Morning, y’all! I’m pinch hitting for AJ Willingham to start this week, which is gonna feel an awful lot like summer — temps reaching the mid to high 80s. Do your best to stay chill, even in the wake of returning spring breakers who will help re-clog commutes citywide. Or at least try not to honk at any bus drivers. They’re doing the best they can, too.
Let’s get to it.
SEEING GREEN AGAIN
Credit: Hyosub Shin/Hyosub.Shin@ajc.com
Credit: Hyosub Shin/Hyosub.Shin@ajc.com
The eyes of the sports world were set on Augusta over the weekend, and this year’s Masters Tournament didn’t disappoint.
- Rory McIlroy joined an exclusive group of back-to-back champions. The others: Jack Nicklaus (1965-66), Nick Faldo (1989-90) and Tiger Woods (2001-02).
- Macon’s Russell Henley came up just short in the final round, tying for third. Would have been an unforgettable 37th birthday present for him.
- Shane Lowry became the seventh player ever to hit a hole-in-one at Hole No. 6, known as Juniper, a par three with an elevated tee and a large undulating green.
- Celebrity sightings included multiple past and current footballers: Peyton and Eli Manning (both are members of Augusta National and very popular there), Jason Kelce, presumed No. 1 draft pick Fernando Mendoza and his brother Alberto, who’s now a Georgia Tech quarterback, and Saquon Barkley.
- Another star: Families who learned to avoid certain trigger words.
🔎 READ MORE: Surprises, disappointments and epic photos
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A WIN FOR PUBLIC RADIO
“It was a banner night for us and for Atlanta. I don't know if we'll replicate it every year, but I know one thing: At this moment, people wanted to show up and be together in support of facts."
WABE raised $1.1 million through a recent live benefit event, the first of its kind in the Atlanta public media station’s 78-year history.
- That’s more than half the money needed to make up for the shortfall of federal funding that was rescinded last summer.
- Leadership spent five months planning and didn’t promote it to the public, focusing instead on selling tickets through relationships with major donors.
- About a month after the funding was rescinded last summer, WABE raised $1.6 million through donors, stabilizing it through June 30. It also unexpectedly received a $3 million donation.
- WABE also saved money by renegotiating its affiliation and licensing agreements, plus by trimming its staff and nixing its longtime arts show “City Lights.”
🔎 READ MORE: A new milestone in shift to entirely community-supported funding model
MUST-KNOW POLITICS AND BUSINESS
🗳️ Democrats feel they have the political wind at their back. But Georgia’s history is littered with moments that felt like turning points and ended in Republican triumph. Can they finally seize it?
📺 CBS Atlanta is expanding its evening news programming, adding an hourlong 5 p.m. weekday newscast starting today. The newscast will precede CBS Atlanta’s existing flagship 6 p.m. evening broadcast.
🌗 Now that the first lunar travelers in more than a half-century are safely back in Houston with their families, NASA has Artemis III in its sights. Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin are racing to have their respective landers ready first.
⛽ Oil prices climbed Monday as the U.S. military prepared to blockade Iranian ports and the Strait of Hormuz. Brent crude oil, the global benchmark, has risen from about $70 a barrel before the war in late February to more than $119 at times.
ROOT, ROOT, ROOT FOR THE HOME TEAMS
Credit: Hyosub Shin/AJC
Credit: Hyosub Shin/AJC
Baseball season is underway, and the Braves have fought through early injuries to the top of the National League East standings.
But there are some other swingers you need to be tracking at the local collegiate level.
- Georgia Tech has the No. 2‑ranked baseball team in the country and swept fifth‑ranked Florida State on the way to its 12th straight win Saturday.
Meanwhile in Athens, Wes Johnson continues his managerial wizardry for fourth-ranked Georgia. He’s kept the Bulldogs both popular (at least five sellouts so far this season, after 13 in each of the last two) and lucrative.
- UGA has taken in 2.5 times more in ticket revenue the past two years ($1.7 million) than the previous two ($668,000), while drawing seven times as much in annual donations as the previous two years, according to an AJC review.
🐝 CATCH THE BUZZ 🐶
- There are only a few tickets left for the Bulldogs vs. Yellow Jackets matchup on April 21 at Truist Park. Cheapest ticket I found was $37.
- Tickets for Tech vs. Georgia Southern tomorrow in Atlanta are less than $10.
NEWS BITES
Is traffic worse during a full moon? A recent rush hour tests that theory.
I didn’t realize ATL lived under a constant full moon.
Walter Reeves, Georgia gardening guru, has died at age 74
Let us raise a green thumb in his honor.
Angel Reese gives Atlanta Dream even more star power
Mark down June 20. That’s when Caitlin Clark comes to town for some fun fireworks.
Hawks earn No. 6 seed, will face the third-seeded Knicks in playoffs
For all of us whose favorite team didn’t even make the play-in tournament, let us say in unison: “Ca-caw!”
ON THIS DATE
April 13, 1914
Credit: AJC
Credit: AJC
Daughter married but her parents don’t know it yet — All last night pretty Maudell Crane, 18, blue-eyed and attractive, sat at her post of duty at a switchboard in the Atlanta Telephone exchange, cherishing a secret which she did not share with even her parents. … she is the bride of Roger P. Gilbert … Now, Mr. and Mrs. Gilbert, please don’t say that, even if you were secretly married, it was none of a reporter’s business, for, really and truly, everything that happens is an affair of the newspaper reporter. Especially such things of court record as your marriage happens to be. … One night Gilbert chanced to find the transmitter down from the hook on the telephone in his office. He picked it up, called into the mouthpiece and heard a feminine voice — very sweetly — respond over the wire. “Sleepy, dear?” he asked. “Uh-huh!” came the dainty reply. … Within six months he popped the question. Within six days they were married. Within six more days a horrid newspaper man learned the story.
Let’s put a pin in this one till AJ gets back.
ONE MORE THING
Sorry, y’all. Tonight’s listening party at Illuminarium Atlanta for the final episode of “Who Blew Up the Guidestones?” is full. But worry not, the podcast episode goes live tomorrow — alongside a new way to explore this craziness. The AJC is launching a new YouTube show called “Curiosities of the South,” and the Guidestones mystery is the focus of Chapter 1. I’m a sucker for a trailer, and this one’s pretty solid.
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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