Morning, y’all! After days of tense negotiations with Disney staff, they finally let me off “It’s a Small World.” Did you know it’s allegedly the most-played song in the world? I bet it would bring the house down at karaoke.
Let’s get to it.
HOMELAND SECURITY HEAD NOEM MORE
President Donald Trump fired Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem yesterday. She and the agency are under intense scrutiny over the conduct of ICE agents and the treatment of immigrants in detention facilities.
- The day before her firing, Noem was confronted during a House Judiciary Committee hearing over the welfare of Rodney Taylor, a Georgia man who has been detained by ICE for more than a year.
- Taylor is a double amputee. Rep. Lucy McBath of Marietta told Noem that Taylor can’t move about Georgia’s Stewart Detention Center in South Georgia because he has lost 20 pounds and his prosthetic legs don’t fit him anymore.
- Taylor, now 47, was brought from Liberia to the U.S. as a baby under a medical visa because of severe limb deformities. When he was apprehended last year, his visa had long since expired, but he had a valid work permit and a pending green card application through his U.S.-born children.
🔎 READ MORE: More on Taylor’s story
Back to Noem for a second: She’s gone, but not out. Trump says she will be a “Special Envoy for The Shield of the Americas,” a new security initiative for the Western Hemisphere.
Trump says he’ll nominate Oklahoma Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullin as the next Homeland Security head.
Not signed up yet? What’re you waiting for? Get A.M. ATL in your inbox each weekday morning. And keep scrolling for more news.
MARTA’S NEW MICROTRANSIT SERVICE
Ooh, “microtransit.” There’s a new buzzword.
The first phase of MARTA’s new NextGen Bus Network launches this weekend in 12 zones across the Atlanta area. It’s the first big revamp of MARTA’s bus system in, well, ever.
By the time it’s fully launched on April 18, the program will replace several bus lines, but increase frequency.
How does it work?
- Customers in the 12 MARTA “Reach” zones can use an app or call to reserve a ride from one point to another anywhere within the zone. The Reach rides can also connect to the nearest bus or rail line.
- MARTA admits it will be a bit of a transition for riders. Confused? Wondering if your area is affected? Here’s what you need to know.
HAPPY CROSSOVER DAY TO ALL WHO CELEBRATE
Today is Crossover Day for the Georgia General Assembly’s 2026 session.
That means any bill that has a hope of becoming law* needs to have passed in the chamber where it was drafted (either the House or Senate) and “crossed over” to the other for further approval.
Here are some of the big priorities:
- Data centers and whether to protect customers from the soaring energy costs they incur
- Income and property taxes and whether to eliminate or significantly reduce them
- Election issues and whether to ditch touchscreen voting and return to hand-marked paper ballots
🔎 READ MORE: Gun laws and more legislative issues on the table
Reminder: The legislative session ends April 2.
*Bills can be revived, of course, through legislative finagling — stuffing language from one bill into another, piling three bills together in a trench coat, etc.
MUST-KNOW POLITICS AND BUSINESS
✈️ Delta Air Lines announced a major executive shake-up. The company’s chief operating officer and chief marketing officer are both on their way out, CEO Ed Bastian announced. Bastian named replacements, as well as other C-suite changes.
👩🏽🍼Two Republican-backed bills that would give Georgians greater access to contraceptives and possibly more paid time off after giving birth have passed the House. Now it’s on to the Senate.
🚢 Georgia posted record export numbers in 2025 despite tariff and trade confusion. The value of Georgia products sold overseas surpassed $60 billion, making us the ninth-largest exporter in the U.S.
GEORGIA GIRL SCOUT PRIDE
Have you tried the new Girl Scout Cookie variety, Exploremores? They’re evil little chocolate sandwich cookies with chocolate, marshmallow and toasted almond–flavored creme inside.
(Is that too many flavors at once? Possibly. It’s a lot, but subtlety has never been part of the Girl Scout Cookie business plan.)
- Exploremores are even more delicious in Georgia, because the box features three Atlanta-area Girl Scouts!
- Etta, 7, of Fulton County; Armani, 8, of Cobb County; and Brianna, 9, of Coweta County, were chosen as the “faces” of Exploremores and appear on boxes nationwide.
- What’s their expert opinion on the new cookie? “They’re yummy,” said Etta. You heard it here first.
Did you know? Girl Scout founder Juliette Gordon Low was from Savannah!
🍪 READ MORE: How Girl Scout Cookies promote learning
NEWS BITES
Denmark will explore if gastronomy can be recognized as an art form
Gastronomy’s frilly little dishes better be art, because they’re barely food.
Canned cocktails to enjoy now that we’re seeing some porch weather
Cocktails in a can are either delicious or absolutely foul. (I’m looking at you, canned peach bellini I had at Truist Park during the 2021 World Series and may need therapy to forget.) Luckily, we picked the good ones.
No chance asteroid will slam into the moon in 2032, NASA says
Whew! That would have been bad.
Beyond Meat drops the ‘Meat’ from its name as it expands to plant-based drinks and snacks
My college dining hall’s vegan area featured a dish called “Chickenless.” I think about it a lot: the careless elegance of the name, the way it evades definition in favor of possibility, resting the burden of proof on the diner’s own palate. If not chicken, then what? Then anything.
The “Beyond” pivot carries similar philosophical promise. It doesn’t matter what it’s made of, simply that it is ... Beyond.
ON THIS DATE
March 6, 1936
Laughing girl now changes to giggling. From loud laughing to giggles in eight days read the case history of 18-year-old Teresa Hawkins Friday as doctors prepared for several weeks of treatment to restore her to health. Dr. J.E. Offner, attending the pretty business college student who suddenly broke out laughing in a theater more than a week ago, said the spasms have diminished until Teresa’s laugh “is more of a giggle than anything else.”
If a girl laughs for eight days and the newspapers don’t specify she’s pretty, does she make a sound?
ONE MORE THING
⚽ Let’s kick it tomorrow! ⚽
Exciting news: We’re launching a World Cup newsletter, written by yours truly. As A.M. ATL readers, you’ll get the first edition in your inbox this Saturday. Don’t worry, if you’re not into it, you won’t get it again.
Buuut, if you wanna be updated on all things World Cup leading up to this summer’s matches in Atlanta, stick around! You can sign up here or wait for tomorrow’s send for more info. It’ll be a fun time.
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.
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