Monday remembrance
Oct. 7 — Today marks the first anniversary of the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel, which is being marked with several local events across metro Atlanta. We also have a roundup of related podcasts in today’s Look & Listen.
☀️ A crisp morning will lead to sun and 84° this afternoon.
🚇 The Brookhaven MARTA station is closed for renovations for six weeks starting this morning. A shuttle bus will bridge the gap between stations.
🔎 A Fulton County Jail detainee being held in Cobb County due to overcrowded conditions was murdered by another inmate.
🚘 Sandy Springs is investigating a 30-40% increase in fatal injury crashes and ways to prevent them.
🤝 Hands On Atlanta Week is underway through Oct. 12, with thousands of volunteers focused on helping with food security and supporting Hurricane Helene relief efforts.
💵 The Metro Atlanta Chamber has announced that Kristi Brigman will step into the role of chief economic development officer.
🤔 Rough Draft’s Beth McKibben joins the AJC’s Mike Jordan and Chefs Taria Camerino and Max Hines for “Is Atlanta a Food City?” on Tues., Oct. 15.
🏈 Georgia remains No. 5 in the AP Top 25 college football poll, with Texas back on top and Alabama falling to No. 7 after being upset by unranked Vanderbilt on Saturday.
ELSEWHERE
🌀 Hurricane Milton rapidly intensified into a Category 1 storm on Sunday, days before it’s expected to make landfall in Florida’s Gulf Coast on Wednesday.
⚖️ The U.S. Supreme Court opens its new term today with controversial cases on “ghost” guns, transgender rights, and pornography. Court watchers also say cases related to the 2024 presidential election could land on the docket.
🕖 Here’s what’s in today’s newsletter:
• Voter registration deadline
• CrossFit competition
• Artist Krista M. Jones
• Global Headlines
AND
• Look & Listen
Have a great week,
Collin & Sammie
🥃 From the producers of the Atlanta Food & Wine Festival, join Whiskies of the World featuring 150+ whiskey and other spirits on Sat., Oct. 12 at the InterContinental Buckhead. Explore endless bourbons, scotches, tequilas, and rums for the ultimate tasting event experience. SPONSOR MESSAGE
1. Voter registration deadline is today
🗳️ Democratic and Republican groups are in a final push to register as many Georgia voters as possible before today’s deadline.
One of those groups is Greater Georgia, which was founded by former GOP U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler. She said conservatives had “yielded voter registration to the left,” but it’s now part of Greater Georgia’s core mission.
Meanwhile, the New Georgia Project has been working to add more Black and brown Georgians to the voter rolls, including canvassers navigating communities devastated by Hurricane Helene.
➳ Read more about the push to register more voters here, and visit Georgia’s voter registration site to find out how to register today.
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2. Tucker woman wins second in worldwide CrossFit Competition
💪 Over Labor Day weekend, qualifiers traveled to Birmingham, AL to vie for the CrossFit world title, and the second-place finisher in her category was none other than Tucker resident Tiiu Maavere.
The Masters CrossFit Games is an annual event that gathers people from all over the world to compete in the sport of CrossFit, a fitness program consisting of constantly-varied, high-intensity, functional movements.
Maavere, 57, was one of 30 women culled down from thousands of entrants in her age group who were invited to Birmingham, according to friend Joe Winterscheidt, a member of the so-called “Maavere’s Mafia” group of supporters.
🏃 For more on Maavere, click here.
3. Scaling up with artist Krista M. Jones
🎨 Artist Krista M. Jones, who also paints under the name “Jonesy,” works out of a studio in the East Point home she shares with her wife, Corinna.
She works as a full-time artist, and has come a long way since her early days painting on scraps of wood on the streets of Little Five Points. At the time, she was still in the grips of addiction and struggling to make ends meet. Eventually, she left Atlanta and got sober, later returning in 2015 to essentially start over from ground zero.
“I came back to a city that almost killed me, and really just decided that I am going to figure out a way to do this,” she said.
🖼️ Learn more about Krista’s journey here.
4. Rockets fired at Tel Aviv and Haifa; Biden in Germany
🇮🇱 🇵🇸 🇱🇧 As people across Israel mark the first anniversary of the Oct. 7 attacks, ten people were injured when Hezbollah missiles landed in northern Israel. In Tel Aviv, two people were hurt as five rockets were fired from Gaza.
🎗️ A year ago, 250 hostages were taken by Hamas, and about 100, including four Americans, remain in captivity in Gaza. Today, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum announced that Idan Shtivi, 28, has been confirmed dead.
🇩🇪 President Joe Biden travels to Germany this week to shore up support for Ukraine’s defense against Russia and the NATO alliance. After Germany, President Biden will travel to Angola to support Africa’s first trans-continental open-access rail network.
🇮🇳 India’s government is formally opposing a proposal to criminalize marital rape. A government survey revealed that 1 in 25 married women in India suffer sexual violence at the hands of their husbands. India is among three dozen countries that have not outlawed marital rape.
🇲🇽 Mexico is suing U.S.-based gun makers it accuses of helping drug cartels traffic illegal guns. The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear arguments seeking to throw out the case. U.S. law broadly shields arms manufacturers from being implicated in crimes committed with their weapons.
🇹🇼 Taiwan is cleaning up after Typhoon Krathon which dropped nearly six feet of rain over six days.
🇺🇦 On his first trip as NATO’s new Secretary-General, Mark Rutte, the former Prime Minister of the Netherlands, told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that Ukraine’s path to NATO membership is “irreversible.”
🇳🇿 New Zealand could lose access to Google News after the company threatened to stop offering links if the country passes a bill to start taxing Google for using news content.
🇰🇷 An 81-year-old South Korean model almost became the country’s oldest Miss Universe contestant. Although Choi Soon-hwa lost the 2024 Miss Universe Korea pageant to 22-year-old fashion student Han Ariel, Choi took home the prize for best dressed.
🇬🇧 Parkrun, the free global 5K run phenomenon that started in London’s Bushy Park, celebrated its 20th anniversary on Oct. 5.
🌎 The World Affairs Council of Atlanta has launched the Global Leadership Fellows program, aiming to develop early career professionals into globally astute leaders. The initiative includes coaching, training, and international travel for early career professionals. Learn more today!
🎸 Enjoy your very own city soundtrack this October at Midtown Alliance’s “Live After 5” outdoor music series. Hear up-and-coming talent every week from 5:30-7:30 p.m. at two different locations (Peachtree @ 10th on Wednesdays; Peachtree @ 15th on Thursdays). Featuring jazz, blues, singer/songwriter + more. Details here. SPONSOR MESSAGE
5. Oct. 7 anniversary
This week’s Look & Listen takes a deep dive into the one-year anniversary of the start of the Israel-Hamas War.
🎙️ Reuters talks with women in Israel and Gaza about their ongoing anguish, and examines the next stage of the war as the battlefield expands to Lebanon and the threat of a strike by Iran.
🎧 CNN’s One Thing podcast examines how the last year has fundamentally reshaped the Middle East and whether any kind of peace is possible going forward.
🎙️ The Telegraph newspaper from the UK speaks with the relatives of hostages, ex-soldiers, and journalists one year on from Oct. 7 in its Battle Lines podcast.
🎧 Journalist and author Amir Tibon recalls hunkering down in a safe room with his family on Oct. 7, a harrowing story he shares in his new book, “The Gates of Gaza: A Story of Betrayal, Survival, and Hope on Israel’s Borderlands.”
🎙️ Dan Senor’s “Call me Back” marks the one year anniversary with a series of special episodes.
🛒 It’s a big week for online sales, and by shopping via Rough Draft, you help support independent, local journalism. Amazon Prime Big Deal Days are tomorrow and Wednesday, but you can get a jump on some great deals today. SHOPPING VIA ROUGH DRAFT
📧 Today’s newsletter was edited by Julie E. Bloemeke.