Atlanta, GA
Atlanta Fights to Save Its Forest – UNICORN RIOT
Atlanta, GA – A harsh refrain of chants and drums erupted within the late afternoon silence of the upscale Atlanta suburb of Kennesaw, Georgia, Monday, punctuated by the pops of fireworks and the barks of canines.
A bunch of 30-40 protestors chanting “Cease Cop Metropolis!” converged on the house of Shepherd Lengthy, Principal of Lengthy Engineering, an engineering agency subcontracted to do surveying and different pre-construction work on the Atlanta Police Basis’s Public Security Coaching Heart, at the moment scheduled to open in late 2023.
One member of the group learn aloud a ready assertion demanding the corporate pull out of their contract with Brasfield and Gorrie, the final contractor employed by the Atlanta Police Basis, the challenge’s major architect. “We would like our kids and neighbors to have the ability to breathe clear air and expertise the vastness of the Atlanta forest, NOT be victims of a home conflict zone,” they shouted. “You’ve the facility to cease that.”
The group distributed fliers alerting neighbors to the work Lengthy and his firm are doing in DeKalb County. Of their ready assertion, the protestors made a transparent request of Lengthy: “We maintain no sick will in the direction of you personally, we simply need you to make this one proper resolution. We all know Lengthy Engineering has many different contracts with many different firms. We’re solely right here to ask you to drop this one firm, Brasfield and Gorrie, till they drop their contract with the Atlanta Police Basis.”
After about ten minutes, the group shortly dispersed with out incident.
Representatives of each Lengthy Engineering and its father or mother firm, Atlas Technical Consultants, LLC declined to touch upon the protest.
“Week of Motion” vs. “Cop Metropolis”
The occasion was one in all many happening throughout a ‘week of motion’ towards the proposed coaching facility organized by the Defend the Atlanta Forest marketing campaign. The week’s schedule contains meals, discussions and tenting within the Atlanta Forest in addition to live shows, protests and movie screenings within the metropolis.
Activists from all through the nation have converged on Atlanta this week to oppose the development of the police coaching facility and the destruction of the forest upon which the challenge relies upon. Dubbed “Cop Metropolis” by its critics, the 85-acre police coaching facility carries a price ticket of $90 million for its preliminary part. In September, 2021, Atlanta’s Metropolis Council permitted a proposal to assemble the power inside an enormous swath of forested land in unincorporated DeKalb county southeast of Atlanta.
The actual parcel of land slated to grow to be a police coaching heart is the previous house of a city-run jail farm, which operated within the space from 1920 to 1989. The power was used to deal with prisoners from Atlanta who have been pressured to work on the farm elevating meals for the town’s jail inhabitants. Since its closure, the town has maintained its possession of the land, utilizing it as a dumping floor whereas the forest round it slowly engulfed its collapsing carceral infrastructure.
Different sections of the forest are additionally at risk of destruction. Blackhall Studios, which operates a big campus for movie and tv manufacturing close to the forest, owns a number of tracts of land in and close to the Atlanta Forest which it lately swapped with DeKalb County. In alternate for his or her land, the county has granted Blackhall forty acres of forested land known as Intrenchment Creek Park simply west of the deliberate police facility.
The corporate plans to raze the forest to construct a $400 million movie studio to develop upon its present holdings within the space. The ensuing studio could be the most important within the state and would solidify Georgia’s new place because the “Hollywood of the South.” Environmental teams have filed a lawsuit looking for an injunction towards the swap, claiming that the deal made by the county was illegal.
A various coalition of organizations and people have coalesced in an try to forestall the destruction of the forest on a wide range of grounds—environmental advocacy, racial justice, police and jail abolition, indigenous rights, and the preservation of city inexperienced area. Resistance to the challenge has taken a wide range of shapes, from lawsuits and lobbying to building of barricades, sabotage, claims of tree spiking and occupation of the forest. Even a kids’s group has gotten involved within the marketing campaign.
Environmental organizations, such because the South River Forest Coalition, have opposed each the police facility and the Blackhall swap, arguing towards the lack of inexperienced area, the destruction of forested land within the midst of local weather change, and the influence on water high quality and wildlife. The group Save the Outdated Atlanta Jail Farm has proposed an alternate imaginative and prescient for the forest, which features a canine park, group gardens, sports activities fields and a nature protect.
Those that oppose the growth of police energy have additionally come out towards the Atlanta Police Basis’s challenge, inserting it throughout the lineage of the growth of the “prison-industrial complicated.” Such critics declare that the coaching facility will additional develop police militarization within the aftermath of nationwide calls in the summertime of 2020 and past to defund and even abolish policing infrastructure.
The proposed police coaching facility is slated to incorporate a “mock village” with a “fuel station/financial institution, bar/nightclub, college, residential properties, residences…park/splash pad” and “coaching warehouse” for coaching in police techniques.
The plans have raised issues that one factor the power is meant to do is prepare officers to place down city insurrections resembling people who occurred within the wake of the homicide of George Floyd in 2020.
Indigenous activists have additionally opposed the power’s building. In November 2021 and April 2022, Mvskoke (Muscogee Creek) individuals and different Indigenous activists gathered within the South River Forest, historically known as Welaunee, to have interaction in a “re-matriation” course of with the land. Welaunee, which implies “inexperienced/brown/yellow water,” was historically Mvskoke land earlier than a collection of wars, forcible elimination and coerced and one-sided treaties lastly pushed them from their land one 12 months earlier than the founding of DeKalb County in 1822.
Instantly after Mvkoke dispossession of the land, the tract that later turned the Jail Farm was acquired by George Key, who ran it as a plantation fueled by the pressured labor of African slaves till it was bought by the Metropolis of Atlanta in 1911.
Lengthy Engineering is one in all a number of contractors focused by the marketing campaign to defend the forest. The coaching facility’s basic contractor, Brasfield and Gorrie, employed Lengthy Engineering to survey the location and supply different pre-construction assist.
In March, the Atlanta Police Basis quietly introduced that Reeves Younger, one other subcontractor employed for “preconstruction land prep,” had “concluded its work.” The announcement got here after the corporate was the goal of a robust strain marketing campaign demanding that it withdraw from its contract to help within the destruction of the forest. Protestors paid a go to to Reeves Younger’s corporate office and reportedly chased their employees out of the forest and attacked their gear.
These opposing the power shortly declared victory, claiming that the corporate had pulled out of its contract due their marketing campaign. “The APF [Atlanta Police Foundation] would have us imagine that Reeves Younger was contracted to do nothing greater than rent a bulldozer and stroll alongside Lengthy Engineering work crews as they planted a couple of surveying stakes and did some soil testing,” the group main the marketing campaign wrote in a press launch.
The Defend the Atlanta Forest marketing campaign’s week of motion has additionally included workshops, cultural and leisure occasions, yoga lessons and even a clothes swap. On Might 11, cyclists gathered on the Intrenchment Creek Trailhead for a gaggle bike ride across the Atlanta Forest.
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Houston Rockets (25-12, second in the Western Conference) vs. Atlanta Hawks (19-19, ninth in the Eastern Conference)
Atlanta; Saturday, 3 p.m. EST
BOTTOM LINE: Houston seeks to continue its three-game win streak with a victory over Atlanta.
The Hawks have gone 10-7 at home. Atlanta ranks third in the Eastern Conference with 17.5 fast break points per game led by Jalen Johnson averaging 3.6.
The Rockets have gone 12-6 away from home. Houston averages 113.1 points and has outscored opponents by 6.0 points per game.
The Hawks’ 13.1 made 3-pointers per game this season are just 0.7 more made shots on average than the 12.4 per game the Rockets give up. The Hawks average 113.1 points per game, 6.7 fewer points than the 119.8 the Hawks give up to opponents.
TOP PERFORMERS: Johnson is averaging 19.8 points, 10.1 rebounds, 5.3 assists and 1.5 steals for the Hawks.
Alperen Sengun is averaging 19.3 points, 10.5 rebounds and five assists for the Rockets.
LAST 10 GAMES: Hawks: 5-5, averaging 119.2 points, 41.2 rebounds, 30.5 assists, 11.2 steals and 5.3 blocks per game while shooting 47.7% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 121.5 points per game.
Rockets: 7-3, averaging 113.7 points, 48.0 rebounds, 19.9 assists, 8.9 steals and 4.4 blocks per game while shooting 45.0% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 108.9 points.
INJURIES: Hawks: Kobe Bufkin: out for season (shoulder), Larry Nance Jr.: out (hand), Jalen Johnson: day to day (shoulder), Cody Zeller: day to day (personal).
Rockets: Tari Eason: day to day (injury management), Jabari Smith Jr.: out (hand).
——
The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive and data from Sportradar.
Copyright © 2025 ESPN Internet Ventures. All rights reserved.
Major League Soccer apologized Thursday for publishing a story on its website that identified the wrong player as having transferred to one of its clubs, Atlanta United.
The league’s website, MLSSoccer.com, published a story Wednesday that falsely reported that Celtic FC and Japan forward Kyogo Furuhashi had been acquired by Atlanta. The article was quickly removed.
“Major League Soccer’s website mistakenly posted an article that named the wrong player as having signed with an MLS club,” the league said in a statement to The Athletic. “The article was immediately removed and corrected. MLS extends its sincere apologies to the impacted parties.”
The false report is no longer available, and the link now directs to an error message.
The mistake appears linked to Atlanta’s transfer hint for another player, US-born Cayman Togashi, a former Japanese youth international who spent his entire professional career in Japan. Atlanta teased on social media the arrival of a Japanese player, fueling those rumors even more.
The club later announced it signed Togashi through the 2025 season with an option for 2026. The 31-year-old signed on a free transfer from Sagan Tosu in Japan’s top flight.
Last month, the Daily Mail reported that Atlanta submitted a $12 million bid for Furuhashi. The club also recently named Ronny Delia, a former Celtic manager, as its head coach. Around the time of the false report by MLS, Furuhashi played in Celtic’s 2-0 win against Dundee United, coming on as a substitute for Adam Idah in the 62nd minute.
(Photo: Craig Foy / SNS Group via Getty Images)
The Atlanta Hawks are wrapping up their six game road trip tonight in Phoenix with a matchup against the Suns. It has not been the best road trip for the Hawks, as they have gone 2-3 on it, but they have been playing most of the trip without star forward Jalen Johnson. That is going to continue tonight as the Hawks will be without Johnson for the third straight game and the fourth time in the last five games. It has not been pretty for the Hawks without Johnson, but they are going to be facing one of the most disappointing teams in the league tonight.
Phoenix came into the season with title hopes and after a hot start, it looked like the hire of former Hakws coach Mike Budenholzer was paying off for the Suns. It has not gone well though. This team is currently outside of the top ten in the Western Conference, Bradley Beal is now coming off the bench, and Devin Booker is not playing up to his usual All-NBA level. This team has talent, but they have not shown it on a night-to-night basis, as evidenced from their loss to Charlotte on Tuesday. Even without Johnson, the Hawks have a chance tonight due to the Sun’s inconsistency.
Coming into tonight’s game, the Hawks are 6th in the NBA in PPG, 14th in FG%, 17th in 3PA, 19th in 3P%, 5th in FTA, 24th in turnovers, and 6th in rebounding. Per Cleaning the Glass, Atlanta is 15th in points per 100 possessions, 18th in effective field goal percentage, 19th in turnover percentage, 8th in offensive rebounding percentage, and 9th in free throw rate.
Currently, the Hawks rank 28th in PPG allowed, 22nd in field goal percentage allowed, 30th in three-point attempts allowed, and 30th in three-point percentage allowed. Per Cleaning the Glass, Atlanta is 19th in points allowed per 100 possessions and 28th in effective field goal percentage allowed.
Phoenix comes into this game ranked 17th in PPG, 12th in FG%, 14th in 3PA, 7th in 3p%, 11th in free throw attempts per game, 25th in rebounding, and 10th in turnovers. Per Cleaning the Glass, the Suns are 13th in points per 100 possessions, 10th in effective field goal%, 13th in turnover percentage, 27th in offensive rebounding percentage, and 6th in free throw rate.
Defensively, Phoenix ranks 19th in PPG allowed, 14th in FG% allowed, 15th in 3PA allowed, and 21st in 3P% allowed. Per Cleaning the Glass, Phoenix is 23rd in points allowed per 100 possessions and 15th in effective field goal% allowed.
With Johnson out tonight, it is going to be on the shoulders of Trae Young to try and lift the Hawks to a win. Young had another 20-point, 20-assist game on Tuesday vs Utah, finishing with 24 points and 20 assists. Phoenix will likely try to guard him with rookie Ryan Dunn, who is a very solid defender, but Young is a different test entirely.
Dyson Daniels was overshadowed a bit by Young’s performance and game-winning shot, but Daniels flirted with a triple-double on Tuesday night. Daniels scored 16 points, had seven assists, and six rebounds on 7-12 shooting. He can be the lead guard and playmaker whenever Young goes to the bench and has done a decent job of that. Daniels will also be tasked with guarding Booker tonight (which is not an easy task) and trying to limit his scoring.
Zaccharie Risacher had one of his better performances this season on Tuesday night vs Utah. He scored 14 points on 6-14 from the field and pulled in six rebounds. With Johnson out, it might be Risacher guarding Kevin Durant tonight, though the Hawks could use Vit Krejci to do that.
Krejci had a solid game for Atlanta on Tuesday, scoring 13 points and shooting 3-4 from three and I would expect him to get the start with Johnson out again.
Clint Capela had a monster game on Tuesday, shooting 9-11 from the field and scoring 18 points. He finished at the rim well and also had three blocks and Phoenix is not a good rebounding team. If the Hawks win, I would bet that Capela is very key in making that happen. With Onyeka Okongwu questionable and Larry Nance still out, it might be the first time for Dominick Barlow to play an actual role on this team as the backup to Capela. If Okongwu plays, Barlow is unlikely to see minutes.
The bench will be led by De’Andre Hunter, Bogdan Bogdanovic, and Garrison Matthews (as well as whoever is the backup center). Until the fourth quarter, Bogdanovic and Matthews were having a poor shooting night, but Bogdanovic nailed two big shots to keep the Hawks in the game. Combined, they shot 4-15 from three and it is tough for Atlanta to win when two of their best shooters shoot like that. Hunter bounced back from a pair of rough games and scored 17 points and hit four of his seven three-point attempts against the Jazz. The bench will have a huge role tonight in helping the Hawks to earn a victory.
How the Hawks are able to guard Durant might be the biggest mismatch in the game. Durant is close to unguardable, but the Hawks don’t really have a great option in the starting lineup and I would expect to see Hunter get a lot of minutes on him when he comes off the bench. Atlanta could not guard Lauri Markkanen on Tuesday due to his size and shooting combination and they could struggle with Durant for the same reason.
According to Fanduel Sportsbook, the Suns are 6.5 point favorites tonight and the total is set at 238.5.
This is going to be a tough matchup for the Hawks without Jalen Johnson. The Hawks struggle to replace his versatile skillset when he is out and that is going to be a problem tonight against Durant and the Suns. Phoenix is inconsistent and can lose on any given night, but I like them to squeak by the Hawks tonight.
Final Score: Suns 120, Hawks 115 (Hawks +6.5 and Under)
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