A.M. ATL: A familiar fight

Morning, y’all! Congrats to Braves fav Ronald Acuña Jr. With Venezuela’s magical win over the U.S. in the World Baseball Classic, Acuña is now one of a select few MLB players who have won both a WBC title and a World Series title (the latter with the Braves, of course). How can you not be romantic about baseball?

Let’s get to it.

ANOTHER POLICE TRAINING CENTER IN ATL?

Atlanta police and fire recruits stand in front of the leadership building on the grounds of The Atlanta Public Safety Training Center.

Atlanta’s controversial $117 million public safety training center opened nearly 11 months ago in DeKalb County after years of protests and pushback from surrounding communities.

Now, DeKalb is planning another training facility.

• DeKalb’s Board of Commissioners approved $500,000 to design and plan a new public safety training center to serve police and firefighters.
• The funding will come from a local penny tax. This early, questions like total budget or a location for the center are wide open.

DeKalb’s other police and fire training facilities:

• a former Lithonia elementary school, now a police training site and east precinct
• a firing range on North Goddard Road
• police and fire headquarters on West Exchange Place
• a fire training facility on Warren Road

Local officials say having all of these centers spread out breeds inefficiency. Activists, on the other hand, sense a familiar fight. They say there are better things the county could be doing with its money.

🔎 READ MORE: What the new center would entail

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PROFESSORS FIGHT BACK AGAINST AI CHEATING

AI makes your brain soft, pass it on.

Remember blue books, those mini notebooklets professors distributed for exams? Well, they’re back in some Georgia universities. Thank AI.

• Professors and academics from Georgia’s top universities told the AJC instances of cheating are way up, and it’s usually not hard to spot when AI is involved.
• Cheating accusations nearly doubled last year, according to an academic honesty report from the University of Georgia.
• About 51% of the incidents were “alleged to be related to the use of artificial intelligence.”

So, handwritten answers it is for some classes.

• Emory’s bookstore said it’s seen a “noticeable increase” in blue book purchases.
• At UGA, blue book sales are up approximately 125% from last year.
• Professors aren’t thrilled they have to do this, by the way. Imagine having to read the handwriting of young people so used to typing on devices. Horrifying.

🔎 READ MORE: What GA teachers and students are saying

Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens says he is dedicating his second term to fighting inequality across the city, anchored by a proposal to direct more than $5 billion in tax revenue toward neighborhood revitalization — if he can win support for extending Atlanta’s eight tax allocation districts. At his State of the City address, Dickens called on the business community to help City Hall turn that long-term vision into lasting change in the neighborhoods that need it most.

MUST-KNOW POLITICS AND BUSINESS

🫏 Nabilah Parkes, dubbed “Georgia’s AOC,” was going to run for state insurance commissioner this year. Then, Republican state Sen. Greg Dolezal ran what the AJC’s Bill Torpy calls “an obnoxious and idiotic” ad mentioning Sharia law. Parkes has decided to challenge him for lieutenant governor instead.

🗳️ Touchscreen voting will remain in Georgia for this year’s midterms. It’s still a hotly debated issue at the Capitol, and state lawmakers delayed calls to switch to paper ballots to avoid uncertainty among local election officials.

⛽ Could some gas price relief be on the way? Georgia lawmakers of all parties are racing to suspend the state’s gas tax as oil prices continue to climb.

A REAL BALLER

Rochell "Wham" Middleton grew up playing basketball in Gwinnett County. Now, he's a Harlem Globetrotter.

When the Harlem Globetrotters’ 100 Year Tour stops in Atlanta, there’ll be some homegrown talent on the court.

• Rock “Wham” Middleton grew up in Stone Mountain and attended Parkview High School and Savannah State University. When he’s not with the Globetrotters, he still calls Atlanta home.
• Middleton was born for this: His father was a rapper, and his cousin is actor and comedian Chris Tucker. Real Grade-A Atlanta lineage.
• He told the AJC his city has definitely influenced his style. “It was me playing in those streets. That’s where all the real fun and creativity came along.”

🏀 READ MORE: How he got his big basketball break

NEWS BITES

How to monitor airport security lines as TSA agents continue without pay

We’re not nervous, are you nervous? Ha! Definitely not nervous.

Could the Hawks actually make the playoffs free and clear?

Manifesting.

A guide to the most popular skin treatments right now

We’re in our immortal face era.

An AI rendered Val Kilmer will appear in a new movie

I hope every late celebrity whose likeness is used in a weird AI way they probably couldn’t consent to comes back to haunt us.

ON THIS DATE

March 19, 1947

Court seats Thompson 5-2. The Georgia Supreme court, by a 5-to-2 decision, Wednesday declared that M.E. Thompson is governor of Georgia. … Herman Talmadge immediately put a crew to work moving his effects out of the executive offices at the State Capitol and at 12:15 the executive office had been cleared for Mr. Thompson.

Thus ended the infamous “three governors controversy.” When Georgia governor-elect Eugene Talmadge died in 1946 just weeks before taking office, it set off a three-way tug-of-war for the governorship between Talmadge’s son Herman, newly elected lieutenant governor Melvin E. Thompson, and current governor Ellis Arnall.

ONE MORE THING

I know people may get mad at me for calling Venezuela’s WBC win “magical” when, of course, it was USA that lost. I’m here for the love of the game, man.