Georgia Today: Protesters arrested at UGA; Second Vogtle nuclear reactor; Food waste as energy

Peter Biello: Welcome to the Georgia Today podcast from GPB News. Today is Monday, April 29, 2024. I'm Peter Biello. On today's episode, the authorities make arrests at the University of Georgia at a protest over the war in Gaza. The second of two new nuclear reactors at Georgia's Plant Vogtle  is up and running, and researchers look for a way to turn food waste into energy. These stories and more are coming up on this edition of Georgia Today.

Story 1:

Peter Biello: Authorities arrested about a dozen people in the University of Georgia campus today, as protests over the war and Gaza continue on campuses nationwide. GPB's Chase Mcgee has more.

Chase Mcgee: Protesters brought tents and set up an encampment on the university's north campus, violating university policy. A little over an hour later, university police announced the protest was over and those who stayed on site would be arrested for criminal trespass. UGA student Nicole Collier, who took part in the protest, says university police went too far.

Nicole Collier: I think it was unnecessary. We are just students. We were there peacefully. We had no weapons or any type of means of violence. We're just here to stand in solidarity with those who have died in Gaza.

Chase Mcgee: In a statement, university administration says, quote, while the University of Georgia staunchly supports freedom of expression, we will not cede control of our campus to groups that refuse to abide by university policy. For GPB News, I'm Chase Mcgee in Athens.

 

Story 2:

Peter Biello: Meanwhile, the president of Emory University is apologizing for a "mischaracterization" of protests that resulted in arrests on his campus on Thursday. The university identified people who staged a protest encampment as not being members of the Emory community. President Greg Fenves today said that information was not fully accurate. He again stated Emory's position that such encampments are highly disruptive and cannot be allowed. The statement comes as Fenves faces a no confidence vote by members of the university's faculty.

Story 3:

Peter Biello: The second of two new nuclear reactors at Georgia's Plant Vogtle is now sending billable energy to the grid. GPB's Grant Blankenship reports the site south of Augusta is now the single largest non-carbon producing source of electricity in the country.

Grant Blankenship: The milestone marks the completion of the first new nuclear units in the nation in a generation, and is being lauded by some as an important step in ending coal fired power. But Plant Vogtle came in billions of dollars overbudget, much of that to be paid back through rate increases on residential customers okayed by Georgia's Public Service Commission, of which Tim Echols is a member. Echols says he wouldn't support a local sized project the same way again.

Tim Echols: I would not enter into another Vogtle without some kind of federal financial backstop, and I am telling my colleagues across America you shouldn't do it either.

Grant Blankenship: As recently as this month, the Biden administration signaled again its support for new nuclear electrical generation. For GPB News, I'm Grant Blankenship in Macon. 

 

Story 4:

Peter Biello: A research project at Mercer University is exploring ways to turn food waste into renewable energy. GPB's Devon Zwald reports.

Devon Zwald: The two year project aims to solve two societal problems food waste and energy security, says Sarah Bauer, an assistant professor at Mercer.

Sarah Bauer: So looking at taking food waste, specifically organic, wet materials and digesting it into a liquid bio crude is is what we are creating.

Devon Zwald: She says it could then be refined into a gasoline that, for example, a car could run on. Bauer and six Mercer students source food waste for the project from local coffee shops, breweries in a tea house in Macon. The project recently received funding from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's P3 grant and awards money to research specifically conducted by students who are interested in human health and the environment. For GPB News, I'm Devon Zwald.

Story 5:

Peter Biello: Early voting gets underway today for Georgia's May 21 primary and one of the election's most closely watched races. Five Republicans faced each other in a televised debate yesterday. GPB's Orlando Montoya reports they all want to replace retiring West Georgia Congressman Drew Ferguson.

Orlando Montoya: The candidates largely agreed with each other, especially on immigration and abortion. They also believe, falsely, that Donald Trump won Georgia's 2020 election. But they differed on one issue whether they would join the far right Freedom Caucus. Former state Senator Mike Dugan said he would not.

Mike Dugan: I'm not going to Washington to join a fraternity. Just because you're not in the caucus doesn't mean you can't vote the same way a majority of the time.

Orlando Montoya: Former Trump aide Brian Jack expressed reservations, saying he would decide later, while former state lawmakers Philip Singleton and Mike Crane and Republican activist Jim Bennett said they would join. The GOP winner will face one of two Democrats, possibly after a June runoff in a Republican leaning district. For GPB News, I'm Orlando Montoya.

Caption

Cyber attack

Story 6:

Peter Biello: South Georgia's Coffee County was hit by a cyberattack that forced state elections officials to sever its connections to Georgia's voter registration system. The secretary of state's office says they severed the link on April 16th. County officials said on Friday there is no evidence the attackers transferred any data, and they're working with federal authorities to identify, quote, unknown malicious actors. Coffee County was the site of a 2021 security breach tied to former President Donald Trump's attempt to overturn the 2020 election. Over the past year, cyber attackers also have hit government functions in Fulton and Augusta Richmond counties.

 

Story 7:

Peter Biello: A California based software company that helps connect electric vehicles to the electric grid, is partnering with energy giant Southern Company. WeaveGrid says the partnership is aimed at simplifying home charging for customers of southern companies Alabama Power and Georgia Power. Participating customers are promised access to incentives and other benefits, including cost optimizing, scheduling for charging Southern Company benefits by shifting charging to off peak hours.

 

Story 8:

Peter Biello: An emergency slide fell off a Delta plane that was taking off from New York on Friday. Pilots returned to the airport and landed safely. The Boeing 767 was scheduled to fly to Los Angeles. Atlanta-based Delta says passengers were put on another plane to L.A.. The company says the plane was removed from service for evaluation, and it was cooperating with investigators and supporting efforts to find the slide.

 

Story 9:

Peter Biello: The CEO of Atlanta-based shipping giant UPS and the founding dean of the Morehouse School of Medicine are the newest Georgia trustees. Gov.Brian Kemp and the Georgia Historical Society induct the trustees, a ceremonial title and the highest honor the state can confer. This year's inductee ceremony was on Saturday at a gala in Savannah. UPS CEO Carol Tomé and former Morehouse president Dr Louis Sullivan were both recognized for their public service.

Caption

Dr. Karen Kinsell works with a patient during a scene in the documentary film "The Only Doctor."

Credit: IMDB

Story 10:

Peter Biello: A film, set in southwest Georgia, sheds light on how hard it can be for people in rural communities to find quality, affordable health care. The Only Doctor profiles Dr Karen Kinsell, whose Clay County clinic is a lifeline for poor residents of one of Georgia's unhealthiest counties. And she's worried about what happens when she's gone.

Dr. Karen Kinsell: I'll retire at some point, and unless there's some kind of structure or some somebody has responsibility for health care here, it won't be any health care here.

Peter Biello: The film runs tonight at 10:00 on GPB TV on Real South. Director Matthew Hashiguchi is with me now to talk about it.

Matthew Hasiguchi: Hi, Peter. Thank you.

Peter Biello: How did you first learn about Doctor Karen Kinselll and what she's been doing there?

Matthew Hasiguchi: I learned of Doctor Kinsell in another in an article that I read. I had been researching the maternal mortality health and she did a an interview on maternal health in rural regions. And this was when I was trying to figure out the next film to make, which was on maternal health. And what she had discussed wasn't just maternal health, but was access to everything regarding health and how that impacts, you know, outcomes. And in rural regions, it's especially bad, especially in in Georgia.

Peter Biello: For this film, you had access to several of the meetings between Doctor Kinsell and her patients. I'm sure you met with many more that that didn't make it to the film. How would you describe the overall health of the people in Clay County, Georgia?

Matthew Hasiguchi: Clay County, I would describe as a very, very unhealthy place and has been rated as one of the unhealthiest counties in Georgia. What surprised me the most was how the poor mental health that people were experiencing and then, of course, how mental health is connected to, physical health. So I would say that nearly every single person that I had spent time with or interviewed or filmed with had some sort of mental health struggle, which was then causing a physical issue, or vice versa. People had physical health issues, which was then impacting their mental health, but an unbelievable amount of people were struggling with mental health problems and no one to help, you know, improve those those problems.

Peter Biello: Doctor Kinsell used her inheritance essentially to to fund her her services. She says she sought out the most underserved communities she could find, and that's how she landed there. And she basically spent down her inheritance caring for these people. But how did she make ends meet, giving this care away for basically nothing?

Matthew Hashiguchi: Well, she really survived on her inheritance and use that inheritance to help support her practice. So she's in no way a a replicable model in the United States for health care. When we started filming and I didn't notice when we started filming, but she had she had sort of reached the end of the line and had run out of money and needed to find some sort of other option to help her stay open. And during the pandemic, you know, there were some positives for her and medical practices during the pandemic where she was able to see more patients through telehealth. And that helped, increase the number of patients that she was able to see, and then helped increase the number of reimbursements that she got from Medicaid or Medicare or private insurance. So from what I observed, she was really scraping by every day trying to figure out how do I keep this place open. And that's that's the storyline that we followed was how is she going to keep this place open?

Peter Biello: The film ends with a question. It's a question that you have asked during this interview. Doctor Kinsell puts it at the end. What do you do with the poor people? Meaning what's it going to take for a for profit health care system to start caring for people who are costly to care for?

Matthew Hashiguchi: Right. And I don't think there's any one single simple answer to this problem. And what, I've learned is that it's going to take many things. And, you know, Medicaid expansion is the big talk of not just the state, but, you know, the country where it hasn't been adopted. But that doesn't solve the problem. It it may help the problem. But in a place like clay and other rural regions, not just in Georgia but the United States, you can't get doctors to come to these regions. So even if we had Medicaid expansion, even if fees were lower, what's going to convince a doctor to go to the middle of nowhere to live a put a particular way of life that they may not want to live. They have the option of going to a city and being surrounded by museums and sporting events and parks and grocery stores. You really need someone specific who will be willing to go to a rural place, and that's part of the problem. We just can't get people to go to rural regions, which is unfortunately leaving a huge part of our country without health care.

Peter Biello: I've been reporting for almost two decades, and the percentage of. People I have met who are truly inspirational, who are actually doing something good for their community at great personal cost because they want to, because it makes them feel good. That's a very small percentage for me over my career. Maybe it's just who I happen to have run into, but I imagine for you, given the way you've portrayed her in this movie, Doctor Kinsell is one of those people for you.

Matthew Hashiguchi: You know, I think it was exhausting for me to watch her work because, you know, so much throughout the filming of this, people are asking, what does she do other than health care? Or what does she do other than being a doctor? And she really doesn't do almost anything outside of health care. She is a doctor 24 hours a day, seven days a week. She gets calls on the weekends, at night, random times, you know, from, residents and patients asking for help. And I was just sort of, you know, in awe of her willingness to do whatever it took to to do what was right in her, in her eyes. And she kind of operated by her own rules and standards and whatever the patient needed. That's what she she did. And that got her in trouble at points in her career where, you know, she did something for a patient and that may have gone against policy, the policy of the clinic or the hospital. And that got her in trouble. So I think something that was really interesting to me is that her her goal was to help the patient and to help the person. And our, health care system just is not set up. To prioritize the patient. It's set up for profit, and she really went out of her way to, do whatever was best for for people and for their health care. So I was just really impressed that she had this mission, and she stuck to this mission, and she was knowledgeable of that. And she really didn't stray from that mission. And she really kind of stuck to her principles throughout and continues to stick to those principles.

Peter Biello: What is she doing now? Is the clinic still open?

Matthew Hashiguchi: The clinic is still open. Yes. And, she's kind of kind of venturing on to another, stage in life where she's starting to reduce her the amount of time that she can spend at the clinic. And she's now purchasing up properties around Clay County and rehabilitating them into affordable housing for, poor and low income residents. So she still has this mission of serving the poor and serving those that are, sort of the underserved. It's just in another arena. But I think she's getting ready for retirement. I think her health is struggling a bit. So, you know, that region is soon going to be facing, another question of, you know, who is going to provide health care for this region.

Peter Biello: Matthew Hashiguchi is the director of the film The Only Doctor, which you can see tonight on GPB TV on Real South at 10:00. Matthew, thank you very much for speaking with me.

Matthew Hashiguchi: Thank you. Peter.

 

Peter Biello: In sports. The Braves head to Seattle to play the Mariners tonight in the first of a three game series. The Braves beat the Guardians last night in ten innings. The Braves trailed until the eighth inning, when they erased a two run deficit to tie the game and send it into extra innings. Third baseman Austin Riley then brought right fielder Ronald Acuna home with a walk off single to win in the 10th. Manager Brian Snitker says this team doesn't give up even when they trail most of the game.

Brian Snitker: You know they never quit. They never stop working. They never stop believing. You know, they understand. I think that that's all this is all part of it. But, you know, they're strong mental guys.

Peter Biello: The Braves next play at home on May 7th when they open a two game series against the Boston Red Sox. Also, the all time home run champion in women's softball, Jocelyn Alo has signed a one month long contract to play with the Savannah Bananas. The team made the announcement Friday. Alo now plays professional softball in Oklahoma City. She made her bananas debut last year, and Saturday's match between Atlanta United and the Chicago Fire ended in a draw.

Peter Biello: And that is it for this edition of Georgia Today. If you want to learn more about any of these stories, check out our website GPB.org/news. And if you haven't subscribed to this podcast yet, do it now. We'll be back in your feed automatically tomorrow afternoon with all the latest news from Georgia. And if you've got feedback or a story idea, send it to us by email. The address is GeorgiaToday@GPB.org. I'm Peter Biello. Thanks again for listening. We'll see you tomorrow.

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