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GA TODAY

You've arrived at the July 14, 2022 online edition of the Georgia Today newsletter, a twice-weekly publication featuring original stories from GPB News reporters and the latest headlines from around the state.

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Now, the news:

 

Warnock's fundraising surges amid Walker's policy gaffes

 

Republican Herschel Walker's $6.2 million in fundraising looked impressive when unveiled Wednesday, until Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock rolled out his $17.2 million total a half-hour later. 

Like Warnock, Democrat Stacey Abrams had heavily outraised incumbent Republican Gov. Brian Kemp as of June 30.

Meanwhile, GPB News’ Stephen Fowler reported that Herschel Walker's 'bad air' comments are the latest in a series of policy gaffes which could be contributing to Warnock’s rising poll numbers. Walker told WSB Radio on Tuesday that he was “ready for a debate” with Warnock, but did not give specifics. 

  • The dueling Senate campaign numbers suggest that Georgia is again going to be one of the most expensive places to run for office in 2022, and Democrats are attempting to build a strong fundraising advantage.

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Spread of COVID variant BA.5, monkeypox both increasing in Georgia

 

The first case of monkeypox in Georgia was confirmed by public health officials in early June. Now, the state has more than 41 confirmed cases, GPB's Ellen Eldridge reports.

  • "And that is most certainly an undercount," Georgia Department of Public Health epidemiologist Dr. Cherie Drenzek said during the July board meeting.

Meanwhile, COVID-19 case numbers had been mostly flat back when the older BA.2 subvariant of omicron was dominant in the state. But now epidemiologists with the Georgia Department of Public Health say the state is heading for another wave. That’s because of an even more transmissible variant, BA.5, Drenzek said.  

“The pandemic is far from over,” Drenzek said, adding that the rise in cases over just a few weeks is remarkable. 

 Ellen Eldridge has more on the state of the pandemic.

 

 

A city's plan to rehouse the unhoused

 

The number of chronically unhoused people in the U.S. is rising. It’s a trend which has been growing through the pandemic after years in which homelessness dropped. That’s true in Georgia, too.

As the unhoused become more a part of our daily lives, some communities are starting to take action, reports GPB News’ Grant Blankenship. 

In Macon, that means sometimes pushing the unhoused out of the way. But in other cities, it can mean creating plans to get people off the street so they have the headspace to get themselves together. 

Charles Hardy, who works with the unhoused in Athens, is not at all surprised to hear people say “no” to what we think of as a “homeless shelter.”

  • “We got probably nine or 10 individuals that have been living in the woods for 13, 14 years,” Hardy said.

Read More

 

 

'Fetal personhood' debate spotlighted during Congressional hearing

 

Georgia’s House Bill 481 is still held up by a federal appeals court, and a judge has given both sides until the middle of July to outline arguments post-Roe v. Wade protections.

A controversial component of the law is “fetal personhood” language, which makes an unborn fetus a “natural person” in Georgia code, and could have sweeping impacts in different areas of state law, reports GPB News’ Riley Bunch.

During a hearing on Capitol Hill, Georgia U.S. Rep. Jody Hice applauded the court’s decision.

  • “There is not an instance that I'm aware of of anyone giving birth to something other than a person," he said. "So if it is a person after birth, it by extension is a person before birth.”

A witness in the hearing, Decatur Democratic State Rep. Renitta Shannon, hit back at Hice’s comments.

  • “No two pregnancies are the same,” she said. “So you can't just say across the board at what point any pregnancy would be viable.”

Read More

 

 

Atlanta women participate in universal income effort

 

Supporting women helps create an economy that’s more equitable for the entire community.

That’s the idea behind the In Her Hands guaranteed income program, an Atlanta-based organization that helps Black women support themselves during periods of financial insecurity, reports GPB News’ Amanda Andrews.

To qualify for In Her Hands, the women must be 18 years of age or older, live within the Old Fourth Ward, and make at or below 200% of the federal poverty line — less than $56,000 a year for a family of four.  

Read More

 

 

National park sites contribute millions to Georgia's local economies

 

The latest overall visitor spending number among Georgia’s 10 national parks is an estimated $362 million per year, the 2021 National Park Service Visitor Spending Effects Report said.

More than 6.3 million people visited Georgia's national park sites last year, with gas, food and hotels leading visitor spending which supported a total of 5,200 jobs and $542 million toward economic output in the Georgia economy.

  • "If you're hiking up the mountain, you're going to want hiking poles, a hat and water bottles," Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park Superintendent Patrick Gamman said. "It's getting people to buy certain things to do the activities they do here."

GPB News' Orlando Montoya has more.

 

 

Headlines from around the state:

 

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution: 

Red and Black: 

Technique: 

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