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As of June 5, 2020, the Paycheck Protection Program Flexibility Act (PPPFA) is now law. Among other things, the Act makes it easier for recipients of Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans to qualify for forgiveness. That’s important to the millions of small businesses that received PPP loans.  

Let’s go through some of the changes. You can look up the new law here.

Read more at Forbes

Data on COVID-19 can be confusing, sometimes even conflicting, and state reports of cases in Georgia have created an unusual level of controversy.

Nevertheless, a national scorecard on COVID trends shows that Georgia is making progress on combating the virus.

Read more at Georgia Health News

When University of Georgia professor Jason Locklin met Daniel Carraway over 10 years ago, neither of them knew their professional relationship would result in a substantial economic development investment in Athens. 

Back in 2008, Locklin, who is now director of UGA’s New Materials Institute, was an assistant professor in chemistry and engineering at UGA. Carraway, a UGA alumnus and serial entrepreneur, was looking at universities, trying to find the perfect spot for one of his employees to attend graduate school.  

“We met and hit it off, and after that he decided he wanted the student to work for me,” Locklin recalled. “We started working on projects together and haven’t stopped since.”

About five years ago, Carraway co-founded RWDC, a company to commercialize microbially degradable polymers, which are combined with other materials to make resins, from which single-use articles are made. These polymers, co-developed by Carraway, Locklin and Dr. Branson Ritchie, aim to solve the environmental problem of petroleum-derived single-use plastics.  

“Petroleum-derived plastics are a health and environmental nightmare,” said Ritchie. “And the solution is microbially degradable materials. A straw, a cup, a plate, a knife, a donut box. It’s your magazine coated paper. It’s your Tupperware container, etc. Look through your life. Our goal is to replace the items you use every day and discard, one by one with materials that don’t damage the environment.”

In their current state, plastics can take multiple centuries to disintegrate in a process called micronization. Petroleum-derived plastic products manufactured since the 1950s still exist in some form in landfills and as trash on the Earth and in the sea. 

“No one knows how long the micronized particles that are not visible to us will persist on our planet, but our research is indicating that these tiny particles may be the most dangerous forms of environmentally persistent plastics,” said Ritchie.  

To provide a sense of scope, 8 million metric tons of plastic enter the oceans per year, according to a 2015 landmark study by UGA professor Jenna Jambeck, who leads the institute’s Center for Circular Materials Management in the College of Engineering. Jambeck’s research also found that all plastic waste generated between 1950 and 2015, including plastics sent to recycling centers, totaled 6,300 million metric tons, of which 9% were recycled.

Locklin’s and Ritchie’s solution to the plastic problem uses plant-based sources. “The beauty of the material is it’s truly a circle,” said Ritchie. “You use a product manufactured with one of our resins, and when you’re done with it can be discarded into a waste system where microbes chew it up and turn it back into carbon dioxide and water.” 

The ongoing development of resins, made from the base polymer, to create various single-use articles fuels the partnership between the New Materials Institute and RWDC. “Every single product uses a different set of ingredients based on how long that product has to be useful – shelf life to refrigerator – how fast it needs to break down and where it’s going to break down,” said Ritchie. “For a disposable good, the quicker it disintegrates after it has been discarded, the better.” 

Collaboration is key
One of UGA’s strengths is its interdisciplinary approach to research. Locklin is a polymer chemist. Ritchie is a veterinary researcher and director of the Infectious Diseases Laboratory in the College of Veterinary Medicine; he has a Ph.D. in medical microbiology. They met one another shortly after Locklin arrived at UGA when Locklin’s polymer expertise was needed for a problem Ritchie was trying to resolve. 

“With 17 schools and colleges, the breadth of research expertise and insight UGA can bring to bear on a problem is incredible,” said Derek Eberhart, executive director of UGA’s Innovation Gateway, a key Innovation District partner. It was Eberhart who suggested Ritchie work with Locklin on the project he was researching. 

Crystal Leach, director of industry collaborations at UGA’s Office of Research, said there are multiple touchpoints between UGA and RWDC, including collaborations with research and identification of talent. “That’s the best sort of partnership,” Leach said. “And the founder [Carraway] is a pretty inspiring guy. He is truly a visionary, and he has to be making a business prosper at a time like this.” 

Athens’ Mayor Kelly Girtz has followed the progress of RWDC and played a role in bringing the new manufacturing plant to Athens. “As soon as I knew they were looking for space, I reached out to them. This was before I was even mayor and was just a county commissioner. It’s enormously beneficial to Athens, particularly right now when we’re in a crisis period, to know there will be a couple hundred high-wage jobs coming to town.”  

The partnership between RWDC, which is planning on creating 200 jobs in Athens, and the New Materials Institute puts Athens in the center of a new economy that will have global impact. 

And this new economy will be based on biologically degradable disposable products, according to Ritchie. “From our perspective, with the correct infrastructure, what we are preparing to achieve is an applied definition of economic development.” 

Girtz added that Athens is an attractive place for biotech in general, given the relatively low cost of doing business here and the labor pool that exists here for every level of manufacturing. “I love that Athens is building this entire ecosystem with research and public sector starting on campus. Then the flame is being lit as it moves to places like the Innovation District then into our great community for its home. It’s really the perfect Athens economic development story.”

Advantage Capital today announced a $2 million investment in Watkinsville-based GAXtracts, an active pharmaceutical ingredients company focusing on manufacturing and processing products from industrial hemp. The investment, which was made in connection with the Georgia Agribusiness and Rural Jobs Act (GARJA), will support the company with working capital and financing to purchase new equipment, as well as bring 30 new jobs to the local community as the company expands.

“We are excited about this investment. This partnership will allow us to advance our agricultural initiatives in the state of Georgia and provide much-needed jobs in the rural market,” said Don Barden, CEO of GAXtracts.

GAXtracts is Advantage Capital’s fifth investment in connection with the GARJA program. Advantage has now invested $15 million in small businesses across Georgia, which are helping to spur new job creation and economic growth in the state’s rural communities.

“GAXtracts has the type of growth potential that we seek out when partnering with businesses,” said Abhi Chandrasekhara of Advantage Capital. “We customized our investment to put GAXtracts in the best possible position to continue its sustained growth. I am excited to work with our portfolio companies statewide to help them grow, hit the next level, and create lasting economic impact in their local communities and beyond.”

The GARJA program provides growth capital for small businesses such as GAXtracts and stimulates economic expansion in rural parts of the state that have not seen the same kind of economic prosperity urban areas have in recent years.

“When the General Assembly passed GARJA in 2017, they did so with the intent of growing small, rural businesses. GAXtracts is a great example of the program at work,” said State Representative Marcus Wiedower.

As GAXtracts continues to grow with market demand it plans to expand into a new facility in Union Point, bringing jobs to another rural community in a distressed part of Georgia where nearly 1 in 3 people live in poverty.

The hemp market has grown tremendously since the passage of the Federal Farm Bill in 2018 and the Georgia General Assembly passed the industrial hemp protection bill in 2019. Both pieces of legislation lifted regulations, legalizing the crop for cultivation purposes. Over the last few years, the market has grown from a $600 million industry to a forecasted $4 billion industry by 2022.

While GAXtracts’ primary focus is the production of CBD and hemp-derived products, the company has been producing a medical grade hand sanitizer since the start of the COVID-19 crisis, helping to fill an urgent market need for hospitals, law enforcement, first responders, and assisted living and home health care businesses.

“I am proud to see small businesses like this growing here in our community,” said State Representative Houston Gaines. “This is exactly the kind of outcome the legislature looked for and will continue to look for—attracting capital to our great state to ensure Georgia small businesses continue to expand.”

Banks and Mortgage Monopolies Dire Warning for Canadians

Is Canadian Real Estate in for a Big Price Drop? Even in the wake of the deadliest health epidemic of the last century, the Toronto housing market and Vancouver housing market did not crash. And if China had not released its deadly disease, the housing markets would have been roaring right now. It’s like science…

After being delayed for nearly three months due to COVID-19, Georgia’s June 9 primary and general election has turned into chaos at many precincts in metro Atlanta.

Due to the election day meltdown, Fulton County has announced polls will remain open until 9 p.m.

The county elections office said in a statement: “Beginning at 7 p.m., ballots will no longer be scanned but will be placed in provisional ballot envelopes, per O.C.G.A. 21-4-418(d). Today is the first election in most poll workers in Fulton County and across Georgia operated the new election equipment introduced this year.  While the majority of polling places operated smoothly, a number of sites experienced challenges with equipment throughout the day. The extended hours will provide more time for any voters affected by these issues to cast their ballots tonight.”

DeKalb County announced just before 7 p.m. that it was extending voting time at seven precincts:

There have been reports all day of long lines, malfunctioning voting machines, confused poll workers, not enough absentee ballots, and passing the buck on whose fault it was between state and local officials. Gov. Brian Kemp was trending on Twitter for a time in the afternoon as users accused him of suppressing the vote.

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said his office would investigate voting issues in both Fulton and DeKalb Counties to root out problems before the November general election. In a statement, Raffensperger called the voting situation in both counties “unacceptable.”

“Obviously, the first time a new voting system is used, there is going to be a learning curve, and voting in a pandemic only increased these difficulties. But every other county faced these same issues and were significantly better prepared to respond so that voters had every opportunity to vote,” Raffensperger said in reference to Fulton and DeKalb.

Local leaders pushed back on the secretary of state’s comments, including DeKalb CEO Michael Thurmond. “The Election Day issues relating to the use of state-purchased voting machines represent an attack on the democratic process. The Secretary of State’s office has alleged these issues resulted from a failure of county leadership. If there was a failure of leadership, it starts where the buck should stop, at the top. The eradication of any ‘learning curve’ rests squarely at the feet of the Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and his office,” Thurmond said in a statement. 

The Georgia Democratic Party also had words for Raffensperger: “The Secretary of State’s job is to provide adequate support and training for counties as he implemented Georgia’s new voting system, and he has failed. Across the state, Georgia voters are waiting for hours to cast their ballots because Georgia’s system is failing them. We demand statewide action by the Secretary of State — the chief elections official in Georgia— to fix this problem immediately before we see these issues for every election this cycle.”

The post UPDATE: Election chaos in metro Atlanta as long lines, malfunctioning machines plague the polls appeared first on Atlanta INtown Paper.

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A suspect wanted in the rape of a Midtown woman has turned himself in to the Atlanta Police Department.

Eric Key, 26, surrendered at APD headquarters in the early morning hours of June 9. He has been charged with sexual battery, aggravated sodomy, rape, and kidnapping.

According to the police report, the victim was leaving her apartment on Juniper Street around 7:30 a.m. on June 7 when she was  approached by Key, who forced her into a vacant apartment and raped her.

APD widely circulated video and surveillance images of Key to the press and social media.

The post UPDATE: Midtown rape suspect surrenders to police appeared first on Atlanta INtown Paper.