Greetings, Georgia.

It's Thursday, April 20, 2023.

Three years after the start of the pandemic, millions of working age people still suffer from long COVID-19. Workplace accommodations could help. Read why.

Across the state border to our north, power, race and a fragile democracy are all in the balance in Tennessee.

Two prominent Georgians died this week: Charles Stanley, longtime pastor of First Baptist Church of Atlanta, was 90. And Macon musician Otis Redding III, son of the legendary soul singer, was 59.

This is Georgia Today.

TOP STORIES

✭ 2020 election lies about Georgia could soon finally face legal reckoning

Former President Donald Trump and his allies could get their day in court as fallout from the 2020 election continues. (File) 

Nearly two and a half years after former President Donald Trump and his allies tried to overturn his presidential defeat in Georgia, courtrooms around the country are poised to bring accountability and potentially some closure to those efforts.

This week, an explosive defamation trial brought by election tech company Dominion Voting Systems against Fox News was settled for a staggering $787.5 million after the network aired false claims about Dominion and its equipment used in Georgia and other states.

Fox faces other suits from election company Smartmatic and a fired Fox News producer, while Dominion still has suits pending against far-right TV networks One America News and Newsmax, Trump's onetime personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, lawyer Sidney Powell and Mike Lindell.

But another defamation case in Missouri is set to begin a trial in early May, featuring two Fulton County election workers who were subjected to numerous false claims from Trump and his allies in the aftermath of the election. Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss are suing Jim and James Hoft, who run the fringe website Gateway Pundit that led the attacks against the pair.

✭ Genetically engineered trees in a Georgia forest mark a first in the nation

This sapling in Georgia's Tattnall County is one of the first commercially planted genetically modified forest trees in the United States. (Grant Blankenship / GPB News)

Living Carbon is the California-based company is leading the charge on what could be a revolution — genetically modified trees. The company says it has engineered the genome of saplings that began as a hybrid of two European poplars. When China began allowing commercial planting of genetically engineered trees decades ago, it, too, started with an altered poplar. 

Vince Stanley, a wetland owner in Tattnall County, hopes the trees can turn his wetland into a grove of money makers for him and Living Carbon, even during the years before he cuts the trees and sells them. 

• “They're going to pay me a sum of money every year and I get to harvest the timber?" he said. "Give me that. Give me that all day long."

RELATED: UGA scientists aim to adapt pecan trees to survive climate change

✭ State of Black America report calls out extremist ideologies

Students from the Atlanta University Center speak on a panel April 18, 2023, at the State of Black America event at Morehouse College in Atlanta. (Amanda Andrews / GPB News)

Georgia leaders and student representatives from the Atlanta University Center gathered at Morehouse College on Tuesday to discuss the 47th State of Black America report. This year’s focus was on extremist ideology.

The National Urban League named this year’s report "Democracy in Peril: Confronting the Threat Within." It identifies five leading factors leading to inequality in the United States: hate crimes, censorship in education, hateful conspiracies, police brutality and divisive policies.

• “For all of the progress that Black Americans and our nation have made since the abolition of slavery and the dawn of the modern day civil rights movement, we must be clear that not only is that progress under extreme threat, our very freedoms, our liberties and our lives are at stake," Greater Atlanta Urban League Director Nancy Flake Johnson said.

GPB NEWS HEADLINES

• A Georgia sheriff on Monday announced the resignations of top jail staff amid an investigation into the death of a man in a bedbug-infested cell in the jail's psychiatric wing.
   
• Democratic lawmakers in the Georgia House held an informal hearing last week on how to manage the end of a temporary federal policy that kept more than 2 million people in Georgia on Medicaid since the start of the pandemic. 
   
• Most COVID restrictions are over, but county jails are still profiting from virtual communication.

WHO KNEW?

✭ ArtsBridge Foundation honors high school theater at 15th Shuler Awards

Today on GPB-TV, the annual ArtsBridge Foundation’s Shuler Awards will be livestreamed in recognition of high school theater programs across Georgia for their 2022-23 school year productions.

According to ArtsBridge Foundation’s Executive Director, Jennifer Dobbs, the Shuler Awards, named after Marietta-born film and stage actor Shuler Hensley, help community members understand the work that students, theater directors, and high school programs from over 17 counties put in yearly.

• “It is truly the Georgia high school version of the Tony Awards, and provides students an opportunity to experience being on the big stage, as well as being on a live broadcast television program,” Dobbs said.

The event, which takes place at Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre, features “purple-carpet arrivals inspired by the Tony Awards, live nominee performances, and trophies presented in 18 categories,” according to a press release.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is leading an investigation into attempts to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia. (John Bazemore / AP)

Latest podcast episode: Political Rewind: Willis offered immunity to false electors; Fox News and Dominion Voting settle

Highlights: Fulton DA Fani Willis seeks to disqualify lawyer for some GOP fake electors, citing 'ethical mess'; Fox News averts major defamation trial by settling with Dominion Voting Systems; Abortions are cut in half after House Bill 481 goes into effect in Georgia; Gov. Brian Kemp urges Republicans to distance themselves from Trump in 2024. 

Tune into GPB Radio and GPB.org at 9 a.m. and 2 p.m. for Political Rewind.

Today on Political Rewind: GPB News' Stephen Fowler and Donna Lowry, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Kevin Riley, and political ad analyst Rick Dent.