Greetings, Georgia.
It's Tuesday, May 23, 2023.
A potentially looming default on U.S. debt could significantly affect Georgians.
Medicare coverage for at-home COVID-19 tests ended last week, but the scams spawned by the temporary pandemic benefit could have lingering consequences for seniors.
Meanwhile, the Atlanta prosecutor investigating whether then-President Donald Trump and others broke the law trying to overturn his 2020 election loss in Georgia seems to be suggesting that any grand jury indictments in the case would likely come in August.
This is Georgia Today.
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✭ Factories, farms and flight: How Georgia could propel sustainable jet fuel into the future
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The Freedom Pines Fuels facility, under construction in Soperton, is slated to become the first commercially operated sustainable jet fuel refinery in North America, according to owner LanzaJet. (LanzaJet)
“So this is alcohol-to-jet technology,” refinery manager Nick Cavalier said as he walked along a gravel road through a construction site in Soperton, about halfway between Savannah and Macon.
He points to a factory — or rather, a future factory. The walls aren't built yet, but inside the exposed framing, there are big metal reactors.
- “What these reactors do is, as you take in this ethanol, you start stacking the carbon chains,” Cavalier explained. “Jet fuel ranges anywhere from a C9 to a C18 carbon molecule.”
Working for the sustainability tech company LanzaJet, Cavalier has extensive experience in the energy sector and a deep understanding of the complicated science behind Freedom Pines Fuels in Soperton — the first commercially operated sustainable jet fuel refinery in North America once it begins production later this year.
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✭ Health care workforce shortage in 'state of emergency' DBHDD commissioner says
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A life-size statue of former first lady Rosalynn Carter sits at the health and human sciences complex at Georgia Southwestern State University that is named for her. (File Photo)
Commissioner of the Georgia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities Kevin Tanner spoke at the Carter Center on Thursday, May 18.
He said lack of access to behavioral health care has to do with staffing shortages and they are looking for ways to retain and recruit workers, including higher pay.
The department hired a third party to work closely with DBHDD to analyze staffing needs and find innovative, forward-thinking ways to retain, recruit, and increase the health care worker pipeline.
The last full behavioral health rate study occurred 20 years ago.
- "Obviously, the cost of living has changed since 2003 and it is is causing us great difficulty in being able to find enough providers in this state and for them to be able to attract a workforce," Tanner said.
The study has been completed and shows that a nearly 40% pay increase is warranted.
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Valerie Handy-Carey stands at Donald Lee Hollowell Parkway and Finley Avenue on March 19, 2023, in Atlanta. Several months earlier, her daughter Brittany Glover was hit by a car and died while trying to cross the intersection. With pedestrian deaths in the U.S. at their highest in four decades, citizens across the nation are urging lawmakers to break from transportation spending focused on car culture. Atlanta, she said, needs to do more to protect pedestrians and cyclists. (AP Photo/Sharon Johnson)
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- In response to a new round of U.S. sanctions, Russia announced Friday that it was banning 500 Americans from entering the country, including Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.
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✭ New hope for an antidote to death cap mushrooms and other poison fungi
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Death cap (Amanita phalloides), Amanitaceae. (De Agostini Picture Library via Getty Images for NPR)
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They don't call it the "death cap" mushroom without good reason. It's one of the most poisonous mushrooms in the world. Eating only half a cap can shut down your liver — and if you don't get medical attention fast enough, that 'shroom just might turn out to be your last meal.
Mushroom poisonings are tough to track reliably, but some scientists estimate that they cause about 10,000 illnesses and 100 deaths a year globally.
In new research published this week in Nature Communications, a team of Chinese and Australian scientists reports that they may have found an antidote for death cap mushroom poisoning — and it's a widely available drug that already has FDA approval.
While foragers should take heed of regular warnings by health officials about the dangers of poisonous mushrooms, most mushrooms are not dangerous.
- "The vast majority are completely innocuous," says Marin Brewer, a mycologist at the University of Georgia. "There's a really small percent that are tasty gourmet edibles, and then a really small percent that are poisonous."
But to the untrained eye, the unassuming white cap and stalk of the death cap can be confused with tasty edible mushrooms such as the paddy straw.
Click read more to find out about the antidote—and why it's best to leave foraging to experts.
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Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy and Louisiana Rep. Garret Graves speaks with members of the press after participating in a phone call on the debt ceiling with President Biden on Sunday. (Patrick Semansky/AP Photo)
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On Political Rewind's latest episode: Our panel, including Patricia Murphy and Tia Mitchell from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, as well as filmmaker King Williams and Rick Dent of Matrix Communications, discussed Russia adding 500 Americans to a sanctions list, Gov. Brian Kemp meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and debt ceiling talks continuing after a shaky weekend.
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Tune into GPB Radio and GPB.org at 9 a.m. and 2 p.m. for Political Rewind.
Today on Political Rewind: Emory University's Dr. Alan Abramowitz and Dr. Andra Gillespie, and the AJC's Tamar Hallerman.
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Check out our latest Georgia Today podcast episode:
Striking Dalton school bus drivers reach a deal, but buses are still not running; there's new hope for children with peanut allergies; and Savannah is getting a new four-year medical school.
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