Georgia Today: Former Lt. Gov. switches parties; Nonprofit preps for more patients due to fed cuts

Orlando Montoya: Hello and welcome to the Georgia Today podcast. Here we bring you the latest reports from the GPB newsroom. On today's episode, former Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan announces he's switching to the Democratic Party, a nonprofit health center prepares for more patients ahead of federal cuts to health insurance; and Southwest Atlanta residents want answers on ongoing construction that they say is impacting local businesses.

Trinket Lewis: I've had to change my hours because I can't afford after-school care. I live off of Cascade and Lindhurst. I've have to change tires three times within the last 13 months.

Orlando Montoya: Today is Tuesday, Aug. 5. I'm Orlando Montoya, and this is Georgia Today.

Caption

Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan pounds the gavel in the Georgia State Senate on the first day of the 2022 legislative session on Jan. 10, 2022.

Credit: Riley Bunch | GPB News

Story 1:

Orlando Montoya: Former Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan says he is now part of the Democratic Party. He made the official announcement in an editorial published in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution today. GPB's Sarah Kallis reports.

Sarah Kallis: Despite Duncan's endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024 and criticism of President Donald Trump, he still considered himself a Republican. University of Georgia political science professor Charles Bullock says Duncan's move could resonate with some more moderate Republicans.

Charles Bullock: On individuals who generally still think of themselves as Republicans, but have a hard time supporting for Donald Trump or providing support for, say, candidates closely associated with Donald Trump, they might then queue off of what Geoff Duncan has done here.

Sarah Kallis: Georgia's state Republican party officially expelled Duncan at the beginning of this year. For GPB News, I'm Sarah Kallis.

Story 2:

Orlando Montoya: A grand jury has declined to indict a former Atlanta police officer on manslaughter charges in the death of church deacon Johnny Holman. Holman died in August 2023 in a struggle with officer Kiran Kimbrough following a car crash. An autopsy determined Holman's death was a homicide, with heart disease as a contributing factor. Fulton County grand jurors yesterday found too little evidence against Kimbrough to bring criminal charges. Kimbrough's lawyer says he did nothing wrong. A spokesperson for District Attorney Fani Willis says she might try again to seek to indict Kimbrough.

Story 3:

Orlando Montoya: A nonprofit health center in Northeast Georgia is preparing to see more patients ahead of federal cuts to health insurance programs. WUGA's Emma Auer has more.

Emma Auer: Mercy Health Center is a Christian ministry that offers free health care to the uninsured in Northeast Georgia. It was one of several groups that participated in a health care symposium in Athens over the weekend. Dr. Cole Phillips is the chief executive officer and medical director at the organization. He says that Mercy Health center is bracing for an influx of patients as more Georgians will likely lose health insurance in the coming months.

Dr. Cole Philips: Our wait list right now is three months for a new patient appointment on the medical side. On the dental side it's about three or four weeks. So for me it's how do we find providers. Going to donors and saying "I need a dentist, I need another nurse practitioner, I need another counselor."

Emma Auer: Dr. Phillips says he also plans to enlist medical students to help get new patients in the door. For GPB News, I'm Emma Auer in Athens.

Story 4:

Orlando Montoya: Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr is supporting a new lawsuit brought by a gun rights organization challenging a Savannah ordinance restricting the storage of firearms inside the city. Savannah City Council passed the measure last year to prohibit storing guns in unlocked vehicles. In a brief filed last week, Carr wrote that that ordinance is superseded by a state law that bars local governments from regulating the possession, transport or carrying of firearms.

Story 5:

Orlando Montoya: U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy says his agency will loan nearly $4 billion to a public-private partnership to build express lanes on a highway north of Atlanta. The announcement today provides funding for express lanes on 16 miles of Georgia 400 between Sandy Springs and Forsyth County. The new express lanes will have variable price tolls that offer a choice for drivers to bypass congestion. They also are expected to be used by the region's public transit agency, MARTA, for a bus rapid transit service.

Story 6:

Orlando Montoya: Residents in Southwest Atlanta are demanding transparency and financial relief from the city. GPB's Amanda Andrews reports they say ongoing construction has negatively impacted local businesses.

Amanda Andrews: Cascade Road in southwest Atlanta is being redesigned for the city's Safe Streets project. It's part of Atlanta's quote, "vision zero goal" to improve roads for pedestrians, drivers and cyclists and reach zero traffic deaths in the city by 2024. Trinket Lewis owns a juice bar on Cascade Road. She says construction is hurting her business and costing her money.

Trinket Lewis: I am a mom of a 10-year-old son. I've had to change my hours because I can't afford after-school care. I live down the street from the Juice Bar off of Cascade and Lindhurst. I've have to change tires three times within the last 13 months.

Amanda Andrews: Design changes by the Atlanta Department of Transportation have delayed construction, but the organization reports the road will be substantially complete by December. For GPB News, I'm Amanda Andrews.

Story 7:

Orlando Montoya: Despite pushback from preservationists and local leaders, Georgia State University will move ahead with plans to demolish a 100-year-old former Georgia power substation on Edgewood Avenue in Atlanta. The building sits within the Martin Luther King Jr. Landmark District, but the university says the long-vacant building will be replaced with a new greenspace honoring the university's Greek life history. Preservation advocates had hoped the building could be saved. But GSU says it will reuse some bricks and include a mural tribute in the new design. The project is part of a $107 million campus redevelopment called College Town Downtown.

Story 8:

Orlando Montoya: About 400 Georgia homeowners will be getting free solar panels as part of a federally funded program. Applications for the Georgia Bright Solar for All lottery opened up yesterday. Funded by a $156 million grant awarded during the Biden administration, the program will continue taking applications until Sept. 7. Georgia Bright Director Alicia Brown says most participants will see their electric bills drop by 50% to 70%.

Alicia Brown: This really gets at the core of some of the things that we all share. Like, we all want energy that we can afford. We all want the energy that is reliable. We all wanna good jobs. We all wanna save money.

Orlando Montoya: Qualifying Georgia homeowners must have an income at or below 80% of the area median income for their county and household size. Another round of 400 solar panel leases will be awarded by lottery next spring.

Story 9:

Orlando Montoya: Atlanta's Fernbank Museum is planning a major renovation, the largest in its 33-year history. The Natural History and Science Museum said today that it has raised $27 million to transform its exhibits and reimagine how it engages with guests across all three of its floors. The project also includes accessibility improvements and is expected to be completed in stages over the next two years. Highlights include a new signature exhibit called Changing Earth, and a complete redesign of its star gallery to be called Our Place in the Cosmos.

Story 10:

Orlando Montoya: This week is Georgia Farmers Market Week, a new proclamation from Agriculture Commissioner Tyler Harper celebrating local markets and vendors across the state. The Georgia Department of Agriculture says the effort is part of a broader push to support farm families and agribusiness, including a new interactive map of Georgia Grown-certified markets and a partnership with the nonprofit Generation Gap. To learn more about the Georgia Grown program, visit georgiagrown.com.

Caption

AR Rahman is one of India's biggest music stars.

Credit: Courtesy of AR Rahman

Story 11:

Orlando Montoya: Oscar and Grammy-winning actor and musician AR Raman makes a stop on his North American tour tonight in Duluth, northeast of Atlanta. Known from Bollywood to Hollywood, he has scored more than 100 films, from Slumdog Millionaire to the one that started his career, 1991's Roja. He spoke with GPB's Kristi Wooten about his storied career.

AR Rahman: My main motive was like, "What stops people listening to our music?" And then I went to it, did research and it was the production, it was the recording quality, and it was the vibe. So, strangely, because even though I was in the South Indian film industry, what I was listening to was world music, world records, and everything. So I think it naturally came in; without even trying, the vibe came to me. And even if you look at my first interviews back in '91, I said, "I want Tamil songs to reach every part of the world," which is happening now. You see choirs from all over the world adapting Balleilakka, or Hasbi Rabbi, or Maa Tujhe Salaam, singing all this stuff, and it's heartening to see that.  I think the universe makes it happen in unusual ways. I think if you have a good intention and then no intention is big enough, I think, you know. We can manifest anything and good intentions do manifest.

Kristi Wooten: One of the things I wanted to ask you about, you know, metro Atlanta, especially has a large Indian population, a lot of Indian influence and culture in Atlanta with clothing, with music, with food. So I know the audiences are very excited to attend the Wonderment Tour tomorrow night in Gwinnett County. These suburban areas in America where there's a large Indian population, is that is where you kind of target your tour to reach those audiences?

AR Rahman: Because I'm cross-country, I do multiple languages like Tamil, Telugu and Hindi, those audiences from all three languages used to come. And over years, I've decided to break the language barrier, make mine more as an, you know, like an entertaining concert for the whole world rather than just for Indians. And that seemed to have worked out; in the Wonderment, we purposely oriented the whole vibe of the show bigger than India, crossing the barriers of the language and everything. So my show is to bring all those boundaries and values and respect what they give me as a core for them to enjoy. That's why it's called Wonderment. Wonderment is about the wonder of every breath, the wonder love which they give to me and the wonder me existing.

Kristi Wooten: Your first sort of inklings of when you knew you wanted to be a composer and to and to do music. How young were you when that when that happened to you?

AR Rahman: I didn't know that I was capable of composing till maybe I was 18, 19, when I was offered a jingle. And then after building my studio, my whole life changed, you know, the Panchatan studio in '89, where I could do things without being judged, people watching me. I was a sound engineer. I was producer. I was an artist all by myself. So that being lonely and in solitude actually kind of helped.

Kristi Wooten: You are pretty much one of the most decorated composers out there now with the Academy Awards and your Grammy, Golden Globe, BAFTA, I mean it goes on and on. Did you always envision that, manifesting those type of things for yourself or was it a surprise?

AR Rahman: No, no, I never, I was not behind the awards. I was more for quality I was trying to reach. And actually, basically what happened after a while, you're young, you know, you become very ambitious. Back in the '90s, I think more, I was more in a Zen mode, which, uh, I didn't care about success, but I cared about quality. I cared, about self-satisfaction and I cared about how can you reach where your mind wants to, not for rewards, but for quality.

Kristi Wooten: I wanted to talk to you about the spirituality that has kind of influenced your music as well because I know you, I believe I read that you converted to Islam at a younger age in your 20s and that did that change your composing at that point? Did it add depth to your composing?

AR Rahman: Yeah, I was influenced by Sufi Islam because, you know, in Chennai, there are a lot of Sufi shrines. So there's a spiritual healer who led us to, and he taught us like certain verses to fight all the evil. Because in my family went through a lot dark phases like black magic and all this stuff. My dad and my mother always had this persecution complex. She would never let me eat anywhere because she was like that. So I think this led us to a kind of a zone where we felt safe and we felt protected and we were sincere in our prayers and all this stuff. So it helped us to be detached from success or failure or evil or good, anything. We detached from everything so that we could handle life in a better way.

Orlando Montoya: That was GPB's Kristi Wooten talking with Oscar- and Grammy-winning actor and musician AR Rahman.

Orlando Montoya: And that's it for today's edition of Georgia Today. We invite you to visit our webpage, GPB.org/news, where you'll find many of the stories on this podcast in more detail. We always encourage you to hit subscribe on the podcast because that helps you to stay current with us in your feed. And if you have feedback for us, we welcome that at GeorgiaToday@GPB.org. I'm Orlando Montoya. Join us again tomorrow for another edition of Georgia Today.

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