1. Today will be cooler and less humid with a high of about 89 and an overnight low around 65, the National Weather Service says, but there is a chance of severe thunderstorms popping up in the afternoon and evening. We also have our first Code Orange smog alert in a while.

2. The Cobb County Board of Commissioners is meeting twice today, first in a work session at 1:30 p.m. to go over the first draft of the 2012 budget, which goes into effect Oct. 1, and again in a regular session at 7 p.m. Both meetings are at 100 Cherokee St. Northeast Cobb Patch will have live coverage of the night meeting.

3. Today’s meetings come a day after the commissioners joined the Cobb Board of Education for a lunch meeting with the county’s legislative delegation in Atlanta to discuss new county voting districts and the Transportation SPLOST. According to the Marietta Daily Journal, Northeast Cobb school board member David Banks took a lot of heat during that meeting for pushing his own reapportionment map instead of working with the rest of the board on the map it approved.

4. Lassiter High School is holding an informational meeting at 3:30 p.m. for people interested in participating in a service project to make blankets for Project Linus. Anyone in the community is welcome to join students and staff in the project.

5. In high school sports today, Kell’s softball teams travel across Northeast Cobb to Sprayberry for a doubleheader, with the JV game at 5 p.m. and the varsity scheduled for 6:30. Kell’s volleyball teams play host to Hillgrove (JV at 5 p.m., varsity at 6). Sprayberry has a varsity volleyball doubleheader at Kennesaw Mountain, playing the host Mustangs at 5:15 and Etowah at 6:15. Lassiter’s varsity volleyball team heads to McIntosh High in Peachtree City to play the host school and Sandy Creek, starting at 5:30 p.m.