Georgia Today: ACA deadline extended; Dalton 'forever chemicals'; suit; GHSA Football Championships

Peter Biello: Welcome to the Georgia Today podcast from GPB News. Today is Monday, Dec. 16. I'm Peter Biello. On today's episode, the deadline to get a health care plan through the ACA is extended. The City of Dalton sues big companies over forever chemical contamination. And the Georgia High School Football championships are officially underway. These stories and more are coming up on this edition of Georgia Today.

Story 1:

Peter Biello: The judge overseeing Georgia's election interference case against Donald Trump has rejected an attempt by Kenneth Chesebro to invalidate his guilty plea. Chesebro is Trump's former campaign lawyer. Chesebro pleaded guilty to a single conspiracy count a few months after he, Trump and 17 others were indicted in August of 2023. He sought to invalidate that plea. But today, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee said his motion was procedurally defective. Trump and the others were charged in the sprawling indictment, accusing them of participating in a wide-ranging scheme to overturn Trump's loss to Joe Biden in 2020. Trump has pleaded not guilty and has denied any wrongdoing.

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Transgender flag

Story 2:

Peter Biello: A state Senate panel has unveiled recommendations governing transgender athletes in high school and college sports. GPB's Sarah Kallis reports.

Sarah Kallis: Senators on the committee are recommending that schools, colleges and universities who receive state funding not be allowed to let transgender women compete in women's sports. The recommendations would also apply to private schools when they compete against public schools. They also want changing rooms to be designated based on sex assigned at birth. The committee held several meetings this year and heard from Georgians on both sides of the issue. Sen. Greg Doyle chaired the committee.

Greg Doyle: What we would hope is that we put these guardrails in place and that ultimately we have people compete in sports on the gender they were assigned at birth.

Sarah Kallis: The state legislature must pass the recommendations in a bill in order for them to become law. The legislative session starts on Jan. 13. For GPB News, I'm Sarah Kallis in Atlanta.

Story 3:

Peter Biello: Georgians have a few extra days to sign up for health care coverage under the Affordable Care Act. The deadline to enroll using the new website Georgia Access was today. But last week, the Office of Georgia's Commissioner of Insurance and Safety Fire announced a new deadline of Friday. The agency said the extension was made in part because of Hurricanes Debby and Helene and in part because the website is new. Georgia Access is the state's first state-based health insurance exchange, a priority for Gov. Brian Kemp that took years for the Biden administration to approve.

Story 4:

Peter Biello: The Georgia Department of Public Health is still in the process of hiring new members for its maternal mortality review committee. This after it dismissed all of its members last month following a leak of what the agency called confidential information, which was used in reporting by ProPublica about the state's six-week abortion ban. Public Health spokesperson Nancy Nydam said other DPH staff members are conducting interviews and reviews of medical records for 2023 cases of maternal deaths. Members of the committee are responsible for determining which deaths were pregnancy-related and associated and whether or not those deaths could have been prevented. Reports out of the Maternal Mortality Review Committee are often delayed a couple of years, so the last report released covers deaths between 2020 and 2022. Nydam said the agency would like to have the committee hired as soon as possible, but there's no strict timeline. She says they'll be doing background checks and interviews of potential committee members.

Story 5:

Peter Biello: A new report finds the quality of care for pregnant patients in Georgia depends on where you live. GPB's Ellen Eldridge reports.

Ellen Eldridge: The ranking from U.S. News and World Report found access plays a key role in quality of care. Of the facilities that responded to the survey, Emory Decatur Hospital and Atrium Health Floyd Medical Center had the top scores using metrics like rates of C-section delivery and severe unexpected newborn complications. Jennifer Winston is a health data scientist at U.S. News and World Report. She says this year they added a ranking considering access.

Jennifer Winston: Atrium Health Floyd Medical Center because it is far away from the nearest hospital providing obstetric care and it is providing excellent care. That is why we recognized it.

Ellen Eldridge: More than 40% of Georgia women live in communities considered maternity deserts. For GPB News, I'm Ellen Eldridge.

Story 6:

Peter Biello: The Northwest Georgia city of Dalton is suing several companies that they say have profited from the release of so-called forever chemicals into the local water supply. New regulations from the EPA that went into effect in June regarding PFAS chemicals have paved the way for the lawsuit. Exposure to PFAS has been linked to deadly cancers, problems with the heart and liver and developmental damage to infants and children. In the lawsuit, Dalton names several defendants, including 3M and the Comores Company. The city argues the wastewater created by carpet manufacturers ultimately led to elevated levels of the chemical in the local water supply. Now, they say the chemical and carpet manufacturers should help pay for upgraded water treatment facilities. The defendants have not responded to GPB's request for comment.

Story 7:

Peter Biello: Georgia's Hispanic community is growing at a faster rate than in the rest of the nation. In 2022, there were an estimated 1 million Latinos living in Georgia, representing 11% of the state's population. An Atlanta-based nonprofit aims to capture their diversity, economic impact and challenges in its first-ever State of the Latino Community in Georgia report. WUGA's Alexia Ridley spoke to Gigi Pedraza of the Latino Community Fund, which released the report last month.

Gigi Pedraza: We are no longer that first generation: single men that came to work in construction for the Olympics. So the majority of the growth, it's U.S.-born Latinos. And that it's also significant when you think about planning, when you think about investments.

Peter Biello: The report also recommends policies to address challenges in the Hispanic community. Those recommendations touch on issues related to housing and access to Medicaid.

Story 8:

Peter Biello: President-elect Donald Trump has nominated the former leader of Atlanta's Buckhead secession movement to be his ambassador to Belgium. In a social media post on Saturday, Trump called Bill White a, quote, "respected businessman, philanthropist, author and advocate." Politico also reported that White was a major Trump campaign donor in 2024. For years, White pushed Georgia lawmakers to approve a referendum that would have asked residents of Atlanta's wealthy Buckhead neighborhood if they wanted to form their own city. The move failed overwhelmingly in the Georgia Senate in 2023. White blamed the failure on Gov. Brian Kemp, who cast doubt on the effort.

Story 9:

Peter Biello: A legislative study committee is recommending licensing and regulation of Georgia's tree care industry. The formal suggestions released today come after an arborist in metro Atlanta's Cobb County was electrocuted in an accident in May. Last week, the U.S. Department of Labor said the tree care worker's death could have been prevented. The Georgia House panel recommends putting oversight of the tree care industry under the state Department of Agriculture. Georgia lawmakers could take up the suggestions when they meet for the General Assembly starting next month.

Story 10:

Peter Biello: It’s the first day of Georgia high school football championship play at Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium. As GPB’s Grant Blankenship explains, Macon's Northeast High School is ready for their game at 1 p.m. tomorrow.

Grant Blankenship: It's been 49 years since the Raiders of Macon's Northeast High School have seen a championship game. So the day before their matchup against Toombs County, the Raiders paraded through all the elementary schools that feed Northeast High. At Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary Teacher, teacher Shalonnia Bentley got a big hug from two players, her former students, who made a point to find her in the crowd.

Shalonnia Bentley: You see them and they grow up and they're still doing good and they come back and it just makes you feel good to know that you were a part of that.

Grant Blankenship: The Georgia High School Association Football Championships continue through Wednesday. All the games are streaming on GPB.org. For GPB News, I'm Grant Blankenship in Macon.

Story 11:

Peter Biello: And speaking of Georgia football, Colorado's Travis Hunter, the winner of college football's most prestigious award, the Heisman Trophy, comes from Georgia. In 2021, Hunter led Collins Hill High School in Suwannee, north of Atlanta, to the school's first state championship.

Story 12:

Peter Biello: In other sports news, the WNBA will stage its first regular season game outside the U.S. when the Atlanta Dream and the Seattle Storm play in Vancouver on Aug. 15. This will mark the fifth WNBA game played outside the U.S. with the previous contest played in Mexico in 2004. Viewership in Canada was up 175% last season.

Also, the Atlanta Braves today announced that they won't be holding Braves Fest this year. The annual event, held in January, typically provides fans with meet and greet opportunities with players and coaches. But construction at Truist Park and preparations for the All-Star Game in July led the Braves to conclude that they would not be able to host the type of event that our fans deserve. In other Braves news, the Braves will have another option for the outfield as Ronald Acuña Jr. continues to recover from knee surgery. Brian De la Cruz and the Atlanta Braves have agreed to a one-year contract. De la Cruz became a free agent last month when the Pittsburgh Pirates failed to offer a contract for this coming year. De la Cruz hit .233 with 21 homers and 68 RBIs in 149 games this past year. Acuna tore his left ACL in May and is not expected to return by Opening Day.

Peter Biello: And that is it for this edition of Georgia Today. We do appreciate you tuning in. We hope you'll come back tomorrow as well. The best way to remember to do that, of course, is to subscribe to this podcast — when you do. We will pop up automatically when we put out a new episode, which is every weekday afternoon. And if you want to learn more about any of these stories, anytime, we are always posting new headlines at GPB.org/news. Now your feedback is an important part of all the coverage that we offer here at GPB. So if you want to reach out to us, a great way to reach us is through email. The address is GeorgiaToday@GPB.org. Your note will go to the entire team. Again, GeorgiaToday@GPB.org. I'm Peter Biello. Thanks again for listening. We'll see you tomorrow.

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