🌱 Day Care Under Investigation + Shots Fired From Teen Selling Water

Hello again, everybody! It's me, Danielle Fallon-O'Leary, your host of the Daily. Let's get this Friday started off right, with a quick guide to everything you need to know about what's going on in town these days.

First, today's weather:

A t-storm around in the p.m. High: 90 Low: 70.

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Here are the top five stories in Atlanta today:

1. A ribbon-cutting ceremony took place on Jul. 13 to celebrate the first opening of BeltLine MarketPlace. The pilot program aims to provide affordable commercial space to minority-owned small businesses on the Atlanta BeltLine which sees two million people annually. (Reporter Newspapers)
2. Police are investigating the Clarkston First Baptist Church daycare for alleged child abuse. A mother came to police after she allegedly saw surveillance video of her 3-year-old son “punched in the face, pulled by his hair, slammed in the corner and pushed over a chair." The Clarkston police officer who responded to the scene on Jul. 6 claims the video does show what the mother described. (CBS 46)
3. A man fell out of a MARTA bus in his wheelchair after the bus driver prematurely lifted the ramp. The man's daughter claims he is now confined to a hospital bed after lying in the middle of a hot Atlanta street for three hours. Grady EMS released a statement saying the call from the MARTA bus driver was coded as low-level, initially, after completion of medical questions and when authorities and EMS arrived on the scene the man was sitting in a wheelchair inside of the MARTA bus. (WSB Atlanta)
4. A man driving home from church on Sunday says he witnessed gunfire from one of the "teens selling water" after he got off of the Cleveland Avenue exit in Atlanta. The man said after the gunshots went off, he saw the teen run past his vehicle with a gun in hand. The longtime Atlanta resident posted about the incident on social media and reached out to a city councilman about the issue. (FOX 5 Atlanta)
5. Teachers of a summer instructional program told Channel 2 Action News they haven't been paid. The STEM-focused program teaching hundreds of elementary-aged children was managed by ARTportunity Knocks, a nonprofit. The teachers say Atlanta Public Schools is partly to blame and estimates at least $45,000 is owed in total for the teachers' time. (WSB Atlanta)

Today in Atlanta:

• Take And Make Craft: Fish At Brookhaven Branch Library (All Day)
• Wine Around The World: A Blind Tasting Showdown At Epicurean Theatre (5:30 PM)
• Survival Safari At Zoo Atlanta (6:30 PM)
• Dry: A Sober Drag Show! At Metropolitan Studios, Inc. (8:30 PM)

From my notebook:

• Waste away in Margaritaville in Downtown Atlanta! The jimmy-buffet themed restaurant is now open at the Margaritaville Vacation Club and Club Wyndham resort tower and is home to a retail shop and three bars. (Eater Atlanta)
• Looking for a spot to cool down in the high temperatures? Check out this quick guide to pools, lakes, and more locations to take a dip this summer. (Atlanta Magazine)
• Atlanta Regional Commission reports Atlanta's population grew by 65,000 in 2022. This is just slightly more than last year according to population estimates. (Atlanta Regional Commission via Facebook)

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That's it for today. I'll be back in your inbox tomorrow morning with another update!

— Danielle Fallon-O'Leary

About me: Danielle Fallon-O’Leary is a senior writer with content creation agency Lightning Media Partners and assists Patch.com with community newsletter curation. Danielle also holds a Master’s Degree in Communication Sciences and Disorders and works part-time as a pediatric speech therapist.