Morning, y’all! Happy first AJC anniversary to me. What a year we’ve had together! Here’s to many more. Who knows? Maybe we’ll even get some non-unprecedented times to enjoy.
Let’s get to it.
OUR HOUSE IS A VERY, VERY, VERY FINED HOUSE
We all love a good “troublesome neighbor” story, but what if your neighbor was a sanctioned Russian oligarch whose assets, including the spooky, dilapidated, abandoned mansion you had to look at every day, had been frozen by the U.S. government?
It happens to the best of us.
- The AJC’s Thad Moore has a wild story that readers are loving about real estate drama over an Alpharetta mansion purchased by a Russian billionaire named Karina Rotenberg.
- After she was sanctioned, the house went into foreclosure and sat there for years, annoying neighbors and the HOA.
- During this time, lenders and municipal agencies, all of the entities that should be in the know about this stuff, didn’t appear to be aware the house had been flagged as off-limits by the U.S. Treasury Department. Neighbors even called the city trying to get answers, to no avail.
- Eventually, a real estate investor named Sahib Arora bought the property at auction. That got the attention of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, who nailed him with a $4.7 million fine — a massive and highly unusual sanction against an American.
- Arora says he had no idea about the property’s history, and clearly neither did a lot of other people who should have, or it never would have gone to auction.
🏚️ TODAY’S MUST-READ: The story ends with quite the deus ex machina
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THE AD BLITZ AGAINST LT. GOV BURT JONES INTENSIFIES
Lt. Gov. Burt Jones’ campaign is still trying desperately to halt a series of attack ads put out by a mysterious group called “Georgians for Integrity.” The group has now sunk an eye-popping $8 million into ads criticizing Jones’ political and business dealings ahead of his intended bid for Georgia governor.
At the beginning of January, Jones’ campaign urged the Federal Communications Commission to step in. Jones’ camp claims that since the ads deal with “political matters of national importance,” the group funding them has to disclose more information about itself.
A few weeks ago, the Georgia GOP filed an ethics complaint trying to force the group to register under state laws and disclose its donors.
Who’s behind Georgians for Integrity? We know the group has:
- a Delaware corporate registration
- an East Atlanta mail-drop address
- a Utah media buyer
Other than that, it’s a mystery. Jones’ Democratic and Republican opponents all deny being involved.
🔎 READ MORE: The latest on the ballooning controversy
HERE’S TO THE NEXT 100 YEARS OF THE ATLANTA AIRPORT
What will the world’s busiest airport look like in 100 years? It won’t matter to us, because we’ll all be dead by then. But people in charge have to plan for it anyway.
Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens says the airport’s “50 years out” with their planning. He also envisions concourses on concourses on concourses.
“The alphabet’s got 26 letters in it. ATL can keep going.”
Other futurological possibilities:
- Biometric systems that ease ID and security checks
- Self-driving cars and flying air taxis that could completely change how people get to the airport
- A second (gasp) Atlanta airport
🔎 READ MORE: Looking into Hartsfield-Jackson’s crystal ball
Hey, airport regulars! Do you, or someone you know, fly in and out of Hartsfield-Jackson weekly for work? Where to and why? We’d love to hear from you. Email us here and tell us about it; it may be featured in an upcoming AJC story.
MUST-KNOW POLITICS AND BUSINESS
💵 Affordability is the hot topic for the upcoming Georgia legislative session. Lawmakers will pitch tax cuts, spending changes and other solutions to address Georgians’ money concerns. As the AJC’s David Wickert puts it: “If ‘affordability’ were a drinking game — down a shot every time someone in the General Assembly uses the word — you’d probably wind up in the hospital on the first day of the upcoming legislative session." Salud!
🤝 Seven of Fulton’s 15 cities have women serving as mayor after last year’s municipal elections. That’s an area first. They hope to form a supportive “sisterhood” to help govern in a male-dominated sphere.
🗳️ The two U.S. Justice Department attorneys suing to get Fulton County’s 2020 election records and the state’s unredacted voter rolls have a history of representing Republican activists in Georgia election disputes.
THE FALCONS EMPTY THE NEST
The Atlanta Falcons fired head coach Raheem Morris after two seasons, along with the team’s general manager Terry Fontenot. They’re one of several NFL teams to recently clean house after disappointing seasons, and in Atlanta, it’s a familiar shuffle.
- Morris’ Falcons went 16-18 during his tenure. Our football gentlemen now have five consecutive losing seasons to dissect, and dissect they will. Here’s all of our coverage on management changes and what the Falcons need next, for your wallowing pleasure.
- Falcons owner Arthur Blank sent a letter to fans after the move outlining changes to the franchise. It is extremely long, so settle in. At least he has a lot to say.
No statement can change the disappointment of the past several seasons ... we have conducted a deep, thorough and intentional health assessment of our entire football operation over the last two months. Knowing adjustments across our operation are necessary to achieve our goals, we will be making significant changes. As we announced last night, we will have a new head coach and general manager in 2026, but that is only one part of our approach in a new era.
NEWS BITES
If you want New Year’s resolutions to stick, start small
Pro tip: This actually works, and your brain’s reward center loves it.
A new Grammy category honors album covers and the artists who make them
Guess you can judge a, uh, album by its cover. [Boos resound, tomatoes litter the stage, a crook appears from the wings.]
That’s a lot of sushi! [My manager is crying, the audience is starting to get violent. The microphone cuts off.]
ON THIS DATE
Jan. 6, 1950
Elephant spurns hospital trip; stages sit down, rampage. Coco, Grant Park’s 25-year-old ailing elephant is back in her Zoo home today, feeling better, attendants said, after throwing her weight around a bit. The pachyderm put her three-ton foot down yesterday when doctors ordered her to Grady Hospital for an X-ray of a bad knee. Coco played around with the idea for a while, then sat down on it — at Cherokee and Glenwood Avenues, about four hours later. An army couldn’t budge Coco … Coco just reared back on her Southern extremity and gave her audience a “whatta you gonna do about it?” look. … It seems that elephants have about the same fear of hospitals humans have.
Coco, a relatable queen. Whatta you gonna do about it?
ONE MORE THING
Did you know the English language has a generally agreed-upon order of adjectives? It’s why you can call someone a “big lumbering old jerk,” but sound kind of weird if you call them a “lumbering old big jerk.” The specifics are too dense to get into here, but it’s a good grammatical rabbit hole. I had to pause and remember them when I wrote “spooky, dilapidated, abandoned mansion.”
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.
