Atlanta, GA
Atlanta HIV prevention advocates plan town hall on Fulton County public health firings
Atlanta HIV prevention advocates plan to hold a town hall on Wednesday, May 28, to discuss the layoff of 17 workers from the Fulton County Board of Health.
The town hall is scheduled for 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Mayfaire Medical, Suite 410, in the Summit South Building at 777 Cleveland Ave. in Atlanta. It is open to the public.
The event is being organized by Daniel Driffin, an independent public health consultant, and William Francis, pastor of The 166 Church. Both have spent years working on HIV prevention.
They are concerned about access to services like testing and access to drugs that can prevent infection in the wake of last week’s layoffs of Fulton health department staff who worked on HIV and sexual health.
“The safety net is literally being yanked out from under people,” Francis said.
Fulton, DeKalb, and Clayton counties were among the 15 counties in the nation with the highest rates of new HIV diagnoses in 2022, according to the latest available data from AidsVu.
“We as a community are going to have to figure out what can be done so people don’t fall through the cracks of public health,” Francis said.
After the surprise layoffs, the state Department of Public Health placed two senior Fulton health department leaders on unpaid administrative leave: District Health Director Dr. Lynn Paxton and Carol Lawrence, human resources director. The DPH said the Fulton layoffs were unauthorized.
Neither state nor Fulton health department officials would elaborate on the layoffs, or the source of the funding for the terminated staff.
“My greater concern is that this will ripple across the state,” said Jeff Graham, executive director of Georgia Equality, a nonprofit LGBTQ advocacy organization.
“There needs to be some transparency from the state health department and Fulton County immediately,” Graham said, adding that groups that provide services to people with HIV are worried about their own funding and also want to ensure that people have the services they need to prevent HIV.
Some of the affected Fulton workers and other advocates told Healthbeat that innovative services like a syringe exchange and initiatives with community groups to promote HIV testing could be disrupted.
Tyson Randolph, who was among those laid off last week, said the terminations will have “major implications for the community’s health going forward.”
“I was in the developmental process of building the bridge with the kids at this community center … but my efforts are all out the window.”
Healthbeat is a nonprofit newsroom covering public health published by Civic News Company and KFF Health News. Sign up for their newsletters here.
Atlanta, GA
Cancellations, delays continue at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport
ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) — The trouble for travelers at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport continued Sunday as rain persisted in metro Atlanta.
As of 5 p.m. Sunday, 487 flights have been delayed and 124 have been canceled.
TSA wait times have also ballooned; passengers going through the main checkpoint should expect to wait upwards of an hour, and those going through the north checkpoint should expect to wait more than 30 minutes.
The airport said, “The delays are the result of residual impacts from two ground stops issued on Friday, which created a temporary backlog in passenger volumes, combined with current TSA staffing constraints.”
The delays added to a disastrous weekend for Hartsfield-Jackson. Travelers on Saturday described hourslong tarmac waits, missed connections and overnight strandings after storms triggered mass cancellations and delays.
The Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines received the bulk of travelers’ frustration. The airline released a statement to Atlanta News First addressing the tarmac delays.
“We apologize to our customers, as we know that a delay on the tarmac waiting for an arrival gate is frustrating. Delta people worked through severe weather challenges in ATL that drove gating constraints overnight,” the company said. “The safety of our customers and crew is our highest priority.”
Copyright 2026 WANF. All rights reserved.
Atlanta, GA
Youth, served: Real Salt Lake pulls past Atlanta United to keep fast start
SANDY — Three games into the 2026 campaign and Real Salt Lake has a formula for success.
Spoiler alert: the kids are (still) all right.
Aiden Hezarkhani scored a goal for the second-straight week, rookie Sergi Solans added his first professional, and Real Salt Lake served its youth again en route to a 3-2 win over Atlanta United at Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
Fellow teenager Zavier Gozo also scored for Real Salt Lake, the Utah native’s first of the season after his breakout four-goal, three-assist campaign last year to help his home side improve to 2-1-0.
Aleksei Miranchuk had a brace for Atlanta, which fell to 0-3 while being outscored 7-2 a year after struggling to a 5-16-13 campaign.
“It was a shootout,” RSL manager Pablo Mastroeni said. “This was one of those games that was super exciting. It’s a real credit to the group on both sides of the ball. I thought we were really deliberate … and defensively, we were great against a top attacking group.
“We knew it was going to be difficult. But the guys weathered the storm … and we challenged the group to dig deep, to defend our box, and manage the game the right way.”
Salt Lake, meanwhile, has won two of its first three matches — even with a shorthanded roster. The club lost Diego Luna (knee) and Victor Olatunji (eye) to injuries during the same training session before the season opener in Vancouver, and former U.S. international fullback DeAndre Yedlin picked up a hamstring injury last week.
But if adversity spawns opportunity, Real Salt Lake’s rising generation is taking advantage of either — or both. Give credit, too, to the veteran players for bringing along the youth that also include 17-year-old Luca Moisa — and not skip a beat.
“It’s like a brotherhood,” Mastroeni said. “There’s no guy that’s bigger than the team.”
Gozo and Morgan Guilavogui nearly connected for a goal just 49 seconds into the match, but the newly signed Designated Player making his first start saw his shot tipped over the cross bar.
Instead, Guilavogui gave the visitors the early lead midway through the first half, slipping a brilliant through ball behind the defense to Solans for the clinical finish in the 23rd minute.
Solans was selected with the 30th overall pick of the 2025 MLS SuperDraft by Salt Lake, who traded $50,000 in general allocation money to the LA Galaxy in select the Spanish native.
But instead of signing forthright with the club, Solans elected to return to collect for one more year and the 22-year-old alumnus of Spain’s Girona FC academy returned to UCLA and scored a team-high 16 goals with six assists in 19 matches en route to All-American second-team honors and a program record-breaking third hat trick in the Big Ten Tournament final.
“Sergi doesn’t necessarily have top-end speed,” Mastroeni said, “but he has top-end timing. When you threaten the back line, you don’t have to have the fastest speed. But you do have to have the right timing.
“You’ve got to make plays — and that’s what making plays looks like.”
Hezarkhani doubled the lead in the 27th minute, gaining possession of the ball in the final third with his chest off an angled touch from Solans before sliding a right-footed shot from the center of the box that put Salt Lake up 2-0.
It’s the second goal in as many matches for Hezarkhani, the 18-year-old academy alumnus who had six goals with four assists in 21 matches (19 starts) for Salt Lake’s third-division affiliate Real Monarchs a year ago.
Miranchuk pulled one back for the home side in the 38th minute, scoring Atlanta’s first goal of 2026 with one touch from Elias Baez from the center of the box to cut the deficit to 2-1.
But Gozo finished a counter initiated by Philip Quinton and Justen Glad with his left less than two minutes later to push Salt Lake back in front 3-1 at halftime.
After a series of second-half introductions including the halftime debut of Utah native and former Corner Canyon High standout Griffin Dillon for RSL, Miranchuk added another for Atlanta in the 74th minute to cut the deficit to 3-2.
But Rafael Cabral made two saves on 16 shots faced to help the visitors hold on for their second straight win.
Real Salt Lake returns home next Saturday, March 14 to host Austin FC (7:30 p.m. MDT, Apple TV) before a road trip to San Diego FC.
The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.
Atlanta, GA
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