Georgia Today: Georgia child welfare system; Black Georgians and the EV industry; Butch Walker

Peter Biello: Welcome to the Georgia Today podcast from GPB News. Today is Friday, October 27th. I'm Peter Biello. On today's episode, another damaging report regarding Georgia's child welfare system. The state works to ensure black citizens have equal access to the state's growing electric vehicle infrastructure and ahead of the band Marvelous 3's reunion concert this weekend, A conversation with frontman Butch Walker. These stories and more are coming up on this edition of Georgia Today.

Story 1:

Peter Biello: A new report from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children finds a staggering number of children in Georgia's foster care system were reported missing. GPB's Sarah Kallis reports.

Sarah Kallis: Nearly 1800 children in the care of Georgia's Department of Family and Child Services were reported missing between 2018 and 2022, according to the report. Senator Jon Ossoff chairs a bipartisan U.S. Senate human Rights subcommittee investigating Georgia's foster care system. Speaking at Covenant House, a youth homeless shelter in Atlanta, Ossoff said that children reported missing are more vulnerable to exploitation.

Jon Ossoff: This is about human beings. This is about vulnerable children who deserve protection from abuse, who deserve sanctuary, from neglect. And that is why I will continue relentlessly to investigate failures.

Sarah Kallis: The Senate Human Rights Subcommittee will provide recommendations for the state's foster care system once it completes its investigation. For GPB News,  I'm Sarah Kallis.

Caption

A bottle of medical cannabis oil and a cannabis plant.

Story 2:

Peter Biello: Georgia has become the first state in the nation to allow pharmacies to sell low THC cannabis oil. The State Department of Community Health said yesterday that the Georgia Board of Pharmacy has approved the sale of cannabis oil at independent pharmacies in Warner Robins, Tiffin and Omega, a small town south of Tipton. Georgia has nearly a thousand independent pharmacies that are eligible to apply for a license to sell the product manufactured by two companies also licensed by the state. Those two companies have either opened or plan to open some dispensaries near Atlanta, Macon and Savannah. The independent pharmacy rules were aimed at increasing access in more rural areas. Under Georgia law, low THC cannabis oil is available only to patients enrolled in a state registry and diagnosed with one of several ailments, including in the stage cancer and PTSD.

Story 3:

Peter Biello: The U.S. Army officially renamed it Georgia's Fort Gordon today. The Augusta military base is now Fort Eisenhower. The ceremony comes three years after Congress passed a bill to rename ten U.S. military installations formerly named after Confederate leaders. President Dwight Eisenhower often visited Fort Gordon when he vacationed at Augusta National Golf Club. U.S. Army Secretary Christine Wormuth says he represents the best of our nation.

Christine Wormuth: President Eisenhower found in Augusta a place where he could step away from the burdens of Washington and think deeply about the many challenges facing the United States in the years following World War 2.

Peter Biello: Army officials were joined in the renaming events by two of Eisenhower's grandchildren.

Story 4:

Peter Biello: Georgia Power is asking state utility regulators for a significant increase in its capacity to generate electricity. The request comes less than a year and a half after the State Public Service Commission approved its last comprehensive plan for energy generation. In a filing with the commission today, the company said that demand is coming fast and it needs to generate more power ahead of schedule. Environmental groups are questioning the plan, since it mostly relies on natural gas to generate new electricity and could keep coal fired plants running.

Story 5:

Peter Biello: The development authority in Fulton County has approved an estimated $40 million in tax breaks for a $1 billion film studio project. Kane Studios could transform the city of Chattahoochee Hills. City officials approved zoning for the project in June amid questions about its impact on traffic and the area's rural character. The authority's vote on Tuesday comes as rising interest rates and the ongoing actors strike continue to challenge new studio projects nationwide.

Caption

Meta

Story 6:

Peter Biello: Georgia has joined a bipartisan coalition of 33 states in filing a federal lawsuit against social media giant Meta. The states claim Meta knowingly designed harmful features on its platforms that cause addiction in children and teens. Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr announced the state's decision to join the lawsuit on Tuesday.

Story 7:

Peter Biello: Funding from the Department of Energy will be used to ensure black Georgians have equal access to the state's growing electric transportation networks and industry. GPB's Amanda Andrews explains.

Amanda Andrews: The three year grant focuses on Albany, Atlanta and Savannah. The Southern Alliance for Clean Energy will work with local organizations like EV Noir and Clean Cities Georgia to gauge community needs and find solutions. Stan Cross is the electric transportation policy director for the Southern Alliance. He says the goal is to bridge the gap between federal funds and community priorities.

Stan Cross: These communities lack access to electric mobility infrastructure to support the transition to a true transportation. And often these communities lack access to the jobs that are coming from this transition.

Amanda Andrews: The project will work with Georgia's HBCU's and trade schools to eliminate barriers to access the state's growing electric vehicle economy. For GPB News, I'm Amanda Andrews.

Story 8:

Peter Biello: The US Coast Guard has ended its search for three fishermen who are missing at sea nearly two weeks after their boat set off from docks in Brunswick. The decision was made late yesterday after Coast Guard boats and planes spent a seventh day looking for their vessel. Crews found no trace of the 31 foot boat after searching more than 94,000 square miles of ocean from northern Florida to Virginia. Missing are Dalton Conway, Caleb Wilkinson and Tyler Barlow. His father says he's confident the men are still alive. Their families have been raising money in hopes of funding private search efforts.

Story 9:

Peter Biello: An animal sanctuary and tourist attraction in metro Atlanta's Henry County reopened today after being closed for more than a year. Noah's Ark faced several challenges during that time, including an outbreak of bird flu, staffing changes and a tornado. It also was the subject of investigations and a lawsuit over alleged animal abuse. The sanctuary said that its one day opening today would help it determine what crowds it could handle as they prepare for additional opening days in the future. Since closing last year, Noah's Ark has relocated some animals, including more common species such as goats and pigs, to refocus on more exotic species such as lions and bears.

Caption

The Marvelous 3 in the late 1990s

Credit: Fernando Leon / Courtesy of Butch Walker

Story 10:

Peter Biello: This weekend in Atlanta, the rock band Marvelous 3 is reuniting to rock the rafters of the downtown music venue, The Tabernacle. The show is in support of its first new album in two decades. Since then, the band's frontman, Butch Walker, has carved out a solo career as a globetrotting producer of hits by Pink, Katy Perry, Taylor Swift and Fallout Boy. Now he's enjoying a renewed interest in his own band's place in Georgia music history. GPB's Kristi York Wooten has more.

Kristi York Wooten: One morning in July, the members of Marvelous 3 gathered on Instagram live. Singer songwriter Butch Walker, bass player James Fincher and drummer Doug "Slug" Mitchell, aka Mitch McLee, compare their love of coffee and oatmilk as they look over vintage photos sent in by their fans for the sleeve of the band's latest album.

Butch  Walker: I'm like going, Oh, I wonder where they've been.

Mitch McLee: The only one I don't recognize in all of them is me.

Kristi York Wooten: In their fifties. They are no longer the big haired high school boys who left Rome, Georgia, bound for Los Angeles and a five year stint playing heavy glam rock with the group South Gang in the late 1980s and early nineties. Walker says they sold merch out of their van while performing 200 shows a year, chasing the dream of being rock stars.

Butch  Walker: And we moved out to L.A. straight out of high school just to like to chase it. And we chased it. We caught it, and then we lost it immediately, which was fine and good because we really I don't think our future was to be a notable hair metal band.

Kristi York Wooten: When the band returned to Georgia. Members regrouped as The Floyds, named after their home county and ultimately as a marvel as three. Their pointed rock songs from the first Marvelous 3 album, Math and Other Problems, weren't overly commercial, but they did reflect the melting pot that was Atlanta's music scene in 1997. Back when blending heavy metal and New Wave was like mixing oil and water.

Butch  Walker: But but being that at the scene was so multicultural and multifaceted and multi genre, we were able to be on bills all the time with people like in all walks of life. We had, we had hip hop guys coming to our shows all the time. And you know, I remember Andre 3000 going and hanging out at rock shows all the time. And Cee-Lo would work over at my recording studio and it was just a really cool. It was a cool thing, you know?

Kristi York Wooten: Walker credits Marvelous 3's career break to the Atlanta Alternative Rock Station 99X, where the Marvelous 3 track "Freak of the Week" went from locals only to number five on the Billboard charts in 1999.

Butch  Walker: I started getting calls all the time to produce records because of that song being a hit and people wondering who produced it. And that's how it worked in the industry right here. Record labels would be like, Oh, this is a hot song right now. Who did it? Let's get them for this new band we signed. And that's what started happening.

Kristi York Wooten: The group released a third album in 2000 and called it quits in 2001 due to conflicting commitments. However, the friendship between the members never waned, even though Walker's star rose as a producer for dozens of artists like Taylor Swift. And Pink. Walker is not giving up on his solo career or catalog of recordings, including a 2020 rock opera about political division called American Love Story and a 2022 concept album called Butch Walker as Glenn. But after the pandemic, a Marvelous 3 reunion felt right.

Butch  Walker: We parted the best of friends and stayed the best of friends. So it was never going to be rocket science getting everyone back together. It was more just like, how and when? And does it matter? Because it only matters for our friendship, because outside of our fans of that band in particular, this is not something we realistically think is going to move the needle in a in a in the grand world scheme of music. Like it's not we're not trying to like we're not trying to be a relevant new band, is what I'm saying.

Kristi York Wooten: The trio's latest songs pay homage to the band's Georgia roots. Tracks like "My Old School Metal Heart" and "Time to Let It Go" are full of the humor and melodic choruses for which Walker is best known. And there's also a special song by another Atlanta band on this latest Marvelous 3 album. It's a cover of The Producers' classic 1982 power pop hit "She Sheila". Walker said he first heard the song when his sister's boyfriend's band played it at a bonfire when they were teens, and the idea of rerecording it in 2023 came up on the final day in the studio with the Marvelous Three. They decided to replace the song's famous keyboard riff with guitars in.

Butch  Walker: We just slammed it and we and we was like, of course we nailed that. We we knew exactly that. We knew that something like it was in our veins for, you know, for years. So so it was really cool to put it on the new record and kind of wrap up the new album with that as an influence because a lot of people to hear it now just go like, Well, that's one of my favorite songs on the record. They don't even know it's a cover. I'm like, Well, there you go. I'm like, That's how strong the song is.

Kristi York Wooten: There are dozens of 1980s, 1990's and early 2000s acts on the road this year, and many of them are performing at festivals such as the recent When We Were Young gathering in Las Vegas featuring the bands Blink 182. And 30 Seconds to Mars. But the Marvelous 3 wanted something different. With their three sold out shows in Atlanta and Chicago, celebrating the 25th anniversary of their Hey album with their new album, Number four wasn't a bad idea.

Butch  Walker: We didn't fit in men and we don't fit in now, so we didn't care about trying to like, Oh, maybe we can get on squeeze on an immobile bill, you know, or something. It's not that we just we're doing this for ourselves.

Kristi York Wooten: For GPB News, I'm Kristi York Wooten in Atlanta.

Story 11:

Peter Biello: In sports news, the Atlanta Hawks tip off their home opener of the season tonight against the New York Knicks. They'll be looking for their first win after losing to the Hornets on Wednesday. And the football game known by fans as the world's largest outdoor cocktail party is set for tomorrow as Georgia and Florida face off in Jacksonville for one of the Southeastern conference's most heated rivalries. The undefeated Bulldogs are the 14 and a half point favorite to win its third straight in the series. That's according to FanDuel sportsbook.

And that is it for this edition of Georgia Today. Thanks so much for tuning in. If you want to learn more about any of these stories, visit our website, GPB.org/news. And please do subscribe to this podcast will be back in your podcast feed Monday afternoon. And if you've got feedback or a story idea, we would love to hear from you. Email us. The address is GeorgiaToday@GPB.org. I'm Peter Biello. Thanks again for listening. We'll see you on Monday.

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For more on these stories and more, go to GPB.org/news