Morning, y’all. Coming to you again from the Georgia coast, where the outdoors really does feel less oppressive than Atlanta — until you step onto the beach in your bare feet. The sand is lava, man. So grab your flip-flops and …
Let’s get to it.
WORLD CUP GOAT
The gaudiest trophy in major sports won’t be handed out until Sunday’s World Cup final, but Atlanta can already lift its arms in triumph. Wednesday’s semifinal between Argentina and England was the eighth and final game played here, capping the biggest sporting month for the city since the 1996 Olympics.
📸 Photo gallery: Best of World Cup
Here are some of the “winner winners,” as chosen by the AJC’s business reporting team. I’ll buy you your “chicken dinner” the next time I’m in town.
- FIFA Fan Festival. Given the deluge of delightful viral moments shared from Centennial Olympic Park during the World Cup, one wonders what we missed in ’96 pre-social media. (Yes, young readers, there was life before TikTok.)
- New/revamped developments. The World Cup served as a coming-out party for Centennial Yards, South Downtown and The CTR as well as for an improved Underground Atlanta and Decatur Square (home to WatchFest).
- MARTA. That’s not a typo. MARTA. The transit system doubled its ridership during the World Cup and made it a month without major incident.
🔎 Who and what else make the list? Read more.
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FOLLOW THE SCIENCE
The heir presumptive to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention voiced confidence Wednesday that she’d be allowed to run the Atlanta-based federal agency without improper interference from the Trump administration.
Erica Schwartz said she would “never compromise on the science” during a U.S. Senate confirmation hearing. The CDC’s last leader, Susan Monarez, was fired by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and has testified that Kennedy asked her to fire CDC experts and to preapprove new vaccine guidelines without any review or input.
Kennedy is an avowed vaccine skeptic, even linking them to autism.
Here’s what to know about Schwartz.
- A physician, she served as deputy surgeon general during President Donald Trump’s first administration.
- She spent 24 years in the U.S. Coast Guard, reaching the rank of Rear Admiral and serving as the branch’s chief medical officer.
- Atlanta-area medical professionals greeted news of her nomination in April with “cautious optimism” and cited her experience in emergency preparedness as a key to rebuilding public trust in the agency.
Schwartz’s testimony came before the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. Members will determine in the coming days whether to send her nomination to the Senate floor for a final vote.
🔎 READ MORE: “I will always, always have the public’s health in mind.”
SCREEN STUNT(ING)
First, the schools (with help from state lawmakers) came for student cellphones. Now they’re targeting laptops, tablets and other devices as well. The Atlanta and Marietta school districts want to limit screentime during the school day.
‘… closed by default, open with purpose.’
- The Georgia General Assembly passed “bell-to-bell” bans on cellphone use in schools during the 2025 (K-8) and 2026 session (high schools).
- The latest screen time policies limit the number of minutes students spend each day on their devices, with durations ranging from 60 minutes for the youngest learners to no more than half of all instructional time for high schoolers.
- A push for a total ban for kindergartners and first and second graders was rejected in the name of students building some technological proficiency, especially since the state-issued Georgia Milestones assessment is taken via laptops starting in third grade.
What’s the big deal here? The hammer and chisel and stone tablets I used to write term papers in college worked just fine.
🔎 READ MORE: Close that screen, young man
MUST-KNOW POLITICS AND BUSINESS
💵 Trump will visit Cobb County next week to promote “Trump accounts,” the tax-advantaged savings vehicle for American children.
⚡ Speaking of Trump, after days of speculation that he’d use Thursday’s primetime address to reignite his long-running battle over Georgia’s 2020 election results, the president didn’t mention the state once. Ahead of the speech, the AJC’s politics team examined how Trump’s latest comments on election integrity could affect the November midterms.
🚜 Gubernatorial candidate Keisha Lance Bottoms is making the rural Georgia rounds in an attempt to woo voters beyond Georgia’s major population centers. The Democrat faces GOP nominee Rick Jackson in November.
🚗 Wiper fluid manufacturer Highline Warren announced plans to open a $170 million logistics center — and employ 160 workers — in Henry County.
INDIGO HOMECOMING
Decatur Square might as well be the home venue for Amy Ray and Emily Saliers of the Indigo Girls, who were still in college at Emory when they first played there in the 1980s. On Sunday, the folk rock duo will close out Decatur WatchFest, a 34-day-long festival celebrating the World Cup.
- The 8 p.m. show is free, but the viewing area around the performance stage will be fenced off and reserved for those who preregistered.
- The invite to headline the finale so flattered Ray and Saliers they recruited their band to join them.
- Saliers’ appearance comes as she continues to grapple with a series of vocal medical maladies. The conditions cause an involuntary vibrato in her voice.
🔎 READ MORE: Indigo Girls embrace headlining WatchFest finale
NEWS BITES
Hawks reach broadcast agreement for 2026-27 season
Break out the rabbit ears-antenna for more games on free TV.
Redefining what support looks like for Atlanta mothers
Atlanta fashion model applies lessons learned as a young mom.
Uber CEO must testify in Gwinnett sex trafficking suit
Judge: What did you know? And when did you know it?
U.S. weekly unemployment claims fall to fewest in 10 weeks
Economic news is like the Georgia weather. If you like it — or don’t — just wait 10 minutes. It’ll change.
A must-have for your podcast library.
ON THIS DATE
July 17, 1969
Apollo coasting easily, passes halfway point. … Neil Armstrong, Mike Collins and Ed Aldrin zoomed through the midpoint of their epic journey at 10:32 a.m., 25 hours into the mission, at a velocity of about 3,600 miles an hour. … Calm and businesslike, the astronauts performed “routine chores” and ran navigation checks as they hurled through space in the weightless environment of their Apollo capsule.
Armstrong and Aldrin would land and walk on the moon three days later.
ONE MORE THING
Two items never leave the back of my pickup truck: a folding chair and an ice chest. You never know when a music concert might pop up in a public place, like say Decatur Square. They can fence in the space, but they can’t bar you from popping a squat, cracking a cold one and enjoying the sounds from afar.
Thanks for reading to the very bottom of A.M. ATL. Questions, comments, ideas? Contact us at AMATL@ajc.com.
Until next time.