Morning, y’all! It’s official: Georgia is now in a “Level 1″ drought, the first on an increasingly concerning scale of official drought responses. You don’t have to do anything yet, but expect some messages from public utilities on the importance of conserving water. This is the driest the state’s been since 2007.
Let’s get to it.
EARLY VOTING IS ON
Get those peach stickers, folks. Early voting for the Georgia primaries and the nonpartisan judicial races is open from now through May 15. If you’re a day-of kinda person, mark your calendar for May 19.
There’s a lot on the ballot, so a little homework may be in order. Among the races:
- governor
- lieutenant governor
- secretary of state
- attorney general
- state school superintendent
- commissioners of agriculture, insurance and labor
- a U.S. Senate seat (currently held by Sen. Jon Ossoff)
- two of nine state Supreme Court justices
- two seats on the Georgia Public Service Commission
- every seat in the U.S. House
- every seat in the state House and Senate
- various local offices
- various nonbinding ballot questions
Phew! That’s a lot. To the AJC’s Voter Guide!
🗳️ READ MORE: Meet the candidates for U.S. Senate in Georgia
🗳️ READ MORE: Meet the candidates for Georgia governor
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.
EX-ALABAMA PLAYER PLEADS GUILTY IN WILD $20M FRAUD CASE
Luther Davis, a former defensive tackle at the University of Alabama who was part of their 2010 national championship team, pleaded guilty in a case of impersonation and wire fraud almost too bold to be believed.
- Davis and a co-defendant allegedly secured almost $20 million in loans by using the names and likenesses of NFL players.
- It doesn’t stop there. Prosecutors say Davis wore makeup, wigs and, at one point, “a durag-style head covering” to physically impersonate the players.
- The pair created sham companies and bank and email accounts and obtained fake identification in NFL players’ names, including fake Georgia and Florida driver’s licenses.
- The (actual) NFL players were identified only by initials in court documents and had no part in the scheme.
🔎 READ MORE: How they orchestrated the alleged fraud
BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING
Someone mowed down the Flock Safety camera outside my neighborhood, and while I hope they’re OK, I kind of wonder if it was intentional.
There’s a lot of controversy swirling around surveillance technology, and Atlanta is a hotbed of it. (In fact, Flock itself is a Georgia-based company.)
- The major concern is who can access the license plate records, video footage and other data these technologies collect.
- The ACLU found the Atlanta Police Department shares data with nearly 2,000 other police departments through the Flock network.
- Federal agencies can also access such data through partnerships with local agencies, like the ones Immigration and Customs Enforcement has around Georgia.
👀 Did you know? Atlanta is considered the most-surveilled city in the U.S., with more than 60,000 cameras in public and private areas.
MUST-KNOW POLITICS AND BUSINESS
💥 Lt. Gov. Burt Jones’ latest ad against gubernatorial rival Rick Jackson focuses on the billionaire’s political record … and his face.
🎤 For the first — and likely last — time, the Democratic and Republican contenders for governor appeared Monday in separate Atlanta Press Club debates. And they made clear they weren’t playing nice.
🧇 Waffle House is redoing a downtown location to include a storefront ahead of the World Cup. Now visitors will find it even easier to be the envy of all their friends back home with some sweet WaHo merch.
OPRAH VISITS MOREHOUSE
Since 1989, the Oprah Winfrey Endowed Scholars Program has provided financial support to nearly 800 young men attending Atlanta’s famed Morehouse College.
Last Friday, she surprised the 2026 group of scholars with a casual little visit. Oh, nothing to see here. Just Auntie O, as they know her, dropping by to chat.
- About a dozen soon-to-be Morehouse grads who received funding from Oprah’s program spoke during a pre-graduation dinner about their future plans and what the program has meant to them. Then: Enter Oprah from the back of the room.
- “It was an out-of-body experience,” one student said.
- Winfrey called the opportunity to hear from the scholars “a great, great joy.”
- “I feel so rewarded by every single young man who has spoken here today.”
🎓 TODAY’S MUST-READ: ‘Utter shock.’ Morehouse students react to Oprah’s surprise
NEWS BITES
Rare two-colored lobster caught by fishermen off Cape Cod donated to aquarium
Oh, look, it’s wearing UGA colors!
What does Shaq smell like? You can find out with his new fragrance
I know we’ve all been wondering.
Archaeologists at Pompeii use AI to reveal one of the faces of the victims
Ugh, first they perish in a volcano eruption, and now they’re subject to this indignity?
Is TMI such a bad thing? The case for oversharing
Send this to your friends when the fun hang accidentally turns into a communal trauma dump.
ON THIS DATE
April 28, 1998
Consumers turn to Web for health advice. Consumers are increasingly turning to cyberspace for guidance about health and medicine, yet a growing number of sites offer unreliable information, new research shows. “Trying to get health information from the Internet is like drinking from a fire hose, and you don’t even know what the source of the water is,” said Mary Jo Deering, director of health communication and telehealth for the Department of Health and Human Services.
Twenty-eight years later, and we’ve learned nothing.
ONE MORE THING
My favorite Oprah fact is that her birth name is Orpah, a biblical character in the Hebrew book of Ruth. Unsurprisingly, people kept mispronouncing it, so she made one of the most iconic name changes ever.
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.
