A.M. ATL: A noteworthy improvement

Morning, y’all! Folks with lawns, do you know what kind of grass you grow? Before I lived in a house with a lawn, I had no idea the drama, the lifelong grudges that different kinds of grass can inspire among neighbors. The Kentucky Blues against the Zoysias, the Zoysias against the Fescues; these loyalties run deep. Do not come between an HOA board member and their grass, I’ll tell you that.

Let’s get to it.

ATLANTA’S 911 WAIT TIMES ARE GETTING BETTER

Dispatchers take calls at Cobb County’s 911 call and dispatch center.

A year after The Atlanta Journal-Constitution published a multipart investigation into long 911 hold times in the metro area, the length of the average wait time has dramatically improved.

• In May 2023, 911 callers waited an average of 19 seconds before speaking with an operator.
• The National Emergency Number Association recommends 95% of emergency calls to be answered within 20 seconds, and Atlanta was falling far short of that standard.
• However, by May 2025, the average wait time for a 911 call in the Atlanta area dropped to just over six seconds.
• About 90% of calls were also answered within that recommended 20-second window.

That’s great! How did it happen?

• Local officials say understaffing and high call loads slowed the system down.
• The Atlanta E911 added 15 call takers this year and created alternate options for nonemergency calls to lighten the load, like an online portal and text line.
• Officials say there’s still work to be done, especially with staffing. But the results so far are promising.

🔎 READ MORE: How Atlanta’s 911 centers are improving wait times

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READERS WEIGH IN ON MARTA

MARTA’s going through a lot right now, and public opinion of our city’s transit system is all over the place. Opinions editor David Plazas asked for reader feedback and found MARTA suffers from an image problem over issues both real and perceived.

• On the positive side, riders said MARTA is convenient and they feel safe.
• On the negative side, other riders feel unsafe and say service is too unreliable. (The recent Shakira concert snafu didn’t help, either.)
• On the complex side, public transit advocates say MARTA should be doing more with their annual budget and needs to address the challenges of daily ridership and big event loads.

🔎 READ MORE: What Atlantans want to see from MARTA

If you have something to add, bother David Plazas about it, not me. He’s great, and I would just forward your comments to him anyway.

THE YSL TRIAL IS FINALLY OVER

After nearly two years in the courtroom, the racketeering trial centered on Atlanta rapper Young Thug is at an end. How did it go? As one expert put it, “absolutely everybody lost.”

• The trial focused on Young Thug and his alleged Young Slime Life gang, which was blamed for several homicides and shootings across the Atlanta area.
• Young Thug, real name Jeffery Lamar Williams, and 27 other individuals were charged under Georgia’s RICO Act.
• This week, the last of the 28 defendants pleaded guilty to attempted murder.
• At the beginning of the sprawling trial, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis promised hard justice. By its end, the trial didn’t produce a single murder conviction and only two defendants made it through a full juried process.
• Young Thug himself accepted a plea deal in 2024 that included a banishment from the Atlanta area.
• Legal observers called the whole ordeal an “embarrassment” and a “circus.”

The trial may be over, but legislation inspired by it lives on. Georgia House Bill 237 would make it tougher for prosecutors to use artists’ “creative or artistic expression, whether original or derivative,” against them in court. Prosecutors attempted such a gambit against Williams. The bill didn’t pass this year, but could in 2026.

🔎 READ MORE: A timeline of the trial, including delays, plea deals, a pornographic Zoom hack, juror dismissals and more

🔎 READ MORE: The longest trial in Georgia history, by the numbers

MUST-KNOW POLITICS AND BUSINESS

🧊 Top California leaders want to sue President Donald Trump over his deployment of 300 National Guard troops to Los Angeles without Gov. Gavin Newsom’s consent. The Pentagon plans to deploy 700 Marines to the city as well. Weekend demonstrations against ICE raids in the city were mostly peaceful, but the addition of federal troops sowed fear and isolated incidents of violence.

🐘 GOP activists want to stop Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger from running for governor or Senate next year. Raffensperger famously did not entertain Trump’s false claims of election fraud in Georgia after the 2020 election.

🪓 Warner Bros. Discovery plans to split itself into two publicly traded companies. It isn’t clear what that means yet for the company’s Atlanta entities or the future of CNN. The way they’re splitting it is kind of complex — too complex for this paragraph. Guess you’ll have to read the whole story.

GO OUT AND TOUCH (NEW) GRASS

Looks good, folks.

I can’t lie — I was riveted by this story about the new grass they’re installing in Mercedes-Benz Stadium for the Club World Cup matches later this month.

• The grass is just the top layer, obviously. From the bottom, it goes: asphalt base, aluminum subfloor, three inches of sand from a Macon quarry (local!) and then the grass.
• The grass is a hybrid of Kentucky blue and perennial rye from Colorado that was shipped here in refrigerated trucks, and it will be rolled out on top of the sand.

Mercedes-Benz Stadium put a lot of effort into this grass strategy. The last time the stadium hosted an international soccer event, the opening Copa America match in 2024, the grass was not good.

⚽ READ MORE: What makes good soccer grass and why the 2024 grass debacle wasn’t Atlanta’s fault

NEWS BITES

Sly Stone, revolutionary musician and leader of Sly and the Family Stone, dies at 82

A legend. The heavenly band just got a lot funkier.

BET Awards mark 25th anniversary with major star power and calls for justice

The night delivered a mix of entertaining and poignant moments from several stars including Doechii, Mariah Carey, Jamie Foxx and Kevin Hart.

How kids (and adults) can maintain ‘cyber hygiene’ this summer

No to hours of scrolling, no to bed rot. And, more importantly, no to having your personal data stolen.

Iconic banjo player Béla Fleck will play Gershwin’s ‘Rhapsody in Blue’ with the ASO

Oh, this will be a transcendent experience. They’ll have to pull people off the ceiling.

GIVEAWAY TIME!

Love the WNBA? You’ve found your people. We’re giving away two tickets to watch the Atlanta Dream play the Washington Mystics on Friday, June 20, at the Gateway Center Arena in College Park. (Oh, and a parking pass! That’s very important.)

🏀 ENTER HERE. Side note: You must be an AJC subscriber to enter!

NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. Open to GA residents, 18+, who are current, paying AJC subscribers as of 6 a.m. ET on 6/9/2025. Starts 6/9/2025, 6 a.m. ET; ends 6/13/2025, 11:59 p.m. ET. Prize ARV: $280. Limit 1 entry per person. Other restrictions apply. Travel not included. See full rules. Sponsor: Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Void where prohibited.

ON THIS DATE

June 10, 1973

From the front page of The Atlanta Journal: A dollar for a half gallon of milk? The spiraling cost of milk is already higher in Atlanta than anywhere else in the nation, and most everyone in the state’s multimillion-dollar dairy industry agrees things will get worse before they get better. But they can’t agree on why.

The average price of milk in Atlanta now is $4.34. I’m so sorry. We both knew that was going to be depressing. I didn’t have to get specific about it.

ONE MORE THING

As a Silver Spring, Maryland, native, my loyalties are split on the Dream-Mystics game, and I am very jealous of the giveaway winner. Good luck!