Morning, y’all. Coffee is getting more expensive. I miss the days when I couldn’t tell the difference between good and bad coffee, because it all tasted like Chattahoochee runoff. Ignorance is bliss when you don’t care enough to spend on the good stuff. Then again, what isn’t getting more expensive these days? Pour another cup.
Let’s get to it.
NO WORK AND ALL PAY
Today in “local journalism accomplishes things,” the city of Atlanta ended a cushy contract with a former clerk who was paid more than $900,000 to work on a project that never began.
- Last week, the AJC reported Atlanta has spent more than $2.8 million in litigation defending its public safety training center in court since 2023.
- That included a contract with a former clerk to help with the name verification process for the public safety training center referendum brought by critics in an attempt to halt the process. That verification process never moved forward.
- Newly appointed City Attorney Marquetta J. Bryan says that after the AJC’s reporting, the city clearly needs new financial oversight policies.
- She’s proposing several new measures, including spending caps on consultant agreements, reviews of active contracts, and fixed agreement terms with clear start and end dates.
Here’s what really hurts: The payments were being made while the city was facing cuts and layoffs from a $33 million deficit.
🔎 READ MORE: How City Hall is working on better accountability
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ATLANTA ARMY VET WITH 50+ YEARS IN THE U.S. DEPORTED
Godfrey Wade, a U.S. Army veteran and decades-long resident of Atlanta, was recently deported to his birth country of Jamaica despite legally arriving in here as a child. Here’s how it happened:
His history and legal status
- Wade entered the U.S. with his mother in 1975.
- He served on active duty in the U.S. Army from 1983 to 1987.
- He was considered a “lawful permanent resident” because he had a green card. He also has six U.S. citizen children.
What threatened his residency
- In the early 2000s, Wade had two minor legal issues: a bounced check that was eventually repaid and a simple assault plea stemming from a domestic argument, which his lawyer said involved no physical contact or violence.
- A current DHS spokesperson told the AJC an immigration judge ordered Wade deported in 2014 because he did not show up to a court date.
- However, immigration court records show notices went to the wrong address and were returned as undeliverable.
- Ultimately, Wade was deemed not a priority for removal and the years passed.
How he was apprehended
- Wade was apprehended by local police during a September 2025 traffic stop. The police handed him over to ICE, and he spent six months in Stewart Detention Center before being deported.
Wade’s attorney and his family don’t think an Army veteran with two minor nonviolent crimes deserved such a punishment.
As thousands of immigrants are apprehended, jailed and deported by federal forces on claims of being in the States illegally, the specific conditions of a single person’s experience show the complexity of such claims.
🔎 READ MORE: Wade’s family speaks out as legal fight continues
ROUGH TIME TO BE SELLING A HOUSE
It’s a buyer’s world in Atlanta right now. Nearly 7 in 10 metro Atlanta homes sold below asking price in 2025. That’s the highest proportion in nearly a decade.
In a statement to the AJC, a real estate economist confirmed the city simply has more sellers than buyers — a whopping 81% more in December, in fact.
🔎 READ MORE: Other trends that tipped the real estate balance
MUST-KNOW POLITICS AND BUSINESS
🥊 The partial government shutdown persists. Lawmakers are at odds over requests for more oversight of federal immigration officers. That’s led to a pause in funding for the Department of Homeland Security.
🗳️ Derek Dooley is redefining “political outsider” in his bid for U.S. senator. The former football coach says he didn’t vote for two decades, including the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections.
$38.3 billion
That’s how much federal immigration officials plan to spend to increase capacity at immigration detention centers. More than 75,000 immigrants are in ICE detention as of mid-January.
A COOL TREE
At Massee Lane Gardens in Marshallville, Vince Dooley is in beautiful bloom.
Well, not the legendary University of Georgia football coach himself, may he rest in peace. This is a winter camellia tree whose specific cultivar bears Dooley’s name. Yes, of course the blooms are red.
Camellias are a Southern staple, and several varieties are named after Georgia heroes.
Dooley (the person) was a noted gardener and fan of camellias, so it’s a perfect tribute.
🌺 READ MORE: A winter wonderland near Peach County
NEWS BITES
‘Wuthering Heights’ debuts at No. 1 with $34.8 million first weekend
“Well, wuther me heights!” — a pirate who’s on a Brontë binge. (I’m so sorry. It sounded much funnier in my head.)
Whether it’s a mini-sabbatical or an adult gap year, more people are taking extended work breaks
We already have a word for “mini-sabbatical.” It’s … vacation.
How to make this pickleball venue’s License to Dill martini at home
Dill is a life-changing cocktail ingredient; you should try it.
What we can learn from lovebirds, the rare birds that mate for life
Lesson 1: To keep the spark alive, regurgitate in to each other’s mouths.
ON THIS DATE
Feb. 16, 1933
Assassin’s shots diverted as former Atlanta woman courageously grasps arm. The courage of one small woman, who pitted her strength against the determination of a crazed gunman, probably saved President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt from injury or death. Mrs. W. F. Cross, wife of a Miami physician, formerly of Atlanta, who seized the pistol-arm of Giuseppe Zangara and grimly matched the muscles of her 100-pound body against him, Thursday told how she was able to divert the anarchist’s aim. “My mind grasped the situation in a flash,” she said. “I said to myself, ‘he’s going to kill the President.’ I caught him by the arm and twisted it up.”
Ninety-three years ago this month, Zangara tried to assassinate FDR in downtown Miami. Lillian Cross, “the heroine of the assassination attempt,” was so close to Zangara that family members found powder marks on her right cheek after the attack.
ONE MORE THING
Those of us with more advanced word-based brain rot sometimes butcher the English language by saying things like “my flabbers are gasted,” or “my gob is smacked.” I genuinely think “my heights are wuthered” should be an acceptable exclamation of surprise.
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.
