Morning, y’all! Macon’s makin’ moves: Mercer University will host the Los Angeles Football Club at their newly-renovated soccer pitch and athletic facilities while the team prepares for the FIFA Club World Cup later this month in Atlanta. The end goal? To be the practice home for a national team for the big games in 2026. Fingers crossed!
Let’s get to it.
AJC INVESTIGATION: COBB PAYS MILLIONS FOR SECRETIVE SCHOOL SECURITY
Credit: Philip Robibero / AJC
Credit: Philip Robibero / AJC
The Cobb County School District has quietly paid a private intelligence firm $2.6 million since last fall to collect data on students as part of a secretive school security initiative.
Despite the massive price tag, the firm’s hiring was approved by Superintendent Christopher Ragsdale without a vote from the school board.
The revelation has raised many questions about what kind of information the firm is collecting, how they’re using it and how such a large amount of money, taken from a state school security grant, is being managed.
I talked to AJC investigative reporter Thad Moore about why this story is so important.
- AJ: What moved you to investigate the Cobb County School District’s new security assessment program?
MOORE: We started taking a look after its cryptic rollout in October. The superintendent told the school board he’d brought in a group of ex-intelligence officers to assess school safety and proactively identify threats, but when they stood up to address the board, they wouldn’t give their full names or say who they worked for. I hadn’t seen anything quite like it: Their company was working for a government agency, and they were speaking at a public meeting, but they were asking to stay anonymous.
Meanwhile, the superintendent told the school board he didn’t need their approval to start the project, and the public wasn’t given basic information about it, like what it would cost.
- AJ: How do you start looking into such a multilayered issue?
MOORE: As a news organization, serving as a government watchdog is one of our core values, so we decided to see what light we could shine on the situation. Using information from the initial school board meeting, we identified the company as the Servius Group, and I started researching its history.
I also filed a series of open records requests with the school district to try to learn the basics of the project: I asked for records like the district’s contract with the company, its invoices and spending records. It took several months just to learn how much had been spent to date.
- AJ: What’s next?
MOORE: The investigation we published earlier this month represents what we know so far, but it isn’t the end of our work on the subject. With our lawyers, we are continuing to pursue access to public records related to the project.
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.
JUSTICE FOR A DECADES-OLD ASSAULT
An evolved approach to solving sexual assault cases in Georgia has led to justice for a woman who was assaulted in DeKalb County in 1988. Here’s how it happened:
- In 2015, an AJC investigation found more than 1,400 rape kits were sitting untested at Grady Memorial Hospital because of police inaction and confusion over the legal chain of custody.
- In 2016, a new law required all Georgia law enforcement agencies to send stored rape kits to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.
- The DeKalb DA’s office is part of the National Sexual Assault Kit Initiative (SAKI) task force, which addresses the backlog of untested rape kits.
- With task force funding, DNA from the 1988 rape case was tested in 2019 and matched DNA already in the system, leading to the arrest and eventual conviction of the woman’s rapist, who was still living in DeKalb County.
“Our SAKI Team has secured about a dozen convictions and has several more cases pending,” Claire Chaffins, spokesperson for the DeKalb County DA’s office, told the AJC.
IT’S TARIFF TIME AGAIN
Credit: Nelvin C. Cepeda/TNS
Credit: Nelvin C. Cepeda/TNS
President Donald Trump is expected to increase nearly all tariffs on foreign steel and aluminum to 50% today. He says it’s to protect U.S. industries and ensure imported steel and aluminum do “not threaten to impair the national security.”
Steel and aluminum are currently tariffed at 25%, a rate Trump set in March.
Industry experts are bracing for bruising blows to a wide range of industries, from auto parts to stainless steel refrigerators.
While tariffs, used strategically, serve as a valuable tool in balancing the scales, it's essential that we also pursue wider reforms of our global trading system.
MUST-KNOW POLITICS AND BUSINESS
🫏 State Rep. Derrick Jackson is the latest Dem to throw his hat in the ring for the 2026 Georgia gubernatorial race. He’ll launch his campaign Friday with a focus on experience in politics, the military and corporate America.
📦 Amazon plans to open a new package sorting center in Hogansville, about an hour southwest of Atlanta. The 1.6 million-square-foot facility will employ more than 1,000 people when it opens in 2027.
🎤 Elon Musk called Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” a “disgusting abomination” and blasted its Congressional supporters. Those are bold words, given the bill is the key item in Republicans’ legislative agenda (and Musk’s status in Republican circles is up in the air).
HOW TO MAKE FRIENDS IN ATLANTA
Credit: Courtesy of Atlanta Girl Gang
Credit: Courtesy of Atlanta Girl Gang
Atlanta? More like AtLonely. We were ranked the fourth loneliest city in the U.S. in 2024 by the Chamber of Commerce, which feels very personal. It can get isolated in the A, but in recent years social clubs and friendship apps have cropped up to help grease the awkward, jerky wheels of new friendships. Some options:
- WYZR, an app to help adults over 40 make new friends
- In Common, a membership-based social club for Atlantans 25 to 40
- ATL Girl Gang, an event-based organization for women in their 20s to 40s
👯 And there are plenty more based on age, interest or identity
The article above also offers expert advice on spreading your wings and, just as importantly, doing some self-reflection on your social needs.
Side note: Playground rules absolutely apply in adulthood, by the way. Nearly all of my close Atlanta friendships began with one of us straight up asking the other, “Hey, do you want to be actual friends?”
NEWS BITES
Search is on for Marty McFly’s prop guitar from ‘Back to the Future’
Sounds like another sequel’s in order.
Nothing but respect between these two kings.
The Atlanta Motor Speedway was renamed EchoPark Speedway
By the time we consistently remember to call it that, it will be called something else.
Long-running experiment finds tiny particles called muons still wobble, act weird
“Wobbly Muons” would be a great name for a rock band. (What’s up, Dave Barry fans.)
ON THIS DATE
Credit: AJC
Credit: AJC
June 4, 1922
Big world fair for all Georgia planned for 1926. One of the most far-reaching movements for the practical benefit of the people of Georgia ever launched will be put in motion within a few weeks when a state-wide meeting will be called to devise preliminary plans for staging in Georgia in 1926 a great and comprehensive exposition, world-wide in its scope, with Atlanta and Savannah as chief centers and the entire state participating, to celebrate the centennial of the beginning of steam navigation on the ocean, which first began in Savannah more than 100 years ago.
I ... don’t think this panned out.
ONE MORE THING
Credit: AJ Willingham
Credit: AJ Willingham
Yesterday I took a lunch break walk to the High Museum, and found the statue in front of it draped in flowers. “The Shade” by Auguste Rodin looms heavily against the High’s bright facade, and was a gift from France after the Air France Flight 007 crash in 1962.
June 3 is the anniversary of that tragedy, in which more than a hundred prominent Atlanta art patrons and cultural leaders were killed. The impact of the profound loss on the Atlanta arts scene reverberated for decades.
Thanks for reading to the very bottom of A.M. ATL. Questions, comments, ideas? Contact us at AMATL@ajc.com.
Until next time.
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