Morning, y’all! If you don’t have kids and are wondering where all the traffic went this week, it’s spring break. I don’t have kids, and so I am constantly surprised by the changing school seasons. Oh, how quickly we forget!
Let’s get to it.
MARTA DIGS UP THE PAST — LITERALLY
Don’t you hate it when you’re digging for a new rapid bus line and find a parking garage under the street? MARTA halted construction on its Rapid A-line project after unearthing several surprises, including two patches of historic trolley tracks and a long-forgotten parking garage downtown.
- MARTA pushed out the date of its first rapid bus line to 2026 because of the discoveries.
- As for the parking garage, they’ve slapped a steel plate over the hole and are working on a resolution. Listen, I know there’s plenty of creepy, cool, crumbling stuff under the city streets. An empty parking garage, though? Yikes.
- What is a rapid transit line, you ask? A bus, but faster. It makes fewer stops and travels in bus-only lanes to avoid traffic.
- The $91 million project will make a 5-mile loop to connect downtown Atlanta with the Southside Beltline trail.
- Atlanta’s traffic problem is in its very bones. Trolleys and rails used to be so thick in the city they’d cause their own backups. MARTA had to pause construction so it could consult other agencies about the historic nature of the tracks.
Historic is good if you're an archaeologist, but it's not good if you're a project manager.
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TWO FEARS IN ONE
We’ve worried about tariffs, which could affect your can of Coke. We’ve worried about bird flu, which harms our wallets and health. Now it’s time to worry about tariffs and bird flu, together. President Donald Trump’s risky tariff ventures could hit Georgia in its critical agribusiness sector, industry experts say. Let’s break it down.
- Georgia is chicken country: Broiler chickens are the state’s biggest commodity, worth about $6.7 billion.
- China is Georgia’s top foreign poultry importer, followed by Canada and Mexico.
- China banned raw poultry exports from the U.S. in 2023 following the initial stateside outbreak of avian flu. However, they still import precooked chicken products. For now, at least.
- Poultry products are one line item caught up in the tariff back-and-forth between the U.S. and China, and two of the manufacturers specifically mentioned are located in Georgia.
- This could lead to a significant supply chain disruption. As one expert told the AJC, farms often operate on small margins and are vulnerable to big tariff shifts. That makes it harder for smaller farms to stay competitive.
Meanwhile, bird flu is still here. Georgia poultry farmers have had to cull millions from their flocks, driving up prices. You’ve been to the grocery store, you know.
🔎 Read more about how tariff chicken could impact Georgia’s poultry industry
TIME’S UP FOR EAST GEORGIA STATE
The University System of Georgia says it plans to shutter East Georgia State College after years of declining enrollment. The plan is to consolidate the school into Georgia Southern University, about 40 miles from EGS’s Swainsboro campus.
East Georgia State is located in a rural area and focuses on two-year associate degrees. Before the pandemic, it had an enrollment of about 3,000 students, but the last few years have cut those numbers nearly in half. School leaders hoped for more help from the state to boost numbers. Instead, they may be absorbed like a male anglerfish to its mate.
Part of a larger initiative: The USG started consolidating its then-35 campuses in 2011. Now, there are 25 schools in the system.
It’s not a done deal yet, though. System Chancellor Sonny Perdue made the initial recommendation, but the Board of Regents are set to vote next week. A few other education associations must also sign off.
SINE DIE REDUX
The 2025 Georgia legislative session may be over, but the laws that come out of it will be forever. Ish. The General Assembly passed more than 50 statewide bills on the last day of the session, and they’ll either be approved or vetoed by Gov. Brian Kemp in the coming weeks.
For parents, the AJC politics team compiled a list of bills that could affect kids’ school days and may put some money back in the family coffers. Among them:
New literacy and reading policies: HB 150 will require schools to screen kids three times a year for literacy skills from first through third grades and provide other literacy resources.
School safety measures: HB 268 bolsters mental health resources for schools and establishes lines of connection in case of an emergency, such as mobile alert systems and an anonymous tip line.
🔎 READ MORE: Other laws that parents need to know
MUST-KNOW POLITICS AND BUSINESS
💰 The Department of Homeland Security is offering buyouts and early retirement options in a new effort to cut staff, according to an email from DHS Secretary Kristi Noem.
🪪 The Internal Revenue Service agreed to send tax data to ICE to help identify and deport people from the U.S. Critics say the agreement violates long-standing privacy laws.
🚂 President Donald Trump signed a series of executive orders to boost coal use and production in the U.S. He also told federal agencies to identify coal resources on federal lands and lift mining barriers.
NEWS BITES
AJC sports reporter Ken Sugiura tried all the sandwiches at the Masters
Featuring some extremely spicy sandwich opinions.
The secret history of pimento cheese
It all started right down the way in Griffin, Georgia! (One of my favorite places with some of my favorite readers 😊 )
There’s an international effort to ensure the survival of a rare insect nicknamed the “tree lobster”
The Lord Howe Island stick insect is the largest flightless insect — emphasis on flightless, thank goodness.
Douglas County High School student accepted by 60 colleges, offered $1.5 million in scholarships
Dude is a walking SAT math question. Congrats!
ON THIS DATE
April 9, 1906
From the front page of The Atlanta Constitution: From the love letters of “Elijah III:” My Little Lump of Gold – I know you cannot change; for you are the same yesterday and today; yea and forever. Come to me today. Yours til the devil tires. John Alexander.”
Oh, the things you learn! So John Alexander Dowie was an evangelist and self-styled “prophet” who founded his own city of Zion, Illinois, and did some other wacky things. He fell in love with a Swiss heiress and tried to marry her, despite already being married (to his cousin, not important). Didn’t happen, and his wife eventually left his messy self anyway. Dowie was unseated as a religious leader and investigated for fraud. The “My Little Lump of Gold” is a tad on the nose, but “Yours til the devil tires” is a helluva line, you must admit.
ONE MORE THING
I come from mulch country. We didn’t do pine straw in Maryland. When I first saw pine straw for sale here, I literally thought it was a joke. I still don’t like it, and no one can convince me otherwise. Team Mulch.
Thanks for reading to the very bottom of A.M. ATL. Questions, comments, ideas? Contact me at AMATL@ajc.com.
Yours til the devil tires!
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.
