Georgia Today: Social media age verification; Shipping container housing; UGA staffer fired

Peter Biello: Welcome to the Georgia Today podcast from GPB News. Today is Tuesday, Aug. 8. I'm Peter Biello. On today's episode. State lawmakers look to force social media companies to verify its users ages. UGA fires the football recruiting staffer who survived a fatal crash in January that killed two people. And can converted shipping containers help the unhoused in Atlanta? These stories and more are coming up on this edition of Georgia Today.

Caption

State Sen. Burt Jones (R-Jackson) officially launched his campaign for lieutenant governor of Georgia on Thursday, Aug. 26, 2021.

Credit: Stephen Fowler / GPB News

Story 1:

Peter Biello: Leaders in the state Senate plan to push legislation to require social media companies to take concrete steps to verify users ages. Senate President Lt. Gov. Burt Jones says the effort is aimed at protecting teenagers from cyberbullying and other negative effects of social media. He and other backers of the legislation plan to reach out to social media companies, local school systems and parents for ideas as they craft the bill ahead of next year's General Assembly.

Burt Jones: One of the greatest things ever invented was the internet, and also social platforms that followed have been puts us in touch and gives you instantaneous information, which can be a wonderful, wonderful tool. But it also, in the wrong hands can be a very dangerous tool. It can be one that can cause a lot of harm and almost is an invisible enemy of yours. And you have so many bad actors right now who are targeting our children and you're seeing it in mental health situations as well as cyberbullying that's going on around the country right now. And we're wanting to take that head on. We want to take that initiative head on. You're going to always have to be trying to adapt with what's going on in society. And we feel like making this a priority.

Peter Biello: The bill also would require social media companies to remove features that are known to be addictive to minors. That could raise concerns over free speech. The bill's chief sponsor, Dallas state senator [and] Republican Jason Anavitarte, says he wants to be sensitive to those concerns while still, quote, "making a stand." Jones and Anavitarte described the legislation as still in development.

Story 2:

Peter Biello: Electric automaker Rivian plans to open a showroom in Atlanta. The company says its retail center in Atlanta's city market will be its fourth such facility. Rivian famously sells cars online, delivering them to customers without traditional dealerships. A company spokesperson says that its Atlanta location will not conduct sales, but will offer test drives when it opens in October. Rivian is planning to build a $5 billion manufacturing center about 50 miles east of Atlanta.

Story 3:

Peter Biello: The city of Atlanta is hoping to speed up the process of providing shelter to people living on the street by converting shipping containers into transitional housing. GPB's Grant Blankenship explains.

Grant Blankenship: In Atlanta, a coalition of nonprofits works to guide the unhoused straight into housing. From there, they can access behavioral health care and other services to help them stay off the street. But Atlanta is a hot real estate market, and affordable housing is scarce. That's why Mayor Andre Dickens is steering $4 million to the coalition's lead nonprofit Partners for Home to help them acquire 48 shipping containers. Summer Duperon works with Partners for Home. She says for now, the containers are the best path to stable housing.

Summer Duperon: It could take the form of, you know, pallet shelters, tiny home communities, shipping container communities, whatever type of structures that we can identify that are quick and low cost.

Grant Blankenship: Duperon says Partners for Home eventually plans to have hundreds of these quick, nontraditional housing solutions. For GPB News, I'm Grant Blankenship.

Story 4:

Peter Biello: Atlanta is set to require gas stations to install security cameras. The measure, approved by Atlanta City Council members yesterday, is aimed at reducing crime and easing people's fears when they fill up at the pump. The requirement would affect about 250 businesses. City officials are expected to release implementation details within four months. The move comes a year after neighboring DeKalb County approved a similar ordinance.

Story 5:

Peter Biello: The University of Georgia has fired the football recruiting staffer who survived a fatal crash that killed a football player and another recruiting staffer in January. The firing comes less than a month after the staffer, Victoria Bowles, filed a lawsuit against the university's athletic association, claiming damages from serious injuries in the wreck. Her attorneys say it's retaliation for the lawsuit. School officials, however, say they dismissed Bowles because she refused to cooperate with an internal investigation into the crash. The wreck killed player Devin Wilcock and staffer Chandler LeCroy, hours after a parade celebrated Georgia's second straight national championship.

Caption

A sign shows the entrance to the Department of Family and Children Services in Canton, Ga. on April 22, 2022.

Credit: Sarah Swetlik/Fresh Take Georgia

Story 6:

Peter Biello: A new nonprofit organization has launched in Georgia to help residents contribute to a state tax credit program aimed at helping young adults aging out of the foster care system. About 700 teenagers age out of the system each year. Most have no family to return to and are vulnerable to homelessness, human trafficking and turning to crime. GPB's Donna Lowry reports on the new organization named after the state law that created it last year.

Donna Lowry: Georgia's Fostering Success ACT executive director Heidi Carr says when 18-year-old Aaron left the foster care system, he received tuition assistance for higher education.

Heidi Carr: But he had nowhere to live. He ended up in a homeless shelter. It was not a very good environment for him to be focused on his studies. He also didn't have money for food, so he would end up going to food giveaways, food pantries.

Donna Lowry: Teens like Aaron face enormous hardships.

Heidi Carr: 81% of young men coming out of the foster care system will spend time in jail. Young women will be pregnant within the first year of leaving the system. 97% of these youth will wind up living in poverty.

Donna Lowry: Georgia's Fostering Success Act helps with housing, food, transportation and medical needs through taxpayers who apply for state income tax credits. Currently, the program is falling short of its $20 million goal, so the state has eliminated the cap on tax credits for individuals and corporations. For GPB News, I'm Donna Lowry.

Story 7:

Peter Biello: Two Georgia congressmen say they'll vote against a must-pass federal farm bill if it threatens to cut benefits to millions of people on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. GPB's Sofi Gratas has more.

Sofi Gratas: Twenty-five congressional Democrats from the U.S. House Committee on Agriculture sent a letter to House Republican Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Tuesday asking for an end to so-called partisan interference with SNAP. The letter, signed by Georgia Congressman David Scott and Sanford Bishop, warns Democrats would delay the passage of this year's farm bill if Republican lawmakers moved to shrink eligibility or benefits under SNAP. Around 80% of allocations from the farm bill have historically gone toward nutrition programs. Some Republican lawmakers suggest it should be less and that more should go to farmers directly. Already in April, Congress expanded work requirements under SNAP to people up to 54 years old. Over one and a half million people in Georgia receive SNAP benefits. For GPB News, I'm Sofi Gratas.

Story 8:

Peter Biello: UPS has lowered its 2023 revenue expectations. The Atlanta-based shipping giant said today that it expects revenues to fall by $4 billion this year, primarily due to a tentative labor contract reached late last month with its 340,000 unionized workers. The deal with the Teamsters avoided a potential strike that would have sent a major shock through the economy. Package volume has been falling for all shippers and fell again for UPS during the second quarter.

Story 9:

Peter Biello: All eyes are on Georgia as the Fulton County District Attorney's office is expected to announce sweeping indictments in the coming days against former President Donald Trump and his allies. Those charges stem from failed efforts to overturn the 2020 election. The indictments are also the subject of a new season of GPB's Battleground: Ballot Box podcast, hosted by our political reporter Stephen Fowler. He joins me now to discuss the new episodes and what to expect in the coming days. Hey, Stephen.

Stephen Fowler: Hey there.

Peter Biello: So, Stephen, it's been nearly three years since the 2020 presidential election, but the first episode of this podcast goes all the way back to 2018 to help explain how Georgia's voting system became ground zero for conspiracies and attacks. Remind us what happened in those prior years.

Stephen Fowler: Sure thing. So in 2018, the Georgia governor's race was decided by about 55,000 votes and Stacey Abrams, the Democrat who lost, alleged that there were some problems with Georgia's outdated voting machines and election rules and said that not everybody got to vote that wanted to vote. Now, she did file some lawsuits, but ultimately conceded the election, saying, you know, "I'm not going to try to overturn the election. Brian Kemp is going to be the next governor." That's a step one. There were Democrats who kind of didn't have trust in Georgia's election system. And new Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger had to try to deal with that, plus modernize Georgia's voting equipment. Then you move a little bit forward to the 2020 primary that was affected by the coronavirus pandemic. And you had long lines and problems and fewer poll workers. And so one county in particular, Fulton County, was singled out for its problems. And you had seeds planted there that Fulton County might have some problems with its elections. Then you have the absentee by mail aspect of it where a record number of Georgians voted by mail in the pandemic and former President Trump attacking that method as fraudulent and — even though he voted that way — something that shouldn't be trusted. So the seeds were there, Peter, to have people question different parts of Georgia's election system.

Credit: File photo

Peter Biello: And to be clear, there was no statistically significant fraud in that election, correct?

Stephen Fowler: Oh, absolutely. In any election, be it 2018 or 2020 or the upcoming 2024 election, there's no evidence of fraud. Voter fraud is incredibly rare because of the multiple layers of checks and balances that are put in place to catch it and stop it from happening.

Peter Biello: OK. Well, a special purpose grand jury met last year for several months to investigate the attempts to change the outcome of the 2020 election and make recommendations. So how is this grand jury process different?

Stephen Fowler: The special purpose grand jury that met last year's special purpose is purely to investigate. They heard from more than 70 witnesses. They subpoenaed people, got documents and heard from a lot of different people. And they had the power to try to see what laws, if any, were broken in the efforts to overturn the 2020 election. This grand jury is the one that now has to hear from the district attorney's office and present a case and say, we believe X, Y, Z person committed X, Y, Z crime. So you may hear from some of the same witnesses again and see them subpoenaed again, like we've learned so far. So this is actually the one that will find people potentially in violation of state law or at least indict them for that.

Peter Biello: I see. And you've got a new episode of Battleground: Ballot Box coming out later this week looking at who could be in legal jeopardy in this investigation. Give us a preview of what to expect.

Stephen Fowler: Absolutely. So there was a lot that happened in the run up to and aftermath of the 2020 election. Lots of people had lots of things to say about Georgia's elections. Most of them were not true. But what we know from the special grand jury and some public-facing court documents and things is that the district attorney is largely focused on four major events that happened. One was a series of legislative hearings that were unofficial in nature and featured wild accusations about vote counting and fraud and telling lawmakers that they could overturn the election and decide a different slate of presidential electors. Two, there were the slate of presidential electors that were Republicans that falsely claimed they were Georgia's official representatives and sent those documents to Washington, D.C. Three: A group of people accessed Coffee County's voting machines and voting equipments — that's a rural county — and that's not allowed under state law. You can't just have people access voting equipment. And four: a number of calls that former President Trump made to top elections officials in Georgia, including that infamous call, Peter, where he asked Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to, quote, "find" him votes. So those are the broad buckets. And if you listen to the podcast, we're going to go in-depth on who's all involved and what they could be charged with in the coming weeks.

Peter Biello: All right. That's GPB Stephen Fowler, political reporter and host of the Battleground: Ballot Box podcast. With new episodes out now. You can find them at GPB.org/Battleground. Steven, thank you very much.

Stephen Fowler: Thank you.

Story 10:

Peter Biello: In sports, Braves pitcher Spencer Strider had one of his worst starts of his career last night in Atlanta's 7 to 6 loss to the Pittsburgh Pirates. Strider went 2 2/3 innings before being pulled. He had gone 8-1 in his previous 12 starts. He allowed five hits, walked three and struck out three in yesterday's effort. Matt Olson had two hits and drove in two runs for Atlanta, raising his season total to 99 RBIs. Ozzie Albies hit his 26th home run and Austin Riley had two hits. Righty Yonny Chirinos starts for the Braves tonight as the two teams face off again. It'll be Chirinos' third start since being acquired from Tampa Bay.

Peter Biello: Also in Braves News, Bally Sports, South and Southeast have announced that Hall of Fame pitcher John Smoltz is returning to the Braves broadcast booth. Smoltz will be the analyst for the Braves series against the Yankees next week, and he will also travel with the team to Philadelphia next month.

And that is it for this edition of Georgia Today. Thank you so much for tuning in. If you want to learn more about any of these stories, head on over to GPB.org/news. Don't forget to subscribe to this podcast. And of course, if you've got feedback for us, we'd love to hear it. Send us an email. The address is GeorgiaToday@GPB.org. I'm Peter Biello. Thanks again for listening. We'll see you tomorrow.

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