Morning, y’all. It’s Virgo season, so happy trip around the sun to you late August and September babies. Virgos are known to be perceptive, practical and analytical, so now’s a good time to tidy up your life, whether literally or figuratively. Take a stick vac to those dusty brain wrinkles and make a fresh start for fall.
Let’s get to it.
AN OPIOID CRISIS BREAKTHROUGH?
Good news: Opioid overdose deaths fell by nearly a third from 2023 to 2024 in Georgia. It’s a sign the state is making headway in the nationwide opioid crisis, but there’s still a long way to go.
- Why deaths have declined: A complex problem requires multiple solutions, and Georgia has seen progress from federal and state policies related to drug treatment, fentanyl test strips and naloxone, an opioid overdose antidote.
- A “law and order” approach: In recent years, Gov. Brian Kemp and Lt. Gov. Burt Jones have worked to enact heavier sentencing for fentanyl trafficking.
Now, the bad news:
- Death rates are still very high: Opioid overdoses spiked during the pandemic, and despite the improvement, deaths are still higher than they were before 2020 catapulted us into a different timeline.
- Federal cuts: Some experts are confident the Trump administration will continue to pay attention to the opioid crisis. But there’s a big question of how. Federal cuts to Medicaid, CDC programs and other public health initiatives could cut funding, research and advocacy.
🔎 READ MORE: A look at the opioid crisis in Georgia today
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NEW ICE TRAINING METHODS
The role of Immigration and Customs Enforcement continues to grow, and Georgia is at the center of it all.
- ICE officials want to add 10,000 enforcement officers to its current roster of about 6,500. They’re getting $76.5 billion in new money from Congress to meet President Donald Trump’s mass deportation goal, and about $30 billion of that is for hiring.
- Where do new recruits train? Right down the way at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Brunswick.
- The six-week course includes a lot of tactical and shooting work, plus driver training on a course. Recruits also get training on the Fourth Amendment (the one that protects against unreasonable search and seizure).
- There’s been some downsizing, though. Leaders recently cut five weeks of a Spanish language course, and are planning to replace it with translation technology.
🔎 READ MORE: Inside the ICE training facility
HUNGRY, HUNGRY DATA CENTERS
We know data centers, for all their promised economic and regional benefits, slurp up power and water like a teenage boy in a growth spurt. What does that actually mean, in layman’s terms?
- Data centers use 10-50 times as much energy as a typical office building with the same square footage.
- Experts say the ones used to train AI are the most power hungry.
- In Georgia, the surge in data centers is so great Georgia Power will have to significantly expand its generation and transmission. So far, they’re relying heavily on fossil fuels to do it.
- Residents near these mall-sized behemoths are worried about rising costs of water and power, as well as unreliable service if grids get too overloaded from generating said teenage boy’s C-grade book report from ChatGPT.
🔎 READ MORE: Breaking down how the power is generated, where it goes and who pays for it
MUST-KNOW POLITICS AND BUSINESS
🗳️ Georgia’s mass cancellation of nearly 471,000 voter registrations is complete. It’s one of the largest removals of inactive voters in U.S. history. Check your voter registration now so you don’t get a nasty surprise at the polls.
📱 Trump says he’ll keep extending the deadline to sunset TikTok in the U.S. until there is a buyer for the popular video sharing app. He called privacy and security concerns related to the Chinese-owned platform “highly overrated.”
🪖 When National Guard troops were first sent to Washington, the White House said they wouldn’t be armed. They are now, after an order from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
GAME OF THRONES
“We get it,” you may be saying, “AI is bad! Data centers are sketchy. Well, what should giant buildings be filled with?”
So glad you asked. The answer is fancy toilets.
- Toto USA, the American division of the Japan-based bathroom fixture company, just completed a $224 million expansion at its factory near Morrow in Clayton County.
- Toto specializes in bidets and Japanese-style luxury toilet systems.
- One of the reasons for the big technical upgrade is a growing demand for commodes that greet you, heat you, sing to you and otherwise make your bathroom trip one of wonder and disorienting intimacy.
Oh, and the company will probably get millions in tax breaks from it all. No new jobs in the deal, but Toto says it will give existing workers a pay raise as they learn to operate new tank bonding robots and other complex equipment.
🔎 READ MORE: Toto also calls toilets ‘Washlets’
NEWS BITES
Falcons make final roster moves before regular season starts
Preseason losses don’t count, so your anxiety doesn’t have to, either.
Manifesting a postseason run for our belles of the ball.
A lifetime membership to Dragon Con will cost you $4,500
You can’t put a price on the good times at Dragon Con, but boy do they try.
New Apple AI tool wants to be your workout buddy
BEGONE.
ON THIS DATE
Aug. 25, 1975
From the front page of The Atlanta Journal: 18 tons of grass seized in Savannah A small army of U.S. customs agents mustered from four states, acting on an anonymous tip, smashed a seaborne marijuana-smuggling operation south of Savannah and seized what is reported to be the largest haul of pot ever brought into the Southeastern United States. Authorities seized 18 tons of Colombian marijuana from a shrimp boat early Sunday near Sapelo Sound off the South Georgia coast.
You load 18 tons, what do you get? A gaggle of agents with a big fish net.
ONE MORE THING
OK, joke time: How do you know if someone has a bidet?
Don’t worry, they’ll tell you.
Thanks for reading to the very bottom of A.M. ATL. Questions, comments, ideas? Contact us at AMATL@ajc.com.
Until next time.
About the Author
AJ Willingham is an National Emmy, NABJ and Webby award-winning journalist who loves talking culture, religion, sports, social justice, infrastructure and the arts. She lives in beautiful Smyrna-Mableton and went to Syracuse University.
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