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Georgia Today: Hall County teacher dies after prank; Election to replace MTG; Fani Willis speaks out
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On the March 10 edition: A Hall County teacher died after teenagers pulled a late-night prank; A special election was held today to replace Marjorie Taylor Greene's vacated seat; And Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis defends her role in the now-dismissed election interference case involving President Trump
Transcript:
Peter Biello: Welcome to the Georgia Today podcast. Here we bring you the latest reports from the GPB newsroom. On today's episode, a high school teacher in Hall County dies after teenagers pull a late-night prank outside his home. Voters in Northwest Georgia are heading to the polls to choose a successor to Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis defends her role and the now-dismissed election interference case involving President Trump.
Fani Willis: I am never going to apologize for the indictment I brought. If they want an apology, they will not get one. Two grand juries looked at that case and they brought forth decisions based on the facts and the law to bring charges.
Peter Biello: Today is Tuesday, March 10. I'm Peter Biello, and this is Georgia Today.
Story 1
Peter Biello: Voters in Northwest Georgia are heading to the polls to choose a successor in Congress to Marjorie Taylor Greene. Today's special election comes after the Republican resigned her seat in January amid a falling out with President Donald Trump. Top candidates include Republicans Clay Fuller and Colton Moore and Democrat Sean Harris. GPB spoke with voters in Ackworth this morning about what they're looking for in the candidates.
Giovanni Sultren: Just making sure that our country is being run as efficiently and it's on the right track for everyone, not just a certain group of people. And I guess just the affordability issue, making sure Georgians are being represented accurately.
Kevin Matthews: I'm a big America first kind of person and everything, so that's kind of what I'm looking for and Georgia first, you know, somebody that's going to support Georgians and help with pricing and help with everything.
Daiva Mackenzie: I was looking for what they were voting for and kind of what the pool looked like because it's a jungle primary and there's 12 people, wanted to make sure that there was enough support to force the runoff.
Peter Biello: You heard voters Giovanni Sultren, Kevin Matthews, and Daiva MacKenzie. With nine Republicans, three Democrats, a Libertarian, and an Independent running, the race is likely to go to a runoff.
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Peter Biello: The price of oil has risen sharply since the start of the U.S. war with Iran. Some lawmakers are calling for Gov. Brian Kemp to suspend the state fuel tax in hopes of slashing prices. Kemp says his office will monitor the price of the oil over the next few days.
Brian Kemp: We've also suspended the gas tax in the past, but we also have not overreacted to something that potentially could be a short-term blip, so we're going to continue to watch things.
Peter Biello: Kemp last suspended the state's fuel tax in 2024 during recovery efforts after Hurricane Helene.
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Peter Biello: A judge has rejected a request for a new trial for a Venezuelan man convicted of killing Georgia nursing student Laken Riley. Jose Ibarra had argued the court violated his rights by denying certain motions before trial. Clark County Superior Court Judge H. Patrick Haggard wrote yesterday the state's evidence against Ibarra is, quote, "overwhelming and powerful," and ruled against him on the motion claims. Ibarra has 30 days to appeal.
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Peter Biello: A state judge is blocking Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis from intervening in a legal fight over attorney's fees in the now-dismissed election interference case involving President Trump. GPB's Sarah Kallis reports yesterday's ruling by Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee advances significant claims brought against the county.
Sarah Kallis: Trump and other defendants are seeking over $16 million in legal fees from Fulton County under a Georgia law after the indictment against them was dropped. Willis says she does not regret her decision.
Fani Willis: I am never going to apologize for the indictment I brought. If they want an apology, they will not get one. Two grand juries looked at that case and they brought forth decisions based on the facts and the law to bring charges.
Sarah Kallis: Willis also spoke at the state Capitol Monday and slammed the Republican state senators that investigated her after allegations that she had a romantic relationship with Nathan Wade, the prosecutor for the Trump case. She called the lawmakers, quote, "stupid" and "weak." For GPB News, I'm Sarah Kallis at the state Capitol.
Story 5
Peter Biello: Civil rights leader Bernard Lafayette Jr. has died. A close colleague of Martin Luther King Jr., Lafeyette helped found the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. He also helped organize the student sit-ins that desegregated lunch counters in Nashville in 1960, and later played a key role in the voting rights movement in Selma, Ala. Lafayeette was part of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s inner circle, serving as a national coordinator of the Poor People's Campaign. In later years, he taught and trained organizers in nonviolent activism, including at Emory University in Atlanta. Lafayette was 85 years old.
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Peter Biello: U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins visited the state Capitol today to announce new block grants to help Georgia farmers. Rollins told lawmakers that federal aid is coming for farmers impacted by Hurricane Helene in 2024. The grants help pay for losses not covered by existing USDA programs.
Brooke Rollins: Thanks to your agriculture commissioner's incredible work under the leadership of your governor, a new block grant for your farmers here in Georgia of about $561 million.
Peter Biello: Applications for the grants open next week and close April 27. Hurricane Helene caused more than $5 billion in damage to the state's agriculture industry. Both of Georgia's U.S. senators released statements in support of the grants.
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Peter Biello: Authorities say a Georgia high school teacher died after teenagers pulled a late-night prank outside his home. The Hall County Sheriff's Office says teenagers went to 40-year-old Jason Hughes' home late Friday to roll his yard with toilet paper. It says Hughes came outside as the teens were leaving and he tripped and fell into the street, where one of the teens struck him with a pickup truck. Authorities says the 18-year old driver of the pickup has been charged with the felony count of vehicular homicide. Four other teens were charged with trespassing and littering. Hughes' family said in a statement that he knew and loved the teens and that they want all charges dropped.
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Peter Biello: The University of Georgia recently closed its application period for its inaugural class of students at the University's new School of Medicine, set to open this fall. GPB's Sofi Gratas has more.
Sofi Gratas: In just two weeks, UGA's School of Medicine received roughly 2,040 applications, says Associate Dean of Admissions Bryan Steele. Only 60 students will be admitted in the first year. Steeel says a big factor in their decision is whether applicants have a Georgia tie, even if they weren't born here.
Bryan Steele: That would be like someone's out of state but they've been in Georgia the last four or five years attending a college or university. Maybe they graduated from a Georgia high school but they moved somewhere else. You know, you've been in Georgia, you know about Georgia, that's really what we're looking for in our class.
Sofi Gratas: Almost 40% of applications already received are from in-state students. Where doctors are from often determine where they end up practicing. Failing the state's health care gaps is part of the promise made to lawmakers when they invested millions into the medical school's creation. For GPB News, I'm Sofi Gratas.
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Peter Biello: Recovering from a substance use disorder takes more than medical help. It takes friends. This so-called peer support is not a new idea. Think of the Circle of Sharing at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. That idea grew into a network of trained peers and recovery community organizations, which the Georgia General Assembly is attempting to define and maybe even regulate. GPB's Ellen Eldridge reports.
Ellen Eldridge: People sit on sofas in the back corner of a big gray room. There's a ping pong table in the center, a coffee bar to the side, and there's celebration.
Group: That's 21 years sober for Bob, a milestone.
Ellen Eldridge: Most people here say you can't do this alone. You need peers with lived experience and training to better support those in active addiction, like Barbi Meadows.
Barbi Meadows: Because when you're in the throes of addiction, you have no connection. You don't have that, you don't see the light at the end of the tunnel, you know? So that's what we are for them, is help walk with them to that light.
Ellen Eldridge: That's the job of a certified peer support specialist like Meadows in this recovery community organization. This is Paulding County's first RCO. It opened in 2024. Tony Moon started this nonprofit to focus on advocacy, training, education, and peer support services. The place on Main Street in Hiram, population 5,000, is led by certified peer specialists who are themselves in long-term recovery from addiction.
Tony Moon: Everything's free here. The services, everything that come here is free. It's all run by peers. That's what distinguishes an RCO away from treatment or anything else like that. It's all peers. There's no clinical services being performed here. It's education and just one peer helping another.
Ellen Eldridge: Georgia was the first state in 1999 to request and receive Medicaid reimbursement to train people with lived experience to support their peers in recovery from substance use disorder. Wendy White Tiegreen helped write the policy that led certified peer specialists to have:
Wendy White Tiegreen: a whole set of credentialing and continuing education, which is really, I think, quite necessary for this higher more formalized peer support.
Ellen Eldridge: Now a bill that has passed the Georgia House could formalize the practice even more. HB 657 would empower the State Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities to create a single statewide recovery community organization which would coordinate the network of RCOs statewide. Brian Kite is the Georgia Council for Recovery's RCO Development Manager. He says the network has grown over the last seven years.
Brian Kite: To be almost at 60, with 59 RCOs around the state of Georgia, and with over 40 of those funded through state allocation, now some are being funded with some opioid abatement funds.
Ellen Eldridge: And part of the aim of the new bill is creating standards that ensure opioid settlement funds aren't wasted. But Tony Moon of the Paulding County RCO says as far as he understands, while a state RCO would offer guidelines to the local level:
Tony Moon: They would not have authority to tell us what we're supposed to do.
Ellen Eldridge: Brian Kite is the Georgia council for recovery's RCO development manager. He says more people are asking about resources for RCOs in their communities.
Brian Kite: With that said, there's still barriers and some stigma that we are facing in different communities and so we are doing our best to help advocate as a collective to make some changes and make an impact.
Ellen Eldridge: It's hoped that if passed, HB 657 would further dispel stigma around recovery community organizations. The bill is now in the Georgia Senate. For GPB News, I'm Ellen Eldridge.
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Peter Biello: Georgia lawmakers are continuing work on a proposal tied to a long-running effort to raise the age of criminal responsibility. House Bill 1061, the Mandi Ballinger Act, would create a committee to study moving 17-year-olds charged with nonviolent crimes into the juvenile court system instead of adult court. Republican Sen. Chuck Payne of Dalton says teenagers are often prosecuted as adults before they fully understand the consequences.
Chuck Payne: I tell you, at 17 years old, if you get charged for the crime at 17, you get your court date and you will stand before "a jury of your peers." No, it's not a jury for your peers because you're not old enough to serve on that jury.
Peter Biello: Payne was speaking on GPB's Lawmakers. The measure passed the House unanimously and is now being considered in the Senate. Georgia is one of only a few states that still automatically prosecutes 17-year-olds as adults.
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Peter Biello: President Trump's war with Iran has prompted a spike in oil prices, which reached nearly $120 a barrel earlier this week. More expensive oil means the cost of gasoline and everything gasoline is used to transport will rise. For more on the economic impact to Georgians, let's turn to Thomas Smith. He's an economist at the Goizueta Business School at Emory University. Welcome to the program.
Thomas Smith: Thank you for having me, man. I appreciate it.
Peter Biello: So oil prices topped 100 bucks a barrel earlier this week. Some forecasters warn of $4 a gallon gas if prices stay elevated. When gas becomes more expensive, how might that impact the cost of other things Georgians rely on?
Thomas Smith: So I just did an analysis last night just to see how everything works. And so I mapped out the cost of West Texas Intermediate Crude. So, and I looked at the year-over-year changes of that and mapped it to the year-over-year changes in the CPI, which is Consumer Price Index, and the year-over-year changes in the PPI, the Producer Price Index. And there's a little bit of a lag. And so when you have oil price shocks — so the price of oil goes up and you see some inflationary trends — you tend to see a jump in the producer price index the following month, which then actually corresponds to the consumer price index for that month and the next month. So you see this cascading effect where oil price shocks today cause producer price increases in 28 days, which then lead to almost immediate increases in consumer prices and then some inflation going forward. So anything that's made with energy, which is just about everything, will cascade into higher consumer prices down the road.
Peter Biello: And is all that contingent upon prices, oil prices, staying where they are, or if it drops like later this week, back to where it was a few weeks ago, will prices stable out faster than what you just described?
Thomas Smith: If oil prices go down, that doesn't change the fact that producer prices went up. So we still might see an increase in the cost of doing business, which might translate into the cost of goods and services for consumers. So even if oil prices were to go back down today, it doesn't mean that you're going to see a decrease in even the price at the gas pump today. You might see that decrease in price of the gas pump two weeks from now, right? So, I mean, there's this cascading effect, but you see the price increases almost immediately. You don't see the price decreases immediately.
Peter Biello: Are there sectors of the Georgia economy that would be particularly hard hit, maybe farming or travel or something else?
Thomas Smith: Both those areas are very susceptible to price changes. For farming, you've got fuel for your tractors, other types of implements, also fertilizer costs are actually increasing quite substantially as a result of this current conflict. So farmers are going to see a double whammy in terms of price increases, both for fuel diesel and for fertilizer. Additionally, as you just mentioned, Atlanta is the home of Delta. So I mean, jet fuel is very expensive, right? And when you have these increases, the expense just increases astronomically. So you're going to see an increase in the price of tickets and so that travel corresponds to spring break around here for many colleges, but it's going to translate into other business travel almost immediately. So those areas are very susceptible. People will see, if this thing persists — if this conflict persists — people will see an increase in the cost for things that they're doing on a daily basis. So you're ordering food delivery through any number of apps, the travel cost or the transportation cost might go from $1.99 to $2.99. You might not think that that's a big deal, but that's like a 50% increase in the cost of those surcharges. That's a lot if you consider maybe how often you might order in.
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Peter Biello: And in sports, the NBA has called off the Atlanta Hawks' plans for a night celebrating the city's Magic City adult entertainment club. Atlanta announced the plan last month, saying the team would pay tribute to what it called an iconic cultural institution. The tribute, scheduled for next Monday during a game against Orlando, would have included food, music and exclusive merchandise. But the league evidently heard from people who spoke against the idea of promoting a strip club. The Hawks said they were "disappointed by the league's decision yesterday, but will respect it." The team said some elements of the night's plans will remain, including sales of lemon pepper wings, which are associated with the club.
And that's all we've got for Georgia Today. You want to learn more about these stories, visit gpb.org/news for any updates. You could also find the latest headlines there. Make sure you subscribe to this podcast because we will be right back with you tomorrow afternoon. And your feedback is welcome. Send it to us by email. It's the best way to reach the whole team. The email address is georgiatoday@gpb.org. I'm Peter Biello. Thanks again for listening. We'll see you tomorrow.
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