News & Opinion

The attorney discusses Lithonia's firm foundation, big plans, and a pitch for millennials.

The best stories each week about Atlanta, from Atlanta-based writers, and beyond.

“I don’t think I’ve ever done an interview while sitting on a bucket,” Kyle Brooks, also known as the artist BlackCatTips, muses while sitting on a blue plastic painter’s bucket. It’s a sunny afternoon in Virginia-Highland, and Brooks has begun painting a mural outside Ash Coffee. The cafe-meets-knickknack-shop opened just a few days ago and is already bustling. On the concrete wall outside, Brooks has completed a large white circle, where the cafe’s red logo will go. Next, he’ll add an abundance of whimsical, colorful characters: some mountains, some mushrooms, some faces of fanciful and unknown origin.

Reasonable proposals have emerged—more bike lanes, the Atlanta BeltLine—to help relieve congestion. But local politicians also have come up with some wacky ideas for easing gridlock’s grip on the region.

Moments into WSB-TV’s “Salute 2 Monica” black tie gala in the Fox Theatre’s Egyptian Ballroom Wednesday night, the honoree was busy honoring others as she celebrated her 37-year trailblazing career as Action News anchorwoman. “You need to meet this man,” Monica Pearson explained to us, introducing former Louisville WHAS-TV general manager Ed Shadburn.

For its “Dream Cars” exhibition, which runs May 21 through September 7, the High Museum of Art becomes a showroom for seventeen concept cars built by Ferrari, GM, and Porsche. The fleet represents auto design ambition from the 1930s through the twenty-first century.

When an artist covers a song, it can be seen as an improvement, an homage, or a desecration (see Madonna’s “American Pie”). But 1980s pop star Annie Lennox’s latest soulful cut of “Georgia On My Mind”—recently released in advance of her Oct. 27 collection of standards Nostalgia—is just a reminder of what a timeless masterpiece it is.

Our city is infamous for demolishing its past. Much of that rep is deserved, but the Atlanta Preservation Center’s annual Phoenix Flies showcases the exceptions—saved structures and restored spaces. Over 16 days, participants can choose from 150 tours staged with APC’s 80 partners.

Shots in the Back: Exhuming the 1970 Augusta Riot has been years in the making for Sea Stachura, but the content of the podcast is as timely and relevant as ever.

Coyotes have been documented in every county in Georgia. Last year, concerns prompted state officials to launch the Georgia Coyote Challenge, a program to trap or kill more of the animals. But the Atlanta Coyote Project believes the program is inhumane and counterproductive.