Thursday traditions
Dec. 11 — Police escorted demonstrators out of a Georgia Public Service Commission meeting on Wednesday following the introduction of a surprise agreement between commission staff and Georgia Power. The protest was over an energy capacity increase needed to meet data center demands.
☀️ Sunny and 50° today.
🥤 Coca-Cola named COO Henrique Braun as its next CEO, starting March 31, as James Quincey shifts to executive chairman.
🚔 DeKalb CEO Lorraine Cochran-Johnson has appointed Gregory Padrick as the county’s new police chief.
🛩️ Residents who live near DeKalb-Peachtree Airport expressed their concerns about an expansion plan during a pair of town halls with county Commissioner Ted Terry.
🏗️ The long-delayed redevelopment of the Atlanta Civic Center site is underway, following the groundbreaking for a new senior affordable housing apartment complex.
🗣️ Tucker City Council paid tribute to Mayor Frank Auman, who will soon end his tenure as the city’s inaugural leader.
🪩 Jon Dean, the owner of Lore on Edgewood Avenue in Atlanta, says the LGBTQ+ nightclub is “barely getting by” due to a lack of patronage and neglect by the city along the nightlife corridor.
🧘 Elizabeth Nix Smith will retire today from Peachtree Yoga Center in Sandy Springs after decades of training and teaching students.
ELSEWHERE
✂️ The Federal Reserve cut interest rates for the third time this year.
🇻🇪 Hours after the United States seized an oil tanker off Venezuela’s coast, intensifying speculation of a push for regime change, Nobel Peace Prize laureate María Corina Machado resurfaced in Oslo after 11 months in hiding and greeted supporters from a hotel balcony.
🎗️ Bestselling author Sophie Kinsella, whose Shopaholic novels about women navigating their twenties became a global sensation, died after a battle with brain cancer. She was 55.
🕖 Here’s what’s in today’s newsletter:
• Va-Hi Winterfest and Tour of Homes
• Shipman named South Arts CEO
• Sandy Springs 20th anniversary
• AI agents in the workplace
AND
• Quick Bites
⛸️ Today’s the day! Playfully Perimeter is taking over the High Street ice rink with free skating, hot cocoa, and giveaways from 12-5 p.m. Bring your work bestie or your whole team for a festive midday escape. Don’t miss out!
SPONSOR MESSAGE
1. Va-Hi Winterfest and Tour of Homes is this weekend
❄️ The Virginia-Highland Civic Association (VHCA) will host its Tour of Homes in tandem with the Virginia-Highland District Association’s Winterfest this weekend.
Winterfest on Saturday will include the Jingle Jog 5K, a holiday parade, gift market, and much more.
The Tour of Homes runs Saturday and Sunday and will feature 10 residences beautifully decorated for the holidays.
➡ Find out more about the festivities and get tour tickets here.
Italian Ruins to DIVE for!
SPONSORED BY FERNBANK MUSEUM
🌊 Journey beneath the waves with Sunken Treasures, Ancient Seas at Fernbank Museum.
You won’t want to miss this immersive journey beneath the Mediterranean Sea to uncover ancient shipwrecks, artifacts, and lost worlds. Featuring real relics found off the coast of Italy, HD video explorations, and more, this exhibition reveals how underwater archaeologists bring the past to light.
➞ This exhibit is open daily, or you can swing by for after-hours during select special events! On view now until Jan. 11, 2026.
2. Doug Shipman named South Arts CEO
VIA SKETCHBOOK, A WEEKLY NEWSLETTER ABOUT ART | SUBSCRIBE
🎨 South Arts, the nine-state regional arts organization, will enter a transitional year in 2026, and so will Atlanta civic leader Doug Shipman, who becomes the organization’s next president and CEO in January.
In a conversation with Rough Draft Atlanta’s Sketchbook newsletter, Atlanta’s outgoing City Council President shared why this move represents a return to his roots – and what he believes the Southeast’s arts ecosystem needs most right now.
✏️ Read his conversation with Sherri Daye Scott here.
3. Happy 20th, Sandy Springs!
IN PARTNERSHIP WITH PERIMETER COMMUNITY IMPROVEMENT DISTRICTS
🎉 We’re celebrating a city that’s been a driving force in Perimeter’s growth and energy. Thank you, Sandy Springs, for your leadership, partnership, and commitment to making our district one of the region’s most vibrant communities.
➞ See how we’re moving the region forward together.
4. Atlanta’s Sema4.ai is building a platform to power AI agents in the workplace
💼 What is transforming our work? AI agents. A recent Gartner report suggests that by 2026, 40% of enterprise applications will feature integrated task-specific agents, up from less than 5% today.
Sema4.ai’s CEO and Atlanta tech executive Rob Bearden said that he believes AI agents – autonomous systems capable of understanding context, making decisions, and executing complex tasks without human intervention – will “disintermediate” the typical “static and constrained” SaaS applications that enterprise companies rely on today.
That shift is creating an opportunity for Sema4.ai, which has built out a venture-backed, enterprise AI agent platform that is gaining traction with Fortune 500s looking to build, run, and manage AI agents to automate complex workflows.
➡️ Read more on this story from Hypepotamus here.
☕ Indulge your sweet tooth at Livable Buckhead’s Hot Chocolate Crawl this Sat., Dec. 13! Enjoy hot chocolate and specialty cocktails while strolling through Lenox Square, Phipps Plaza, and Peachtree Road. Local musicians and visits from Santa add to the festive fun. Admission is free!
SPONSOR MESSAGE
5. Quick Bites
VIA SIDE DISH, A WEEKLY NEWSLETTER | SUBSCRIBE HERE
😋 For this week’s Quick Bites, Rough Draft Dining Editor Beth McKibben brings you details on three big closures, the reopening of Mellow Mushroom in Decatur, and the upcoming opening of a new Irish bar and pub in South Downtown. She also shares news on an Atlanta chef’s debut cookbook and the death of the founder behind Sonny’s BBQ.
➡️ Here’s the latest from Beth.
MORE FOOD NEWS
☕ After nearly 20 years in Poncey-Highland, JavaVino announced it would close its cafe on Dec. 14 and shift to a wholesale coffee business.
🦌 Learn more about the magic and work of setting up a holiday bar with a behind-the-scenes look from contributing writer Su-Jit Lin.
🌟 Your future in nursing starts here. Herzing University–Atlanta has no wait lists and offers flexible learning, hands-on clinicals, and accelerated pathways. Train where you live and join Georgia’s next generation of nurses making an impact today. SPONSOR MESSAGE
🔤 Don’t miss News Word Atlanta, our daily word game.
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