Georgia Trend Daily – March 4, 2025
March 4, 2025 WABE
Georgia wildfires blaze through 4,000 acres of land across state
Kendall Murry reports, the Georgia Forestry Commission (GFC) said they responded to 86 wildfires that burned over 1,550 acres of land on Friday. GFC responded to another 137 wildfires that burned nearly 2,400 acres on Saturday.
March 4, 2025 Georgia Trend – Exclusive!
Georgia Trend 40 Under 40 Nominations | Deadline April 30, 2025
Staff reports, each year Georgia Trend honors 40 of the state’s best and brightest under the age of 40. Whether you know someone who’s making a difference on the national stage or is a mover and shaker in his or her corner of the state, if they are under 40 years old as of October 1, 2025, we want to hear about them.
March 4, 2025 Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Georgia peanut butter maker says USAID restores supply contracts
Joe Kovac Jr. reports that Mana Nutrition, a maker of peanut butter in Georgia, said the U.S. Agency for International Development has restored $12 million in supply contracts less than a week after terminating them. Mana, whose product feeds malnourished children overseas, received word late Sunday from USAID that the contracts have been restored, said Mark Moore, Mana’s co-founder and CEO.
March 4, 2025 Athens Banner-Herald
‘I love peanuts’: March is National Peanut Month and Georgia leads the way in farming them
Erica Van Buren reports that peanuts are a $2 billion industry in Georgia, according to the Georgia Peanut Commission, making it the place to be for National Peanut Month in March. Bradley Jeffs, a Hephzibah resident and a small-scale peanut grower, has been growing peanuts on his land for four years.
March 4, 2025 GlobalAtlanta.com
Duracell to Put Global Research and Development Hub in Atlanta
Trevor Williams reports that battery maker Duracell plans to invest $56 million to put a new global research-and-development headquarters adjacent to Georgia Tech in Atlanta, deepening its commitment to Georgia, where the company already has two factories. Duracell employs 400 people in LaGrange and 275 in Fairburn, and it will add 110 more jobs in the new office at Science Square, an 18-acre development west of Tech’s Midtown campus featuring 1.8 million square feet of lab and office space.
March 4, 2025 Macon Telegraph
Mercer University will move med school to downtown Macon. More housing, retail coming
Jesse Fraga reports that Mercer University has purchased riverfront property in downtown Macon to build a new medical school, officials announced Thursday. The green plot of land at 815 Riverside Drive is currently an unused grassy field beside Barks N’ Brews on Riverside Drive, across from the former Ramada hotel that was demolished on New Years Day on First Street.
March 4, 2025 Albany Herald
Sole finalist named for Albany State president’s position
Staff reports that the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia voted Monday to name Robert Scott as the sole finalist for president of Albany State University. Scott currently serves as president of research and development at The Kraft Heinz Co., where he has worked since 2021 and is responsible for a $120 million operating budget to drive innovation, organizational effectiveness and lead transformational initiatives within the company.
March 4, 2025 Columbus Ledger-Enquirer
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth renames Fort Moore to Fort Benning — but a different one
Mark Rice reports that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has signed a memorandum renaming Fort Moore to Fort Benning, the U.S. Department of Defense announced Monday. Instead of paying homage to a Confederate officer, as Fort Benning previously did, the new name pays tribute to U.S. Army Cpl. Fred G. Benning, who was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for his “extraordinary heroism in action during World War I with the U.S. Army in France in 1918,” the department’s news release says.
March 4, 2025 State Affairs
Georgia passes record $40B midyear budget
Beau Evans reports that Georgia lawmakers passed a $40.5 billion midyear budget to keep state services such as schools, road repairs and Medicaid funded through June, including more than $850 million in disaster relief to help areas hit by Hurricane Helene last year. The funds earmarked for hurricane cleanup also will go to areas that faced droughts, floods and a tornado earlier this year and last year.
March 4, 2025 Capitol Beat News
Georgia Senate moves to expose librarians to prosecution if they loan ‘harmful’ materials to minors
Ty Tagami reports that the Georgia Senate adopted a measure Monday that would strip librarians of their decades-old shield from prosecution for violating a law against giving children pornography and other materials deemed obscene. Librarians have been exempted from Georgia’s “harmful to minors” law since the mid-1980s. Republican state senators have been trying to remove that exemption for several years.
March 4, 2025 Georgia Recorder
Georgia Senate OKs bill to outlaw gender-affirming care for inmates in state custody
Ross Williams reports that a bill banning gender-affirming treatments for inmates in state custody passed the Georgia Senate Monday. Senate Bill 185’s sponsor, Cataula Republican Sen. Randy Robertson, said there are three lawsuits ongoing from inmates seeking gender-affirming care and he wants to nip the issue in the bud.
March 4, 2025 11 Alive
Bill to ban transgender teen treatments passes Georgia State Senate
Doug Richards reports that the Georgia State Senate passed a bill Monday to outlaw doctors treating transgender children with puberty blockers. It’s the latest in a series of bills that squeeze transgender treatment options.
March 4, 2025 GPB
Lawmakers are considering multi-million-dollar upgrade to Georgia’s aging 911 infrastructure
Sofi Gratas reports, when Georgia’s 911 system was built, most people still used landlines. Today, calls for help made in the case of emergencies still rely on that decades-old system. That’s why lawmakers in the state House are moving forward with a proposal to overhaul Georgia’s old infrastructure for updated technology.
March 4, 2025 Georgia Recorder
Georgia House again takes up legislation intended to protect the Okefenokee from future mines
Stanley Dunlap reports that a state House subcommittee hosted a public hearing Monday to consider legislation designed to protect the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge from future mining projects encroaching on North America’s largest blackwater swamp.
March 4, 2025 WSB Radio
Bill passed to make pay equitable for Georgia workers with disabilities
Staff reports, a new bill has passed in Georgia that would require people who have intellectual and developmental disabilities to be paid minimum wage. The new law will apply to eight organizations that have a federal waiver to pay workers less money, according to Georgia officials.
March 4, 2025 Rome News-Tribune, Georgia Recorder
Dempsey’s Bill to Address Ga. Behavioral Health Insurance Law Complaints
Jill Nolin reports that state leaders celebrated three years ago when they passed a bipartisan measure designed to step up enforcement of a federal law that requires health insurers treat mental health and substance abuse services the same as physical care. But more than two years after that law took effect, lawmakers and advocates are voicing frustration with the state of enforcement of behavioral health parity rules passed in 2022 that were intended to improve access to care in Georgia.
March 4, 2025 Capitol Beat News
Georgia House panel hears pros and cons of Okefenokee Swamp mining ban
Dave Williams reports that environmental activists asked Georgia House lawmakers Monday to enact a moratorium on mining adjacent to the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge. But opponents of a proposed mining ban defended Alabama-based Twin Pines Minerals’ plan to mine titanium dioxide along Trail Ridge as an important source of jobs in a high-poverty area of southeastern Georgia.
March 4, 2025 Atlanta Journal-Constitution
How Republicans are using transgender politics to pressure Democrats
Greg Bluestein, Tia Mitchell, Patricia Murphy and Adam Beam report that two separate votes late Monday underscored how Republicans are trying to squeeze Democrats over bills restricting transgender rights. In Washington, U.S. Sens. Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock of Georgia joined every other Senate Democrat in blocking a GOP-led measure intended to bar transgender girls from competing in women’s sports — earning sharp backlash from state Republicans.
