Georgia Today: Protests against Social Security office closings; Atlanta gets new temporary IG

Orlando Montoya: Hello and welcome to the Georgia Today podcast from GPB news. This is the podcast where you'll find the latest reports from the GPB news team. If you have story tips for us or feedback, send us an email to GeorgiaToday@GPB.org. Today is Monday, March 3. I'm Orlando Montoya. On this episode: Demonstrators gather in Decatur to protest the closing of five Georgia Social Security offices. The city of Atlanta appoints a new interim inspector general, and as the USDA reconsiders food date labeling, experts offer solutions to prevent food waste.

Dr. Carla Schwan: Maybe you can keep a diary and see how much you eat of each category of food, for organizing the food in your fridge, or even in your pantry. So first in, first out.

Orlando Montoya: These stories and more are coming up on this edition of Georgia Today.

Story 1:

Orlando Montoya: Five of Georgia's 34 Social Security offices are set to close after the Department of Government Efficiency or DOGE announced cuts. U.S. Rep. Hank Johnson and demonstrators held a rally in Decatur over the weekend to protest the closures. GPB's Sarah Kallis reports.

Sarah Kallis: The Department of Government Efficiency has terminated leases for five of Georgia's 34 social security offices. Offices in Brunswick, Gainesville, Columbus, Vidalia and Thomasville will close, according to the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE's website. The department claims the closure will save the federal government hundreds of thousands of dollars. Georgia's Sen. Raphael Warnock condemned the closures, saying they will make it harder for seniors to access services they need. Physical Social Security offices serve as a point of contact for seniors and others using the service. Georgia has lost the most locations of any state so far. For GPB News, I'm Sarah Kallis.

Story 2:

Orlando Montoya: When the Trump administration's Department of Government Efficiency gutted the U.S. Agency for International Development recently, that meant contracts USAID had with businesses went away in Georgia. That included Mana Nutrition in Ben Hill County, population about 17,000 people. But now, not even a week after being told their contract was canceled, the company, which makes life-saving nutritional supplements for children around the world, is back working for USAID. GPB's Grant Blankenship reports.

Grant Blankenship: By mid-morning Monday, the production line at Mana Nutrition in Fitzgerald is humming. Jeremy Robinson's hands are among the last to touch the packets of food in each box coming off the line, before it's sealed and shipped. He's checking to make sure none of it's leaking. Huge American flag hangs from the roof behind him. Robinson doesn't want any of what this factory makes to go to waste.

Jeremy Robinson: We save lives. We save lives over here, sir. And that's a fact. We have the numbers. We have the numbers, it's a fact. Yes, sir.

Grant Blankenship: HR manager Stephen Rainey explains the numbers.

Stephen Rainey: So this is mostly mostly peanut butter. Tons of sugar in it to give them energy.

Grant Blankenship: This is food for children so hungry, they've lost the sense of hunger altogether.

Stephen Rainey: These babies can't even — they don't even have the energy to cry at this point. So they're listless. They're just there. So each one of these boxes have 150 packets in it. 150 packets is enough for them to use three times a day for six weeks. And that brings them back from wasting.

Grant Blankenship: About 4,000 cases go out the loading dock every day. Like Robinson, Rainey sees real meaning in this work.

Stephen Rainey: I grew up in a — in a pastor's home, so, you know, I saw my parents, all their lives, serving others. And maybe not to this extent — they weren't, you know, saving starving children — but they were still helping people where they could. So I think that's important, how we live our lives. But we get to do it every day at work.

Grant Blankenship: And this is how Mana has fed children around the world for years. Most boxes leaving here had an American flag in the USAID logo, until...

Mark Moore: We got an email from USIAD.

Grant Blankenship: That's Mana CEO Mark Moore.

Mark Moore: The headline was "Cancellation of Contracts."

Grant Blankenship: Among them, Mana's contract.That meant immediately changing out the USAID packaging and a warehouse full of USAID packets that might never ship because it was branded with a logo for an agency that may no longer exist.

Mark Moore: But then we started pushing, reaching out to our congressional members —

Grant Blankenship: Austin Scott and Buddy Carter, Republicans.

Mark Moore: — who are super helpful in sending messages as best we could through to the administration, asking, "Is this a mistake?"

Grant Blankenship: Because publicly, the Trump administration and Elon Musk were saying food aid wasn't supposed to be touched. Days pass. Moore is interviewed over and over. And then, another e-mail.

Mark Moore: And then finally, Sunday night, we got the news that they were back.

Grant Blankenship: With no real explanation. So after Jeremy Robinson came back from lunch, the USAID labels were coming back. Moore, of course, is relieved since being able to save kids from starving again is — it's more than a moral victory.

Mark Moore: When you get to the last mile to the end of the last road where people are the most desperate. You don't find a packet that says "A gift of the Russian people" or "a gift of the Chinese people," but you do find packets of food that's a gift to the American people.

Grant Blankenship: He calls it an America First message. But he isn't sure things are back to normal. USAID, the agency, is still gutted. In a war-torn or even ungoverned country, who's going to take Mana's food across that last mile?

Mark Moore: Yeah, well, we don't know.

Grant Blankenship: Mark Moore says that is his biggest worry now. For GPB News, I'm Grant Blankenship in Ben Hill County.

Caption

The "best by" date on a carton of eggs is shown.

Credit: Khari Sampson / GPB News

Story 3:

Orlando Montoya: The U.S. Department of Agriculture is nearing its March 5 deadline for public comment on food date labeling, a consumer-minded practice that researchers say results in billions of dollars in wasted food. GPB's Chase McGee has more.

Chase McGee: According to the USDA, around 30% of all food produced goes to waste. In 2010, that number totaled around $161 billion worth of food. That number is driven by factors like buying more than you can consume or confusion around freshness labels on food. Dr. Carla Schwan is the director of the National Center for Home Food Preservation. She says there's a few ways to prevent waste.

Dr. Carla Schwan: Maybe you can keep a diary and see how much you eat of each category of food, keeping or organizing the food in your fridge or even in your pantry: So first in, first out.

Chase McGee: She also recommends USDA services like the Food Keeper app, which shows consumers how long they can keep their groceries before they start to spoil. For GPB News, I'm Chase McGee.

Story 4:

Orlando Montoya: The head football coach at Apalachee High School in Barrow County, east of Atlanta, is resigning, citing mental health issues after the September shooting that killed four people at the school. Coach Mike Hancock announced his decision on social media on Friday, writing that he's been struggling with PTSD, anxiety, grief and depression. He writes that he's been working through the issues with a Christian counselor. Hancock has been coaching for nearly 30 years, including the last seven at Apalachee. One of the people killed in the shooting was the first person Hancock hired to his coaching staff, defensive coordinator Richard Aspinwall.

Story 5:

Orlando Montoya: The city of Atlanta has appointed an interim inspector general. Ladawn Blacket, an intellectual property and criminal defense lawyer, will fill the post until the city picks a full-time inspector general. It comes after Shannon Manigault resigned from the post earlier this month.

Story 6:

Orlando Montoya: A Georgia State Senate committee pursuing a thus far fruitless investigation of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, wants to add Stacey Abrams to its list of targets. Lt. Gov. Burt Jones and other Republicans say they want to further examine recent ethics findings that voter participation group New Georgia Project improperly coordinated with Abrams' 2018 campaign for governor. Democrats say it's a waste of time.

​​​​​​​Story 7:

Orlando Montoya: The Georgia Court of Appeals has thrown out pending criminal charges against two men convicted of concealing the death of teacher Tara Grinstead. The court ruled last week that the statute of limitations had expired when prosecutors in Ben Hill County charged a man with crime stemming from the burning of Grinstead's body two decades ago. Grinstead's 2005 disappearance baffled investigators for more than a decade. Prior convictions in the case weren't affected. Ryan Duke was found guilty in 2022, in Irwin County, where Grinstead lived, of concealing her death, but a jury acquitted him of murder.

​​​​​​​Story 8:

Orlando Montoya: Atlanta-based, Grammy-nominated R&B singer Angie Stone has died in an early morning car crash on Saturday. Stone was a member of the all-female hip hop trio The Sequence, and known for the hit song "Wish I Didn't Miss You." Music producer Walter Milsap III said she was in a van about 4 a.m., headed back to Atlanta from Alabama when the van flipped and was hit by a big rig. Milsap says others in the van survived. Angie Stone was 63 years old.

​​​​​​​Story 9:

Orlando Montoya: As you might know, I co-host a podcast about books with Georgia connections with GPB's Peter Biello. It's called Narrative Edge, and a few weeks ago, Peter and I were in Savannah for the Savannah Book Festival, talking there with several authors on stage and off about their work. I'm going to bring you a bit of one of those conversations now. It's about demons because Savannah-based author and illustrator Brom — One name, Brom — writes about magic, spirits, witches and other aspects of horror. I'm not usually a fan of horror, but I picked up Brom's book because it's also about music. There is magic in music. Brom's book is called Evil in Me, and I asked him where he got the idea for it.

Brom: As a writer, I call it the tickle. With each of my novels, there's something that sort of tickles at the back of my head that sort of festers, I could say, that eventually turns into a story. With Evil in Me, I was watching one of my favorite horror movies, The Exorcist, and I started thinking, what's the story with the demon? The devil that's infesting, possessing this poor young girl? What's his story? What's, you know, what is compelling this creature to possess her and torture her and torment her? And that led me down the path to exploring, you know, possession and what that relationship would be between the person possessed and the creature possessing her.

Orlando Montoya: The main character in the book is Ruby.

Brom: Yes.

Orlando Montoya: And if I could subtitle this book or give it another title, it would be "Ruby is in Danger."

Brom: Yeah.

Orlando Montoya: She's possessed by the demon Beel. But at first, Ruby doesn't think she's possessed. She just thinks she's going insane. But she has all these dangers being thrown at her. Can you describe some of that?

Brom: I can. So in Ruby's case, Ruby has, due to her father dying early in her childhood, has had a lifetime of emotional issues and has been diagnosed with many different mental disorders. So for her, when she becomes possessed, not only do other people not believe her, but she questions her own sanity. You know, "Why am I hearing voices? What's going on? Is this real or not?" So to me, that was interesting to explore. Somebody that does have a history of hearing voices, dealing with another entity, trying to take over their body. You know, with Ruby — Ruby's character was very personal, a bit biographical for me. Because the setting is in South Alabama and her story is pretty much my story: set in the early '80s and being a misfit artist in a small town where she is very misunderstood. And in her case, she finds music, punk rock that kind of gives her her own voice and helps her find herself and and gives her that — that ability to push back against people that are trying to make her conform. So, yeah. So she finds out about, you know, the power of "song magic" and being that music is her voice, she figures out, "well, maybe, you know, I can break this possession spell if I can make a song magic powerful enough." So that's sort of the major theme of the book, is her trying to put together her little punk rock band and make the song that becomes a spell.

Credit: TOR Nightfire

Orlando Montoya: So, as you were saying, sort of the main action, there's a lot of actions in the — chapter, chapter, chapter, every time there's something new. That's what I like about it.

Brom: Oh, good

Orlando Montoya: There's some new danger being thrown in.

Brom: Yeah.

But sort of the overarching situation is that Ruby is trying to get a whole mass of people to sing the song called "Evil in Me." Now in the audiobook, which is where I experienced it. This on his played many times, and it is a catchy song. Can you talk about the song?

Brom: I can. So one of the my joys of creating my books is, is I get to write them and illustrate them, and it makes a complete vision. In this book, I got to take it one step further, and there's a local punk rock girl band here named The Maxines. And they're friends with my wife, and we were talking about the book. AJ —

Orlando Montoya: She's the singer in the band.

Brom: — Of The Maxines in real life. Maxines here. And she said, "wouldn't it be cool if we brought this song to life." It was her idea and I said that would be amazing. So me and her worked out the lyrics and her and her amazing band brought the song to life.

MUSIC: The Maxines

Brom: So that was a wonderful collaboration, to add this third element to it. And —and I'll add one more thing on that note: You know, it's talking about ingredients you find when you explore mythology. And this whole idea of the, the power of song magic. And I think most of us have experienced that to some degree. If you're at a concert where everybody's singing along to a song, or if you're in a choir in church, you know it's so much song and chanting is involved in religion. And I feel that, you know, it is a very palpable power that you can feel when — when you have a large group of people singing together. So that's part of what is played upon, is for her — she needs to get enough people singing the song with their heart and soul to make the magic work.

Orlando Montoya: I mean, I experience that at karaoke. You know —

Brom: There you go.

Orlando Montoya: You go to a karaoke bar and there's a whole group of people, and no one's paying attention to you, and they're all doing their own thing, and you're sitting up there.  It's not magical. But, you know, people are like into the song. It creates something special.

Brom: You know, it makes everybody come together. You feel like you're one power, one voice.

Orlando Montoya: So let's talk about a few of the other characters. Some of them, the minor characters were interesting. Vutto: I like that little demon who's the drummer. He kind of adds a little comic element to that book.

Brom: It does. Vutto. I love I love the absurd. You know, there's a lot of that in my writing. And this little demon who basically just wants to do his own thing did bring a certain element of — of horror, but also, you know, it was it was funny, you know, to have him interacting with the characters with similar goals. But his — his pathway to, to achieve those goals were always to kill and eat whatever was in the way, which could be —

Orlando Montoya: For a little while, he became a member of the band and they had to hide him. And it — it's funny. On the complete other hand is — and maybe you can describe sort of the role of Richard — now he's truly evil.

Brom: Yeah.

Orlando Montoya: I mean, I get, as the book goes along that the demons are sort of like us. You know, they have their own struggles. They — you can empathize with the demons. I don't empathize with this Richard. He is truly evil.

Brom: One of the themes of so many of my books, there's very gray morality. It's exploring what evil truly is. You know, if — is a vampire truly evil? If a vampire needs blood to live, is it not just, are people just not its source of food? Just like a lion is not evil because it will eat people. It — that's what it does. It's in its nature. So, so often the demons and the characters in my books, they have a motivation, they have something they need. And humans are just, you know, their food. They're just something in the way. It's not like they're doing something just for the pleasure of — of harming and torturing. With Richard, what was interesting, I wanted to create a character that was truly evil. And what was truly evil? To be truly evil, you had to be completely self-aware of your being evil. It couldn't be a mental illness. It couldn't be something that be, you know, due to your environment. It had to be somebody that was 100% sane, that had a very, very good life that decided to just be evil. In his case, you know, he's just a normal, otherwise wholesome fellow, except for the fact that he tracks down young women and he kills them. And it was, I thought, the — the scariest, darkest character I've ever written. It was the hardest character to be in that world and write it and then come out of it, because his constant self-awareness made it very creepy, painful.

Orlando Montoya: Thank you very much. It was an enjoyable book. Like I said, I experienced it as an audiobook, so I — I can sing the song now.

Brom: Oh, good, good I know.

Orlando Montoya: Thank you very much.

Brom: Yeah. Thank you.

Orlando Montoya: That was Brom, B-R-O-M, the nom de plume of Savannah-based writer and illustrator Gerald Brom. His book Evil in Me is the subject of the latest episode of Narrative Edge, GPB's podcast about books with Georgia connections. Find that podcast at GPB.org/NarrativeEdge or wherever you get your podcasts.

​​​​​​​Story 10:

Orlando Montoya: Turning now to Georgia sports. It's been basketball and more basketball recently, but we do have some news from the baseball diamond where, unfortunately for Braves fans, ESPN is reporting that Braves starting catcher Sean Murphy will miss the start of the season with a rib injury. The former All-Star and Gold Glove winner will be sidelined for 4 to 6 weeks with a cracked rib on his left side. Top prospect Drake Baldwin is a candidate to replace Murphy behind the plate for Opening Day. That's against San Diego on March 27.

And that's it for this edition of Georgia Today. I'd like to point you to our webpage, GPB.org/news, where you'll find many of the stories that you hear on this podcast in greater detail. If you have feedback to us, send that our way at GeorgiaToday@GPB.org. And as always, we love for you to hit subscribe on this podcast. It helps you by keeping us current with you in your feed, and it helps us so that we can be in your ears a little bit more often. I'm Orlando Montoya. And Sofi Gratas will be doing the podcast tomorrow. I'll talk to you on Wednesday.

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