Georgia Trend Daily – May 15, 2025
May 15, 2025 Macon Telegraph
Middle Georgia farmers welcome peach season. See where they come from
Lucinda Warnke reports, it’s been a busy spring at Lane Southern Orchards. In Fort Valley, the 11,000 acre farm has spent the past several weeks pruning trees, training workers, and ordering supplies ahead of one of its most important harvests of the year — peaches.
May 15, 2025 Georgia Trend – Exclusive!
DOGE Cuts, Georgia Bleeds
Tharon Johnson writes, when “President” Elon Musk was ushered into office by “Vice President” Donald Trump, he came with a simple mandate: Cut waste, fraud and abuse out of the federal government. In theory, that’s a laudable goal.
May 15, 2025 Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Atlanta transmission lines are new front for data center growing pains
Zachary Hansen reports, at a meeting Tuesday evening between his Atlanta neighborhood and Georgia Power, Arthur Toal lifted a small vial of rice to represent his home’s electricity use. Then he reached for progressively larger jars of rice to symbolize larger power users — the entire capacity of his Howell Station neighborhood, the nearby Fulton County Jail, the world’s busiest airport and so on.
May 15, 2025 Albany Herald
Georgia-Pacific set to close Early County plant, eliminate 535 jobs
Alan Mauldin reports that Georgia-Pacific on Wednesday notified the 535 workers at its Cedar Springs containerboard mill that the Early County plant will be closed later this year. Most positions at the facility will be eliminated by Aug. 1, the company announced in a Wednesday news release, with the remaining employees idled later this year.
May 15, 2025 Capitol Beat News
Trump Justice Department names new interim U.S. attorney
Dave Williams reports that U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi has appointed Theodore S. Hertzberg to serve as interim U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, Bondi’s office announced Wednesday. Hertzberg previously worked as an assistant U.S. attorney for nearly 10 years, beginning with a stint at the Southern District of Georgia’s Savannah office.
May 15, 2025 Marietta Daily Journal
Shake Shack to Open Second U.S. Support Center at The Battery Atlanta
Jack Lindner reports that Shake Shack, a burger and shake restaurant chain, plans to open the company’s second U.S.-based support center inside The Battery Atlanta, the company announced. The 25,000-aquare-foot office space will feature a test kitchen and multiple training and meeting spaces for employees.
May 15, 2025 WABE
Data Centers power our online lives. The business is growing faster in metro Atlanta than anywhere else in the U.S.
Marlon Hyde reports that Georgia has emerged as one of the fastest-growing data center markets in the country. Tech giants like Amazon, Google and Meta have built here. As digital technology and AI use increase, more data centers are coming.
May 15, 2025 GPB
Metro Atlanta has highest rate of corporate home ownership, says Georgia State researcher
Chase McGee reports that corporate landlords are buying up more of the state’s single-family homes even as people struggle to purchase or rent a home. Georgia U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff is leading an investigation into corporate ownership of rental properties.
May 15, 2025 The Current
Firm running Georgia’s struggling Medicaid experiment was also paid millions to sell it to public
Margaret Coker reports that when the state of Georgia handed Deloitte Consulting a $10.7 million marketing contract last July to promote the nation’s only Medicaid work requirement program, the initiative was in need of serious PR. At the time, a year after the program’s rollout, less than 2% of those eligible for Georgia Pathways to Coverage had enrolled, well short of state targets.
May 15, 2025 The Brunswick News
Early voting coming for state PSC primary
Gordon Jackson reports, unless they live in your county — and even if they do — the average Georgia voter will be hard-pressed to name a single candidate running for one of two Georgia Public Service Commission seats up for grabs in November. But first, voters must choose an at-large candidate to represent their party in the June 17 primary election.
May 15, 2025 WABE
Georgia enacts child tax credit increase and extra $250 for children under 6
Meimei Xu reports that Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp signed a bill Tuesday to give Georgians a new $250 tax credit for each child under age six starting next year. The law also increases the tax credit for child and dependent care expenses from a 30% to 50% match of the federal credit.
May 15, 2025 Athens Banner-Herald
What is human composting? Kemp signs bill allowing more natural burials in Georgia
Miguel Legoas reports, when someone dies, there are a few options for how to lay someone to rest like a straight burial, cremation, and now something a bit more unique. Georgia is joining a handful of states allowing what is colloquially called ‘human composting’ with Gov. Brian Kemp signing Senate Bill 241 on Monday which goes into effect on July 1.
May 15, 2025 State Affairs
2026 election watch: U.S. Senate race heats up
Beau Evans reports that the race to challenge U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff in 2026 is heating up after Gov. Brian Kemp and U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene declined to run last week. U.S. Rep. Buddy Carter and Georgia Insurance Commissioner John King announced their Republican candidacies barely a week after Kemp bowed out, kicking off what’s expected to be a tightly contested primary battle in the coming months.
May 15, 2025 Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jon Ossoff hammers Trump-supporting Republicans on Qatari free ride
Greg Bluestein, Tia Mitchell, Patricia Murphy and Adam Beam report that Republicans have shown they will defend President Donald Trump on just about anything. But his plan to accept a $400 million luxury jet as a gift from Qatar has pushed past the limits of even the most vocal MAGA supporters.
