Atlanta, GA
Cirque du Soleil’s ‘Luzia’ returns to Atlantic Station after 8-year gap
Production transports Atlantans to a Mexican mythical dreamscape.
Acrobats dressed as hummingbirds propel their bodies through small hoops during Cirque du Soleil’s touring production of “Luzia.” The show will run through Jan. 25 at Atlantic Station. (Courtesy of Matt Beard and Anne Colliard)
The sounds of a mariachi band and sweet aroma of fried cinnamon churros greeted Atlantans on Thursday night as they strolled under a full moon toward Cirque du Soleil’s blue-and-white-striped, big-top tent for the opening night of “Luzia,” touring at Atlantic Station through Jan. 25.
The name “Luzia” — a portmanteau of the Spanish words luz (light) and lluvia (rain) — hints at the mystical and natural forces that awe audiences in Cirque du Soleil’s 38th production, which is inspired by Mexican culture, mythology and Mother Nature.
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The name of Cirque du Soleil’s show “Luzia” is a portmanteau of the Spanish words luz (light) and lluvia (rain). A custom-engineered rain machine is used in the production to shower performers in water as they perform acrobatic feats. (Courtesy of Matt Beard and Anne Colliard)
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A Cirque du Soleil performer in “Luzia” balances high atop poles, demonstrating awe-inspiring strength and agility. (Courtesy of Matt Beard and Anne Colliard)
A custom-engineered rain machine creates a curtain of water that showers over performers in “Luzia.” The water droplets are programmed to reveal whimsical shapes and patterns that glisten in the light. (Courtesy of Matt Beard and Anne Colliard)
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A giant treadmill used only in Cirque du Soleil’s production of “Luzia” propels a dancer costumed as a Monarch butterfly. (Courtesy of Matt Beard and Anne Colliard)
Hoop divers dressed as hummingbirds are propelled by a giant treadmill in Cirque du Soleil’s production of “Luzia.” (Courtesy of Matt Beard and Anne Colliard)
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Danielle Charbonneau is a reporter with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
The NWSL has awarded an expansion team to Atlanta as its 17th franchise, sources confirmed to ESPN.
The team will be owned by Arthur Blank’s AMB Sports and Entertainment, which also owns the NFL’s Atlanta Falcons and MLS’ Atlanta United FC. Both teams play at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, where the NWSL franchise is expected to begin play in 2028.
A spokesperson for AMB Sports and Entertainment provided the following statement to ESPN:
“We have had productive engagement with NWSL and others in its stakeholder group on the possibility of bringing an expansion franchise to Atlanta. We have nothing to announce currently as those conversations are ongoing.”
An NWSL spokesperson declined to comment.
The Athletic, which was the first to report the news, said the expansion fee would be $165 million, up from the $110 million that Denver Summit FC paid less than a year ago. NWSL commissioner Jessica Berman confirmed in September what ESPN reported in July, that the league would shift to rolling expansion rather than formal bidding processes.
“Those conversations are ongoing,” Berman said at the time. “Each of them has a different perspective on how much time they need to launch, the investments they need to make to be successful, including potentially around infrastructure, and we want to not force a square peg into a round hole.”
The NWSL will expand to 16 teams next year with the introduction of Boston Legacy FC and Denver. Berman has said several times this year that the NWSL can eventually be as big as the 32-team NFL, at least conceptually.
Atlanta and Blank have been part of the NWSL expansion conversation intermittently for nearly a decade, with many sources describing the market as a when-not-if situation once Blank is ready to join the league.
The city was previously home to women’s professional soccer when the Atlanta Beat played there in WUSA from 2001 to 2003 and in WPS in 2010 and 2011. The WPS version of the Beat built a stadium for the team in Kennesaw, Georgia, in collaboration with Kennesaw State University.
Atlanta is the seventh-largest TV media market, per Nielsen data.
Atlanta United has been a major success for MLS since launching in 2017. The team won a championship the following year and has led MLS in attendance every season since launching (except during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020), averaging over 40,000 fans per game.
Atlanta will also be the new home of U.S. Soccer’s headquarters as of next year. Blank donated $50 million to that project.
ESPN’s Jeff Carlisle contributed to this report.
How the internet got a recent traffic study wrong and why understanding this data is important.
Automobiles travel along the I-75/I-85 connector shown from the 17th Street bridge, Tuesday, May 20, 2025, in Atlanta. (Jason Getz/AJC)
Few things in the news cycle make me more skeptical than traffic studies. And this skepticism is not normally directed at the studies themselves but how they’re interpreted.
A recent Texas A&M study grabbed headlines because of media and social media misunderstanding what it said about Atlanta. But this study is very worthwhile.
Atlanta’s traffic is some of the worst in the nation, but the delays added during an average rush hour are not as profound, the annual Texas A&M Transportation Institute Urban Mobility Report said. Some outlets confused Atlanta trends with the nationwide patterns the study found.
Thursday is now the worst traffic day in the United States, the data showed. Friday, particularly afternoons, had been the worst. Work patterns have influenced that shift, the report’s senior research scientist, David Schrank, explained.
“Because of hybrid work, we think, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday have climbed in, in the amount of delay,” Schrank said.
My anecdotal observations as a weekday traffic reporter backed this up over the last decade and certainly post-COVID: More people are taking longer weekends or choosing Monday or Friday as teleworking days.
Atlanta now has its heaviest traffic in the 4 and 5 p.m. hours on Wednesday, according to the study. (Many of the outlets that reported on the study said it was Thursday, but that was the national trend, not local.)
As for the idea that rush hours are less than they were: It’s complicated. The study shows that U.S. drivers are commuting in greater numbers and spread out over more hours. This dilutes the peaks or deltas that routine morning and afternoon drive times once held.
Some construed this finding to mean that traditional rush hours were over. That is, very simply, not true and certainly not so in Atlanta.
Metro Atlanta easily saw the most delays — measured in this study as the percentage of roads that experienced congestion — from 7 to 9 a.m. and 3 to 7 p.m. on weekdays. Sounds like rush hours, right?
But the study does show both Atlanta and many other of the 101 urban areas the institute studied have more traffic in off-peak hours. “You’re going into the office on those days, but you may not go in until after the traffic kind of quiets down a little bit,” Schrank said.
Given more information (mainly through GPS apps) and flexibility, many drivers are more productive by steering away from peak drive times. That adjustment lessens but does not eliminate the curve.
Atlanta drivers certainly are filling the roads at these off or nonpeak hours, as they sat in an average of 87 hours of delay each last year. That is the ninth-worst in the U.S., behind the staggering 137 hours that Los Angeles drivers lost.
As to how Texas A&M collects this data — Schrank said that has evolved over the 40 years of this study. Scientists used to take physical traffic counts over certain roadways and then extrapolate that data. Now, connected technology over the last 15-20 years has made the research far more voluminous and precise.
“The largest contributor (to this data) now is your automobile. Any automobile after I think it’s 2018 or something like that has the data that is being pinged up to satellites,” Schrank said, noting that people often opt in to sharing this information when they sign to buy cars. “A lot of vehicles out there every three seconds send a ping to a satellite.”
Atlanta may be ninth or 19th worst in traffic jams … or 90th. That matters very little to a single driver. The worst traffic jam in the world is the one you are in right now. And, thankfully, there are teams dedicated to trying to understand drivers’ habits — and very precisely at that.
Doug Turnbull covers the traffic/transportation beat for WXIA-TV (11Alive). His reports appear on the 11Alive Morning News from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. and on 11Alive.com. Email Doug at dturnbull@11alive.com.
Doug Turnbull has covered Atlanta traffic for over 20 years.
Tony Vitello will be tasked with finding a new pitching coach after J.P. Martinez elected to leave the Giants and join the Atlanta Braves as the team’s bullpen coach.
Martinez, 43, spent just one season as San Francisco’s pitching coach after Bryan Price stepped down after the 2024 season. Price, too, only spent one year as pitching coach under former manager Bob Melvin.
Prior to becoming the pitching coach, Martinez spent four seasons as San Francisco’s assistant pitching coach. In 2025, the Giants finished 10th in ERA in the majors and sent three pitchers — Logan Webb, Robbie Ray and Randy Rodríguez — to the All-Star Game. Martinez was also one of the Giants’ few coaches who also spoke Spanish, another being assistant hitting coach Oscar Bernard.
While Martinez is departing the organization, Jayce Tingler will reportedly be joining Vitello’s coaching staff, likely as a bench coach. The San Francisco Chronicle first reported the news, which has not been announced by the Giants.
Vitello and Tingler were teammates at Missouri, and Tingler’s experience at the major-league level should be invaluable as Vitello navigates his first professional season. Along with managing the San Diego Padres for two seasons, Tingler has been a coach for both the Texas Rangers and Minnesota Twins. Tingler is also bilingual and has experience coaching in the Dominican Republic.
Martinez, who was under contract for next season, is not the only departure from last year’s coaching staff, as bench coach Ryan Christenson and third-base coach Matt Williams will not return for the 2026 season. On Wednesday, the Athletics announced that Christenson would become the team’s first-base coach.
Following Martinez’s departure, Vitello will have to decide if he wants to look internally or externally to fill the vacancy. One strong internal option is Garvin Alston, who has been the team’s bullpen coach for the last two seasons and been with the organization since 2020.
Alston has two decades of professional coaching experience dating back to his time with the Oakland A’s, serving as the Minnesota Twins’ pitching coach for one season in 2018. Alston has also served as the bullpen coach at the major-league level for the Arizona Diamondbacks (’16) and A’s (’17).
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