Morning, y’all! Thirty days hath September, April, June and November. All the rest have 31, except for February, which does its own thing. OK, I made up the second part, but to this day I go back to that childhood rhyme at the end of every April. May comes faster than you think!
Let’s get to it.
THE HAWKS ARE GOING THROUGH A LOT
Credit: Jason Getz/AJC
Credit: Jason Getz/AJC
Our Atlanta Hawks will take on the New York Knicks tonight, down 3-2 in a best-of-seven NBA playoff series. Entertain your superstitions accordingly.
Off the court, the Hawks are facing a bittersweet end to a years-long betrayal.
Lester Jones Jr., the team’s former senior vice president of finance, was sentenced Wednesday to three years in federal prison for embezzling around $3.8 million from the team during his nine-year tenure.
Among the findings from an internal investigation:
- Jones, the most senior accounting executive after the CFO, lied his way into a job in the Hawks’ accounting and finance department.
- Before that, he had been fired from Home Depot for reimbursement fraud worth tens of thousands of dollars.
- He also manipulated subordinate employees, mostly minority women, into believing they needed his protection against nonexistent employment consequences tied to pregnancy and maternity leave.
- Jones was also treasurer of the Atlanta Hawks Foundation. He was fired after failing to file the foundation’s tax returns for three years. That led to a wider probe of his conduct.
Hawks brass minced no words in court statements, saying Jones would “create fear and sow dissension” and caused “significant trauma” to the Hawks organization.
🔎 READ MORE: More shocking findings from the investigation
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THE GOVERNOR’S RACE, BY THE NUMBERS
Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC/AP
Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC/AP
Republican candidates for Georgia governor and their allies have spent a combined $106 million on paid television ads alone. Who’s the biggest spender, and where do Dems figure in?
$56 million: Billionaire Rick Jackson
$26 million: Lt. Gov. Burt Jones
$20 million: Georgians for Integrity, the mysterious group investing big in anti-Burt Jones ads
$4 million: Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. This includes some future ads.
$2.3 million: All Democratic candidates combined. The thinking is, they’ll wait until the nominee emerges and then see how much national support they attract.
DEKALB PARENTS PUSH BACK
The DeKalb County School District is pursuing a controversial plan to close several schools and combine others over the next few years. It’s been a thorny issue from the start, but now parents in the state’s third-largest school system say the district’s claims don’t match the facts.
- The school system says there are too few students for too much classroom space, and some schools are overcrowded while others are underutilized.
- A district spokesperson says this “limits programs, course offerings, and resources.”
What parents are saying:
- Area parents have put their heads together in group chats, Facebook groups, online petitions and surveys to draw their own conclusions.
- After digging through public records and school data, they say the district is working with too little or inaccurate information.
- Parents are also concerned about HPM, a construction management group hired by the district in 2025 (to the tune of $6 million) to manage its capital improvement program.
🔎 READ MORE: What parents found about HPM, plus a recap of the current plan
MUST-KNOW POLITICS AND BUSINESS
🏁 Rick Jackson and Burt Jones are in a virtual dead heat in what the AJC’s Greg Bluestein calls “one of the ugliest intraparty fights in recent memory” for the GOP governor nomination. That and more in the AJC’s latest Republican voter poll.
⚖️ Atlanta’s federal grant dollars are safe — for now — from the Trump administration’s efforts to withhold funding from local governments because of diversity, equity and inclusion programs. Atlanta, along with a dozen other cities and counties across the country, asked a federal judge to temporarily block the enforcements.
NICE HOUSE
Credit: Jacob Bean
Credit: Jacob Bean
“We would not sell this property if my work didn't take us west. We envy anybody who gets to take advantage of this little piece of everywhere that fed us so well while we were there."
We know Georgia’s film industry has seen some challenges, and actor Josh Brolin’s sale of his family’s $5 million Atlanta home is another indicator. In an exclusive statement to the AJC, the “Avengers” actor implied that the jobs are simply elsewhere these days.
On that note, anyone have a spare million or two? A few of us could go in on it together. The house is gorgeous.
NEWS BITES
Try our Atlanta-themed racehorse name generator
Gooo, Lemon Pepper Plane Train!
The workouts of Formula 1 drivers may help computer users with ‘tech neck’
Professional athletes: They get neck pains, too! Just for very different, much cooler reasons.
A stranded humpback whale named Timmy is getting barged back to the North Sea
First the poor thing gets stuck, then the weird little naked bipeds nickname him “Timmy.” Will the humiliation never end?
Push for raw milk intensifies across the US, despite illness outbreaks and scientists’ warnings
Dairy farmers say they can barely keep it in stock, even though prices can exceed $10 or $20 a gallon. 🫢
ON THIS DATE
April 30, 1992
Credit: AJC
Credit: AJC
‘Nobody cares,’ resident says amid violence. At 3 a.m., Henry Brown peered out warily from the shattered window of his income tax office at the still-burning aftermath of the Rodney King verdict. The air was chilled, the streets were nearly empty, but the August, Ga., native was filled with the raw emotions that have marked this awful night of violence in this predominantly Black working class neighborhood. “This is the reaction of people who have been robbed of their own culture and who have been robbed of justice after having hope in another man’s system,” said Mr. Brown, 53.
A stunning quote from a dark time in American history that, unfortunately, continues to resonate.
ONE MORE THING
I was watching the Braves game while prepping the newsletter last night, and Matt Olson just hit a two-run walk-off dinger to give the Braves the best record in MLB and the team’s best start since 1997. Pretty cool!
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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