Morning, y’all! If you could swim in a pool of cooked pasta, what pasta shape would you choose? I think I’d go with fettuccine, a word that I now realize I’ve never typed out and took three tries to spell correctly.
Let’s get to it.
DEKALB LEADERS WANT DATA CENTERS TO GIVE THEM SOME SPACE
A growing number of municipalities are pushing back against big data center plans, and DeKalb County leaders are among them.
- DeKalb County commissioners want more revisions to a draft amendment to the county code to regulate data centers, including a policy doubling the distance the facilities must be from homes, county parks and trails.
- The head of the board also said the group will extend a moratorium on the development or expansion of data centers set to expire this month.
This is civic participation at work. The changes are being pursued in part because of comments from concerned residents who showed up to a heavily attended committee meeting earlier this week.
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DISTRICT ATTORNEYS SUE OVER GEORGIA’S NONPARTISAN ELECTION LAW
A group of metro Atlanta district attorneys launched a challenge to a new Georgia law that makes key local offices nonpartisan in Clayton, Cobb, DeKalb, Fulton and Gwinnett counties.
- The group argues the law is unconstitutional since it only applies to certain counties.
- Said counties are, to a one, represented by a Black Democratic woman serving as district attorney.
- The DAs filing the lawsuit represent Clayton, Cobb, DeKalb and Fulton counties. The Gwinnett County DA also supports the motion.
- The law, supported by state GOP legislators, is directly tied to Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and her prosecution of President Donald Trump. (Willis was mentioned during legislative debate over the measure.)
- By making elections for positions like district attorney and county commissioner nonpartisan, opponents argue Republicans are deliberately obscuring affiliations that could favor their party.
The Legislature did not give any legitimate reason for treating our counties, our elected officials, our voters, different from the rest of the state's 154 counties. It is very hard to ignore that the five counties targeted by this law have large Black voter populations and have all elected Black female district attorneys.
MUST-KNOW POLITICS AND BUSINESS
💬 Some on the left are calling for U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff to run for president in 2028. “I hate to be the one to break it to progressives across America, but it’s not happening,” AJC senior political columnist Patricia Murphy writes. “Really.”
🚔 An agreement authorizing Cobb County Police to continue providing law enforcement services in the city of Mableton expired Sunday night, leaving the county’s newest city with diminished resources. The Cobb County Sheriff’s Office will deputize just over 100 Cobb police officers who work in the area of Mableton to continue to respond to emergency calls.
THE AJC INVESTIGATES ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE IN GEORGIA
We’ve all heard the buzzwords: hyperbaric oxygen, stem cells, peptides, custom vitamin infusions, ozone treatment, hormone boosts. Alternative medicine is a booming business, and in Georgia, it is largely unregulated.
That can cause real harm to patients who can’t get a clear picture of risks, results or whether practitioners are being honest about their credentials.
An AJC investigations team set out to examine how Georgia is responding to people who tout unproven and disproven health treatments.
How they did it
- The team researched the qualifications of the nearly 300 practitioners identified at clinics, storefronts and mobile services. Was the provider really board certified? A bestselling author? A world-renowned cancer expert? Was the person pictured in the white coat and called “doctor” really a licensed physician?
- They then cross-referenced their findings with information from Georgia’s medical board.
- Here’s one of the problems: Georgia’s medical board is one of the nation’s weakest, hamstrung by underfunding and lax regulations.
🔎 Read the first installment of the investigation here. It’s a nice long one, so top off your cup and settle in. It’s well worth it.
We want to hear from you: As someone who’s reported on questionable health trends (and also gotten bad filler squeezed out of their lips by someone they later found out was a podiatrist — that’s your 20s for ya), I know this is a serious subject for many of us. If you have a question about this investigation, email me. Our reporters would love to talk about it.
NEWS BITES
Radio scans find no alien tech from the latest interstellar comet
“Ew. Hide the light speed scooters, it’s them again.” — the aliens, probably.
8 interesting metro Atlanta pizzas to try, from lemon pepper to oxtail
A lemon pepper pizza, you say? Go on …
New UN report finds environmental footprint of data centers rivals entire countries
ChatGPT: Not Even Once.
Soccer 101: Everything you need to know about offside
It’s like calculus or trigonometry. Completely inscrutable, until one day, it all makes sense. Let today be that day.
ON THIS DATE
June 4, 1992
WWII plane found under Greenland ice in excellent condition. A World War II, P-38 fighter plane buried under 270 feet of ice was found in excellent condition today, said a co-founder of the Greenland Expedition Society. The Atlanta-based exploration team … on its seventh mission to Greenland — is expected to start taking the plane, which it has dubbed “Delta,” out of the hole piece by piece later today.
The plane, later named “Glacier Girl,” was eventually restored and returned to the air in October 2002.
ONE MORE THING
Mea culpa — “If you don’t want it printed, don’t let it happen” is the masthead of The Aspen Daily News. On Monday, I said it was The Aspen Times, which is a real paper, but not the one I meant. I am aware of the irony of this. Thank you to our friend Keith for the correction!
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.
