Morning, y’all! Remember that snow we had last week? Now we’re looking at record November temps over the next few days, with highs cozying up to 80 degrees. Hey, at least it may rain. Or not! It’s “any weather goes” season.
Let’s get to it.
IT’S THE MOST WONDERFUL AIR TRAVEL TIME OF THE YEAR
Trivia time: What do you think is the busiest travel day of the Thanksgiving season at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport?
a. Friday, Nov. 21 (six days before T-time)
b. Tuesday, Nov. 25 (two days before T-time)
c. Sunday, Nov. 30 (the Sunday after T-time)
d. Monday, Dec. 1 (the Monday after T-time)
Think for a minute while watching some planes take off.
🛫
🛬
🛫
Got it? OK, I was surprised.
- The busiest day by scheduled departures and arrivals is actually Monday, Dec. 1, a whole weekend after Thanksgiving.
- Tomorrow, the 21st, is the second-busiest Thanksgiving travel day, especially if you have an early flight.
- On Friday, nearly one out of every 10 departures is scheduled for the 9 a.m. hour.
If you’re taking off through Atlanta, read through some more info and use our handy security wait time tool to approximate your time in travel purgatory. Fly safe!
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ILLUMINATING IMMIGRATION STATS FOR GEORGIA
Georgia has the sixth biggest statewide population of immigrants without legal status, according to new data from a nonpartisan immigration study group. Some other numbers that sketch the reality of their lives in the state:
- About 479,000 unauthorized immigrants lived in Georgia as of mid-2023.
- That’s an increase of 45% since 2018, when 330,000 immigrants were living here without legal status.
- The majority of Georgia’s unauthorized immigrants have been living in the U.S. for over 15 years, with 72,000 having spent between 15 and 19 years here.
- About 31% of unauthorized immigrants who are employed in Georgia work in construction, and 12% work in manufacturing.
- About 60% don’t have health insurance, and under 40% own a home.
🔎 READ MORE: Additional figures from the Migration Policy Institute
FULTON NIXES $1 MILLION VETERAN FUND
The Fulton County Board of Commissioners rejected a push by three members to reinstate a $1 million grant program to benefit veterans that was cut from this year’s budget.
The county gave the Veterans Empowerment Commission $1 million annually in 2022, 2023 and last year to distribute in grants to organizations that serve veterans.
Vice Chair Bob Ellis and Commissioner Bridget Thorne raised questions this week about whether the money was being spent effectively and said they wanted to hear more about needs the federal and state governments were not meeting.
🔎 READ MORE: Hear from veterans who support the program
The county’s chief financial officer also presented commissioners Wednesday with a proposed budget that includes a tax hike to improve conditions at the county jail.
Property taxes would increase by 0.39 mills, or 39 cents for every $1,000 in assessed property value. That would cost the owner of a $400,000 home about $156.
MUST-KNOW POLITICS AND BUSINESS
💬 The White House apologized to Hyundai Motor Company for September’s immigration raid at their electric vehicle plant in Georgia, CEO José Muñoz said. He said the unnamed official claimed they were “not aware” and “didn’t know” about the raid that affected hundreds of South Korean workers and strained international business ties.
🔨 Home Depot’s wielding a new AI tool that is supposed to help builders price out complex projects. They’re hoping “Blueprint Takeoffs” will win more commercial business.
⚖️ President Donald Trump says he’s signed the Epstein files bill. Now, the Justice Department has 30 days to produce the files.
TYPEWRITERS WILL ALWAYS BE COOL
What do you do with what may be the largest typewriter collection in the Southeast? All kinds of fun things, it turns out.
Tom Rehkopf owns more than 1,000 typewriters, and they’re serving the Atlanta area well.
- He shares his collection with typewriter fans and analog writing fans at events like Emory University’s “Typewriter Petting Zoo.” (An adorable combination of words.)
- He’s also furnished niche, historical models to movie productions after randomly meeting actor Tom Hanks, a fellow typewriter aficionado.
- Typewriters also require a lot of love and care, so Rehkopf has his hands — and six storage sites — full of typewriter to-dos. Sometimes he even prints his own replacement parts, which seems delightfully anachronistic, doesn’t it?
📄 TODAY’S MUST-READ: The life of a typewriter collector
NEWS BITES
NASA unveils close-up pictures of the comet popping by from another star
You know the aliens rolled the comet windows up when they flew past us.
The NHL’s Eetu Luostarinen will miss time because of a, quote, ‘barbequing mishap’
How enticingly vague.
After a year off, Braves Fest is back at Truist Park in January
Phew, right in the dark night of our baseball-less lives!
An owl who flew into a cement mixer is recovering after rescue
Think of the love, care, patience, innovation, knowledge and science that went into saving this single bird. Truly an apex of the human spirit. Yet, to the owl, it’s just a highly inconvenient interlude with handsy bipeds. You can see it in his face!
ON THIS DATE
Nov. 17, 1883
More music: Second night of the Great Festival of DeGives — the biggest house yet — great applause followed by many encores. It is with feelings of unfeigned sadness that the untimely taking off of our very learned musical critic is announced. He was locked in a dimly lighted closet yesterday morning with eight schooners of beer and a tureen full of pretzels and told to “write up” the performance of the previous evening … The last sentence which he had written, read, “The pizza-cato piannissimoed on her arapeggio the unutterable timbre of which techniqued with the allegro staccato which admirably sandwiched the orchestralian of the diapasonic swell.” The theory is that the young man while mumbling the above sentence over just before writing it swallowed a part of it, which got hitched in his throat, and before he could wash it down with a couple of pretzels and a schooner he choked to death.
Obviously, it’s not the 17th, but looking over our files for the week, Producer Nicole and I thought this shouldn’t go unshared. What in the great blue tarnation is this? I would never believe it’s real if it weren’t in print. (Perhaps a vestige of journalistic trust that fades with physical media.)
ONE MORE THING
If anyone has any information about the Weirdest Column of 1883 And Possibly Ever, please let us know. I’m gonna ask our archivist. The entire newsletter team was speechless. This will haunt us all for days.
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.
