From the Magazine

The MLB All-Star Game: a once meaningful, now aimless whirlwind, which cities nevertheless still clamor to host. The Midsummer Classic has been played in Atlanta three times. It was almost four: In 2021 the Georgia General Assembly passed the controversial Election Integrity Act that placed heavy restrictions on voting access. In protest, MLB moved that year’s edition to Denver. Four years later, the Election Integrity Act remains in place, but MLB has brought the All-Star Game back to Atlanta.

“See, I was typecast by my family as bookish,” Senator Raphael Warnock says; it wasn't until his late 20s that Warnock found the gym. Now he runs the Atlanta Journal-Constitution Peachtree Road Race annually, along with running the treadmill at the Senate and biking on the Silver Comet Trail. Our managing editor joined him for a spring training run on the Beltline.

They say that luck happens when preparation meets opportunity. For Parker Short, the preparation had been years in the making, from interning on Jon Ossoff’s first congressional campaign as a teenager to becoming the president of the Young Democrats of Georgia. Then opportunity knocked, in the form of a viral video.

When I think of Atlanta as a climate haven, I am telling myself a story. But if boosting our climate resiliency makes us more welcoming to neighbors, businesses, and visitors, then maybe it’s more than a story.

Given Big Boi’s status as one of the most eclectic and subversive musicians in modern history, it would be disappointing if his taste in animals wasn’t a little idiosyncratic—and his relationship with two Eurasian eagle-owls thoroughly ticks that box. Hootie and HOO-Dini, the brother-and-sister pair named after the 1994 Outkast song and legendary escapologist, respectively, have been part of Big Boi’s life for seven years.

Atlanta is chock-full of fun pet-friendly activities and pet-pampering goods and services. Here, we round up a few of our favorites around town.

Over the years, Atlanta residents have made plenty of headlines with their exotic pets, often when said pets escape, generating hullabaloo and amusing—or terrorizing—the surrounding neighborhood. Here’s a look back through history at some of Atlanta’s most memorable pets and the chaos they’ve caused.

While most house pets live a life of absolute leisure—the average dog spends half its day asleep—a select few are destined for greatness. Across Atlanta, animals of all stripes serve double duty as both beloved pets and hardworking helpers. Here are a few of the city’s most industrious pets, photographed with their caretakers, who told us about life on the job for these working critters.

Dark eyes peer at me through the glass. A little nose wiggles, and long, floppy ears perk up as I coo hello. I’m visiting the Georgia House Rabbit Society, a rabbit rescue and grooming and boarding facility in Kennesaw. Most of the other 120-odd rabbits at the Rabbit Society are available for adoption. Many rabbits end up here after being purchased as Easter gifts and quickly abandoned. Others are surrendered by owners who are moving out of the country or under financial pressures.

Jessica Lawton had recently started her job as a field service officer with Fulton County Animal Services in 2022. The job is part law enforcement, part animal caretaker. Lawton responds to calls for the stray, sick, and injured; cases of abandonment, pet hoarding, and cruelty; and instances of distressed, trapped, or vicious animals.