimed “Bitch of […]
The post Atlanta drag legend Charlie Brown writing memoirs appeared first on WABE.
An aftershock took more lives Friday and threatened to pile even more misery on an area of eastern Afghanistan reeling from a powerful earthquake that state media said killed 1,150 […]
The post Aftershock in Afghanistan as quake toll rises to 1,150 dead appeared first on WABE.
Sam Flemming spent more than 20 years living in Asia, where he was struck by that region’s passion for food. When he moved here, he sought out Atlanta’s underground food […]
The post Festival puts focus on Atlanta’s ‘vibrant’ underground food scene appeared first on WABE.
The first major gun legislation in nearly three decades would incentivize states to pass red flag laws and expand background checks for 18- to 21-year-olds, among other measures.
The post Senate passes gun control bill and sends it to the House appeared first on WABE.
The European Union agreed Thursday to put Ukraine on a path toward EU membership, acting with uncharacteristic speed and unity to pull the embattled country further away from Russia’s influence […]
The post European Union makes Ukraine a candidate for EU membership appeared first on WABE.
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and his Democratic challenger Stacey Abrams continued their bidding war on public safety Thursday, with Abrams proposing a big pay increase for state police and prison […]
The post Kemp pushes on school safety; Abrams seeks officer pay hikes appeared first on WABE.
Various Republican House members requested pardons from President Donald Trump in the final days of his administration, according to testimony presented before the Jan. 6 committee.
The post Republican lawmakers asked the White House for pardons before and after Jan. 6 appeared first on WABE.
In a major expansion of gun rights after a series of mass shootings, the Supreme Court said Thursday that Americans have a right to carry firearms in public for self-defense, […]
The post Supreme Court expands gun rights, with nation divided appeared first on WABE.
About a week before the Jan. 6 attack, there was an "escalation" of then-President Donald Trump's demands about election fraud allegations, a former acting deputy attorney general testified.
The post DOJ officials pushed back on Trump’s baseless election fraud claims appeared first on WABE.
Amazon's voice-cloning technology still under development raises concerns among those who study ethics in artificial intelligence.
The post Amazon’s Alexa could soon speak in a dead relative’s voice, making some feel uneasy appeared first on WABE.
Acclaimed comedian and actor George Wallace returns to Atlanta this weekend, this time to perform his stand-up comedy show “One Night Only.” Born in Atlanta, Wallace is a veteran performer […]
The post Comedian George Wallace returns to his Atlanta hometown appeared first on WABE.
As Republicans nationwide gear up to attack Democrats with tough-on-crime platforms this fall, Georgia Democrat Stacey Abrams is making guns a central focus of her race for governor, seeking to […]
The post Abrams tries to flip script on guns and crime in Georgia appeared first on WABE.
A congressional subcommittee has rejected the Biden administration’s proposal to close a training center for military pilots in Georgia. U.S. Rep. Buddy Carter said Monday the decision by the House […]
The post Congressional panel rejects Biden’s plan to close Savannah pilot training center appeared first on WABE.
It’s high noon at a shopping center in Powder Springs and a part of the parking lot is blocked off. A crew of four operators, wearing bright yellow safety vests […]
The post Delivering pizza and people: Experiments with autonomous technology in metro Atlanta appeared first on WABE.
The House 1/6 committee is set to hear from the caretakers of American democracy — elections workers and local officials — who fended off Donald Trump’s pressure to overturn the […]
The post 1/6 panel to hear from Raffensperger, others Trump pushed in Georgia appeared first on WABE.
The pandemic has negatively affected math scores, especially for Atlanta’s younger students, according to new research from Georgia State University. Researchers at Georgia Policy Labs compared data in Fulton County […]
The post Report: Pandemic negatively affected Atlanta students’ math achievement appeared first on WABE.
"We reject the certified results of the 2020 Presidential election," the Republican Party of Texas says, referring to President Biden as the "acting" leader.
The post Texas GOP’s new platform says Biden didn’t really win. It also calls for secession appeared first on WABE.
Georgia’s June runoffs could have been a lot more wild. But two of the most-watched primary matchups were settled in May. Candidates avoid a runoff if they take home at […]
The post 3 things to watch in Georgia’s runoff elections appeared first on WABE.
One of the owners of a nuclear power plant being expanded in Georgia says it’s shifting overruns to Georgia Power Co. in exchange for giving up a sliver of its […]
The post Georgia cooperatives move to freeze nuclear costs at $8.1B appeared first on WABE.
As anti-LGBTQ narratives ramp up in the mainstream, far-right groups Patriot Front and Proud Boys have used the moment to target Pride events. But their goal remains the same, extremism trackers say.
The post Far right groups shift focus to LBGTQ events. Their hateful aim hasn’t changed appeared first on WABE.
Union Gen. Gordon Granger set up his headquarters in Galveston, Texas, and famously signed an order June 19, 1865, "All slaves are free." President Biden made Juneteenth a federal holiday last year.
The post The new Juneteenth federal holiday traces its roots to Galveston, Texas appeared first on WABE.
The Congressional hearings in the Jan. 6 insurrection this week featured never-before-seen videos, serious allegations against former President Donald Trump and gripping testimony. Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger is […]
The post WABE’s Week In Review: Georgia is set to play a role in the Jan. 6 hearings in D.C. appeared first on WABE.
A federal judge has found that a Georgia sheriff’s office was illegally discriminating when it denied gender reassignment surgery to a deputy. U.S. District Judge Marc Treadwell ruled June 2 that […]
The post Judge: Georgia county can’t deny gender surgery to deputy appeared first on WABE.
After a two week break in the schedule, Atlanta United returns to action Tuesday night. The club continues to lead Major League Soccer in attendance. But on the field, the […]
The post Atlanta United returns to play this week. Can they turn the season around? appeared first on WABE.
Breunna Scott-Greenberg’s passion for teaching kids how to swim is driven by her late niece. On Friday’s edition of “Closer Look,” the YMCA of Metro Atlanta aquatics director told program […]
The post YMCA of Metro Atlanta focuses on drowning prevention by offering summer swim lessons appeared first on WABE.
Angered by the unrelenting toll from gun violence, tens of thousands of people are expected at rallies this weekend in the nation’s capital and around the United States demanding that […]
The post March for Our Lives returns with a renewed gun control push appeared first on WABE.
Georgia will go a third year without assigning A-to-F grades to public schools and districts because of the COVID-19 pandemic, after the federal government waived part of the requirements for […]
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Federal officials have fined two Georgia hospitals more than $1 million for failing to meet new requirements to publicly disclose their charges. Northside Hospital Atlanta and Northside Hospital Cherokee are […]
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The Biden administration is lifting its requirement that international travelers test negative for COVID-19 within a day before boarding a flight to the United States, ending one of the last […]
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Christopher Escobar has been the owner of the Plaza Theatre since 2017. Last month, he signed a new 25-year lease with plans for a major renovation. Escobar joined “City Lights” […]
The post Chris Escobar has major renovation and restoration plans for the historic Plaza Theatre appeared first on WABE.
When legendary jazz vocalist Billie Holiday sang the first notes of “Strange Fruit,” waiters stopped serving, and silence would immediately fall across audiences. After finishing the song, Billie Holiday would […]
The post ‘Lady Day’ transports audiences to a 1950s Philadelphia jazz club for Billie Holiday’s final performance appeared first on WABE.
Native Americans have an enduring respect for their warriors, and Chief Charlie Reyes LittleEagle is no exception. He was taught the significance of the warrior path and how to achieve […]
The post The Red, White and Blue appeared first on WABE.
The history of Atlanta’s LGBTQ community can be hard to uncover, in large part due to the homophobia and transphobia of the time that caused people to keep a low […]
The post Take an interactive tour of Atlanta’s LGBTQ history appeared first on WABE.
The committee transported the audience back to Jan. 6 with video of what happened that day. It also made a strong case that former President Trump was responsible for what happened.
The post New revelations and 3 other takeaways from the first Jan. 6 committee hearing appeared first on WABE.
While a growing number of states are trying to address the increasing mental health crisis among youths, many schools are woefully short of therapists and the budget to hire them.
The post More states are allowing students to take mental health days off appeared first on WABE.
The House select committee investigating the January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol is holding the first in a series of what’s expected to be six public hearings. The committee […]
The post Watch Live: House January 6 committee holds public hearings on its investigation appeared first on WABE.
For Caleb Gayle, an award-winning journalist, professor, and senior fellow at Northeastern University, the curiosity to understand the relationship between Black people and the Creek Nation started growing when his […]
The post Caleb Gayle’s new book explores the history and relationship between Blacks and the Creek Nation appeared first on WABE.
The organizers of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution Peachtree Road Race say this year the storied 10K run returns to its beloved traditions. The race was canceled in 2020 and moved to […]
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U.S. House Democrats are upping the pressure on their Senate colleagues to do away with the filibuster. The calls come after the House passed the wide-ranging gun control bill on […]
The post Georgia U.S. Rep. Johnson says fate of gun control act grim against Senate filibuster appeared first on WABE.
This coverage is made possible through a partnership with WABE and Grist, a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future. Southern Company, […]
The post Southern Company spent millions on misinformation despite climate change warnings, report finds appeared first on WABE.
The United States Supreme Court is expected to issue a ruling soon on the future of abortion rights in America. If the court overturns the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade […]
The post What happens to abortion in Georgia if the U.S. Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade? appeared first on WABE.
Christian Siriano’s bold creations are currently on view at the SCAD FASH Museum of Fashion + Film. The celebrity fashion designer entered the industry after winning “Project Runway” season 4 […]
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Georgia is still in the money, with tax collections on track to deliver another big surplus in its state budget. The state has already collected roughly $2 billion more in […]
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Health officials have confirmed the first case of monkeypox in the state of Georgia. This all comes as the global cases surpass 1,000 across 36 countries and as the Centers […]
The post Atlanta-based infectious disease expert explains monkeypox outbreak appeared first on WABE.
While U.S. House committee members present their investigation of the Jan. 6 insurrection, U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff of Georgia has been leading an investigative committee in the Senate. Ossoff recently […]
The post U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff on mistreatment of military families in privatized housing appeared first on WABE.
The composer Gustav Mahler once said, “A symphony must be like the world. It must contain everything.” Conductor Robert Spano has brought us the world throughout his 20 years as […]
The post Conductor Robert Spano concludes 20-year Atlanta Symphony Orchestra tenure with Mahler’s Third Symphony appeared first on WABE.
Noël Hernandez is an Emmy-nominated makeup artist for film and television who lives in Dunwoody. She’s been in the industry for nine years, and like many professionals in the beauty […]
The post Film Crew Files: Noël Hernandez appeared first on WABE.
This Saturday, June 11, the world’s mushroom population will grow, thanks to an international art scavenger hunt called “Game of Shrooms.” The game’s design is sweet and simple: participating artists […]
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A key aide to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. who helped sustain the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s says she’s deeply saddened by the hate crimes seeking to […]
The post Atlanta civil rights activist Xernona Clayton is still ‘fearless’ at 91 appeared first on WABE.
Todd and Julie Chrisley, former Georgia residents and stars of the reality television show “Chrisley Knows Best,” were found guilty Tuesday in Atlanta on federal charges including bank fraud and […]
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It has charged more than 800 people with crimes related to the deadly assault, secured three guilty pleas on the charge of seditious conspiracy and won cooperation of insiders from far-right groups.
The post The Justice Department has gone far and wide in its Jan. 6 probe. Some want more appeared first on WABE.
There's no dispute that FBI agents in 2015 knew Nassar was accused of molesting gymnasts, but they failed to act, leaving him free to continue to target young women and girls for more than a year.
The post Simone Biles and other Olympic gymnasts will sue the FBI over Larry Nassar appeared first on WABE.
Meltdowns in the cryptocurrency space are common, but the latest one really touched some nerves. Novice investors took to online forums to share tales of decimated fortunes and even suicidal […]
The post Crypto meltdown is wake-up call for many, including Congress appeared first on WABE.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen acknowledged Tuesday that she and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell “could have used a better word” than “transitory” when describing the expected run of inflation in […]
The post Treasury Secretary Yellen expects inflation to ‘remain high’ appeared first on WABE.
Negotiations have narrowed proposals to address school safety, standards for safe gun storage, federal support for mental health programs and incentives for states to create red flag laws.
The post Senate gun law negotiators working toward a deal by the end of the week appeared first on WABE.
Nearly a year since its inception, the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol will go public with its findings starting this week as lawmakers hope […]
The post Jan. 6 insurrection hearings: How to watch and what to know appeared first on WABE.
A woman named Vincent is at the center of “Half-Blown Rose,” the latest novel by Leesa Cross-Smith. She’s also the author of “This Close to Okay,” and her earlier novel […]
The post Leesa Cross-Smith’s new novel explores the intricacies of love and self-discovery appeared first on WABE.
The FBI in North Carolina is warning businesses in Georgia and seven other states about a scheme in which people are using stolen credit card numbers to make large purchases […]
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The Atlanta school board is moving forward with the closure of Thomasville Heights Elementary School in Southeast Atlanta over the objections of some parents. The board voted 6-to-2 (with one […]
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The 29-year-old announced joining the Carolina Panthers TopCats earlier this year. Lindsay says she will continue to "inspire and help my African American beautiful trans sisters."
The post Justine Lindsay is the first openly trans cheerleader in the NFL appeared first on WABE.
In the early days of the pandemic, you may have read headlines or perhaps even witnessed first-hand how many medical facilities struggled to keep pace with an onslaught of COVID-19 […]
The post How technology is helping some breathe a bit easier appeared first on WABE.
Brown was shot and killed in his car by sheriff's deputies more than a year ago. The family of Andrew Brown Jr. had filed a $30 million civil rights lawsuit in 2021.
The post A $3M settlement was reached in a lawsuit over Andrew Brown Jr.’s death appeared first on WABE.
About 200 people gathered for the Georgia Cherokee Community Alliance’s at-Large Meeting at Laurel Park in Marietta on Saturday. It was the first in-person meeting for the Cherokee Nation in […]
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A proposed mine near the Okefenokee Swamp has been dealt a major setback. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is reversing an earlier decision that it and other federal agencies […]
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Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger gave testimony on Thursday to the special grand jury convened in Fulton County over alleged meddling in the 2020 election by former President Donald […]
The post WABE’s Week In Review: Raffensperger testifies at special grand jury trial involving Trump appeared first on WABE.
In wake of the recent mass shootings across the nation, Jody Baumstein, a licensed therapist at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta Strong4Life, says there’s not a certain age to talk with […]
The post Atlanta-based therapist on talking with kids about violence appeared first on WABE.
Rugby ATL Head Coach Steve Brett, says the thread that his rugby team lives off is pace. The word pace stands for people, uhm, accountability, community and execution,” explained Brett […]
The post Atlanta’s professional rugby team prepares for the regular-season finale game appeared first on WABE.
Atlanta City Councilmember Jason Dozier, representing District 4, says Atlanta’s population has changed a lot over the past 10 years. On Friday’s edition of “Closer Look,” Dozier returned to the program […]
The post Atlanta City Councilmember Jason Dozier on his top priorities for District 4 appeared first on WABE.
Health officials are working to prevent further spread of the monkeypox virus in the United States. So far in Georgia, one person is suspected of having it and is isolating […]
The post Prevention efforts ramp up in Georgia, U.S. as monkeypox virus spreads appeared first on WABE.
Genetic analysis of recent monkeypox cases suggests there are two distinct strains in the U.S., health officials said Friday, raising the possibility that the virus has been circulating undetected for […]
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Former Trump White House official Peter Navarro was indicted Friday on contempt charges after defying a subpoena from the House panel investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. […]
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Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp has named a retired federal judge to chair the State Election Board, filling a position that opened more than a year ago when Kemp signed a […]
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A Japanese equipment maker plans to spend $140 million to build a new factory in northeast Georgia, adding 500 workers to the 3,000 it already employs in the region. Kubota […]
The post Kubota to invest $140M in new Georgia factory, hiring 500 appeared first on WABE.
A Georgia judge denied bond Thursday evening for Atlanta rapper Young Thug, who’s accused of conspiracy to violate Georgia’s RICO Act and participation in a criminal street gang. Fulton County […]
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Today marks the 60th anniversary of the Orly plane crash in 1962. It was then the world’s deadliest airplane accident, killing 122 people. A hundred and six of them were […]
The post Rickey Bevington reflects on the 1962 Orly plane crash and the arts invigoration that followed appeared first on WABE.
Reparations experts and advocates largely welcomed a move by California to publicly document its role in perpetuating discrimination against African Americans but wondered if the slew of recommendations in its […]
The post After California’s groundbreaking slave reparations report, what next? appeared first on WABE.
It’s not unusual for immigrant families living in the United States to find comfort and stability in carrying on traditions from home. For Hogai Nassery, an Afghan Muslim, this meant no dating […]
The post There is a Way from Heart to Heart appeared first on WABE.
Officials have confirmed a highly contagious variety of bird flu in a backyard flock in southeast Georgia. Agriculture Commissioner Gary Black said Thursday it was the first confirmed case of […]
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President Joe Biden delivered an impassioned plea to Congress to act on gun control Thursday night in an address to the nation, calling on lawmakers to restore limits on the […]
The post Biden appeals for tougher gun laws: ‘How much more carnage?’ appeared first on WABE.
President Biden delivers a primetime address on guns following recent deadly mass shootings in New York, Texas and Oklahoma. Biden is expected to call on Congress to pass laws to […]
The post Watch Live: Biden delivers a primetime address on guns after recent mass shootings appeared first on WABE.
Georgia’s top elections official appeared Thursday before a special grand jury investigating whether former President Donald Trump and others illegally tried to meddle in the 2020 election in the state. […]
The post Trump election probe grand jury hears from Raffensperger appeared first on WABE.
Atlanta is reporting a nearly 40% drop in homelessness since the pandemic began. The city released the findings today, as part of the results from this past winter’s census […]
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A gunman who killed his surgeon and three other people at a Tulsa medical office blamed the doctor for his continuing pain after a recent back operation and bought an […]
The post Police: Tulsa gunman targeted surgeon he blamed for pain appeared first on WABE.
Queen Elizabeth II stepped gingerly onto the Buckingham Palace balcony Thursday, drawing wild cheers from the tens of thousands who came to join her at the start of four days […]
The post Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee kicks off with pomp appeared first on WABE.
The House is swiftly working to put its stamp on gun legislation in response to mass shootings in Texas and New York by 18-year-old assailants who used semi-automatic rifles to […]
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Georgia Democrat Stacey Abrams waded further into her party’s June 21 runoffs for statewide office on Thursday, trying to pick who else will be on the ticket with her as […]
The post Abrams makes more endorsements in Georgia Democratic runoffs appeared first on WABE.
Eugene Jones, the president and CEO of Atlanta Housing, says his agency received feedback from the community, conducted evaluations and had high hopes of developing the 14-acre Atlanta Civic Center […]
The post Atlanta Housing president on the future of the Atlanta Civic Center site appeared first on WABE.
“You can’t come to a play called ‘Booty Candy’ and expect that it’s going to be ‘Gilligan’s Island.'” That’s what the award-winning playwright Robert O’Hara said about his show that […]
The post “Booty Candy” explores blackness, queerness and identity expression appeared first on WABE.
The statewide nonprofit organization Helping Mamas — which provides struggling parents with supplies for babies and children such as diapers, cribs, car seats and baby formula — urges anyone with extra […]
The post Amid shortages, Georgia groups seek baby formula donations for low-income families appeared first on WABE.
A total lunar eclipse will be visible in Atlanta this weekend, as long as it isn’t too cloudy Sunday night. The eclipse starts just before 10:30 pm Sunday and begins […]
The post How to watch Sunday’s lunar eclipse appeared first on WABE.
Former Vice President Mike Pence will campaign with Georgia’s incumbent Republican Gov. Brian Kemp the day before this month’s GOP primary in his most significant political break with former President […]
The post Pence to rally with Kemp in Georgia in break with Trump appeared first on WABE.
Cary Foreman is a film crew professional from College Park, working in special effects and other departments for the last six years. He began his film industry career as a […]
The post ‘Film Crew Files’: Cary Foreman appeared first on WABE.
The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act adds the funds over the next five years to help Americans save on energy their bills. But many of homes are in such poor condition they do not qualify.
The post A low-income energy-efficiency program gets $3.5B boost, but leaves out many in need appeared first on WABE.
In the opening of a new children’s book called “Just Try One Bite,” the rhyme goes, “Hi Mama. Hi Papa. It’s time we had a chat about oatmeal and carrots, […]
The post Camila Alves McConaughey helps with picky eaters in new children’s book appeared first on WABE.
Atlanta is home to many accomplished Black visual artists, including William Downs. He has created an exhibition to showcase six Black women artists who express their identities either through hair, […]
The post Eyedrum’s exhibit ‘Stars and Feelings’ shines a light on Black women artists appeared first on WABE.
Students at some Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Minority-Serving Institutions may soon have an easier path to graduation thanks to a new course-sharing program from the Southern Regional Education […]
The post Course-sharing agreement aims to help more HBCU students graduate on time appeared first on WABE.
Recovery, harm reduction and mental health advocates say more needs to be done to prevent drug overdoses in the state. And many are eagerly awaiting Gov. Brian Kemp’s signature on […]
The post Advocates await fentanyl test strips in Georgia amid record-high overdoses appeared first on WABE.
The lawyer for WNBA star Brittney Griner said Friday her pre-trial detention in Russia has been extended by one month.
The post WNBA star Brittney Griner’s detention in Russia is extended by a month appeared first on WABE.
Mayor Andre Dickens has rolled-out new training sessions for Atlanta business owners that want to do their part in making the city’s nightlife culture safer. It’s part of the city’s first ‘Nightlife Divison‘ within the Mayor’s Office to address establishments that have a history of high crime.
One city leader that’s been pushing for tougher crackdowns is District 11 City Councilwoman Marci Collier Overstreet.
She spoke with WABE’s All Things Considered last year about the increase of restaurants masquerading as nightclubs — where factors like late-night alcohol servings and overcrowding have led to dead.
Now Collier Overstreet says the city’s inaugural workshops are a two-way street and will include sessions on de-escalation, nightclub security training, active shooter response and neighborhood engagement.
Lily Oppenheimer contributed to this report.
The post ‘Training Day’ workshops address how nightlife is too often a backdrop for violence appeared first on WABE.
In rural, small-town Texas, a devout Christian mother must choose between convention and compassion when her teenager comes out. The play “The Pink Unicorn” is a one-woman show performed by actor Keena Redding, who portrays the mother of the teen, Trisha. Out Front Theater Company partnered with ART Station in Stone Mountain for this production, on whose stage it takes place April 28 – May 1. Redding joined “City Lights” host Lois Reitzes via Zoom along with Out Front Theatre director Paul Conroy to talk more about “The Pink Unicorn.”
Interview highlights:
Keena Redding introduces her main character, Trisha:
“Trisha Lee lives in Sparkton, Texas, and she is very Christian,” said Redding. “When she finds out that her daughter is non-binary, or her daughter comes out to her as non-binary, it’s truly her very human journey of acceptance, and then moving from acceptance into, ‘How can we make the world safer for non-binary people?’
She continued, “It’s just a truly human journey because we do see her go through all of the stages of trying to embrace this… trying to understand what her daughter’s talking about because she doesn’t understand a lot of the verbiage. So we watch her go through these stages, and then finally understanding that she’s going to love her daughter no matter what.”
How Redding’s portrayal bridges the generational divide:
“I am a firm believer in the wisdom of youth and how the youth can show us things that we never thought if we’re willing to listen to what they say and embrace what they say,” said Redding. “I know a lot of things my daughter would say to me, like, ‘That’s crazy. What?’ But then I was like, ‘Okay, let me think about it…’ and gave myself some time to really hear and digest what she was saying. And I often found when I embraced those youthful ideas, I became more youthful myself because I was learning and changing and growing. And I feel that that’s what we’re here to do anyway, in this beautiful thing we call life.”
Playwright Elise Forier Edie’s semi-autobiographical setting:
“I think it’s very purposeful that the playwright set this… in Texas, where there are Southern sensibilities about being polite and about following certain norms from generation to generation,” said Conroy. “I think that this piece is so timely, especially right now because of what we’re seeing happening in states like Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Alabama, as far as trans children and just what their parents are struggling with. And so I think that there’s just a lot of fear and struggle on Trisha’s part of, ‘I have this pure love for my child, but it’s something that I just completely do not understand.’” “The Pink Unicorn” is on stage at ART Station in Stone Mountain, produced in partnership with Out Front Theatre, April 28 – May 1. Tickets and more information are available at https://artstation.org/productions/the-pink-unicorn/
The post A one-woman comedy about gender identity in small-town Texas appeared first on WABE.
One year after he was convicted of murdering George Floyd, former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin has filed an appeal hoping to overturn the jury’s verdict and reduce his sentence.
Hennepin County Judge Peter Cahill sentenced Chauvin last June to 22 1/2 years in prison for the murder of George Floyd, after he was found guilty of unintentional second-degree murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter.
Chauvin is asking the Minnesota Court of Appeals to take one of three actions: toss his conviction and send his case back to Hennepin County; reverse the result and order a new trial in a new venue; or order Chauvin to be sentenced to a lesser punishment.
The appeal comes as a state inquiry slams the Minneapolis police agency Chauvin’s legal team filed its brief with the court on Monday. Two days later, the state of Minnesota issued a much-anticipated report sharply criticizing the Minneapolis Police Department for a “pattern or practice of race discrimination in violation of the Minnesota Human Rights Act,” as member station Minnesota Public Radio News reports.
The Minnesota Department of Human Rights began its investigation shortly after Floyd, who was Black, died in May 2020. Widely circulated videos showed Chauvin, who is white, pressing his knee on Floyd’s neck for more than 9 minutes.
The state’s inquiry included a review of 10 years’ worth of police policies, training and practices, along with records related to the use of force and alleged police misconduct. It found racial disparities in how officers carry out their duties, along with “MPD officers’ consistent use of racist, misogynistic, and disrespectful language.”
Chauvin’s legal team lists a number of grievances in seeking an appeal In court documents filed this week, Chauvin’s attorney, William Mohrman, laid out a number of challenges to his conviction, including a long-held insistence that Cahill should have been moved the trial to another venue because of massive press coverage. Mohrman also said witnesses weren’t properly handled and jurors were intimidated by protests and security measures. And he alleges that prosecutorial misconduct and other factors prevented Chauvin from getting a fair trial in the closely watched case.
Chauvin’s punishment exceeded the state’s minimum guidelines but fell short of the 30-year sentence prosecutors had been seeking. Chauvin’s attorneys say Cahill didn’t apply the sentencing guidelines correctly. They argue, for instance, that the judge shouldn’t have included abuse of a position of authority as an aggravating factor in Floyd’s murder.
In his brief to the court, Mohrman also noted that it contains 16,797 words — falling within the 17,000-word limit that Appeals Court Judge Michelle A. Larkin set last week. The attorney had originally asked to file a 20,000-word brief, citing the massive amount of records related to the lengthy trial, including a court transcript of more than 5,900 pages.
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison’s office has 45 days to respond to Chauvin’s brief.
Federal proceedings are still ongoing Chauvin formally announced his intention to appeal last September. Both the police department and Chauvin have also been facing federal inquiries after Floyd was killed in the street outside of a convenience store.
Chauvin pleaded guilty to federal charges in December, admitting to civil rights violations in the Floyd case as well as violating an unnamed 14-year-old’s rights in late 2017, when he “held Juvenile 1 by the throat and struck Juvenile 1 multiple times in the head with a flashlight,” according to court documents from that case.
The plea agreement in the federal case calls for Chauvin to face a prison sentence of between 20 and 25 years, to be served in federal custody.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. The post Derek Chauvin appeals his conviction for George Floyd’s murder appeared first on WABE.
After two decades of dwindling enrollment and financial struggles, Atlanta’s Morris Brown College is now fully accredited. The Transnational Association of Christian Colleges and Schools (TRACCS) voted this week to grant Morris Brown full accreditation.
The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) revoked Morris Brown’s accreditation in 2002, due mostly to financial mismanagement. Enrollment went from 2500 to about 40 students at one point. The college filed for bankruptcy in 2012 and sold some of its property to the city and Friendship Baptist Church to relieve some of its debt.
In 2019, the board of directors hired Kevin James to lead the floundering school. Since then, James has worked to secure funding, hire faculty and add degree programs. Now that it’s accredited, the school can also receive federal financial aid.
“Many thought that this feat was impossible, but due to our strong faith in God, our hardworking and wonderful faculty and staff, the support of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, our dedicated alumni and our resilient spirit, we were able to achieve full accreditation,” James said in a press release. “This is just the beginning!”
Because Morris Brown is newly accredited with TRACCS, president Tim Eaton says the school will undergo annual financial audits and another evaluation after five years.
“President James and his team are to be commended for what they’ve done for the institution,” Eaton said. He also noted that James took a wise approach by keeping the school and programs small. Eaton said TRACCS didn’t evaluate Morris Brown based on what the school had to offer more than 20 years ago.
“That’s not the same institution we looked at,” he said. “We only had to accredit what they had done.”
The restoration of the institution is significant. Morris Brown was founded by formerly enslaved members of Big Bethel AME Church in the 1880s. It was the first college in Georgia to be owned and operated by African Americans.
The post Morris Brown College regains full accreditation after 20 years as unaccredited institution appeared first on WABE.
Board members abruptly fired the leader of Georgia’s third-largest school system Tuesday, creating further questions about the district’s direction.
DeKalb County school board members voted 4-1 in a virtual meeting to fire Cheryl Watson-Harris immediately, after less than two years on the job in the 93,000-student district.
Watson-Harris was DeKalb County’s sixth superintendent in a decade, having worked as first deputy chancellor in New York City’s sprawling school system before coming to Georgia.
Watson-Harris said in a statement Wednesday that she was “blindsided” by her firing.
“I was unaware that my contract or employment would be discussed during yesterday’s meeting as I was not notified and it was not identified on the meeting notice,” Watson-Harris said.
Vasanne Tinsley, formerly deputy superintendent of student support and intervention, was named interim superintendent.
The district is likely to have to pay the remaining 14 months on Watson-Harris’ contract, about $380,000. Before it hired Watson-Harris, the district considered and rejected hiring former New York City schools Chancellor Rudy Crew. The district agreed to pay Crew $750,000 to settle a lawsuit, according to documents obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
The firing came hours after board chair Vickie Turner appeared to blame Watson-Harris for poor conditions at one of the district’s high schools in a letter to Georgia state Superintendent Richard Woods. However, Turner and the majority of the board said in a statement that its “relationship with Mrs. Watson-Harris had been deteriorating for some time to the point the association became irreconcilable.”
“The board lost confidence in Mrs. Watson-Harris’s ability to provide the leadership the district needs in the face of significant challenges,” the statement continued.
Board member Marshall Orson, who missed the meeting, said he would have voted against firing Watson-Harris, praising her for her support of principals and efforts to make district bureaucracy more responsive. He wrote on Facebook that the decision was “clearly planned action taken by a subgroup” of board members. “There was no rationale for the decision,” he added.
A group of students had made a video about poor conditions including raw sewage at Druid Hills High School that gained wide attention. But the board rejected plans for $50-million-plus overhaul at the high school, instead voting to make minor repairs there and spread repair money around all the district’s schools.
The dispute dredged up racial and class tensions that often divide the district between a wealthier white minority in the northern end of the suburban Atlanta county and a poorer, Black majority in the southern end.
Woods intervened in the dispute by saying the state would refuse to approve the district’s facility plans until it addressed issues at the high school. Such a refusal would block the district’s ability to obtain state facilities money.
In March, Watson-Harris apologized after administrators included a list of 10 performance factors in next year’s teacher contracts, arousing opposition.
In 2013, Gov. Nathan Deal replaced a number of DeKalb County school board members after the district was threatened with a loss of accreditation. The new board hired Michael Thurmond, now DeKalb County’s elected CEO, as interim superintendent from 2013 to 2015.
Follow Jeff Amy on Twitter at http://twitter.com/jeffamy.
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More than half of all Americans now have antibodies pointing to a previous infection of COVID-19, according to results from a new study at the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The new CDC analysis estimates that at least three out of every five Americans have antibodies indicating a prior COVID-19 infection.
This is up over the rate fueled by the Omicron surge over the winter, when around one-third of Americans were identified as having signs of a previous COVID-19 infection.
CDC officials say the number is highest for young people, with almost 75 percent of children and adolescents having antibodies.
At a briefing Tuesday, Dr. Kristie Clarke of the CDC’s COVID-19 Seroprevalence Team told reporters the findings are significant.
“This is the first time that population seroprevalence is over 50 percent,” she says.
CDC director Rochelle Walensky says the combined protection from prior infection and vaccination adds up to a lot of immunity overall.
“That said, we can’t underscore enough, those who have detectable antibodies from prior infection, we still continue to encourage them to get vaccinated,” Walensky says. “We don’t know as much about that level of protection than we do about the protection we get from both vaccines and boosters.”
Walensky says it’s important for everyone to get shots, including anyone who’s already had and recovered from COVID-19, to avoid re-infection, severe disease or complications.
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The United States is no longer in the grip of the COVID-19 pandemic, despite the coronavirus’ continuing global threat, according to Dr. Anthony Fauci, chief medical adviser to President Biden. But Fauci also warns that people should still be mindful of the disease.
“We are certainly right now in this country out of the pandemic phase,” Fauci said in an interview with PBS Newshour. “Namely, we don’t have 900,000 new infections a day and tens and tens and tens of thousands of hospitalizations and thousands of deaths. We are at a low level right now.”
“So, if you’re saying, are we out of the pandemic phase in this country, we are.”
Here are some of the reasons Fauci cited for his view on where the U.S. now stands in the pandemic:
Vaccinations and infections are giving residual immunity Fauci assessed where the country stands in its battle with COVID-19 as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that because so many people in the U.S. have now caught omicron and other strains of the coronavirus, nearly 60% of the population — and almost 75% of children 11 and younger — now have antibodies to it in their blood.
Nearly two-and-a-half years into the pandemic, it’s not surprising that antibody blood tests would show a high percentage of the U.S. population has had the virus, Fauci said. He added that while immunity derived from infection isn’t indefinite, it does give people some protection against contracting a severe case in the future.
The CDC says nearly 220 million people, or 66% of the total population, are fully vaccinated in the U.S. Of that number, 100 million have also gotten their first booster dose.
When you combine the number of people who’ve been infected and those who are vaccinated, Fauci said, “you have a rather substantial proportion of the United States population that has some degree of immunity that’s residual.”
Even with an undercount, the U.S. is in better shape than before “I am virtually certain that we are undercounting the number of infections” in the U.S. because many people are experiencing only mild or no symptoms, Fauci said.
Part of that dynamic is that people aren’t getting tested as frequently now — and Fauci said if they test positive without showing serious symptoms, they might not report it to local health agencies.
Despite a recent rise of COVID-19 cases, including Vice President Kamala Harris, Fauci reiterated that hospitalization rates are only rising slowly, unlike during the surge driven by delta variant.And CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said on Tuesday that U.S. coronavirus deaths have fallen to a seven-day average of about 300 per day.
The U.S. also has more tools to prevent worst-case scenarios, such as the powerful antiviral pill Paxlovid, which cuts the risk of getting hospitalized with COVID by nearly 90% and was authorized by the FDA at the end of 2021.
“There are a lot of doses available,” Fauci said. “We have sites where you can, as we say, test to treat, which means you can come into a place, get tested, and, if you are tested, immediately get put on therapy, if they’re eligible.”
The coronavirus will not be going away entirely COVID-19 has killed nearly 1 million people in the U.S. — by far the most reported by any country. It has taken a particularly brutal toll on Black people and other people of color, and on poorer communities without easy access to health care. While the U.S. is currently in a period of comparative calm, the coronavirus is raising alarms in other parts of the world, including China.
“Pandemic means a widespread, throughout the world, infection that spreads rapidly among people,” Fauci said. “So, if you look at the global situation, there’s no doubt this pandemic is still ongoing.”
The infectious disease expert said it’s “an unanswerable question” to ask when the global pandemic will end.
“We’re not going to eradicate this virus,” Fauci said as he looked to the future and COVID-19’s global reach.
The best hope is to maintain the coronavirus at low levels of transmission and pursue intermittent vaccinations, Fauci said.
“That might be every year, that might be longer, in order to keep that level low. But, right now, we are not in the pandemic phase in this country.”
As NPR’s Joe Neel reported on Tuesday, “About 1.5% of the U.S. population lives in communities where there is a high prevalence of COVID at the present time, with 6.5% in medium prevalence areas and the rest (92%) in communities with low levels of COVID.”
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Julianne Thompson, a Republican strategist and the president of Main Street Network Strategies, says candidates with television ads have a better chance of reaching their audience.
Thompson and Fred Hicks, an Atlanta-based political strategist and analyst, were guests on Tuesday’s edition of “Closer Look.”
They talked with program host Rose Scott about several election-related topics, including the costs and the effectiveness of campaign ads and the first debate of the Republican primary for governor.
Hicks further shared his predictions about who he thinks will win several key elections in Georgia.
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Moloq is an experimental pop band from Atlanta. Its two members, Jake Aron and Paul Stevens, are multi-instrumentalists who share duties on electronics, including synthesizers and samplers, to craft their unique style of dreamy, space-age adventure ballads. Aron also serves guitar and vocals, while Stevens plays the drums.
Describing his songwriting process, Aron admits, “it’s almost a compulsion. An idea will pop into my head like an intrusive thought, and … I’m subservient to the idea.” Stevens’ inspirations seem to have a gentler effect on him. “The flowers are really doing it for me right now. The wisteria I smell, that’s inspiring me,” he says.
The featured track “Lesson” carried guest vocals from the band’s friend Avery Draut of Night Palace and was written by Stevens in homage to his many years spent working as a piano teacher. Another selection, “Boss,” laments the tribulations of hourly wage labor, dissolving into a psychedelic fizz of crunchy guitars and layered synth textures. It’s on their new EP, “Quits,” out now on Bandcamp.
Moloq will perform on June 7 at 529 in East Atlanta. More on their upcoming movements and releases can be found at www.moloqmusic.com.
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Veteran actress and director Kim Fields landed her first commercial gig starring in Mrs. Butterworth’s syrup commercial at the age of 7. She says it was her first encounter with self-doubt when she noticed that Janet Jackson was auditioning for the same role. Field’s mother saw what was happening, quickly intervened and gave her daughter a pep talk.
“She said don’t let anyone or anything intimidate you — go in there in be the best you and do your best,” said Fields, best known for her roles as Dorothy “Tootie” Ramsey on the NBC sitcom “The Facts of Life,” and as Regine on “Living Single.”
On Tuesday’s edition of “Closer Look,” program host Rose Scott pulls from the “Closer Look” archives to revisit a 2017 conversation she had with Fields.
During the conversation, Fields discusses gracing the cover of Dynamite magazine, her 40-plus year career in showbiz and her memoir.
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Georgia lawmakers passed sweeping changes to the state’s flagging mental health care system Wednesday after reaching Senate-House agreement on language aimed at forcing health insurers to pay for mental health and substance abuse treatment.
House Bill 1013 flew to final passage with a 54-0 vote in the Senate and a 166-0 vote in the House, then was headed to Gov. Brian Kemp’s desk for his signature or veto.
“Hope won,” House Speaker David Ralston, who spearheaded the measure, told the House as members gave him a standing ovation after the vote. “Countless Georgians will know that we have heard their despair and frustration. We have set Georgia on a path to lifting up and reforming a failed mental health care system.”
Debate over mental health care changes has been ongoing for years, and became a cornerstone issue of the 2022 session when the Republican speaker from Blue Ridge introduced the bill. But the Senate made changes to the House’s original measure, including weakening language aimed at enforcing long-existing federal requirements that health insurers provide the same level of benefits for mental health disorders as they do for physical illness.
Although only a few words were changed Wednesday in the latest version of the bill, advocates said the new wording would require insurers to follow independent standards and block them from deciding for themselves what they would pay for.
“We’ve laid the framework for parity,” said Senate Health and Human Services, a Bainbridge Republican. “State law will have to follow the federal law, which you should have been doing since 2008. Everybody’s in agreement that the state of Georgia, ranking 48th or 49th depending on how you measure us, has not had parity when in the arena of mental health.”
Ralston was more blunt, telling reporters that his message to insurers is “Do the right thing, play by the law,” when it takes effect July 1.
The compromise keeps the current standard for a police officer involuntarily committing someone into treatment, saying the person must show an “imminent” risk of harm to themselves or others. However, new language allows an officer to take someone to an emergency facility to be evaluated after getting permission from a physician. Sen. Brian Strickland, a McDonough Republican, said the change “tightened up” the House language.
The deal also made changes to how mental health patients will be transported, leaving hospitals and not local governments in charge.
The measure still requires that at least 85% of money in public-funded insurance programs goes to patient care, limiting administrative costs and profit. The measure also requires extensive data collection and reports aimed at enforcing the parity mandate.
The bill faced vocal opposition after it passed the state House. Some critics raised concerns it would create a pathway to taking away guns from people diagnosed with mental illness, while others said it would raise insurance premiums for benefits they did not desire. Others focused on language that referenced World Health Organization standards, saying it could put state government in thrall to international standards. The World Health Organization language was removed, instead referring to existing state law to define mental illness.
Rep. Philip Singleton, a Sharpsburg Republican who had led the opposition, characterized the changes as a win. “We got almost everything we asked for,” he said after voting for the measure.
Changes under the bill are projected to cost tens of millions in additional state spending. One provision aimed at boosting the state’s mental health workforce would forgive loans for people studying to become mental health professionals. Funding will be one obligation that the state has to maintain in the future.
“House Bill 1013 doesn’t solve our mental health crisis,” Strickland said. “Many parts of this bill require long-term investment in the years to come.”
The measure also tries to improve existing tools aimed at keeping people with mental health and substance abuse problems out of jail. A grant program would help identify people who should be forced into treatment.
Also Wednesday, the House voted 165-0 for Senate Bill 403 which would require the state’s 23 community service boards, which are local mental health agencies, to provide co-responders to any local law enforcement agency that wants them. Workers would respond either in-person or virtually. Police departments and sheriffs would not be required to use the service. The measure goes back to the Senate for it to concur with minor changes.
Supporters say such services are currently available in six or seven jurisdictions statewide. In Athens-Clarke County, the share of people being arrested by police responding to mental health calls fell from 90% to 10% after such a program was in place, advocates have said.
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A bill allowing Georgia residents to carry handguns in public without a license or background check neared final passage Wednesday, meaning Republican Gov. Brian Kemp will deliver on his promise of “constitutional carry” as he seeks reelection this year.
The House passed Senate Bill 319, sending it back to the Senate to approve minor changes before Kemp can sign it into law.
The governor initially promised the measure when he first ran for governor in 2018, but little was done to advance it. It’s been revived now that Kemp faces opposition in this year’s primary from former U.S. Republican Sen. David Perdue and others. Longtime proponents of gun rights have credited Kemp’s advocacy for moving the issue forward.
Republicans say the measure is needed to allow people to more easily protect themselves from crime. They also argue that requiring a carry permit, which costs about $75, infringes on Second Amendment gun rights.
“It just removes the fee that citizens in the state have to pay to be able to exercise their Second Amendment rights,” said Rep Mandi Ballinger, a Canton Republican.
Democrats say the measure will encourage more gun use, which in turn will fuel more shooting deaths, increase crime and put police officers’ lives in danger.
“We know from multiple studies that there is a direct correlation between weaker gun laws and higher rates of gun deaths, including suicides, homicides and accidental killings,” said Rep. Sam Park, a Lawrenceville Democrat. “And in a moment in which so many Georgians are suffering and facing mental health crises after such a challenging period of time, why are we making it easier to get a gun in the state of Georgia?”
Georgia currently requires people to obtain a license to carry a loaded handgun outside their own homes, businesses or cars, although people can carry rifles and shotguns in many places without a permit and carry unloaded weapons in gun cases.
To obtain a weapons license, residents must submit an application and fee and undergo fingerprinting in addition to a background check. Convicted felons and people who have been hospitalized for mental health problems or received treatment for drugs or alcohol in the years preceding the application aren’t eligible.
Democrats said the process leads to thousands of people with criminal records or mental illness being denied licenses each year in Georgia.
“Georgia needs more gun safety laws, not fewer,” said Rep. Shea Roberts, an Atlanta Democrat. “No law can stop all dangerous behavior. But why would we want to make criminals feel more comfortable carrying in public, knowing they can now freely carry, no questions asked?”
Republicans, though, argue that people will still have to pass a federal background check to buy a gun. The permits will still exist, as well, they say, because they allow people to carry guns outside Georgia under interstate agreements.
“You want to protect yourself,” said Rep. J. Collins, a Villa Rica Republican. “Why should you have to go to a court and get a permit to protect yourself? That’s all this bill is about.”
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Do you ever worry about being overly dependent on technology? Many people can’t imagine going one hour without checking devices, much less an entire year without the internet. But singer-songwriter Gabriel Kahane did just that and created music after the experience. He’ll perform the album “Magnificent Bird” at the Ferst Center for the Arts, on the campus of Georgia Tech, on April 4. Kahane joined “City Lights” host Lois Reitzes via Zoom to share his thoughts on life inside and outside the online metaverse and where his music fits into the broader conversation.
Interview highlights:
Kahane’s year without internet:
“I have to begin in 2016, when, a few weeks before the election in November, I decided that I was going to take a train trip, regardless of the outcome, the morning after the election … [I] boarded a train at Penn Station in New York that Wednesday morning and traveled just under 9,000 miles around the continental U.S., talking to strangers, primarily in dining cars of Amtrak trains; and I had decided at the last minute to leave my phone at home,” said Kahane.
“It was an extraordinary, transformative, humbling experience. It made me realize all sorts of assumptions that I held about the body politic, about myself, my prejudices, so on and so forth,” he said. Kahane later added, “There are so many reasons that I decided to take a year off the internet. But I guess if I were to really try to sum it up as succinctly as possible, I think that the internet is making it more difficult for us to love each other. I think that the deep deficit right now in this country is our ability to see ourselves in one another.”
Themes from an album created after a year of digital abstinence:
“October 2020, when I wrote all of these songs, was, of course, a time of roiling chaos in this country; not only the election but an overlapping series of natural disasters. Coming out of this incredible season of protest and awakening … I had been trying, I think, to do some version of the ‘great American novel’ in song, to try to distill or compress all of these experiences into some kind of single gesture, and it was really paralyzing,” recounted Kahane.
He continued, “In that final month, I made this decision to write a song every day as a way of giving myself permission to write about small things. And in the end, in writing about those small things, the world intruded on them. So there’s a song where I sing about making a cup of coffee, and yet I’m also contemplating the prospect of civil war, contemplating the prospect of another horrific fire season in Oregon. And I think the album as a whole shuttles between these very personal experiences of grief, shame, nostalgia, salvation and the world around me going totally crazy.”
Addressing the problems of art and giving in distorted digital spaces:
“This idea of sending students out on a walk for two hours without their phone grew out of a class that I taught last spring at Princeton called ‘Art and Change in the Panopticon’ … We had asked each of our eight students, some of whom had a focus in the arts and others of whom did not, to make some kind of art object or art experience for one other person. And one of the things we had in mind was to avoid the problem of trying to present work online digitally. The other thing that we were thinking about in that invitation was to free our students of thinking about scale and making art for a mass audience.”
“We had invited them a couple of times throughout the semester to go on two-hour walks, without their phones … and we wanted them to have an experience of their own agency without their devices,” said Kahane. “I thought it would be interesting too, to try to replicate this experience [at Georgia Tech], and in this instance, take those reflections from the students and create a song that will be performed only at Georgia Tech only on April 4th, one time only, as a particular kind of expression, I guess, of gift exchange.”
Gabriel Kahane will perform his album “Magnificent Bird” and his one-time-only song performance inspired by Georgia Tech students’ offline reflections at Georgia Tech’s Ferst Center for the Arts on April 4 at 8:00 PM. Tickets and more information are available here.
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As a young man, Edward Irons really wanted to go to college. But for his family, there was simply no way to afford it. So he made a plan of his own. Save his money and work toward the opportunity of going to college. But then … he was drafted into World War II. In this story from 2015, he tells one of his former students, Kiplyn Primus, what happened next and how his hope for college became a reality.
Economist, Author & Dean Emeritus of Clark Atlanta University, Dr. Edward Daryl Irons, Sr., passed away peacefully at his home in Atlanta, Georgia, on January 17, 2022. He was 98 years old.
This story was produced locally for WABE by Brenda Ford and recorded in partnership with the Atlanta History Center. To learn more about StoryCorps, to find great questions you can ask, or to make an appointment to have a conversation with someone important in your life, click here.
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Two years into the pandemic, Black people in the U.S. still face wide health disparities in the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the economic and social fallouts, compared to other racial groups.
The new report from the Black Coalition Against COVID comes as hospitalization rates for Black Americans were recently the highest they’ve been since the pandemic’s start.
“As we reflect on two years of lived experience and myriad data sources, we know COVID-19’s toll on Black Americans is ongoing,” Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith, the director of the Office for Health Equity Research at Yale University, said.
“This report draws attention to the continued disproportionate burden experienced by members of the Black community and will help guide advocacy and policy efforts to address these inequities — both during the current pandemic and beyond,” she said.
The Black Coalition Against COVID commissioned the report along with the Equity Research and Innovation Center at Yale School of Medicine, and the Satcher Health Leadership Institute at Morehouse School of Medicine.
“We hope to bring attention to the continued burden of COVID-19 in the Black community, even as we as a nation have made incredible progress overall. Even as we celebrate achievements towards COVID-19 equity, we know there is more work to do,” the groups said in the report.
The physical and mental heath disparities are significant The report points to several disparities Black Americans faced in the pandemic’s early years, including access to vaccines and booster shots. More recently, though,inequities are emerging around the long-term effects of COVID for Black people.
“Solutions are needed to increase equitable and affordable access to Long COVID care and supportive resources. Efforts are also needed to ensure inclusion of Black Americans in Long COVID trials, treatment programs, and registries,” the report says.
The researchers also highlight that Black Americans are facing significant behavioral health challenges as a result of COVID-19. Black Americans are more likely to report experiencing anxiety and depression because of the pandemic, and substance use disorders have also increased.
One study cited in the report found that opioid overdoses increased among Black people in Philadelphia by as much as 52.1% between January 2019 and June 2020. Overdoses decreased 24% among white people in that same time frame.
Economic and social fallouts are also impacting Black Americans disproportionately In addition to health care disparities, the report points to massive economic and social gaps between Black and white Americans. Black students experienced high rates of learning loss compared to white students. Food insecurity among Black families was twice as high as white families, the report says.
The authors of the study recommend a health justice approach to tackling the pandemic’s racial disparities and the social and economic fallouts that have come with it, saying policymakers should weigh the impacts that education, housing, child care and food security have on health equity.
They also say collecting more data is extremely important in continuing to track and reveal inequities.
“If we are going to effectively address health equity among Black Americans, having access to the most precise data is vital,” they said.
“The work ahead will be more challenging than ever and requires well designed, adequately funded, and strategically coordinated efforts at the national, regional, state, and local levels,” the report says. “The time is now to recognize health equity is the work of everyone and for each one of us to do our part on the journey.”
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Georgia senators are scrapping plans to seek further big changes in state election law, beset by strong opposition from local election officials who say their offices would be wrapped in needless red tape.
The Senate Ethics Committee amended House Bill 1464 on Tuesday to ditch all its proposals except a provision requiring employers to give workers time off to vote early, supplementing a current law requiring time off to vote on Election Day.
Georgia’s General Assembly was upended last year by a restrictive voting law, which reduced the time to request an absentee ballot, stripped power from Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and severely rolled back the pandemic-driven expansion of absentee ballot drop boxes. It was one of the first and highest-profile restrictive laws passed by Republican-controlled legislatures, a trend that continues this year.
Republicans said Georgia’s 2021 law was necessary to restore confidence in the state’s election system, while Democrats decried it as an effort to block Democratic-leaning citizens from voting.
But the 2021 law wasn’t enough for some Republicans, especially those who believe false claims that Georgia’s 2020 election was fraudulently stolen from President Donald Trump.
Despite investigations and recounts after the 2020 election finding no significant fraud, proposals were made to require extensive, new chain-of-custody requirements for handling ballots — including requirements to repeatedly count blank ballot paper. The bill as passed by the House also included requirements to let people physically inspect paper ballots after an election and let only the State Election Board accept private donations.
More than a dozen county election officials lined up Monday before the Senate Ethics Committee, testifying that further measures would paralyze their offices with requirements that amounted to “security theater.”
Garland Favorito, a longtime critic of Georgia’s election system, wanted lawmakers to go even further, totally banning drop boxes, requiring mail-in ballot envelopes containing voters’ personal information to remain with ballots, and requiring every ballot to be printed on a sheet of paper with a unique serial number.
“I think they stripped out all the good stuff,” Favorito said of the committee’s action on Tuesday.
What had been a 39-page bill was reduced to less than two pages.
“What happened to your bill?” Senate President Pro Tem Butch Miller, a Gainesville Republican, asked to laughter. “It looks like it’s on SlimFast.”
But Rep. James Burchett, the Waycross Republican who sponsored the measure in the House, expressed no opposition to the changes. “I appreciate the wisdom and discernment of this committee,” Burchett said, acknowledging the Senate version is “much, much tamped down.”
Though Georgia’s 2022 session is nearing its scheduled close on Monday, the latest move doesn’t mean debate on election rules is over.
Republican House Speaker David Ralston of Blue Ridge wants to allow the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to start its own inquiries into election law violations without an invitation from local officials, one of the measures stripped Tuesday.
Opponents of the bill called it a “tentative victory,” saying they feared the return of the GBI provision, in particular, if the House and Senate negotiate over the vast differences in the respective proposals.
“The bill has changed dramatically, but it could change again,” said Isabel Otero of the Southern Poverty Law Center Action Fund. “I know that the House wants additional provisions.”
But if the changes hold, it could signal a waning appetite for election legislation among Georgia’s Republican lawmakers, a year after many clamored for changes citing a wave of calls and emails demanding restrictions from constituents.
Senate Ethics Committee Chairman Max Burns, a Sylvania Republican, said he favored many of the ideas, but said the bill lacked consensus. He added that he heard from election officials that issues “needed to be addressed in a more deliberate manner.”
Election officials opposing the measure had said they were concerned about implementing more changes while they were trying to deal with last year’s changes, redistricting, and a new electronic voter registration system.
They also said a rule requiring all private donations to election agencies be made only to the Republican-controlled State Election Board could deprive them of resources and disrupt relationships with groups that donate their buildings for use as polling places. Some Republicans say $400 million donated by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg unfairly favored Democratic counties.
On Tuesday, some local election board members thanked lawmakers for listening.
“This is a clear example of the progress that can be made when legislators listen to and take recommendations from local officials,” said a statement signed by 11 county election officials who opposed the bill.
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In a rare sign of cooperation between the U.S. and Russia, astronauts from both countries parachute-landed in Kazakhstan on Wednesday after a trip back to Earth from the International Space Station.
The two superpowers have clashed recently over Russia’s ongoing military invasion of Ukraine, but space remains one area where the U.S. and Russia still work together.
NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei and cosmonauts Anton Shkaplerov and Pyotr Dubrov made the journey back in the Soyuz MS-19 spacecraft and touched down on the Kazakhstan steppe at 5:28 p.m. local time.
Vande Hei was set to return to his home in Houston, while Shkaplerov and Dubrov were slated to go back to their training base in Star City, Russia.
According to NASA, Vande Hei broke a record with hislengthy spaceflight, remaining in low-Earth orbit for 355 days.
“Mark’s mission is not only record-breaking, but also paving the way for future human explorers on the Moon, Mars, and beyond,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in a statement.
“NASA and the nation are proud to welcome Mark home and grateful for his incredible contributions throughout his year-long stay on the International Space Station,” Nelson added.
Vande Hei broke the previous record, held by retired NASA astronaut Scott Kelly, by 15 days.
During his trip to space, Vande Hei experienced approximately 5,680 orbits of Earth, NASA said.
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The parents of Trevor Reed, a U.S. Marine veteran imprisoned in Russia, are staging a protest outside of the White House on Wednesday to raise awareness about his case as he embarks on his second hunger strike in recent months.
Reed has been detained in Russia since August 2019, when he was arrested during a trip to visit his girlfriend and study the language. The Texas native was convicted in 2020 on charges of assaulting a police officer, and sentenced to nine years in jail — a sentence that was upheld after he lost an appeal last June.
Reed has said he was drunk the night of the event and doesn’t remember it, while his family has accused Russian officials of fabricating the charges to use him as a bargaining chip with the U.S.
He is one of several U.S. citizens currently being held in Russia, including Paul Whelan and WNBA star Brittney Griner.
Reed’s family said they spoke with him earlier this month for the first time in over 200 days, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reports, adding that he sounded sick, tired and hopeless and spoke of feeling forgotten.
His parents, Joey and Paula Reed, said in a statement on Tuesday that he was sick with possible tuberculosis, and had begun another hunger strike to protest his treatment by Russian authorities. (He refused food for six days back in November, to protest his incarceration and alleged violations of his human rights.)
Reed spent 10 days in what his parents called a prison “hospital,” reportedly without receiving any tests or medical care beyond an X-ray that they said was performed incorrectly. After returning to the prison, he asked to return to the hospital but was placed in solitary confinement instead.
“While we are in awe of our son’s integrity and strength of character, as his parents, there aren’t words to express how concerned we are about our son’s health,” they wrote.
Joey Reed told CNN that his son has all the symptoms of active tuberculosis, including coughing up blood, as well as “some sort of injury where he thinks he might have broken a rib” — but is only being given aspirin.
While Reed is protesting in Russia, his parents are planning to campaign outside the White House to raise awareness about his situation and press for an in-person meeting with President Biden.
They have long pleaded publicly for help from the U.S. government, and spoke with the president by phone during his trip to their hometown of Fort Worth earlier this month.
The Reeds say that Biden told them on the call he was sorry he couldn’t visit them in person, and that his staff would schedule a meeting with the family at the White House soon. White House press secretary Jen Psaki said on March 8 that “we are working on a time for the president to meet with his family over the short term,” without specifying a timeline.
After exactly three weeks of waiting, the Reeds have evidently decided to pay a visit to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. themselves. They told CNN that they are scheduled to stay until Friday, but are willing to extend their visit if needed.
They wrote in their statement that they believe Biden — who they said they voted for — is the only person who can save their son’s life, and urged his administration to “stop deliberating and start acting.”
They fear that he will become the next Otto Warmbier, referencing the American college student who was imprisoned in North Korea in 2016 and died a year later after being released in a vegetative state.
“The time is now to bring home Trevor, Paul Whelan and Brittney Griner,” they wrote. “As we have said for more than a year, we continue to worry escalating tensions, or rhetoric, could lead to Russian authorities inventing additional false charges against Trevor.”
This story originally appeared on the Morning Edition live blog.
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This fall, conductor Nathalie Stutzmann officially assumes the position of music director of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. The acclaimed French conductor, contralto singer and multi-instrumentalist first worked with the ASO as a guest conductor in 2020. Her transition to music director this year marks a new chapter for the orchestra under the guidance of its first-ever female conductor. Stutzmann joined “City Lights” host Lois Reitzes via Zoom to talk about her upcoming 2022-2023 season of music with the ASO.
Last weekend, Reitzes attended the ASO’s performance under Stutzmann and remarked on the passionate outpouring of audience enthusiasm. Stutzmann responded, “I was so moved and, I must say, really almost in tears when I came on stage … Before I did anything, the whole audience stood up and just greeted me, like, for a minute, with only love.”
Stutzmann’s first week as the official new music director represents, for her, an essential introduction of her musical sensibilities to ASO followers. “So I wanted to have a week which was very clearly showing the directions of my passions and my work,” said Stutzmann. “And I couldn’t imagine that week, after all, what we survived all together, without performing Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, which is really the work of friendship, putting people together again, after having put people separately and far away from each other for so long. It was very symbolic.”
Such a grand opening draws out the most potent talent from all of the orchestra’s sections in a piece widely beloved. But Stutzmann has lesser-known works on the menu, which will introduce classical music fans to contemporary artists; in some cases, works never before performed by the ASO. These include George Walker’s “Lilacs” and a choral symphony, “Words for Departure,” commissioned by Stutzmann from composer Hillary Purrington when Stutzmann led the Philadelphia Orchestra in 2020.
With music, Stutzmann believes an orchestra undertakes the telling of a story, and she aims to achieve this on multiple levels. “I truly believe … we have to be storytellers because every human needs storytelling,” said Stutzmann. “What do you do when your child is nervous, and you want to make him feeling relaxed and going to bed? Just telling a story … Music is mainly about storytelling as well. So I approach it through the music, of course, as a priority, but behind the notes of the composers, there is the storytelling — which sentiment is there, which emotion, what was happening.”
Her first season’s performance of Schoenberg’s “Verklärte Nacht” will be accompanied by lush visual projections, supporting a rich musical story of love. “The program is built up around love in different aspects, clearly describing his passion for Clara Schumann, which he was never able to really achieve, but which was such an inspiration for his music all over the years,” Stutzmann said.
More about the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra’s upcoming 2022/23 season of music under the direction of conductor Nathalie Stutzmann can be found at www.aso.org/announcements/2022-23-classical-season.
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Astronomers have used the Hubble Space Telescope to capture light from what appears to be the most distant single star ever seen.
Because light takes time to travel through space, scientists see this star as it appeared when its light began its journey 12.9 billion years ago — just 900 million years after the Big Bang that started the universe.
The find, described in the journal Nature, is unusual because most of the light that scientists have spotted from the early days of the universe has come from galaxies that contain many stars and look like little blobs.
“We’re actually able to pick out the light from this one individual star,” says Brian Welch, a PhD candidate at Johns Hopkins University and the lead author of the scientific report that describes this work.
An early moment in the universe’s history The newly discovered star supplants the previous record-holder for the most distant star ever observed. That one was spotted by Hubble in 2018, and its light had been traveling through space for 9 billion years.
Welch has nicknamed the star ‘Earendel,’ an Old English word that means ‘morning star’ or ‘rising light.’ It’s at least 50 times the mass of the Sun.
He adds that astronomers should soon be able to learn what this early star is made of and how hot it is by using the James Webb Space Telescope, which was launched into space late last year.
Researchers hope that new telescope — the most powerful ever built — will help them better understand how stars like this one were evolving at this early moment in the universe’s history.
An “astonishing” — and unlikely — find The discovery was a bit of a lucky break.
The star just happened to be in a spot that was strongly affected by a kind of natural magnifying glass.
A massive object like a cluster of galaxies will warp the space around itself — as was predicted by Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity — and this warped space can act as a lens that magnifies any light that travels through it.
Scientists sometimes take advantage of this phenomenon to search for objects that would normally be too faint to see.
Welch and his colleagues had been doing that when they recently found a magnified galaxy from within the first billion years of the universe’s history. He was trying to understand how exactly its light had been distorted. Then he realized that one particular area should have an unusually high level of magnification.
In fact, the level of magnification was so high, by a factor of thousands, that it became apparent what the researchers were seeing there had to be something that was actually rather small. It had to be a single star or a binary star system, not a star cluster or some other large component of a galaxy.
“It’s sort of pretty amazing to find this,” says Garth Illingworth, an astronomer at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
The volume of space that gets extremely magnified by giant clusters of galaxies isn’t all that large compared to the vastness of space, he says. “It’s remarkable to find an object like that right on the most highly magnified part. That, in itself, is sort of an astonishing discovery.”
Illingworth thinks it’s very likely that this star is part of that same galaxy they were studying, rather than some unrelated object, but that still needs more confirmation. “But, you know, they’re getting Webb data,” says Illingworth, “and they’ll do that with precision.”
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Thousands in green T-shirts, bowler hats, feather boas, with nary a mask in sight, crowded shoulder-to-shoulder along sidewalks and inside bustling bars Thursday as the South’s largest St. Patrick’s Day parade returned in Savannah following a two-year coronavirus hiatus.
“We needed this,” said 41-year-old Trey Parrish, who showed up at oak-shaded Lafayette Square more than a day early to stake out the corner spot where his family, cousins and friends have celebrated for more than two decades.
All around him, revelers in green blazers and party dresses exchanged hugs and handshakes, often with people they had not seen since the last time Savannah’s 198-year-old parade was held in 2019. The crowd erupted in whoops, clapping and cheers as the procession of marching bands, shamrock-decorated floats and convertibles chauffeuring dignitaries arrived early in its route through the city.
Started by Irish immigrants to Georgia’s oldest city in 1824, the St. Patrick’s Day parade has morphed into one of the South’s biggest street parties after Mardi Gras. Hundreds of thousands of residents and tourists jam the sidewalks and oak-shaded squares of the downtown historic district, making the Irish holiday Savannah’s most beloved and profitable event of the year.
Tori Purvis, 46, arrived before dawn to claim a spot near the start of the parade along with her 3-year-old son, Tristan, still wearing his pajamas decorated with leprechaun hats and rainbows. Purvis said she’s been celebrating St. Patrick’s Day in Savannah since childhood, and the only years she recalls not showing up were 2020 and 2021, when the pandemic forced the parade to be canceled.
“I’m not against masks or anything, but it’s nice to see people outside without masks and enjoying their time,” Purvis said. “It’s like a little bit of normalcy is coming back.”
For celebrants lined up inside bars to buy beer or waiting to use portable toilets on the parade route, the COVID-19 pandemic seemed a distant afterthought. A mask mandate for public buildings, one of Savannah’s last remaining restrictions, was allowed to expire March 1. And coronavirus infections in Georgia are at their lowest point since November, and about half their rate a year ago.
Some were even rolling their eyes at city officials who called for women along the parade route to refrain from Savannah’s tradition of rushing up to marching soldiers, musicians and other participants to plant lipstick-smeared kisses on their cheeks.
David Sheahan had three red lipstick prints smeared on his cheeks before the parade began. He said the culprits were his wife and daughter, but he planned on collecting dozens more while marching.
“I’m Irish and we have a great immune system, so I have no problem with it,” Sheahan said. He added that he figured most kissing lips would be sterilized “with the alcohol consumption and all that.”
Savannah bars began opening their doors at 7 a.m., with some owners planning to keep pouring until 3 a.m. Friday. Before the parade began Thursday morning, dozens crowded around the U-shaped bar in Pinkie Master’s Lounge, where co-owner Mike Warren rushed to keep up with orders for Guinness, shots of Irish whiskey and a few mixed drinks.
“The city’s jamming,” Warren said. “It’s basically like two or three weeks’ worth of business in one week.”
While Savannah’s long St. Patrick’s Day history had seen previous years without parades during the Civil War, World War I, and in 1921 during the Irish Revolution, the pandemic marked the first time parades had been canceled in almost a century.
In Lafayette Square, Parrish recalled how his family spent the past two holidays hosting gatherings at home.
“We had board games, card games and lots of food,” said Parrish said. “But it wasn’t St. Patrick’s Day.”
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Gov. Brian Kemp says he will quickly sign a bill suspending Georgia’s fuel tax through May after the state Senate voted 55-0 on Thursday to approve the measure.
Lawmakers sent House Bill 304 flying through the General Assembly in nine days after the Republican Kemp first proposed the measure March 9. The measure earlier passed the state House 150-0.
Katie Byrd, a spokesperson for Kemp, said he could sign the measure into law as early as Friday.
Georgia’s gasoline price includes a federal tax of 18.4 cents per gallon and a state tax of 29.1 cents per gallon. A number of cities and counties also charge taxes. Federal taxes on diesel fuel are 24.4 cents per gallon, while Georgia’s tax on diesel is 32.6 cents per gallon. The measure would also abate Georgia’s taxes on aviation gasoline, liquefied petroleum gas and other fuels including compressed natural gas.
“The 29 cents is not going to completely solve the problem, but it’s a start and it’s a statement,” said Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Hufstetler, a Rome Republican. “It will have to be filled in from the rainy day fund, but it’s raining a big storm right now.”
It could take some time for consumers to see relief, because gas stations now are selling fuel they were taxed on at the wholesale level.
Sen. Jen Jordan, a Sandy Springs Democrat, asked whether the bill guarantees consumers will see the decreases. Hufstetler said laws against price gouging should provide some protection.
Suspending collections could cost the state up to $400 million that would be used for road building and other transportation projects. The Kemp administration plans to use part of the roughly $1.25 billion in leftover surplus from the last budget year, beyond $1.1 billion in state income tax refunds, to cover any gap in transportation funding. Kemp could also dip into the state’s $4.3 billion rainy day fund.
Byrd said Kemp could extend the tax break via executive order that would have to be ratified later by lawmakers. Kemp abated gas taxes in 2021 during a pipeline shutdown, and Byrd said former Gov. Nathan Deal had suspended gas taxes multiple times.
Democratic U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia has already been advocating for the federal government to suspend collection of its gas tax, responding to discontent over rising fuel prices.
Both Kemp and Warnock are running for reelection this year.
Hufstetler, like other Republicans, said President Joe Biden’s hostility to oil drilling is to blame for part of the price increases. Republicans also blamed Biden for broader inflation in the economy, prompting Democrats to reply in what became an extended debate on an unopposed bill.
But there are other forces at play. The price of crude oil has been rising over the past year, as oil and gas suppliers that had scaled back production during the pandemic struggle to keep up with renewed demand. More recently, buyers have shunned Russian crude following its invasion of Ukraine, pushing prices even higher.
The average price for a gallon of gas in the U.S. on Thursday was $4.29, according to AAA. It was $4.24 in Georgia. Prices have dropped slightly in the last week as oil prices have dipped slightly.
Follow Jeff Amy on Twitter at http://twitter.com/jeffamy.
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Shortly before the Imagine Picasso immersive art exhibit opened at Pullman Yards in Atlanta, Annabelle Mauger was on a video call with the director of the Picasso administration, conducting a final walk-through.
“The first thing that they want to see is that we are respecting the work of Pablo Picasso,” said Mauger. “It’s a real support for me, it’s very important,” Mauger said of working so closely with those in charge of Picasso’s estate.
Mauger is co-directing Imagine Picasso, which runs through June 19 in Atlanta. The exhibit includes a retrospective on the artist’s career, photos of him in his studio and some 200 reproduced pieces of his artwork.
Mauger says that’s important to be able to fully experience an artist whose most famous pieces hang in museums in New York, Paris and Barcelona.
“I think it was time to have an exhibition where you can see all of them in the same place,” she said.
The exhibit launched in France in 2019 and had a run in San Francisco earlier this year. Atlanta is the second stop in the U.S. It’s being held at the same spot where Mauger’s Van Gogh exhibition was held last year.
“Picasso is probably one of the best-known painters in the world. But most people know his signature, his name, but they don’t really know his work,” said Mauger. “I think I would like the visitors perhaps to see this exhibition as the opening door to a museum, to a book and perhaps to have much more information about this genius, because he was a genius.”
Jacob Cohl, one of the producers of Imagine Picasso, says Pullman Yards is an ideal spot for an immersive art experience.
“We’re using a hundred-year-old, very large, former industrial warehouse. The building has such cool bones,” he said. “We have sixty-foot ceilings in the center and so that allows us to present all this artwork and imagery at a huge scale, never before seen. So that was one of the most attractive things about coming here.”
The exhibit uses close to 100 video projectors to splash Picasso’s artwork onto seemingly every surface in the building.
“It gives people a new perspective to the work, they can see brush strokes up close,” said Cohl. “They can see details they wouldn’t otherwise be able to see.”
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A former Atlanta city contractor testified that a political operative who worked in City Hall reached out to him after his business was battered by the Great Recession to talk about a sidewalk contract — and a bribe.
Mitzi Bickers, who helped former Mayor Kasim Reed win election and then worked as his director of human services, faces charges including bribery. Her federal trial, now in its second week, is the first in a long-running investigation into corruption at City Hall during Reed’s administration.
Prosecutors allege Bickers used her influence to direct roughly $17 million in city work to contractors Elvin “E.R.” Mitchell Jr. and Charles P. Richards Jr. in exchange for about $2 million in bribes. Both men pleaded guilty in 2017 to conspiring to pay bribes, were sentenced to prison and are witnesses for the government against Bickers.
Mitchell took the stand Wednesday and said the idea for the “pay-to-play” scheme originated with Bickers, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. In 2009, before she even became director of human services for the city, Mitchell said Bickers approached him about the annual sidewalk contract and asked for $100,000.
“What did your company need to stay afloat?” Assistant U.S. Attorney Nathan Kitchens asked Mitchell on Wednesday.
“Projects,” Mitchell said.
Mitchell said he did not have the money for the bribe but needed the work. He also did not have the business insurance required to bid. Richards had more experience working with concrete and Mitchell called him to be the prime contractor and asked him to help with the money, he testified.
Richards expressed discomfort but he sent a check to Mitchell, who went to Bickers’ home with a laptop bag stuffed with $100,000 in cash, Mitchell testified.
“Ms. Bickers indicated she preferred cash to avoid the IRS,” Mitchell said.
Richards’ bid which came in in 2009, prior to the period covered by the charges against Bickers, was the highest. But Mitchell and Richards won about 20% of the work in the contract, which became worth millions.
“Who did you bribe?” Kitchens asked.
“Mitzi Bickers,” Mitchell replied, according to the newspaper. Asked how many times, Mitchell said: “Countless.”
From the start of the trial, Bickers’ attorneys, Drew Findling and Marissa Goldberg, have painted Mitchell as untrustworthy. They are expected to question his credibility, past business practices and lawsuits, the newspaper reported.
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You need not be Irish to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day or love the Irish. What began as a religious observance centuries ago has since evolved into festivities worldwide with parades, music, dancing, people dressed in green and wearing shamrocks. The Honorable Caoimhe Ní Chonchúir recently took up her post as Consulate General of Ireland for the Southeast United States, based here in Atlanta. She joined “City Lights” host Lois Reitzes via Zoom to introduce herself to our listeners and share how she’ll join us in celebrating St. Patrick’s Day.
Interview highlights:
A full slate of celebratory events in Georgia:
“In Atlanta, a lot of the St Patrick’s Day events are concentrated around the weekend preceding St. Patrick’s Day. So the parade, for instance, took place on the 12th. But on St. Patrick’s Day itself, the 17th, the Fernbank Museum will show an IMAX giant screen movie called ‘Ireland’ narrated by the great Liam Neeson. I know people here are Liam Neeson fans. And that’s a film that takes viewers on a tour of Ireland’s landscapes, our culture; and tickets are free, and they’re available on the Fernbank website,” said Ní Chonchúir.
“On the 23rd, a very well-known traditional Irish band called Lúnasa will be live in concert in Roswell. And of course … I can’t neglect to mention the Savannah St. Patrick’s Day Parade. The Savannah St. Patrick’s Day Parade is one of the biggest in the world. In fact, it’s the second-largest in the US. It’s an enormous parade of great color and excitement. I’ll be celebrating St. Patrick’s Day in Savannah with Ireland’s Minister for Justice, Helen McEntee, who is paying a three-stop visit to Georgia for the St Patrick’s Day period, to call to Rome, to Atlanta, and to Savannah.”
Expanding our understanding of what it means to be Irish:
“Something like heritage, it’s not frozen in time. And it’s important, I think, to always reflect on heritage in a way that takes account of a variety of experiences, a variety of voices, and really interrogates what it means to be Irish. So here in the Consulate … we’ve been really cognizant to speak to the plurality of the Irish experience, the diversity of the Irish experience,” Ní Chonchúir said. “For instance, we’ve been working very closely with an organization called African-American Irish Diaspora Network, an amazing organization which is digging into the roots of African-Americans with Irish heritage; a little-known story, but a story that deserves to be highlighted.”
A possible tweak on the annual “greening” of City Hall:
“This year, I have to say … we’re approaching the ‘greening’ in a somewhat more somber mood, because back home in Ireland, we’re all desperately saddened and outraged by what’s happening in Ukraine, and I think our instinct is to reach out and to express our solidarity with the people of Ukraine and to really throw open our arms to them,” said Ní Chonchúir. “So right now, we’re actually reflecting on whether instead of ‘greening,’ we might turn those monuments blue and yellow in solidarity with the people of Ukraine.”
She went on, “So watch this space. I’m incredibly grateful to City Hall for agreeing to ‘green’ that beautiful building again this year. But like I say, we’re just reflecting on whether it might be nice instead to show that support to Ukraine.”
Tickets and information on Lúnasa’s performance at Gaslight Grill in Roswell on March 23, are available here. Discover Atlanta provides information on other local events on and around St. Patrick’s Day here.
There is also a new documentary film called “Ireland“, narrated by Liam Neeson, that will be screened at the Fernbank Museum Atlanta on March 17.
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This story was provided by WABE content partner Georgia Health News.
A virus unknown until a little more than a decade ago is circulating among lone star ticks in Georgia, Emory University scientists say.
Heartland virus was first identified in Missouri in 2009 in two severely ill individuals.
“We don’t know how many people are infected’’ with Heartland, said Gonzalo Vazquez-Prokopec, associate professor in Emory’s Department of Environmental Sciences.
He’s senior author of an Emory study on the virus in Georgia that was published Wednesday in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases. The research focused on ticks collected in the central part of the state.
The lone star tick is the most common tick in Georgia, Vazquez-Prokopec said. (It gets its name from a mark on its body that somewhat resembles a star.)
More than 50 cases of Heartland virus have been identified in people from 11 states in the Midwest and the Southeast, the CDC says. Many required hospitalization, and a few people who had pre-existing medical problems have died.
The journal article said a retroactive analysis confirmed that the previously unidentified illness that killed a Baldwin County resident in 2005 was Heartland.
“We’re trying to get ahead of this virus by learning everything that we can about it before it potentially becomes a bigger problem,” Vazquez-Prokopec said.
The CDC has reported an increasing number of reported tickborne illnesses and expanding geographic ranges for ticks in recent years.
A recently released estimate based on insurance records suggests that each year about 476,000 Americans are diagnosed and treated for Lyme disease, the CDC said. This number is likely an overestimate of actual infections because patients are sometimes treated presumptively in medical practices, the agency said.
“Ticks are everywhere in Georgia,” Vazquez-Prokopec said, though he added that Lyme disease isn’t a major problem in the state.
The Southeast in general is a breeding grounds for ticks because of its warm, humid climate and abundant foliage. The tickborne bacterial disease called Rocky Mountain spotted fever is actually more common here than it is in Western states.
Vazquez-Prokopec said a new tick threat has been found in Georgia. The Asian longhorned tick was found on a Pickens County farm last year.
The Asian tick has now spread to 17 states. Vazquez-Prokopec called it “a very nasty invader,” adding that the tick “is really good at transmitting’’ a Heartland-type virus.
Researchers point to climate change as a cause of warmer and shorter winters, increasing the chances for some species of ticks to breed more frequently and to expand their ranges.
Vazquez-Prokopec also pointed to more human encroachment on wooded areas. Deer and small animals that carry ticks are inhabiting smaller patches of forest, he said.
He added that the purpose of the research is not to alarm people but to raise awareness of ticks’ potential threat to human health.
The Georgia Department of Public Health recommends these steps to prevent tickborne disease:
** Use an Environmental Protection Agency-registered insect repellent.
** Avoid wooded and brushy areas with high grass and leaf litter. Walk in the center of trails.
** Wear long-sleeved shirts, pants, and socks.
** Treat items, such as boots, pants, socks, and tents with permethrin, or use permethrin-treated clothing and gear.
** Take steps to control ticks and fleas on pets.
And once indoors, the CDC recommends:
** Checking your clothing for ticks.
** Examining gear and pets.
** Showering soon after being outdoors.
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For 12-year-old Nomi Kline Solmeson, preparing for her upcoming bat mitzvah is a family affair. Her grandfather, a rabbi, is helping her learn to chant the words from the Torah. Her aunt, also a religious leader, is working with her to translate the Hebrew and come up with her own interpretation of the words.
“Because the Torah was meant to be discussed,” Nomi says. “I get to be part of that discussion. I get to have my own voice.”
For children like Nomi, who see this rite of passage as a basic human right, it can be surprising to realize how recent the history of the bat mitzvah really is.
This weekend, Jewish communities across the country will be marking the 100th anniversary of that first American bat mitzvah. There will be talks and podcasts and celebrations of this coming-of-age ritual–stories about the past and plans for the future.
Since about the 14th century, boys have had bar mitzvah services, but the first American bat mitzvah for girls didn’t happen until 1922 Since at least the 14th century, boys have had bar mitzvah services, adding their voices to the Jewish community, says Rabbi Carole Balin, a professor emerita of Jewish history at Hebrew Union College who’s working on a book about early bat mitzvahs. But girls didn’t have an equivalent rite of passage.
Balin says there were some early rituals for girls in the Ottoman and Hungarian Empires. And confirmation, an alternative coming-of-age ceremony, was adopted by Jews in 19th century Prussia and later used by Reform temples for both boys and girls.
But the first American Bat Mitzvah didn’t happen until 1922. That’s when Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan bat mitzvahed his daughter, Judith, at New York City’s Society for the Advancement of Judaism, a temple that’s still around today. As Balin notes, it was personal.
“He always joked that he initiated the rite for four reasons — Judith being the first, and his younger daughters being the second, third and fourth,” Balin says.
The first U.S. bat mitzvah left out important coming-of-age practices The actual details of that first bat mitzvah may be somewhat surprising to today’s congregations. Unlike girls today, Judith Kaplan didn’t actually read from the Torah. She was summoned to the bimah, the stage where the Torah is read, only after her father had read the weekly portion.
Judith also didn’t climb up to the top of the bimah, but rather stood at the bottom, reading from a separate book. This difference, as Balin explains, was kind of the point of the ceremony her father created. “He never intended it as a gateway to full and regular involvement in religious life as it is for boys,” she says.
In the decades following Judith Kaplan’s bat mitzvah, the ritual spread slowly, often through disciples of Mordecai Kaplan or at summer camps where they didn’t risk offending an established congregation. At other temples, rabbis also pushed on behalf of their daughters.
In 1950, Rhoda Shapiro had one of the first bat mitzvahs at her temple in Cleveland — as part of a small cohort including the rabbi’s daughter. Shapiro didn’t read from the Torah. And her bat mitzvah was Friday night instead of the big Saturday morning service that boys had. But it was still groundbreaking.
“Oh my gosh, my knees were shaking, that’s all I can tell you,” Shapiro laughs.
Over time, girls push for more equal rituals and more equal roles in Jewish life By end of the 1950s, Rabbi Carole Balin says that half of Conservative temples and one third of Reform congregations reported holding some sort of bat mitzvah. As the ceremony spread, girls wanted it to be more than just symbolic.
“Girls sort of start to take the bull by the horns and not only ask, but in some cases demand that they be given full rights, like their male counterparts,” Balin Balin. “And that’s what happens.”
With more bat mitzvahs taking place in the 1960s, and with the help of second-wave feminism, girls argued that they should read from the Torah and be counted in a minyan, the quorum of adults required for community prayer. Their mothers began joining temple boards, or seeking out bat mitzvahs of their own that weren’t available when they were younger.
“These girls, at the age of 12 or 13, they step into the spotlight, and transform Jewish life,” Balin says. “So that by the time the first woman is ordained as a rabbi in this country in 1972, she has girls half her age to thank for paving the way.”
Over the past 100 years, the bat mitzvah has gone from radical innovation to mainstream expectation. And now congregations are expanding the ritual, adapting it for trans and nonbinary people or for people with disabilities.
There’s a temptation to see all ritual as ancient, handed down from God on Mt. Sinai. But the bat mitzvah is young. The ceremony is the embodiment of how religions change and adapt. It’s a testimony to the perseverance of 12-year-old girls.
It’s a legacy Nomi Kline Solmeson is proud of.
“I feel kind of stronger, because I’m adding to it, and I’m making it more powerful,” says Nomi. “It’s almost like a gift, and I’m really happy to receive it.”
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. The post The bat mitzvah turns 100. It marks more than a coming-of-age for Jewish girls appeared first on WABE.
Adam Weiss, the director of the Guinea Worm Eradication Program at the Carter Center, says Guinea worm disease is a parasitic disease that is contracted by drinking contaminated water.
“Many people in the endemic areas rely on stagnant sources of water to drink from,” said Weiss on Thursday’s edition of “Closer Look.”
He further explained that Guinea worm disease has been mostly found in Sub-Sharan Africa, Asia and the Middle East and the disease has a one-year incubation period before a worm emerges from an infected person’s body.
Weiss says efforts to eradicate the disease started in the 1980s when an estimated 3.5 million infections spread across 20 countries in Sub-Sharan Africa.
The Carter Center recently reported that numbers have significantly dropped over the years with only 14 cases of Guinea worm disease worldwide.
“It’s pretty mindbending to think that there’s only 14 people with this disease in a world of nearly 8 billion people,” said Weiss.
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Ashley Finch, who was recently named the shared micromobility coordinator for the Atlanta Department of Transportation, says shared micromobility — like bikes, e-bikes and scooters — is an essential link to jobs, school, housing and health care.
Finch, a guest on Thursday’s edition of “Closer Look,” talked with program host Rose Scott about Vision Zero Atlanta and the importance of making sure shared micromobility in Atlanta is safe, equitable and accessible.
Ashley Finch, the shared micromobility coordinator for the Atlanta Department of Transportation, joined “Closer Look” on Thursday, Feb. 10, 2022, to discuss what’s next for micromobility in Atlanta. (Photo courtesy of Ashley Finch)
During the conversation, Finch reflected on her career path in transportation and her top priorities in her new role.
“We want to create as many roads for people to use and for them to feel like there are options if they don’t want to use a car,” said Finch, who is a cyclist.
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In their bid to win the Republican nomination in the Georgia governor’s race, incumbent Brian Kemp and challenger David Perdue are often at odds — except when it comes to Stacey Abrams.
The rivals united this week in condemning Abrams, the leading Democrat running for governor, for hypocrisy after a photo surfaced of her posing maskless with students at an Atlanta-area elementary school she visited to mark Black History Month. Abrams’ campaign has encouraged schools to require masks.
“Stacey Abrams wants state government mask mandates for Georgians and their children,” Kemp tweeted. “But it looks like they wouldn’t apply when she’s attending a photo op.” Perdue tweeted that “liberals’ thirst for power during this pandemic has caused enormous damage to our kids, while the elite like Stacey continue living their lives.”
The response was a notable moment of alignment in a state where former President Donald Trump’s election lies have divided the GOP, fueling Perdue’s unusual challenge to an incumbent from his own party. But it’s a sign that both men view opposition to Abrams as an animating issue for the Republican base heading into Georgia’s May 24 primary.
“David Perdue and Brian Kemp need to find contrast with each other,” said Chip Lake, a Georgia Republican consultant who isn’t working for Kemp or Perdue. “But, at the same time, it never hurts either of them to be drawing a contrast with Stacey Abrams and reminding the base what’s at stake.”
The photo is an unhelpful development for Abrams, whose national stature has skyrocketed in recent years from a state legislator to prominent voting rights activist and a contender in 2020 to become Joe Biden’s running mate.
In trying to move past the controversy, her campaign has said she wore a mask to the school and only removed it to be better heard by students watching remotely — and for pictures on the condition that everyone around her kept theirs on.
But in an interview Tuesday on CNN, Abrams said, “Protocols matter and protecting our kids is the most important thing, and anything that can be perceived as undermining that is a mistake and I apologize.”
Abrams campaign manager Lauren Groh-Wargo had said it was “shameful” to use a Black History Month event “for a false political attack.”
Still, in a sign of her national political profile, Republicans around the country have piled on. House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy tweeted the picture of Abrams and wrote that “the same liberal politicians pushing the arbitrary mandates blatantly ignore their own self-imposed rules.”
The Republican Governors Association — in the wake of his staunch opposition to school masking rules helping to lift Republican Glenn Youngkin to an upset victory in the Virginia governor’s race last fall — hustled out a digital ad built around the Abrams picture. The Republican National Committee released a statement predicting that “Georgians will reject Stacey Abrams and her hypocritical mandates.”
Abrams allies warn the attacks are loaded with racism and sexism, since she is vying to be Georgia’s first Black governor and the first Black woman governor in U.S. history.
“She’s female, she’s Black, and of course everybody ducks it, but that’s a huge part of it,” said Democratic state Rep. Al Williams, who serves on the board of the Abrams-founded Fair Fight voting rights group. “And then there are those who are really angry with the Lord, and they say ‘Why was I not born with a brain like that.'”
The attacks cast Abrams as a Republican foil not unlike Hillary Clinton or House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, where antagonism for someone in the other party helps the GOP base overlook fissures within its own ranks.
“This is a battle about turnout,” said Andra Gillespie, a political science professor at Emory University in Atlanta. “So, the idea that Republicans are trying to rile up their base by saying that Stacey Abrams is a hypocrite who you shouldn’t follow, what they’re hoping is this mobilizes their base and that it discourages or demobilizes her base.”
The opposition to Abrams also allows Republicans to talk about something other than Trump’s election falsehoods, which carry special resonance in Georgia, where the former president spent his final days in office aiming to pressure officials into reversing Biden’s win.
Trump is backing Perdue, a former Senator who lost his reelection bid last year, because Kemp refused entreaties to thwart Biden’s Georgia victory, which was affirmed by three recounts. He has escalated his involvement in recent weeks, helping convince another Republican running for governor, Vernon Jones, to drop his campaign to clear the field for Perdue.
Perdue even turned Jones’ departure from the race into an attack on the race’s top Democrat, tweeting that “Conservatives are united and ready to beat Stacey Abrams.”
But the shared antagonism may not be enough to heal GOP divisions. Both Kemp and Perdue have long targeted Abrams for their own purposes, with Kemp arguing that Republicans need to unify behind him to fend off the Abrams threat since he narrowly bested her four years ago.
Perdue counters that some Republicans are still mad at Kemp for not doing enough to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election result — which the former senator says proves only he can garner enough support to outpace Abrams.
Kemp allies founded a group called Stop Stacey in January 2021 — more than 10 months before Abrams announced she was running for governor again. Perdue declared, “I’m running for governor to make sure Stacey Abrams is never governor,” at the very beginning of his announcement video in December.
Perdue released a campaign ad this week featuring the photo of an unmasked Abrams and declaring, “This is the Georgia Stacey Abrams wants” but also adding, “This is the reality Brian Kemp has allowed. Unmask our kids.”
Kemp, who had long allowed local districts to make decisions on classroom mask rules, hit back by suggesting he might now use the power of his office to try and end classroom mask mandates — further escalating the reaction to the Abrams picture.
“A small handful of school boards continue to ignore the science and impose mask mandates on our children while leading Democrats refuse to follow the mandates when visiting those same schools,” the governor tweeted. “Enough is enough.”
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Weissert reported from Washington.
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This story was first published on February 8, 2022. It was updated on February 10, 2022, to correct attribution of the quote “Georgians will reject Stacey Abrams and her hypocritical mandates.” The statement was from the Republican National Committee, not the Republican Governors Association.
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U.S. Senators John Ossoff and Raphael Warnock are introducing legislation to bring more funding and collaboration for environmental projects on the Chattahoochee River.
The Chattahoochee River Act would direct the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to work with other federal agencies, states, local governments and other groups involved in the Chattahoochee.
They would collaborate to come up with a comprehensive plan for environmental restoration, protecting public works like dams and dealing with eroding shorelines. The law proposes allocating $90 million from the federal government for the effort.
“The Chattahoochee River is one of Georgia’s most precious natural resources, vital to Georgia’s drinking water, agriculture, and our natural environment,” Ossoff said in a news release. “That’s why I’ve written this bill to protect, preserve, and restore the Chattahoochee River for generations to come.”
The proposal is modeled on a years-long project to clean up the Chesapeake Bay.
In addition to being a popular spot for hiking and tubing, the Chattahoochee is also the primary drinking water source for metro Atlanta.
“Chattahoochee Riverkeeper is excited to support the Chattahoochee River Act,” Jason Ulseth, the Chattahoochee Riverkeeper, said in a statement. “Senator Ossoff’s and Warnock’s Chattahoochee River Program will encourage co-operation between federal and state agencies, and stakeholders.”
For decades, the Chattahoochee has been one of the rivers tied up in fights between Georgia, Florida and Alabama. Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court sided with Georgia, denying Florida’s request to cap Georgia’s use of the water from the Chattahoochee and Flint Rivers. Advocates have encouraged the states to find a resolution themselves, instead of resorting to litigation.
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This coverage is made possible through a partnership with WABE and Grist, a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future.
The scientists and advocates racing to save North Atlantic right whales are trying a new approach this season: warning boaters that hitting a whale could sink their boat.
Educating ordinary boaters and convincing them to slow down and watch for whales is a key step in protecting right whales – an effort that also includes coordinated tracking and monitoring, restrictions for large vessels and an ongoing battle over lobster fishing in the Northeast.
North Atlantic right whales travel to the waters off Georgia, Florida and the Carolinas each winter to have their babies. With fewer than 350 of the whales left on the planet and fewer than 100 of those being breeding-age females, every single baby counts.
Final year, a 54-foot fishing boat off Florida injured a mother whale and killed her calf.
In the Southeast, vessels over 65 feet – like the container ships calling at Georgia ports – are supposed to follow a speed limit during calving season to avoid injuring or killing whales. However, most fishing boats are too small to fall under that speed rule. But they’re still plenty big enough to kill a whale, especially a calf, like the one off Florida’s coast.
“If you don’t know what you’re looking for, you might hit it,” said Tybee Island charter fishing captain Judy Helmey.
She’s been fishing off the Georgia coast for more than half a century and remembers when there were a lot more right whales in the water – and there weren’t yet laws requiring boats to keep their distance.
“So we would just cut our engines off and just drift with them,” she recalled.
Now, the whales are in the midst of an “unusual mortality event” that began with a spike in deaths in 2017. The leading causes: heavy fishing gear, especially the kind used for lobstering in the North, and people hitting the whales with boats, including small ones.
Since 2004, there have been five highly-suspected strikes of right whales by boats under 65 feet, according to Clay George, a wildlife biologist with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources. The whale’s fate isn’t known in every case, but “the boaters saw big pools of blood in the water,” he said.
“Most people don’t know that we have whales here,” Helmey said. “They could hit one and harm the whale or themselves. I mean, there could be a lot of damage involved.”
She’s not kidding. The fishing boat that hit a whale and her calf last year nearly sank. The captain had to ground the boat, and it ended up being a total loss – to the tune of more than $1 million.
State officials are stressing this point in a new messaging effort this season. Fliers and emails headlined “Go slow-whales below!” feature pictures of the sinking fishing boat and urge boaters to slow down and post a lookout for right whales.
“One of the things we’ve been trying to convey to coastal boaters is that, you know, keep your eyes open, be careful, and slow down, not just to help the whales but to protect you and your boat and your passengers,” George said. “If you struck a whale offshore out here and started taking on a lot of water, things could get dangerous really really quick.”
Helmey said she thinks that makes sense.
“I think it’ll make them read the whole thing,” she said. “And then maybe they’ll get to thinking, and then they’ll try to figure out a way how they can notice [whales] better. Because you heard it’s sunk a boat that big, you can imagine what it’s gonna do to a small boat.”
From November through March, scientists search the water off the coast of Georgia for whales, too, looking for mother whales and their newborn calves.
Clay George of Georgia DNR photographs right whale #2614 “Tripelago” and her calf
When they spot a pair, they photograph it from above with a plane or drone and from a boat with a long-lens camera, operating under a special permit; most boats have to stay 500 yards away from the endangered whales.
“Every single one of these moms is identifiable by the marks on their head,” said George on a recent whale-tracking trip. “The great thing about these new, small quadcopter drones is that we can keep a distance like this, and we can send it over there, and get the images that we need.”
The whales have whitish bumps on their heads and ridges along their lips. Many also have identifiable scars from entanglements or boat strikes that they managed to survive.
George and his colleagues in the right whale effort, which includes Georgia DNR, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Florida Fish and Wildlife, Clearwater Marine Aquarium and the New England Aquarium, have spotted 13 calves so far this winter. They’ve seen female whales in the area without calves, too, so they’re hoping for more.
It’s an improvement: in 2018, no calves were born, and the numbers were low in several of the surrounding years.
Scientists have determined that climate change is to blame. Warmer ocean waters in the Gulf of Maine, where the whales typically feed, caused the plankton population to plummet. The lack of food led to a drop in reproductive rate.
It also drove right whales to look for food elsewhere, including in Canada’s Gulf of St. Lawrence, where there weren’t adequate protections in place yet. In 2017, 17 whales were found dead, 12 of them in Canada. The country has since put rules in place to protect the whales.
Right whale #2614 “Tripelago” and calf, photographed January 09, 2022. (Clearwater Marine Aquarium Research Institute, taken under NOAA permit #20556.)
In light of all that, George called the recent uptick in calving “encouraging.” But he said there is a caveat.
“Even if all of them were calving at record numbers, as frequently as they possibly could, the population still wouldn’t grow because of the number that are dying from human causes each year,” George said.
Helmey helps to get the word out through a widely-read weekly newsletter she distributes to boaters, fishing clubs and others on the coast. She includes her old photos of whales swimming like old Hollywood synchronized swimmers, or blowing from their blowholes, or just floating near the surface.
“I have some pictures that are really the coolest. I have the Esther Williams where they put one fin up, go sideways, and then I have ‘em where they’re upside downwards,” she said.
While Helmey has seen the fliers, other coastal boaters said they haven’t. According to DNR, 52% of recipients, or 9,800 people, opened the “Go Slow, Whales Below” email that went out to registered boat owners and saltwater fishing permit holders.
St. Simons Island fisherman Will Owens said he didn’t notice an email from DNR. But he’s aware of the whales – he remembers making a clay model of a right whale in school – and keeps an eye out for them.
“Whoever’s driving the boat, I mean, pretty much their only job is to be looking out in front for trees, logs, other boats, really any obstruction that would cause damage to something else or to our own vessel,” Owens said. “We try to leave no trace, like they say. We don’t want to cause any problems. We want everybody to be safe.”
DNR officials said their outreach effort is just getting started. They hope to set up tables at boat shows so they can get the word out face to face – and ultimately protect boaters and endangered whales alike.
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Bullet holes pock a rusted mailbox outside the vacant home where Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott were married in 1953. Part of the old wooden structure has collapsed, as have nearby utility buildings.
Most anyplace connected to the best-known voice of the civil rights movement is a magnet for tourists, particularly around the January holiday honoring King’s birthday and in February during Black History Month. His birthplace in Atlanta is a national historic park; the parsonage where he and his wife lived in Montgomery is part of the U.S. Civil Rights Trail.
Yet the spot where the Kings spent one of the most important days of their lives — the childhood home of Coretta Scott King, who went on to found the King Center in Atlanta following her husband’s assassination in 1968 — sits all but unknown on the side of a two-lane highway in rural Perry County, one of Alabama’s poorest places. Even some locals remain largely unaware of its historical importance.
“I don’t really know anything about the house,” said Kay Beckett, president of the Perry County Historical and Preservation Society.
An expert said the Scott home is one of many important Black historical sites that have been forgotten across the nation.
“It’s actually more typical than you’d imagine. We pass by many Black heritage sites every day, standing in plain sight seemingly without history or meaning. Yet, these overlooked places hold exceptional cultural and educational value,” said Brent Leggs, executive director of the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund, part of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
The action fund recently received a $20 million donation to preserve Black churches, and it has raised more than $70 million to assist with more than 200 preservation projects nationally since being started following the deadly “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017. Yet the Scott and King families’ wedding venue is all but off the radar.
There’s no single reason why the place is a forgotten relic, officials say. One problem is that it’s far off the beaten path for travelers, nowhere near a major highway and about 75 miles (121 kilometers) from Birmingham to the northeast or Montgomery to the east.
Also, it’s privately owned and not open to the public. Tax records show the property is owned by Bernice King, the couple’s youngest daughter, and not much has ever been done with it. Bernice King didn’t respond to email messages about the home that were sent to aides at The King Center, where she works as chief executive.
“It is standing and they have a caretaker who cuts the grass,” said Albert Turner Jr., a county commissioner whose father Albert Turner led civil rights activities in the region and advised King.
Cars and tour buses occasionally stop by, longtime neighbor William Carter said, but there’s no sign or historic marker to tell the property’s story. He still misses Coretta King’s parents, Obie and Bernice M. Scott, who died in 1998 and 1996, respectively.
“Him and his wife were the nicest people I ever met in my life,” said Carter.
Coretta Scott, a Marion native, and King, who grew up in Atlanta, met in Boston in the early 1950s while he was attending Boston University and she was studying opera at the New England Conservatory of Music.
“She talked about things other than music. I never will forget, the first discussion we had was about the question of racial and economic injustice and the question of peace,” King wrote in his autobiography.
The two wed in the front yard of the wood-frame home on June 18, 1953, with King’s father performing the ceremony; a wedding photo showed him in a white jacket, her in a gown. Their marriage license is still at the county courthouse in Marion, logged in a book marked “COLORED” in keeping with the Jim Crow law at the time that required segregating everything by race, even marriage records.
Scott’s parents remained at the white house with a broad front porch while the young couple lived in Boston and then Montgomery before settling in Atlanta. Obie Scott preached at the nearby Mt. Tabor A.M.E. Zion Church and operated a country store right beside the home; a cash register, scales and cigar boxes are among the items still visible through a broken front window.
It’s not that the Kings are forgotten in Perry County. The home is located on Coretta Scott King Memorial Highway, and a bust of Coretta King erected following her death in 2006 stands outside the Mt. Tabor church.
But some believe more should be done. Perry County Probate Judge Eldora B. Anderson, who lives in suburban Birmingham, said she took her grandchildren to see the house and church.
“They had so many questions,” she said.
Leggs, the preservationist, said in an email interview that the Scott home “is a cultural asset important to our nation’s 20th century history.”
“This home stands as the physical evidence and existence of a great American and a great family legacy,” he said.
Reeves is a member of AP’s Race and Ethnicity team.
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Atlanta artist, activist, and entrepreneur Quianah Upton is building a safe space for equity, justice and collective wellbeing while you dine. Her new restaurant, Nourish Botanica, is also a greenhouse. Upton’s mission for Nourish Botanica is to bring Black joy to life by putting food justice at the center of her restaurant’s work. Upton joined “City Lights” host Lois Reitzes via Zoom to talk about fostering community and equity through conscientious eating.
Upton, born in the U.S. Virgin Islands, never even realized she’d spent her early years in food insecurity until she came to Atlanta as an adult. “I think that I bloomed personally, creatively, and my eyes were opened when I moved to Atlanta,” said Upton. “I began to meet a lot of farmers, and I began to get the verbiage and the language, and more of an understanding of the fact that I grew up in a food-insecure community, and I didn’t even know.”
One day, a friend brought her to Truly Living Well Center for Natural Urban Agriculture, a Black-owned community farm and educational space for people who want to learn about growing food and bringing it to tables in a city. Upton fell in love with the concept. “I’m Caribbean,” she said, “So I love plants and plant life just as an aesthetic. But to see Black people actually growing them and handling them, and we’re able to sustain ourselves and eat from it — it was a new thing for me at the time.”
The model inspired her to combine dining and food cultivation in a shared space, profoundly shortening food’s journey from farm to table that spans thousands of miles for many American meals. Nourish Botanica’s journey will culminate in the opening of this planned restaurant. Along the way, Upton is opening a plant shop, and a mobile botanical bar called Kiki, serving tea drinks and other herbal tonics.
For the cuisine at Upton’s future plant-based eatery, she plans “a lot of edible flowers, Caribbean and Southern, so plantains — I love plantains — beet, hummus, black-eyed peas. You know, we want to make it comfort food.”
These operations will be supplied by the Nourish Botanica greenhouse, cultivated by community members enrolled in farming classes there. “I’m in a location where there’s three schools … My hope is to do a lot of programming with the children in our greenhouse and nursery. That’s my biggest goal,” said Upton, “And seniors as well.”
“Nourish Botanica is the culmination of what happens when a Black artist is experimental, and she is using her artistry to tell the story of food and gathering people,” Upton said.
To follow Upton’s Nourish Botanica projects, fans of urban agriculture and healthy eating can visit www.nourishbotanica.cafe.
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In 2018, Donald Glover, a.k.a. Childish Gambino, released the viral hit song “This is America,” a razor-sharp commentary on contemporary society. In a nod to his incisive work, artist Genevieve Gaignard presents a new exhibition, “This is America: The Unsettling Contradictions in American Identity,” at the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center from Feb. 12 – May 15. It’s the first solo exhibition of the multidisciplinary artist’s photography and installation work, through which she unravels the ongoing issues complicating the identities and representations of Americans. Gaignard joined “City Lights” host Lois Reitzes via Zoom and curator Karen Comer Lowe to talk about the artist’s new contributions to Atlanta Contemporary.
How race informs the artwork of Gaignard, who is biracial:
“Once you look at it, I think it’s everything. I’m really interested in owning both sides of my story, and so I don’t really tiptoe around those things,” said Gaignard.
“There’s a lot of us out there, navigating life in a way that we’re not easily put into a box for other folks. So the way it affects me isn’t something I can, for me, put into a sentence or words, and that’s why my art has been this beautiful tool for me to work through those things and the complexities of it, and at the same time, be able to connect with other people through the art.”
A window into Gaignard’s complex visual microcosms of identity:
“I think ‘unsettling’ maybe kind of finds its way through all of the work that I create,” said Gaignard. “Over the years, I’ve kind of really honed in on specific materials that lend themselves to help describe the things that I’m interested in. I’m often pulling from vintage or historical magazines for my collage work, specifically, to talk about how we like to say we’ve come so far, but I’m able to comment on things happening today with imagery from the past that align as if we haven’t really come that far.”
“When I say identify as a woman of color, but people see me as a white woman, I then put on these different costumes, characters, however, you want to describe it, to show the viewer just how easily any of us can fold into these different parts of ourselves or some sort of a stereotype that others put on us.”
How art presents opportunities for reflection:
“I think of the environment as almost these psychological spaces, but I’m using things that are nostalgic, so you feel like it’s home,” said Gaignard. “So it creates this safe space to unpack harder issues that, until more recently, we really just haven’t been able to sit down and talk about … It’s almost like the work doubles as a mirror to the viewer, to kind of check in with themselves, their stance on things. And some of us aren’t always aware of how we’re showing up.”
“I think it’s so interesting when you can look at some of these objects and items, and … the messages that the things sent to you. In one of her installations, like, the wallpaper was just shockingly racist, and she told me it was from the 1970s, and that was just shocking to me,” said Lowe. “These aren’t things that she made or imagined. They’re from our history and recent history.”
“This is America: The Unsettling Contradictions in American Identity,” a solo exhibition of multimedia works by Genevieve Gaignard, shows at Atlanta Contemporary from Feb. 12 – May 15, with a press preview on Feb. 11. More information can be found at atlantacontemporary.org/exhibitions/genevieve-gaignard.
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Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp says he will propose a measure that would let parents opt their children out of school mask mandates, following a flap in which GOP primary rival David Perdue attacked Kemp for not doing more to end masking in schools.
“I’ve been very patient. I’ve been a local control governor, but this has gone on for too long,” Kemp told reporters Wednesday. “Parents are beyond frustrated in a very, very small number of districts in our state, about young children, especially, being masked.”
The state Department of Education doesn’t track how many districts statewide require masks to prevent the spread of COVID-19, but some metro Atlanta districts do. They include Gwinnett County, DeKalb County, Clayton County and Atlanta. Some districts in other parts of the state also require them, including Savannah-Chatham County.
Kemp’s aides said they are drafting a bill and that the governor’s legislative floor leaders would introduce it in coming days.
The controversy spun out of Republican attacks on likely Democratic gubernatorial nominee Stacey Abrams for not wearing a mask when she spoke at a suburban Atlanta school Friday. Pictures show all the students and faculty at the elementary school wearing masks around Abrams.
Perdue, in addition to attacking Abrams, attacked Kemp for not doing enough to prevent masks from being required.
“Brian Kemp only does the right thing when we spell it out first,” Perdue said in a statement Wednesday after Kemp made his announcement. “Why didn’t Kemp stand up for parents’ rights two years ago when this pandemic began? 20-year career politicians like Kemp only care in an election year.”
Perdue lost his U.S. Senate seat in a 2021 runoff to Democrat Jon Ossoff, only to be implored by former President Donald Trump to enter the governor’s race. Trump has vowed to beat Kemp, saying Kemp didn’t do enough to overturn Democratic President Joe Biden’s victory in Georgia.
Kemp had earlier discouraged masks, but said he would ultimately leave the decision up to Georgia’s 180 local school districts. That’s in keeping with a generally decentralized public education culture in the state.
On Wednesday Kemp argued that falling infections from the omicron wave means it’s time to act. The state last week recorded 13,418 COVID-19 cases in children ages 5-17. That was the first week in 2022 that infections had declined, dipping from 16,242 in the last week of January. Both numbers are far above the roughly 1,000 cases in school-age children that Georgia was recording in early November.
Abrams’ campaign initially said she wore a mask to the school and only removed it to be better heard by students watching remotely — and for pictures on the condition that everyone around her kept theirs on.
In an interview Tuesday on CNN, Abrams said, “Protocols matter and protecting our kids is the most important thing, and anything that can be perceived as undermining that is a mistake and I apologize.”
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