A.M. ATL: It’s fair game

Let’s get to it.

WORLD CUP WATCHDOGS

Michael Collins was the director of the racial justice group Color Of Change before heading up Play Fair ATL.

Atlanta leaders have made a lot of promises ahead of the 2026 FIFA World Cup next summer. A new watchdog group, called Play Fair ATL, will make sure they deliver.

• World Cup host cities have to submit human rights plans to FIFA ahead of the tournament.
• Atlanta’s plan includes safeguards against human trafficking and protections for unhoused people and workers.
• Play Fair ATL includes input from labor, housing, immigration and criminal justice groups.
• The organization will also be paying attention to Downtown Rising, the city’s plan to offer housing and support to unhoused people ahead of the event.

INTERNATIONAL FIRMS HAVE SOME DOUBTS ABOUT GA

Manufacturing plant employees are escorted outside the Hyundai Motor Group’s electric vehicle plant in early September.

Here’s an important thing to remember about the recent immigration raid at a Georgia Hyundai battery plant site that kicked off tensions between South Korea and the U.S.: The plant is still under construction, and Korean nationals there had specialized tasks like supervising equipment installation and training new hires. So, when hundreds of them were sent back to South Korea, those procedures ground to a halt.

• Other international businesses are nervous about the same thing happening stateside.
• Several foreign companies, diplomats and experts told the AJC they have to worry about worker safety in a new way now when they’re thinking about U.S. opportunities.

MIND HOW YOU GO

A few notes about your Atlanta commute:

• Sewer repairs will shut down portions of 10th street in Midtown near Piedmont Park for about a month. Good thing that’s not a really important, highly trafficked area! Details here.
• The revolving door is spinning some more at MARTA. The agency’s Chief Capital Officer and Chief Operating Officer are both out. Those positions oversee, well, capital projects and operations, both areas where MARTA has recently fallen short of commuter expectations.

MUST-KNOW POLITICS AND BUSINESS

MURALPALOOZA

Gorgeous, no notes.

It was a colorful weekend in Cabbagetown where 54 artists painted sections of a half-mile wall as part of an annual celebration of public and urban art.

The Forward Warrior project is especially cool because the actual process is part of the fun. People gathered to watch the artists balancing on scaffolds, wielding brushes and spray paint as they transformed Wylie Street with color.

NEWS BITES

National Hispanic Heritage Month starts today

Celebramos a todos nuestros vecinos aquí!

The Falcons got a win against the Minnesota Vikings

I actually typed this before the game ended. I’m manifesting it. If you’re reading this in the morning, it worked.

The Atlanta Dream won their first playoff game since 2018

Heck yes. The girls had it on lock against the Fever and are now eyeing a series win.

So many students are using AI, schools have to redefine what constitutes cheating

Enjoy your soft, untested brains, kids! The only person you’re cheating is you.

ON THIS DATE

Sept. 15, 1959

What an incredible few paragraphs. The writer, John Hurt III, goes on to pull a few other literary frog references, and we are all the better for it. Frog-lore springs eternal.

ONE MORE THING

Sometimes I think about soccer balls too much and get overwhelmed. A soccer ball is a common example of a spherical polyhedron, where a regular combination of polygons fit neatly over the surface of a sphere. See, you’d think you could tile a sphere with hexagons. It seems natural, but you can’t! The fact that pentagons have to be in this particular mix is enraging.