A.M. ATL: High crimes

Morning, y’all! It’s a new moon, perfect for fresh starts and/or a bit of maritime smuggling under cover of darkness. Anything is possible.

Let’s get to it.

NEW LIMITS FOR PRIVATE EQUITY COULD CHANGE ATLANTA’S HOUSING MARKET

U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock talks about the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act during a press conference in Atlanta's Adamsville neighborhood. (Ben Gray for the AJC)

A new law just went into effect that caps the number of houses that can be snapped up by private equity firms.

• The restriction was proposed by U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock as part of the bipartisan 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act.
• When private equity firms buy up housing to either rent out or flip for profit, it drives up the price of real estate and hurts regular home buyers.
• The issue is a major part of Atlanta’s affordable housing crisis.
• A 2023 AJC investigation found five companies each own more than 10,000 homes for rent in metro Atlanta.
• Today, an estimated 72,000 Atlanta homes are owned by investors.

🔎 READ MORE: Leaders and community members on how private equity ownership hurts communities

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GEORGIA’S WRONGFULLY CONVICTED SEEK JUSTICE

(Photo Illustration: Chris Skinner for the AJC; Source: Mike Stewart/AP, Tyson Horne/AJC)

A new process in Georgia aims to compensate people who spent time in prison for crimes they didn’t commit.

In the year since the program began, judges with the Office of State Administrative Hearings have considered 56 claims and greenlit $6.4 million in awards to innocent parties.

• So far, eight people have successfully proved their innocence under the program’s requirements.
• A nearly $1.6 million award was approved for Dennis Perry, who spent 21 years in prison. He was exonerated in 2021 after DNA evidence and extensive AJC reporting shed new light on a 1985 double homicide near Brunswick.
• State legal experts say the program is going pretty well, though there’s still lots of work to do to better define legal gray areas exposed by the process.

🔎 READ MORE: Why some claims are denied and others fulfilled

FORMER MUSEUM HEAD PLEADS GUILTY

The High Museum of Art’s former chief operating officer pleaded guilty Monday to embezzlement in a case that shocked the Atlanta art world.

• Brady Lum was accused of stealing more than $600,000 from the organization while entrusted with its assets.
• One of the federal prosecutors who charged Lum earlier this year minced no words, saying Lum “used the museum’s money as his personal slush fund and thereby betrayed one of Atlanta’s civic crown jewels.”
• Lum resigned from the High Museum in December after the institution’s board realized something was amiss and accused him of theft.
• By the way, Lum’s annual COO salary was more than $300,000.

🔎 READ MORE: Lum faces a possible decade in prison

MUST-KNOW POLITICS AND BUSINESS

📺 Twelve states have filed suit to block Paramount Skydance’s $110 billion acquisition of CNN-parent Warner Bros. Discovery. The coalition pointed out that, if allowed to merge, the resulting media behemoth would control nearly one-third of theatrical motion pictures and nearly one-third of basic cable programming.

⚡ Data center developers worm their way into rural areas by promising economic growth. Those promises don’t always hold true, especially in already disadvantaged areas, Georgia Tech researchers say.

🐘 Sen. Lindsey Graham’s death sent a jolt through Southern politics, especially as high-profile midterm Senate races run on. Republican voters in Graham’s home state of South Carolina must now go to the polls this August to choose a replacement candidate.

💸 The struggling Town Center mall in Kennesaw was sold last week to Ardent Cos., an Atlanta firm. Ardent paid nearly $51.8 million, or about one-sixth of what the mall was worth a decade ago.

BARNES & NOBLE IS EXPANDING IN ATLANTA. INDIE BOOKSTORES ARE BRACING THEMSELVES

A view of Tall Tales Book Shop in the Toco Hills neighborhood. (Hyosub Shin/AJC)

FYI to the Cobb County fam, the Barnes & Noble on Cumberland Parkway is closing on Aug. 19. Yes, buying used and indie is always the best move, but that B&N was so cozy and friendly! It’s very sad. (Everything’s heavily discounted, but last time I was there, stock was down to out-of-season Christmas miscellany and copies of “Windows Vista for Dummies.”)

Cobb County’s loss is Barnes & Noble’s gain. The bookstore chain has seen a remarkable digital-age renaissance, and is actually expanding in the Atlanta area.

• People lined up around the building for the recent opening of a new Barnes & Noble in Edgewood.
• However, joy at the phrase “long lines for a new bookstore opening” is tempered by concern for nearby independent booksellers.
• Metro Atlanta has seen an explosion of indie bookstores in the last few years. Many cater to specific genres and provide sorely-needed spaces for people tired of reading alone at home who would rather read alone in a cute little shop specifically curated to their literary hyperfixations.
• Other local shops, like Tall Tales Book Shop (47 years) and A Cappella Books (37 years), have been community mainstays for decades.
• These smaller sellers hope there’s still enough book love to go around, even with newer, bigger neighbors.

📚 READ MORE: Booksellers weigh in, plus plenty of indie bookstores to plan a visit to

NEWS BITES

Former Georgia coach Tubby Smith named to college basketball Hall of Fame

A HOF coach with a HOF coach name.