Georgia Today: Paper ballots; Public health during the World Cup; Updated protected species list

Peter Biello: Welcome to the Georgia Today podcast. Here we bring you the latest reports from the GPB newsroom. On today's episode, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger says hand-marked paper ballots are susceptible to human error. Public health officials brace for World Cup crowds, and it's time to update the protected species list, and members of the public can recommend additions. 

Brett Albanesse You know, a member of the public says, you need to list this species that we're just gonna automatically list. And it's gonna have to, we're gonna have take a look at the science behind it. 

Peter Biello: Today is Thursday, June 11. I'm Peter Biello, and this is Georgia Today. 

Story 1: 

Peter Biello: Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger today defended machine-counted ballots as state lawmakers prepare to meet for a special session. The General Assembly is expected to redraw political maps and decide how Georgians should vote in upcoming elections. GPB's Sarah Kallis reports.

Sarah Kallis: When lawmakers convene the special session, they will need to find a solution for a looming July 1 deadline that says QR codes on the backs of ballots can no longer be used to tabulate votes. Some activist groups say hand-marked paper ballots could be the solution, but Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger says that when the state conducts its post-election audits, voting machines fare better than hand- marked paper ballots. 

Brad Raffensperger The overwhelming majority of errors identified in our election review and audits have occurred with hand-marked paper ballots, where voter intent can be unclear, marks can be incomplete and human interpretation is necessary. 

Sarah Kallis: Raffensperger says in the recent primary election, more than 99.99% of ballots showed no discrepancies. For GPB News, I'm Sarah Kallis at the state Capitol. 

Story 2: 

Peter Biello: Lt. Gov. Burt Jones and entrepreneur Rick Jackson have a few things in common. Both are Republicans and want to become the GOP nominee for governor. Both are wealthy. Both candidates have aired ads that allege the other is corrupt. Both align themselves with President Donald Trump — although only one has Trump's endorsement — and only one can win the runoff on Tuesday. Voters in the Republican primary runoff will make their choice after a bruising election campaign that cost the candidates tens of millions of dollars in advertising. Find out what they've said about the issues from taxes and immigration to their support for Trump in a story comparing the candidates at gpb.org/news. 

Story 3: 

Peter Biello: State environmental regulators are updating Georgia's list of protected plants and animals for the first time in 20 years, and as GPB's Grant Blankenship reports, they're asking for the public's help. 

Grant Blankenship: The last time Georgia's Department of Natural Resources updated its protected species list was 2006. The list includes all federally endangered species by default. Now DNR has published its proposed changes, a net addition of some 90 plants and animals. Brett Albanesse of Georgia DNR says by law the process must include species nominated by the public, too. 

Brett Albanesse: It doesn't mean that if a member of the public says, "You need to list this species," then we're just gonna automatically list it. We're gonna have to take a look at the science behind it. 

Grant Blankenship: Albanese says so far DNR and the public are agreeing on the need to protect coastal birds like the salt marsh sparrow and the wimberl. DNR is accepting nominations through the end of June. For GPB News, I'm Grant Blankenship in Macon. 

Story 4: 

Peter Biello: A transgender sheriff's deputy has settled a long-running legal case against Middle Georgia's Houston County. Sgt. Anna Lange sued the county seven years ago after its health plan denied her coverage for gender-affirming surgery. The courts largely sided with her sex discrimination claims until last year, when a federal appeals court reversed previous court rulings. She spoke with GPB in 2024. 

Anna Lange: Folks like me aren't doing this because we think it's fun. It's a necessity for us. 

Peter Biello: Under terms of the settlement announced last week, the county agreed to reimburse Lang $5,000 for out-of-pocket expenses not covered by the health plan. 

Story 5:

Peter Biello: The Georgia Forestry Commission today gave state lawmakers a detailed account of the two monthlong wildfires that displaced hundreds of people in South Georgia in March and April. Agency Director Johnny Sabo said the blazes, the first one in Clinch and Echols Counties, and the second one in Brantley County, were among the worst in state history. The first and largest fire, called the Pineland Road Fire, consumed 32,000 acres. That's about twice the size of Manhattan. And the second fire?

Johnny Sabo: Highway 82 fire, about 10,000 acres smaller, but unfortunately, the worst home loss we've ever had from a single fire in this state, 110 homes lost. But on the other side of that, just within the fire footprint — so I'm not talking about just on the fringes. I mean, within the firefight footprint — 350 homes saved. The amount of aircraft that was in the air, at one point we had 10, what we call LATs, large air tankers, doing load returns from Lake City. We actually started to run out of jet fuel and retardant in Lake City and started having to do it from Chattanooga. And so I don't — I'm fairly positive when I say between us and Florida this past year, we've done more tanker drops in about two weeks than we did in all the other years combined in the history of our states, but absolutely crucial to what we were doing. For all the resources, contractual, other state agencies and everything else, we're looking at about $35 million between these two fires. 

Peter Biello: That cost does not include resources tracked by the National Guard, which Sabo estimates at $3-4 million. The Commission's annual budget is $52 million. He said the fires resulted in only two minor injuries. 

Story 6: 

Peter Biello: Atlanta's FIFA Fan Festival officially opens today. The downtown venue is ready to welcome thousands of visitors over the next 34 days for the World Cup. Those visitors will be bringing both a boost in tourism and a risk as the U.S. manages ongoing outbreaks of infectious diseases. In charge of disease prevention are the city's public health departments. GPB's Sofi Gratas has more on how they've been ramping up preparations. 

Sofi Gratas: Walking through downtown Atlanta's Centennial Olympic Park a couple weeks before the city hosts its first game, preparations for the FIFA World Cup —

Sofi Gratas (at park): They have a drinks tent. They have the FIFA store. 

Sofi Gratas: —Are on full display. 

Sofi Gratas (at park):  But really the whole park is barricaded off while they work on this. 

Sofi Gratas: Thousands of fans will flock to this park for what the city is branding as a weekslong fan festival. An estimated 2 million visitors came through here for the 1996 Summer Olympics. Epidemiologist Jody Guest saw this firsthand. 

Jodie Guest I think it was exciting. It was busy. 

Sofi Gratas: Far less visitors are expected to come for FIFA. But Guest, a professor at Emory University's Rowland School of Public Health, says local public health departments will have just as much responsibility this time around, if not more.

Jodie Guest: So this is a classic mass mixing event ,meaning we've got a lot of people coming into the city and they're coming from a lot of different places and then they will go back to many different places. 

Sofi Gratas: So the challenge becomes for public health and the city's hospitals?

Jodie Guest :How are you going to look at people as they're coming in, and then what are you going to do if anyone becomes ill or you start to see signals of an outbreak? 

Sofi Gratas: Right now, a series of public health emergencies are straining healthcare workers in the U.S. and globally, and highly contagious diseases once eradicated in the U.S., like measles, are back, a result of falling vaccination rates nationwide. That's pushed the Fulton County Public Health Department to make plans for possible outbreaks. 

Sasha Smith I will be quick. 

Sofi Gratas: Georgia has had five cases of measles this year so far, two on the coast and three in metro Atlanta. At a recent public health meeting, Sasha Smith, chief epidemiologist for the county, reminded staff that with all of the visitors crossing domestic and international borders, the city will be doubling down on surveillance. 

Sasha Smith: Time is of the essence, timely notifications. And DPH has done an excellent job in the three I's. That's identify, isolate, inform. 

Sofi Gratas: If any Atlanta residents got measles during the World Cup?

Sasha Smith But we're responsible for the case investigation, the contact tracing, and any control measures that need to be implemented. 

Sofi Gratas: Smith says the state and federal government are poised to help, too. A single measles case can require contact tracing hundreds of people. That's only possible with enough money, staff and time. If there was an outbreak during FIFA, local public health departments should be able to rely on their national public health agency, the CDC. Elizabeth Soda is an infectious disease physician who resigned from the CDC last year under stress from the new administration. 

Elizabeth Soda: That's what actually keeps me up at night, is the loss of the public health workforce. 

Sofi Gratas: One estimate from a federal employee union says the CDC has lost nearly a quarter of its staff. This comes after public health departments were pushed to their limits during the COVID pandemic. So when it comes to FIFA, Soda says she's not entirely confident that local public health departments like Atlanta's will have all the support they need. 

Elizabeth Soda: We're talking about 16 cities, three countries. This is the stress test. 

Sofi Gratas: City officials are planning for this, says Shane Smith, director of operations with Grady Health Systems EMS. He says for months, the city's been running drills for weather emergencies and mass casualty events. But also?

Shane Smith: Viral infections, bacterial infections, even down to just, you know, some bad food. Food poisoning, right? 

Sofi Gratas: Because, he says, if enough people get sick, even outbreaks of common diseases could cause a strain on the health care system large enough to back up emergency rooms. For GPB News, I'm Sofi Gratas in Atlanta. 

Story 7: 

Peter Biello: The late Ted Turner's legacy is multifaceted. He's remembered as the founder of CNN, a lifelong environmentalist, and the former owner of the Atlanta Braves and the Atlanta Hawks. He was also known as Captain Courageous for his sailing endeavors. He passed away this spring in Florida. Regular commentator and Salvation South editor Chuck Reese is with us now to share his thoughts on Turner's Legacy. Hey, Chuck. 

Chuck Reece: Hey, how you doing, Peter? 

Peter Biello: I'm doing well. Thanks for joining me today. So talk to us, Chuck, about what you think Ted's biggest legacy is. 

Chuck Reece: A lot of people talk about how the 1996 Summer Olympics, being in Atlanta, put the city of Atlanta on the world stage. I would argue that Atlanta began its journey to being a truly global city when Ted Turner started assembling the Turner Broadcasting System and later CNN. Because Ted put the city of Atlanta onto the global stage in the media business. And he did it by creating the first-ever 24-hour television news channel in a way that everyone had to notice because he changed the very nature of the news cycle itself. 

Peter Biello: Well, what do you think was the key to Turner's ability to turn Atlanta into the city it is today? Is it something about his ambition, about his personality in general? What would you say it is? 

Chuck Reece: His ambition alone and the things he accomplished alone might have done that, but I don't think it could have been as successful as it was without Turner's personality. Ted Turner was in many ways sort of the classic Southern character, right? He was very braggadocious and he was also capacious with the people that he dealt with. He he welcomed people in the way that Southern people say, you know, "Hey, come on, come on in the house. Let me get you a glass of iced tea. Come on. Sit on the porch with me," right?. When — when Ted passed away, an old friend of mine who has been covering the media industry for 40 years as a journalist wrote a remembrance of Ted about the first time he was able to score an interview with Turner in 1990. And he had been told that Turner would only give him 15 minutes. And so Max Robbins, this writer, gets to the top floor of CNN Center where Ted's office was and Ted greets him at the office door without shoes on, just in his sock feet. Throws his arm around Max's shoulder and he says, "Max, why you want only 15 minutes? What are we gonna say in 15 minutes that would matter anything to anybody?" And when you have people who are covering a guy like that for the national media, he just becomes this irresistible character. 

Peter Biello: What kind of global legacy do you think Turner leaves behind? 

Chuck Reece: Well, for better and for worse, we now have a 24-hour news cycle. It used to be that people waited on the daily newspapers to come out and they came out in both the mornings and in the afternoons in various cities and nothing became real to the world until they either read a major newspaper or until they got to one of the network news broadcasts on CBS or ABC or NBC at night. Now, the news never stops. And I think that has changed the world in fundamental ways. It changes how people in power act because they know they always have a chance to get out in front of the world. And arguably, we probably wouldn't have social media if Ted Turner — or at least not in its current form — if Ted Turner hadn't pioneered making the cycle a 24-7 business. 

Peter Biello: In the sense that he primed people to get used to being connected 24-7. 

Chuck Reece: Exactly. And it's hard to think of a figure who had more impact on American culture and arguably global culture in the late 20th century that was larger than Ted's. 

Peter Biello: Regular commentator Salvation South editor Chuck Reece, thanks for sharing your thoughts on Ted Turner's legacy. We appreciate it. 

Chuck Reece: Always glad to talk to you, Peter. 

Peter Biello: This week, CNN held a tribute to Turner in Atlanta at the spot where he launched CNN. On hand were executives, alumni and members of Turner's family. 

Story 8: 

Peter Biello: In sports, Atlanta Braves outfielder Ronald Acuña Jr. has been placed on the 10-day injured list because of a strained left hamstring. Acuña got hurt Tuesday night against the Chicago White Sox when he pulled up limping after trying to beat out a grounder. An MRI yesterday showed the Grade 1 strain. It is Acuña's second left ham string injury this season. He was on the 10-day injured list in May as well. Acuña also has endured two serious knee injuries in his career. He sustained a season-ending torn ligament in his left knee in May 2024. And tore his right ACL midway through the 2021 season. The Braves lost to the Chicago White Sox last night 2 to 1. The two teams face off again tonight in Chicago for the last of the three-game series. The Braves then head to New York to take on the Mets for a three-game series and they return home to Truist Park on June 16th to face the San Francisco Giants. 

Outro: 

Peter Biello: And that is it for this edition of Georgia Today. If you're in the mood for another podcast, check out Marked!, a new series from GPB about Georgia's revolutionary era. Joseph Habersham played a pivotal role in Georgia's efforts to shake off British control. He helped lead the Patriot movement, arrested Royal Governor James Wright, and shaped the future of the young United States. Find the latest episode of Marked! in your podcast app or at gpb.org/marked. As far as the stories you heard on Georgia Today, You can find more information and read the latest headlines at gpb.org/news. And remember to subscribe to this podcast because we will be back in your feed tomorrow afternoon. If you've got any feedback or perhaps a story idea, something we should be covering in our newsroom, email us. The address is georgiatoday@gpb.org. I'm Peter Bielo. Thanks again for listening. We will see you tomorrow. 

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